Pleating for Mercy

by Melissa Bourbon

  Instinctively, I looked around the room, hoping for a sign that Meemaw was around, but all was still. “She said that? That I was needed?”

  Zinnia James nodded solemnly. “She said New York wasn’t a good fit for you.”

  I hadn’t ever admitted it out loud—possibly I hadn’t ever admitted it even to myself—but with every minute I spent back in Bliss, I knew this was where I belonged. I wasn’t wired for the high stress and fast pace of Manhattan. “She was right.”

  “She usually was,” Mrs. James said with a chuckle.

  “I didn’t realize you knew my great-grandmother that well.”

  She gave me an affectionate smile. “Oh, goodness, yes, everyone knew Loretta Mae. But I was actually friends with your grandmother in school. And of course there was the Margaret Festival. We were in it together.”

  I gaped. “Really? Nana was a Margaret?” Bliss was famous—or infamous, depending on the source—for its annual Margaret Moffette Lea Pageant and Ball. The debutantes were called Margarets after Margaret Moffette Lea herself. She’d been the third wife to Texas’s favorite son, Sam Houston, former president of the Republic of Texas, back when Texas tried to be its own country. She’d become a respected first lady of the state when he’d been governor, though being shy, she’d probably roll over in her grave at the celebration we’d created in her name.

  “Reluctantly,” she said, “but yes, she was. You should have seen her gown. Spectacular. I spent my fair share of time right here in this house.”

  I’d spent my whole childhood here, but I’d never seen hide nor hair of Zinnia James visiting Nana when I was growing up. Or a pageant gown fit for a Margaret.

  She continued, as if she’d read my mind. “We had a little . . . falling-out. I remember it to the very hour of the very day it happened.” Her voice took on a hint of regret. “We both had a crush on the same young man. We said we’d never let it break up our friendship, and I think we both meant it, but then he asked her to homecoming instead of me. I’m ashamed to admit it now, but jealousy reared its ugly head.”

  “You and Nana liked the same boy?”

  She laughed, nodding. “Hard to believe, looking at us now.”

  Yes, it was. She’d ended up with a good-ol’-boy politician and my grandmother had married a cowboy and talked to goats. I couldn’t imagine the type of man who would attract them both.

  “When he asked her to marry him, well, that was it. We haven’t spoken since.”

  I stared and poked my finger in my ear. Had I heard her right? “You were in love with my grandfather?”

  She nodded sheepishly. “I got over him, of course. Jeb and I are quite happy. But, yes, Wood Jenkins was my first love.”

  “And you and Nana never made up?”

  “It was one of those touchy situations. When Coleta tried, I wasn’t ready. When I tried, she wasn’t ready. Loretta Mae acted as a go-between once or twice, but it just never quite worked.”

  I couldn’t believe I’d never heard this story. Did Mama know her father had had two women fighting over him? “Wow. Meemaw was right.”

  “About what?”

  “Every day, you learn something you never knew before. The day you don’t is the day you die.”

  “Things happen for a reason,” Mrs. James said. “I do believe that. And I think Coleta and I will reconnect one day. Loretta Mae believed it would happen.”

  “If Meemaw wanted you and Nana to be friends again, it will happen. Trust me on that.”

  “Oh, believe me, I do,” she said with a little laugh. “Now, I did come here for a reason.” She pointed to the display board. “I want to commission a gown. The senator and I are hosting a fund-raising event. It’s not until late summer, but I wanted to make sure I’m on your calendar.”

  Months away. That was good because I couldn’t possibly add another dress to my current schedule. “You’re the only one on my agenda.”

  “Also, I have a few other events up my sleeve,” she said, a glint in her soft gray eyes. “An event at Christmas, but before that, the festival and pageant.”

  “The Margarets?” If I remembered correctly, it was held around the Fourth of July, when Texas was nearing the top of the heat index.

  “I’d like to commission you to make my granddaughter’s gown.”

  I sputtered. “Um . . . aren’t the Margarets’ dresses period pieces?” Straight from the mid-1800s, if memory served. I had nothing like that in my portfolio.

