Talk of the Town (5 page)

“Don’t reckon it’ll continue long. Just a dust settler.”

“Good,” I breathed. “I was worried we might be in for a major storm.”

She chuckled softly—a stifled sort of belly laugh that was both friendly and comforting. “You’re not from around here, are ya?”

“No. I’m not.”

Nodding, she indicated that my answer was pretty much a no-brainer. “You know the old sayin’ about Texas weather—long foretold, long last, short foretold, quickly past. Anythin’ comes in this fast, you can figure it’ll blow back out quicker’n you can pull the cover off the rain barrel. Soon as it lets up a bit, we can make the dash down to the beauty shop. There’s coffee there, or the café’s open. There’s not much left on that side of the street you were on.”

Mental note—place cameras on east side of street, so as to capture vibrant, active hometown businesses rather than abandoned buildings and run-down washateria. “I hadn’t noticed. Guess I pulled in on the wrong side of the road, didn’t I?”

Aunt Bee nodded. I had the distinct feeling she was trying to figure me out. With a keen eye, she took in my Italian leather slingbacks, the silk slacks, the Prada handbag, the George jacket, all of which would have set me back a month’s pay if they hadn’t been cast-offs from Wardrobe—a perk of my glamorous new job. Was it my imagination or was she looking at my finger? The naked one that was still waiting for the engagement ring David hadn’t found time to buy yet.

“So, what’s the lucky fella’s name? When’s the big date?”

For a mortifying second, I couldn’t remember. My mind had drifted to Ursula, and the idea that perhaps we should film the abandoned side of the street after all. Ursula would probably like the idea of a dying hometown. It would reinforce Amber’s came-from-nothing image. “My . . . uhhh . . . pardon me?”
Focus, Mandalay, focus. Your fiancé
—
the man you’re going to marry. Remember him? He has a name. Uhhh . . . “
David.” The word popped out as fast as a rabbit from a hat, sounding false, like a magician’s prop. Why did it always seem that way?
I do have a fiancé. I do. I do. I met him five months ago on
MyDestiny.com
, and we’ve been dating ever since. . . .

“We’re getting married on his boat in June. Then we’re taking to the high seas for three weeks.” A jolt of anxiety went through me, followed by a twinge of vertigo and a momentary sense of unreality during which I tried, as usual, to imagine myself drifting on a sailboat, surrounded by miles and miles and miles of water, with fish and sharks and other slimy creatures in it.
We are?
a voice whispered in my head.
Are we really going to do that?

“Way-ul, bless yer heart,” the woman was saying. “Doesn’t that sound excitin’? My Jack used to dream about quittin’ work at the insurance office and setting sail on a cruise ship. One day he come home and told me he was ready to retire. He said, ‘Imagene’—I’m Imagene Doll, by the way. Sorry I didn’t introduce myself. Anyhow, Jack said, ‘Imagene, we been workin’ all these years, and I’ve seen some of the world in the navy, but we ain’t seen much of the world together. It’s time.’” Letting her eyes fall closed, she laughed under her breath. “He had the tickets for a cruise and everything, but I couldn’t do it.” With a rueful shake of her head, she added, “I was afraid I’d get the willies, out there in the middle of that water, with sharks ’n’ that sort of thing, and no dry land in sight.”

Yes. Me, too. That’s it exactly. I’m having a problem with the no-dry-land thing.
“Mandalay Florentino,” I said quickly, shaking her hand. “My fiancé is an experienced sailor. He says if you spend enough time at sea, you get used to it.” Of course, even after six years of marriage, his ex-wife still hated the boat. She resented the time he spent at the marina.
I will not be that kind of wife. I will embrace the boat.

Imagene’s gaze caught mine, the creases around her eyes deepening contemplatively. “Jack told me the same thing, but I never did find out if he was ri-ight. We turned in the cruise tickets, bought us a camper, and saw places on land. Me and Jack were gen’rally pretty good at working things out so we’d both be happy.”

“That’s nice.” What compromises would David and I face over the years? How would we have to change for each other?
Would
we change for each other?

