The Perfect Dress

by Brown, Carolyn

  “It’s only a block. You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  “A gentleman always walks his date to the door.” He grinned as he laced his fingers in hers.

  Date? Kiss? Jody and Paula had said that if he kissed her, it was a real date, but how could it be when they’d spent the afternoon with saws and hammers instead of candlelight and wine?

  When they reached her door, he brushed another sweet kiss across her lips. “I’ll see you before then, but I’m really looking forward to next Sunday.”

  She went inside to an empty house and headed straight to the kitchen for a bottle of water. Glad that neither Paula nor Jody was home right then, she wanted to bask in the idea that she was going out with Graham. Even if they’d be surrounded by friends and family on a pontoon boat, he’d said it was a real date.

  “Hey, anybody home?” Harry startled her when he popped in the door.

  “Just me,” Mitzi said. “Want a bottle of water or a beer?”

  “No, I’m good, and I’m glad you’re here alone. I know you and Graham have been doing a little flirting dance. I need to talk to you about that.” Harry pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down.

  “Is it about Rita going to the dealership?” Mitzi asked.

  Harry nodded. “I guess you already know what I’m about to say. If there’s a chance of them making a family—”

  “I just came from his house,” Mitzi butted in. “He told me exactly that there’s no chance of him and Rita ever trying to make another go of it.”

  “Tabby and Dixie don’t want their mother in their lives?” Harry frowned.

  “Do you remember Rita at all?” Mitzi finally sat down across from her father.

  “Not well. Seems like she was pretty wild,” Harry answered.

  “She’s blonde, blue eyed, and even smaller than Jody is right now. The girls told us that when they saw her again after more than ten years, they felt she still didn’t want children who didn’t look like her,” Mitzi explained. “I’ve got a date with him next Sunday. We’re taking the girls out on his pontoon boat. You and Granny are invited, too.”

  “Just be careful.” Harry pushed back the chair. “I love you and sure don’t want to see you hurt. And, honey, that don’t sound like much of a date.”

  She stood up and hugged him. “I promise that I’ll be careful. And, Daddy, I’m finding out that all dates don’t involve roses and lookin’ at the moon together.”

  “If you fall for him, darlin’, make sure it’s for him and not to get those two girls,” Harry said as he wrapped his arms around her.

  “Yes, sir.” She stepped back.

  “Just an old concerned daddy who can’t stand for his baby girl’s heart to get broken. Your mama and I loved each other so much. I want that for you,” he said as he opened the door.

  “Me, too, Daddy,” she said. “Me, too.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jody sat in one of two old lawn chairs in the middle of a bare spot where her trailer used to be parked. Less than two weeks ago she was in a committed relationship. In some ways it seemed more like ten years, but sitting there, the pain was still very raw. To her right, what was left of her garden had shriveled up and looked like a bed of weeds. Ruts were dug deep into the ground where the trailer had been taken out right over the top of all the plants that she’d cared for so lovingly.

  “It’s a testimony of my life right there,” she said. “Smashed and dead.”

  “Excuse me?” A man’s voice seemed to come from the white clouds above her.

  It startled her so badly she almost fell backward in the chair. She glanced to her left to see a man with one foot braced against a big pecan tree, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

  “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “I might ask you the same thing.” He removed his cowboy hat and wiped sweat from his brow with a snow-white handkerchief he took from the hip pocket of his Wranglers.

  “I’m Jody Andrews and until ten days ago, I lived with Lyle Jones in the trailer that set right here.” Her tone sounded cold even to her own ears.

  “I see. Mind if I sit down?” He held his hat in his hand. “I’m Quincy Roberts.”

  She nodded toward the other chair. “I hear you’re going to buy this property. Is that true?” Jody asked.

  “I’m dealing with Lyle for it. It’s the last little corner, and I’d like to have it, but we’re haggling over mineral rights. Even though I’m not interested in drilling for oil, I don’t buy anything that doesn’t totally belong to me,” Quincy said. “I heard about how Lyle left you high and dry. Why on earth would you come back out here?”

