“It’s so fun,” Mom gushed. “You’ll get addicted to it.”
Barb’s laughter lacked any warmth.
“Holy snakeskin,” Iggy murmured, tugging down his shirt. “It’s happening.”
“Nobody say a word,” Edith whispered. “She might bolt.”
Batten down the hatches. Even George was leery.
Jason’s mother held the curtain aside.
“So this is where history is being made.” Barb stepped into the storage room and paused. Every short, blond hair was in place. Her makeup tasteful and flawless. She wore a formfitting black dress with tiny pink polka dots and midnight heels that weren’t made for walking anywhere outside a bedroom. “It looks like someone should be knitting. And that someone won’t be me.”
There was a moment of awed silence, and then everyone talked at once.
“I’m so glad you came,” Mims said.
“What a pretty dress.” Clarice fingered Barb’s sleeve. “It’s a tad busy for the camera. Do you have a jacket?”
“She can borrow my sweater.” Bitsy removed her thin white sweater and made as if to put it on Barb.
The mayor’s ex-wife warded her off with a graceful pass of her hand. “I’ll be fine. And the camera will love me.”
Iggy stood and swallowed, a loud sound that drew everyone’s attention. “Yes, I just gulped. My queen.” He gestured toward a folding chair on the right of Edith. He and Jason were trapped in the corner to Edith’s left.
“We just need you to sign a waiver.” Ken produced a document and a pen.
Barb perused the page. “This is cookie-cutter and not what we agreed to. I have conditions.”
“And here we go,” Jason murmured. He’d been in the same class as Barb in school. She was pricklier than a wild berry bramble.
“First, I’d like my full name, title, and business to show on-screen every time I speak.” She fluttered her false eyelashes at Ken.
Clarice frowned. “I don’t think—”
“Piece of cake in the editing room.” Ken talked quickly over their producer. “A request like that never goes in the talent contract.”
Jason wasn’t sure that was true.
“Barbara Hadley, Owner, Prestige Salon,” Barb said in distinct tones. She drew her hands outward, as if she were pulling taffy. “All together. Every time.”
“Your word.” Iggy pounded his chest. “Our command.”
Barb signed and then settled into a chair, drawing one of the microphones closer to her.
You young people never read anything you sign, George said in rumbly disapproval.
“I’m sorry, but…” Clarice hobbled near. “I hear your wrist bangles. And those earrings. Can you remove them?”
“No.” Barb sounded offended that she’d ask. “It’s my ensemble.”
“Maybe just the bracelets?” Mims stepped forward. She’d been fishing earlier and still wore her tan fishing vest. “I can hold them.” More like confiscate. She yanked them off Barb’s slender wrist. “I’m storing them right here, in my bait pocket.”
For a second Barb froze, looking horrified. But it was only a second before she regained her detached, regal expression.
“I guess you won’t be needing me for this segment. This is Iggy’s feature.” Jason stood, contemplating how he’d get out from behind the table.
“Stay where you are.” Edith reached across Iggy and swatted Jason back down, not that he had a way out. “You’re the glue that holds this thing together.”
“The marquee that attracts viewers.” Ken nodded without looking up from his phone.
More like the sacrificial lamb. George guffawed.
Jason rued the day Darcy had told him about hearing the old man in her head.
Everyone settled, even imaginary George.
“I’m ready. Let’s do this.” Clarice tapped her phone. “Take it away, Edith.”
“Do you have my good side?” Edith twisted her red bangs over her eyes.
“Yes, and we’re rolling,” Clarice snapped.
“Welcome to Love Advice from Two Cowboys and a Little Old Lady,” Edith began. “Today, we’re talking about relationships that sputtered and fizzled out. Why? In the hopes that we can all learn how to make love last.”
Barb might have scoffed. If she had, it was an elegant noise, and no one dared look.
“I bring the perspective of bachelors everywhere,” Iggy said with a tip of his hat.
“And I call him out on his bull.” Edith struck a pose, one shoulder thrust forward.
