Chapter Four
CORDELIA’S SANDALS SLAPPED AGAINST THE BLACKTOP AND SHE SHIFTED her gait to stop the offending noise from drawing any more attention.
Her bathing suit was plain blue, with a bow that tied across her chest. It looked nice against her pale skin, but suddenly felt too loud next to the red-haired woman’s even plainer black.
“Yoohoo! Over here!” Daisy waved her hand wildly as she spotted Cordelia opening the gate to the pool area.
“We’re so glad you could make it. Belinda Sue thought you’d need more time to get your bearings, but I told her you had a real friendly way about you and that you’d be down here in no time.
I mean, who can resist a pool party? Am I right? ”
“Lord, Daisy, let the poor girl catch her breath before you hit her with all of you.” The red-haired woman in the black suit stood and offered her hand.
She had a firm, dry grip. More proof that this was Cordelia’s kind of person.
“I’m Belinda Sue, and this here is Arline.
” She nodded to the woman in the floral suit, who just nodded back without speaking.
“Nice to meet y’all.” Cordelia bent her knees and tipped her chin as she greeted them. A semicurtsey to show her respect to her elders. “I hope y’all will have a little patience with me as I figure out how things work around here.”
“Of course, dear.” Belinda Sue patted the plastic chair beside her, directing Cordelia to take a seat. “Feel free to ask us anything you’d like to know.”
“Thank you for your hospitality.” Cordelia drummed her fingers on the armrest of the plastic beach chair as the three women stared at her expectantly. She didn’t like having that many eyes on her at once. It felt like being watched by a spider. “Have y’all lived here long?”
Belinda Sue frowned, as if she’d been expecting another question. “I suppose we have. Daisy and I arrived in eighty-six and Arline joined us in eighty-eight.”
“Eighty-nine,” Arline said. Her voice creaked like it didn’t get a whole lot of use.
“Eighty-nine,” Belinda Sue repeated.
Cordelia was as confused as a goat on Astroturf.
Surely these women hadn’t been living in a motel for this many decades?
Why hadn’t they gotten apartments? She’d assumed they’d formed a little retirement community here, but this was something else altogether.
They must’ve come here when they were fresh out of high school.
“I’m sorry.” Unused to so much fresh air, Cordelia coughed and patted her chest, which Daisy took as a sign that she needed a drink.
And though she’d never been much of a drinker on account of her personal history, Cordelia thought a little liquid courage might not hurt in this situation.
She took the dressed-up glass of liquor and punch Daisy passed to her and drank deeply.
“Are you saying y’all have been renting rooms since you were teenagers? ”
Daisy shook her head enthusiastically. “We weren’t quite teenagers, though it’s sweet of you to think we look that young, but me and Belinda Sue weren’t allowed to start until we were twenty-one.
Arline might’ve been a bit older, maybe thirty.
We don’t know for sure. And don’t bother asking, she’ll never tell you. ”
“What do you mean by allowed to start?”
“That was Penelope’s rule. We had to be old enough to have figured out some of life before we could be one of her girls. She had a funny way about her, but it all made sense in the end.”
Cordelia wasn’t sure how much of life they’d had figured out if they’d chosen to live in a motel for the bulk of their lives, but she’d grown up with enough judgments from strangers to know when to hold her tongue on other people’s personal business.
Still. The odd way Daisy phrased it, that she started here, made it sound more like a job than a living arrangement.
“You . . . work here?” Maybe they were part of the staff.
House cleaners and bookkeepers and whatever else a motel required to run.
But that only left three vacant rooms and a staff of three for three rooms seemed a little excessive.
But then again, by Cordelia’s standards, everything was a little excessive.
“Of course, dear.” Belinda Sue gave her a look similar to the one Daisy had given her when she first arrived. Like Cordelia’s brain was made of ink and she couldn’t dot an i. “All of us are working girls. Didn’t Arbuckle explain it to you?”
“I bet he didn’t.” Daisy giggled and bounced a little on her beach chair.
Cordelia’s shoulders stiffened. She’d been the butt of plenty of jokes growing up and didn’t care one bit to be set outside the loop. “I was told the Chickadee was a local institution and that’s about it. If I’m missing something, I hope y’all can fill me in.”
“Dang it, Arbuckle. No-good, useless son of a gun,” Belinda Sue muttered under her breath.