In Hollywoodland, compromise is a dirty word. It comes wrapped in unwelcome connotations of settling for something less than perfect, of reaching for the brass ring and falling short.

Imagene stared off into the street, where the rain had tapered to a steady downpour and the Amber banner had been washed white as snow. “After Jack passed on, I always wished we’d taken the cruise. I’da liked to see those places, I think.” It was hard to say whether she was talking to me or just reminiscing out loud. The melancholy tone of the words made them seem private.

“You still could,” I offered.

“I might, someday.” Silence fell over us, and we stood in the doorway, watching the rain, looking into the past, into the future.

Under the next canopy to the north, the door jerked open and a tall, thin woman with even taller red hair peeked through.

“Whut’na world you two doin’ out’chere’n the rain?” Pushing the door open farther, the red-haired woman braced a hand on her hip. I only
thought
Imagene had an accent.

“Just passin’ time, Donetta,” Imagene called, moving to the edge of our dry spot. “Waitin’ out the storm. I rescued this young lady from out in front of the washateria.”

“Washateria’s closed Thurs-deys,” Donetta pointed out.

“Told her that. That’s how we ended up here.”

Donetta craned her neck, inspecting me as if I were an alien about to invade the Daily Chamber of Commerce. “Way-ul, y’all just git on over here. We got coffee. No sense standin’ out’n the rain.”

Motioning for me to do likewise, Imagene made the dash to the next awning. I followed suit, huddling my arms over my chest, protecting the Prada at all cost. Prada is not meant to be rained on.

We arrived, slightly dampened and breathless, in the beauty shop doorway. Imagene glanced at her watch. “Think I’d better git on back to work before Bob has a rigor. I’ll drop over for coffee after the lunch crowd dies out.” Motioning toward the café building, she turned to me. “Got a chicken-fried steak special today, comes with mashed ’taters and good cream gravy.”

My stomach rolled over at the idea of deep-fried meat smothered in white flour and trans fat. No way that was on the Best Life Diet. “No thanks. I ate some kind of Mexican breakfast burrito–thing this morning.”
Which isn’t on the diet, either, and quite unfortunately is still with me
. “Actually, what I really need to do is get a room booked.” If the weather was going to be wet and nasty, I definitely didn’t want to drive the forty or so miles to the nearest real town. “Is this hotel open, or is there one close by?” Even if it was Ursula’s idea, there would be advantages to stationing myself at a base of operations on Main Street.

Imagene shook her head. “Well, no, but if you go . . .”

“Actually, I do have a room available,” Donetta preempted, snatching my arm and drawing me toward the beauty parlor like a fly into a web. “You just come right on in hay-er, darlin’.” The next thing I knew, I was being hauled in the door so fast that I stumbled over a tiny Asian woman with permed salt-and-pepper hair. She seemed as stunned as I was.

From the sidewalk, Imagene protested, “Donetta, you don’t . . .”

Kicking the door closed, my new friend slipped an arm around my shoulders. Donetta guided me through the salon toward an old hotel desk by a timeworn oak stairway in the back of the room. “ ’J’like some coffee? It’s hot and black. Lucy, pour this little gal a cup, would’ja? Hon, you visitin’ from outta town? How long you plannin’ to stay? Don’t you worry ’bout a tha-ang. Here in Daily, we believe in good hospitality. Yey-us, we shore do, I’ll tell ya that right now. We’ll fix ye-ew up quicker’n ye-ew can say Cooter Brown.”

Chapter 4

Imagene Doll

Curiosity was eating me like a winter cow on spring wheat by the time the lunch crowd tapered off, and I felt the need to slip over to the beauty shop to see what Donetta had done with that cute little girl I found outside the washateria. Grabbing the leftover pecan pie for a snack before our afternoon exercise show, I headed for the bookshelf.

When I came through the wall, Donetta was giving a haircut to some good-looking young fella in a Hawaiian shirt, starched blue jeans, and flip-flops. Definitely an out-of-towner. The bookcase creaked as I shut it, and that boy popped out of the barber chair, hit the floor flat-footed, spun around, and reached for something on his belt.

“Don’t shoot!” I hollered. “I got pecan pie.”

