LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      “Miss O’Leary, please describe your goals if accepted as a pupil of Madame Davenport’s School of Etiquette,” Larilla Davenport said from behind her desk.

      “Just look at me,” Ginger blurted out as she stood up. Her low-cut hot-pink tank top, size extra, extra small, showed the lacy tops of her leopard-print push-up bra. Babe was written in rhinestones across her ample chest. Her ruffled miniskirt, which came to an end just past her rear, was also extra small. Big was her platinum blond hair in “beachy waves” to her waist. Four-inch stilettos, a bunch of cheap bracelets and heavy makeup completed her usual daytime look.

      The fiftysomething woman sitting across from her—so spiffy in an ice-blue sheath dress and matching jacket, her dark hair pulled back in one of those elegant buns at her nape—looked Ginger up and down. Yeah, she was used to that.

      “My dear,” Madame Davenport said, “if you were just interested in changing your look, you could wash your face and buy a few new outfits. So why are you really interested in enrolling in my course?”

      Because of last night. And this morning. Which felt like eons ago but had just been hours before. It started with the pregnancy test. The red plus sign appearing in the little window. Racing back to Walgreens for another test, which Ginger had taken in the bathroom at Busty’s, the “exotic dance saloon” where she worked as a waitress. Another plus sign. She was pregnant. Her, Ginger O’Leary. Someone’s mother?

      The thought of it had knocked around in her head during her shift last night, serving the tap of the day and shots to leering customers. I’m pregnant? she’d kept thinking, setting down baskets of breaded mozzarella sticks and plates of loaded nachos on tables. Me?

      Ginger O’Leary had lost her virginity at fifteen. She was now twenty-four. That was nine years of sex with guys who she’d been naive about, but she’d always been careful, keeping several boxes of condoms in her bedroom and car, and always a few packets in her purse. This time though, the condom had broken, and the man who’d had it on had muttered expletives, grabbed his clothes and run out of her apartment.

      For the past year, he’d been coming into Busty’s twice a week and always left with a different waitress each time. He was one of the richies. There were the richies and the poors, per the female staff. The richies were the ones who looked—key word looked—like gentlemen who left ten-dollar tips. The poors were jerks who said stuff like “Here’s your tip—flash me and I’ll leave you a buck.” Busty’s was a real quality operation.

      Anyway, Alden Arlington, the father of her baby, hadn’t come in last night but she’d seen him this morning, heading into Java Jamboree with a woman. She’d trailed him into the café and asked if she could talk to him, and he’d said, “I’m surprised you get up before noon.”

      Normally she didn’t. But this wasn’t a normal day. Like she could sleep.

      She told him it was super important, and finally, the woman at his table gave her a dirty look and said she’d go order their lattes and scones.

      Ginger sat down in the woman’s seat. “I thought you should know I’m pregnant,” she whispered to him. “I just found out yesterday.”

      “Uh, congratulations?” Alden said. God, he was good-looking. All that movie-star blond hair, the green eyes. The expensive suit. He looked like a young Brad Pitt. Of course, being gorgeous and nicely dressed didn’t make him a nice guy. He’d avoided Busty’s for a good two weeks after the broken-condom incident, then started coming back in a couple nights a week again and ignoring her, leaving with other women. Whatevs. She hadn’t been hanging her hopes on him as a boyfriend, but he didn’t have to treat her like she wasn’t worth a hello.

      “It’s yours,” she said.

      He laughed. “Sure it is, honey. You probably sleep with more men in a week than there are in here right now.”

      Ginger actually gasped, which surprised her. She wasn’t the gasping type. People said a lot of crap to her. But she didn’t actually sleep around. She’d liked Alden, had hoped he’d notice her, and he had. Before he’d shown his true colors, she’d had all these fantasies that he’d fall for her and carry her out of Busty’s like Richard Gere had swooped Debra Winger out of the factory in that movie An Officer and a Gentleman.

      “Find some idiot to pin it on,” he said. “I’m a little too smart for that.”

      The woman came back to the table just then with coffee drinks and plates, and sat down on the other side of Alden, sipping her latte. “Listen to me, sweetie,” she said, staring at Ginger with ice-cold eyes. “You’re saying it’s my brother’s baby? Fine. A DNA test will prove you’re lying. On the off chance you’re not? Expect a custody battle since you’re not exactly fit to be a mother.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?” Ginger snapped, hands on her hips.

      “Look at you,” she said, waving her hand up and down.

      “It’s not mine, so don’t even waste your breath on this lowlife,” Alden said to his sister, picking up his drink.

      Ginger grabbed the scone and threw it at him. It hit him on his tie and bounced on the table, then landed on the floor. “Screw you.”

      “That’s battery,” the sister said, pointing a manicured finger. “We could have her charged.”

      Cursing herself for her temper and impulsiveness, a lick of fear traveled up her spine. She’d rushed out, practically running all the way back to Busty’s and trying to calm down in the very bathroom stall where she’d taken the pregnancy test.

      “My goodness,” Larilla Davenport said, jerking Ginger out of the memory.

      Had Ginger meant to say word for word what happened? Out loud? Maybe not. But hey, one thing you could say about Ginger O’Leary was that she told the truth.

      Ginger sat up straight and looked Madame Davenport in the eyes. “You asked me what my goals are if I get accepted as a student here. All I want is to be a good mother to this baby.” She looked down at her still-flat belly, then shook her head at the Babe across her big chest, which was natural, by the way, and not enhanced—except by the push-up bra. “Babe is now about the baby, Madame Davenport. Not me. I’m going to be someone’s mother. I have to change—and not just how I look. Everything about me. How I talk, act, think. I need to become proper. I need to become the kind of person who doesn’t get called a lowlife, you know? Someone who doesn’t throw baked goods at people out of anger. Because Alden could take the baby away. I need to become the kind of person who won’t get her baby taken away.”

      Tears poked at her eyes, and she slashed a hand underneath each. “Madame Davenport, if I’m going to raise my baby right, I need to be right. And if I ever hope to find a good man to be a father to my baby, I have to become the type of woman a good man brings home to meet the folks.”

      Madame stared at her for a moment, then jotted something down in the electronic tablet on the ornate polished desk. “I see. How did you hear of my etiquette school, Ms. O’Leary?”

      “Well, my boss at Busty’s is this really kick-ass lady. She pulled herself up from nothing. I asked her how she accomplished that, and she said she’d spent all her savings a few years back to go to etiquette school in Wedlock Creek. Coco told me the course teaches everything from how to act, dress, order in a restaurant, what not to say, what to say—all that. So I told her I had to quit, got in my car and drove three hours from Jackson.”

      Madame Davenport smiled.

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