Sour Grapes (A Savannah Reid Mystery #6) (5 page)

subject. Both recalled the previous invasion of sister Vidalia's terrorist munchkins. The cats were traumatized for weeks afterward, their fur standing on end and their ears turned inside out. And the major house repairs were on hold, waiting for the governor of California to declare San Carmefita a disaster zone and

release the relief funds.

"Not me and not Vidalia," Gran said. "It's your baby sister, Atlanta, who hightailed it outta here first thing

this mornin' on a plane headed in your direction. I would've warned you sooner, but your mama just told me about it."

Savannah didn't have to utilize any special detecting

skills to figure out why neither her mom nor Atlanta

had phoned ahead to announce the visit. In spite of the fact that Shirley Reid had born nine children, naming them after cities in Georgia, mothering wasn't high on the list of her priorities. It fell well below square dancing, Jack Daniels, turquoise and silver jewelry, and her favorite stool--third from the end, right below the autographed picture of Elvis--at Sam's Honky Tonk.

Mama Reid would be happy to be rid of the temperamental

teenager for a while.

Over the years, Big Sis Savannah and Gran had done most of the mothering of the Reid brood. Why should anything change at this late date? Savannah asked herself.

"You there, hon?" Gran said, her voice soft with concern.

"Right here, Gran." Savannah reached for a spoon to stir the grits that were bubbling on the stove. "I'm just shocked into silence. I mean, I'm always glad to entertain a family member, but. . . Atlanta. She's a bit of a. . . challenge. . . . c. speaking, that is."

"Eh, forget the . c. nonsense. She's a pain in the hind end, that one. Don't let her walk all over you, darlin'."

"That'll be the day."

Savannah thanked her grandmother and said goodbye.

As she hung up the phone, Tammy said, "So, when exactly is that day? The day you aren't going to let your spoiled baby sister take advantage of you, that is."

"Today," she replied with a weary sigh. 'There oughta be a law against getting news like that before

47

U liKAYES

breakfast, with only one cup of coffee in your blood- :stream. And while they're making rules, there should be another one about kid sisters showing up unanbounced

and uninvited. They oughta be required to give you a thirty-day notice so that you can move."

0. She chug-a4ugged another cup of coffee, then added, "And I say that with the deepest affection for

Atlanta and all of my adorable siblings."

- Tammy nodded. "Gotcha. Don't you sometimes won-if you're ever going to get them all raised?" "Naw, I gave up on that dream long ago. They're peretual juveniles. Dysfunctional to infinity."

Tammy studied Savannah thoughtfully as she continbed

her food preparations. "How about you?" she _asked. "You had the same parents--or lack of parentbig--that they had. Plus you had the additional burden AT being the eldest and all those responsibilities. Why aren't you dysfunctional?"

Savannah laughed and broke an egg into the skillet

"What makes you think I'm not?"

"You're one of the most together ladies I know." 'That's pathetic, Tam. Obviously, you've had lousy

tole models. Besides, I don't have time to be dysfuncmal. I can hardly function as it is."

The sound of a car's horn blasted, just outside the kitchen door. Savannah left the eggs frying to take a kook at her driveway. "A Yellow cab," she said. "Gee, we must have company. Who do you suppose it is?"

As she turned down the heat under her breakfast

and made her way out the kitchen door with Tammy behind

her, Savannah felt a flood of contradictory emoions,

ranging from warm and fuzzy, to seriously irked.

strongest was guilt. . . guilt that she wasn't happier to see her own flesh and blood arriving on her door

a

a

'TO ,LELLUILUGC4

aep. But she slapped a pseudo-smile across her face Ind hurried to the taxi, her furry slippers flapping on the cement driveway.

The back door of the cab swung open and out came

guitar case, followed by an enormous garment bag . . . Ind a positively bony teenager who couldn't possibly

have been spawned in the gene pool with anyone related

to Savannah.

Rather than the dark-haired, voluptuous beauty she ta.d been the last time Atlanta had visited, this girl was ainfully thin, with sunken cheeks and ribs showing beleath her midriff-cropped stretchy shirt. And her hair, taturally the same dark chestnut as Savannah's, was a 3latinum blond haypile, stacked on her head and held with a dozen glittering, butterfly barrettes.

