The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop (25 page)

Nancy’s sudden intake of breath was the only sound in the beauty shop. “Well, don’t the world go round.”

Stella was speechless for all of thirty seconds and then she whispered, “I bet Gene is in a bitchy mood the rest of this week. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t bring the boys home early.”

“That would be a blessing,” Nancy said.

“Now he’ll really be grouchy with the boys,” Piper groaned.

“Don’t you worry one bit about it. Karma is a bitch and his mama ain’t goin’ to let him get too mean. Those are her grandkids and believe me, if I had boys like that, I’d fight a forest fire with nothing but spit to protect them. Now pass me one of them brownies and who are you sleeping with, Stella?” Nancy said.

Stella opened her mouth to spit out his name and then shook her finger at her mother. “You are sneaky this morning.”

Piper squeezed the bridge of her nose between her finger and thumb. “I love you and I want to know who your boyfriend is, but right now I wish I could have what Ramona got—a fresh start.”

“Please don’t leave Cadillac,” Charlotte whispered.

“I couldn’t leave my friends, and the boys have roots here, but it don’t keep me from wishin’ I could do something different.”

“You could sell your house and buy another one. Leave his ghost there and move on for real,” Stella said.

Piper dropped her hand. “Now that sounds like something we should talk about.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

T
he phone was right beside her on the end table and Piper was stretched out in the recliner under the air conditioner vent. Charlotte and Stella shared the sofa, one on each end with their legs stretched out across the middle. Piper’s favorite movie,
Something to Talk About
, was in the DVD player.

“I can so relate to this movie, only Gene isn’t as nice as Eddie Bichon. By the end of the movie I’m hoping that he and Grace get back together, but I never want to look at Gene again. If I poisoned him like she did Eddie in the movie, I’d add enough that he’d be in the morgue, not the damned emergency room,” Piper said.

“Hey, anybody in here want a cinnamon roll right out of the oven?” Nancy yelled as she made her way to the living room. She set the pan on the coffee table. “Your daddy is fishin’ and hey, I like this movie. I am Georgia King, the mother. I’ll get some paper towels to use for napkins from the kitchen.”

Stella reached for a warm roll. “Daddy never did flirt with another woman, did he?”

“He’s still alive, isn’t he?” Nancy ripped two paper towels from the roll and handed one to Stella. “Gossip has it that Gene’s girlfriend came into the shop with a gun and threatened Piper today. I was there for part of it so I know it’s not true, but it does make for a juicy story.”

“That ought to be real good for business,” Piper groaned.

“Gossip also says that you are thinkin’ about a fresh start and you are moving to Harlan County, Kentucky.” Nancy put the rest of the towels on the coffee table and then pulled a wooden rocking chair closer to the end of the sofa.

Piper ripped off two towels and reached for a cinnamon roll. “It would be nice if everyone could get the story right if they were going to tell it. We’re going to send every two-timin’ husband to Harlan County, not the poor old wives who get their hearts broken.”

“Sounds like a plan to me. Maybe they could have a season on their sorry asses, kind of like deer season. Two weeks out of every summer women could buy a license to hunt them down,” Nancy said.

Piper smiled. “I’d have to take shootin’ lessons.”

“I could teach you,” Nancy said. “I’m a fair shot with a pistol and I can take the eyes of a snake out at fifty yards with a good rifle. Which brings me to a proposition I got for you, Piper. I got to thinking about you sellin’ your house and startin’ fresh. I went home and talked to Everett about it first and he agreed that would be a good thing for you to do.”

Piper picked up her second sweet roll. “It would be nice, but
the market is down right now, especially in a small town like Cadil
lac. We only bought it five years ago, so there’s not much equity. I doubt I’d get enough to put a down payment on another place.”

Nancy kicked off her sandals and drew one knee up in the chair. “I don’t want your answer tonight. I want you to sleep on it first. As you know, my mama refused to move in with us when she got to where she really shouldn’t be livin’ by herself. Wouldn’t be a burden, she said. So we put a trailer on the farm about a quarter of a mile back behind our house. Fenced it in so she could have her dog and the cows wouldn’t eat her roses. She said she couldn’t live in a place where there wasn’t roses, so Everett planted ten bushes in front of her trailer.”

“I remember that story.” Piper smiled.