They both turned to Jason. Well, Iggy turned. Statue still, Edith swiveled her eyes in Jason’s direction.
Right. Jason was the glue. “I’m just the clueless man who wants to win his…lover back.” He’d almost said wife.
“Brilliant,” Clarice whispered, clenching a fist in front of her face.
“Why do relationships fall apart?” Edith asked, speaking slowly and rolling her chin forward over and over, like a horse running in slow motion.
“Cut.” Clarice tapped her phone and then stomped forward with her walking stick. “Edith, what are you doing?”
“My job?” Edith held up her hands.
“Which is?” Clarice huffed.
“Moderating while showing viewers my best side. You see, if I hold my chin up just so it smooths out my wrinkles.”
“As does Botox,” Barb said coolly. “Administered by a doctor the first Saturday of the month at Prestige Salon. Can we get that on film?”
“Oh.” Edith blinked at Barb. “Do you offer senior discounts?”
“No.” Barb sucked in her cheeks and stared at her fingernails, which were impractically long and the same pink as the dots on her dress.
“A shame.” Edith was back to enunciating and chin extensions.
“Edith, stop,” Mims said in an authoritative tone of voice that had both Jason and Iggy lowering their hat brims. “Your job is to draw out conversation, not become a meme.”
“Excellent point.” Clarice turned about and returned to the tripod.
“I don’t know what a meme is,” Edith said under her breath to Iggy.
“I’ll show you later,” he promised.
“From the top,” Clarice commanded, tapping her phone.
Edith and the two cowboys repeated their introductions without as much posturing by their host.
“We’re lucky enough to have a couple here who’ve broken up.” Edith extended a hand toward Iggy and then toward Barb. “They’re going to take us through what attracted them to each other first. If you caught our last episode, you’ll be betting on confident bazingas.” Edith executed an exaggerated wink.
Unused to the widows, Ken tossed his hands in the air and then toward Jason, as if expecting him to step in for a save.
“Right,” Jason said smoothly when Edith took a breath. “We’re going to fast-forward past attraction and what worked for this charming pair and jump into the deep end to discuss why the relationship failed. Now, our top-notch researcher, Bitsy, tells us that most relationships falter because of a lack of communication.” The factoid was right there on a Post-it note on the table in front of Edith. Jason turned to Iggy.
“Don’t look at me,” his business partner said. “I texted her.”
“I don’t think booty calls qualify as communication,” Barb said smoothly. “Now, at Prestige Salon, customers can always enjoy a spa day after a trying breakup.”
Jason was beginning to see how Ken had enticed Barb to participate. She was turning their love advice into a salon infomercial.
“Booty calls,” said Edith in a slow, wondrous way. “Let’s pause to explore the term for some of our less socially active viewers. Is it always a call? Could it be a text? An email? A PM? Or a DM?” She raised the brim of Iggy’s hat higher. “Your thoughts?”
“Yes?” Iggy said in a small voice. “Please don’t ask me about swiping.”
Jason pulled his friend’s hat brim back down.
Edith moved
on. “At what time would these booty communiqués come in? Do you wait up in anticipation of one? That would seem counterproductive to beauty sleep.”
“Nobody waits up.” Barb stared down her nose at Edith.
“But what if you’re asleep and you miss the call? Er…text…or…?”
Honestly, Jason had been lost at “DM.”
“If you miss the call, no matter what the message vehicle, then you miss the call.” Iggy lifted his hat brim with the knuckles of one hand. “If you know what I mean.”
The man was no good at keeping his head down and out of the line of fire. Barb’s eyes had narrowed. Edith drew a breath as if preparing to ask for a detailed description of the nocturnal activities of the dateless and desperate.
They were off track. Jason leaned forward, trying to catch Edith’s eye. The message from New York had been clear—limit the sidebar conversations. He might not want the show to be a success, but that didn’t mean he wanted to make a fool of himself. “Messages of this nature have nothing to do with couples and successful communication.”
Edith’s brow furrowed.
