by Nora Roberts
“That’s what we’re here for.”
“I love this place. Honestly, I just booked the day here so I wouldn’t have to hike three days running. But it’s all so terrific, and everybody’s so nice. Could I get this Field Green Salad with the grilled chicken—the house dressing on the side. And a glass of Chardonnay would just make my day.”
“You just consider it made.”
“Is the woman out front, the owner, is that your mother? You look like her.”
“My grandmother. My mama’s doing your facial later.”
“Your grandmother? You’re kidding me.”
Shelby laughed, delighted. “I’m going to tell her you said that, and you’ll have made her day. Now, can I get you anything else?”
“Not a thing.” The woman burrowed down in one of the chairs. “I’m just going to sit here and relax.”
“You do that. Sasha will come get you in about ten minutes for your wrap.”
She walked back into the salon with a smile on her face, went straight to the desk to place the order for a one-o’clock pickup. She started to turn to her grandmother when Jolene hailed her.
“That’s pretty polish,” Shelby said, nodding toward the toes Jolene was having painted glossy pink.
“It puts me in mind of my mama’s peonies. I forgot to say before, and my goodness haven’t you been busy in here, I heard you were singing on Fridays down at the bar and grill. I was sorry I couldn’t make it in to hear you, then I heard about what happened and wasn’t sorry I wasn’t there on Friday. I think I’d have had a heart attack or something finding out some woman got shot right outside.”
She patted a hand to her heart as if even now it was in danger.
“I heard you knew her, too, is that right?”
Shelby gave Melody a glance. “I know you consider Melody a reliable source of information—and that Melody’s confident you’ll push whatever buttons, turn whatever knobs she tells you to.”
“Why, Shelby, I was just asking—”
“What Melody told you to ask. The answer is no, I can’t say I knew her.”
“Your husband did,” Melody said. “But that’s right, he wasn’t your husband at all, was he?”
“Apparently not.”
“You must feel just awful, being deceived like that.” Jolene picked up the theme. “Why, I’d just about die if I’d lived with a man all those years, had a child with him, and found out he had another wife all along.”
“I’m still breathing. I guess I’m not as sensitive as you.”
She started to step back.
“You’re not doing anything important,” Melody began. “I’d like a glass of sparkling water, with ice.”
“I’ll get that for you,” Maybeline began, but Melody shot her a hard look. “You’re busy painting my toes. Shelby can get it, can’t you, Shelby?”
“I can. Would you like something, Jolene?”
Jolene had the grace to flush. “I wouldn’t mind some ice water, if it’s no trouble.”
“None at all.”
She turned, went to the back, into the tiny kitchen. She’d stew about it later, she promised herself, but for now, she’d get the damn water.
She brought out the glasses, handed one to Jolene.
“Thank you, Shelby.”
“You’re welcome.”
When she held out the glass to Melody, Melody knocked it with her hand so water sloshed over the rim.
“Now look what you did!”
“I’ll get you a towel.”
“These capri pants are silk, and now they’ve got water spots. What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to get you a towel.”
“You probably did it on purpose because I didn’t want the likes of you working in my store.”
“Your grandmother’s store, last I heard. And believe me, if I’d done it on purpose, I’d’ve poured the whole glass in your lap. Do you want that towel, Melody?”
“I don’t want anything from your kind.”
Shelby knew the place had gone quiet. Even the whirl of dryers had shut off. Every ear in the place was cocked. So she smiled. “Why, Melody, you’re just as spiteful and full of self-importance as you were back in high school. It must be a burden carrying all that around inside you. I’m sorry for you.”
“Sorry for me? Sorry for me?”
Melody flung the magazine away so it landed with a thwack on the floor. “You’re the one came crawling back to the Ridge with her tail between her legs. And what did you bring with you?”
Her voice pitched louder as temper rose in hot spots on her cheeks.
“I brought my daughter and not much else. You’re awful flushed, Melody. I think you need this water.”
“You don’t tell me what I need. I tell you. I’m the customer. You just work here, sweeping up. You don’t even have the marginal skills to polish nails or use a curling iron.”
“Marginal.” Shelby heard Maybeline breathe the word, saw out of the corner of her eye the longtime employee carefully cap the coral enamel with only half of Melody’s toes painted.
“Melody,” Jolene began, gnawing her lip at the stony stare on Maybeline’s face.
But Melody only slapped Jolene’s hand aside. “You’d better show some respect after where you’ve come from, and what’s gone on since you came back here? Whose fault is it some woman got shot right in our town Friday night?”
