She slipped a hand out from under the covers and searched for her cell phone on the nightstand. When she found it, she hit the speed dial number for Piper.
“Good morning?” Piper answered.
“I’m going to help Stella clean the shop and talk her into lunch at Clawdy’s and then having an afternoon in Sherman to try on dresses for this ball that Heather is planning. You should come with us.”
“Can’t. Remember, the boys asked Rhett over for supper. I just know he’s going to tell me that he’s the one who is seeing Stella and he’s going to ask a million questions about her because we are her best friends. Don’t go shopping for pretty dresses without me, promise that you won’t. Why don’t y’all come for hot dogs and a baseball game out in the backyard?” Piper said.
“Well, she did say that her feller was the worst man in the whole county for her to fall in love with. So it might be Rhett, but he’s not going to tell you anything if she’s right there, so get all the information and fill him in on everything about her that you can without telling our private secrets and call me tonight when he leaves. I’ll put the thumbscrews to Stella. Between the two of us I bet we figure it out by bedtime.”
“Y’all have a good time, but no shopping until I’m there. I’m cooking. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and I mean to find out just what he’s hiding in his heart for our friend,” Piper told her.
When life gives you lemons, make chocolate chip cookies and make the whole world wonder what you’ve been up to. That was what Charlotte’s grandmother used to say, and it sure enough applied that day. Charlotte had had the day planned, but now it had taken a ninety-degree turn the other way and she wasn’t sad anymore. She and Piper might not agree on the way Stella was keeping her distance from Nancy, but they were united in their mission to find out who Stella was keeping company with. Lord help if Stella’s boyfriend was Rhett Monroe, the resident bad boy of Cadillac, Texas. Nancy might crawl up in a casket and breathe her last if that was happening right under everyone’s noses.
Charlotte remembered the bake sale when she saw all the cars parked in front of Ruby’s Beauty Shop and whipped her vehicle into an empty space. Stella loved her mama’s banana bread, so if there was a loaf left, Charlotte intended to use it to pry information out of her about this new feller. She opened the car door to a blast of summer heat and had second thoughts about using food to get Stella to talk. By the time she went from car to porch, sweat rolled down her face, melting all the makeup she’d so carefully applied. She whipped a rubber band from the pocket of her shorts and pulled her hair up into a ponytail as she crossed the yard.
“Well, I sure didn’t expect to see you here,” Nancy said.
Beulah fanned with one of those church fans with Jesus on one side and an advertisement for a funeral home on the other. “Hot, ain’t it?”
“Good mornin’, ladies. Y’all got any of Nancy’s banana bread left?” Charlotte asked.
“Honey, that was gone within an hour of the time we opened up. We have one of Heather’s special carrot cakes,” Beulah said. “I’ll sell it to you for half price if you want it.”
“I’ll just look around,” Charlotte answered.
Everyone in town knew that Heather couldn’t cook. She bought her bake sale donations out of the grocery store freezer section, removed them from the packaging, and put them on a fancy disposable tray before she wrapped them in plastic wrap.
“That peach cobbler is from Clawdy’s,” Beulah whispered. “I bought it special for the bake sale. And I made the banana pudding myself.”
Charlotte nodded and looked around some more. She picked up a couple of caramel popcorn balls and handed them to Beulah with a wink. “I think I’ll have this chocolate cake, too, but only if you made it.”
Beulah beamed. “Yes, I did, from scratch. It’s Jack’s favorite, so I made two.”
She pulled a bill from her pocket and shook her head when Beulah started to give her a dollar back. “Just add that to the fund. We all want to see Stella happy, don’t we?”
Heather wiped her face with a lace-trimmed white hankie. “This is about more than just finding a husband for Stella. It’s about the beginning of turning Cadillac from a backwoods, two-light town into something like Tulsa with theaters and a shopping mall as well as a place where we can have an elegant ball—” She stopped midsentence. “Well, hello, Sugar Magee. Where are your sisters?”
“Gigi is parking the car and Tansy is right behind me. Why didn’t you tell me the church was having a bake sale? We would have donated something,” Sugar said.