  “Closure,” she answered. “Seeing my garden like this with nothing left of a fifteen-year commitment but two old lawn chairs almost does it for me.” She pushed up out of the lawn chair. “What are you going to do with this land, anyway?”

  “Run cattle on it. Maybe even a few hogs,” he said. “I’m an oil man, but I like to get my hands dirty. It makes me happy. What are you doing now that Lyle’s married to another woman?”

  Hogs! Stinky old pigs wallowing in a mud puddle in the hot summer. Now that could bring her to the acceptance stage pretty damn quick. She took a few steps toward her old truck. “What do I do? Well, Mr. Roberts, I’m not sitting at home, wasting away to nothing. I’m a strong woman, and I’ve got good friends. If you see Lyle you can tell him that. If you’re asking what I do for a living, I make custom wedding dresses for plus-sized women.”

  “What are plus-sized women?” He got up and followed her to her truck.

  She turned around. “Larger ladies. Everyone deserves a perfect dress.”

  “Everyone deserves a perfect life. Guess you didn’t get it, did you?”

  “Bit of a smart-ass, aren’t you?” She leaned against the truck. “Do any of us ever get a perfect life? Is there even such a thing?”

  “Not in my world,” Quincy chuckled. “And I’ve been called worse. So where are you living now?”

  “My partners in the business and I live above the shop. It’s in an old two-story house on Main Street. Shop is on the ground floor,” she told him.

  His eyes went to the pitiful garden. “What happened to that little garden is a shame. I know what it takes to keep one weeded and watered.”

  According to what she’d heard, Quincy could buy the town of Celeste, have it bulldozed, and then turn the whole thing into a hog pen. Why would he even have a backyard garden?

  “You looked surprised. I told you I like to get my hands dirty,” he said.

  “Me, too, and I’m sure I’ll miss having a place for one next spring,” she said. “It’s nice to have met you, Mr. Roberts.”

  “My friends call me Quincy,” he said.

  “But we’re not friends,” she told him, but she wondered what it would be like to get to know him better.

  “We could be, Jody.” He settled his hat back onto his head. “Is it okay if I call you Jody?”

  “Sure,” she agreed. “Like I said . . . Quincy . . . it’s a pleasure to meet you. And just a heads-up, Lyle is anxious to sell, so hold out for those mineral rights.” She didn’t care if Lyle even got fair market price for the place, because she’d never get anything out of it.

  “Oh, I will. I don’t give up easily.” He tipped his hat toward her and turned around.

  She could see a white pickup truck on the far side of the property. She’d probably been thinking so hard about how she’d like to strangle Lyle that she hadn’t even heard it when Quincy drove up.

  She stopped at the snow-cone stand on her way back through town and got three with lids—all rainbow with cherry, coconut, and grape—then drove straight home so she’d get there before they all turned to nothing but liquid.

  “Hello! Y’all home?” she called out as she kicked the back door shut with the heel of her cowboy boot.

  “Up here in the living room,” Mitzi yelled.

  Jody took the stairs two at a
time. “I brought snow cones.”

  Paula reached out a hand as soon as Jody was in the room. “Bless your heart. I wanted one but the line was so long that I didn’t stop on the way home. Where have you been?”

  “You first,” Jody said. “What’d you do? Shop for the baby?”

  “I saw a movie today that made me feel much better about everything. Clinton is a first-class bastard. I feel sorry for his wife, but he’s her husband, not mine.” She dipped into the snow cone with the plastic spoon that came with it. “I’m glad you’re here. Mitzi wouldn’t tell me a blessed thing until you arrived.”

  “I didn’t want to tell it twice. Graham asked me for a date next Sunday. We’re taking his pontoon boat out on the lake, and y’all are invited,” she said before she took the first bite of her snow cone.

  “I believe you’re old enough to go on a date without chaperones,” Paula said.

  “The girls are going and so is Alice. You might as well come with us,” she said.

  “It’s not a real date until it’s just the two of you, but I’d love to go out on the lake, so I’m in. Now your turn, Jody?” Paula said.