Savannah's heart sank and a queasy feeling hit her

;tomach with a wallop. The kid was sick! The kid was very sick, maybe even dying! Yes, that had to be it! She 'tad come to California to live out her final days, baskng in the healing golden sunlight, listening to the etertal song of the ocean waves and--"

"Hey, Van, I'm here to compete in a beauty paTant!" the girl shouted, running toward her, guitar :ase and garment bag fluttering in the breeze. "Isn't hat just the coolest thing?!"

"Uhhh . yeah. . . cool."

Atlanta gave her an enormous, enthusiastic hug, vhacldng her on the back with the heavy case and tan;ling

her hair in the bag's zipper tab. "Are you glad to ee me? Are you surprised?"

"Very glad, sweetie . . . and surprised." Savannah )laced a kiss on each of her sister's gaunt cheeks and redized

that she was glad to see her . . . and somewhat

mazed that she was so glad. The kid was a pain in the

L.1%.." ALA,

rear end, as Gran had said, but she loved her. She loved 'all of them; how could she not?

Atlanta released Savannah and turned to give Tammy

a peck on the cheek. "Hey there. You still workin' for my sister? I figured you would've flown the coop by now, no more than she pays you."

Tammy received the kiss gracefully and replied with

a noncommittal grunt. Savannah was grateful, knowing that Tammy held no deep or abiding affection for any

of her siblings who had appeared on her doorstep. Bringing their own bundles of troubles and idiosyncrasies

with them, they hadn't exactly made good impressions on Savannah's California friends.

"Let's get you inside," Savannah said, as the driver exited the cab and began to unload the trunk. A frightening amount of luggage was being dumped on the driveway,

and Savannah started to worry about her impromptu visitor's Estimated Time of Departure. Savannah didn't recall moving in that much clothing

when she bought the house.

Picking up as many of the bags as she could handle, she started toward the door, but Atlanta blocked her way. "Oh, yeah . . . there's just one thing." She looked a wee bit embarrassed. "This guy drove me all the way from LAX, and I owe him $145.1 was hoping you'd pay him; I'm a little short on cash, you know, after paying for my airline ticket and all."

Savannah thought of the meager amount recorded

in her checkbook ledger.

Oh well, she didn't neecl electricity or water next month.

She sighed and trudged to the door, lugging the bags--that must have contained liquid lead--with her. "Let me get my purse," she said, adding under her

U.A. Mclievett

breath, "and let me raid the cookie jar. . . and the piggy bank. . . and my lingerie drawer stash. . . and . . ."

"Oh, yeah, Savannah," Atlanta called after her with a merry tone that made Savannah consider sister-cide, "my driver's been a super nice guy; be sure to tip him really good, okay?"

Ten minutes later, the three women and the 237 pieces of luggage were inside, and the pouting cabby had been dispatched. The fifty-dollar tip had depressed,

rather than impressed, him.

"Gee, Savannah, you're getting cheap in your old age," Atlanta told her as she helped herself to a bottle 3f Tammy's diet herb tea in the refrigerator. "I mean, that was downright embarrassing, you stiffing him like that."

Two of Savannah's three remaining nerves snapped. 'Embarrassing? You were humiliated, were you? What if [ hadn't been able to pay him at all? You'd be out there, gashing, waxing, and vacuuming his cab right now, 31ushing up a storm."

Atlanta plopped down on a chair at the kitchen table

Ind twisted the top off the bottle, a completely disgrunled look on her face. Tammy sat across from her, pre- :ending to shuffle and sort a stack of papers. Her eyes :winlded; she found the Reid clan an unending source entertainment.

"Just out of curiosity, why didn't you call me and let ne know you were coming?" Savannah asked. "I could lave picked you up at the airport and saved myself a

:couple of hundred bucks."

Atlanta's bottom lip protruded. "I wanted to see your

face when you realized I'd come to visit you. And, now I'm sorry! did, because you didn't seem all that happy to see me."

Maternal guilt pangs stabbed at Savannah's conscience.

. . along with some accompanying anger. Why did she always lose with this kid? Whatever she did, it was never enough. She seemed destined to blow it somehow.