“This is for the Prayer Angels. You aren’t on that committee. Y’all take care of the Easter egg committee, remember?” Heather said.
Charlotte slipped away with her cake and two popcorn balls as the snippy, sugar-sweet remarks started.
“Hey, where are you?” she yelled at the back door of the Yellow Rose.
“In here getting ready to shampoo my hair,” Stella yelled back.
Charlotte set everything on a nearby table and hurried into the shop. “Don’t start yet. Sit down in the chair and I’ll do it for you and then you can do mine. I want some more highlights and it’s hard for me to get the back done right.”
“Deal,” Stella said. “I smell caramel or chocolate. Don’t tell me you went to that damned bake sale.”
“I did and I bought two popcorn balls for us to share and a chocolate cake that Beulah made. And the Fannin sisters—strange how folks still refer to them by their maiden names when they’re together, even though they’ve all been married for years, isn’t it? Anyway, they showed up just as I was leaving and . . .”
Agnes pushed through the front door, stopped under the air-conditioning vent, and said, “God almighty, but it’s hot out there. Do I smell chocolate cake?”
“I bought it at that bake sale. What’d you buy?” Charlotte asked.
“Not a damn thing, but I’m glad you did. It’ll throw them hussies off and make them think we’re supportin’ them. What’s the cake for?” Agnes asked.
“It’s to eat. Go cut yourself a piece. We got two popcorn balls, too, if you want to share them,” Stella said. “I’m not sure I’m going to eat any of it since the proceeds are going to find me a husband.”
“Gossip this morning is that you are sleeping with Rhett. He’s going over to Piper’s tonight to play baseball with her boys and eat hot dogs with them. Everyone says he’s being nice to her because she’s your friend and he’s hoping to learn more about you. You told me last night that you weren’t interested in him. You didn’t lie to me, did you?”
Stella sat down in the chair and leaned her head back in the sink. “Sure, I did. I’m a good liar. Truth is, I’m screwing Rhett Monroe every chance I get.”
Agnes giggled as she headed toward the back room. “I know you ain’t screwin’ Rhett, because he’s been coachin’ the little boys’ baseball team this summer down at that new field they built. And he was there while your car was parked at the nursing home. I haven’t figured out whose car or truck is gone at the same time your car is parked out under that cottonwood tree at the backside of the lot, but I will.”
Charlotte’s quick intake of air was audible all over the shop.
Was Stella lying, joking, or telling the gospel truth about not being involved with Rhett? If she was telling the truth, then Piper should be warned.
Stella threw up both palms. “I’m busted, Miz Agnes, but could you just let Piper and Mama think it’s Rhett that I’m sleeping with? It’s the only way we’ll get Piper to let a guy into her life and it’ll drive Mama crazy.”
Charlotte wet down Stella’s hair and massaged the shampoo into her scalp. “You flat-out had me going there for a minute. So you think Rhett is interested in Piper? Maybe I should buy some more baby yarn for the next blanket.”
“Good grief, Charlotte! She don’
t know that he’s flirting with her. Don’t be buying a pregnancy test or baby yarn either just yet,” Stella answered.
Agnes came back with a big chunk of chocolate cake on a paper plate. “I may live. I was having a damn chocolate attack. Trixie says I’m addicted to it, and she might be right. At my age, when sex is out of the question, I guess it’s better to be addicted to chocolate than it is to whiskey.”
“You mean that when I’m eighty, sex will be out of the question? Well, thank you for ruining my day,” Stella said.
Agnes sat down at the table and commenced to eating cake, talking between bites. “Sorry, kid, but it is what it is. Better get all you can before you are eighty and all the men you know dry plumb up. It ain’t us women who have to have them pills to get ready. Hell, no! It’s the men.”
“Who is your snitch?” Charlotte changed the subject.
“A person don’t tell them things.” Agnes accentuated every word with a poke of the pink plastic fork in her hand.
“Why?”