That boy got tickled at the sight of an old lady held up with a pecan pie, and he grinned as he sat down. “No thank you, ma’am,” he said with a little twinkle in his eye.

Donetta finished brushing off his flowerdy shirt, then set her tools aside. “That’ll do it,” she said, like it was the most normal thing in the world to be cutting the hair on a fella in a Hawaiian getup and beach shoes. “Nice to meet you, Carter. Thanks for coming in.” As usual, Donetta’d used the haircutting opportunity to get sociable.

“My pleasure.” He smiled again as he handed her a twenty-dollar bill. On the other side of the room, Lucy fluffed her hair. Carter was a handsome fella. Too young for any of us, of course.

“Hope ya feel better.” Donetta went right on chattering as she rolled the twenty around her finger. “Sorry you had such a rough flight back to Austin. Them storms just blow in like wildfire this time of year. Don’t imagine it’s like that where you flew in from. “California,” he answered pleasantly, following her to the cash register. Where’d you say that was?”

That cinched it. Donetta could make friends with a stump. She could get Moses to tell the secrets of the burning bush. “Oh, isn’t that nice? I hear California’s a real pretty place.” Counting out the boy’s change, she winked at Lucy.

“Yes, it is, but this trip was pretty much all airport, hotel, and high-rise—just business,” he said, and started toward the door. He stopped with his hand on the knob and stood looking around the building. “Thanks for the conversation. It’s good to be back in Texas.”

Donetta closed the cash drawer, nodding like she understood. “Way-ul, I sure hope your brother feels better. That’s awful young to have cancer. But they can do some amazin’ things these days, and Austin has great hospitals. Don’t lose hope. My cousin had cancer. She went with one of them stem cell transplants, too, and now she’s healthy as a horse.”

“Thanks,” he said as he put on his sunglasses. There was a hint of moisture in his eyes before the room reflected off the mirrored lenses and he went out the door.

I wondered what else that boy had told Donetta, but I didn’t question her right away. She was staring into the window glass again. She didn’t flinch, even when the pie, and Lucy and I, moved to the old hotel counter by the stairs, where we keep the coffee pot and various kitchen items.

Lucy and I fixed coffee and pie, and waited. We’d learned not to disturb Donetta when she was looking into the glass. When she finally came to the counter, she had a determined expression. “Ima,” she said, checking her watch, “could you sneak away for a bit tomorrow after the breakfast rush and go get some things for me at the Wal-Mart over in Austin? I’d do it myself, but I’ve got appointments booked solid, and tomorrow’s my day to do hair at the old folks’ home.” Squinting hard toward the stairs, she pursed her lips and nodded. “We’re gonna need paint. Lots of paint.”

I hesitated for a minute, studying Donetta and wondering if sending me to Wal-Mart was another one of her little plans to get me out and about. Donetta didn’t like the fact that all I did these days was go from work to home and back. “I probably could, if it’s real important,” I said carefully.

“It’s important,” Donetta answered. “I already called down to Barlinger’s Hardware, but they don’t have enough of any one color in stock—unless I want barn paint, and that won’t do.”

“I’ll have to ask off from Bob,” I said, still hanging back a little. Maybe the drive to Wal-Mart would do me good, though. “Bob’s got Maria there with Estacio, and she could wait tables, as long as it’s not too busy.” I savored a bite of pie, afraid to ask, on an empty stomach, about Donetta’s plans for the paint. Being an accomplice in a Donetta Bradford plan requires fortification, and lots of it.

Lucy beat me to it—the asking, that is. “What? You a-goin’ to paint the old folk home?”

“Nope.” Donetta scooped a bite of pie and chugged it down like a hungry field hand. “We’re gonna reopen them old rooms upstairs. I rented ’em to that lady that was here this mornin’.”

I choked on my coffee. “You did
what
?”

“I rented her the hotel rooms. One room for tonight and tomorrow night, then all the rooms for Saturday night, through the weekend,” she stated, just as sure as if she were saying,
The sun is gonna rise in the east tomorrow
.

“Donetta!” I gasped. “Those rooms haven’t been used in years. You can’t rent them out to folks.”