“It’s all a moot point.” Barb’s entire body flinched, as if she was fighting the urge to get up and go. But she held on to her smile. “You shouldn’t make a booty call in the middle of the night to the person who’s in the same bed as you.”
“There goes half of my social life,” Iggy muttered, rubbing his jaw. “I thought it was charming.”
Jason sent the camera a look, and he hoped that look said Iggy didn’t speak for the male species. “A relationship is about relating to one another. Listening to the events of their day, their frustrations, their hopes for tomorrow. Talking about what drives you nutty and makes you unsure.” That’s what he and Darcy had been doing these past few days. Well, he’d been a good listener. He hadn’t told Darcy about his leg.
“Yeah, I don’t do that.” Iggy sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Serious stuff isn’t fun.”
Grow up, George rumbled.
For once, Jason agreed with George.
“What Jason is referencing sounds like girl talk, doesn’t it?” Edith nudged Barbara. “You work in a salon. You probably bond with ladies all day long.”
Clarice was biting her short fingernails.
Barb’s careful smile broadened. “Actually, I own—”
“But we’re talking about relationship fails,” Edith said. It was unclear whether Edith knew she needed to get back on track or whether she was onto Barb’s course of action and dead set on sinking that ship. “We’re talking about how couples drift apart, which is why we’ve brought Barbara in. She’s a recent divorcée, free to pick and choose the cream of the crop in Sunshine, which is why she chose…Iggy?” Edith ran out of steam. She patted Iggy’s shoulder. “You mucked it up, didn’t you? Texting instead of actually pushing words out your mouth.”
Iggy pressed his lips together, quiet for once.
“I mean you were trying to advance above your pay grade with Barbara.” Edith gave a small chuckle. “And then what?” She turned to Barb. “You slept through an ill-timed booty call and realized things weren’t quite the way they should be?”
“I thought this was a PG-13 show.” Jason went for the save.
“I didn’t call her, okay?” Iggy said tightly, perhaps realizing this was a mess of his own making. “Barb is great. But I didn’t call on the regular. And that was that. End of story. She deserved better.”
“I did.” Barb crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Iggy. “As the business owner of—”
“Do you forgive him?” Edith asked breathlessly. “At least enough to be civil when you see him around town? Or perhaps to take him back?”
Barb didn’t answer, but something like a growl arose from the vicinity of her chair.
Clarice must have had her hearing aids in, because even she glanced in Barb’s direction.
But Edith…She must have had cotton in her ears. She just kept on digging. “I mean, as a mother and a business owner, it’s imperative to forgive, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Barbara ground out, eyes shooting unforgiving daggers at Iggy.
“Oooh.” Edith squeezed their arms. “I think we’re having a breakthrough here. Barbara, in the spirit of learning, we’d love to hear your perspective on what went wrong between you and Iggy. You know, he is a work in progress. And I’m sure all our viewers would find this helpful.”
“Well…” Barb glanced at the camera, looking unsure for once.
As one, Jason and Iggy leaned forward to catch every word.
“He didn’t compliment me on the way I looked.”
“Oh, that is poor form.” Edith gave Barb a sympathetic glance. “I find you lovely.”
“Thank you,” Barb said stiffly.
“In a cold, untouchable kind of way,” Edith continued matter-of-factly. “While Iggy works that dusty, rumpled look that can be dangerously attractive. If one is willing to look past some things.”
“What things?” Iggy demanded.
Edith scoffed, as if his faults were as plain as day. “Obviously, the interruption of one’s beauty sleep with texts after midnight. The tendency to look so far ahead that you don’t see the beauty in front of you. And the fact that you don’t invest in a woman by listening to her everyday concerns.” Edith snapped her fingers in front of Iggy’s face. “Earth to Iggy. Did you not hear a word of what was being said today?”
There was a moment of awed silence.
Awed on Jason’s part, at least. Here he’d thought the entire session was being hijacked by Edith and somehow she’d managed to bring it all around. Although Barb had barely said a thing.
And from the look on Barb’s face, she had a lot to say. None of it pleasant.