“I’d say the person who pulled the trigger’s at fault on that.”
“It wouldn’t have happened here if you weren’t here, and everybody knows it. Nobody decent around here wants you around. You’re the one who ran off with some criminal. And don’t tell me you thought you were married to him. Like as not you cheated people just like he did, and when he died and left you in a fix, back here you come with your bastard child.”
“Be careful there, Melody,” Shelby said as Jolene let out a shocked hiss. “Be real careful there.”
“I’ll say what I think, and what most everybody around here thinks, too. I’ll say what I like.”
“Not in here you won’t.” Viola stepped up, gripped Shelby’s arm hard, took the glass of water she still held—and had been about to heave—out of her hand. “I’ve just spared you from a soaking or worse, as I expect Shelby was about to do what I’d like to do myself, and that’s haul you up out of that chair and slap your head clean around, you rude, ugly-minded, pitiful girl.”
“You don’t dare speak to me that way! Just who do you think you are?”
“I’m Viola MacNee Donahue, and this is my place. I’ll speak to you just as you deserve, and the good Lord knows somebody should’ve spoken to you long before this. I’m going to tell you, tell you both, to get your lazy, spiteful asses out of my chairs and out of my place. You get up and you get out, and you don’t come back in here.”
“We haven’t finished yet,” Melody began.
“You’re finished, done and finished altogether. No charge for today. Now get the hell out of my salon. Neither of you are going to walk in that door again.”
“Oh, but Miz Vi! Crystal’s doing my hair for my wedding.” Tears spurted into Jolene’s eyes. “I’ve got the whole day before booked here.”
“Not anymore.”
“Don’t worry about it, Jolene.” Melody grabbed the magazine forgotten in Jolene’s lap, tossed it across the room. “You can just pay Crystal to come to you.”
“She couldn’t pay me enough,” Crystal piped up.
“Oh, but Crystal—”
“Shame on you, Jolene.” Crystal bent down, picked up the magazine. “We’ve come to expect that kind of ugly from Melody, but shame on you.”
“We don’t need you,” Melody snapped at Crystal as Jolene blubbered. “Barely a step up from the trailer trash in the holler. We don’t need this place, either. I only come in here to be civic-minded and support local businesses. There are plenty of other places to go with more class.”
“You never did learn class,” V
iola commented as Melody grabbed up her shoes. “That’s a shame, considering your grandmother. She’s going to be awful disappointed in you when I call her and tell her how you behaved in my place, what you said to my own granddaughter. What you said about my great-granddaughter. That takes you back a peg,” she added when some of the angry color faded from Melody’s cheeks. “You must’ve forgotten I’ve known your grandmother for over forty years. We’ve got a lot of respect for each other.”
“Tell her what you want.”
“Oh, I will. Now get your second-runner-up’s ass out of my salon.”
Melody sailed out while Jolene scrambled up. “Oh, Melody, wait! Oh, Miz Vi!”
“She’s your choice of companion, Jolene. Maybe it’s time you grew up some. Go on now, get.”
She ran sobbing out the door.
After one still moment, several people—staff and customers—began to applaud.
“I swear, Vi.” The woman in Viola’s chair gave herself a half spin in it. “I’ve always said coming to Vi’s is more entertaining than watching the soap operas.”
Since it was there, Shelby took the water back, downed it. “I’m sorry, Granny. I wasn’t going to slap her. I was going to haul her out of the chair and punch her right in the face. Nobody talks that way about my baby.”
“Or mine.” Viola gave Shelby a one-armed hug.
“Are you really going to call her grandmother?”
“I won’t have to. You better believe she’s calling Flo right now, giving her an earful. Flo loves that girl, but she knows her, too. I’ll be getting a call inside the next half hour. Maybeline, Lorilee, you take your usual commission for the pedis out of the till.”
“No, ma’am,” they said, almost in unison.
“There’s no need for it,” Maybeline added. “Viola, don’t you make me mad and say another word about it. That girl’s lucky I didn’t stab her with the cuticle scissors. Shelby, she was talking trash about you for the last half hour. I’m not sorry to see the last of her in here. She always shorts my tip.”
“Jolene’s not so bad when she comes in on her own,” Lorilee put in. “But together they’re downright mean.”
“All right, then.” With a glint of pride along with the dregs of temper, she nodded. “I’m treating everybody to lunch.”
“Lunch!” Shelby checked the time, sighed in relief. “I’ve got to go down to the Pizzateria, get a customer a salad and sneak out a glass of wine. I can get the rest if y’all put an order together.”