  She nodded, her lips thinning as she smiled. “Indeed, and Libby will look lovely in one. I’ll give you more details soon, but put that on your books, too.”

  She didn’t give me a chance to argue. “You’re a delight, Harlow Jane,” she told me as she walked down the steps. “Loretta Mae would be proud.”

  Those two sentences filled me with equal parts joy and sadness, but knowing Meemaw would be proud of me—and that she was here, somewhere—edged away a little of the grief.

  I pushed the festival and pageant out of my mind and went back to the workroom. The subtle scent of vanilla floated in the air. Everything Zinnia James had said about Miriam, Will, Gracie, Nana, Nell, and Reata bounced around in my head. Was there something in the jumble that would point me toward Nell’s killer?

  Gracie watched my every move as I laid pieces of fabric over the dress form, trying to get a sense of the garment I was going to make for Karen.

  “Your dad keeps pretty busy,” I said, making conversation. Gracie had gone too quiet. “I wouldn’t have thought that many people would need handyman work done.”

  “Handyman?”

  “I have a pretty good list of things for him to tackle.”

  She cocked her head to the side and looked at me. “My dad’s not a handyman.”

  The pin I’d been poking through the muslin slipped and pricked my thumb. I stuck it between my lips to soothe the sharp pain. “He’s not a handyman?”

  She shook her head, her hair falling in front of her shoulders. “N-o-o-o. He just did that stuff for Loretta Mae.”

  I jumped, my heart leaping to my throat, as my Pfaff powered up out of nowhere, the needle slowly moving up and down, up and down, in a steady rhythm that sounded suspiciously like Meemaw guffawing. I marched over and pressed the power button, turning the machine off. “Funny,” I muttered.

  Gracie froze. “Is the machine, like, programmed?”

  “Just has a funny glitch, sometimes,” I said, glossing over it. “Remember what I said—this old house has spirit.”

  “It’s like it’s haunted,” she said. Her cheeks had paled and her arms were folded over her chest.

  I waved away the very idea. “Gracie, you’ve been watching too many movies,” I said. “The house is not haunted—”

  I drew in a sharp breath as the lights flickered on and off. The sewing machine needle moved up and down again.

  “Are you sure?” she asked shrilly.

  “It’s just a cranky old house,” I said, reassuringly. Then, to distract her, I asked, “What does your dad do?”

  Another creak came from the ceiling and her nostrils flared, but she said, “He works for the city. Plus he’s on the Bliss Historical Society.”

  “What does he do for the city?”

  “He’s the architect.”

  I stared, speechless. From handyman to architect in the blink of an eye. I had whiplash.

  With impeccable timing, the bells on the front door jingled. Karen and Ruthann had arrived for their fittings.

  Chapter 25

  Karen stood on the milk crate with me on one side of her and Gracie on the other. I wrapped a lavender measuring tape around her waist, noted the number, then repeated it aloud.

  Karen covered her ears with her hands. “Don’t tell me the number. I don’t want to know.”

  “It’s just a number,” I said.

  “But I want it to be a smaller number,” she complained.

  I stifled the reprimand that had started sliding up my throat. I’d spent ye
ars working with models who were borderline anorexic and obsessed with numbers. Weight, waist, hips, thighs. You name it, they were trying to make it smaller. “Smaller numbers won’t change who you are.” I gestured up and down her body. “This is you. You have to rock what you’ve got, Karen Mitchell.”

  “But I’ve got too much of this.” She pouted, patting her hips. One hand slid to her belly. “And this.”

  Gracie was taking in every last detail of the conversation, listening with undivided attention. “You’re beautiful,” I told Karen, knowing it would sink into Gracie, too.

  Karen frowned. “Josie’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.” She pointed to the front room, where Ruthann was browsing, her measurements done. “Ruthann’s beautiful. Me? I’m frumpy.”

