Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek) - By Tina Leonard Page 0,6
swear Mom’s still got the looks to grab her a Rhett if she was of a mind to do so. But we can’t even talk her into rinsing the gray out of her hair; it’s like she grew some kind of follicular armor against the world and she’s damn proud of it. Protective, even.
I wouldn’t be in the Gone with the Wind cast as someone you’d recognize, but if my character chanced to stumble into the story, I’d be slapping the hell out of Melanie Wilkes. I don’t think there was a more passive-aggressive female in all literature—even Cleopatra had the balls to just put the asp to her bosom and die already. I bet ol’ Cleo didn’t push her man into another woman’s arms with her dying breath, and I admire a woman who can choose her course in life and not drag everybody else down with her ship.
I hope we’re not going down on Sugar’s ship—a more unlikely trio of pecan bakers never existed. That’s what our business plan is: we’re going to sell seasoned pecans online. How the hell is that going to work, you ask? You’d be surprised that I don’t know myself. But Sugar always has a plan. She calls our new venture a FOB, short for female-owned-business. I call it Operation SOL, because we’re shit out of luck and probably grasping at lifelines with Sugar’s FOB.
Sugar’s recently divorced (though Ramon, her jet-pilot ex back in Pensacola, didn’t want the divorce—keep that on the QT). He called her up until the moment she left town, even as she was buying the domain name hotterthanhellnuts.com.
With a name like that, there’s a very good chance we’re SOL.
Good night, Journal.
Wait a minute—that sounds so Sugar! My closing will be…whatever.
So…whatever!
Chapter Two
Hello, Journal.
My daughters think I can’t do this journaling thing. They gave me a calendar, as if that would inspire me. A calendar! Do I look like I need to be reminded of the passing of days?
So I bought you, a nice, intelligent-looking college-ruled spiral—red, to match their red-diary fantasy—let me just start by saying you’re definitely not what I thought I’d be pouring my thoughts into at my age. Not what—who. You’re really more of a who because you’re going to be my best friend while I walk through this valley of bingo-less hell called a move with my daughters, with a drooling stray because we’re not The Family Strange enough, so we had to add a furry needbag to our drama.
It’s not that I mind moving so much. I just thought I’d be at a different point on the line called my life. You know what I want? I want to learn how to age whiskey in barrels. God, I love the smell of whiskey, so smooth and sensuous. I want to grow citrus in pots, and you may be sure that where Sugar’s moved us, there’ll be no citrus in pots, unless I’m badly mistaken. Last time I looked at the weather map on TV, it said that Pecan Creek is around one hundred six degrees farenhell. That’ll make even the hardiest lemon wither into a tight ball of yellow regret.
It’s true I could have stayed in Florida. But I love my daughters. It was clear to me that they needed a change, a kick-start in their lives. So I’m hanging in here, along for the ride. A matronly support system, doing what mothers do best, maybe the only thing I ever had to give them—support. I’m pulling for Sugar and her Hot Nuts idea. God knows I’m all out of good ideas. When Sugar found out I had breast cancer, she went into total survival mode for us all. Hence my ass here in a so-called J.R. Ewing room and the underfed stray on the floor at my feet—now we have all the components we need to be the Waltons, in Sugar’s mind, I suppose.
Oh, one more thing under the heading of what I want out of life: I want sex. Good, old-fashioned, sweaty sex. I wasn’t always fifty-three, you know. My daughters would be petrified at the thought of their mother wanting the warmth of a man lying up against her back, but I miss the fire and the passion. You’re too young in your teens and twenties to do it right, and you lose your momentum or your partner in your forties. The thirties are sort of a blur for me because I was busy with young children. I figure your fifties is