“I’ve heard people think I don’t read, and that’s just not true!” Lula was quoted as saying. “I want to share the books that helped me become who I am. So, I’m making my own little library available to everyone!”
That day, everyone in Troy stopped by Lula Dean’s library. When Lindsay visited in late afternoon, there wasn’t a gap on the shelves. Not a single book had been borrowed. She couldn’t understand how the townsfolk had all passed up classics likeThe Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette,Buffy Halliday Goes to Europe!,and101 Cakes to Bake for Your Family. Some people claimed Lula had filled the shelves with books she’d bought for twenty-fivecents a pop at a Goodwill store. But Lindsay wasn’t so cynical. She didn’t have any trouble believing that books like these had made Lula Dean the woman she was.
As she walked home that day, Lindsay had never been more grateful she’d been born an Underwood. Though it would have come as a surprise to Beverly, she had never considered her mother a coward. Beverly had been a wife by twenty-two and a mom eight months later. She hadn’t had a chance to figure out what she wanted, so she’d made the best of what she got. Some people might have resented being stuck in a small town, but Beverly had worked hard to make Troy a better place. Maybe she didn’t always use the right words—and it wasn’t uncommon for her foot to get lodged in her mouth. But Beverly had the biggest heart of anyone Lindsay had ever met—and more guts than everyone in Troy put together.
When her mom said she could handle Lula Dean, Lindsay knew it was true. She’d watched her mother kick ass a hundred times, starting with the now famous Barbie incident back in the first grade.
“At lunch today, Lindsay was making the Barbies kiss.” Mrs. O’Connor had called Beverly in for a conference, certain she’d be scandalized. People often looked at Lindsay’s mother and saw someone she wasn’t.
“And what did you do?” Beverly sat across from the teacher, prim and proper as ever.
“I took the Barbies away and put Lindsay in time-out.”
“So you embarrassed a six-year-old child and put her in time-out for having dolls kiss?”
That was the moment when Mrs. O’Connor realized things weren’t going as planned. “It wasn’t a peck-on-the-cheek kind of kiss.”
The disgust on Beverly’s pretty face made it clear who she thought the true pervert in the room was. “So?”
“Well, it’s not natural.”
Lindsay still remembered how her mother smiled as she leaned forward to deliver the coup de grâce. “My child is exactly how the good Lord made her. And any adult who suggests there’s something wrong with her can gostraight to hell,” Beverly had informed Mrs. O’Connor. “You ever embarrass Lindsay again, and I swear to God, I will send you there myself.” Next election, Beverly had run for the school board.
Lindsay wanted to sic that badass on Lula Dean. It was what the town of Troy desperately needed. But when she sat down to say so, her mom asked her to leave. Though Beverly Underwood would never admit it, Lindsay knew she was treading lightly to protect her gay daughter. That’s when her daughter decided to take matters into her own hands.
Before she headed back to school, Lindsay stopped by Ronnie Childers’s house. She’d found a copy ofFood of the Godsamong the banned books, and she’d slid it into his mailbox. Then she couldn’t resist swinging by Lula Dean’s house for one last look at the library. Lindsay was admiring her handiwork when Bella Cummings jogged past. Lindsay had known Bella for years—first as her babysitter and later as a friend.
“Hey there!” Lindsay waved Bella over and handed her a book. “I found something for you.”
Bella looked down at it.The Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette. “Is this a joke?” she asked.
“Nope.” Lindsay tapped the cover. “I want you to read it. This is the book that made me who I am.”
Chapter 3
101 Cakes to Bake for Your Family
It was round about her eightieth birthday that Wilma Jean Cummings noticed a change. She was still the same, of course. It was everybody else in the family who’d lost their damn minds. They leaned in so close when they spoke that she could read their breath like a Chick-fil-A menu. Then their voices would go soft and sweet as marshmallow fluff, and they’d avoid any words with more than two syllables. At first, she wondered if they’d been licking the paint. But her children seemed perfectly normal when they talked to one another. Or at least as normal as they’d ever been, which—truth be told—wasn’t saying so much. That’s when Wilma Jean realized it was all for her sake.
“Why are y’all talking to me like I’m some kind of idiot?” she asked her oldest son.
“Aww, Mama,” he’d crooned, bending down to kiss her cheek. “Nobody thinks you’re dumb.” One whiff and she knew he’d had Taco Bell for breakfast—three months and two days after open-heart surgery. And somehowshewas the one they all thought was touched.
“Well, look at you!” Her daughter Cissy clapped like a trained seal one evening after Wilma Jean completed a phrase onWheel of Fortunewith only twoT’s and anFon the board. Cissy’s expression was the same she’d been wearing the first time her son squeezed out a poop on the potty.
“You know I used to be the district attorney,” Wilma Jean reminded her.
“’Course you did, Mama,” Cissy said.
Wilma Jean had to get up and shuffle back to her home office to make sure she hadn’t dreamed it. But there on the wall were her fancy diplomas and her favorite photo with her least favorite governor. It had been taken just as the governor’s hand cupped her ass—and a millisecond before her stiletto heel broke his toe. The memory, fresh as ever, still brought a smile.
Over the course of her eighty-four years, Wilma Jean had raised six children, buried three husbands, made a fortune as a lawyer, sent hundreds of feral hogs to meet their maker, and brought an infamous serial killer to justice. One might say she knew a thing or two. And if anyone had thought to ask, Wilma Jean could have spilled top-quality dirt on everyone in town. But instead of acknowledging their matriarch as a paragon of wisdom, her family acted like her brains had gone mushy.
“Mama, how would you like to go see that swanky assisted living facility they just put up down on Orchard?” her son Dean had the gall to ask her.
“How would you like to kiss my ass?” she replied.
Dean looked up at his brother and cackled. “Oooh boy, Mama sure is ornery today. You reckon she’s constipated?”
