wall, which butted right against Cassie’s in the next unit. They’d communicated by knocking on it since they were little girls. She’d signal her to sneak out back for one of their late-night gab sessions and fill her in about her lousy prom night.
Then she noticed a parked car out front. When her mother emerged from it, Kate wondered who Edie could have been out with so late. As a man exited she said, “Mayor Winfield?”
Yes, Angela’s father. Rich, jolly John Winfield who kept her mother busy cleaning his fancy house on Lilac Hill. Once again the mayor thought nothing of working Edie late in the night, as if she didn’t already spend forty hours a week scrubbing other people’s toilets. Kate raised a brow as the mayor played gentleman and walked her mother to the door.
Walk away , her inner voice said. But she couldn’t. Moving closer, she’d reached the steps when they began to kiss.
Kate moaned. Her gentle mother was having an affair with the very married mayor? John Winfield was the patriarch of the town, a family man, father of Angela and of town golden boy, J.J., who’d gone away to college years ago and hadn’t returned.
After their kiss Winfield said, “I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’ve made life bearable for me all these years.”
Years? Mr. Mayor, the pure saintly leader of Pleasantville, has been having an affair with his cleaning woman for years?
“Here,” Winfield continued, reaching into his pocket. “Your paycheck. I’m sorry it’s so late, sugar, you know how she is.”
A sweet smile softened her mother’s face. “I’m okay, John. If she’s overspent again and you’re in need, I can wait a bit.”
Kate shook her head in shock. The phone bill hadn’t been paid. They’d had canned soup and tuna sandwiches for dinner all week. And her mother was giving back her paycheck to the richest man in town? Worse…the son of a bitch took it.
Blinking away tears as she acknowledged her respectable, much-loved mother was the willing mistress of a married man, she darted around back. Kate instinctively headed toward the ramshackle tree house where she and Cassie had played as kids, seeking comfort like a child would seek her mother’s arms. Kate whimpered as she realized she no longer had that option. Her mother wasn’t the person she’d always thought she was.
Looking up as she approached, she saw a glow of light from within and the burning red tip of a cigarette.
Cassie . Kate paused. She simply could not tell her cousin what she’d witnessed in front of the house. Cassie and Kate had long ago accepted the truth about their mothers. Cassie’s mom, Flo, was the wild charmer who’d let them have makeup parties at age seven, and bought them their first six-pack. They loved her, no matter what the town thought of her outrageous clothes and numerous affairs. But Edie had been the real nurturing mother figure, the kind one who’d dried their tears and encouraged their dreams.
For Kate, Edie would never be the same. How could she destroy Cassie’s image of Edie, too? In spite of her outward toughness, Kate knew Cassie would be very hurt by this. As hurt as Kate had been. So no, she couldn’t tell her. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“Kitty Kate, you down there?”
Wiping away her tears, she climbed the rope ladder. Inside the tree house, Cassie’s golden hair was haloed by candlelight. “Hi.”
“Hey.” Cassie took another long drag of her cigarette.
“Got another one?” Kate sat next to her cousin, noting the way their dresses filled up nearly every inch of floor space in the tiny house. Hers a boring pink. Cassie’s a sultry black that screamed seduction and showcased her curvy figure.
“Last time you smoked you ralphed all over the bathroom.”
Feeling sick enough already, Kate didn’t risk smoking. “You okay? You skipped out on prom pretty early.”
“Yeah. I’m sure the gold-plated set missed me real bad.”
Kate ignored the sarcasm. “I missed you. What happened?”
Cassie gave a bitter laugh. “Biff said we were going to a party. Turns out he had a two-person, naked party in mind.”
“Perv.”
“Total perv. Then he gets pulled over for drunk driving.”
“You were drinking?” Kate raised a surprised brow, knowing Cassie thought alcohol made guys stupid and mean.
“No. He wanted to get beer, so we stopped at the store before the prom. He said I should buy it since I look older. Friggin’ moron. Like the clerk wouldn’t notice I was wearing a prom dress.”
“What’d you do?”
“I pretended I couldn’t. He found somebody else at the prom who gave him some.” Cassie squashed out her cigarette and leaned her head against the wall. “Look, Katey, I don’t want to talk about this. Why are you here? Shouldn’t you and Darling Darren be celebrating as king and queen of Pea-Ville High right now?”
Kate told her everything, leaving out what had happened when she got home. “Guess we both had disastrous prom nights.”
Cassie took Kate’s hand. “Did I say Darling Darren? I meant Dickless Darren. I hope you told him to eat shit and die.”
“I told him he deserved a girl like Angela, and took off.” Frankly, she liked Cassie’s comeback better. If she’d thought about it long enough, maybe she could have come up with it. But Kate was so used to being the sweeter of the Tremaine cousins, she generally refrained from mouthing off out loud, as she often did in her brain, or when alone with Cassie.
“Good for you.”
Cassie opened an old, dusty Arturo Fuente cigar box in which they hid the stashes of stuff they didn’t want the moms to find. It held candles, diaries, even a Playgirl they’d dug out of Flo’s trash can a few years ago. “I hate this stinking town.”
Remembering the way she’d felt as she watched Mayor Winfield and her mother, Kate completely understood. “Ditto.”
“I’d give anything to get outta here. Make it big, make lots of money, then come back and tell them all to stuff it.”
Kate had the same fantasy. Hours spent in the old Rialto Theater had introduced her to places she wanted to go, people she wanted to meet. Women she wanted to become. Far away from here. “Wouldn’t that be something? The trashy Tremaine cousins coming back and stirring up some serious trouble,” Kate said. “You know what I’d do? I’d open up a shop right next door to Mrs. McIntyre’s Tea Room. And I’d sell…dirty movies!”
Cassie snickered. “Go all out, triple-X porn, baby.”
“And sex toys. Darren’s mom could really use a vibrator.”
“You wouldn’t know a vibrator if it fell in your lap. Turned on . So, first stop in the big city, we buy sex toys.”
Kate giggled. “And when we’re rich and famous, we come back here and shove ’em right up certain people’s noses.”
Cassie
