The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop (16 page)

“I like those bouquets,” Piper said. “I wish they’d been around when I got married.”

“Compromise,” Stella said. “Tell her that you’ll wrap your three roses in satin ribbon and if she or your grandmother has a special brooch, you’ll fasten it in the middle of the bow up near the roses. It can be your something old. And if they’ve got extra brooches, you could ask to borrow them to pin on my and Piper’s bouquets and maybe on the little flower girl’s basket. Think that will make her happy?”

Charlotte’s head bobbed up and down in agreement. “I love it. Absolutely love it and I think she will, too. Only I don’t think she’s going to be wild about just three roses.”

“Then tell her to build you a bouquet out of whatever she thinks is pretty but that you want it to include three roses and tell her why. Irene loves sentimental stuff,” Stella said.

“You are a brilliant genius, my friend.” Charlotte held up a spoon of ice cream. “Here’s to good friends. I’m going to go home to Boone now and hope he’s not asleep. And I’m going by Mama’s in the morning and tell her what you said. She’s going to love that idea.”

Stella glanced across the table at Piper. “Did you give the boys a bath before you put them to bed in my guest room?”

Piper nodded. “Towels are in the washer.”

“You might as well sleep on the sofa. Call Lorene first thing in the morning and tell her to pick them up here.”

“Thanks. I didn’t want to go home,” Piper said.

Stella locked the door behind Charlotte and pulled out the sofa to make a bed. Piper brought pillows and a set of sheets from the linen closet.

“I had a shower, too. You know I keep a go bag in my van for times like this.” Piper smiled. “I’ll make the bed, and thanks for always being here for me. You inviting your boyfriend to the fish fry?”

“Why would you ask a thing like that?”

“Well, Boone will be there for Charlotte. And Rhett is coming whether I like it or not. You’ll be a fifth wheel.”

Stella patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just fine the way I am.”

Half an hour later, Stella stretched out on her bed and picked up her phone. She sent a text:
Awake?

One came right back:
Safe?

She typed in:
No. Piper and the kids are here for the night. Gene problems.

The next one said:
Good nite, darling. I love you.

She typed:
Me, too.

She fluffed up her pillow and went over the whole night’s events as she stared at the patterns the shifting clouds created on the ceiling and whispered, “Life can sure get to be a complicated thing, can’t it? Thank goodness for good friends . . . even Agnes Flynn!”

She shut her eyes but she was too wound up to sleep. Agnes was in the hospital and Stella’s hip hurt with sympathy pains. Thinking about Piper’s tears moistened her own eyes enough that she had to blink several times to keep from going into a crying jag. And the business with her mother wouldn’t leave her alone. Finally, she picked up her phone from the nightstand and dialed the home phone number.

Nancy answered on the second ring. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Mama. Did I wake you? Oh, my Lord!” Stella glanced at the clock and realized it was almost two a.m. “I didn’t realize how late it is.”

“If you are all right, it’s fine. I was watching an old movie because I couldn’t sleep. What’s on your mind?”

“All this shit going on in town.”

“This, too, shall pass,” Nancy said. “We’ve lived through worse. I’m glad to hear your voice, Stella Joy.”

“Are we okay, Mama?”

She heard her mother yawn. “I think we’re workin’ on it and that’s the first step. You aren’t backin’ out of the fish fry, are you?”

“No, ma’am. Piper and Charlotte might unfriend me if I did.”

A long pause made Stella check the phone to be sure she hadn’t lost the connection. “Mama?” she asked.

“I love you, Stella. Now I’m going to say good-night and we’ll talk more at the fish fry when we can do it face-to-face.”

“Okay, Mama. Good night.”

Stella ended the call and shut her eyes. Sleep came immediately and with it dreams of Jed sitting beside her in rocking chairs on the porch of the parsonage. Children played on the grassy lawn and the sound of their laughter put a smile on her face, both in her sleep and in reality.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

S
omething gnawed at Charlotte’s soul. It was more than the wedding bouquet, and Boone had made a big breakfast that morning before he went to Sherman for his shift at the fire department, so it wasn’t hunger. Still, she couldn’t put her finger on the reason she was so antsy that morning as she drove to the Yellow Rose.

Stella and Piper were already there, waiting on their first customers and talking about Gene. She sat down in her chair, spun it around, and the more she heard, the worse the jittery feeling inside her felt. She thought about knitting but she’d probably drop so many stitches she’d have to start all over again. Her head was going to explode if she heard another word about secret boyfriends, a barbecue ball, or cheating ex-husbands.

“So what’s your last appointment today?” she asked when she could sneak a word in edgewise.

“Noon. Most of my regulars scheduled for yesterday,” Stella said.

Piper checked her book. “One o’clock. Why?”

