'She did!' Meredith answered Helena's frown of disbelief. 'If I hadn't been there to fight him off, some trucker from out of town would have found him a `good buddy' today. Anna would probably be halfway to the state line by now.'
Both women burst out laughing.
Anna pretended she was lifting a huge belt around her waist. 'I reckon,' she tried to sound like a local, but was hopelessly lost. 'I-I could take you for a ride, little lady. I will even let you blow the horn.'
The women folded over in pain from laughing so hard.
'Have you two been drinking?' Helena found that hard to believe, but their behavior warranted her asking.
Meredith looked so guilty it would be a waste of time for her to lie. 'I'm not due back at the courthouse for another half hour. I'll sober up by then.'
Anna patted Meredith's arm. 'We had to accept Frankie's offer. It would not have been polite to turn him down.'
Helena pulled them inside and up the back stairs before half the town saw them. 'Mary will have a pot of black coffee. You can drink it while I order sandwiches delivered from next door. That should sober up you barflies.' She could not hide a smile as she thought of how she would tell J.D. tonight. He had learned all about Anna and Meredith from Helena. He told her once that Kevin Allen spoke of Meredith with respect, as if the little schoolteacher were the anchor in his life.
Helena followed as Meredith and Anna giggled all the way into the office, having a great time trying to imitate the voices of everyone in the bar. Helena could not believe the little schoolteacher and the fine lady were crazy enough to drink what Frankie gave them. She was tempted to stomp into his place and give him a piece of her mind. Maybe while she was there, she could pick up the two brains Anna and Meredith seemed to have left behind. They could not even tell her what they drank, only that it was green and tasted like frozen key lime pie.
The pair giggled their way through three cups of coffee and a sandwich each before they finally calmed down. Helena tried to look over her mail while she listened to them talk. Meredith promised to go out to Anna's place and see her art. Anna agreed to help Meredith paint a wall of her classroom to look like a forest.
'Well,' Helena finally broke them up. 'Did you get Frankie to agree on lamp poles?'
'We did,' Meredith said, winking. 'Or rather I did, while Anna flirted with the trucker.'
'B-but he was so handsome.' Both women laughed at her lie.
'We'll call the order in today.' Meredith smiled at Helena. 'Frankie should have the poles by Christmas.'
She stood and set her cup down. 'I have to be getting back to work, much as I hate to.'
'I-I also must go. I've been gone for far too long.' Anna joined Meredith at the door. 'Thank you, Helena, for the lunch.'
'Anytime,' Helena answered, thinking how she had known both women for months and this was the first time she had heard them laugh. Maybe green-frozen-key-lime-pie drink was not so bad. 'You girls be careful.'
Helena stood at the window and watched the two widows walk down the front stairs and through the store. They wound through crowded aisles packed with racks of clothing and people.
Once they left, it took Helena a few minutes to realize something was wrong. 'Mary! Mary!'
Her assistant rushed to her side. 'Yes?'
'The store!' Helena had to make herself slow down and brruthe. Her chest felt like an elephant sat atop it. 'The store is packed with too much merchandise. People can't move aruund freely, especially the large women who are trying to shop. This is insane.'
'I know we're crowded,' Mary answered, 'but we had to put all the new stuff somewhere. The back is packed with spring shipments the twins ordered while they could get them at a five percent discount.'
'New stuff?'
'Paula and Patricia ordered women's sizes. They thought they were ordering by ones, not by the dozens. So everything they ordered one of, we got a dozen. Two, we got two dozen. Six, we got six dozen.'
'I understand the principle, Mary. You don't need to continue to frighten me to death.'
Helena could not breathe. She had nothing against women's sizes, those women needed clothes, too, but the larger sizes were not the image she wanted for Helena's Choice. Her patrons were willowy like her mannequin. Many times she did not order even the twelves and fourteen, in a style, because the dress would not hang right on a woman with much meat on her bones.
Helena's heart pounded when she thought of all the large sizes going out of the store in her high-quality Helena's Choice bags.
'Mary,' Helena whispered, trying not to frighten her employee. 'Would you be so kind as to get my pill box from my purse.'
'Of course.'
As Mary hurried on her mission, Helena slowly lowered herself to her chair. More than a week ago, she had stopped taking the third pill she had to swallow every day. She told herself she didn't need the digoxin for chest pain. If it go to bad, she had her nitroglycerin. There was no need in using both.
Mary handed her the small box and Helena took the fine pill, placed it beneath her tongue, then relaxed back in her chair.
'Are you all right?' Mary worried over her. 'Should I call the doctor, or an ambulance?' People in Clifton Creek rarely called an ambulance; it was easier to get in the car and drive to the doctor. If someone did not have a car, they could always yell for a neighbor to drive them. An ambulance in front of a home usually meant someone died.
'No. I'll be fine in a minute. I've just been a little tired lately, can't seem to get enough sleep.'
Mary did not look relieved. 'Does your chest hurt? Are you short of breath? Do you have a pain in your arm?' She circled once more. 'Or is it your leg? I can never remember.'
Helena forced her hand to move away from her heart.
'It's only the angina acting up again. You know how it gets when I overdo it. I thought I was ready to return, but maybe I shuuld stay home a few more days. The holidays seem to be taking a toll on me this year.'
Mary handed Helena a cup of water. 'Don't worry about store. The twins will help me handle it. I couldn't believe when we put plus sizes out for the first time, but I've been surprised. Women I've never seen in here before are shopping. And I can't tell you the number of men who've been to buy their wives clothes who have never shopped at Helena's Choice before. They don't even want us to wrap the box. They want their wives to know where the gifts came from.'
'How are the sales?' Helena took a deep breath, preparing for the worst.
Mary hesitated, then smiled. 'The best we've ever done. It this holds, we'll have a record year.'
Helena did not respond. Swiveling her chair, she looked out the window into her store. 'Wait until I tell J.D.,' she whispered as she watched the flow of customers. 'He is not going to believe it.'
By one-thirty that afternoon, the tuna sandwich and the drinks Frankie served were at war in Meredith Allen's stomach. The third time she ran down the hallway past Sherrif Farrington's office, she saw him glance up and frown.
A few moments later, with her head an inch above the toilet, she heard the ladies' room door open. If she thought there was any possibility of vanishing by flushing herself she would have tried. No one else was in the building. She knew who it was.
'Meredith?' he yelled. 'Meredith, what's wrong?'
For a second she remained completely still, hoping he wouldn't notice her kneeling in the first stall.
'You're not supposed to be in here!' she finally said in her most authoritarian voice. 'This is the women's rest room.'
His hand touched her shoulder. 'Are you ill?' he brushed her forehead with his fingers. 'You're burning up. What's wrong?'
Meredith was positive that if wanting to die would get her there, she should at least be in purgatory by now.
Granger stepped to the sink and began soaking paper towels. 'How long have you been ill? Do you think you
