Naturally Naughty. Leslie Kelly

returned.

      After their kiss Winfield said, “I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’ve made life bearable for me all these years.”

       Years? Mr. Mayor, the pure saintly leader of Pleasantville, has been having an affair with his cleaning woman for years?

      “Here,” Winfield continued, reaching into his pocket. “Your paycheck. I’m sorry it’s so late, sugar, you know how she is.”

      A sweet smile softened her mother’s face. “I’m okay, John. If she’s overspent again and you’re in need, I can wait a bit.”

      Kate shook her head in shock. The phone bill hadn’t been paid. They’d had canned soup and tuna sandwiches for dinner all week. And her mother was giving back her paycheck to the richest man in town? Worse…the son of a bitch took it.

      Blinking away tears as she acknowledged her respectable, much-loved mother was the willing mistress of a married man, she darted around back. Kate instinctively headed toward the ramshackle tree house where she and Cassie had played as kids, seeking comfort like a child would seek her mother’s arms. Kate whimpered as she realized she no longer had that option. Her mother wasn’t the person she’d always thought she was.

      Looking up as she approached, she saw a glow of light from within and the burning red tip of a cigarette.

       Cassie . Kate paused. She simply could not tell her cousin what she’d witnessed in front of the house. Cassie and Kate had long ago accepted the truth about their mothers. Cassie’s mom, Flo, was the wild charmer who’d let them have makeup parties at age seven, and bought them their first six-pack. They loved her, no matter what the town thought of her outrageous clothes and numerous affairs. But Edie had been the real nurturing mother figure, the kind one who’d dried their tears and encouraged their dreams.

      For Kate, Edie would never be the same. How could she destroy Cassie’s image of Edie, too? In spite of her outward toughness, Kate knew Cassie would be very hurt by this. As hurt as Kate had been. So no, she couldn’t tell her. Not now. Maybe not ever.

      “Kitty Kate, you down there?”

      Wiping away her tears, she climbed the rope ladder. Inside the tree house, Cassie’s golden hair was haloed by candlelight. “Hi.”

      “Hey.” Cassie took another long drag of her cigarette.

      “Got another one?” Kate sat next to her cousin, noting the way their dresses filled up nearly every inch of floor space in the tiny house. Hers a boring pink. Cassie’s a sultry black that screamed seduction and showcased her curvy figure.

      “Last time you smoked you ralphed all over the bathroom.”

      Feeling sick enough already, Kate didn’t risk smoking. “You okay? You skipped out on prom pretty early.”

      “Yeah. I’m sure the gold-plated set missed me real bad.”

      Kate ignored the sarcasm. “I missed you. What happened?”

      Cassie gave a bitter laugh. “Biff said we were going to a party. Turns out he had a two-person, naked party in mind.”

      “Perv.”

      “Total perv. Then he gets pulled over for drunk driving.”

      “You were drinking?” Kate raised a surprised brow, knowing Cassie thought alcohol made guys stupid and mean.

      “No. He wanted to get beer, so we stopped at the store before the prom. He said I should buy it since I look older. Friggin’ moron. Like the clerk wouldn’t notice I was wearing a prom dress.”

      “What’d you do?”

      “I pretended I couldn’t. He found somebody else at the prom who gave him some.” Cassie squashed out her cigarette and leaned her head against the wall. “Look, Katey, I don’t want to talk about this. Why are you here? Shouldn’t you and Darling Darren be celebrating as king and queen of Pea-Ville High right now?”

      Kate told her everything, leaving out what had happened when she got home. “Guess we both had disastrous prom nights.”

      Cassie took Kate’s hand. “Did I say Darling Darren? I meant Dickless Darren. I hope you told him to eat shit and die.”

      “I told him he deserved a girl like Angela, and took off.” Frankly, she liked Cassie’s comeback better. If she’d thought about it long enough, maybe she could have come up with it. But Kate was so used to being the sweeter of the Tremaine cousins, she generally refrained from mouthing off out loud, as she often did in her brain, or when alone with Cassie.

      “Good for you.”

      Cassie opened an old, dusty Arturo Fuente cigar box in which they hid the stashes of stuff they didn’t want the moms to find. It held candles, diaries, even a Playgirl they’d dug out of Flo’s trash can a few years ago. “I hate this stinking town.”

      Remembering the way she’d felt as she watched Mayor Winfield and her mother, Kate completely understood. “Ditto.”

      “I’d give anything to get outta here. Make it big, make lots of money, then come back and tell them all to stuff it.”

      Kate had the same fantasy. Hours spent in the old Rialto Theater had introduced her to places she wanted to go, people she wanted to meet. Women she wanted to become. Far away from here. “Wouldn’t that be something? The trashy Tremaine cousins coming back and stirring up some serious trouble,” Kate said. “You know what I’d do? I’d open up a shop right next door to Mrs. McIntyre’s Tea Room. And I’d sell…dirty movies!”

      Cassie snickered. “Go all out, triple-X porn, baby.”

      “And sex toys. Darren’s mom could really use a vibrator.”

      “You wouldn’t know a vibrator if it fell in your lap. Turned on . So, first stop in the big city, we buy sex toys.”

      Kate giggled. “And when we’re rich and famous, we come back here and shove ’em right up certain people’s noses.”

      Cassie reached into the box, grabbing Kate’s diary. “I’ve been sitting here listing all the things I’d do to get even with some people in this town. Why don’t you make one, too?”

      “A list?”

      “Yep. We each list the things we’ll someday do to the cruddy populace of Pleasantville, if we ever get the chance.”

      The idea made perfect sense to Kate. “Publicly humiliate Darren McIntyre and Angela Winfield,” she said as she wrote.

      As they wrote Kate watched Cassie’s smile fade as she thought of something else. Kate couldn’t stop her own thoughts from returning to her mother. John Winfield.

      She ached, deep within, at the loss of her own childhood beliefs.

      Tears blurred her vision as she secretly added one more item to her list. For Mom’s sake, get even with the Winfield family…particularly John Winfield . She didn’t know how, but someday she would do to that family what they’d done to hers…

      Cause some serious heartache.

       1

       Present Day

       A S SHE PULLED UP in front of the Rose Café on Magnolia Avenue, Kate Jones took a deep breath and looked around at the heart of Pleasantville. Heart. Probably the wrong word. The town hadn’t possessed that particular organ when she’d left ten years ago. Judging by what her mother had told her in their last phone call, she feared it hadn’t grown one in the intervening decade.

      The street appeared the same on the surface, though was perhaps dirtier, its buildings grayer than she remembered. Warped, mildew-speckled boards covered some of the windows of the once-thriving storefronts. Very few people strolled along the brick sidewalks. The cheerful, emerald paint on the benches lining the fountain in the town square had faded to a faint pea-green. A reluctant