She’d mentioned this to Beatrice once, and immediately received a lecture on taking pride in what you had. “It isn’t the price of something that makes it valuable,” her boss chastised. “It’s the joy it brings you in looking nice.”
Of course, perfumes were an entirely different matter. Beatrice had zero patience for women who walked in wearing Givenchy but wouldn’t pay more than thirty dollars for cologne.
Many of Beatrice’s regulars came in looking for her. It might have made for a piss-poor commission if she hadn’t been so fair about the men. Stella got to handle most of them, even Mr. Haggardy, who arrived every month or two to purchase a bottle for his “wife.”
“Even I can’t go through that many bottles,” Beatrice said. She was so disgusted with his all-over-the-map purchases that she’d immediately handed him over to Stella, who was happy to sell him something expensive and impressive for whoever might be on the receiving end, however long she lasted.
Stella had just started spreading the brown and gold leaves in the front window when the phone rang. Beatrice was still helping the housewife, so Stella headed to the counter to get it.
“Oh, thank God,” her mother said. “Stella, get here. Get here fast. It’s time.”
Stella hung up the phone and crashed through the curtains to grab her purse. Grandma’s car was still at Joe’s, as they’d had to order the glass, but she could run. She’d been wearing sneakers every day, knowing this might happen.
She barreled through the store again. Beatrice looked up, and Stella choked out, “Grandma.”
Beatrice nodded and shooed her out with a sympathetic look and a wave of her hand. “Take care, love.”
Lawns and shrubbery blurred past as Stella ran flat-footed through the streets of Holly to her grandmother’s house. Her hair pulled loose from the banana clip, flying behind her in a tangle. The cold blistered her cheeks and nose, making her eyes water. Several cars lined the street as she pounded out the last block. Was everyone in town there before her? If Vivian had waited too long to call her, there would be hell to pay.
Anger spurred her to run even faster. She dashed up the sidewalk and burst through the front door.
She dropped her purse and scarf just inside. The house was eerily quiet. She steadied herself and walked through the foyer to the living room.
A half-dozen people stood around Grandma’s bed. Vivian, of course. And Stella’s father. The preacher from Vivian’s church. Two neighbors. And the nurse.
Stella tried to set aside her anger that all these people had obviously been notified ahead of her, but she was furious. She wanted Grandma all to herself, to clear them all out. Nobody loved her like she had. None of them. Tears threatened, and she bit her lip painfully to keep them at bay.
She pushed past the neighbors to get to Grandma’s side. Vivian was holding one of Angie’s hands. The preacher had the other.
Stella stepped in front of the preacher, not caring if it was rude, to make him let go. This was HER grandmother. HER grandmother’s hand. She picked it up, so fragile and limp. Was she already dead? How did you tell? She didn’t want to ask.
The nurse laid a stethoscope on Grandma’s chest. “She hasn’t breathed in about two minutes,” she whispered. “But she still has heart tones.”
Stella nodded, completely unable to speak. She glanced over at her mother, who sat, lips pressed together, almost as if she were being inconvenienced. Her father hovered, shifting from foot to foot, probably anxious to get back to his television programs. None of these people cared a whit. She wished she could kick them all out, make a fuss, scream.
The room was dim, the windows shuttered. Death permeated everything, from the grayness of the light to the grim expressions. Stella wanted to fill the room with sunshine. Why would anyone want to stay in a world this gloomy? She should turn on the radio. Play a Johnny Mathis record, Grandma’s favorite. In fact, screw this, she would.
“I’m going to fix this, Grandma,” Stella said. “It’s all wrong, and I don’t blame you a bit for protesting.”
She kissed her grandmother’s hand and laid it back on the bed. Without a glance behind her, she strode right up to the big gray curtains and yanked them back. Sunlight flooded the room, and dust mites billowed from the fabric like bursting dandelions.
The turntable sat in the center of the wall of shelves, the records lined up neatly in a cabinet below. Stella knew exactly what to choose. She tugged out a case featuring a young Mathis in a white shirt, open at the throat, a standard 1970s-styled type spelling out his name, followed by the title of the album, I’m Coming Home.
She powered up the record player with a gentle hum. The album popped and hissed as she lay the needle against the edge, feeling it slip into place to start the first song.
She walked back to the bed as a triangle measured out its tinkling introduction. By the time she had resumed her place, Mathis was belting out his main theme. “I’m coming home.”
Melody, the longtime neighbor across the street, patted Stella’s shoulder. “She would have loved that, Stella. Johnny was her favorite.”
“She likes it right now,” Stella said.
“Four minutes,” the nurse said.
Stella tuned that out. She let the song wash over her, the millions of times she’d heard it, Grandma Angie fluffing a pillow or dusting a table or sorting through beads. She didn’t sing, but often hummed along, sometimes breathing a line or two that particularly struck her.
Stella did the same now, squeezing her hand. And then Grandma’s chin jerked upward, and she inhaled a huge rushing gulp of air, almost arching. Stella held on tight. “I’m here, Grandma. Right here.”
And everyone seemed to fall away as Grandma Angie relaxed into the exhale, her jaw falling, her chest settling back onto the bed, as if she were slipping into some other dimension, eternally down and away from the body lying limply on the white sheets.
