Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Tallula

S afely back in the Lexus and with Moink in her passenger-side safety seat, I flip on my phone to relay the theft to my social media followers. First, I notice all the notifications. A little surge rushes through me. Yay! I'm still relevant. Then I read some of them.

The little red hearts fade inside of me and turn dark and sticky, leaving me with a queasy feeling. The late night with my so-called friends and everything that ensued isn't getting the round of applause they'd promised.

People only like me when I'm Little Miss Good Girl. Instead of seeing themselves in the social media mirror, they saw my reflection and forgot about their bad choices. Until now. After my escapades, I'm no different. I let them drag me down to their level.

The thunder of the license plate frame theft quiets, and the rant I was about to share turns into an apology for my recent behavior—as if my former friends even care. I lose steam and promptly regret clicking publish .

My phone instantly rings. It's the Wicked Witch of the South—that's what Mara calls our mother. I answer on the second to last ring.

"Sources say you're in town." Like me, she refuses to associate herself with Hogwash. When asked, she refers to the place where she lives as Marais Way—the bougie part of town by the water.

"Hello, Mother. Sources are correct."

Her barely restrained silence demands an explanation from me.

"Things didn't work out with Peter."

"Tallula, you were hardly married for three months."

"That's the problem. We weren't married."

"You could've tried harder."

Looking back, that wasn't the issue. "Mother, you didn't approve of Peter."

As if my other comment computed, or she doesn't want to discuss how she practically disowned me when she found out we eloped, she asks, "What do you mean you weren't married ?"

I do my best to describe what happened without her turning it around and making it my fault.

"I hope you have a good lawyer."

"I'm working on that." I just wish it would all go away. "In the meantime, I'll be helping Mara."

"Why she got it in her head to open a coffee shop, I'll never understand. Right there on Main Street, of all places. I'm still in the loop. You can never be too careful. That town is rampant with criminals and crooks. Law enforcement consists of degenerates. The place has gone to the dogs. The real money is in syrup. Then you invest right and you're set for life. If you'd been smart, you would've been a good girl and married Belvedere Winston or at the very least got a business degree instead of—" I stop listening. As usual, she bulldozes the conversation.

"Mother, I have to go." I say goodbye and quickly end the call before she gives me more reminders of how all my failings were because I wasn't good enough.

Moink gives me a plaintive look, big glossy round eyes bulging. I scratch her little smoosh-faced head.

In my puppy baby voice, I say, "What else should we expect from her? You're a good girl. A good good girl. Yes, you are. Let's find your aunt's coffee shop."

I cruise past the town clock—it's still only right twice a day. Back in high school, the town hooligan thought it would be funny to mess with it.

When I left Hogwash, I purposefully said that I was from outside New Orleans. Like my mother, I never mentioned this town because I didn't want to be shabby by association. Harsh, I know.

I could turn around and go back the way I came. While living in Hollywood Hills, I never experienced a robbery, although our security surveillance company did report once that someone had been pilfering the trash bin.

The Laughing Gator Grille and the This & That look like a photo captured in time—they haven't changed either. Plywood covers the windows of the community center. An abundance of old cassette tapes with the magnetic ribbon blowing in the wind dam up the gutter. The marque on the Flying Pig Theater, where I starred in Oliver Twist, Annie, and a Midsummer Night's Dream before moving on to high school productions says, Save the Pig!

If I didn't know better, I'd think I was on the set of a post-apocalyptic movie.

Never mind save the pigs. This whole town needs help. Too bad there isn't a billionaire benefactor who could swoop in and save the day. We had one of those once, and now all that's left are ruins.

" Un welcome, home, Llula," I whisper, suddenly feeling like the car and I both run on little more than fumes. Good thing I didn't take the Tesla. I can't imagine there's a charging station nearby.

Moink lets out a squeaky little growl.

I'm glad I left without a glance back when I did. Can't say I'll be staying long. But this begs the question, why did Mara return to Hogwash and put down roots?

Then I roll past a newly constructed building and do a double take. It's stucco and three stories with upper-level balconies wrapped with ornate cast-iron railings and dripping with flower boxes. They overlook the town, but perhaps there is also a view of the bayou beyond. Floor-to-ceiling windows sit behind a wide front porch stacked with boxes likely awaiting a trip to the dump.

With Moink in my arms, I ask, "Whoa. What has your auntie been up to? "

We use an entrance on the side adjacent to the main parking lot, which looks like it'll be the main one. It's a bit more modern with a big glass door but has a cast iron grate over it along with louvered storm doors that are propped open. It reminds me of photos of Granny's photos of Hogwash in its heyday with the charming French Quarter influence.

When I go inside, a team of people bustle around. The ground floor is fairly standard with a big coffee bar toward the back, display cases, bags of coffee beans, a couple of grinding machines, and a blank menu board on the wall.

A cluster of tables and chairs in various stages of completion fills the front area along with several cushy chairs under protective plastic.

Glancing up and wondering why the building is so tall, I'm truly impressed. There are various nooks and lofts, some accessible by the main staircase and others with the rolling ladder which crisscrosses a broad wooden shelf.

A team of people bustle around. My sister, Mara, orchestrates it all with a baby on one hip and a tablet in her free hand. In a commanding voice, she hollers, "Those boxes belong up here." Her harsh expression dissolves, and she singsongs to the baby with brown curls. "The boxes belong up here, yes they do. The boxes belong up here, yes they do. This place is a zoo and you smell like poo. What am I going to do?"

