Read Online Ain't She Sweet? by Susan Elizabeth Phillips - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Susan Elizabeth Phillips
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to be philosophical. A great woman learns to rise above, Sugar Beth. Let him have his piece of trash. I have Frenchman’s Bride.
Whenever Sugar Beth raged over being forced to go to school with Winnie, Diddie turned uncharacteristically harsh. Nothing’s worse than other people’s pity. You keep your back straight and remember that someday everything he owns will be yours.
But Diddie had been wrong. In the end, he’d changed his will and left everything to Sabrina and Winnie Davis.
The stylish woman standing before her bore little resemblance to the introverted outcast who used to trip over her feet if anyone spoke to her. The old sense of powerlessness crept through Sugar Beth. As a child, she hadn’t been able to control the behavior of any of the adults in her life, so she’d exerted her power in the only way she knew how—over her father’s illegitimate daughter.
Winnie stood motionless near an old pie chest. “What are you doing here?”
She could never say she’d come looking for a job. “I—I saw the shop. I didn’t know it was yours.”
Winnie regained her composure more quickly. “Are you interested in anything special?”
Where had her poise come from? The Winnie Davis Sugar Beth remembered had turned red when anyone spoke to her.
“N-no. I’m just looking.” Sugar Beth heard the stammer in her voice and knew by the flicker of satisfaction in Winnie’s eyes that she’d heard it, too.
“I just got a new shipment in from Atlanta. There are some wonderful old perfume bottles.” She curled her fingers over the strand of perfectly matched pearls at her neck.
Sugar Beth stared at the pearls. They looked so—
“I love perfume bottles, don’t you?”
All the blood rushed from her head. Winnie was wearing Diddie’s pearls . . .
“Whenever I see an old perfume bottle, I always wonder about the woman who owned it.” Her fingers caressed the necklace, the gesture deliberate. Cruel.
Sugar Beth couldn’t do this. She couldn’t stand here and look at Diddie’s pearls around Winnie Davis’s neck.
She turned toward the door, but she moved too quickly and bumped against one of the tables the same way Winnie used to bump against desks at school. A brass candlestick wobbled, then fell and rolled to the edge. She didn’t stop to pick it up.
D inner’s gonna be nasty tonight, and not just because we’re having steak, which I ree-fuse to eat due to global warming, et cetera, but because of Her. Why can’t she be more like Chelsea’s mom instead of having such a stick up her butt all the time? I’m not anything like her, no matter what Nana Sabrina says. And I’m not a rich bitch, either.
I hate Kelli Willman.
“Gigi, dinner’s ready.”
As her mother called from the bottom of the stairs, Gigi reluctantly closed the spiral notebook that held the secret diary she’d been keeping since last year in seventh grade.
She pushed it under her pillow and swung her legs in their baggy corduroys over the side of her bed. She hated her bedroom, which was decorated in this gay Laura Ashley crap her mother luvvved. Gigi wanted to paint the room either black or purple and trade in all the prehistoric antique furniture for some of the awesome stuff she’d seen at Pier One.
Since Win-i-fred wouldn’t let her do that, Gigi’d stuck up rock posters everywhere, the nastier the better.
Setting the table was her job, but when she got to the kitchen, she saw that her mother had already done it. “Did you wash your hands?”
“No, madre, I dragged them through the dirt on my way downstairs.”
Her mother’s lips got tight. “Toss the salad, will you?”
Chelsea’s mom wore low-riders, but Gigi’s mom still had on the boring gray slacks and sweater she’d worn to work. She wanted Gigi to keep on dressing like last year in seventh grade, in all kinds of crap from the Bloomingdale’s catalogue. Her mother didn’t understand what it was like to have everybody call you Miss Rich Bitch behind
Whenever Sugar Beth raged over being forced to go to school with Winnie, Diddie turned uncharacteristically harsh. Nothing’s worse than other people’s pity. You keep your back straight and remember that someday everything he owns will be yours.
But Diddie had been wrong. In the end, he’d changed his will and left everything to Sabrina and Winnie Davis.
The stylish woman standing before her bore little resemblance to the introverted outcast who used to trip over her feet if anyone spoke to her. The old sense of powerlessness crept through Sugar Beth. As a child, she hadn’t been able to control the behavior of any of the adults in her life, so she’d exerted her power in the only way she knew how—over her father’s illegitimate daughter.
Winnie stood motionless near an old pie chest. “What are you doing here?”
She could never say she’d come looking for a job. “I—I saw the shop. I didn’t know it was yours.”
Winnie regained her composure more quickly. “Are you interested in anything special?”
Where had her poise come from? The Winnie Davis Sugar Beth remembered had turned red when anyone spoke to her.
“N-no. I’m just looking.” Sugar Beth heard the stammer in her voice and knew by the flicker of satisfaction in Winnie’s eyes that she’d heard it, too.
“I just got a new shipment in from Atlanta. There are some wonderful old perfume bottles.” She curled her fingers over the strand of perfectly matched pearls at her neck.
Sugar Beth stared at the pearls. They looked so—
“I love perfume bottles, don’t you?”
All the blood rushed from her head. Winnie was wearing Diddie’s pearls . . .
“Whenever I see an old perfume bottle, I always wonder about the woman who owned it.” Her fingers caressed the necklace, the gesture deliberate. Cruel.
Sugar Beth couldn’t do this. She couldn’t stand here and look at Diddie’s pearls around Winnie Davis’s neck.
She turned toward the door, but she moved too quickly and bumped against one of the tables the same way Winnie used to bump against desks at school. A brass candlestick wobbled, then fell and rolled to the edge. She didn’t stop to pick it up.
D inner’s gonna be nasty tonight, and not just because we’re having steak, which I ree-fuse to eat due to global warming, et cetera, but because of Her. Why can’t she be more like Chelsea’s mom instead of having such a stick up her butt all the time? I’m not anything like her, no matter what Nana Sabrina says. And I’m not a rich bitch, either.
I hate Kelli Willman.
“Gigi, dinner’s ready.”
As her mother called from the bottom of the stairs, Gigi reluctantly closed the spiral notebook that held the secret diary she’d been keeping since last year in seventh grade.
She pushed it under her pillow and swung her legs in their baggy corduroys over the side of her bed. She hated her bedroom, which was decorated in this gay Laura Ashley crap her mother luvvved. Gigi wanted to paint the room either black or purple and trade in all the prehistoric antique furniture for some of the awesome stuff she’d seen at Pier One.
Since Win-i-fred wouldn’t let her do that, Gigi’d stuck up rock posters everywhere, the nastier the better.
Setting the table was her job, but when she got to the kitchen, she saw that her mother had already done it. “Did you wash your hands?”
“No, madre, I dragged them through the dirt on my way downstairs.”
Her mother’s lips got tight. “Toss the salad, will you?”
Chelsea’s mom wore low-riders, but Gigi’s mom still had on the boring gray slacks and sweater she’d worn to work. She wanted Gigi to keep on dressing like last year in seventh grade, in all kinds of crap from the Bloomingdale’s catalogue. Her mother didn’t understand what it was like to have everybody call you Miss Rich Bitch behind
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