Free NOT What I Was Expecting by Tallulah Anne Scott Page B

you
do.”
    “We’re waiting to
hear from the Vatican on the sainthood nomination,” I advised him and grabbed
CeCe by the arm as I spoke.  “It’s good seeing you again Luke, but I really need to borrow my cousin for a moment.  Would you excuse us?  Nice meeting you
Barney,” I said as my exit line while I hauled CeCe away from the others.
    “I’m going to kill
you so dead,” I threatened through clenched teeth, still smiling just in case
anyone was looking.  “CeCe, how could you make up all that stuff?  What were
you thinking?  What is he going to think of me when he finds out everything you
told him is a lie?  How are you going to explain why you lied?”
    “I’ll tell him I’m
as shocked as he is, because I believed you when you told me all that stuff,” she
replied solemnly.
    The look on my
face must have made her realize she’d already had enough fun at my expense.
    “Kidding!  I’m
kidding,” she assured me in an attempt to keep me from losing it in a big way. 
“C’mon, Maggie, how is he going to find out none of that is true?”
    “Are you serious?”
I asked all shocked.  “This town is the size of a postage stamp.  Everybody
knows everybody else.  He repeats that to anybody , and they will set him
straight before he can say Big Fat Liar!”  I was holding it together by a
thread, and that strand was beginning to get a little frayed.
    “You are
overreacting.  Everyone embellishes their resume,” CeCe explained, as if that
should make me feel better.
    With a tenuous
hold on that frayed thread, I leaned into CeCe and said just above a whisper,
“I wasn’t applying for a job, CeCe!  This is going to ruin . . . .”
    “There they are.  Girls!” 
I heard my mother’s sigh of relief from 20 feet away.  She was walking toward
us with her arm around a distraught Shirley.  “CeCe, Maggie, I have to go speak
to Eliza’s family, because I’m representing the City Council.  I don’t feel
right about abandoning Shirley when she’s so upset.”  Pearl turned to Shirley,
“There, there dear.”
    So that’s where I
got it.
    “The girls will
stay with you, won’t you girls?”  Although it was phrased in the form of a
question, the look on Mother’s face left no wiggle room for our response.
    “Of course we’re
here for you, Aunt Shirley,” I rushed in to put my arm around her shoulder, since
my mother had removed hers and was backing away.
    “We’ll take care
of her Aunt Pearl,” CeCe practically oozed with relief.  No doubt she was
enjoying the fact that I had been interrupted before I was able to say
something we would probably both regret later.  I’d regret that I said it, and
she’d wish that she hadn’t deserved it.
    CeCe turned her
attention to her mother.  “I know it’s upsetting, but did something happen to
make you this sad before the service even started?”
    Shirley nodded,
wiped her eyes, and blew her nose with the tissue in her hand.  She tried to
speak clearly, “I was just talking to Viola Simpson from the Garden Club.  Her
nephew is a deputy with the Sheriff’s Department, you know.  I believe he was a
few years ahead of you girls in high school.  He’s a good-looking boy, used to
be on the track team, his aunt was telling me.”
    “Mother,” CeCe
interrupted, since Aunt Shirley’s stories tended to be heavy with detail. 
Normally, CeCe would love to hear more since her mom was referring to her one
and only true love, Deputy Ben.  None of this was news to CeCe, because if it
was a detail about Ben, CeCe already had it down in triplicate.  “You were
going to tell us why you’re so upset,” CeCe nudged Shirley back on topic.
    “Viola’s nephew,
Ben, is involved in Eliza’s murder investigation, and she just told me Eliza
was beat up pretty badly before she was strangled.”  The tears began to flow
once more but more calmly this time.  “Isn’t that just awful?  That poor dear. 
What she must have gone through.  To