She glanced over at Randi. “They used to be close.”
A red flag went up in my head. “What happened?”
“Most of them still are, I think,” she said, “but not my mother. A few months ago, she started to withdraw from the group. Stopped inviting the other women over or returning their calls. It was like she put up a wall and there was no tearing it down. She used to”—she lowered her voice before uttering the last word—“care. She cared about everyone. About Granny. About me. About Todd. About Auntie Sherri and Auntie Coco.”
“But she was still part of the group. I bet she still cared about the people close to her, but maybe she didn’t know how to show it.”
But Megan shook her head. “I don’t know. She was so involved in town business, from her real estate work, it’s like she gathered up information about people, then turned it against them. Auntie Coco couldn’t work with her anymore.”
“They used to work together?”
She nodded. “Shared an office. Coco, my mom, and my dad. But my mom made things tough. She thought Auntie Coco let a big client go, and she never forgave her. Her own sister. What if I . . . ?”
She trailed off, but the question was clear. What if Megan had done something to upset her mother? Would she have been written off, too?
We left the yoga studio together, and the peace that had flowed through me during the class was all but gone. Megan had to carry the uncertainty over how much her mother had loved her, and whether there were any limitations on that love, for the rest of her life. I, on the other hand, kept coming back to three questions: What had happened three months ago to warrant such a change in Delta? Who else had Delta shut out? And was that person responsible for her death?
Chapter 10
As a seamstress, my reaction to entering a fabric store was akin to how most of the men I’d known in my life reacted to a hardware store. My brother, Red, could spend hours trailing up and down the aisles in Jury’s Hardware, the large local store. Since Will and I had started dating, I’d spent countless hours there myself—but give me the quilt shop on the square or one of the big fabric stores in Granbury or Fort Worth any day. The rows of stacked bolts of fabric, the notions and patterns, the lace and tulle and burlap all filled me with contentment. And joy.
Yet right at this particular moment, I felt like a mama duck, trailing her brood of ducklings behind her. Only the ducklings were Randi Martin, Bennie Cranford, and Cynthia Homer. We’d met at the store so I could figure out designs for the rest of the aprons. “Do y’all like to cook?” I asked, slipping into Southern speak in hopes that they’d open up to me
Cynthia scoffed. “My kitchen has never seen a turkey in the oven.”
“It’s never seen anything in the oven, has it?” Bennie said with a laugh.
“I tried a ham once, but otherwise, no. The oven is just eye candy.”
“You and Coco.” She nudged me. “She has one of those super expensive numbers. All stainless steel with red knobs. And she barely boils water.”
“I can make hard-boiled eggs,” Cynthia said, “but that’s about it. I prefer takeout. Have y’all tried the little teahouse on the square? They cater now.”
“So I guess you’ll be using them for your stop on the progressive dinner?” Bennie asked.
Cynthia met Bennie’s challenge head-on. “I haven’t decided. I imagine you’ll be cooking all week so you can put us all to shame.” It wasn’t a question, but a loaded statement. And more than a little bit accusatory.
“I have no intention of putting you to shame,” Bennie responded, “but I do have my part of the menu planned. And I’m working with Todd and Megan about theirs. Delta had been on the schedule for dessert, and they’re going to host it now.”
“Is Todd a good cook?”
“Oh yes. He went to cooking school.”
“Megan said she’s gained ten pounds in the few years they’ve been together. Poor thing, he’s pretty critical of her weight, but then he turns around and makes all this great food for her.”
“I thought he went to law school,” Bennie said.
“Right. At College Station, but he’s a renaissance man. He helps Megan with all those flea markets and antique shows. Another Anson, if you ask me.”
My heart still ached for Megan, but having Todd as support was something, at least. For all of Delta’s distaste for the Cassidy family, Megan had always been the opposite. She liked Nana’s goats, had come over to meet Earl Grey, my teacup pig, and had even looked at my rack of prêt-à-porter clothes, buying a high-low skirt that I’d made one rainy Sunday afternoon. I’d realized after she left with it that I’d actually had her in mind when I’d made it. The Cassidy charm at work.
