“Really, no,” I said, trying to be polite. There was no way I was forking over hundreds of dollars to minimize my wrinkles. And if I ever did, it would be in a sterilized doctor’s office. I subscribed to Meemaw’s philosophy that I’d earned every single one of them and they were a testament to my years. Plus, I’d just seen on Trudy that it didn’t work.
“I was wondering, though…” I decided to just ask what I wanted to know down deep. “I heard that my great-grandmother came to some of your parties. Did she…” I swallowed, still hardly believing it could be true. “Did she get any treatments? Loretta Mae Cassidy,” I added, picking up a vial with a salmon-colored lid and label from the stainless steel medical table and turning it over in my hands. “That was my great-grandmother.”
“’Course. I knew Loretta Mae pretty well. She was a talker, that one. Always with the questions and the predictions and the stories about Bliss.” The doctor perched on the edge of his chair, stroking his clean-shaven chin. “Lots of women come on over to the parties but never get a treatment. Far as I know, Loretta Mae didn’t get anythin’ done. Not by me, anyway.”
I put down the vial as Madelyn and Josie crowded behind me. “Are you sure? Fern and Trudy Lafayette seemed to think she’d had some work done, but I… I just have a hard time believing that.”
He paused for the quickest beat, then got up and strode around us to the door. “Anna?” He moved a few steps into the hallway and called again.
His wife appeared a moment later. His voice was too low to hear, but he came back into the room after a minute, shaking his head. Anna followed him.
“My husband’s right,” she said, her accent thicker than a pot of baked beans. “Loretta Mae came around every now and again, but she never got any treatments done.” Her words were a little slurred. Her wineglass was full again, I noticed. Flowing drinks didn’t seem like a good idea at a cosmetics party. Impaired decision making, and all. Could a woman really know what she was giving consent for if she couldn’t think straight? I glanced around the room. No Shiners or Merlot for Dr. Hughes, thankfully. At least if he aimed for a woman’s forehead with his syringe,
The doctor leaned against the doorjamb, one arm folded over his chest, the other cocked at the elbow, his finger tapping his chin as he thought. “Now, she did come in and talk to me about it once or twice,” he said. “Seems to me we spent more time chatting about everything else under the sun, though. She was skittish, if I recall, but whenever I brought up the procedure, she changed the subject to her quilts, her daughter’s goats, my life, Will next door…
Lonely? Skittish? Loretta Mae? That didn’t sound right. Then again, if she’d been considering going against one of her own personal life philosophies, I could see why she would have been on edge. “She talked about me?”
He cupped his chin, his thumb joining the tapping rhythm. “She couldn’t wait to have you back home, although…” He paused, looking up at the ceiling as if his memories were stored there.
“Yes?” I didn’t know what insight a doctor who’d barely known Meemaw could give me, but I’d take any scrap he threw.
“She seemed to be worried about something. I’m a pretty good judge of character, and it seemed to me like she was keeping something under wraps.”
“Secrets,” Anna Hughes blurted. “Everyone’s always keeping secrets, aren’t they, honey?” Her ankle buckled and she stumbled, her wine sloshing over the sides of her glass.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said as her husband took her by the elbow to help her stand, gently taking her wineglass from her and putting it down next to a collection of Botox boxes.
“Anna,” he said, coaxing her into the floral armchair in the corner.
Her eyes were glazed, but she pressed her lips together, put her fingers to them, and turned an invisible key.
Even though she’d zipped her lips, her words stayed with me. Meemaw had definitely been keeping things on the down low. From the cell phone conversation Gina had overheard at the cafe, it seemed Macon Vance had had a secret. Mrs. James herself had been arrested. If I was wrong about her, then her secret was that she’d killed the man. Anna Hughes would probably want her drinking tonight to be kept a secret. The list went on and on. I’d just never thought Meemaw would keep things buckled up tight under her rhinestone belt, but it seemed she had.
There was a knock on the doorjamb. “Is it my turn?” a woman from the party asked. If she had wrinkles, they were microscopic. She had to be a regular… and addicted.
The doctor held up his hand. “One minute, Carrie Ann.”
“Sorry. We’ll get out of your way,” I said, ushering Josie and Madelyn back into the hallway as Buckley whispered in his wife’s ear.
“See you around, ladies. Thanks for coming by.”
Anna met my eyes. “Yeah, thanks for comin’ by, y’all. Y’all have a good night, ya hear?”
We said our good-byes and skirted around Carrie Ann, who waited patiently for her treatment.
“Quick,” Josie said with a hiss, “before they ply us with alcohol and make us get it done.” She started down the hall, but we all turned at a sharp sound. Dr. Hughes hurried up behind us, snapping his fingers again. “I just remembered something,” he said, grinning big and wide.
Josie, Madelyn, and I looked up expectantly. “What?” we all said at once.
“She said that when her great-granddaughter came home—you, I assume—”
I nodded, holding my breath for the great revelation about Meemaw.
“Right. She said that when you came home, things in Bliss would change. Even for me, she said. For everyone. Wrongs would be righted. Things would settle and be like they were supposed to be. Then she mentioned something about a wedding.”
Josie’s wedding.
At that we left Buckley to his work, escaping with more questions than answers.
An hour later, as I carefully stitched the torn section of the replica gown back at home, I thought about the Cassidy charms. They came with a checks and balances system. For everything Meemaw made happen, someone else lost something they’d wanted. There had to be bad with the good. If I made the dress I had in mind for Mrs. James, would there be a consequence for someone else? It was a question I couldn’t answer.
I moved on to the hem of Libby’s dress, slip-stitching it, the length of every stitch painstakingly precise. It was tedious, but allowed me time to think. But after another hour, I still couldn’t come up with a reason why Mrs. James would be involved in Macon Vance’s murder, or why I was even getting involved. Finally, I wandered to the kitchen in search of corn bread. And fried okra. A Southern woman’s sustenance.
Chapter 17
With my stomach full of fried okra and corn bread and the kitchen cleaned up, I headed back toward my workroom. As I stepped out of the kitchen and into the little dining room, the front door swung open and a strong breeze ruffled my hair. Mama burst into Buttons & Bows with a potted plant under one arm. Typical.
At the very same moment, Nana threw open the Dutch door in the kitchen, tossed her Crocs off, closed the door on Thelma Louise with an admonishment to
I looked from Mama to Nana. This was my future. Blue jeans. Cowgirl shirts. And perfect timing. My words tumbled out with lightning speed. “I needed you. How did you know? I have to make these dresses, but Mrs. James is in jail and
Nana took one long look at me, put her hands on her hips, and turned to face the front room of Buttons & Bows. Nobody messed around with Coleta Cassidy. “Loretta Mae Cassidy,” she said to the room at large, her voice as sharp as cactus thorn. “Enough of these games. I know you can hear me. You just get on out here and show yourself. You’re causing our girl here quite a bit of turmoil with your antics.”
And just like that, a rush of warm air blew past me, leaving a shimmery trail in its wake. Meemaw was back. Not that she’d ever left, because I was quite sure she hadn’t.
“Meemaw,” Nana said again, her tone sharp and annoyed. “You brought Harlow back. You got what you