“Privacy act that some president or ’nother put into law sometime in the past. You can’t tell your snitches’ names or else you get banned from heaven or the FBI will come haul your ass off to jail and you have to live in orange jumpsuits for the rest of your life. You know how hard it is to get them damn things down to go to the bathroom? And old women have to go real often, so it’s a pain in the ass. Besides, my mama always said that redheaded women do not ever, ever wear orange,” Agnes said.
“Agnes Flynn, you are full of shit!” Stella said.
“It’s what comes with having red hair and being old. You’ll get the same privilege someday. Now tell me and Charlotte who it is that you are sneaking off with. We’re under that privacy act thing so we’re bound by God and the FBI not to tell nobody about it,” Agnes said.
Charlotte rinsed the shampoo from Stella’s hair and squirted on a healthy dose of conditioner that had extra product in it to keep hair from frizzing. “It’s really not Rhett Monroe that you’re keeping company with, is it?”
“It’s really not, but let everyone think that if they want to,” Stella said. “I’m not being mean or secretive with my friends. It’s a matter of national security. If anyone knew, he could get fired, and believe me, I am protecting Mama. She’d have a stroke if she knew his name. Now let’s talk about something else. How’s the bake sale going, Agnes?”
“Are you thinking about that past crap?” Charlotte asked.
“That was years ago,” Agnes said.
“Yes, but you don’t have to be told about small-town gossip. Once it’s said, it’s gospel for at least a hundred years. It doesn’t matter what happens afterward, so I’ll be a slut for a long time. Now about that bake sale, Agnes?” Stella said.
Agnes finished off the cake, put her paper plate and napkin in the trash, and moved to the sofa. “My contact says they’re sneakin’ up on two hundred dollars. That means they’ll buy twenty money orders. Y’all got the sign made for the front window?”
“I do,” Stella said. “Made it this morning, but we don’t put it up until tomorrow at closing time, right?”
Agnes wiped a paper napkin across her lips. “Change of plans. That’s really what I came down here for but then I got a whiff of chocolate and remembered that thing about Rhett. You know, he’s a handsome young man. It’s just that he got the reputation for being . . . what do you call it these days?”
“A player,” Charlotte said.
“That’s it. Sounds like a dumb thing to call him, but that’s the word I was lookin’ for. Anyway, they’re sending Floy to the post office this afternoon. The bake sale is just about sold plumb out. Folks buy more if they think it’s for the church.” She looked up at the ceiling. “God, you got to take your hearing aids out and listen to me. You could zap that Heather girl, not enough to kill her, just to make her fall down in the dirt on a fire ant pile, for letting folks think that the bake sale money was going to the church when it’s going for haircuts.”
Charlotte giggled. “Why, Agnes, are you praying?”
Agnes rubbed her hands together. “Hell, no, I’m talking to God. I don’t pray in public,” she declared. “Hurry up and get her hair done. We’ll go to Clawdy’s for dinner. If you’ll get a move on it, then they’ll see us three together and get all antsy about what we got planned.”
“So when do we put the sign up?” Charlotte asked.
“First thing tomorrow mornin’. They’ll already have all those money orders bought up and they’ll either have to divvy them up between themselves or find some way to use them. I bet they make them door prizes at that ball.” Agnes drew her eyes down in a frown and then she chuckled. “We’ve got to stay on our toes to stay ahead of them, girls. I’ll buy our dinner today since y’all saved me from certain death by givin’ me chocolate cake,” Agnes said.
“But I was going to do Charlotte’s hair and you just ate half a cake,” Stella told her.
Agnes stood up. “I only ate a fourth of that cake, not half. It was my appetizer. Now I want fried okra and red beans and a couple of pork chops.”
“Give me a minute to work some mousse in her hair and we’ll go eat at Clawdy’s,” Charlotte said. “We can do my hair on a slow day next week. But only if we don’t talk weddings. My mama is driving me crazy with every detail about my wedding. If you ever do think about marriage, just elope, Stella. Nancy would be twice as bad as my mama because you are her only daughter.”