  Jody curled up in the recliner across the room from the sofa where the other two sat. She needed a few minutes to talk without tears or cussing, so she turned to Mitzi. “I’ll tell you in a minute, but I want to hear more about you and Graham. I know it was hot out there building the arch. How did it turn out?”

  “It was a sweaty job but I’m pleased with it. He’s storing it out on his screened porch until we need to load it, and he made it so that afterwards it can be dismantled and stored flat,” she said.

  “Did he kiss you and make you all hot and sweaty on the inside?” Jody asked.

  “Yes, he did,” Mitzi answered.

  “Well, I’ll be danged.” Paula clapped her hands. “I told you it was a real date. Do you believe me now?”

  “Maybe,” Mitzi said. “But what do I do now? If we started dating and decided we didn’t like each other, then would that ruin my friendship with the girls? And they like me as a friend, but what about as their dad’s girlfriend? It’s all so complicated. And then there’s the thing with Rita.” She told them about Rita showing up at the dealership.

  “You sure you even want to deal with that?” Jody asked. “It could sure get sticky if she starts attending graduations and birthdays and all that.”

  “Are you blind-trusting him?” Paula asked.

  Mitzi could understand both questions. Jody was probably giving thanks again that she wasn’t pregnant and having to deal with those events with Lyle. Paula had gone into a relationship trusting Clinton, and look where it had got her.

  “I’m going to take it slow. What could possibly happen on this next date with all y’all around us anyway?” Mitzi asked.

  “Okay, then we want to know how the kiss made you feel,” Jody demanded.

  “If I were in the second grade, I’d say it was like Prince Charming kissed a princess and I was that girl. But as a grown-up, the fact that he walked me home and held my hand the whole way meant as much as the kiss,” Mitzi answered.

  “From the looks of your mouth, it’s like we’re back in elementary school.” Paula took a bite from her snow cone.

  “With all our lips turning cherry red, it does, doesn’t it?” Jody finished off her snow cone and set the cup aside. “Now it’s my turn. Lyle was serious about selling the property. Quincy Roberts was out there today looking at it.”

  Mitzi leaned forward on the sofa. “We need details.”

  “He’s tall, maybe around six feet. Not as tall as Graham or as big. Broad shoulders and he was wearing starched jeans and boots, and an expensive cowboy hat. I only got a glimpse of his truck, but it was one of those four-door numbers and real shiny white. Is that enough details?”

  “No, keep going,” Mitzi said.

  “He had brown eyes and a face that was all angles. I’d guess him to be in his late thirties, maybe even early forties,” Jody said. “That’s all I know. We exchanged a few words. He reminded me of a cowboy from a television commercial about expensive whiskey.”

  “With a name like that, we’d remember him if he went to school with us,” Mitzi said. “I wonder what he wants with that piece of property.”

  “He said he wants to run some cattle out there or raise hogs,” Jody said. “I think that’s kind of poetic after the way Lyle has treated me. It sounds kind of crazy, don’t it? Smelly hogs runnin’ on that land kind of brings me closer to feelin’ peace about this whole thing.”

  Mitzi laughed out loud. “That’s too funny.”

  Paula giggled with her. “You should’ve told us you wanted to go back out there again. We would’ve gone with you.”

  “I needed to go alone.” In one way Jody was glad that she had gone alone, but in another she wished that her friends had been with her so they could render an opinion of Quincy. “I should have at least had part of the money from the sale. Don’t seem fair that I worked and made more than Lyle did most years, and yet, he gets everything but a leaky trailer and a couple of worn-out lawn chairs.”

  “I mean about Quincy. Did you feel an attraction to him? Sounds like he is a nice-lookin’ guy,” Mitzi asked.

  “Who even cares? I’ll never see him again,” Jody said.

  “Crap!” Mitzi said.

  “What?” Jody cocked her head to one side.

  “I wanted you to say that you were intrigued by this Quincy guy,” Mitzi answered.

  “It hasn’t even been two weeks since Lyle left. I’m not a bit interested in any man right now, not even a rebound. Besides, we’ve got your love life to worry about and a new baby coming into the family. This is not the time for a romance for me,” Jody declared.

