Carnal Innocence

wanted was a thick steak and a side of nice greasy fries. But she worried about her body. She was past thirty now, and watched vigilantly for any sags or droops or paunches.
    Her mama had kept a trim, willowy figure up to the day she’d dropped dead in her roses. Josie intended to do no less.
    Since the day she’d realized her mama was different from her daddy, Josie had been in a subtle and constant competition. It had made her feel guilty from time to time, but she hadn’t been able to resist the need to be as pretty as her mother. Then prettier. To be as desirable to men. Then more desirable.
    She’d never been able to get a handle on her mother’s quiet dignity, had failed miserably in trying to emulate it in her first marriage, so she had chosen to copy her father’s bold and bawdy talk instead. She felt it suited her—the stunning femme-fatale looks and the earthy personality. As a child she’d fit the pieces of herself together. Now the puzzle of Josie Longstreet was linked tight.
    While Josie toyed with her chicken salad, Crystal made short work of her tuna-stuffed tomato. Crystal was chattering the whole time she forked the tuna into her mouth. As she had all of her life, Josie turned the sound on and off.
    She was fond of Crystal, had been since they’d made the solemn decision to be best friends back in first grade, when they’d been two privileged little girls with no idea how radically their lives would diverge. Josie going one way—debutante balls and that first, proper marriage. Crystal going another, after her lawyer father ran off to parts unknown with his secretary. Her path had been the work force and a bad marriage that had ended in divorce after a second miscarriage.
    But they had remained friends. Whenever Josie swept back into Innocence, she always spent time with Crystal. Josie was sentimental enough to want a childhood friend in her adult life. And she liked the way they complemented each other. Crystal was tiny and nicelyrounded while Josie herself was tall and slim. Crystal had white skin dashed with a sprinkle of freckles. She’d spent a fortune on every freckle remover on the market until she’d finally accepted them as a personality trait. She’d learned to care for her skin in Madame Alexandra’s Beauty School in Lamont, where she’d graduated third in her class and had the certificate to prove it.
    As a result, she had the blooming complexion of a milkmaid, which was the perfect foil for Josie’s dusky Gypsy looks. Her hair, which she changed every few months as a kind of walking advertisement for her skills, was currently Clairol’s Sparkling Sherry, which she wore in a viciously lacquered modified beehive. Crystal insisted they were coming back.
    “And then, when Bea was doing Nancy Koons’s nails, that Justine started going on about how Will told her the FBI figured out it was a black that killed Edda Lou and the others. How they knew it ’cause of the way they were killed, and how they’d found this pubic hair and all.” Crystal dug into her tomato, daintily tipping the tuna onto her fork with her pinky. “Now, I don’t know if that’s the way it was or not, but I don’t think it was right for her to be going on like that with Bea—who’s black as the ace of spades—sitting there filing nails. I was real embarrassed, Josie, but Bea, she just asks Nancy if she wants ridge filler, and keeps on filing.”
    Josie sucked on her straw. “Justine’s so besotted with Will, if he told her a frog shits gold nuggets, she’d be panning for them in Little Hope Creek.”
    “That’s no excuse,” Crystal said righteously. “I mean, we all know it probably was a colored, but you won’t find me talking about it in front of Bea. Why, Bea’s my best operator. So I gave Justine’s hair a jerk and when she squealed, I said, just as nice as you please: ’Oh, honey, did that hurt? I’m
awful
sorry. All that talk about murder and all just makes me so nervous. Good thing I didn’t clip your earlobe while I was trimming. A clipped ear bleeds worse’n a stuck pig.’” Crystal smiled. “That shut her right up.”
    “Maybe I’ll talk Will into driving me home tonight.”Josie tossed back her mane of hair. “That’ll give Justine something to squeal about.”
    Crystal gave one of her quick, birdlike laughs. “Oh, Josie. You’re such a one.” Her eyes shifted as the diner’s door swung open. Poking out her lip, she leaned closer to Josie. “There’s that