Home at Last Chance

by Hope Ramsay

  She was never going to settle for a dull, boring, straight-and-narrow minister of the Word. Ever. Mother and Mrs. Randall and the world needed to quit pushing guys like that at her.

  Sarah smiled sweetly, laying on the charm as she returned her cup to her saucer. “I will keep what you say in mind, Mrs. Randall.”

  And run like heck in the opposite direction.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Hettie Marshall got out of her Audi TT and leaned against its polished fender as she lit a cigarette. She kept half an eye trained on the alley by the Cut ’n Curl, just in case someone came by. She hated to think of the gossip that might ensue if anyone ever found out she had this hidden vice.

  She took a deep drag and felt the muscles in her neck and shoulders ease.

  Normally she would have gone out to the potting shed to indulge this secret habit, but she hadn’t had time this morning. Henry Dixon, of Dixon Investigations, had called her right before she left for her weekly hair appointment. Mr. Dixon said he had something interesting to share with her.

  That was bad news. Hettie had been praying that her husband, Jimmy Marshall, the owner of Country Pride Chicken, wasn’t doing anything even remotely interesting. She wondered, as she dropped the cigarette and stubbed it out with her Isaac Mizrahi pumps, what she might do about Jimmy and his interesting pastimes, whatever they might be.

  Her meeting with Mr. Dixon wasn’t until 4:30 that afternoon. She would be a wreck by that time.

  She popped a wintergreen Lifesaver in her mouth and headed toward the Cut ’n Curl. The odor of hot coffee and hairspray welcomed her as she pushed through the beauty shop’s doorway. The conversation halted the moment she stepped into the room.

  That little pause was an affirmation of sorts. A lonely affirmation. Hettie had worked hard to maintain a distance between herself and the other women of Last Chance. It was required for a woman of her station.

  Hettie was, after all, the Queen Bee of Last Chance, South Carolina, a member of the DAR, and a Southern aristocrat right down to her bones.

  Queen Bee was an unofficial title, of course, never spoken to her face. The title carried little power, in reality. In truth, Lillian Bray was the bully everyone kowtowed to. Miriam Randall was the woman everyone listened to. And Ruby Rhodes was the woman everyone wanted as a best friend.

  Hettie would have liked Ruby as a friend, too, but that was not possible. Not with Ruby’s husband being the kind of man he was. Sometimes it was a bitch being the Queen Bee of this little town.

  “Hey, Hettie,” Ruby Rhodes greeted her, a big smile on the hairdresser’s face. As always, Ruby was tastefully dressed in an ensemble that was probably purchased at Target. Hettie’s outfit had been purchased at Bergdorf’s in New York three months ago. And yet, Ruby looked more at home in her clothes.

  For that matter, Ruby looked more at home in her skin. Hettie wondered how the woman managed when she was married to a man everyone thought was one step away from the crazy farm.

  “Oh, Hettie, you won’t believe it, we think we’ve found the perfect wife for the minister,” Millie Polk said from her place at the manicure station where Jane, Ruby’s new daughter-in-law, was artfully applying polish.

  Hettie kept a neutral smile plastered on her face. The members of the auxiliary were single-minded in their determination to make an honest man out of William Ellis. She thought maybe they should let Bill alone to figure things out for himself. But of course, no congregation wanted their minister to be a confirmed bachelor. A thing like that could lead to gossip.

  And Lord knew, this town had a talented crop of gossips.

  “Who is it this time?” Hettie asked as she followed Ruby to the shampoo area at the back of the shop.

  “My son’s nursemaid,” Ruby said with a melodramatic roll of her eyes.

  “Who?”

  Ruby draped a plastic sheet around Hettie’s shoulders and tilted the chair back. She started shampooing Hettie’s hair. “Her name’s Sarah, and she works for National Brands. They sent her down from New York to make sure Tulane stays in line.”

  “How did you meet her?”

  Ruby continued to work up a lather as she related a long story about a black wool suit, a baby-changing race, and fisticuffs at Dot’s Spot.

  “And Lillian thinks this woman is perfect for Bill? Lillian must be slipping.” Hettie sat up as Ruby wrapped her hair in a towel.