“I’m to the saturated point with everything. I’m either going to start crying or kill someone if I don’t get away for a little bit,” Charlotte said.

“Afternoon at the lake?” Piper asked.

“More,” Charlotte said.

Stella picked up her purse and riffled through it. “Spa and girls’ night out at the bar in that hotel we went to for Piper’s bachelorette party?”

“I’ll call Lorene and see if she wants the boys for the night. We can be back in time for the fish fry tomorrow, right?”

Charlotte nodded. “That might work.”

“You said that your knitting relaxes you,” Piper said.

“I threw three balls of yarn at the walls this morning and ripped out every bit of that green blanket I started working on,” Charlotte said.

Stella picked up her phone, hit a few icons, and said, “Check-in is at three and checkout at noon tomorrow. Will that keep our shop from going up in flames?”

“Barely,” Charlotte answered.

“Want to talk about it?” Piper asked.

“I’d love to, but I don’t know what it is. I just know I’ve got to get out of the forest or the trees are going to swallow me up and I can’t breathe. I want to curl up underneath my desk and cry or else kick the hell out of something,” Charlotte said.

Stella quickly went to hug Charlotte. “Then by damn, we’ll get out of the forest. We haven’t had a girls’ weekend out in forever. It’ll be good for all of us.”

“Good mornin’,” Cathy hollered from the door. “It’s going to be another hot one and being pregnant sure doesn’t lower the temperature a bit. You ready for me, Stella?”

“Waddle right on over here and get in this chair,” Stella teased.

Cathy and Marty were twins and if they didn’t wear their hair different—and if Cathy wasn’t as round as a beach ball—folks wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. Marty had always been the extrovert who spoke her mind, slept with cowboys, and didn’t give a damn what anyone said or thought. Cathy had been the good-girl peacemaker up until Ethan Prescott pushed the wrong buttons the year before. They’d been engaged but she broke it off when he insisted that she sign a ridiculous prenup. Now she was happily married to John, who owned the Rib Joint, and was fast becoming a rising star in mystery writing. They’d eloped a couple of months before and the baby was due in the next few weeks.

“Hey, now, it might be your turn next,” Cathy said.

“Not me. Charlotte is knitting for you, not me. How’d you get away from the café?”

“I’ve got the roasts in the oven to put out on the noon buffet. Marty and Trixie are running the breakfast crew and Darla Jean came over to help at the cash register. With the crowd we’ve got, I should have called and canceled. Everyone wants to talk about Violet and Agnes,” Cathy answered.

Piper giggled. “I wonder if Ethan will put her in a home after her knee surgery on Monday. I mean, what with the dementia and all.”

“Shame on you. Agnes just said that to start a rumor. Trixie said she’s awake and bossy already this morning. They’re going to get her up and make her walk this evening. Sassy as she is, she could probably walk all the way home.” Cathy laughed.

Piper slapped her thigh. “I wouldn’t doubt it, and then she’ll crow about how she beat Violet home.”

Stella whipped a cape around Cathy’s shoulders and laid her back in the shampoo chair. “So y’all think she’ll sabotage the ball from her hospital bed?”

Cathy shook her head. “No, she told Marty this morning she was passing that torch to you and if you don’t pass the test, she’s going to make you dye your hair black. Hey, Piper, I heard Gene had him a boy hissy in the parking lot at the football field last night.”

Piper nodded. “And I had a girl hissy right back at him. The folks around here get the news faster than those telecasters who get to the story seconds after it happens.”

Cathy laughed. “That’s the gospel truth. I’m glad that you didn’t let that man back you down and you stood your ground.”

“We married too young. He’d just finished his freshman year in college and I graduated from cosmetology school one week and we got married the next. He didn’t get the running around out of his system and now he’s regretting it,” Piper said.

“Other guys marry young and don’t act like that,” Cathy said.

“You’re right, but they aren’t spoiled little boys who got tired of playing husband and daddy games with a boring, plus-size wife,” Piper said.

“And if you say anything more like that, you don’t get to go to the spa day,” Charlotte said.

Cathy groaned. “Oh, a spa day sounds wonderful! I’d almost clean up Trixie’s room just to have a spa day, but things are too busy for me to take any time off right now, especially when I’ll have to be off when the baby comes.”

Stella giggled. “Hey, Agnes was fussing about Trixie’s room last night. What was she talking about?”

“Trixie is not a neat freak. She does ceramics and scrapbooking and her room looks like a trash truck exploded in it most of the time,” she explained. “Agnes says that the only way she’ll go in there is if the hazmat team goes in before her. Trixie really loves that old fart, but I’d never tell her that. She wants to grow up and be just like her. Full of piss and vinegar and giving everyone hell.”

