Wreath (34 page)

Staying in a real house for the first time in nearly eight months was harder than Wreath expected. The bed was soft, the bathroom a luxury, and the refrigerator stocked with snacks that Faye had bought especially for her. But the walls closed in on her, as though she were a wild animal in a cage.

Faye tried to get her to rest while she cooked supper, but Wreath insisted on helping. “You’ve been working all day,” she told her hostess. “So have you.”

Wreath shrugged. “I always cooked for Frankie. I won’t eat unless you let me help.”

When they settled in the den to watch television, Faye handed her the remote control. “Choose what you want to watch.”

At first, Wreath held the remote as though it were a live snake and then thrust it at the older woman. “I’m not familiar with these channels. You decide.”

The evening improved, though, when Faye led her into the sewing room, almost a fantasy world to Wreath.

“Where’d you get all this fabric?” she asked, picking up a shiny piece of satin and rubbing it against her cheek and a swatch of red velveteen that she fingered as though it were precious.

“Here and there.” Faye opened a closet full of bins. “Want to see the rest of it? There’s more upstairs.”

More comfortable in the dark attic and the little walk-in closet than the guest bedroom, Wreath exclaimed repeatedly over trunks of linens and Faye’s old clothes. “You must have saved everything you’ve ever worn,” she said as she examined outfit after outfit. “Your old clothes are in better shape than most people’s new clothes. Don’t you ever spill anything or rip something?”

She didn’t think Faye heard her because the woman was fingering a pair of white bell-bottom jeans, with an elaborate pattern down each leg. “I bought these to go to the state fair on my first date with Billy,” Faye said and then looked up. “Take any of these things you want, and we’ll throw the rest away.”

“We’ve got enough here to open a boutique!” Wreath’s enthusiastic words came out before the idea had formed fully, but once the thought hit her brain, it was off and running. “That’s it!” she continued. “We can add a boutique over on the left side. It’ll fill in that empty spot and add another dimension to the store.”

“But we’re a furniture store….” The doubt was deep in Faye’s voice.

“We’ll be an all-around furnishings store—home and body. We’ll give it a name of its own and segment it off. Fine furniture and fine fashion … They go together like pen and ink.”

“Bread and butter,” Faye said.

“Sales and money.” Wreath laughed.

“We can only hope,” Faye said. “It’d sure be nice to get things stable again.”

“We’ll make it happen. I know we will.” Feeling like she was jabbering, Wreath pulled one of the trunks out of the attic and shoved it into the sewing room. “We’ll have to have help with those others, but this is fantastic.”

“It is?” Faye asked.

“Anything you don’t want, we can sell.” Wreath thumbed through a pile of stamped cotton tablecloths. “These are cool. I’ve seen them in lots of magazines.”

“I have seen those in antique shops with Nadine,” Faye said, a calculating look on her face. “I can starch and iron them.”

“You have designs for all our seasons.” Wreath practically hopped up and down with excitement. “They’ll fit our seasonal rooms perfectly. And these …” She held up pieces of white linen, some embroidered, some plain. “What are they?”

“Those are dresser scarves and doilies.” Faye laughed. “I guess people don’t use them much anymore. My mother did that tatting on the end of those.”

“Tatting?”

“That’s the little stitches there on the end. She tried to teach me, but I never was good at that. I liked the machine better.”

Wreath remembered the boxes of older clothes at the store and inexpensive items she’d seen at the thrift shop. “Maybe we can combine this material with out-of-style clothes and come up with more new outfits.”

Now Faye was smiling and pulling out items faster and faster. “You can design some like those outfits you wear all the time. My friends asked me if we sold those. I think they’d buy them for their granddaughters.”

“Girls at school might buy them, too.”

“They’ll be unique and handmade,” Faye said. “But we’ll have to make people want them. For some reason, women like things with designer labels.”

“The name needs to be catchy. Something fun-sounding,” Wreath said.

“Let’s sleep on it. If I don’t get you to bed, you’ll never be up in time for church tomorrow.”

Wreath sang in the hot shower and wrapped her tired body in the thick towel. She might not need a fancy house, but she would never take hot water for granted again.

Mrs. Durham called good night to her as she pulled the soft sheets and down comforter up around her and started to doze off.

Suddenly Wreath sat upright, a name in mind. She knew it carried a slight risk, but it set the tone they needed. Junkyard Couture.

Law waited in front of the church, right where he said he’d be.

“Right on time,” he said. “Hey, Mrs. Durham. Thanks for bringing Wreath.”

The older woman smiled, something Wreath had noticed her doing much more often these days. “My pleasure.”

J. D., almost unrecognizable out of his hardware store clothes, rounded the corner, and Wreath saw Faye’s smile grow.

“Was he watching out the window for her?” Wreath whispered to Law. “I think he likes her.”

“J. D. and Faye? I don’t see that happening. A train killed his wife and son a long time ago. My grandmother says he’ll never marry again.”

“Hit by a train?” Wreath grimaced. “That must have been horrible.”