  “Sugar, half that frump you’re feeling is coming straight from inside,” I said, sounding more like Loretta Mae than I ever had before. The right design and styling could transform her figure, emphasizing the best things while downplaying the problem areas. “It’s attitude. What you feel in here,” I said, hand to my heart, “shines through in everything you do.”

  Ruthann popped her head around the French door and said, “That’s right, Karen. It’s all attitude. You can get whatever you want if you act like you deserve it.”

  “Right. Think it and you’ll start to believe it,” I said, piggybacking on Ruthann’s encouragement. The Cassidy women—Nana, in particular—had always been strong believers in the power of affirmations.

  Karen didn’t look convinced, but she straightened her posture and held her chin a trifle higher. It was a start.

  I reached around her hips. “Measure twice, cut once,” I said, rattling off the number for Gracie to jot down in my sketchbook.

  Gracie stared at me like I suddenly had a nose piercing and lip rings. “You, too?”

  “Me, too, what?”

  “Measure twice, cut once. That’s what my dad says whenever he builds anything. Oh, my God, he has all these models around the house. You should see them. They’re crazy.” She gave a little roll of her eyes. “Took him forever to build them because he does everything two or three times to make sure it’s perfect.”

  “Guess it works for sewing and building. Loretta Mae taught me it’s better to be safe than sorry.” She was a trickster, but where quilting and sewing were concerned, she’d mapped everything out. “That way, there’s never a surprise,” she’d say.

  I’d wondered, more than once, if things always turned out the way she wanted them to not because she was charmed, but because she dotted her i’s and crossed her t’s. Twice.

  When we finished, Karen stepped down from the crate and took a closer look at the small rack of shapewear in the corner. “Is this what Josie was talking about?” she asked.

  “It’s like magic,” I said, nodding. It would hold Karen’s jigglies in place. I took a package off the shelf and handed it to her as Ruthann came back into the workroom.

  “My husband might not like this,” Karen said, scratching the back of her head with her fingertips.

  Ruthann scoffed. “He’s not going to be the one wearing it, is he?”

  Karen had opened the package and pulled out the lingerie slip. She tugged at the fabric, stretching it across her splayed fingers. “No, but will he know it’s there?”

  Ruthann arched an eyebrow. “Does it matter?”

  “He won’t know it’s there,” I said, “but Ruthann’s right. It doesn’t matter. It just firms everything up so you’ll feel a little more—”

  “Poised,” Ruthann finished. Perched on a stool next to the shelf of buttons and trims, absently poking her fingers into a mason jar, she was the epitome of composure. I couldn’t help but think that when she was a kid, she should have responded to those open-audition radio spots calling for child actors or auditioned for America’s Next Top Model. Appearance and self-possession could open doors. Being smart enough to walk through them could take a woman far in life. Either the doors hadn’t opened for Ruthann or she’d chosen not to walk through them.

  “Trust me, Karen,” I said. I didn’t design clothes for other people to oooh and ahhh over and steal the show. I designed clothes that complemented the person wearing them, that made her glow and shine, and made her ready to walk through any door, head held high.

  From the corner of my eye, I could see Gracie scribbling in a miniature notebook. A funny zing—like I was a sensei and she was my karate kid—shot through my core and a feeling of responsibility blossomed.

  “What do you think of this?” I slid my open sketchbook over so Ruthann could see the design I’d come up with in the middle of the night. “I know you said wraparound, but I had this idea.” It was a strapless dress, still cut at the knee, but with a full skirt made of a pale green chiffon. The torso and waist were accentuated by a wide fitted sash starting just under the bustline and ending at the waist. The bodice itself had vertical pleats, complementing Josie’s dress, and it would add a little va-va-voom volume to Ruthann’s toothpick body.

  She took one look at it, pressed her hand to her heart, and nodded enthusiastically. “That’s the one. I want you to make me that dress!”

  I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until I exhaled. I’d known it was perfect for her, but often women chose clothes that didn’t complement their figures. Thankfully, Ruthann wasn’t one of those women.

