The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop (3 page)

“No, but I think if there’s more men for Stella to meet, then she just might see one she likes,” Heather answered. “Are men’s haircuts down at the Yellow Rose still going for ten dollars a pop?”

Nancy nodded.
Now what, Agnes? What do we do to nip this shit in the bud? She’s not sending men down to the Yellow Rose to help my daughter but to embarrass the hell out of her. Does playing the piano mean that much to her?

“We plan to give a ten-dollar money order made out to the Yellow Rose to every eligible bachelor that we run across. Every dime we make on the bake sale is going into money orders for haircuts. She’ll be so busy by Wednesday that she’ll wonder if she’s a barbershop instead of a fancy beauty shop,” Heather said.

“Kind of like that old sayin’ about Muhammad and the mountain,” Kayla said as she filed Heather’s nails.

“She won’t know what happened until one of those guys walks in and she’s love struck.” Ruby grinned.

Nancy sat straight up in the chair. “Do not, and I repeat, do not give one of those money orders to our preacher or to Rhett Monroe.”

“I can understand not giving one to Rhett. He’s a player, but why not Brother Jed? He’s a bachelor even if he is a preacher. He’ll feel slighted if y’all don’t give him a money order and he already gets his hair cut down there anyway so he’ll just be getting a freebie. Lord, I wish I was five or six years older. He’s so sexy I could turn into a preacher’s wife real easy.” Kayla giggled.

Kayla wore her short burgundy hair in a spiked hairdo that seemed to defy gravity. Her nails were purple that day and three sets of pierced earrings dangled up her ears. A heavy gold necklace draped down between two inches of cleavage that peeked out from a low-cut tank top. Ella would never have let her come to work like that. And she would have never allowed her to have a rose tattoo on her thigh, either, but Ruby thought it was all cute.

“Kayla! He’s a man of God,” Heather gasped.

“He might be, but he’s a man, too. And I’d go to Sunday dinner with him at Nancy’s any week she wants to invite both of us.” Kayla giggled.

“He’s too old for you, child,” Ruby said.

“Y’all are bringin’ God down from heaven when he’s got wars and big things to think about just to find a husband for Stella so you can have some kind of marriage ministry. And you think age would matter if the sexy preacher fell for a girl ten years younger than him? I bet he’s not a day over thirty and I’ll be twenty-one here in a few weeks. Hey, once Stella is married off, will you put my name on your sign, Heather?” Kayla asked.

Nancy sighed. Out of the mouths of babes and a twenty-year-old manicurist with a tat and flapping earrings came the kernel of the matter. She longed to rush back down to Stella’s and tell her all about what was really happening, but she had to make this all right before she did a damn thing.

You should have remembered that Heather was president of the Prayer Angels, and that she had control of that damned sign.
The sassy voice in her head sounded just like Agnes.

Nancy might not be able to tear down the church sign without spending time in jail, but she could do something. As soon as she got out of the chair she would call Agnes Flynn. If anyone in town could put things to rights, it was Agnes. She was eighty years old and ornery as a rattlesnake, and there wasn’t a person in town who messed with Agnes.

Kayla was saying something else but Nancy didn’t catch it. She tuned in to the conversation in time to hear Heather’s voice raise an octave higher when she said, “I can take my business somewhere else if you’re going to make fun of my ministry.”

“I’m so sorry. I did not mean to offend.” Kayla’s voice said one thing but the tone said the exact opposite.

“You are forgiven. Now let’s talk about that gold fingernail you fixed for my precious aunt Violet?”

Kayla nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I want one. The ark of the covenant was covered with gold. It will be my sign and a pledge of my vow to God that I will not stop praying until Stella is married,” she said.

Or until she is run plumb out of town
, Nancy thought.

“Which finger? They are expensive, but I’ve got them in all sizes,” Kayla said.

“I think for this time my pinky finger will do fine. When we start charging for our marriage ministry services, I will get a bigger one. Don’t you worry, Miz Nancy, I have faith.” Heather raised the hand with five red nails toward the ceiling. “The Lord is with the Angels.”

