Made of Honor (14 page)

And Sandy? The years he’d spent mourning her were just the beginning. She’d always be a part of him and though it was hard for me to admit sometimes, she’d made Adrian a better man and me a better woman. The question was, where did I fit in now?

Not in Tangela’s wedding dress to be sure. Spring was a few months away. The usual post-wedding rings around my waist and hips would be permanent after a few hours in that thing.

Maybe she won’t go through with it.

With Tracey’s wedding, I’d thought the same silly thing. But she had gone through with it, just like she kept going to the personal trainer after I quit, met her Weight Watchers goal while I was at home staring at “come back and see us” coupons. She’d even turned Ryan into marriage material with her quiet diligence.

“Are you going to sit out here or what? We’re freezing in the car.” Rochelle held the banister of Adrian’s stairwell.

I shrugged, then started the journey down. Tracey was definitely the one to help Adrian.

It was a finisher he needed.

The bell over the door at Wonderfully Made shrilled the announcement of a visitor, but I didn’t even raise my head. It’d been a long day of intermittent chimes, signaling a trail of sniffers and lookie-loos, but no buyers.

Not one.

The day Rochelle had come to report the loss of my local accounts had been the beginning of what I’d chosen to call “The New Year Slump”, for lack of a better name. Christmas had been a blur of all-night basket sessions and last-minute super sales, but since then, my customers seemed to have disappeared. As bad as it’d been though, I’d never had a day like today. A no-sale day.

Well stop complaining and make a sale, girl.

I snapped erect, realizing I’d bought into the thought of striking out. “Welcome to Wonderfully Made,” I said to a man’s leather-clad back, trying to combat images of a guy from my past who wore similar gear. Trevor. It had suited him.

His broad shoulders turned in my direction. “Wonderfully Made,” he said, letting the syllables slide off his tongue. “Very appropriate.”

I tried to smile, but those haunting brown eyes and that painfully familiar voice wouldn’t allow for smiles. I could barely breathe. The guy didn’t just look like Trevor. It was him. What was with the old boyfriends turning up? It was like a nightmare episode of
This is Your Life.
A no-sale day suddenly seemed like a good thing. “What are you doing here?”

He grabbed my left hand and massaged my fingers, as had once been his habit, stopping at my ring finger. Bare. He smiled. I shuddered and pulled back. How dare he touch me, after what he had done?

“I’m looking for you. What else?” He ran a finger up the inside of my arm.

My stomach tightened. After all this man had taken me through, how dare my body, my emotions, betray me in his pres
ence? He moved closer, stepping inside my fortress of womanhood, painfully chiseled by years of solid Christian living. Years that seemed to fade with each inch closer he came.

And I’d thought my biggest worries this year were fitting into that ridiculous dress or trying to keep the shop going.

This was something ten times worse. This was like a recovered alcoholic at a wine tasting. This was me, alone, with Trevor Ice, the worst habit I ever had.

For this, I have Jesus.

“So how’s Dahlia?” My sister’s name tasted bitter in my mouth.

He froze, an inch from my face. I stored the effect in my memory for future use. Man repellent couldn’t have worked any better.

“Fine, I guess. You know how she is. It’s always something.” He shrugged, waiting for my agreement.

He wasn’t going to get it. I crossed my arms, shielding myself from the horrible memory of the last time I’d seen him in her arms. The hurt that sent me screaming into Broken Bread Christian Fellowship, where I’d played church for years, singing solos on Sunday while living a torrid duet during the week. I had one prayer that day—that Jesus would forgive me for the mess I’d let Trevor talk me into and that He’d make me strong enough not to do it again.

Watching Trev’s muscles ripple under his usual skin tight black T-shirt and knowing without looking he had on black Timberland boots and Levi’s button fly jeans, I felt a deep, low ache in my gut. Not for Trev, but for what I’d once felt for him. Love. Would I ever have it again?

From the look on his face, he certainly thought so, but his brain lay far south of the usual location. As if reading my mind, he shrugged out of his leather jacket and tossed it on the counter. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t sing to me. Hearing him on the radio was bad enough. How convenient that he’d finally made a hit after those years I’d supported him. He pulled up one sleeve, revealing a fist-size rose with four letters arched around it.

Dana.

“Remember this?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow.

