“Well, dammit all to hell!” she said and instantly felt guilty for cussing on Sunday, especially when she hadn’t gone to church that morning. Anna Ruth was sitting on the porch, her arms wrapped around her body trying to stay warm. If she’d come back to return the dress, she was shit out of luck. Cathy had already deposited the money and she wasn’t the Walmart store where satisfaction was guaranteed and you could bring anything back with no questions asked.
“There you are,” Anna Ruth said. “I saw your car and decided to wait here on the porch for you. Where have you been?”
“John lives behind the restaurant,” Cathy said.
Anna Ruth stood up slowly. She wore jeans, a jacket, and a purple hickey right below her left ear. “It’s cold out here. Warm one day, cold the next. I wish it would make up its mind what it wants to do. But I really, really want it to be nice for my wedding so I shouldn’t complain. Let’s go back to your place.” She came to a stop so fast that her hair flopped around to her back. “My God! Cathy, you gave up the Prescott Plantation for a trailer house?”
“Happiness can be found in a grass hut as well as a mansion,” Cathy said. “What are you doing here?”
“Aren’t you going to invite me inside?”
“No, I’m not. John is working. He’s a mystery author, and he’s having a good day so we aren’t having company. We can go through the back door of the restaurant and sit in there or we can sit on the porch in front.”
Anna Ruth did not hesitate for a nanosecond. “Inside, then. This north wind is cold. I hope Andy has booked a honeymoon somewhere warm, like one of the islands.”
Anna Ruth was like an unlucky penny. She just kept showing up at the weirdest times.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Cathy asked.
“I’d love a sweet tea.”
“Don’t have any of that made up. We’ve got beer and soft drinks.”
“Pepsi, then.” Anna Ruth sat down at the nearest table and waited.
Cathy drew up two large Pepsis and carried them to the table. “You never did say why you came out here. I’ve never seen you eating in this place, and how did you know I’d be here?”
“I don’t eat food without a fork and I don’t like the taste of barbecue. And it’s all over town that you are practically living with the cook out here. Sometimes I wonder about you, Cathy. You had everything at your fingertips and were too stubborn to sign the prenup. Now look at you. It’s a shame.”
“You came out here to lecture me?” Cathy sipped her Pepsi. It wasn’t nearly as good as the beer she’d left sitting on the porch.
“No, I’m sorry. It’s just that you disappoint me so bad sometimes that I don’t even know what I’m saying. I sure didn’t come out here to upset you or hurt your feelings. I came to ask you about that wedding cake you ordered. Aunt Annabel will have to start making the morning glories tomorrow morning. She always allows two weeks for a big cake like that.”
“Okay. She is aware that it goes to the Christian church that Saturday, right?”
Anna Ruth’s chin quivered. “I’ve been mean to you. Telling you to get out of the club and all, and now I’m here to beg. I wouldn’t blame you if you said no.”
“What are you talking about?” Cathy asked.
“Here.” Anna Ruth handed Cathy a folded check. “Aunt Annabel never puts the check for a cake in the bank until the day of the wedding. You can have it back if you won’t make her do your cake. She needs the full two weeks to make mine, and she can’t do two in that time.”
Cathy opened the check. Sure enough, it was the very one she’d written to Annabel. Marty was wrong! She had managed to sell her cake. Well, in a sense anyway. At least she’d gotten her money back. Aunt Agnes might be disappointed because she had visions of filling her freezer with the ugly thing and serving slabs of it at her Sunday school meetings.
Anna Ruth dabbed at a tear with a paper napkin from the dispenser in the middle of the table. “Will you please tear up that check so Aunt Annabel doesn’t have to make your cake? You don’t need it and she needs all the time to get mine done.”
“Sure.” Cathy tucked the folded check in her pocket.
Anna Ruth clapped her hands. “Oh! I was so afraid you’d say no. My cake is going to have life-sized red sugar roses trailing up from the bottom all the way to the top where we’ll have a gorgeous topper. The whole thing will be over four feet tall.”