“What if you was to move in that trailer and let us watch the boys for you? It would give Everett something to do. I don’t know what I’ll do with him once he gets tired of fishin’. Wouldn’t cost you a dime for the trailer or the babysitting, unless you want to charge me for the boys keepin’ Everett. You could rent your house out here in town. We got some new teachers comin’ in that’s already lookin’ around for houses to rent so it shouldn’t be hard to do. Of course, you’d have to pay your own utilities, but there is a good clean well that provides free water,” Nancy said.

Tears streamed down Piper’s cheeks and dripped onto her shirt.

“Now, don’t bawl like a baby. You can tell me to butt out and mind my own business,” Nancy said. “I just figured since I don’t have no grandbabies that me and Everett could kind of adopt yours. And since Gene can pop into Lorene’s anytime and be hateful to the boys, then maybe it would be best if they only saw him on his weekends.”

Piper popped the leg rest of the chair down and crossed the room in three long strides, knelt in front of Nancy, and put her head on her lap. “That is the sweetest thing anyone has ever offered me. You are an angel straight from heaven. Do I have to wait until morning to give you my answer?”

Nancy patted her on the shoulder. “I just figured that it would give me and Everett more time to hope you’d say yes. Don’t know why we didn’t think of it sooner. He really loves Luke and Tanner.”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Piper hugged Nancy tightly. “I can’t ever thank you enough.”

Nancy patted her on the head. “Havin’ someone out there to take care of the trailer so it don’t get vandalized or fall down in a heap will be nice. In a few years you might want to sell your house and move back to town, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Charlotte wiped away tears with a fresh paper towel and threw the roll at Stella, who peeled several off and passed it on to Piper.

“Now that’s settled, we’ll start packing tomorrow night, right?” Charlotte asked.

“Before you change your mind,” Stella said.

“I’ll get Boone and Rhett to move the heavy stuff on Thursday evening. We can pack in two nights and the boys will have a big surprise when they get home. Now they can have a puppy, right, Nancy?” Charlotte asked.

“They can have dogs, cats, ducks, or rabbits and chickens . . . it’s the country,” she answered.

“My head is spinning.” Piper finally laughed. “They’ll be so excited. I’m not telling them or Gene anything about it. He’s already been told he has to bring them to the shop, so he won’t know.”

“I’m supposed to help teach Bible school next week so the first week, me and the boys will be real busy. Everett is already pouting because he says it’s not fair that I get them more than he does right at first,” Nancy said.

“It just gets better and better,” Piper said.

“Okay, we’ve settled Piper’s problem, Nancy. Now help me with mine. I’m getting married in a few months and I’ve got second thoughts about it.” Charlotte spit the words out in a rush.

Nancy clutched her shirt at heart level. “Your mama . . .”

“I know,” Charlotte exclaimed.

Letting go of her shirt, Nancy exhaled loudly. “I feel like my life has come around in a circle right now, Charlotte.”

“Why?” Stella asked.

“It was about two months until my wedding day. We didn’t have a lot of money but Mama had bought the prettiest white satin and did hand embroidery on the dress she made for me until her fingers were raw. She was scared to death that they would bleed and she’d get a drop of red on that dress. And there I was wondering if I should marry Everett Baxter. I felt so guilty and I imagine you do, too,” Nancy said.

Charlotte’s eyes misted up again as she nodded.

Stella reached for the paper towels. “Lord, help us all. This is sure a cryin’ jag night.”

“Are you prayin’?” Nancy teased.

“I might be at that.” Stella smiled.

“What did you do, Nancy?” Charlotte asked.

“Well, I sure couldn’t talk to my mama, not with that dress almost finished and the fabric for the bridesmaids’ dresses all ready to cut out next. I couldn’t talk to the Fannin sisters, who were barely past the honeymoon stage. And Claudia was in the same boat as Sugar, Tansy, and Gigi. We had a whole bunch of weddings those couple of years just like we’re havin’ right now in Cadillac. Trixie’s mama was my special friend, but she’d run off to join a commune and, honey, we didn’t have cell phones to call people like y’all do. So I went up to Claudia’s mama’s house,” Nancy said.

“That would be Agnes’s sister, right?” Stella asked.

“That’s right. I remember knockin’ on the door and then breaking down into sobs and she took me into a room. It was hot summertime but that room was so cool and so dark. She turned on one little lamp and sat down beside me on an old blue velvet sofa and asked me if my mama had passed.”

