LITMIR.BIZ

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we were past my mean girl and well into forgiveness. Will you ever run out of nails for my coffin?” Dixie inquired with gooey sweetness.

      “Lucky Judson’s Hardware store has aisles’ and aisles’ worth. How’s never suit you?” Em shot back with a lopsided grin.

      LaDawn burst out laughing, the sound rich and deep. She flicked a purple-painted nail at Em. “Phew! You are all ’bout your sass these days, aren’t you, Miss Emmaline? Every time I turn around you’re assertin’ yourself in one way or another. You’re all breathin’ fire at us at the drop of a hat lately.”

      Marybell nodded, reaching into a bag of Cheetos Dixie had produced from her deep desk drawer. “Oh, yes, ma’am, she is. If you look at her cross-eyed, flames come right out of her cute little mouth,” she said on a giggle, tweaking Em’s lower lip.

      It was true. She’d become a little testy in this quest to show anyone within earshot she was no longer Emmaline Without A Spine. Some would even say she’d gone overboard. Nonetheless, she protested. “Bah! They do not.”

      Dixie popped a Cheeto in her mouth, licking her fingers. “Do so. If I simply say the word no, even if it’s when you’re askin’ me if I’d like another glass of sweet tea, you jump right down my throat. You’re always barking orders at us like we wouldn’t listen to you if you didn’t holler them with that stern teacher voice you’ve adopted. Reminds me of old Mrs. Beauchamp. Remember her from third grade?”

      Marybell nodded her agreement, her eyes, heavy with dark makeup, playful. “Next thing you know, she’ll show up with a ruler and crack our hands to get her point across.”

      Em rolled her eyes at them. Admittedly, as of late, she had a case of the “I will be heard” syndrome. The one where everything she said had to be full throttle or she was convinced she wouldn’t be taken seriously. It would just take some time to find her balance. Toning her stern teacher’s voice down would probably be a good place to start.

      “Uh-huh,” LaDawn confirmed, patting Marybell on the back. “You know what, I take back my protestin’ from earlier. Some days, the way you’ve been orderin’ us all around, maybe we should just let you take all the calls and we’ll all go shop for shoes, seein’ as you seem to know how to do it better.”

      That sudden need to prove herself, the one she’d just reminded herself was on the warpath, the one that was completely unwarranted and absolutely unnecessary, reared its badly mannered head—again. “I bet I could answer your calls—all of ’em.” She rolled her neck in the “wanna go ’round?” way LaDawn did. “I know all the dirty words because I hear Miss LaDawn here say them like she’s recitin’ her prayers before bedtime, all day long.”

      Em’s defensive answer sparked the competitive streak in LaDawn. She sat upright and pointed to the wine bottle. “You just stop talkin’ crazy from over there and have another glass of wine. You would faint dead if you had to pretend to spank some man with my special spatula and scream, ‘You dirty, dirty boy!’ You know it, and so does everyone else sittin’ here.”

      Dixie held up a hand, leaning forward and putting it between the two women with a look of admonishment. “Girls, how quickly we forget I’ve banned all forms of competition. Em, you stop riling the caged beast, and both of you play nicely with each other.”

      “You only banned them because you can’t resist them, Dixie,” Em taunted, knowing full well she was again poking her friend for her former habit of turning everything from pie eating to merely breathing into a death match.

      Dixie narrowed her eyes in Em’s direction, her husky voice raspy when she said, “You’re baiting me, Em.”

      Em nodded, throwing her a smug smile, though it was full of love. “If I had a worm, I’d dangle it in your face.”

      “I still say you couldn’t do it,” LaDawn coaxed with a sly grin, twisting her hair and tying it up with a rubber band she always kept around her slender wrist. “You couldn’t even answer one phone call and say the P word without callin’ out forgiveness from on high. We’ll all be home and in our beds in no time flat before you get ’round to it. I’d bet next week’s girls’ night drinks on it.”

      Dixie held up a finger, her eyes flashing warning signals at LaDawn. “In Em’s condition, she’ll end up meeting some crazy killer for chicken and waffles at Madge’s. Stop goading her, LaDawn.”

      “Oh, really?” Em challenged, using her hands to push off the desk’s top and stick her face in LaDawn’s. She balanced herself on her waist, teetering. “You’re on, Latex Lady!”

      Dropping back to her chair, she picked up the phone on Dixie’s desk and rang Nella.

      “Nella? It’s Emmaline. Next caller who doesn’t know his foot from the P word, send them to me on Dixie’s line, please.” She hung up the phone with a triumphant drop of the receiver, almost hearing poor Nella’s jaw drop all the way from the other end of the guesthouse.

      “Right here, right now, I’m callin’ it. This is a mistake, Em. You’ve had a little too much to drink, and tomorrow, you’ll regret it,” Marybell said with confidence, fighting a grin. LaDawn cackled, crossing her arms. “So what’s your name for the naughty gonna be, Em? I think Not Gonna Happen’s already been taken.”

      Dixie and Marybell erupted in a fit of laughter, followed shortly thereafter by LaDawn.

      Oh, they could laugh all they wanted. She’d thought about it long and hard. All while LaDawn ordered her clients around in dominatrix fashion and during request after youthful voice request for Marybell. She’d even thought about it tonight at Cooters, and she didn’t have to think too hard. At least not with four swirly drinks in her stomach and her sense of reason fully affected.

      She narrowed her gaze at every one of her friends, sputtering and snorting at the very idea Emmaline Amos could say the P word. Maybe she might even use the—gasp—C word. “Well, won’t you all be sorry when that phone rings and I answer to the tune of Em ’n’ M?”

      “Like the rapper or the candy?” Dixie squeaked out between gasps of air tucked between bursts of laughter. She covered her mouth with her hand to keep from disturbing the operators in the back rooms.

      She eyed Dixie with a defiant glare, surely fueled by her alcohol consumption. “It might not be as mysterious or sexy as Mistress Taboo or as sticky sweet as Candy Caine was, your Mr. Smexy’s old operator name, but it’s cute, just like me.” Cute and adorable and like someone’s worn stuffed animal. Ugh.

      LaDawn was the first to buckle. She hopped up from her chair, coming around the desk to give Em a tight squeeze from behind, her lilting voice clear in Em’s ear, the sweet scent of her lavender body spray in her nose. “We were just teasin’ you, Em. We know you’re a force to be reckoned with, and we wouldn’t have ya any other way. So no phone calls for you. You’re just not made outta the same cloth as the rest of us dirty girls. You’re fine silk and we’re just a polyester blend.”

      The jarring ring of Dixie’s office phone created a shrill silence between them—reaction suspended for a mere second before all three women were scrambling to grab the phone to keep it from Em. Chairs scraped against the tile floor, desk organizers fell to the floor with pen-filled thuds.

      But Em was quicker, and when all was said and done, and she was high on regret for ever taking LaDawn’s bait, she’d pat herself on the back for just how quick she’d been on the draw being as tipsy as she was.

      She snatched at it, holding the receiver up like she’d just won the coveted Swarovski tiara at their local Miss Cherokee Rose Pageant. Triumph streaked her eyes before she growled, “This is Em ’n’ M. Would you like some candy?” Her eyes opened wide at her brilliance. Associating her name with the pleasure of the famous candy. Hah! Innocent Em couldn’t make the dirty, huh? She’d show them.

      “You have candy? My daddy loves candy. Maybe he’d like you, too.” A voice so pure, so full of spun sugar and innocence, filled her ear.

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