“Want to buy a topper? I’ve got a crystal one for sale that I ordered from New York,” Cathy asked.
“What does it look like? Did Ethan or Violet see it?”
Cathy shook her head. “No, they didn’t. It’s cut glass crystal, eight inches tall. It’s on the Internet at Tiffany’s if you want to see it.”
She’d offered it as a joke. She sure hadn’t thought about unloading that expensive chunk of glass. But Anna Ruth’s expression said she was very interested.
“And I bought the matching mold for a miniature ice sculpture that I thought would be pretty rising up out of the punch bowl. You’d have to set it on a square cube at least six inches tall to get the effect,” Cathy said.
She should feel strange selling off her dress, her cake, and her topper, but all she could see was the look on Marty’s face when she told her that she’d gotten her money back for the whole shittin’ shebang.
Anna Ruth nodded. “Can we go see it now? It sounds beautiful.”
“Sure. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes. I’ll have to get my purse.”
“Oh, Cathy, you are such a good friend. We are like sisters, aren’t we? We have our fights, but we always make up,” Anna Ruth gushed.
The girl was nuts, but there wasn’t a cure for her brand of nuts. To be cured, a person had to realize they had a problem. If Anna Ruth did that, she wouldn’t be planning a wedding with Andy Johnson anyway.
Without commenting on the bit about sisters, Cathy hurried out the back door with Anna Ruth on her heels, going on and on about how wonderful things were going and it had to be fate, and how happy she and Andy were going to be on the other side of Grayson County.
Thank goodness she parted ways with Cathy a few feet from the café and trotted around to the parking lot. Anna Ruth was waiting by the back door when she pulled into the driveway at Clawdy’s and waved as she got out of her car.
Marty was in the garage with Jack. Her frown when she saw Anna Ruth dropped the temperature another ten degrees. She headed right for the house with a big wrench in her hand.
“What is going on here?” Marty asked.
“I sold her my cake,” Cathy said quickly.
“You going to sell her your honeymoon too?” Marty asked.
“Oh! Do you have tickets to somewhere wonderful?” Anna Ruth asked.
Marty laughed even harder.
“I do not! Lord Almighty, Marty! That’s not even funny!” Cathy said. “I’m going upstairs to get the cake topper for her.”
“You really sold that hideous red cake with morning glories on it?” Marty asked. “And you really bought it?”
Anna Ruth slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, no! I just gave her check back so Aunt Annabel could have the time to make my cake. Mine is Hawaiian wedding cake and pure white on the outside with red roses. I could never do morning glories. Violet would just die.”
“Who’s killing Violet?” Agnes pushed into the kitchen. “God, this weather is going to be the death of me. Turnin’ off colder than a witch’s tit out there. You killed Violet, Anna Ruth? How’d you do it? If you didn’t drive a stake through her heart, she’ll come back alive.”
Cathy rolled her eyes. “She’s buying my cake and my topper. Give me a minute to go get it and she’ll be gone and Violet is alive.”
“Well, shit!” Agnes said.
Chapter 25
Brother Arnold Smith went down to the church on Thursday morning to unlock it so the ladies could begin decorating for the wedding. It must be a woman thing, because he never could see all the time, energy, and
money they put into a wedding. But women set great store by all the foo-foo. So he’d do his two jobs. One was unlocking the church so they could get inside to decorate. The other was officiating at the wedding and attending the reception. His wife, Estella, said weddings and receptions were the social life of a preacher’s wife. Far be it from Brother Arnold to prevent his wife from having a proper social life.
This wedding, he’d heard, was going to top anything Cadillac had seen since the day Violet married Ethan Prescott the third. Annabel Williams had enlisted the help of everyone in the church since she only had three weeks to get a wedding ready that should have taken six months at the very least. Even Estella was helping hot glue silk roses and crystal wedding bells to the middle of huge puffs of filmy stuff to attach to the pews.
