Tess looked Joce up and down and obviously found her wanting. “Now that you’re so rich, maybe you can afford to do something with yourself.”
Sara’s eyes widened, but she was silent. Tess’s anger-filled remark seemed to be more than she could handle.
Joce gave a little smile. “You’re beautiful, but I’m nice and I won the prize. Says something about what people value, doesn’t it?”
For a moment, both Sara and Tess stared at her.
“Is that all you have?” Joce asked, her voice calm. “Come on, you can do better than that. An old woman left me money and a house, so I must have done something bad to earn it. You could make a lot out of that. Or can’t you?”
Sara looked like she might faint from what she was hearing. Would the women attack each other? Was she going to have to deal with hair pulling and scratching?
Tess gave Jocelyn a look of interest. “Where’d you learn to give it back like that?”
“Her sisters are—” Sara began, but Joce put her hand up to stop her.
“I listen; I learn,” Joce said, then she looked at Sara, dismissing Tess. “What were you talking about when you mentioned food?”
“Everyone in town wanted to welcome you, so they brought food,” Sara said, as though it were a custom everywhere. “Aunt Martha—that’s Ramsey’s mother—told people to stay away yesterday, so they hit this morning. But you weren’t here before church.”
“I went—” Jocelyn cut herself off. She wasn’t going to start the habit of telling people where she was every minute of every day. “No, I wasn’t here. I left early.”
“So they knocked on my door to ask my permission to enter the ‘big house,’” Tess said as she looked Jocelyn up and down, as though wondering who and what she was.
“Come on,” Sara said, “let’s see what they left you.” When Tess stayed in the driveway, Sara turned to her. “You coming?”
Jocelyn looked at Tess in the sunlight, that fabulous auburn hair glistening, and she was tempted to tell her to stay outside. Tess reminded Joce too much of the world of the Steps. “Come on,” she said. “Maybe Sara and I can do your roots later.”
“It’s natural,” Tess said before she thought.
“So’s mine,” Joce shot back.
“Well, mine isn’t,” Sara said. “If you two are going to get in a catfight, I need to call some cousins to watch. They’ll never forgive me if they miss it.”
Joce stepped back to let Tess know she was welcome in the house. This woman is going to take some work to like, she thought, looking at Sara with longing. Why couldn’t there have been another Sara in the other apartment? On second thought, maybe she could find Tess an apartment somewhere else. In a men’s locker room, maybe. From the look of her, she’d probably love that!
Jocelyn wasn’t prepared for what she saw in the kitchen. The table and the countertops were covered with what looked to be a hundred containers of food.
Sara opened the refrigerator. Inside were more dishes and foil-wrapped parcels.
There were casseroles, chicken prepared in many ways, a ham, baskets full of baked goods, cakes, pies, and bags of early produce from home gardens.
“I can’t eat all this,” Jocelyn whispered, in awe at the sheer quantity of food.
Tess stood to one side and watched the two women circle around the table and countertops. They didn’t seem to have even one thought of what to do about that much perishable food. The situation reminded her of MAW. Half the time those men didn’t have a clue as to what should be done. But all her life Tess had had the ability to “see” what should be done in a situation. The lawyers said she had a true gift, a rare talent.
Sara stopped walking and looked at Tess. “What should we do?”
Jocelyn didn’t look up but assumed that because it was her house the question was for her. “I’m to see Ramsey tomorrow and maybe if I get some money, I’ll go get a freezer, and—” She broke off when she saw that Sara was looking at Tess.
Jocelyn looked at her too. “You have any different ideas?” She couldn’t keep the hostility out of her voice. Was it always going to be a fight with this woman?
“My suggestion is that we eat all we want, then we put as much as we can in a car and give it away. You’ll have to keep the plates and containers, as the women will want them back, but we can give away the food, and I know where to take it.” She looked at Joce. “If you can bear to part with any of it, that is.”
Sara looked at Joce to make a decision.
“I like it,” Jocelyn said. “I like the idea very much.” As she looked at Sara, she opened the cabinet where Luke got a plate last night. It was empty. She knew there was a plate in the dishwasher, but they needed more. “Do either of you know if I have any plates?”
“Luke’s outside, he knows,” Tess said.