The Good Luck Girls of Shipwreck Lane by Kelly Harms

Author:Kelly Harms
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

NEAN

“[Lobsters] also have the discomforting distinction of being just about the only food we cook live.”

—PAM ANDERSON, The Perfect Recipe

Janey is in love. It’s the most obnoxious thing you’ve ever seen. For the last two weeks she’s been going into town with Aunt Midge more and more frequently, leaving me stuck here miles from everything and going wild from boredom. Every second that J.J. is off gardening somewhere and unavailable to entertain me feels like a lifetime. But Janey is oblivious to my anguish. When she comes back from Little Pond she hums to herself like Snow White. I keep expecting squirrels to come into the house and fix her hair.

And she’s been falling down on her cooking duties, which is the most upsetting part of all. The other day she came home holding a bucket of fried chicken from some roadside shack north of here. She actually served it to us like real food. It was the craziest thing you’ve ever seen—Janey Brown putting down a cardboard bucket in the middle of the table and saying, “Dinner is served.” Of course, she made coleslaw from scratch to go with, so it’s not like she’s had a lobotomy. But it’s the principle of the thing.

The worst part is she won’t talk about it at all, to anyone. You can tell she’s way into this guy, it’s as plain as the egg on my face. But she won’t tell me anything, no matter how much I pester her, which is a lot. Aunt Midge says she doesn’t know anything either. She seems annoyed that I’m in the dark about all this, and I know I’m falling down on the job as Janey’s confidante. What if Aunt Midge gets sick of my ineptitude and tells me to take a hike? You heard the woman: I’m here to be a friend to Janey, and that’s it. If she stops needing my company, I’m obsolete.

I’ve got to find a way to make her talk. Maybe if I hide her chef’s knife.

I’m plotting this when I see J.J. coming toward the house. He’s wearing the holey jeans and baseball cap that are his uniform for garden work, so I know he’s not here just to see me. But nevertheless, my heart does that little leap thing when I see him. I try to ignore it. It’s irritating how cute he can be.

I greet him and tell him about what’s on my mind: Janey’s reticence to spill the beans. His eyebrows go way, way up. “Maybe she doesn’t know how she feels yet, and she just needs time to sort it out privately,” he conjectures, and I wonder if he’s talking about Janey or himself.

“All the more reason to talk to her confidante, moi, about it. Besides, she owes it to me to explain why she’s hogging all the drives into town.”

“I thought you told me you didn’t want to have to drive Aunt Midge all the time,” he says.

“You really should consider experimenting with more illicit drugs,” I tell him.

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