Bennie sucked in an audible breath, a sudden thought occurring to her. “Most people are killed by loved ones, aren’t they?”
“Did you see that on one of your crime shows?” Cynthia asked.
Bennie didn’t bat an eyelash. “Maybe, but it’s true, right?”
“What are you saying?”
“Well, what about Delta’s family? Megan? Todd?” She drew in another breath. “Jessie Pearl? Could one of them have done it?”
We all stared at her. “Jessie Pearl hit her own daughter on the head with a big rock?”
“She’s strong for an old lady,” Randi said. “She takes my senior class once a week. Or she did until she hurt her leg.”
Cynthia shook her head, frustrated, staring them both down. “Why not Coco or Sherri? Do you think one of them might have killed her, too?”
“The thought did cross my mind,” Bennie said.
Cynthia’s eyes narrowed to thin slits. “Oh for Pete’s sake, Bennie, how can you even begin to think it was one of Delta’s own family?”
Bennie shrugged. “Someone gave her her due?”
“Her due? Do you think she deserved to die, Bennie?” Randi asked, showing her own mortification.
A spatter of red spread from Bennie’s chest, up her throat, and to her cheeks. She fiddled with the headband in her hair, readjusting it. “That’s not what I meant. All I’m saying is that I don’t believe any of her own family was to blame.”
“I don’t, either,” Cynthia said.
Bennie leveled her gaze at her friend. “If you had to say, then who do you think could have done it, Cyn?”
She shrugged nonchalantly. “I’d put my money on Jeremy Lisle.”
We all stepped back, pressing ourselves against the bolts of fabric shelved in the knit section, as a woman pushed her cart past us. “I talked with him the other night at the Historic Council meeting,” I said. “He didn’t strike me as a murderer.” Which didn’t really mean a thing. I’d met several people who’d turned out to be murderers, and not a single one of them had seemed off to me at first. Which made me take a sidestep. Of all the people I’d met in relation to Delta’s death, the women around me, as well as Georgia Emmons, seemed the least likely murderers. It was definitely possible that one of them had attacked Delta, leaving her for dead.
I looked at each one in turn, trying to imagine the scene in the graveyard, each in the starring role as murderess. Randi, the yoga teacher, was strong enough. Bennie looked like she’d have enough spunk. Cynthia was the only one who didn’t seem to have the gumption. She was too proper. Too put together. I couldn’t even imagine her traipsing through a graveyard, let alone killing a woman who had been a friend.
“Megan said something happened a few months back and that Delta changed. Did any of you notice that?”
“I remember this one conversation we had a while back,” Cynthia said. “It might have been two or three months ago. We’d been reorganizing the personnel files at the church, and we were getting ready to break for lunch. Then out of the blue, she says, You ought to be able to trust your husband, right?”
The other women stared at Cynthia, Georgia gasping. “Surely she didn’t think Anson was up to something?”
Cynthia shrugged. “She wouldn’t say any more than t
hat, but I wondered.”
“She started spending more time talking about the mayoral campaign,” Bennie said. “And helping Megan and Todd with the antiques and the cooking.”
“It was as if she was reprioritizing things in her life,” Randi said, her voice calm and contemplative. “Almost as if she knew her time here was limited.”
We all pondered that in silence for a moment until another woman, this one with a baby in the front section of the shopping cart and a toddler holding fast to her hand, passed us. We stepped back as far as we could to let them by, but the woman frowned. We were clearly blocking the fabric selection from her curious eyes. “Let’s look around,” I said, clapping my hands and making my voice cheerful. “The progressive dinner must go on, which means we need aprons. We’ll try the cottons first,” I said, and led them to the next row to get out of the woman’s way.
“Do they make nice aprons, then?” Bennie asked.