Alma Grace arrived at the shop and quickly shut the door behind her and said, “Don’t want to let this good cold bought air out. It’s going to be a scorcher. Weatherman says it’ll hit a hundred and fifteen by noon. Thank God it’s Saturday and we don’t work tomorrow. I’m so ready for a day off. The shop is overflowing already this morning but I snuck out anyway.” She crossed the floor and sat down in Charlotte’s chair. “Just a shampoo and style. I hear that Violet Prescott has been diagnosed with dementia and has gotten so violent that Ethan might have to put her in a nursing home.”

“Agnes broke her hip, had emergency surgery last night, and will be elated to know that the gossip she started is spreading, but Violet does not have dementia. She already had knee surgery scheduled so they’re keeping her until Monday when they’ll do the surgery,” Cathy said.

Alma Grace laughed out loud. “God bless the gossiping mongers. They do keep Cadillac interesting. I got to give them that. And as long as they’re spreading rumors about Violet and that horrible Heather, then they’re leaving us alone down at Bless My Bloomers.”
Cathy shook her head. “We were in the hot seat a while back when I was engaged to Ethan.”

“You dodged a bullet there,” Alma Grace said.

Cathy shuddered. “Don’t I know it! Violet for a mother-in-law? I get hives thinkin’ about it.”

Charlotte shivered. Mother-in-law? Sweet Jesus. Two mothers interfering with everything. No wonder she had the jitters.

Soft, soul-soothing music played in the background and a lady with magic hands gave Charlotte a facial straight from the courts of heaven. Her mind drifted from Boone to the wedding, to Piper and her problems, and then to Stella and that stupid prayer list that had started another uproar in Cadillac. Some of the anxiety had subsided when Piper drove east and then south toward Dallas, but there was still something stirring up her insides like butterflies fluttering around a flame.

It was a miracle but Stella had managed to get all three of them into the Ultimate Spa Day program if they could be in Dallas by one thirty. It took some fancy packing and faster driving, but they handed the valet the keys to Piper’s van and the bellboy their room number with five minutes to spare. Charlotte looked at the clock when they entered the spa and it was exactly one thirty.

They’d been led to a changing room, where they donned white robes that Stella swore were made from clouds that were harvested in heaven’s courts. As soon as they finished their facials, they would be taken to the garden for a late lunch.

“I’m starving,” Piper mumbled.

“Ten more minutes. They are preparing your lunch now,” the lady doing Charlotte’s facial said.

Right on schedule they sat down at a small table for three with a beautiful lunch consisting of cold gazpacho, finger sandwiches, fruit, and salad. A tray of petits fours and tiny bite-size cheesecakes waited on a rolling tray beside the table. A woman dressed in a soft white caftan poured wine into stemmed glasses.

“I feel like a princess already. Can we come back to this place the weekend before my wedding?” Charlotte asked.

“Then you aren’t ready to blow up the shop anymore?” Stella asked.

“No. I’m still jittery like I’ve had too much sugar and caffeine, but it’s not physical. It’s in my soul,” Charlotte said.

“I got like that before I married Gene,” Piper said.

“Wrong thing to say,” Charlotte groaned.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s normal. Stop fretting and enjoy the day,” Stella said.

Charlotte shrugged. “Easy to say. Hard to do. What if my marriage turns out like yours, Piper? What if someday Boone has papers served to me at the shop like Gene did and I fall apart? What if he decides that he wants to chase other women? We’ve been together since we were kids and we were each other’s firsts. We’ve never had sex with anyone else. What if when he’s middle-aged he regrets not being wild like his brother?”

“Can’t answer a single one of those questions,” Stella said. “All I know to tell you is what Daddy tells me. Follow your heart. What does it say?”

“That I love Boone. That he’s my soul mate and I want to spend my life with him,” Charlotte said.

“Then that’s what you do,” Piper told her. “Confession time. Two weeks before I married Gene I caught him with one of my cousins. They didn’t have sex, but they were at the river in his car making out in the same spot where he and I always went. She swore to me that he said I had called off the wedding or she wouldn’t have gone riding around with him that evening. She was just trying to console him. He swore that she was lying and it had been her idea to go get a snow cone over in Bells. I believed him and didn’t speak to my cousin again until last week.”

“You didn’t tell us? Why?” Stella asked.

“I was too embarrassed. Now I wonder if he’d been a little older if he would have gotten all that out of his system. So I know the feeling you have, Charlotte,” Piper said.

Charlotte touched her arm. “You should have told us.”

“I know, but I wanted to trust him so bad. Do you trust Boone?”

Charlotte nodded. “With my whole heart, but what if he changes?”

“What if you do?” Stella asked.

“That’s what scares me.”