  “Well, I reckon she’s willing to overlook the fight at the bar, given the fact that my son was involved and we all know how trouble follows that boy.”

  “Also, Sarah’s kin came over on the Mayflower,” Millie added enthusiastically as Hettie and Ruby returned to the salon’s main room. “That’s a plus in a minister’s wife, don’t you think?”

  “Definitely,” Hettie said politely as she took her seat. Ruby began to comb out her hair, her hands moving with competence. Ruby was a gem, in more ways than one. Who would believe that a little place like Last Chance would have a beautician with such talent? Ruby saved Hettie from having to drive all the way to Columbia every week.

  Honestly, if Ruby had wanted to set up a shop in New York, she would have become rich and famous.

  “And then,” Millie continued, “there’s what Miriam had to say about that Boston girl. I declare, Miriam really has done it this time.”

  Hettie’s stomach flip-flopped and she ground her back teeth together.

  “Really, Millie, you don’t believe that stuff Miriam hands out, do you?” Hettie looked at Millie in the mirror. The wife of Last Chance’s main banker looked back.

  “Hettie, we all know your views on Miriam Randall, but the rest of us have faith in her,” Millie said.

  Hettie looked away. She was not going to dignify Millie’s comment with a response. After all, she was the woman who had dared to flaunt Miriam’s advice ten years ago and marry Jimmy Marshall, even though he was not her soul mate. Jimmy was the man Mama had picked for her.

  And Mama trumped Miriam every time.

  Ruby began to work on Hettie’s ash-blonde tresses, making minuscule adjustments to the cut. They sat there in silence for the longest time, Hettie not daring to open her mouth for fear that she might show way too much curiosity about Miriam’s latest matrimonial prediction.

  But Ruby, bless her heart, had the sense to know that Hettie had no interest in gossiping about Bill Ellis or some Yankee girl from Boston. The idea was preposterous, in any case.

  “Well, aren’t you even the slightest bit curious about what Miriam had to say?” Millie asked, oblivious to the tension radiating from Hettie’s core.

  “No,” Hettie lied.

  Hettie folded her hands in her lap and squared her shoulders.

  It doesn’t matter one iota what Miriam has to say, she told herself.

  But she didn’t believe a word.

  The Ferguson Racing headquarters in Palmetto, South Carolina, resembled a giant bird of prey, with an angled glass façade, exposed steel beams, and a sloping, angular roof. The place intimidated Sarah as she followed Tulane across the plaza and through a veritable grove of flagpoles, each flying the colors of one of the many Ferguson racing teams.

  She hadn’t expected ever to see the headquarters of NASCAR’s largest race team. But she and Tulane had been summoned here directly after the baby-changing races at the Florence Value Mart that afternoon.

  She didn’t have a good feeling about this. She was supposed to be on the corporate jet, winging her way back to New York. Instead, she followed Tulane into the first-floor conference room and came face-to-face with the fabulously platinum and perpetually annoyed Deidre Montgomery.

  Today, the Dragon Lady wore a beige Carolina Herrera suit, accented by an understated but exquisite gold chain. Her outfit probably cost more than Sarah made in half a year of toiling in the National Brands research department.

  Jim Ferguson, the owner of the Cottontail Disposable Diapers Ford, was there, too. He sat at the end of the conference table, looking j
ust as craggily handsome as he did in his oil additive commercials.

  The Dragon Lady stood up and shook Tulane’s hand. Ferguson stood as well and nodded a greeting to Tulane. They all sat down again.

  Sarah had been completely ignored in the first round of introductions, which was pretty much par for the course. She took a seat at the end of the table and folded her hands in front of her and awaited her fate.

  Deidre smiled an icy smile at Tulane. “Jim and I have been talking about the car seat safety idea you mentioned to me on the phone yesterday. I called this meeting because I wanted you to know that we at National Brands think this is a very good idea, and we want to put some dollars into it.”