Nancy could not leave with half her hair cut and the other part still shaggy and she couldn’t rip all those red fingernails from Heather’s hand, but she could sure make a phone call to Agnes. Heather was not running Stella out of Cadillac, not on Nancy’s watch.

“Y’all have to promise me that you won’t give one of those haircut money orders to Brother Jed. Everett cusses worse than a drunk, horny sailor on a good day. If he’s mad, his cussin’ will blister the paint right off of walls. I’d just die if y’all gave a voucher to Brother Jed and Stella fell for him. A preacher would never come around our place. I want my new son-in-law to be part of the family, and besides, Stella cusses as bad as her daddy,” Nancy said.

Heather clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, eyes glaring at Nancy as if she were an errant child, and pointed one finger her way. “If Brother Jed fell for Stella, he’d be marryin’ Stella, not Everett. But why are you frettin’? He’s a man of God. He wouldn’t fall for the likes of Stella even if she does play the church piano,” Heather said bluntly. “I don’t know why they ever let her have that job knowing that she cusses as bad as her daddy and drinks so much.”

“My child,” Nancy said through clenched teeth, “might cuss, and a beer on Saturday night does not make her a drunk.”

Floy spoke up from the corner. “And the new son-in-law, whoever he is, and Nancy have to have a good relationship or he won’t let her babysit the grandbaby when it gets here. If he can’t go to her house because of the cussin’ that Everett does, I don’t see him letting her keep his child. But I agree, Heather, we can’t slight the preacher. We’ll give him a free haircut with the knowledge that God will protect him.”

“I vote that Rhett gets one, too. God can always turn his life around just like he’s going to do Stella’s.” Heather turned the conversation back around to the bake sale. “Now let’s decide who is making what for the biggest bake sale Cadillac has ever seen.”

Stella liked Agnes Flynn. She really did. On any other day she’d be happy to see the old girl and listen to her colorful stories, but not that day. But there was Agnes pushing her way into the Yellow Rose—red hair, bibbed overalls, flip-flops smacking on the tile floor until she stopped and stood under the air-conditioning vent for a minute before she sat down in Piper’s chair.

“I need a little color applied to the roots. This short hair is a hell of a lot easier to take care of, but I have to get y’all to touch up the roots twice as often and that’s a real bitch. But before you put me in the shampoo chair, I heard that Nancy is down at Ruby’s with Heather, Floy, and Beulah. And they are plotting against Stella.”

Stella dropped the broom she was using to sweep up hair. “Well, shit!”

“That’s exactly what I thought, but don’t worry. I’ve got a connection who feeds me information and here in a few minutes we’ll know the rest of what they’ve got up their sleeves. Who are you knitting that baby blanket for, Charlotte? Is that why Stella needs a husband?” Agnes asked.

“I hope not,” Charlotte said. “It’s for your niece, Cathy. I wanted to make it pink, but Cathy is doing the nursery in yellow checks. I’m going to add a border of pink and then make little booties, a sweater, and a hat to go with it.”

“Why would you tell me what your connection says?” Stella asked.

“Because I can’t stand Violet Prescott, and she is Heather’s aunt, so she’ll be all up in the middle of this soon as she hears. And whatever she’s working for, then by damn, I’ll be working against. Besides, I figure we got to get you off that prayer list or else they won’t pray for me if I get cancer,” Agnes told her.

“You’re too damn mean to get cancer.” Stella smiled for the first time that morning.

“That’s the gospel truth, darlin’. And Violet is too big of a bitch to get it, but if she does, I’m joining that angel crew and praying for her.” Agnes chuckled.

“You’d pray for Violet?” Piper gasped.

“I’ll pray that the devil comes on and claims her soul before she milks all the attention she can get out of her disease. The Good Book doesn’t say you got to pray nice prayers.” Agnes giggled.

“Well, shit!” Piper muttered. “I lost an opportunity there.”