The song played on, and as it ended, the nurse slid the silver disc against Grandma’s chest. She sighed as she pulled it away. “She’s gone.”
Stella could not let go of her hand, would not let go. She knew this was it, the last trace of warmth, the last gentle curl of her fingers. In the coffin she would be waxen and cold, her hands immovable and stiff.
In science class she’d learned that energy could change forms but never went away. She hoped that somehow her grandmother’s love would stay with her, travel wherever she went. Because now that the only person she really considered family was gone, Holly was already shifting into a memory.
17
Wake
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DANE straightened as the door to Stella’s grandmother’s house opened. The woman standing there had to be Stella’s mother. Same eyes. Same chin.
Too bad she had the pinched look of a constipated bulldog.
“You must be the new boy.” She stepped back to let him in. “Stella’s in the kitchen.”
Dane paused to see if she would point the way. She didn’t. He stepped past her into the gloom.
The whole place smelled of sliced ham and piecrust. He headed down the foyer and into the darkened living room. The hospital bed was gone. People milled around or huddled in clumps. The funeral was set for the next day, so nobody was wearing black yet. Gimme caps and overalls, tacky florals and shiny overly bright dresses. But no Stella.
A couple of the women glanced his way, but no one asked who he was or why he might be there. He turned toward the doorway with the most light.
He saw her before he’d even entered the kitchen, the curve of her back as familiar as the seat of his Harley. Her hair was twisted up in some fancy concoction of clips, leaving her neck bare. He needed to press his lips right there, and he knew that it would help her too, but a gaggle of disapproving women paced the room like jackals, watching him warily.
Stella rinsed dishes in the sink, taking her time, as if she could keep the world at bay if she just concentrated on that task. Dane knew. He re
membered a similar moment when he stacked plastic containers and aluminum trays after his mother’s wake. No fancy dishes, just a couple neighbors bringing stuff by, not expecting two single boys to return their cake plates or Pyrex, and so using throwaway stuff.
Here, everything was perfect, silver trays and crystal bowls. A whole table full of casseroles and cakes and finger food. Dane knew Stella wouldn’t turn around, so he went ahead and crossed through the firing squad, avoiding eye contact. He slid his arms right around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. He wouldn’t go so far as to kiss her, not yet, but he’d be close enough to smell her.
Her chin dropped to her chest as he fitted himself to her. She sagged a little, as though a great weight had finally been lifted and she could rest. He clasped her tightly, holding her steady. “I’m here, Stell. I’m here.”
They hadn’t seen each other in days. Once Angie died, it was impossible to get in touch with Stella. He’d asked Joe what to do.
“Just go,” the old man had said, wiping his forehead for the hundredth time in five minutes. “Nobody kicks up a fuss at a funeral. She’ll be at the house, you know.”
Her hands were in the dishwater, still holding a bowl. He reached around and took it from her and set it on the counter. She wore an apron, a frilly red thing that had probably been Angie’s.
He backed away from the counter, pulling Stella with him, untying the apron as they moved. It fell away, and she caught it before it hit the floor. “Grandma’s?” he asked.
She held it to her waist a moment.
He took it from her, folding it carefully and laying it on the counter. He leaned in close. “I met your mom. Gracious AND charming. We’re running away together after this.”
She leaned her forehead against his neck, and he could feel her smile. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “I hoped you would come, even though I didn’t call. I should have called.”
“Shh.” He wrapped her up again. “You didn’t have to call.”
She sagged again, and he realized how coiled she kept herself. He vowed, as much as was in his power, to keep her relaxed and able to live in this moment, this hard moment, but one best managed surrounded with people who actually cared.
“Hello, Vivian.” A man’s voice in the kitchen startled everyone. Dane knew it was Joe, even as strangled as it sounded.
He and Stella turned to the man, spit-shined in an aging charcoal suit, his hair slicked back.
“Well, Joe,” Vivian said. “You’re here.” Her face seemed all lips, red, lurid, disapproving.
“You couldn’t chase me away from this,” Joe said, handing her a dish. “I’m done with listening to that.”
Dane leaned down to Stella again. “What does that mean?”
But Stella shook her head. He didn’t know if that meant she couldn’t say, or if she didn’t know.
Vivian’s face bloomed to match her mouth. “Don’t you waltz in here on this day and give me any lectures about behavior.”
“I kept my peace long enough,” he said. “And I’m speaking at the funeral tomorrow.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” Vivian shouted, then caught herself. “There will be no speeches. Just a traditional service.”
“Try and stop me.” Joe whirled around then and headed back out the front door.
Dane let go of Stella. “I’ll be right back,” he said. He dashed through the kitchen, bumping into Vivian, still holding the casserole.
She whirled around, practically tossing the foil container on the counter. He heard her say, “What has gotten into this town?” as he flew through the foyer and out the door.
*
Dane nearly smacked clean into Joe, who stood just outside the door, admiring a rosebush. “Bloomed without her,” Joe said, snapping off a pink bud and sticking it into his lapel.