“The best,” I said. Adding fancier fabrics and embellishments made them more interesting, but a cotton base made the most sense. “Let me know if you see something you like.” I watched them as they wandered up and down the aisles, hiding a smile behind my hand at the delight on their faces. I knew just what they were experiencing.
I remembered my very first trip to a fabric store. Meemaw had been the mama duck and I’d trailed behind her, skimming my hand along the bolts of fabric as if they were made of spun gold. Eventually, she’d led me to the flannel section and asked me which one I liked. I scanned the patterns, zeroing in on one. It had a teal background and scattered over it were chubby pink and gray elephants, umbrellas clutched in their trunks. As an imaginative five-year-old, I had wondered if I had something made from the fabric, would I float away like the elephants?
Meemaw had taken the bolt up to the counter and had the clerk cut a length of it. Is this for you? she’d asked, handing it to me all folded into a neat square.
I’d looked up at Meemaw, who’d nodded. Every girl needs floating elephant pajamas, she’d answered.
“Harlow?” Bennie’s voice pulled me out of the happy memory.
I swiped away the pools of tears that had gathered in my eyes. “Did you find something?” I asked, noticing right away what an understatement that question was. What she’d found was a shopping cart, and it was already piled high with bolts of mismatched cotton. Cherries, graphic birds and flowers, denim with embroidered daisies, and a brown and pink collection with cupcakes and coffee cups. “Oh yeah,” she exclaimed, “Take a look!”
I dug through the rest of the cart, trying to envision an apron that I could design which could combine a few of the fabrics. None of them quite fit Bennie in my mind. But then again, what did I really know about her? Her short, curly dark hair was always perfect. She often wore fun headbands that made her look younger than her sixty-some-odd years. She wore pastel-colored capris and cute, matching tops. She looked like she could have appeared in one of the iconic ads from the 1950s, pushing a vacuum with one hand, reading a book in the other.
She was Bennie the Homemaker.
And none of the fabrics in her cart really worked for her, in my opinion. “What’s your favorite color, Bennie?”
“Yellow,” she answered immediately. “Definitely yellow. And red. Happy colors.”
I guided her back through the aisles, replacing a few of the bolts, choosing another cherry pattern instead of the one she’d selected, and adding red and yellow ribbon and a package of green pompoms. “Not sure what we’ll do with these, but I can’t pass them up.”
She looked skeptically at the miniature pastel green puffs, but nodded. “You’re the expert.”
The moment I smiled back at her in encouragement, a vision of her in an apron finally came to me. A retro cocktail number with ruffles. “Perfect!”
Bennie transferred her skeptical gaze from the pompoms to me. “What’s perfect?”
“I know what your apron’s going to look like,” I answered, “and I think you’ll love it.”
She looked at the shopping cart. “So which fabrics?”
“None of them.”
Her smile drooped. “None?”
“Well, maybe one. This green one, I think. I have just what I need at home for the rest of it.”
She frowned, and I could see the question plain on her face. She’d just told me she adored yellow and red, so why would I choose a green fabric? And none of the others she’d liked?
“You’ll love it, I promise.”
“If you say so,” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced. She pushed her cart, wandering off, and I went in search of Randi and Cynthia. I had a feeling that getting them all together again would be like herding cats.
They hadn’t had as much success as Bennie, but Randi had found a selection of tie-dyed and naturally dyed fabrics. I helped her choose a few that I could work with.
Cynthia, on the other hand, looked to be stymied by the entire process. “Can I help?” I asked her. She hadn’t selected a single bolt and seemed to have stopped looking.
“I’m not going to bother with an apron.”
Uh-oh. So Bennie had gotten to her. “Cynthia, of course you are! You’ve all been looking forward to this dinner. You can’t be the only one to not have an apron.”
She fluttered a hand in front of her. “It’s not like I’m cooking. Why would I need one?”