“Here’s the thing.” She gave Cordelia a tight smile that didn’t fit the natural contours of her pinched, agitated face and folded her hands in her lap.
“The three of us are the last of the chicks, working girls, here at the Chickadee. Everyone else has either passed on or moved away to other towns, other jobs.”
“The younger generation all got themselves webcams now,” Daisy said.
Belinda Sue snorted and shook her head. “The ones who got snap in their garters, anyhow. And that’s the only sort Penelope would ever let cross this hallowed threshold. She didn’t do business with common folks.”
“She had a reputation to uphold,” Daisy said. “You understand that, don’t you?”
Cordelia could understand a reputation better than just about anyone else. She knew all the ways it could build you up and even more ways it could break you. She valued a good reputation above all else, because once you had a good one, it could carry you places you could never get to on your own.
“I certainly understand the need to be respectable.” Cordelia tapped a finger to her lips. “But what did the running of this place have to do with y’all?”
“She was our madam.” Daisy lifted her chin as pride radiated through her voice. “We’re the best in the business.”
There was that word again. “Madam.” But this time, instead of finding it strange and mildly amusing, a pit opened in Cordelia’s stomach. Deep and endless. It was just beginning to dawn on her that “madam” probably wasn’t just a South Texas way of saying “female landlord.”
She cleared away the lump of panic that had seen fit to settle in her throat. “What kind of business do you do?”
Belinda Sue took on a more serious expression. “Well now, the proper term these days is ‘sex worker.’ But what we do is provide a community service—”
“For pay,” Daisy interjected.
Belinda Sue nodded. “For pay. But a community service at heart. We service the husbands in all the nearby counties so their wives can get on with other doings.”
“Other. Doings,” Cordelia said, not quite sure how her jaw was still working when it had dropped clear on down to her feet. Mr. Arbuckle Jenkins had some serious explaining to do.
“Quilting bees, book clubs, canning jams, you know.” Daisy twirled her wrist. “All those hobbies many of the respectable ladies in town like doing in peace without having their randy husbands pawing after them at all hours of the day. Of course, we don’t mess with the husbands whose wives don’t wholeheartedly approve.
We have some single clients too, but most our visitors are married. ”
“So the husbands come and see y’all?” Cordelia’s voice squeaked on the last syllable. This was fine. She was not a cartoon dog casually drinking coffee while the room burned around her. This was. Just. Fine.
“Not all at once,” Daisy said. “Unless they pay extra, but we haven’t had any requests like that in oh”—a dreamy smile overtook her face as she sifted through her memories—“maybe twenty years. Not since Earl Cruiser died. Isn’t that right, Belinda Sue?”
“God rest his soul.” Belinda Sue closed her eyes and pointed to the sky before directing her gaze back to Cordelia.
“For the most part, we have our regulars and routines. We each offer a specialty. Daisy is our sweetheart. She handles the men who like to be cooed and coddled and treated like the center of the universe.”
Daisy threw Belinda Sue a mischievous grin. “I’ve always been real good at spoiling babies, and what are men, if not just a bunch of overgrown babies?”
“Indeed.” Belinda Sue grinned back. “And I tend to the men who like it when a woman has what I refer to as a firmer hand, if you know what I mean.”
“Or a whip,” Daisy said brightly. “They like that too.”
Cordelia pressed her fingers into her temples.
This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t be having a civilized conversation about whips with a group of senior ladies.
They should be wrapping their furniture in plastic and having dinner at four o’clock, not satisfying the sexual appetites of old married men who didn’t want to bother their wives.
“I’m sure they do,” Cordelia said absently. She leaned forward, cradling her forehead against her knees.
Belinda Sue rubbed her hand up and down Cordelia’s spine. “It’s not as bad as all that now. You’ll get fifteen percent of whatever we make, and you’ll only have to get out the shotgun once or twice a month.”
“Even less than that now that Jimmy Dodge Buck got himself into the AA,” Daisy said. “He used to have a real mean temper when he drank, nothing Miss Penelope couldn’t handle, but that’s all behind him now.”
“My momma’s in the AA too.” Cordelia couldn’t think of what else to say as she tried to wrap her mind around the situation.