Stella slung her feet around and planted them on the floor, propped her hands on her knees, and asked, “Why would she ask that?”

“She said that she’d never seen me cry before and thought it had to be a death to cause it. Well, I told her how I was feeling and I’m going to tell you the same thing and make you do it. It will seem crazy, but it will work,” Nancy said.

“I will do anything,” Charlotte said. “I need some peace.”

“Stella, do you or Piper need to go to the bathroom for anything? It’s going to be locked for the next half hour,” Nancy said.

Piper raised her hand and raced down the hall.

Stella shook her head.

“When Piper gets out, Charlotte, you go in that bathroom and lock the door behind you. Sit on the floor with your back to the door and don’t turn on a single light. Clear your mind and don’t think about anything for at least a whole minute, and then I want you to imagine life without Boone,” Nancy said.

Charlotte sucked in a lungful of air and started to speak, but Nancy put up a palm.

“Think about coming home without him in the house. You won’t ever feel his arms around you again. Don’t think about him dead, because that’s a whole different feeling. If you didn’t marry him, you’d still be sad if he died so that’s not what you get to think about. Once he’s out of your life—although it will just be in your imagination—I want you to think about all the things you will do without him,” Nancy said.

Charlotte cocked her head to one side as if she was already thinking about it.

“Trips. Other boyfriends. Other men to sleep with . . . don’t look at me like that, I know y’all live different than we did at your age. I’ll knock on the door in half an hour and you can come out. Give me your cell phone,” Nancy said.

“Why?”

“You have to stay in there thirty minutes and you can’t talk to anyone but yourself. You can yell, rant, rave, or just sit there with your thoughts, but I’ll guarantee you, just like Claudia’s mama promised me almost thirty years ago, that you will have your mind made up when I knock on the door,” she answered.

Charlotte handed over her cell phone. Piper stepped to one side when she started down the hall.

“What’s that all about for thirty minutes?” Piper asked.

“She’s gone to do some serious soul-searching,” Nancy answered. “Now, what time are y’all going to start packing tomorrow night? I’ll bring over a Crock-Pot of potato chowder and a loaf of fresh bread so you don’t have to stop and eat. You don’t have to move appliances. We left those in the trailer in case Stella ever wanted to live in it but she’s bought the house in town.”

Stella thought about life without Jed. Seeing him around town with another woman. Her feelings with another man after having slept with the love of her life. Her heart was as empty as the drawer had been before he put his things in it. Suddenly, she wanted to tell the world that they were married. That she was a preacher’s wife and she trusted Jed to never break her heart—but would she ever have second thoughts?

She shut her eyes and tears welled up at the horrible feeling of never seeing him again, or worse yet, seeing him with another woman. Thinking of his hands roaming on someone else’s body the way they had touched Stella’s was agony. Thinking of life without him tore her heart into a million pieces.

God
, she prayed earnestly,
please don’t ever let me experience this pain for real. It’s excruciating in thoughts. I can’t imagine it in reality.

Suddenly a visual of him lying beside her, sleeping with those thick lashes fanned out on his cheekbones, appeared like an answer to the prayer. Then he woke slowly and a brilliant smile covered his face as he looked up at her, like he’d done dozens of times. All the ideas of second thoughts were gone when she felt someone poke her on the shoulder.

“Stella!” Piper raised her voice.

“What?” Stella didn’t want to leave that picture of Jed behind but she had to open her eyes.

“I asked you what time your last appointment is tomorrow so we’ll know when we can start packing.” Piper reclaimed the recliner but she didn’t prop her feet up.

“Five o’clock.” Her voice sounded hollow.

Nancy nodded. “Then I’ll have supper at your house right after that and you can eat when you want as we all four get some work done. I’ll get Everett to break down a bunch of boxes and put them by your back door. I’ll bring the tape and the Magic Marker.”

Ten minutes later they heard mumbling coming from the bathroom. Five more and the weeping started.

Nancy checked her watch. “She’s tough.”

“It’s only been fifteen minutes,” Stella said.

“I lasted fourteen and Claudia’s mama said that I was the toughest she’d ever seen. That she’d about decided I was going to call off the wedding and give that pretty dress to my sister when she got married,” Nancy said.

“Then you aren’t going to make her stay in there thirty minutes?” Piper asked.