Sugar Beth was fairly certain Winnie wouldn’t go home to pack a suitcase, so she set out a toothbrush, along with a change of clothes, in the small bedroom. She was in no shape to deal with her natural-born enemy tonight, so after a quick bath, she went to bed.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t avoid her the next morning. A little after eight, she heard Winnie coming downstairs. Sugar Beth shut off the kitchen faucet and spoke to her without turning around. “I’ve got Fruity Pebbles or Doritos. Take your pick.”
“I’ll get something on my way to the store.”
“Good choice.” Sugar Beth glanced at her over her shoulder, then snorted. She’d known Cy’s old Matrix T-shirt and her own ratty gray sweatpants wouldn’t look good on Winnie, but she hadn’t been prepared for quite how oversize they’d be. “Nice outfit.”
Winnie, as usual, was the better person and didn’t rise to the bait. “It’s fine,” she said stiffly. Gordon slithered from under the table to check out the new houseguest, bared his teeth at her, and headed for the living room. “I appreciate your letting me sleep here last night.”
“It was the least I could do. After saving your life and everything.”
That set Winnie off. “You could have hurt me when you tripped me like that.”
“No risk, no reward.”
“It was my risk.”
“Exactly what made it irresistible.”
“You always have to be the center of attention, don’t you?”
“Let’s just say I seize my opportunities.”
“And everybody else’s while you’re at it.”
“Has anybody mentioned that you have no sense of humor?”
“Everything isn’t a joke.”
“Is anything a joke to you? Or do you look like you’re sucking on prunes all the time.”
“Lemons. The expression is ‘sucking on lemons.’”
“You should know.” Gordon started barking in the living room. “Quiet!” And then Sugar Beth realized he was barking because somebody was banging on the front door. With a hiss of exasperation, she stalked off to answer it and found Gigi wearing a sweater and jeans that actually fit. Even with her mangled hair, she looked pretty cute.
“Were you guys yelling?”
“Hey, kiddo.”
Winnie shot out of the kitchen. The teenager rushed over and gave her an awkward hug. For a moment Winnie closed her eyes and simply held her. When she finally let her go, Gigi looked embarrassed and knelt to greet Gordon. “Hey, boy. Missed me?”
Gordon rolled on his back to let her scratch his stomach. As she rubbed, the dog cast a hostile eye toward Winnie. Gigi took in her mother’s outfit and wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”
“Not mine. You’re up awfully early for a Saturday.”
“I think I might have had a premonition that something was wrong.” She gave Gordon a last pat and rose. “Dad told me what happened. He said I could come here.”
“Want some cinnamon French toast?” Sugar Beth asked, moving back into the kitchen.
“Sure.”
Winnie immediately got pissy. “You offered me Doritos.”
“Dang, I must have forgotten about the French toast.”
Hope flickered in Gigi’s eyes. “Are you guys friends now?”
Sugar Beth occupied herself with the eggs and let Winnie answer that one. “Not friends. No.”
Gigi’s forehead crumpled. “You still hate each other, don’t you?”
“I don’t hate anyone,” Mother Teresa replied, pouring herself a cup of coffee. Sugar Beth hid another snort by cracking an egg.
“If I ever had a sister, I wouldn’t hate her.” Gigi sat on the floor by the door so Gordon could snuggle up to her.
“We aren’t regular sisters,” Winnie replied, taking a seat at the table.
“Half sisters. You had the same father.”
“But we weren’t raised together.”
“If I found out I had a half sister, even if we weren’t raised together, it would make me happy. I hate being an only child.”
“As you’ve mentioned at least a hundred times.”
Gigi gave her mother a reproachful look. “I don’t understand why you have to hate her so much.”
“Gigi, this isn’t any of your business.”
The temporary truce between mother and teenager came to an end, and silence fell over the kitchen, broken only by the soft, contented moans of a basset having his ears rubbed. Sugar Beth tapped the whisk against the sides of Tallulah’s old spongeware bowl. Gigi intended to cast her mother as the bad guy, with Sugar Beth as the injured party, which meant it was time to come clean. She consoled herself with the reminder that she owed Winnie one after the trick she’d pulled last night. All right. She owed Winnie more than one.
“The truth is, cupcake, I pretty much made your mother’s life miserable.”
Gigi abandoned Gordon’s ears to gaze up at Sugar Beth. “What did you do?”
“Everything I could think of.” Sugar Beth concentrated on dredging the bread so she didn’t have to look at either one of them. “Your mother was shy, and I used that to my advantage to make her look bad in front of the other kids. Whenever somebody wanted to be her friend, I found a way to break it up. I made fun of her behind her back. I even found this diary she kept and read it out loud to everybody.”
“I don’t believe you,” Gigi replied, too loyal to abandon faith in her new aunt so quickly. “Even Kelli Willman wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Believe it.” Sugar Beth threw a slab of butter into the skillet. She’d forgotten to turn the burner on, so it sat there in a hard lump. She picked up a tea towel to wipe her hands, then turned to face them both. Winnie had the coffee mug cradled in her hands, her expression unreadable.
“My senior year, I did the worst thing to her I’ve ever done to anybody.” Sugar Beth looked at Gigi because she didn’t want to look at Winnie. “Your mom was in a show at school—”
Winnie rose from her chair. “There’s no reason to go into this.”
“It’s my shame, not yours,” Sugar Beth shot back.
To her credit, Winnie sat down again. Maybe she realized, as Sugar Beth did, that the time had come to drag the old ghosts out into the sunlight.
“She had paint all over her,” Sugar Beth said, “so I knew she’d have to go to the locker room to get cleaned up when it was over. I waited till she had time to get into the shower, then I sneaked in and hid all her clothes. I hid the towels, anything she could use to cover up with.”
She half expected Winnie to make another protest, but she simply cradled her mug and gazed straight ahead.
“That wasn’t as bad as reading her diary to everybody,” Gigi said.
“I haven’t finished.”
Gigi drew Gordon’s head farther into her lap while Winnie sat stone-faced.
“I was with some boys,” Sugar Beth said, “and I dared them to go into the locker room. I made a big joke out of it. They didn’t know your mom was in there, so they went along with me.” She fiddled with the tea towel. “Your dad was one of those boys.”
The muscles worked in Gigi’s throat as she swallowed. “Did he see her?”
Sugar Beth nodded. “Yes. And she had this huge crush on him. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But she liked him so much, and she was humiliated.”
“Why would you do something so mean?”
Sugar Beth gazed at Winnie. “Maybe you’d like to explain this part.”
“How can I explain it when I never understood it myself?” Winnie said stonily.
“Sure you did.”
“There was no reason for it,” Winnie retorted. “You had everything. You were legitimate. You had a real family.”
“And you were popular, too,” Gigi said. “So what did you have to be jealous of?”
Winnie knew, but she wasn’t going to say it.
“My father loved your mother, but he didn’t love me,” Sugar Beth said. “The truth was, he could barely tolerate me. I giggled, I got lousy grades, and I made too many demands on him.”