“It was fine. I’m just pooped,” she said with an exaggerated yawn. She covered her mouth with her hand, and then, as if she was hiding something, plunged it back into the pocket of her skirt.
“What was that?”
“What?” Chenille said, oozing innocence.
“You know what.” Chiffon stood in front of her sister. “Something caught the light. Let me see your hand.”
Chenille demurred for a moment and then flopped her hand out of her pocket. “Drake proposed to me tonight. He wants me to elope with him.”
“Yow!” Chiffon said, eyeing the ring on her sister’s finger. “You didn’t say yes, did you?”
“No, of course not.” She bit her bottom lip. “But I didn’t say no, either.”
“When does he want to get married?”
Chenille blushed. “Tonight, actually. Of course, I turned him down.”
“I knew it,” Chiffon said, jabbing a finger in the air. “There’s something hinky about that guy.”
“What do you mean?” Chenille asked, shirking away from her sister.
“He must want something from you. Maybe he thinks there’s a secret fortune in our family.”
Chenille twisted her engagement ring. “Why do you think he wants something from me? Isn’t it possible he wants to marry me because he loves me?”
“Loves you?” Chiffon said in an incredulous voice. “He doesn’t even know you! Besides, the two of you are horribly mismatched.”
“I suppose you think I’m too plain for him,” Chenille said hotly.
“Of course not. You’re just too innocent for him. It’s like a hammerhead shark dating My Little Pony.”
Chenille squared her shoulders. “Drake says I’m refreshing.”
“Or naive. Which works to his advantage.”
“I’m too exhausted to discuss this,” she huffed. “And I’m also insulted that you assume Drake has a sinister motive for marrying me. Maybe he just loves me. Is that so far-fetched? That your spinster sister could find a husband?”
“Chenille—”
“Maybe you’re just jealous because he shows absolutely no interest in you.”
Chiffon’s face fell. “You can’t believe that. I’m just trying to look after you. You’re not wise to the wiles of men.”
“And you are?”
Chiffon flinched.
“I’m sorry.” Chenille sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m overly tired and,” she glanced down at her engagement ring, “confused. I’m going to get ready for bed,” she said, heading toward the bathroom.
“Chenille, I just want you to be happy,” Chiffon said, trailing after her sister. “That’s my only motive. You do believe that, don’t you?”
Chenille didn’t turn around to answer.
On Monday morning Chenille left for the high school to meet with the principal. She claimed she was no longer mad at her sister, but judging by her wounded expression and stiff posture at breakfast, Chiffon believed otherwise. She feared her negative comments about Drake might shove Chenille right into his arms.
I wonder what his game is, Chiffon thought as she stacked the dishes from breakfast in the sink. No matter what Chenille said about him, Chiffon suspected Drake was slicker than a greased eel. As she wiped down the kitchen counter, the phone rang, and Garnell was on the other end.
“Hey you,” Chiffon said cheerfully. “Haven’t heard your voice in a spell. What’s hanging?”
“Laying low,” Garnell said. “I’ve been picking up some overtime at the kaolin plant. Is Chenille around this morning?”
“She’s at the high school today.”
“High school? What’s going on?”
Chiffon tucked the phone under her chin. “You haven’t heard? Chenille’s going to take Miss Beezle’s place over in the gifted program. I thought she stopped by your house to thank you.” Chiffon had hoped her sister would develop an interest in Garnell, seeing how he was such a fine man and obviously fond of her.
“I probably missed her; I’ve been so busy,” Garnell said. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. So she’ll be staying in Cayboo Creek?”
“Looks like it.”
“Great,” he said, genuinely pleased. “I’m sorry I missed her, ’cause I’ve got a little surprise for her.”
Chiffon exhaled heavily. “She’s got her own surprise, and frankly I’m worried sick about it.”
“What’s that?”
“Saturday night she accepted an engagement ring from a man she barely knows.”
“Say again?” Garnell croaked.