I pinched my eyes shut at the sight of the tattoo. I remembered it, and a lot more. All things I was ashamed of now. My knuckles gripped the display case as I tried to wash away the recollections with my raggedy prayers. Though God had forgiven it all, I hadn’t forgotten it. And that was a punishment in itself.

“Yeah, Trev. I remember it. Are you buying today? Because if not, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

I stared at the door, praying for Dad to stop by for a loan, for Tangela to call about that stupid wedding, anything…

“So it’s like that, Dane?” Minty breath warmed my neck, he leaned over so far.

I swallowed hard, my mind skipping over the scriptures so often on my tongue, trying to get one of them to speak up against this madness. My mind and mouth remained silent. Only the wall of muscle hovering over me spoke in the language I knew best, where sentences were formed with scents and smells. This aroma, a precise mix of patchouli and sandalwood, almost toppled me off my trainers.

Man in a bag. My next best seller after Vanilla Smella. Surely he hadn’t kept his bottle after all this time? His lips brushed against my cheek, ripping me from my reverie.

I recoiled as if I’d been bit by a snake. In a manner of sorts, I had.

You are all together lovely. And you’re mine. Resist the devil and He will flee from you…

It was nice to know that God was still there cheering for me, as suddenly that spiritual undergirding I’d been skittering for flooded my being.

I pulled my mind together, past my shame and hurt, past Trevor’s fine body and intoxicating scent, and stepped toward the front door to escort him out. Before I could, the bell chimed. In
walked a woman wearing skintight white leather, trimmed in fur. And if I knew her like I thought I did, not much underneath.

Dahlia. And she wasn’t alone. A little girl with pigtails sticking up like donkey’s ears held to my sister’s hand. The child had eyes like saucers.

Trevor’s eyes.

Tears threatened as I estimated her age. Just when I thought nobody could hurt me any worse, Dahlia had to prove me wrong.

“Nice store, Dane,” she said, purring like a cat, with that usual fake diva tone.

My chest heaved as I tried to think, to see past that little girl’s eyes.

My sister picked up a bottle of coconut verbena lotion, and took a long sniff. “Not bad.” Her eyes focused on me instead of the bottle.

I turned away. I’d drowned in her gaze enough times to know there wasn’t any water at the bottom of those sable pools. Those eyes were just glass windows…to a rock-hard heart. Those two were perfect for each other.

Trevor took the lotion. “It’s great, isn’t it? Look how she’s got the bar going for the masks, and the bath bombs stacked up like that—”

“It’s just grand,” Dahlia said, tossing the lotion back on the pile. “But you always were grand, weren’t you,
Aunt
Dana?” She smiled down at the little girl, who eyed the strawberries with longing.

I swallowed back years of pain, thankful when no bitterness washed up in my throat. What was done was done. I walked over and grabbed a few strawberries I’d cleaned this morning and handed them to the little girl. My niece. She gobbled it happily as I turned back to her mother, the sister I’d spent the last few years trying to forget.

“Thanks, Dahlia. But trying to be grand—” I righted the lotion in the display “—is your job.”

“Why did you let her see you looking like this? Man, Dana, you just don’t care, do you?”

It was my cousin Lynn talking. My no-job-having-always-borrowing-something-even-though-she-has-money cousin. I looked down at my soap-splashed shoes and my Wonderfully Made sweatshirt, pitted from a fragrance oil spill this morning. My smock had taken the brunt of it.

Not that any of the women in my family would understand, especially Dahlia, the fair flower who’d just left with the man she stole from me—though he was never really mine—three hundred dollars worth of product and their love child. The word
free
had never passed her lips. When it came to Dahlia, your money was always safe. Your man? Well…My premature birth allowed Dahlia to be conceived and she took that as a cue to help herself to the rest of my goods.

I watched as my three cousins and my aunt, all on my father’s side, rummaged through my shelves. After Jordan skipped town all those years ago, this crew had made themselves scarce, but since my grand opening, they were becoming a weekly effect. I pinched my eyes shut, hoping Dahlia didn’t plan to adopt that trend.

No. She and Trevor would never stay in Leverhill. I had that at least on my side.