  She slipped behind the privacy screen to try on something she’d pulled from the ready-to-wear rack up front—a sleek army green jumper with an abundance of zippers and hardware. I pulled out a bolt of muslin, plopping it on the cutting table and unwinding the fabric until I had a good length of it to drape with.

  “It just doesn’t feel right without Nell here,” Karen said glumly.

  We all murmured in agreement. It wasn’t hard to pretend for a just a little while that things were normal, but the pretense couldn’t last long. Someone had killed Nell.

  “I heard the sheriff questioned Nate,” Ruthann called.

  “For three hours,” Karen said, her expression dubious. She absently played with a scattering of buttons.

  I frowned. Already the story had grown. By tomorrow, the rumors would have him in lockup, perched on the edge of an electric chair.

  Ruthann’s voice drifted to us through the angled slats of the screen. “A little birdie told me that Nate told Josie about him and Nell.”

  A few buttons scattered from Karen’s lap to the hardwood floor. “Sorry,” she muttered. The stool scraped against the floor as she slid off it. She crouched and scooped the buttons up. “What birdie?”

  Ruthann popped her head out from her changing room. “George Taylor.”

  “Who’s George Taylor?” Gracie asked. I was taking in every word, adding it to what I already knew about Nell in order to help Josie, but Gracie—she was in high hog heaven. She’d leaned two bolts of fabric in front of her buttons and glass cleanup project to help me measure, and now she pinned and listened, pinned and listened, and all I could think was that this probably wasn’t what Will had had in mind when he’d arranged for her to take sewing lessons with me.

  Ruthann sauntered into view. The jumper fit her like a glove, like I’d made it just for her. It hugged her body, transforming the hard lines of her hips into hourglass curves, no small feat for such a thin woman. She glided straight over to Gracie, placed a hand on her shoulder, winked, and said, “George Taylor is only the most eligible bachelor in Bliss next to Derek and—”

  “Nate,” Karen finished with a little laugh.

  “Right, but Derek’s in the Middle East and Josie took Nate off the market, so that leaves George.” Ruthann moved in front of the full-length mirror, slowly spinning around, taking in every inch of her figure in the jumper. The angles of her face transformed as she broke into a giddy smile. “This is magical, Harlow.” She spun around, peering at her backside over her shoulder. “It’s for sale, right?”

  “I don’t think another soul could wear that,” I said, “and I can’
t let you leave without buying it.”

  Karen let the buttons she played with fall through her fingers. “What else did George say?”

  Ruthann turned away from the mirror. “Well, apparently he told Louie Flapman, who told Janine Crandle, who told me that it looked like he and Nate had—” She grimaced and made quote marks in the air with her fingers as she said, “fished in the same pond.”

  I cleared away the indignant lump in my throat. “For the record, George Taylor does not sound like the most charming bachelor in town.” I’d almost be tempted to choose Derek Kincaid over a man who told people where he’d fished at all. Almost, but not quite.

  “Ah, he’s harmless,” Ruthann said. “And he’s a hottie. The point is, I’d forgotten that Nell and Nate had dated. I know it never meant anything—”

  “Didn’t mean anything to him,” Karen snapped, “but it sure did to her.”

  A little spasm flitted through me. Nate had told Josie he and Nell had barely dated, but Karen certainly had a different impression.

  Ruthann whirled around, her hands on her bony hips. “She never told me anything like that, and we told each other everything.”

  Karen’s face turned ashen. “She didn’t want Josie to find out and you . . .”

  “I what?” Ruthann demanded, her lower lip quivering.

  “She didn’t think you’d understand.”

  Ruthann balked. “Not understand?”

  “You . . . you’ve never been in love—”

  “Oh, yes, I have. I’m—”

  “And Lester Kramer from high school doesn’t count, Ruthie.”

  Ruthann blinked away her daze. “I was her best friend, too.”

  I butted in, wanting to stop the catfight I was afraid would materialize. “People can have more than one best friend,” I said. “I’m sure you were both very important to her.”

  Ruthann pressed her palm against her chest. “I was with her when she almost lost her shop.”

  I looked at Karen. “And I bet you were with her at some other important time—”