Nancy could almost see Heather’s blood pressure rising from the color in her cheeks when Beulah pointed at Agnes coming up the street between Stella and Charlotte. The two hairdressers were dressed in cutoff denim shorts and T-shirts and Agnes wore her newest fashion statement: faded bibbed overalls, a red T-shirt—which everyone in the whole universe knew should not be worn by red-haired women—and rubber flip-flops that cost about a dollar a pair.
“She looks like a bag lady,” Heather hissed. “No wonder she’s a thorn in my sweet aunt’s flesh.”
Nancy might be mad at her daughter. Hell, she might be ready to throw in the towel and arrange a marriage for her, but no one was going to call her daughter a bag lady. She took a step right into Heather’s personal space, narrowed her eyes, and said, “Don’t you ever call my daughter names. I can be mad at her but I’ll wipe up the streets with your ass if you say anything mean about her. I don’t care how close to God you are. And for your information, she doesn’t wear a cocktail dress to clean her beauty shop.”
“I was talking about Agnes.” Heather blanched.
“You’d best be,” Nancy said. “I’m going to buy this poor old lonesome carrot cake so we can go home and get out of this blistering heat. How much did we make today, Beulah?”
“You can have the carrot cake for half price since it’s the last item, and that will make us two hundred and ten dollars. Enough to buy twenty-one haircuts,” Beulah said. “Y’all got a list of the fellows you are giving them to?”
“Yes, we do,” Floy said.
“And Preacher Jed and Rhett Monroe are not on it, right?” Nancy said.
“You are getting almighty picky for a woman who didn’t care if her daughter married a poor old feller who pumps gas,” Heather smarted off.
“Why not Rhett Monroe? He’s got a job and he’s very nice lookin’,” Floy asked.
“You know his reputation. I want a son-in-law, not a live-in boyfriend. Rhett Monroe won’t ever settle down and get married. And good God almighty . . .” Nancy handed Beulah a five-dollar bill and went on, “Stella can’t marry a preacher. Everett would have to clean up his language and that ain’t about to happen.”
“And besides, can’t you just see Stella as the preacher’s wife.” Heather chuckled.
Nancy shot Heather a drop-graveyard-dead look, letting the hussy have the last word. If the cake tasted like freezer burn, it was still the best five dollars she eve
r spent just to get off that hot porch. Maybe she’d give it to Everett and tell him to mix it up with that stinky stuff he used to make fish bait.
Heather tilted her chin up a notch. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
Nancy silently asked God nicely if she could knock a smart-ass woman who wasn’t thirty out into the dirt but the only answer she got was a loud booming, “No!” in her soul. So she raised her head and smiled at the ladies. “I’m headed to the house, where it’s air-conditioned. Everett and Preacher Jed have gone fishin’, so I intend to read a big thick romance book all evening while the air conditioner blows right down on me.”
“Your cussin’ husband is out fishin’ with our dear Jed.” Heather’s tone said that she was totally aghast at such horrible news.
“Strange, ain’t it?” Nancy grinned. “They’ve formed a pretty tight friendship the last few days. Jed overlooks Everett’s cussin’ and Everett says he’s a serious fisherman.”
“Our poor Jed is trying to save his soul, I’m sure. Now please tell me that you don’t read those books with naked-breasted men on the front, do you? If you do, I shall have to pray for your sinning soul. I’m sure God does not approve,” Heather said.
“Honey, what do you do when you crawl into bed with your husband? Do you have twin beds and have one of those marriages where you don’t touch each other? God made men and women different so that when they have sex they can become one flesh. And besides, he’s probably busy with much more important things than listening to prayers about what I read,” Nancy said.
Heather blushed and stammered, but intelligent words would not come out of her mouth.
“Oh, my! Oh, my!” Beulah twisted at her hankie. “Do they really put stuff like that in those books?”
Nancy laughed. “The one that’s made its way to the top of my big stack of to-be-read books is one by Grace Burrowes titled Ethan. I just can’t wait to get all involved with it. And yes, they describe sex in the books, Beulah. You want to borrow one, Heather? I’ve got some really descriptive ones that might help you with your marriage.”
The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop Page 9