His wife said that his hearing was going bad, but there wasn’t one thing wrong with his ears. In her old age, she’d started whispering just to make him think he couldn’t hear. He slung open the door and started singing “Rock of Ages” at the top of his lungs. There, he could hear every note! Proving that he didn’t have a hearing problem but that she was getting chronic laryngitis in her old age.
He made it to the middle of the church before he realized his feet were wet. When he looked down, the carpet was completely soaked and he was standing in two inches of water. The musky smell of wet carpet and the old wood beneath the carpet wafted up to his nostrils at the same time. That’s when he stopped singing and heard a bubbling noise. He turned around and hurried back to the bathrooms. The men’s room was fine, but the ladies’ room was gushing water from one toilet and the hot water tank both.
He flipped the lever on the potty and nothing happened. He spun around to check the hot water tank sitting in the corner. The pipe bringing the water into it from underneath the church had rusted plumb through and water was spraying everywhere.
The preacher grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and it slipped out of his hands. Like a football player trying to recover a fumble, he battled with it, snatching and grabbing until he lost his footing on the slippery, water-covered tile. His hip hit the toilet on the way down, and he heard the crack before he felt the horrible pain. He’d finally gotten a hold on the phone, so he immediately dialed 911 and then called his wife.
“Did you get the church unlocked? Anna Ruth just called and they’re on their way with the first load of pew bows,” she whispered.
He yelled, “Speak up, woman!”
“Stop yelling at me!”
“I’m dying!”
“You are not. You’re just hard of hearing. I said Anna Ruth is on her way with bows.”
“I am dying. I think I’ve broken my hip, and I’m lying in three inches of water waiting for the ambulance. Tell Anna Ruth to go back home and take her beau with her.”
***
Darla Jean looked forward to her trips to Blue Ridge on Thursday and that week was extra special. She had the papers for Lanita all signed and sealed, ready to deliver. Lanita was ready to get out of Blue Ridge and start a new life. Darla Jean had a friend from the business who had retired about the same time she did and moved to the Bahamas. After a year, she moved to Canada and bought a small bookstore. She kept in touch with Darla Jean and offered to give Lanita a room above the store and a job.
They were planning a special lunch for Lanita at Betty’s place and then Darla Jean was putting one Cheri Jones on the plane to Ontario, Canada, out of DFW Airport in Dallas. Now there would be an empty bedroom for the next woman in need.
Darla Jean tied her brown hair back into a low ponytail and dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt, and sandals that morning. She found business as usual in the kitchen over at Clawdy’s. Marty was cooking. Cathy and Trixie were waiting tables. Agnes was sitting at the table having biscuits and sausage gravy.
“Hey, girl. What are you up to today?” Marty asked.
“I’m on my way to Blue Ridge. Today Lanita is leaving the nest,” Darla Jean answered.
“You are doing a good thing,” Marty said.
“I think I’ve found my true calling. Not that I’m giving up the church, but this feels right. I’ll miss her, though. The girls and Betty have enjoyed having her.”
“Your sister is a saint. You’ve got to bring her up to meet us sometime,” Marty said.
“That would be nice, and I don’t mean in an ‘ain’t that nice’ way either, Trixie. I’m sure she’d love to meet my friends. She’s never asked and I ain’t never told what business I used to be into, but it would set her mind at ease to meet y’all.”
Darla Jean poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. It was amazing how many problems had been solved around that old wooden table. But after the wedding cake and the topper business, the drama had come to a halt. Maybe the world was finally tilting back toward normality.
She split open a biscuit and slathered butter inside. The first bite was still in her mouth when the back door burst open and there was Anna Ruth, dressed in jeans and a Western cut shirt, and with tears running down her face.
Like flying debris in the middle of a class five tornado, drama constantly whirled around Anna Ruth. The past week must have just been the calm before the storm, because until that hussy moved to Bells, there was always going to be something going on in Cadillac.
She fell on the floor beside Darla Jean’s chair and laid her head on Darla Jean’s lap. “Oh, Darla Jean, you’ve got to help me.”
“What has Andy done now? Or was it Trixie?” Darla Jean asked.
