Sparkle. Jennifer Greene

either of you, even though you were both directly mentioned in her will.” Cal settled back in his old leather desk chair. “The state has always had the peculiar idea that a person’s bills should be paid and that no lien should remain on property or belongings before any legacies can be given away. Also, no one thought Maude Rose had any relatives, partly because she mentioned none in her will and no one ever saw anybody visit her. But that had to be verified, as well, before I could contact either of you. As you might suspect, when there’s money involved, it’s amazing how many shirt-tail relatives can suddenly show up out of the woodwork just in time to make claims.”

      “Mr. Asher,” Bren said quietly, “if Maude Rose mentioned me in any way in her will, you can just give it to charity. I’m certainly not entitled to anything.”

      Poppy rolled her eyes. How sanctimonious could you get? Not that she wanted anything of Maude Rose’s either. The town had treated the poor old woman like dirt. It had always infuriated her.

      And Poppy was quickly guessing what this meeting was really about. Rose had no one, so obviously someone had to clean up her place and dispose of all her junk.

      Hell. She’d roll up her sleeves if she had to. Better than have strangers—or people who’d been mean to her—paw through Maude Rose’s private things.

      “Did you hear me, Poppy?” Cal asked.

      “Nope. Sorry, I drifted off there for a second.” She straightened up, determined to pay more attention. The last thing she wanted was to cause this meeting to drag out any longer than it had to.

      “Well now…Maude Rose felt folks treated her like a pariah. Of course, she was quite a liberal for these parts, marching for women and homosexuals and abortion and atheists and what all.”

      Poppy didn’t want to interrupt, but damn, she could hardly let that go. “Uh, Cal? Being a supporter of women doesn’t exactly label one as a wild-eyed liberal these days.”

      “Maybe not for you, Poppy. Your family has only been in this area for three or four generations,” he said with utter gravity. “But the point I was trying to make was, you know what people thought when they saw Maude Rose. It wasn’t just her politics. It was her walking down the public street in her bedroom slippers, wearing all kinds of gaudy jewelry, hanging out hours in Manny’s Bar. And though most weren’t aware, she’d been losing her sight for some time. Truth to tell, that might have contributed to how flagrantly she dressed sometimes and why folks were so sure she’d lost her noodles.”

      “If she’d lost her mind—or her sight—that was even less excuse for how some treated her,” Bren said gently.

      Cal Asher nodded. “Believe me, I know. Several times, the town council tried to have her put away. Had her tested to see if they could institutionalize her against her will. And then she was arrested twice last year for disturbing the peace. The mayor didn’t take it too kindly when she chose to burn her underwear in his front yard.” Cal scratched his chin. “I seem to have forgotten exactly what that was all about, but it sure got this town buzzing. Anyway…let me read you the paragraph in the will that Maude wrote specifically to you two.”

      Cal opened his desk drawer, fumbled for his glasses and eventually found a pair to prop on his nose. Poppy doubted anyone could see through the lenses, they were so smudged up, but Cal was clearly into drama and he seemed determined to draw this out.

      “‘People liked thinking the worst of me from the day I was born,’” Cal read. “‘Just like everybody else, I’d have lived decent if I’d had the chance or the choice. But I never did. My mom died too young and my daddy was a crook. I was selling my body before I was twelve to put food in my mouth, and I’ll be damned if I should feel guilty for fighting to survive. One person loved me for all I was, all I wanted to be, but Bobby Ray died a long time ago. Since then, I stopped caring. But sometimes it scraped hard when people were so mean. They didn’t know me. They didn’t try to know me. They were just in an all-fired hurry to decide who I was without ever even knocking on my door.’”

      Cal glanced up to make sure they were paying attention, then read on. “‘But there was an exception. Two women in Righteous.’” Cal whispered, “She spelled exception wrong and quite a number of other words, too, but—”

      “Just go on, Cal,” Poppy said. “We already know she wasn’t a Rhodes scholar.”

      “I am, I am.” Cal cleared his throat and put on his speech voice again.

      “‘The same two women stood up for me more than once. And for all the choices I never had, I’d like to give them each a choice or two. It isn’t payback, because kindness never pays back in real life. But I’m dead now, so I don’t have to worry about real life. And I like the idea of giving you two something for no other reason than that you was both good to me.’”

      Cal glanced up again. He looked as if he’d like to spin this out a while longer, but it seemed he only had one more thing to say. “Short and sweet, she left you her jewelry, ladies.”

      “Her jewelry?” Poppy’s jaw almost fell to the floor. She well remembered all the gaudy stones Maude Rose had piled on from her neck to her wrists to her ears and fingers. If there was a cheap rhinestone ever made, Maude Rose seemed to own it.

      “Her jewelry?” Bren echoed and then abruptly chuckled. “I’m sure she meant well, Mr. Asher, but of all the people in the universe who have no use for costume jewelry—”

      “It’s not costume.” And suddenly Cal stopped smiling. “There’s a story behind Maude Rose. Years ago, she had one of her regular johns pay her in bank stock. Seemed that bank stock belonged to his grandpa and it was for a bank that he thought folded during the Depression. Anyhoo…that’s what Maude Rose thought—that the stock was worthless—and she just put it in a box and forgot about it. But later, when her Bobby Ray died, she needed to clean up things, so she brought me this whole grocery bag worth of papers to sort through. It seems that bank had long revived, got a new name, been building interest for years. So it was at that point she knew she had some decent money. She wasn’t going to have to worry about her future anymore.”

      “But I don’t understand,” Poppy interrupted. “I know she had that one-room apartment, but she always looked like a bag lady. No car. We’ve all seen her pay for groceries with change she’d count out one dime at a time. If she had money—”

      “She was afraid.” Cal answered the question that no one had directly asked. “Once her lover died, she was afraid she’d be prey to thieves and gold diggers. So she chose to live in a way that would protect her from anyone knowing how much she had.”

      He pushed one box toward Bren, the other toward Poppy, but then cautioned them both. “We’re not talking millions here, so don’t be getting your hopes up too high. All those baubles aren’t real. But even so, I think you’ll be plum surprised at what she left you. But…”

      Before either could open their boxes, he waggled a finger at them. “I can’t tell you what to do, but I’m telling you this. Maude wanted you two to keep this quiet. She didn’t want your spouses or friends or family or anyone else to know about this. That’s why she insisted I set up this meeting with you two alone. Maude trusted no one. You can understand. People always used her roughly. And that was exactly why she wanted you two to hear about this in the privacy of this office with no one else here—so you’d have something you didn’t have to share. That no one knew about, so they couldn’t take it away from you. Something you could use for a little nest egg or to protect yourself or for something you never dreamed you could have otherwise. I can’t tell you how strongly she felt about this. She didn’t want anyone to try to influence you as to how you used your legacy from her.”

      Enough speeches. Poppy couldn’t wait any longer to push the lid off her box. Hearing the whole story had almost made her believe the contents would be gorgeous…but no.

      She’d seen all this cheap-looking crap on Maude Rose a zillion times. There were a couple of rings as big as her knuckle, earrings so heavy they’d tear out an earlobe. One