Before I can get my sister's attention, she hurries behind a door labeled Bathroom .

Heels clicking on the tile floor, Moink and I take a spin around the room, picturing other Coffee Loft branches—they never fail to make the perfect latte. I appreciate how each one is unique with a fresh feel yet the branding across them gives me a sense of the familiar.

I have to give my sister credit for launching this endeavor with three kids—Julip, the youngest, is just over twelve months old.

With all the people working, it's rather like a movie set, making me question why I left Hollywood instead of Peter. Technically, I won the duel at high noon, got the last laugh, and showed him—or whatever my final line would've been in the script had I been acting and the breakup not been real life.

The bathroom door opens and my sister's gaze locks on me then the dog and then me. I get a mini cascade of internal heart likes but know better than to expect warm and fuzzy from Mara.

She wears a smile, but my sister doesn't so much as say hello and gets right down to business. "I see that life didn't treat you so bad that you had to sell your ostentatious designer thing." She flicks my Louis Vuitton. For a second there I thought she meant my precious pooch.

With an annoyed huff, I say, "It's a limited edition from the Mermaid Collection."

"It looks like a sea witch got sick and?—"

I pout. "Let me have my riches to rag moment."

Mara squawks a laugh. "Remember that time you played Annie at the Flying Pig Theater?"

If there's a punchline, I miss it, but I'm not about to admit that to my intelligent and clever big sister. "I was just reminiscing about my start on the stage," I say wistfully.

She doesn't hear me as she answers a call.

In reality, the Swans have never had a rags moment—our family was wealthy from the beginning. Our mother's inheritance only added to our parents' bank account. It wasn't a stretch to play the role of Jennifer Buellton-Klinger, a rich socialite. All I had to do was impersonate Sandrine Swan.

Having lived in Los Angeles and been around A-list people, I've realized there are two brands of "rich." Some flaunt it, jet around, drive fast cars, and do everything they can to impress anyone watching. Then there's old money like my parents whose noses are most often in the air, who have the finest of everything and work hard to keep up with Joneses and the Jaspars, and the Janviers, but otherwise keep a relatively low profile—minus the mansion, sailboat, and luxury trips to Europe.

In other words, there are loud, look at me rich people, and the quieter, you can't help but notice how the other half live rich people.

I'm not sure where I fit in except with one foot on each side—I grew up in the latter and spent the last decade building my career around the former.

In high school, I was the small-town princess cliche who left to hit it big in Hollywood, only to return home without a shiny gold award. No glitz. Zero glam.

Where does that leave me? Right back in Hogwash Holler .

Eventually, Peter will catch up with me. Maybe the authorities too, after what I did. There will be a reckoning. He'll want his credit card back. I'd like all the money of mine that he spent. Maybe Mara can help me come up with the receipts and a legal case.

She says something about shiny things going missing around town. "I heard that you were the latest target of theft. You're just lucky those earrings of yours weren't snatched too. They're sparkly. It sounds like the Bling Ring struck again."

For a moment, I think she's talking about how my life was practically stolen from me before I realize she means the license plate cover. News travels fast in Hogwash.

"Well, it was bling, but not a ring. It was the frame thingy that went around my license plate."

"I meant ring as in a group of organized criminals. At least, that's the word on the street. Some speculate that when a recent group of people failed at finding Tickle's Golden Tokens, they turned to a life of crime, stealing shiny things."

She eyes Moink's ID tag with its pink rhinestones and her heart-shaped sunglasses. "What is that?"

"Meet Moink."

My dog makes her oink-bark, and the baby burbles happily.

I shake my head. "Don't tell me people still follow that nonsense about the riddles and Tickle's Tokens."

"The scavenger hunt isn't as popular as it once was, but people still come looking, hoping for a big payday. "

I glance toward the tall front windows. "Looks like they've been picking over the town."

"It's certainly not like it used to be."

"And what it used to be wasn't that great to begin with," I mutter.

Mara hitches a mischievous smile. "Granny always said you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

I cover my dog's ears. "Moink, do not listen to her."

"Speaking of bling, with this rash of thefts and our new deputy sheriff on the case, Mother is obsessing about Granny's engagement ring, claiming none of us are safe."

"That again? I thought she'd given up on it when Father bought her the Toussaint diamond earrings."

"You've been warned," Mara says gravely.

Little does my sister know I have no plans to visit our parents. Also, I couldn't have come at a more convenient time since they're on their annual autumn trip to France.

"Are you staying at their place?"

"Not a chance." If I did, I'd owe them something.

"All I have to offer is an air mattress and in the hallway."

I wrinkle my nose.

Mara chortles. "As Granny says, ‘Beggars can't be choosers."

"She's never had to beg for a thing in her life."

Supposedly, the diamond in Granny's engagement ring was a fragment from the legendary Dubois Diamond, possibly pirate treasure, found by the Boot Beer Boys over by the Metairie Fort. The Swans claim that the Lawson family was behind a sizable loss of funds years ago when my grandfather was still alive. Shortly after, the ring went missing. Conclusions were drawn. A feud started. No one will ever know I kissed Jesse Lawson. End of story.

"Anything else I should know?" Almost afraid to hear the answer, I pet Moink to soothe my nerves.