Cricket figured Anna Grace would stutter and stammer, but she smiled.
“We took a blanket out into a field of Texas bluebonnets to watch the sunrise. He’s very inventive with our dates, and we have so much fun together. He’s taught me that money isn’t everything and helped me find my inner self,” Anna Grace answered. “Right when the sun came up that morning, he brought out the ring and asked me to marry him, and I said yes. Now what do I do?”
“Well, since you said yes, I suppose that you should marry him,” Cricket answered, but she still didn’t believe all of this was real.
“I’ve always dreamed of having a big wedding with the fancy dress, at least eight bridesmaids, a blowout reception, and all the trimmings, but I know if I tell Mama that I’m engaged to Tommy Bluestone, I’ll have to give all that up.” Anna Grace sighed.
“A wedding is a day. A marriage is a lifetime,” Cricket told her. “Jennie Sue and Rick didn’t have a big wedding. They went to Las Vegas and got married in one of those funny little chapels out there. You have to decide whether you want a big wedding or a marriage. At least, that’s the way it looks to me.” Cricket didn’t give a flip about a huge event, if and when she ever got married, but she did want a man to look at her the same way her brother looked at Jennie Sue. That was pure love, and it beat the hell out of a fancy dress, a string of bridesmaids, and a four-foot wedding cake.
“Tell me more about Tommy. Why are your folks so set against him? Teaching school is an honorable profession.”
“That’s what I told them back when we had been dating a few months,” Anna Grace sighed. “But they informed me that I’d been raised in a better lifestyle than he could ever offer and reminded me that I made five times what he did in a year working at Daddy’s oil company, but my job would come to an end the day I married Tommy. That’s how much they’re against me and him having a happy ever after.”
“What’s money compared to love?” Cricket asked. “You go to work. You come home, have supper together, talk about your day, and then spend the night in each other’s arms. Tell me where you would live if you decided to go against your folks.”
“Tommy has a small, one-bedroom apartment in Sweetwater. The whole thing is about the size of my walk-in closet. The Belles will shun me worse than they did Jennie Sue if I do this. Mama and Daddy swore three years ago that they would disown me if I marry him.”
“Do his parents accept you?” Cricket asked.
“Oh, yes! He’s the baby of eight kids, and they all are so sweet to me. They invite me to everything—birthdays, anniversaries, holidays—and they are just awesome. I love spending time with them,” she said.
“What do his folks do, as in jobs?” Cricket asked.
“His mother was a high school math teacher. His father was a history professor at the Tech College. They’re both retired now,” Anna Grace answered.
They sounded like pretty influential folks to Cricket, but then in the eyes of the Belles, she could understand where the Bluestones might not make the social cut.
“How much money do you need to be happy?” Cricket asked. “You could get a job at a rival oil company. That would really piss your folks off.”
“Truth is, I’m not qualified for another job,” Anna Grace said. “I’m just window dressing at the company. I answer Daddy’s phone calls, take coffee to him, and take care of his appointment book. I don’t know anything about managing money or living on my own.”
Cricket remembered sitting in the café and seeing Jennie Sue get off the bus when it stopped across the street. Cricket could hardly believe that the famous and very rich Jennie Sue, the daughter of a Belle, was coming home with just a suitcase and riding on a bus instead of driving a fancy sports car. “I guess it just depends on what you want most. Tommy or money.”
“That’s harsh,” Anna Grace said.
“Maybe so, but it’s the gospel truth, isn’t it?” Cricket was almost believing her, but not quite.
“Tommy wants us to get married at the end of summer on the beach at Padre Island. He has a friend who has a cabin down there that he’s willing to let us have for a whole week for our honeymoon.” Anna Grace sighed again. “Daddy said that if I make Mama happy, then I can have a honeymoon on the Riviera in France.”
“Again, Tommy or money? What will make you smile like you did when Tommy opened that box you’ve still got in your hand? What are you going to remember the most about your wedding and honeymoon on your fiftieth wedding anniversary?” Cricket asked. “Answer those questions, and you’ll know what means the most to you.”
Test her, the voice in Cricket’s head whispered.
“Want a cup of coffee?” Cricket asked. “There’s also some leftover blueberry muffins under the cake dome if you want one.”
“I’d love both, but I’ll get them. You don’t need to wait on me,” Anna Grace said.
“I didn’t plan on it.” Cricket took a sip of her lukewarm coffee and pushed her office chair back. “I’m going to heat my coffee up in the microwave. Those muffins might be better if you give them about ten seconds.”
“I can’t cook. I don’t know jack about cleaning, and I’m afraid I’ll be a big disappointment to Tommy.” Anna Grace dabbed at another tear with a paper napkin.
Cricket put her coffee in the microwave. “Looks to me like you’ve got three months to learn. Do you even know how to run one of these to heat up that muffin?”
“Not really.” Anna Grace grimaced. “When I want something like that done, I tell our cook and she takes care of it.”
What would Jennie Sue do? Cricked asked herself.
She would help Anna Grace. The pesky voice in Cricket’s head didn’t help one single bit.
“All right, I hear you loud and clear,” Cricket muttered as she carried her second cup of coffee and a muffin back to her desk.
“What was that?” Anna Grace’s heels made a tapping sound on the tile floor as she followed Cricket back to the desk.
“I can cook. I’m an expert at cleaning and gardening. I have an extra bedroom you can use. And I’ll give you a job here in the bookstore dusting shelves, waiting on customers, sweeping up dead crickets every morning, and dumping the occasional dead mouse out of a trap and into the Dumpster out back. Your current friends don’t come in here very often, but if and when they do, are you willing to let them see you doing that kind of work?” Cricket said.
Anna Grace hesitated for a moment but then nodded.
Cricket went on to say, “At the end of the day you’ll go home with me and help me in the garden, then learn how to cook and clean. It will be a crash course in life. That’s what I can offer if you love Tommy enough to leave your fancy lifestyle.”
“You’d do that for me after the way I’ve treated you?” Anna Grace’s expression showed total shock.
“No, I’ll do it for you because that’s what Jennie Sue would do,” Cricket said. “Leave your high heels at home. The closet in the spare bedroom at my small house isn’t very big, so you will need to limit what you bring to no more than two suitcases. If you don’t have anything fit to pick beans or dig up potatoes or even to clean house in, you can borrow some of my old shirts, but my cutoff jean shorts will be too big for you.”