“We’ll have ourselves a party,” Crystal declared. “Second-runner-up’s ass.” She hooted out a laugh. “Miz Vi, I swear I love you to distraction and back again. Twice.”
“Me, too.” Shelby pressed her cheek to Viola’s. “Me, too.”
• • •
THE MURDER and Melody’s eviction from Viola’s competed for the richest juice squeezed from the local grapevine. While it was true there hadn’t been a murder in the Ridge for three years, coming up on four, when Barlow Keith shot his brother-in-law—and winged two bystanders—in a dispute over a pool game at Shady’s Bar, nobody knew the woman currently in a cold drawer at the annex of the funeral parlor that served as the coroner’s office.
Everybody knew Melody and Viola, so that story took the lead with most.
The incident got a fresh boost on Tuesday morning, when the word went around that Florence Piedmont had dressed her granddaughter down and ordered her to apologize to both Shelby and Viola.
The Ridge waited with bated breath to see if Melody complied.
“I don’t want her apology.” Shelby stacked fresh towels at the shampoo stations. “She wouldn’t mean it, so what’s the point?”
“Her offering, meaning it or not, and you accepting it, makes her grandmother feel better.” For once Viola sat in the chair while Crystal touched up her roots.
“I guess I can pretend to accept a pretend apology, if it comes.”
“It may take a few days, but it’ll come. The girl knows where her bread’s buttered the thickest. We’re slow in here today. Why don’t you let Maybeline give you a nice pedicure? It’d be nice to have pretty toes for your date with Griffin tonight.”
Crystal and Maybeline, currently the only others in the salon, both slid their gazes toward Shelby.
“I don’t know as he’s going to notice my toes, one way or the other.”
“A man who’s interested in a woman notices everything at the start of it.”
“That’s the truth,” Crystal agreed. “It’s after they’ve got you awhile they wouldn’t notice if you grew an extra set of toes and painted them every color in the rainbow. Especially if there’s a game on the TV and a beer in their hand.”
“We’ve got some really pretty spring colors,” Maybeline put in. “There’s Blues in the Night. It’s just about the color of your eyes. I’ve got three manis this morning, and only one pedi scheduled all day. I’d love to do you one, Shelby.”
“If there’s time, that’d be nice. Thank you, Maybeline.”
“What are you going to wear? On your date with Griff,” Crystal asked.
“I don’t know. Really, I’m mostly going over to see his house. I’ve always loved that old place, and wonder what he’s doing with it.”
“Since he’s fixing you dinner, you should wear something pretty.”
Shelby turned to her grandmother. “He’s fixing me dinner? How do you know that?”
“Because he dropped by to see me Sunday afternoon, and asked, casual-like, if there was something you especially liked to eat, or something you didn’t especially like.”
“I thought he’d just pick something up.” Now she didn’t know whether to be flattered or nervous. “What’s he making?”
“I think that ought to be his surprise. You should wear a pretty dress. Nothing fancy, just pretty. You’ve got good legs, girl. Good long legs. You got them from me.”
“And pretty underthings.”
“Crystal!” Maybeline flushed, and giggled like a girl.
“A woman ought to wear pretty underthings every day anyway, but especially on a date. It’s confidence-building, I think. And it’s always best to be prepared.”
“If I want to get Jackson heated up, all I have to do is put on a black bra and panties.”
“Oh, Granny.” Undone, Shelby buried her face in her hands.
“I wasn’t able to get him heated up, you wouldn’t be here. Seems to me your mama says your daddy favors midnight blue when it comes to lingerie.”
“I’m going in the back to check on things.”
“What things?” Viola wanted to know.
“Anything that doesn’t involve my parents and grandparents getting heated up.”
She moved fast, but still heard the quick female laughter follow her.
• • •
SHE HAD TOENAILS painted a deep violet blue, and at Callie’s insistence wore a dress the color of daffodils. And because she couldn’t get it out of her mind, she wore under it a white bra with tiny yellow rosebuds worked into the edging lace, and matching panties.
Not that anyone was going to see them, but maybe they would build confidence.
Once she was dressed, Callie clung to her leg. “I want to go on a date with Griff, too.”
Since she’d expected something along those lines, she had a counteroffer ready. “Why don’t we take Griff on a date, maybe on Sunday afternoon? We could take him on a picnic. We could make fried chicken and lemonade.”
“And cupcakes.”
“Absolutely cupcakes.” She hauled Callie up before she walked