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“What do you mean?”  Adelaide raised an eyebrow.  Lifting her fork to her lips, she took a delicate bite of her coconut cream pie.

“It’s simple.”  Dallas Jean glanced at her fork, frowned, picked up her piece of peanut butter pie and began to eat it like pizza.  Peanut butter cream dangled offer her fingertips and smeared over her wrist and palm.  “Norman is an arrogant, power-seeking jerk.”

“He’s been like that since he was a child.”  Miss Maisie plopped down at the table next to them, cradling the puppy in her arms.  The puppy leaned over her elbow, sniffing Dallas Jean’s peanut butter pie and licking his lips.

“Get your own,” Dallas Jean snarled.  With peanut butter cream and pie crust crumbs dribbling down her chin, she took another enormous bite of pie.  “If Norman is nasty, the thing we can do to really get under his skin is be perfectly nice.”

Adelaide took another delicate bite, licking the coconut cream off her fork.  “I prefer violence.”

“As do I.”  The rest of the peanut butter pie disappeared between Dallas Jean’s crumb encrusted lips.   “But imagine this.”  She held up her hands, waving them about to create a scene.  Crumbs and peanut butter cream flung all over the gingham table cloth.  “A humble family walking down the street, playing kite in the park, having a pizza dinner on Sunday night at the neighborhood pizza joint.  Even though the woman’s husband is trying to beat her for mayor and her daughter is trying to slander her with her poisoned pen, she maintains grace and elegance.  And then the camera pans to a televised debate, where it sees her laughing and joking with her husband’s manager backstage…who looks like a surly, rude peacock.”

Her eyes flashed and she leaned forward, her chest plastering to the whipped cream on her butterscotch pie.  “It’s brilliant.   All the press will see is a classy, kind, jovial woman.  All Norman will do is drag my name through the mud.  Grayson will give his usual PR crap answers:  “I love my wife.  This is about the town, not my family.”  Blah, blah, blah.  It’s fool proof.”  Leaning back, she picked up her fork and shoved one empty pie plate over.  Frowning at the divet in her butterscotch pie, she pursed her lips.  “Who stole my whipped cream?”

“You did.”  Adelaide pointed to her shirt, still working on her own coconut cream pie.  Miss Maisie stifled a laugh as Dallas leaned back, pulling her shirt across her large bosom to inspect the damage.

“I always do that,” she muttered, dabbing at her shirt with a napkin.  Shrugging, she plucked a butterscotch chip from between two rhinestone buttons and popped it in her mouth.  Sliding her fork through the pie, she wiggled her eyebrows.  “So what do you think?”

Adelaide nibbled on her coconut cream pie crust.  “I think I still prefer violence.”  Her fingers flexed, curling into small fists.  Picking up her fork, she took her final bite.  “I’d like nothing more than to slap him.  Or kick him.  Or get a frying pan and whack him in the head…”

Miss Maisie raised an eyebrow, leaning back.  The puppy, taken farther from the pie crumbs his tongue was desperately seeking for, whimpered in protest.

“You know, something simple and classic,” Adelaide continued, moving onto her chocolate cream pie.  “Poison or a quick gunshot or I could just run him over with my truck…”

“Splatter him like the bug he is,” Dallas Jean muttered.  Beaming, she gulped down an obscene amount of butterscotch pie.  “As fun as that would be, I still like my plan.  You know what my mama, bless her heart, always said.  You always catch more flies with vinegar than honey.”

Adelaide narrowed her eyes.  “His aura is black as coal.  If I ever had to do a psychic reading on him, I’d run away screaming.”

Miss Maisie perked up.  “Could you do one on me?”  The puppy, now inches from Dallas Jean’s third slice of pie, lapped up fallen peanut butter crumbs eagerly.

“I didn’t know you were a pie thief,” Dallas Jean muttered sternly, moving her third plate closer and curling her elbow around it.

“Sure,” Adelaide replied to Miss Maisie.  “I’ve got my charts in my car.  Just let me finish this…”

“While you do that, I’m going to devise our first flytrap,” Dallas Jean announced.  She beamed, whipped cream and butterscotch smeared on her chin and cheeks.  “By tomorrow, Norman is going to look like the ass he is.”  Pleased with herself, she treated herself to a third piece of pie.

————————————————————————————-

Clementine Jane slammed the front door of her house.  Her father, lounging in a leather chair, looked up so fast his glasses slipped down his nose.

“Problems?” he inquired, a gentle smile across his handsome features.

Clementine Jane snarled.  “Why did you and Mom both have to run for mayor?  It’s ridiculous.  Why do you want to even be mayor anyway?”

“Are you asking me as a father or a source?” her father asked, eyeing her pen and pad warily.

Clementine Jane screamed, throwing her pen and paper across the room.  It skid across the wooden floorboards, crashing into the wall with a thud.  “See, that’s exactly what I mean!” she bellowed.  “No one in this family can talk to each other any more.  There’s all these secrets and questions and plots and campaigns.”  She tore her fingers through her hair, tears in her eyes.  “I want to know what’s happening,” she cried, her voice catching on a sob.  “I want to know if Grandpa and Mom were crooks.  I want to know why you insist on running.  I want to know what’s going to happen to us if one of you–God forbid it’s Mom–wins the campaign.”  She shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks.  “I want to know, but I can’t.”

“Honey, I”–  Her father stood, stretching out his hand.  Clementine Jane backed away, shaking her head.

“I can’t,” she cried.  “I can’t, don’t you see?  How am I supposed to know all this and not report it?  How do I know what I can know as a daughter and not as the press?”

“Honey, I think we’re more important than a newspaper article,” her father chided, reaching for her.  “Please…”

Clementine Jane pressed her lips together, tears flowing from her red eyes.  “The truth is important, Dad.  And what is the truth?  That’s all I’ve ever wanted to know.”  She shook her head.  “And if I can’t find out the truth as your daughter, then I’ll do it as a reporter.”  Her voice wavered.  “Even though I’d much prefer the other way.”  Weeping, she ran upstairs to her room.  Her untouched notepad lay on the floor, the blank pages rustling as she raced past.

Standing alone in his living room, Grayson Lee had the feeling his world was about to come collapsing down around him.  And as he had thought every day since he announced his campaign, he wondered if he was making a big mistake.

Stay tuned, Invisible Friends!  Tomorrow we have a new Land of the Flowered Bed and next week, more whimsy and delicious treats!

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