Agnes nodded and went on, “Heather is not stupid, Stella. Chances are if you get married, you’ll have to leave Cadillac; then she takes over as piano player at the church. That’ll put her a notch higher in this new scheme she’s cooked up called the marriage ministry. Who in the hell ever heard of a marriage ministry? Ministry is standing up there in the pulpit and preachin’ like Darla Jean does at her church and like Jed Tucker does at his.”

Darla Jean was the preacher at the church on the corner, just up the street from the Yellow Rose. Everyone in town knew that she was a former call girl. When she inherited an old grocery store from her uncle, she was in a quandary about whether to put in her own escort business or to start a church. One look at the storefront said that it wouldn’t do for an escort business but it would make a right nice church, so she took it as a sign from God.

“I’m not leaving Cadillac,” Stella said. “And what is a marriage ministry?”

“Heather has this crazy notion that she’s sent to earth from heaven to get all the women in the world married and happy. She probably thinks she’ll get rich with her idea. Since you are a spitfire and you don’t take no shit off nobody, then it would be a feather in her cap to get you married off first, plus it would put her in the piano seat at the church. Hell, honey, if she can succeed in her mission, then all the little wallflowers will flock to her side and she’ll be right important. She might volunteer to play for all their weddings as a side bonus. Besides, she can’t stand you because you don’t drop down on your knees and kiss her ring,” Agnes explained.

Charlotte laid her knitting to the side again. “Remember, they’ve got God on their side, and now that I think about it, you are really getting into the”—she held up her hands and made quotes in the air—“old maid status.”

Stella raised her voice at least five octaves. “Old maid, my Texas ass! I’m not close to thirty and you and Piper are as old as I am. Are y’all old maids?”

“Well, according to our mamas that’s getting to the age when you should be starting a family or at least wearing an engagement ring,” Charlotte said.

“Some folks don’t start families until they are forty these days,” Stella reminded her.

Piper waved a hand in the air. “We need to take a lesson from the cat family. Tomcat comes along and screws the mama cat when she’s in heat and then goes on his way. Mama cat has the babies and raises them, kicks them out of the laundry basket or wherever the hell she has them when they are old enough, and that’s that. She don’t have to worry about no son of a bitch breakin’ her heart. And while I’m at it, Stella, you need to make things right with Nancy. Things go on too long, they fester, and believe me, if something happened to her tomorrow, you’d be sorry that it ended with y’all mad at each other.”

“You finished on that soapbox, Piper? If you are, climb down and let me have it,” Agnes said.

“I’m done,” Piper said.

“Okay, here’s my take, Stella Joy. If you want to get married, then find a husband and do it. If you don’t, tell everyone who is prayin’ for you to get married to climb on a rusty poker and go straight to hell. It’s your decision and you do it in your time and your way to whom-so-damn-ever you please. But it’s been slower than molasses in December around Cadillac lately, so I’m ready for some excitement. So don’t tell anyone that you ain’t goin’ to abide by their prayers until we have some fun with this,” Agnes said.

Stella wasn’t in a very forgiving mood right then and nothing about this whole situation was funny. She fought back another batch of tears and braced herself for her full day of customers. Everyone was already talking about the sign at the church. If they saw her crying, it would add fuel to the fire. She really, really wanted to make a phone call, but the person she needed to talk to was in meetings with his phone turned off.

A rooster crowed and everyone but Agnes looked toward the window.

“That’ll be the ring sound for my phone. I hate it when a phone plays music, so I set mine to sound like a rooster. I figure someone must have something they want to crow about or they wouldn’t be callin’ me.” Agnes fished it out of the bib pocket of her denim overalls and put it to her ear. “What have you got for me?” she asked without saying “hello” first.

“Uh-huh. Just what I thought. Don’t you worry none. The FBI can pull out my teeth with rusty pliers and I wouldn’t rat you out. You just stay in the enemy camp and keep me informed. I’ll do the rest. ’Bye now.” Agnes put the phone back in her pocket.