Madelyn and I walked down the driveway to join Will, introducing ourselves to Steven.
“So you’re the dressmaker, come home to roost, all the way from New York. Zinnia talks about you constantly. Says you’re the spitting image of your cousin, and when she first saw you, it took her back to when she was a girl.”
I shook my head. “I don’t have any cousins or aunts and uncles.” Texana had had Cressida; Cressida had Loretta Mae, who’d only had Coleta—my grandmother, Nana—and Jimmy, but Uncle Jimmy had long since passed on. Nana and Granddaddy had only Mama. “Maybe the spitting image of Loretta Mae, my great-grandmother. People tell me that all the time.” My fingers fluttered over the streak of blond in my hair. “I think it’s this. We all have it.” Mine was more pronounced than Mama’s or Nana’s, but Loretta Mae’s had been blonder than mine.
“Could be, but a lot of people have that. You should see—”
A horn blared as a car drove past. Will raised his arm in a wave. “Old man Johnson,” he said, the look he gave me making me think he knew about the weather vane.
“You’re making my daughter’s Margaret dress?” Steven asked me.
“Libby, yes. She’s such a sweet girl, and let me tell you, she’s going to look amazing!” Libby favored her mother, which was a good thing. Steven’s slightly pointy nose would not have been a good feature on the girl, and her dimple softened her look even when she seemed scared of her own shadow.
One side of his mouth curved up in a sad little smile. “She is a good girl, but she’s a mess right now over her grandmother’s arrest. I made her come with her mama just to get her out of the house.”
“Poor thing,” Madelyn said. The look she gave me, combined with the tilt of her head toward the Hughes’s house, said,
I held up a finger, telling her to wait one more minute; then I turned back to Mr. Allen. “Is the sheriff allowing your mother-in-law to have visitors? I’d really like to see her.”
He studied me for a long beat, as if he were searching through his memory banks. He suddenly snapped his fingers and his face lit up with recognition. “
“I just want to help Mrs. James. She’s been good to me since I’ve been back home and she’s… an old family friend.” I left out that she and Nana’s friendship had gone by the wayside, and if Steven knew anything about it, he kept it to himself.
“What, exactly, are you hoping to find out, Cassidy?” Will rocked back on his heels, arms folded across his chest.
I could tell he didn’t want me to get involved in another murder investigation, but not having grown up with an abundance of friends, I was thankful for the ones I had. And I’d protect them however I could. “I don’t know,” I answered. “But somebody must know something. Macon Vance had a reputation as a lady’s man.” I turned to Steven. “Is that what you meant, that plenty of people have motives? Lots of jealous or angry husbands out there?”
“Vance’s reputation crossed three counties. I sit on the board at the golf club. We checked him out before we hired him. Of course this was sixteen years ago. He came from a little town out in West Texas, and even back then, he already had a reputation. But he was a damn good golfer. He’s been on the pro circuit and we thought he’d be a good asset to the club. What we didn’t expect was that there were quite so many lonely wives in Bliss. Vance made his way through a good many of them.”
“Why keep him around if he did all that?” I asked.
He shrugged again. “Like I said, he’s a damn good golfer. Sure, he had a reputation. Every time his contract came up, the board vote was split, but the bottom line was that he raised the status of the club.”
I shook my head. Keeping someone around who was wreaking havoc in the community didn’t seem like a good idea. I would have voted nonrenewal, but that was just me.
Next door, a gaggle of giggling women sauntered down the walkway, leaving the party. “Come on, Madelyn,” I said. “We have to get in there.”
She gave me a look that said,
“I’ll come with you,” Steven said. “I’m thinking Sandra’s ready to come on home.”
“You can come, too,” I said to Will. “Check out all the wrinkle-free women.”
He picked up a tool and bent back over his truck’s engine. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll take the wrinkles and all on my woman.”
“Good to know,” I said, and as I walked to the Hughes’s house with Madelyn, it was my fingers that fluttered up to the space between my eyebrows where two little lines had started to etch into my skin. I quickly dropped them.
Madelyn was right. No more lollygagging.
Chapter 15
I’d always imagined that cosmetic procedures were common practice for women who felt it was part of their job to be beautiful—meaning actresses and models. But from the amount of cars parked along the street, there was apparently a pressing need for wrinkle management in North Texas.
When Madelyn, Steven, and I walked in, we all stopped short. The doctor’s house was teeming with women carrying wineglasses, laughing, chatting, and all lined up for a session with a syringe or a turn at the massage chair or the pedicure spa.
“Wow.” Madelyn stared wide-eyed at the mass of women with their perfectly coiffed hair and their blinged- out flip-flops and flirty cut T-shirts. “There’s more sparkle in here than at the Academy Awards,” she whispered.
I looked down at my own Gypsy Soule chocolate-colored sandals decked out in rhinestones and turquoise, a last season discounted item I’d picked up in New York before I’d moved back home. With an artfully messy updo, my brown capris—store bought—and my Cassidy Designs turquoise blouse, I fit right in with the rhinestone cowgirls and junk gypsies of Bliss.
As Madelyn and I linked arms, each taking a step into the Botox fold with our right foot forward, I felt like Dorothy in
“How do you always know what I’m thinking?” I whispered back.
She adjusted the strap of her Epiphanie camera bag, which doubled as her purse, over her shoulder. She never went anywhere without it. Or the camera she had tucked inside. “You advertise what you think on your face,” she said. “Your expressions tell a story. Don’t you ever mess with that.”
Steven walked past us, gave a little wave and a smile, and was instantly enveloped by the crowd. Madelyn and I took another step before a woman suddenly appeared in front of us, two glasses of wine in her hands, and an absolutely perfectly wrinkle-free face. “Welcome!” The sides of her mouth curved up in a smile, but it didn’t quite stretch all the way to her eyes. No wrinkles meant no laugh lines, but it was like the smile was incomplete.
She handed us the wineglasses, then picked up her own. “Chardonnay. Is that all right? If you’d rather have red, I have—”
“This is perfect,” I said, stopping her before she rattled off her entire bar selection.
Her smile broadened, but still looked stiff. “I’m Anna Hughes, Buckley’s wife.” She offered us a limp hand. Meemaw always said you could tell the strength of a person’s character by the strength of their handshake. Steven and Will’s handshake had looked solid and firm. Strong personalities, both of them. But when I took Mrs. Hughes’s hand, it felt even weaker than it looked, as if I were shaking hands with a coil of cooked spaghetti.
I recognized her from around town. Life in Bliss, being so small, meant everyone frequented the same places, particularly the women and the shops. I’d probably seen her in Seed-n-Bead, Josie’s store, or maybe at Villa Farina. “I’m Harlow, and this is Madelyn,” I said. “I’m a friend of Will’s, next door. Your husband helped Will move my grandmother’s armoire down from my attic a few days ago.”
“Right! The dressmaker! How wonderful.” Her voice was growing louder and more boisterous, and I wondered if it was because her face wouldn’t stretch to show her enthusiasm. I had to pay close attention to