  Guilt poured down on Mitzi like hard rain. Even if they were putting up a good front, both her friends were still hurting. What right did she have to be happy that she’d shared a kiss with her old crush? Telling them about it was like rubbing their faces in her happiness.

  “Why the sudden long face?” Jody asked.

  Paula laid a hand on Mitzi’s shoulder. “Don’t let us rain on your day. We made our choices and we’re living with the consequences. We’re happy for you.”

  Jody’s head bobbed up and down. “Of course we are. We want to hear about you and Graham. It puts a little ray of hope and sunshine in our lives.”

  “Here’s to the future.” Paula laid her hand on the table. “Y’all with me?”

  “To the future.” Mitzi put hers on top of Paula’s.

  “Amen.” Jody added hers to the pile.

  Then, like they did when they were little girls, they all jerked their hands free and high-fived each other.

  “I know we said we weren’t working on Sunday, but let’s break the rules. I’m going downstairs to finish up the hem on Ellie Mae’s dress,” Paula said.

  “I’ll go with you.” Jody stood up. “I can always bead a veil. That job takes a lot of time, and when I’m working, I’m not fretting.”

  “Well, I’m not sitting up here all alone all evening. I’ll work on a pink-satin quilt for the new baby.” Mitzi tossed her empty cup into a nearby trash can.

  “That’s so sweet,” Paula said. “But what you should be doing is looking up a pattern for your own dress. Like I told you before, you’re going to be the first one of us to get to the altar.”

  Jody started out of the room but stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Just make sure you get a marriage license. You’ve seen what can happen if you don’t.”

  “I’m not sure I even want a perfect dress,” Mitzi said. “I’d just as soon get married in shorts and bare feet on a beach somewhere.”

  They paraded down the stairs and were headed toward the sewing room when a hard rap turned them all around toward the front door. Since she was the last in line, Mitzi opened it, and Ellie Mae fell into her arms. Makeup ran down her face in black streaks as the tears flowed. Sobs wracked her body and soaked Mitzi’s T-shirt.

/>   Jody hurried over to pat her on the back. “Did someone die?”

  Paula guided both her and Mitzi toward a pink sofa, grabbed a fistful of tissues, and put them in Ellie Mae’s hand. “Stop cryin’ and tell us what’s happened.”

  “Darrin doesn’t want . . .” Ellie Mae blew her nose on a tissue and tossed it in the small trash can. “He doesn’t want . . .” The sobs started again, and then in a high-pitched squeal, she said, “Want to marry me anymore. I’m pregnant. My family’s goin’ to disown me, and that beautiful dress you’re makin’ . . . oh, my God, what am I going to do?” She bent over and gagged.

  Paula quickly ran for the small bathroom trash can and put it in front of her. “Did your mama find out that you’re pregnant?”

  “No,” Ellie Mae wailed.

  “Do you need a glass of water?” Jody asked.

  “I’d throw up anything I try to put in my stomach right now. I didn’t know where to go. I couldn’t go home. Mama doesn’t know about the baby, and it’s a boy.” She dragged out the last word in another high-pitched wail. “I don’t know anything about boy babies, and I’m going to be a single mother, and a boy needs a father,” she sobbed.

  “We’re not living in the Stone Age, darlin’.” Paula patted her on the shoulder. “It’s not a sin to be a single mother.”

  “Your daddy isn’t a preacher. I’ve never even been around little boys.” Ellie Mae’s voice went so high that it lost the last syllable.

  The music from Blake Shelton’s “Honey Bee” startled Mitzi for a couple of seconds when it filled the foyer. Then she realized the sound was a ringtone coming from Ellie Mae’s purse, which she’d thrown on the floor just before collapsing in Mitzi’s arms.

  “That’s Darrin’s ringtone,” Ellie Mae whispered. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

  “Then turn off your phone,” Jody suggested.

  “No, I might change my mind. I want to think about it.” Ellie Mae blew her nose on another fistful of tissues and tossed them into the trash can. “We were in bed. He said he was glad that he was my first, because that was important to a man.”