  Tulane flicked his gray-green eyes toward Sarah and then back at the Dragon Lady. “Yes, ma’am, only—”

  “Jim and I have been talking, and”—she turned toward Ferguson and gave him a phony smile that the racing legend did not return—“we think it’s probably a good idea to create an entirely new nonprofit group to educate consumers and promote car seat safety inspections. We’ll have to talk to the tax guys, of course, but—”

  “There’s no need to create a new organization.” The words jumped out of Sarah’s mouth before she remembered that Deidre didn’t like being interrupted or contradicted. Especially by lackeys who had not been acknowledged upon entering the room.

  Deidre stopped speaking and stared at Sarah as if she had been deposited at the table by aliens. “What?” The word came out with the force of a bullet.

  Sarah clenched her hands together and tried to tamp down the nerves fluttering in her gut. “While we were killing time between events today, I googled ‘car seat safety.’ I got two million hits. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We just need to connect Tulane with one of the existing programs.”

  Deidre’s gaze took in Sarah’s slightly rumpled black business suit. The Dragon Lady gave Sarah a pitying smile. “Sarah, I have something much bigger in mind.” She turned back toward Ferguson. “As I was saying, we can brand the—”

  “Hold on,” Jim said, his blue eyes shifting to Sarah and then back to Deidre and finally to Tulane. “I think car seat safety is a great idea. But I’d really like to know if this car seat thing is going to allow us to tone down the color of the car. Or at least to reinvent the bunny on the hood. The guys in the pits have practically revolted over having to wear pink suits with snuggle bunnies on them. It’s just not manly, Deidre.”

  “It’s the color of the brand, and the bunny is our logo, Jim. We’re not about to—”

  “Um,” Sarah ventured in timidly. “About the bunny.”

  “What now, Sarah?” Deidre said impatiently.

  Sarah interlaced her sweaty fingers and told herself she had nothing whatsoever to lose. The only hope she had of salvaging her career and undoing the damage she had done to Tulane’s was to stand up for her ideas, instead of letting other people steal them.

  So she cleared her voice and forged ahead bravely. “The bunny doesn’t work. All our focus group research says Tulane skews alpha. So putting a cuddle bunny on the hood of his car is, well… odd, to say the least. It’s a turnoff to our key consumers. We ought to rethink the uniforms and drop the logo or redesign it to give it some attitude and—”

  “Wait a sec. You want to redesign the logo? What are you, nuts?” Deidre leaned forward.

  “All I’m saying is that the logo would work better on a race car if it was less Beatrix Potter and more Racer Rabbit,” Sarah said, referring to the beloved Saturday morning cartoon character who regularly got himself and his little green race car into tight scrapes.

  Tulane and Jim looked up at her in unison. “Wow, that’s brilliant,” Jim said. “Why not?”

  He turned toward Deidre, whose features had gotten hard. Deidre was about to go nuclear.

  “Absolutely not. We have a logo and it’s—” Deidre started.

  “Have you ever seen a Racer Rabbit cartoon?” Jim asked.

  Deidre shook her head. “I don’t have children.”

  “Well,” Jim said, “Racer Rabbit gets himself into deep trouble every Saturday, and he counts on Foxy Roxy to get him out. Foxy is a good little fox who follows the rules, and Racer is just—well, sort of like Tulane—he never met a rule he didn’t want to break.” Jim said this with a semi-stern glance at Tulane.

  “The thing is, Deidre,” Sarah continued, taking Jim’s words as an invitation to expound, “Racer Rabbit is the top-rated kid-vid show on network television for the under-five set. Cottontail Disposable Diapers does a lot of advertising on that show because mommies watch it, too.”

  “Is that so?” The muscles in Deidre’s jaws pulsed.

  Oops, maybe she had overstepped.

  “Yes,” Sarah said, pressing her palms together and praying that she hadn’t just committed professional suicide.

  “Well, we can’t change the logo, okay? Now, let’s get back to the discussion of car seats. I think we should—”

  “Look,” Tulane interrupted. “Y’all should know that the car seat idea was Sarah’s, too. It’s not my idea. I only suggested it because I thought it might be a way to get out of officiating at baby-changing races.” He stared soberly at Deidre. “I realize that you want me to be your tame stock car driver, but those baby-changing races are humiliating. You’re making me a freaking laughingstock, and I don’t really like it.”

  “Tulane…” Jim’s voice was stern. “That’s enough.”