Joe straightened, tugging down on the jacket. Sweat beaded across his forehead, so he extracted a white linen handkerchief to dab across his face. “Missouri weather. You never know what it’s going to bring.”
Dane couldn’t think of a thing to say. Joe never dressed this way, acted this way. He was pickup trucks and gimme caps, overalls and grease.
Joe took off in his jaunty walk, one leg stiff, and Dane fell in step beside him. “You okay, Joe?”
They passed lawns of every variety, trimmed and trashed, lush with green and dead with dirt. Houses were no better. The street had no rhyme or reason, poverty next to middle class, a great jumble of human conditions. You’d never see this in Houston. People stuck together by the set of circumstances that befell them.
Joe stopped by a sagging house with a brown lawn. The porch bowed in the middle, as though its load was just too heavy.
“Look at the window boxes,” Joe said.
Bright white plastic boxes lined all four windows in the front of the house. Inside were geraniums in red and pink, vivid color against the weather-beaten trim and fogged windows.
“This is Stella’s house,” Joe said. “You haven’t been here, I reckon.”
Dane shook his head.
“Her dad doesn’t keep things up, but Vivian—Stella’s mom—does what she can.”
Dane frowned. “That woman makes Stella miserable.”
“She makes most everyone miserable.” Joe kicked at a red ant bed burgeoning by the cracked sidewalk. “Some people get all stirred up when people mess with them.” Ants poured out of the granulated mound. “Eventually you turn into that thing they poked you into becoming.”
Dane backed away as the angry insects spread wide. “So she wasn’t always like this.”
“Vivian was one of the kindest girls imaginable, just like her mother.”
“So who kicked her? Stella’s dad?”
“Nah, some man in town came along. Paid real fine attention to her. Stella was small then. Vivian was feeling blue after her father died. Her husband was the quiet sort, not one to get all up and romance-like.”
“So she had an affair?”
“That man riled her up. We all knew it. We all saw it. And once she had a taste for it, there was no stopping her. All the women had to keep their men locked up.”
“Really?” Dane couldn’t see Vivian as the harlot.
“She don’t have too many friends in this town.” Joe turned away and started his awkward gait again.
Dane stared at the house, wondering which window was Stella’s, then rushed to catch up with Joe. “So what was all that about back at Angie’s?”
“Just an old man making a spectacle of himself.”
“Did Vivian say something to you?”
“She doesn’t have to.” Joe stopped, catching his breath. “I know I’m not welcome. I’m the one who might have stepped on her father’s perfect memory.” He mopped his forehead again. “As a young man of sixty, I could walk these ten blocks a hundred times a day and not notice.”
“And you did, I bet.”
“I took any chance to catch a glimpse of Angie. Everyone knows it.” He started walking again. “Angie knew it.”
“Vivian got in the way?”
“Angie knew how her daughter felt. And family came first.”
They stopped at the end of another cracked walkway leading to a modest house in sound condition. Flower beds full of spindly rosebushes sprouted anemic blooms.
Joe approached the flowers and plucked one. It disintegrated into a shower of petals.
“You grow these for Angie?” Dane asked.
“I can’t grow weeds,” Joe said. “I planted these knowing Angie would want to come save them. And she did. Would walk down to tend them right up until she went to the nursing home. I chose yellow and orange just for her.”
Joe stared at the rail of his porch, and Dane knew he could picture himself there, looking down on Angie, kneeling by his struggling roses.
A wind kicked up, sending the weak limbs to swaying. More petals fluttered to the ground. “I’m sure they’ll die now. Just as well. Been a slow death for all of us.”<
br />
Dane kicked at the dirt. “So what you planning on doing at the funeral?”
Joe chuckled. “Having the time of my life.” He looked up at the sky. “Angelica, my girl, you’re going to love it.” He climbed the three short steps of his porch. “You get on back to Stella, now, boy. There’s lots of Angie in her.” He unlocked the door, the thud of its closing reverberating in the spindly rail.
Dane walked along the bed of flowers, looking for one that might hold up to a careful plucking. On the end, a yellow one wavered at the tip of a flimsy stem, still rolled tightly into a fresh bud. He cupped the bloom and snapped it a foot below, wincing at the bite of a tiny thorn he hadn’t noticed, too small to break the skin. He kept the petals protected in his palm as he continued back to Stella’s grandmother’s house, and the women who surrounded her like a cage.
18
Funeral Escapade
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DANE tossed his sports jacket over his shoulder as he walked Stella to the church for the funeral. Fall had given in to one last heat wave. He was used to it. Hundred degrees in September was the norm back in Texas. Overall, Missouri had been easy going on the weather.
Stella gripped his hand like a vise. They approached the imposing entry of the Baptist church, where Vivian had insisted the funeral be held. Dane tugged on the carved wooden handle and led them into a foyer where Vivian arranged photographs and a guest book, surrounded by a gaggle of matronly women in dark dresses.
“About time you got here,” Vivian snapped. “I’m guessing you decided to stay out all night again even though your grandmother was cold in a coffin.”
“I’m never going to your house again.” Stella’s voice was a growl. “I will never see you again after today.”
Tangled: A New Adult Romance Boxed Set (12 Book Bundle of Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Royalty) Page 123