“Sorry, Cubby, but I swore off gorgeous men the day I decided to become a nun.”

“Dang, Sugar Beth, you ain’t even Catholic.”

“Now that sure is gonna surprise my good friend the pope.”

“You ain’t Catholic, Sugar Beth. You’re just bein’ stuck up like always.”

“You’re still a smart ‘un, Cubby. Tell your mama hi for me.”

As she walked out of the Big Star, she refused to look at the poster that had stopped her dead on the way in:

The Winnie & Ryan Galantine Concert Series

Sunday, March 7, 2:00 P.M.

Second Baptist Church

Donation of $5.00 benefits local charities

The night felt as if it were closing in on her, so she headed toward the lake, only to realize she couldn’t afford the gas. She made a U-turn on Spring Road, not far from the entrance to the Carey Window Factory, the business her grandfather had founded, except it was called CWF now. She found it hard to imagine Winnie and Ryan hosting a concert series. They’d been married for more than a dozen years now. The thought shouldn’t be painful, since Sugar Beth was the one who’d dumped him. With her typical bad judgment, she’d taken one look at Darren Tharp and forgotten all about Luv U 4-Ever. Now, Winnie was the driving force behind the town’s revitalization, and she sat on the boards of most of its civic organizations.

Cubby Bowmar’s carpet cleaning van passed her going the other direction. In high school, Cubby and his cronies used to show up on the front lawn at Frenchman’s Bride in the middle of the night, howling at the moon and calling out her name.

“Sugar… Sugar… Sugar…”

Her father generally slept through it, but Diddie climbed out of bed and sat by Sugar Beth’s window, smoking her Tareytons and watching them. “You’re going to be a woman for the ages, Sugar Baby,” she’d whisper. “A woman for the ages.”