Before she could air any of her grievances, Clarice called, “Cut!”
* * *
“That was so much fun.” Edith hooked her arm through Bitsy’s as the Widows Club board headed toward Shaw’s for the early-bird specials. “What did you think, Bitsy?”
“It was fun,” Bitsy agreed, slipping on her sunglasses. “I think you missed your calling, Edith. You were brilliant.”
Edith preened. “Thank you. Doesn’t all Jason and Iggy’s talk just make you want to reach out and ask a man for a date? I wonder if David knows about modern-day dating and booty protocol.”
Mims chuckled. “I thought we weren’t chasing after David anymore.” She and Edith had vied for the widower’s attention last holiday season.
“If David saw my best side, he might put me back in his dating rotation. There’s nothing wrong with an occasional free meal, is there?” Edith dropped Bitsy’s arm and turned to Clarice. “Well? What are my chances?”
“That I got your good side?” Clarice tsk-tsked. “With one camera, your good side is your nose. Focus on the goals of this thing, Edith. We’re nudging.”
Goals? As in plural?
Bitsy slowed, letting Edith and Clarice move on with their discussion. She stared into the craft store, pretending to be interested in a display of quilted hot pads with tulip motifs. But her mind was whirring around Clarice’s mention of goals, plural.
Mims stopped next to Bitsy. She and her vest smelled mildly of fish guts. “Thinking of taking up quilting?”
“It isn’t just Jason these videos are targeting, is it? You’re trying to nudge me.” Bitsy could feel her face scrunching into a frown.
“You’re complaining? You did ask for our help, after all.” Mims linked her arm through Bitsy’s and turned her toward Shaw’s. “So you got a reminder that relationships aren’t all flowers and nights out on the town? If your feelings are strong enough for someone, you can get past that.”
“Can I? I had my eyes opened to how cell phones make dating more complex.” Was Rupert into DMs and booty calls? Bitsy suppressed a shiver. “I’m not sure I’m up to the modern-day dating scene.”
“You’ll be fine,” Mims reassured her. “Because if I know you, y
ou’ll fall for a man who understands what’s important to you and sees the world from the same page.”
She and Rupert on the same page? Bitsy stumbled over an uneven edge in the sidewalk.
Mims had no idea how wrong she was.
Chapter Seventeen
Oh. My. Goodness.” Darcy turned into her driveway and slowed the car to a crawl.
Jason was painting a rain gutter from on top of a ladder next to a flowerpot filled with red geraniums. Normally she’d take a moment to appreciate the flowers, but Jason didn’t have a shirt on.
All that golden hair. All that tan skin. All those perfect muscles and imperfect scars.
That’s my husband.
It was a good thing George was no longer in her head. But Pearl was. Or more accurately, she was on Darcy’s mind as she stood outside the cottage watering a newly planted rosebush.
The old woman didn’t return Darcy’s waved greeting.
Her snub didn’t matter. Not when shirtless Jason awaited her.
Stogey had ridden all the way home in her lap, front paws on the arm rest. He saw Jason and wagged his tail at speed, releasing a stinker.
“Like I needed a spritz of eau de dog.” Darcy parked beneath the portico and let Stogey out, steeling herself to the vision of all that man candy.
Stogey ran to the base of the ladder and whined. Darcy wanted to do the same thing.
Or perhaps put on her second-best date bra and some halfway-decent heels and drag Jason down to Shaw’s to blow off some steam on the dance floor, get a little buzz on, and then bring her cowboy back home.
“You’re quite the handyman,” she said. “Love what you’ve done with the place.” She loved looking at the blooms but not as much as she loved staring at his bare torso.
“I’m a man of many skills.” Jason hopped off the ladder, set his brush on top of the paint can, and then pulled Darcy into his arms for a kiss.
She didn’t protest. In fact, she pressed herself closer and deepened that kiss.
When he drew back and would have stepped away, she held him near. “That was just what the doctor ordered,” she said.
Dream a Little Dream Page 18