I might not look perfect, like Lynn and Page in their cute seventies outfits, or sophisticated, like Aunt Cheryl in her sharp pantsuits, but at least I paid my own way. And I cleaned up good when I had the time. “Dahlia saw me like she saw me. I wasn’t expecting her.” Or him. “This is my uniform—”

“That tired outfit? Dana, please. You need to—”

“Let’s not tell each other what we need to do, okay? We could all do to make some better choices.” So my little sweatshirt with the store logo wasn’t the hottest thing going. Good enough for me. Being good enough for them was out of the question.

“You could use a little makeover yourself,” I said. She was looking a little thicker around the middle than usual. Even thicker than me. Maybe middle age had finally caught up to her.

My aunt decided to step in here. Telling Lynn the truth about anything is specifically off-limits, her being the special child and all. As I kid playing with these two, I’d been convinced I was abandoned by some other species, but a trip to the courthouse for my birth certificate told the torturous truth—I was related to these people.

“Dana, don’t talk to your cousin that way. And don’t be so defensive about your appearance. You’re both beautiful girls.”

I looked down at my hips and over at Lynn’s widening form. Booty-full was more like it. Now with Dahlia back in town, looking like my twin minus forty pounds, I felt especially unhungry. Looking at Lynn quieted my growling stomach, too. Ole girl was looking straight plump. And a little ill maybe? Her eyes looked glassy, yellow. Best to leave it and pray for her later, I thought, mentally adding her to the list of my own problems. Like a store full of folks racking my brain without buying anything.

“Well, what do you lovely ladies need this morning? I have choir rehearsal and then I have to come back and open up at noon.”

Page, my next oldest cousin, who’d sat at the facial bar silently through all the conversation, cleared her throat. “Can you hook me up with a mask? Strawberry-banana. And a Vanilla Smella pack for tonight. We’re going out.”

She checked her face in the mirror, smiled and turned to me with those pretty lips of hers, covered as usual in 3-D shine. Sometimes I wondered if that was gloss or Crisco. Rubber cement, maybe? I’d tried to get her on my natural lip balm, but she always went back to an inch of that goo.

“I’ll take a gift pack, too,” Lynn said. “But I still want to know about Dahlia. Did she tell you—”

“Look. I’ve got to go.” I grabbed up my keys and covered down the containers of fruit on the face bar and checked the level of
the ice. It would keep fine until I returned to replenish it. “Here, Aunt Cheryl.” I handed my aunt a gift pack of Vanilla Smella—lotion, shower gel and body mist. “Share if you want to. The two of you, if you’re not buying, you’re not getting. I told you last time, freebies are over.”

Page tooted her lips out like when we were kids. Never could take no, that one. “Uh-huh. Look at her. Running off to church and won’t even see to her family. Some Christian you are. Just like Rochelle. You’re all alike.”

At the mention of my friend, I spun around. The cousins had always blamed Rochelle for scaring Jordan off with all her talk of marriage. Why couldn’t Rochelle just be a lifetime girlfriend like everyone else? Wasn’t getting paid good enough for her? The problem was all of them were looking for their own cut of the pie. “Look. I’ve been giving you guys stuff for years. I can’t do it anymore. I’ve got to make this place work. Do I ask you to do my nails for free, Page? Or give me a free hairdo?”

“I wish you would. I’d be glad to—”

“Just answer the question.”

Lynn cut in. “That’s not the point, Dana. You can’t compare that with, well—” she looked around “—this.”

There it was again. No respect. Everybody wanted to use my stuff, but nobody wanted to admit that it took any effort or thought to do it. “This is what I do. Not much to you, I’m sure, Miss Lawyer who works when she wants to, but I don’t have any big cases to live off of, no rich husbands to pay my—”

“Girls!” Aunt Cheryl stood between us like a pygmy, extending her hands. “That’s enough. Let’s go. We’ll stop by the mall and get some things. Nothing to argue about. Let Dana go on.”

My shoulders slumped. “Stop by the mall? So y’all can pay Bath and Body Works, but you can’t buy from me? That’s cold. Page, when I came to your shop, I always paid, even when I didn’t have it. Even tipped you.”

Lynn held up her hands, the back of her arms swinging like turkey gobbles. “See how she is? Always an argument. It’s not like we never do anything for you. We try, but you won’t let us. You just want to be some miserable martyr, working all the time and going to the church the rest, trying to make somebody feel sorry for you.” She put down her arms and turned for the door. “Well, I don’t feel sorry. You’re smarter than all of us. Prettier, too. That’s why I didn’t want that—that sister of yours to see you like this.”