“I didn’t do jack shit. I been minding my own business and helping run this café,” Trixie said.
Anna Ruth wailed. “The church flooded. I mean, it really flooded. It must have started right after the service on Sunday, and the preacher and his wife have been out of town seeing their kids so we didn’t have a Wednesday night service and…” She stopped to inhale, but her chin still quivered. “When the preacher went to open the church this morning, it was all covered in water because the toilet was overflowing and the hot water tank pipe broke and was spewing and what am I going to do?”
Agnes looked up toward the ceiling and said, “Thank you!”
“For what?” Anna Ruth frowned.
“I wasn’t talking to you. I’m talking to God, and you aren’t supposed to interrupt a woman when she’s talking to God.”
“Why would you thank God for this mess? It’s just awful. It won’t be aired out for a week so there won’t be services Sunday morning, and my wedding, my beautiful wedding, is on Saturday!” That set her off on another crying jag.
Agnes slapped the table. The noise stopped all the crying. “Shut up, woman! This is my sign.”
“What are you talking about?” Anna Ruth asked.
“I been askin’ God to give me a sign if he wanted me to move over to Darla Jean’s church. I can’t ask for a bigger sign than the one he gave Noah. So I’m moving. Sunday I’ll be over there at your church, and I don’t want to hear a damn thing about the Good Samaritan. I’ll be on the front pew, and if Violet shows up, she can sit on the back one because I said I was changing churches first.”
“I don’t care where you and Violet go to church on Sunday. I just need to use the church on Saturday,” Anna Ruth said. “Please, Darla Jean.”
“If you’ll hush crying and settle down, you can use my church on Saturday, but I don’t have a reception hall. And Agnes, I’m preaching on the 23rd Psalm on Sunday, not on the Good Samaritan.”
Anna Ruth’s tears dried up and she smiled. “Violet says we can use the community building, and it is right across the street so the people can leave their cars in the parking lot at your church. And we’re having a little rehearsal tomorrow night. So we’d need it then, too, and we need to start decorating right now.”
“Okay,” Darla Jean said. “I’m on my way out of town, but I’ll go show you how to lock up when you are done.”
Anna Ruth stood up and hugged Darla Jean. “Thank you so much. Aunt Annabel is waiting in the van.”
“Not mine,” Trixie said.
“Oh, that’s my new ringtone,” Anna Ruth said. She put the phone to her ear, turned white as snow, and gasped.
“What now?” Trixie asked.
“The preacher really did break his hip. He will be in the hospital for a week. I don’t have a preacher.” She wailed out the last word pitifully.
Agnes grabbed her ears. “God, say you’ll marry them just to shut her up.”
“God wouldn’t marry them if he lost a bet with the devil, Agnes,” Trixie said.
“I’ll preach at your wedding if you won’t faint right here on the kitchen floor,” Darla Jean told Anna Ruth. “Now let’s get on out of here so these people can get their work done. Lord, what an unholy nightmare.”
She ushered a shaking Anna Ruth out to the van, put her inside, and slammed the door.
It would all be over on Sunday, and they could settle down into routine again. The plumbing at her church was fine and tile covered the floors, so if it did flood, nothing would be ruined. And all she had to do was preach the wedding, which she’d do in the middle of a snowstorm to get Andy and Anna Ruth out of town so neither of them would interfere with her friends’ lives anymore.
***
With Lanita’s help, Betty had made gumbo, boiled shrimp, rice, and beignets for lunch. Five women sat around the table with good food in front of them and tears in their eyes.
“Okay,” Darla Jean said. “Enough of this sadness. I’ve already seen enough tears to last a week today. And this is a happy day. This is a day of jubilee. A woman is going to the Promised Land to get a brand new start. She’s been saved from an abusive man and she is starting a new life.”
“Yes, I am, but I hate to go and leave this wonderful home,” Lanita said. “If it’s not too sad, tell us about the tears you’ve already seen today.”
The Blue-Ribbon Jalapeño Society Jubilee Page 27