“She’s crazy as a boxful of crickets. She’s only been out with this Drake character a few times. And I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”
“Who is Drake?” Garnell said sadly. “I didn’t even know she was seeing anyone.”
“Some fancy pet doctor in Augusta. She met him when Walter was having one of his seizures. He’s a sneaky-looking fellow and a Yankee to boot. Hails from Wisconsin.” Chiffon spat out the state’s name as if it were equivalent to San Quentin.
Garnell cleared his throat. “I know some folks in Augusta. I could ask around. What’s this fellow’s last name?”
“Dupree. If she marries him, she’ll be Chenille Dupree. Sounds like a stripper’s name.”
“Have they set a date?”
“No, but he’s in an awful rush. Wanted to waltz her down the aisle the other night. Thank God she turned him down. She hasn’t accepted his proposal yet, but she’s thinking about it.”
“I’ll see what I can find out about him. Don’t bother to tell her I called. The surprise I had for her...” He trailed off. “It don’t matter so much now.”
Chenille hung up the phone feeling sorry for Garnell. He had sounded stricken by the news of Chenille’s proposal. Was it possible he was sweeter on her sister than she’d realized?
Twenty-Seven
If we aren’t supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?
~ Sign outside Boomer’s Butcher Shop
Dewitt went outside to play ball in the front yard and nearly tripped over an arrangement of eighteen sweetheart roses on the stoop.
“There’s more flowers out here!” he hollered to Chenille, who was seated on the sofa grooming Walter.
“Just bring them in and I’ll put them on the mantel with the others,” she said.
She glanced up at the fireplace, which was beginning to look like a miniature Garden of Eden, courtesy of Drake Dupree. Tulips, red as rubies, burst lushly from a clear glass vase. Gerber daisies, in Easter-egg colors, popped their heads out from a white wicker basket. A single orchid, slender and pale pink, curled from a terra-cotta pot.
Dewitt teetered in, looking like a floral bouquet with legs.
“Goodness gracious, that’s enormous!” Chenille said, rushing to relieve the child of his burden. “It’s too big to fit on the mantel.” She moved aside a checkerboard and placed the bouquet on a beveled-glass coffee table supported by a couple of elk horns. “There. That’s lovely,” she said. She didn’t bother to read the card attached to the flowers because they all said the same thing: “I can’t wait a minute longer. All my love, Drake.”
As she returned to the couch and resumed grooming Walter, Chiffon wandered into the living room, fresh from the shower.
“I forgot to tell you,” she said, face flushed and hair wrapped up in a bath towel. “Some lady called while you were gone yesterday, and she said the pet deposit on the apartment you looked at was five hundred dollars.”
“Ridiculous!” Chenille said, running a brush through Walter’s wiry fur. “Walter is an exemplary tenant. He’s clean, polite, and scarcely sheds.”
“I didn’t know you were looking for an apartment,” Chi
ffon said softly. Things were still tense between the sisters, even though Chiffon hadn’t said anything farther about her sister’s engagement to Drake.
“I need to know what’s available in Cayboo Creek. I can’t sleep in your living room forever,” Chenille said. “Although, if I marry Drake, I won’t need to find somewhere to live. I’ll just move into his place in Augusta.”
“I see he’s upping the ante,” Chiffon said, noticing the flowers on the coffee table. “Roses. Pretty darn impressive.”
Could I have been wrong about Drake? Chiffon was beginning to doubt herself. Last night Drake had stayed for supper and he’d been a perfect gentleman, bringing the kids an assortment of dime-store trinkets and raving over her venison stew.
Afterward, they’d all sat down to watch Chicken Run on the Family Channel, and Drake pretended to enjoy it—at least halfway through—until he fell asleep. He woke with a start, shouting the name “Veronique!” When questioned, he claimed Veronique was the name of his poodle who’d died of distemper when he was a child.