“The warning signal failed at that crossing out past where I live,” Law said. “They were coming back from Alexandria, and I heard they never even saw it.”

Wreath thought of her mother’s fright on the drive through Landry, the mention of a scary train crossing. “I wonder if my mother knew J. D.’s son. Maybe she even knew your mother.”

“I didn’t know she ever lived in Landry.” Law guided her toward the youth room as they talked, his hand on the small of her back.

“Up through high school,” Wreath said.

Their conversation was interrupted by Mitch, who gave Wreath a hug and introduced her to some kids she didn’t know, while Law practiced with the youth band. Remembering Sunday school as a sober, withdrawn kind of place, Wreath absorbed the lesson from the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament and was intrigued by the forthright ways the youth leaders answered questions from class members.

The discussion went back and forth, and Wreath wanted to take out her journal and jot a few notes. They talked about “dry bones” and whether they would live again, and Wreath felt as though this conversation was aimed straight at her.

She wanted a better future, and these teachers seemed like they might help her figure it out.

She sat with Mitch and Destiny during church, giving a small wave to Mrs. Durham, who was one section over, with Nadine and Jim Nelson, J. D., and a few other people who came by the store to drink coffee.

“Aunt Faye always sits in the middle there,” Mitch said with a smile. “Uncle Billy asked her one time if they paid rent on that pew.”

The youth band led all of the songs, some traditional hymns Wreath had heard before and one or two unfamiliar songs that sounded like something Frankie would have listened to on the radio. Two girls from the senior class at Landry High sang a duet, and Law played his guitar solo, a moving ballad that made Wreath want to cry for reasons she could not fathom.

“Lo, I am with you always,” the pastor said when he stood to speak.

Wreath sat up straighter, straining to hear what he would say next.

“That is the reminder Christ gave us, words for days when we are nervous or tired or uncertain or feeling lonely. God is with us always.”

Wreath drifted in and out after that, thinking about the words written in the back of her diary, wondering how they came to be there and why the preacher would speak on that sentence on the first day she attended church in Landry.

She glanced across the church and met Faye’s eyes, and the woman smiled at her.

After the service, church members poured out into the sunny day, standing on the front walk and visiting as though soaking up the sunshine, which had been rare the past few weeks.

Wreath stood on the edge and watched the expressions of affection between young and old. Grandmothers gave Law and Mitch hugs and hellos, while men shook their hands, sometimes yanking them forward for a semi-hug. Young children played tag, yelling until their parents admonished them, and families grouped around to discuss lunch and the day ahead.

The warmth of the people was more potent to Wreath than the warmth of the day, and hollowness expanded inside her until she thought she might collapse in on herself. These people were connected to one another, and she had no one.

As she turned to slip away, thinking perhaps she could wait in Faye’s car until the impromptu gabfest ended, the preacher walked through the front door and met her eyes, his expression thoughtful. “Lo, I am with you always,” she remembered him saying. She would have to ask Faye or Law’s grandfather what that meant, because she was not quite sure she understood.

The pastor walked over, shaking hands with the men on his way, and gave Wreath a pat on her hand. “Welcome,” he said.

“This is Law’s friend Wreath,” Nadine Nelson said.

“And my friend, too,” Faye said, her smile drawing Wreath into the circle and erasing the sudden melancholy feeling that had enveloped her. “This girl is the brains behind the transformation of Durham’s Fine Furnishings, and you’re not going to believe what she’s got coming next.”

The pastor, interrupted by an occasional churchgoer, stood for a few minutes near the group, looking at her. The first couple of times, Wreath thought he was trying to include her in the conversation, but then he stepped closer, making her nervous. “Are you from Landry, Wreath?” he asked.

“No, sir.” She looked down at the sidewalk. “I moved here from Lucky.”

He shook his head slightly, as though trying to dislodge a thought. “You remind me so much of somebody, but I can’t think who.” The pastor turned toward Faye and J. D. “Doesn’t Wreath remind you of someone?” he asked.

He smiled at Wreath. “Sure hope you’ll come again,” he said to her.

Wreath looked at the people around her, at the blue sky, anywhere but at the preacher.

“I will,” she said, but as much as she regretted it, she didn’t think it was a good idea.

When the crowd broke up, Law’s grandparents insisted that Wreath, Faye, and J. D. join them for Sunday dinner.

Wreath declined, and Law pulled her aside to talk her into it. “I know it sounds boring,” he said, “but Grandma’s a great cook, and they’re fun to be around. They don’t treat you like kids or anything.”

“It’s not that,” she said. “It’s just that I don’t want to …” She stopped.

“You won’t be imposing, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Law said.

The older adults had walked closer, too, intent on convincing the girl.

“I’ll take you home in plenty of time to do your schoolwork for tomorrow,” Faye jumped in.

“It’s fried chicken and mashed potatoes day,” Nadine said, “plus I made rice for Law. I even cooked a peach cobbler this morning.”

Wreath thought of the peanut butter crackers in her pack and gave in.

Chapter 32