Free Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes by Cathy Holton

trays from the Piggly Wiggly, and commandeering massive quantities of alcohol from Merv’s Shake Rattle & Roll Liquor Store. Actually, Jimmy’s Chicken Shack wasn’t such a bad idea. Lavonne made a mental note to call them later.
    There was a bookkeeping ledger open on the counter, one of those heavy old-fashioned books Lavonne hadn’t seen in years. Mona saw her looking at it and she groaned. “I can handle the baking but the ledger book gives me fits. Marvin always kept the books. Since he’s been gone things are kind of sliding downhill fast. I never could tolerate numbers. All those long columns staring me in the face night after night. I just can’t seem to concentrate. I’m hoping Little Moses can move back and take over that part of the business for me.” Little Moses was Mona’s only child, a good-looking, clean-cut boy who used to help her in the shop. Lavonne hadn’t seen him since he graduated from high school and went out to California to cut a demo tape with his Jewish reggae band, Burning Bush.
    Mona put the last piece of tape on the box. “You probably want to keep this in the refrigerator,” she said. “That way it’ll stay fresh until you have a chance to eat it all.”
    Lavonne was pretty sure that wouldn’t be a problem. The last time she bought a pie from Shapiro’s she’d eaten it in one sitting. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She thought about Mrs. Shapiro entering long columns in a ledger book. Hadn’t she heard of personal computers? Hadn’t she heard of accounting software?
    Lavonne checked her watch again. Louise had an after-school fencing class. Ashley had cheerleading practice. They would most likely eat dinner at school. Lavonne hoped they would make better food choices than their mother. Like all reformed career women Lavonne took her parenting seriously, volunteering for play groups, turning her kitchen into a craft center, driving her daughters to preschool, and soccer, and horseback riding, and, later, to school, to slumber parties, and to school sporting events. But now the girls were seventeen and sixteen and no longer seemed to need her to drive them around or make dinner for them. Lavonne was left with large blocks of time to sit around eating Peach Paradise and Rocky Road ice cream out of the carton and spy on her neighbors. There were moments in the middle of the afternoon when she thought,
Maybe I should adopt a child.
She thought,
Maybe I should join the Peace Corps.
Lately, she had begun thinking,
Maybe I should get a job.
    Mona pushed the box toward Lavonne. She sighed and pulled her hairnet into place. A bus rumbled by in the street outside. “If I can’t talk Little Moses into helping me with the business, I might as well go on and sell to Mr. Redmon.”
    “Mr. Redmon?”
    “You know Mr. Redmon, don’t you?” Mrs. Shapiro said, shaking the flour off her apron and turning to ring up the purchase on the cash register.
    “Yes,” Lavonne said. “I know him.” Redmon was Leonard’s biggest client. Around the office he was known as the Strip Mall King. He was single-handedly responsible for buying up family farms along the interstate that ran through Ithaca and turning the pastoral landscape into a garish jungle of fast-food restaurants, truck stops, and strip joints. In the process, he’d made himself fabulously wealthy. Leonard worshipped him. When Redmon said “Jump,” Leonard said, “How high, Mr. Redmon, sir.”
    “He’s been after me for years to sell. You know I own this building,” Mona said, lifting her hand to indicate the shop around them. “And the building next door, too. Marvin bought them back in sixty-seven, right after his daddy died and left us a little money. Back then it was nothing more than a dusty storefront and I couldn’t see the point of buying something downtown—all the businesses seemed to be moving out to the interstate back then. But Marvin’s daddy had a dream right before he died. He dreamed