“Veronique is the reason I went into the veterinary sciences,” he said solemnly as they all nodded in sympathy.
Still, she couldn’t help but think there was something off about the guy, especially the way he was trying to drag Chenille down the aisle so quickly. But she’d kept her mouth shut, since her sister had made it clear she didn’t welcome her opinion.
“What’s this?” Chenille said with alarm as she ran her fingers through Walter’s fur. “Oh no! It can’t be. Walter has a parasite!”
“A parasite?” Chiffon said, leaning over for a closer look. “What kind? Not worms, I hope.”
“He has a tick!” Chenille said, hiccupping. “I can’t believe it. I never should have brought Walter out here to the backwoods where he’d be exposed to so many predators. Bring me the phone. I need to...hic...call Drake immediately.”
Chiffon was surprised at her sister’s overreaction. She’d become a lot more relaxed about Walter in the past weeks. Yesterday she’d even let Emily dress him in a Strawberry Shortcake outfit.
“It’s just a little tick,” Chiffon said in a soothing voice as she gently took Walter from her sister and examined his coat.
“Just a little tick, she says. I suppose...hic...Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme are just little diseases.”
Chiffon rooted through Walter’s coat and extended her palm to her sister. “Is this your tick? Looks like a burr to me.”
Chenille squinted at the small brown object in Chiffon’s hand. “Oh. I guess I didn’t...Are you sure? I could have sworn it was a tick.”
“I’m sure.”
Chenille threw up her hands. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. I’m so emotional, so raw. I can’t concentrate.”
“You’re going through a lot of changes in your life.”
“Yes, I am. And Drake has been just wonderful. He’s the most romantic man on the planet, just like one of those dreamy guys in the Mystery Date game we played as kids. It’s just happening so fast and...”
“Yes?”
Chenille drew up her knees to her chin, like a little girl. “I’m not sure I love him. I might just love the idea of him. He’s so suave, handsome, and successful. But our relationship feels like a movie set. It looks realistic from a distance, but when you get close, you see it’s all fake.”
Chiffon nodded. “So don’t rush into anything. Give it time.”
“That’s what I want to do, but Drake is so impatient. I’m afraid he’ll give up on me and then...” She hiccupped. “I’ll lose my last chance.”
“Your last chance for what?”
“Everything!” she said with a sniff. “White wedding gown, honeymoon, babies, a Cuisinart.”
“This isn’t your last chance. You’ve still got time. Nowadays women have babies well into their forties.”
Chenille shook her head vehemently. “I’m forty years old, and Drake’s the first man who’s ever shown serious interest in me. Before he came along, I never got beyond the third date or the first kiss.”
“You mean you’re a—”
“Yes.” She let out a delicate cough. “I am.”
“Oh.”
“It’s freakish, I know,” she said in low voice.
“It is not freakish,” Chiffon said, squeezing her hand. “And you’ll have plenty more opportunities to meet the right fellow. Before, you were closed up like a clam. Now that you’ve returned to Cayboo Creek, you’ve blossomed. Other men besides Drake will take notice.”
“I don’t know about that,” Chenille said, remembering how quickly Garnell had forgotten about her.
“I’m not going to tell you what to do,” Chiffon said. “But please, remember one thing. If it’s true love, it will keep.”
Chenille took a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose. “I’m seeing him tonight. We’ll see what happens.”
By the time Drake was due to pick her up, Chenille had shredded two pairs of pantyhose with her fingernails and poked herself in the eye with a mascara wand.
Everything she’d tried on looked about as flattering as a feed sack. Most of her clothes were in a heap in a corner of Chiffon’s room. When the doorbell rang, she rubbed her face raw with a washcloth, slipped into an old baggy pair of slacks and a blouse with a button missing, and trudged into the living room.
Drake stood in the hallway, having been admitted inside by Emily. He was patting Walter on the head as Chenille walked into the room.