  Tulane leaned back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest. He was furious, and Sarah felt a huge rasher of guilt descend right down on her head. What on earth had she been thinking when she’d put that particular detail into her revenge memo?

  Short answer: She’d been trying to embarrass Steve Phelps. But Tulane Rhodes was paying the price. Proving that revenge was never a very good plan.

  Jim turned toward Sarah. “So the car seats were your idea?”

  She nodded. “Uh, yeah.”

  “Where did you come up with that idea?”

  Tulane gave her a warning glance.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just came to me. And for the record, Jim, Tulane was great with the kids at the baby-changing races. But, uh, they—”

  “Enough, Sarah. You weren’t invited to this meeting to—” Deidre started.

  “No, wait. I’m interested in what she has to say,” Jim interrupted.

  Deidre aimed her laser-beam look at Jim. Usually this gaze caused people to curl up and die on the spot. But Jim seemed impervious. Maybe Deidre had met her match. Sarah shifted her gaze from Deidre to Jim to Tulane and back again as she realized that no matter what she said, someone was going to be unhappy.

  “Sarah?” Jim said.

  “Well, um, I don’t know where the idea came from. Seeing a lot of mommies with babies, probably. And, um, as I said before, Tulane was good with the babies.”

  Tulane rolled his eyes. His biceps flexed. He was unhappy, and she didn’t blame him.

  “Could we please get this conversation back on track?” Deidre gave Sarah the laser-beam treatment. Sarah felt a little queasy.

  “No,” Jim said firmly. That one little word was so forceful and compelling. When Jim Ferguson spoke, everyone listened, even Deidre.

  “No?” Deidre said, giving Jim another arch look, but this time the whole laser-beam thing seemed to have lost its potency.

  “Deidre,” Jim said with quiet authority, “if we continue down this road, it’s going to end badly. So I have a suggestion to make.”

  “Okay.” Deidre didn’t sound too sure.

  “I’d like you to assign Sarah to Ferguson Racing for the season as our sponsor liaison. We can use her as a go-between on this car seat safety idea, and she can coordinate your hospitality events and whatnot from here. She appears to be a very creative young woman. And I think we ought to collaborate on this idea of a license deal with Racer Rabbit. That idea is brilliant, and you’d be a fool not to think it through.”

  “
I can’t assign her as a sponsor liaison. To be honest, she should never have been sent down here to advance Tulane. She has no experience, and she’s basically a research assistant in the marketing department. She doesn’t have—”

  “A market researcher? Really?” Jim asked. His voice sounded calm, but amused. “Well, I’ll be. I guess she has a handle on the consumer end of things, doesn’t she? I’d say she has a better handle on it than the rest of the folks up there in your shop.” He leaned in toward Deidre. His whole demeanor was firm and in control. “Besides, Tulane has a point. Baby-changing races are humiliating in the same way as making a bunch of good-ol’-boy mechanics wear powder pink and a bunny logo is.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I know that contractually you have the right to paint that car. But I don’t need to honor that contract for more than this year. So I’d say there is a lot of room for compromise and coordination. We could start with Sarah’s ideas on car seats and Racer Rabbit.”

  Holy moly, Jim Ferguson was giving her credit for her ideas. That had never happened, ever. Sarah squared her shoulders. It felt really nice to be recognized for once.

  A muscle ticked in Deidre’s cheek, and Sarah worried that her boss might literally start breathing fire. Instead, Deidre took three or four deep breaths, then said, “Would you gentlemen excuse us for just one moment? Sarah and I need to have a little chat.”

  Deidre didn’t wait for anyone to answer this question. She simply stood up and nodded toward Sarah. “Come with me.”

  Sarah had no choice but to follow her boss out into the hallway and then into a ladies’ restroom.

  No sooner had the door closed behind them than Deidre turned on her. “That was some performance you just gave. Did Tulane tell you what to say?”

  Deidre’s words felt like a slap to the face. “No, I—”

  “Don’t.” Deidre waived her hand impatiently. “Of course he put you up to this. He thinks he can manipulate me by manipulating you. But he’s wrong. He and Ferguson probably set the whole thing up. And he’s already gotten you into big trouble. You do realize that.”