Lady pranced up beside me. “Well, you told her.”
My body was a jumble of nerves. My fingers shook, and my head throbbed. I suppose that my blood pressure was up, too, thanks to the stress of the confrontation.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go find Malene and the gang. Maybe there will be less drama with them.”
Unfortunately there wasn’t less drama when I found Malene.
Rufus stood off to the side, minding his own business picking apples, while Malene and Leola Vass both plucked apples from the same tree.
“I was here first,” Malene griped.
Norma Ray, who stood one tree over, spoke up. “Technically that’s not true, Malene. Leola is older than you, so really, she was here first—as in, on the Earth.”
“Whose side are you on?” Malene asked.
It seemed to occur to Norma Ray that she was about to turn her close friend into an enemy. Her eyes widened, and she quickly said, “I’m on your side.”
“Then be quiet and let me do the talking.” Malene turned to Leola. “We all know that you cheat.”
Leola’s eyes widened. “Malene, you know I’d never do such a thing. I’m not the cheater in all this—you are.”
Malene’s mouth puckered sourly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I think you do.” Leola caught sight of me. “Is this Clementine? I heard you finally told the girl the truth, that you’re her grandmother.”
Malene looked like she wanted to dump her basket of apples over Leola’s head. “What I do is none of your business.”
“It isn’t anymore, is it?”
Malene took a threatening step forward. “Why don’t you take your camper that’s normally parked down by the river and run it into the water so that we can all finally be rid of you?”
Wow. I had gone from a bad situation to a worse one. Lucky me.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Leola got so close to Malene that I was sure they would bump bellies and start sumo wrestling. “You’d love to just watch me disappear, never to return, but someone has to keep you accountable, Malene Fredericks, and that someone is me.”
Malene’s face turned a bright red. She looked about an inch away from exploding. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Leola.”
The other woman folded her arms. “Oh, I don’t, do I? Why don’t we just ask Willard about that?”
Malene poked her finger in Leola’s face. “Like I said, you need to stay out of situations that you don’t know anything about.”
“I know all about it.” She hoisted her pants up to sit just beneath her bosom. “And if we need to, we can call him over here.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Malene snapped.
Leola bent over until she was inches from Malene. “Try me.”
“If I still had my spell-hunting abilities, I would use them to find a spell to turn you into a chicken so that I could wring your neck and eat you for dinner.”
Leola gasped. “Cannibal! You’re a cannibal. I always knew you were sick, but I never knew you were that sick, Malene.”
Rufus stepped up. Finally. Someone was going to stop the two women. “Why don’t you both take a moment? Leola, from what I understand, you’ve won this competition several years in a row. You aren’t going to win if you’re arguing with Malene. And Malene”—he turned to her—“you won’t win either, if you stop picking.”
“I’d hate to let my team down,” Malene grumbled. “I know something about friendship and not hurting people’s feelings.”
“Ha!” Leola cackled. “Best be looking in the mirror again, because the last I checked, you don’t know anything about being loyal.”
“Ladies,” Rufus said in a seductive voice, “I know how much fun it is to have some verbal banter, but perhaps you should save it until after the competition. Leola, you wouldn’t be interested in sharing your secret—how you win every year—with a fellow like me, would you?”