He wore an exquisitely tailored camelhair coat, with a green silk scarf around his neck. His abundant dark hair, slightly damp from the drizzle outside, curled up around his ears. Chenille stood at the threshold of the living room, drinking him in.
So gorgeous, and so wrong for me.
Chiffon was right; they were a mismatched pair. Drake was a Ferrari, with quick acceleration and glamorous sleek lines. But Chenille didn’t want or need such a fancy model of a man. Tonight she had to break it off. It wasn’t fair to keep leading him all around Robin Hood’s barn. She had to tell him she wasn’t ready to get married, even if it meant losing the only male attention she’d ever attracted.
“Hello there, lovely one,” he said, glancing up at her. “Are you ready for our adventure tonight?”
“Just let me get my coat,” she said.
Drake was taking her to a hilltop in Augusta where all the city lights could be viewed. On the drive over, he animatedly chatted to her about his day (a ferret had bitten him on his index finger; he had been forced to put down a cat with feline leukemia). He didn’t seem to notice or care that she was slumped against the passenger window, her cheek squashed by the cool glass.
They drove to an area called the Hill, and Drake parked the car on an incline. As Chenille peered out the window, she had to admit that the view was spectacular. The downtown area, with its dark alleys and aging buildings, glowed in the gloom like a lit-up birthday cake. It was hard to imagine anything sad or disturbing occurring among the friendly mosaic of multicolored lights. Chenille heard a pop and realized Drake had just opened a bottle of champagne.
He poured a glass and handed it to her. She shook her head. “I’m not very thirsty.”
He continued to push the drink on her. “Thirst has nothing to do with it. Champagne quenches the soul.”
She reluctantly took the glass and ventured a small sip. The bubbles made her tongue itch.
“And now for a small token of my love,” Drake said, placing a wrapped box in her hand.
“Oh, how nice,” Chiffon said. Her voice held the false enthusiasm of a child who unwraps a package of underwear at Christmas.
“In some ways it’s the most special gift of all,” he added.
Chenille couldn’t imagine how he could top himself. Already, he’d wooed her with L
indt chocolate truffles, a pair of pearl earrings, a fourteen-carat-gold bracelet, a boxed collection of Kenny G CDs, a rhinestone-studded collar for Walter, and a pashmina shawl.
It was all too phony to her. Garnell holding her close as he stepped all over her feet was the genuine article. Drake’s brand of courtship, on the other hand, was as real as gold glitter that came in a jar.
She weighed the gift in her hand. It was extremely light. A box of handkerchiefs was her guess. Or maybe another bracelet. She opened the package and tore away the tissue paper to reveal a winged heart made from red construction paper and lace doilies.
“What’s this?” She lifted the heart up to see if something was underneath it, but the box was empty.
Drake looked at her shyly. “I cut out that heart when I was in the fourth grade. I promised myself that when I grew up, I’d give it to my wife.”
“Oh,” said Chenille.
“I always imagined what my future wife would look like. Sometimes she was brunette, sometimes blond. My mother told me, ‘Drake, it doesn’t matter what she looks like, it’s how she makes you feel here,’” he said, jabbing his chest with his thumb. “Before I came over this evening, I added the lace wings,” he continued softly. “Because this is how my heart feels when I’m around you.”
“Oh, Drake!”
He gently opened her hand, pressed the heart into her palm, and closed her fingers around it. “Please treat it with care.”
Chenille felt lightheaded, as if she were swinging at the very top of a Ferris wheel. Had she dismissed Drake too quickly? Here he was, giving her what she’d been looking for all along: some sign of his vulnerability and humanness. With this one small gesture, she felt herself softening like margarine on a baked potato. His eyes seemed to plead for her approval. What had she been thinking? Why was she shoving this wonderful man away?
“I’ve made up my mind, Drake,” she heard herself saying, almost as if in a dream. “I will marry you. And I promise I’ll treat your heart as if it were my very own.”
A Dollar Short (The Bottom Dollar Series Book 2) Page 19