It was a good question, but I’d done a bit of research on the history of aprons, and one of the things I’d realized is that the utilitarian purpose they’d had in the past was long gone. Their resurgence wasn’t about protecting the clothing underneath. It wasn’t about actually cooking. “The way you all are using them,” I said, “for this progressive dinner? It’s more of a fashion accessory. It’s retro-chic. You have to have one.”
I had expected my pep talk to sway her, but Cynthia looked at me, her eyes flashing and determined. “I don’t need an apron, Harlow, and I don’t want one. You go on and make the others, but don’t waste your time on me. Delta’s not here to—”
She trailed off, her voice cracking. Losing Delta must have opened a floodgate of emotions, and those feelings didn’t just evaporate overnight. Dealing with the grief of losing a friend was a long endeavor.
To my mind, despite her protests, Cynthia deserved an apron made just for her. She might say she didn’t want one, but I was going to make her one anyway, and if my charm held true, it would help her realize whatever dream she held close in her heart and was afraid to let free.
Chapter 11
A church tag sale in a small town could always be depended on to bring the people out in droves. Mama, Nana, and I had signed up to volunteer together during the late afternoon shift that Saturday, which had given me the morning to work on aprons.
I had started with a pattern I found in the attic once I got home from the fabric store. It was a retro cocktail apron with three ruffles, and I dubbed it the Susie Homemaker. It was perfect for Bennie, who I knew made her husband dinner every night and who thrived in the kitchen, loved throwing parties, had a classic Victorian house, and couldn’t wait to host her part of the progressive dinner.
She was a homemaker through and through, and this apron was going to be perfect for her. I’d also considered the stack of vintage fabric from my great-great-grand-
mother’s youth and ended up picking two coordinating fabrics, one from my stash, and the second one the cherries we’d ended up buying the day before. There was a vintage cooking theme with the cherries, teakettles, dishes, stoves, and pies. The background of the vintage selection was white, while the primary colors were red and a vibrant green. “This’ll be the top ruffle,” I told Gracie, who’d come over to help me sew.
She held up the green print Bennie and I had agreed on the day before. “How about this one in the middle? Maybe with those little green pompoms hanging from the hem?”
I nodded in approval. She had a real knack for color and design. She was a natural. “Bennie loves yellow,” I sai
d, remembering what she’d told me. I held up the last fabric, another from my own collection. The background was lemon yellow with a white pattern scattered through it, softening the color. “We’ll need to tie in the red from the first piece,” I said, “and bring the yellow up to the top. I think I’ll make the waistband with this, and maybe appliqué a few of the flowerpots from this one.” I tapped the vintage piece that would be the top ruffle.
We laid it all out on the cutting table in my workroom, and thirty minutes later, all the pieces were cut and we were ready to sew. I could do it myself in less than an hour, but Gracie was rubbing her hands together and bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. She wasn’t saying, but she wanted to do this project on her own. I handed her the three main pieces, put my hands on her shoulders, and directed her to the sewing machine. “You take this one,” I said. “I have an idea for Randi Martin’s.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
Her grin was infectious. “Oh yes, one hundred percent. I’m right here if you need me,” I added, but I knew she wouldn’t. She’d made most of her own homecoming dress, and had tackled a slew of other projects. An apron would be easy for her.
She set to work, and I pulled out the fabrics Randi had selected at the store. I’d had an inspiration during the night: the perfect apron to compliment her earthy style. The background fabric would be muslin. Three short ruffles, one in a fabric I’d found that had writing on it and looked like newsprint, the next in muslin, and the third in a natural green color. A teal piece of ribbon would sit above the ruffles. I’d use appliqué to form the stems sprouting from the teal ribbon, with fabric appliquéd flowers sitting on top of each stem. Finally, I’d use small rectangles of muslin, embellished in fabric pens with inspirational words like “creative,” “inspire,” “evolution,” “vision,” “empower,” and “believe,” sewing them on to make the apron complete.
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