They expected her to know how to hold a shotgun, for crying out loud. She was Texas down to her bones, but she wasn’t that kind of Texas. She lifted her head and shifted her gaze between Daisy and Belinda Sue. They wore matching nervous expressions.
As she glanced away from them, her lungs tying themselves in knots, her gaze settled on Arline, whose head tipped forward as she lightly snored, though her watery eyes remained open and fixed on the surrounding open plains.
Cordelia couldn’t tell if Arline was asleep or just completely uninterested in the discussion at hand.
“She’s awake.” Belinda Sue nodded toward Arline. “She just breathes like that.”
“Oh. Of course.” Cordelia’s cheeks pinkened at having been caught staring. She tried to recover by changing the subject. “And what is it you do, Arline?”
Arline didn’t so much as blink.
“It’s not personal,” Belinda Sue said. “Arline doesn’t talk much.”
“Only when she’s got something important to say,” Daisy said.
“But it’s not important for her to make conversation. Her particular skill set doesn’t require all that many words.” Belinda Sue snapped her fingers at Arline, drawing her attention from wherever it had wandered. “Arline. Show the new madam what you do for your regulars.”
Arline took out her teeth and set them on the clear-topped table beside her.
“Okay. I think I’ve seen enough here.” Cordelia got to her feet and began pacing. “Y’all seem very nice, and I’m happy you have your system worked out, but this really isn’t what I was expecting to find here, so if you’ll excuse me.”
“I told you she needed time,” Belinda Sue said to Daisy.
“I’m just going to . . .” Cordelia pointed behind her and turned around to leave, only to run smack-dab into a hard wall of muscle. “Oof.”
Cordelia tipped her head back. And back.
And back. Until her gaze landed on a face she might’ve called ruggedly handsome, if he hadn’t been raising his eyebrows at her like she was half a bubble off plumb.
There was a familiarity to him she couldn’t quite place her finger on.
Though she was certain she’d never met a man with this much . . . virility.
He had dark hair that curled at the tips, a strong square jaw, and a mustache that suited him, despite Cordelia having a serious aversion to all manner of facial hair.
It made most faces look unkempt, but it made the gentleman standing before her seem stronger for it.
Sturdy. Cordelia’s stomach fluttered unpleasantly, and she pressed a hand to it to steady herself.
She took in his wide chest and tapered waist. He wore a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up and black suspenders.
Her ex-girlfriend had worn suspenders, an article of clothing that implied a level of fastidiousness Cordelia found hard to resist. Much to her disappointment, she soon discovered her ex wasn’t neat or orderly, but on those rare times when she looked back on their relationship, she’d remember those suspenders fondly.
“You okay there, darlin’?” The man’s grin turned to a smirk as he eyed her floppy sun hat. She suddenly found herself wishing she’d risked the burn.
“I’m fine.” Fine. Fine. Fine. “I was just . . .” Leaving? Running away? Immediately seeking a pillow to scream into? “Going back to my great-aunt’s apartment.”
His tawny brown eyes lit up. “You must be the new madam everyone is talking about.”
“People are talking about me? Why? What are they saying?” A montage of scenarios flashed through her mind, each more horrifying than the next. The old whispers of “Blood will tell” rang in her ears on repeat.
“Whoa.” He held his hands up. “Relax. People are just sayin’ the Chickadee got itself a new madam. Don’t know much more than that, not even your name. Arbuckle Jenkins has been real tight-lipped about things. Possibly for the first time in his life.”
“This here is Penelope’s great-niece. Cordelia West,” Belinda Sue said.
“From Dallas,” Daisy added in a lilting tone that could’ve just as easily have said “From Paris,” or “From Rome.”
“Well, well, well. This day is certainly full of surprises.” The man rubbed his jaw, the gesture much too casual for the shock evident in his wide eyes.
Clearly, he wasn’t used to being caught off guard and didn’t much care for it.
“I know it’s been twenty years, but let me be the first to welcome you back to Sarsaparilla Falls, Delia. ”
The nickname she hadn’t heard in years, on account of her specifically hating the shortening of proper names, the familiarity of his grin, and the trouble brewing behind those whiskey-colored eyes all hit her like a two-ton truck going eighty down a dirt road.
She knew this man. He had once been as recognizable to her as the back of her own hand.
Archer Reed-Smythe.
All grown up.