"To be honest, 'Lartta," she said, walking over and laying her hands on the girl's shoulders, "I was worried to see how much weight you've lost."

Atlanta beamed. "I know! Are you proud of me, or what?! I've got another twenty pounds or so to lose, but I'm getting there."

"Twenty pounds?" Savannah glanced across the table at Tammy, who appeared to be as shocked as she was. And if superthin, ultra-health-conscious Tammy was concerned . . .

"You don't need to lose anything, Atlanta," Tammy said. "You're very slender as you are. What sort of diet have you been on?"

Atlanta's defense shields rose as she took a long

drink of the tea and avoided looking at either of them. "I've just been watching what I eat," she finally said. "Cutting out the junk food, you know, all that garbage you eat, Savannah. Which, by the way, I can see you've picked up a couple of pounds since I saw you last. Especially in your hips. But that's always been your problem area, hasn't it? I guess I take after Mom's side of the family, because I've never had a problem with my hips and . .

Wandering over to the stove, Savannah looked at her eggs, which now looked like yellow-and-white rubber

1

W.S.V.A. Mae 4.146.

with dried, brown ruffles around the edges. Her grits had congealed into a pasty glob. The distinct, bitter ;men of burned biscuits was wafting from the oven.

And she couldn't even run over to the local IHOP

For strawberry cheese blintzes; she had given the cabby her last dollar.

Suddenly, she felt older and more tired than dirt.

Picking up her coffee cup, she fortified it with a gen..rous splash of Baileys Irish Cream, then said, "You two, rat ... or don't eat, whatever you can find. Just make yourself at home, 'Lanta. I'm going back to bed for an hour or two. I had a rough night."

As she shuffled through the living room, she heard her sister's voice reaching out to her . . . , "Savannah, :ould you take up some of those bags? You know, since you're going up anyway."

Marion Lippincott had organized 289 beauty pageants

her career, and she was darned good at it. Ac:ustomed to the chaotic flutter of belles and gowns, iantic stage mothers and frenzied coaches, florists and leamstresses, beauticians and musicians, nothing fazed The Lip". . . as she was not-so-fondly called. . . but never

her face.

Over the rims of those tortoiseshell glasses that per3etually

perched on the end of her nose she had seen it

And, about a hundred years ago, she had done it all. ['hough her once-auburn locks were now a short, silver )ob, and her crowns and banners were packed away in I trunk at the foot of her bed, she knew the pageant world inside and out.

And although many of the people scurrying about

he gallery of the Villa Rosa Winery considered this one

of the most important events of their lives, to Lippincott it was just number 289. She figured she'd retire at 300. Enough was enough.

"Whose bright idea was it to have this at a winery?" sounded a whiny voice in her left ear. Marion glanced up from her notebook for a half second, long enough to recognize the speaker as a professional pageant mom

and not someone who required diplomatic handling, like a sponsor.

"It was my idea," she replied curtly, "a damned bright one. I'm glad you agree. Has your Desiree registered yet?"

The mom sputtered, stammered, then shook her head.

"I suggest she do so, right away. M through Z is set up in the tasting room." She flipped open her notebook to the accommodations chart. "She'll be rooming with Eileen Freeport in 2F . up the stairs, on the right."

"With Eileen!? No, they hate each other. Remember, I wrote you three months ago and asked that she be

with--"

"Room 2F. Registration, Mrs. Porter, registration." She snapped her fingers and the discontented Mrs. Porter disappeared.

Marion strode across the gallery, the hub of Villa Rosa's busy visitors' center. Situated on the Ventura Highway, north of Los Angeles, but south of Hearst Castle, Villa Rosa was a popular spot along the Southern California tourist trail. The gallery--which was round, its walls paneled with oak taken from ancient barrels--itself looked like the inside of an enormous vat. Evidence of Villa Rosa's prestigious past was everywhere in the antique winemaking memorabilia. There were photos of five generations of Villas, all of whom had been masters at their art, while glass cases

IVIClieVett

D4 (y.E1

1

kleld the ribbons, medals, and awards for excellence that had been bestowed upon them over the decades. To the right lay the tasting room, a luxurious affair, much larger than the average California winery provided.