Page 30 of Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Book
“Madness!” Mitch offered. He could still taste the grit in his mouth. The peaches were weird and flavorless, and if he hadn’t known any better, he’d have guessed the crust was made of that kinetic sand shit you used to see at the airport.
Lula set her plate down and folded her hands in her lap. “Now, am I to believe that an international movie star has flown all this way to support little ole me in my bid for mayor?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a chivalrous bow of the head.
“No, I’m afraid I was being serious just now.” The saccharine-sweet smile was gone and Mitch realized he’d walked into an ambush. “Why should I believe you’re really here to help me?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your brother, Jeb, has been a massive pain in my rear end lately. Every time I hold a press conference, he’s always right there holding a silly sign. Last time it was some nonsense about burning books leading to burning humans. Made me sound like a horrible person.”
Mitch took a second look at Lula. When he’d first laid eyes on her, he’d seen an aging belle with a Botoxed forehead and orange hair that matched her Lilly Pulitzer tunic. She looked like all the bored rich ladies who opened boutiques on Main Street, and he’d assumed she would be easy to manipulate. But now he’d met the real Lula Dean and Mitch realized she wasn’t the woman who’d greeted him at the door. He’d fallen for an act, just as he had with his ex-wife. Women like Lula made you feel like a king until they got you where they wanted you. Then the claws would come out.
Also,fuck Jeb. That woke asshole had been a thorn in Mitch’s side since grade school.
“Jeb and I don’t always see eye to eye, but I assure you I can find a way to make him stop harassing you.”
“That would be greatly appreciated.” Lula was smiling again. This time, Mitch found it troubling. There was something unnatural about this woman. “But let’s not pretend you’re here for me. You say you want to help? What’s in it for you?”
He didn’t dare lie. He was starting to suspect Lula could see straight into his soul. “Visibility. I want to run for statewide office someday and I need to start making a name for myself in politics.”
“Here—or back in California, where you’ve lived for the past forty years?”
The lady wasn’t fucking around. “Here. This is my home. There were Sweeneys on this land before there was even a town.”
Lula seemed to approve of that answer. “And why would someone want to vote for you? Aside from a willingness to film full frontal nudity, what exactly do you stand for?”
Ho-ly shit.Lula Dean had just informed him that she’d seen his penis. That was one hell of a power move. Respect was due. “Loyalty,” Mitch said. “I always stand by the people who are loyal to me. I will not turn on them or let them down, no matter what the coastal elites say or who tries to cancel them.”
“You mean the people who are loyal to you—or the people who do what you tell them to do?”
Mitch snorted. “Same thing, ain’t it?” he asked.
“Close enough,” Lula agreed.
As Lula took another bite of her nasty pie, her eyes never left Mitch’s face. The bitch was seriously hard-core.
“What about you?” He couldn’t let her just run him right over. “What do you stand for, Mrs. Dean?”
“You drive past that run-down brick building out by the highway on your way into town?” she asked.
“You mean the old Lambert mill?”
“That’s the one. My maiden name is Lambert, and my daddy was thelast person in my family to run that mill. His great-grandfather built it, and before there was a mill, my great-great-grandfather ran a gin on that site. If I’m not mistaken, your family’s fields supplied a lot of the cotton that went through their machines.”
“I’m sure that’s right,” Mitch confirmed. “The Sweeneys made a pretty good living back in the day.”
“A fortune, I’d bet. Just like the Lamberts. We built a big house. We turned out judges and congressmen and even a senator. But then things started to change. When I was a little girl, the district attorney brought a case against my father for paying the workers the way they’d always been paid. Nobody was complaining, but she called it wage theft. We lost everything. Your family fare any better in the past fifty years?”
Mitch stifled a yawn. Was he supposed to wish the Sweeneys were still farmers? Did Lula want to be running a fucking cotton mill? All this good-old-days bullshit was holding folks back.
“There wasn’t any money left in growing cotton. There hasn’t been a farmer in the family for three generations.”
“What about that land the Sweeneys were living on before Troy was a town?”
“’Fraid most of that’s gone, too.”
“Along with the respect that went with it. Being a Sweeney isn’t quite what it used to be, is it? Not much to separate y’all from the riffraff these days. Is that why you hurried off to Hollywood? To get the respect and attention you deserved? The attention you’d been denied all the years you were here?”
