Her legs felt like they were filled with steel when she pushed open the glass door and headed toward Lenny’s office. He looked up from behind his desk and with a flick of his wrist motioned for her to come on in.
She was still staring at him trying to figure out whether to beat him to death with the briefcase or just set it in the middle of the floor and get the hell out of there before she started weeping, when she saw a movement in her peripheral vision.
“Well, hello!” Bridget appeared from behind the Corvette parked just inside the doors. “It’s good to see you again.”
Either the woman did not know Carlene was Lenny’s wife or she was a fool who’d caught an acute case of stupid from Lenny Joe Lovelle. Either way, she was crazy as hell and didn’t value her hair or eyeballs. Anyone with two sane brain cells in their heads could see that Carlene Lovelle was a time bomb with a lit fuse.
Bridget’s eyes twinkled and she lowered her voice to say, “The red outfit drove my sweet sugar daddy right up the walls. Honey, we had the honeymoon suite and we didn’t hit the blackjack tables one time all weekend. He didn’t even leave to go to his business meetings. We spent the whole two days in that big round bed or else in the heart-shaped hot tub. It was our five-month anniversary and he said that he got luckier in that room than he ever did at the gambling tables. I’ll be back in to buy something else for the sixth month. We’re going to Florida to celebrate my twenty-second birthday as well as our anniversary. I’m thinking naughty nurse so get the bling out and I betcha I get my ring on that trip. Oh, and guess what else? We are both members of the mile high club now.”
Carlene plopped the briefcase down on the hood of the Corvette and wished that she’d bought one of those shiny metal ones for Lenny’s birthday instead of one made of soft kid leather. Hell, if she had a metal one, she really could beat him to death with it, but that fancy leather thing wouldn’t even leave bruises.
Bridget’s eyes widened out to the size of saucers when she saw the LJL initials on the top of the familiar case and had trouble staying in their sockets when Carlene popped it open. Right there on the top of a big manila envelope were the red panties.
Using a pen with the car dealership logo, Carlene picked up the underpants and threw them at the woman. Then she dumped documents, pens, sticky notes, and everything else in the briefcase onto the tile floor and stomped holes in the papers with her spike heels.
Bridget caught the scrap of red satin and all the color drained from her face. “What are you doing with my panties? And why do you have Lenny’s briefcase? Who in the hell are…oh, my, sweet Jesus!” She slapped a hand over her mouth. The panties hung on her pinky finger, and it looked like she was trying to swallow the evidence.
Carlene picked up the empty briefcase and lobbed it like a rocket toward the window between her and Lenny. It lost momentum and didn’t even crack the glass but it made him drop like bird shit behind his desk.
“I…I…” Bridget stammered.
Well, praise the Lord, her vocabulary now had two vowels. Maybe by the end of the day, she could add a consonant or two and be able to speak in whole sentences again.
Lenny must’ve jumped up as fast as he dropped because suddenly he was beside her. “My God, Carlene, what in the hell…oh!” He stopped dead.
His eyes darted from Bridget to Carlene. “I can explain. Bridget, honey, tell Uncle Sam to close the deal with Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds. He’ll have to reprint the contracts. And would you please clean up this mess before anyone sees it? Carlene, we’ll go discuss this over some coffee in the lounge.”
Then he proved just how damned stupid he was by reaching out and touching her shoulder as if he could charm her into forgiveness. Well, Lenny Joe Lovelle wasn’t charming jack shit out of her that morning, and it would be a cold day in hell before she ever forgave him. Even Alma Grace, with all her religion and praying, would agree that the Good Book did not condone adultery or fornication—even though it didn’t mention skimpy under-britches.
She doubled up her fist and landed a good right hook in his left eye. He went down on his knees and yelled, “Why in the hell did you do that?”
“Because you touched me, you son of a bitch. If you ever lay a hand on me again, I will snatch you bald-headed and then start on your bimbo over there,” she yelled.
Shit! Had she really raised her voice right out in public like that? Carlene Carmichael Lovelle was a lady who did not air her dirty laundry, but dammit, he’d broken her heart, twisted it up into a pretzel, and now he was acting like it was nothing. She glared at him, hands on hips and back as straight as steel.
Bridget instinctively covered her hair with her hands, the panties now looking like dangly earrings as they floated down from fingertips to shoulders.
He stood up and narrowed his eyes. “Come on, Carlene, we have to talk.”
“You can talk to my lawyer.”
He laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled. “Darlin’…”
She slapped him with her open hand hard enough to put a blaze of red on his cheek, but he didn’t drop to the floor. “Dammit, Carlene. You are making a scene.”
“A scene. You want a scene? I’ll give you a damned scene that a sugar daddy can appreciate.” She placed the toe of her high-heeled shoe on the bumper of the Corvette and marched up across the hood, leaving dents that looked like hail had peppered down on the pretty red car. When she was standing on the top of it, she looked right at Bridget.
“Bridget, honey, you had better never show your face at Bless My Bloomers ever again.”
“Get off that car. You’ve already done thousands of dollars worth of damage. Sam is going to sue the hell out of you for this,” Lenny shouted.
Sam, a robust man with a rim of gray hair, a belly that hung out over his belt, and five-thousand-dollar eel cowboy boots, rushed out into the showroom. “My God, Carlene, have you lost your mind?”
“She’s gone crazy, Uncle Sam,” Lenny said.
“You want to see freakin’ crazy? I will show you crazy.” She stepped down to the hood and did a stomp dance. By the time she finished, the showroom was full. She took a deep bow and hopped down from the hood. “When I’m done, you’ll be damn lucky to have potatoes with your beans once a week, much less plan little weekend trips to honeymoon suites where you wallow around in a round bed with office girls rather than going to meetings. Dock his pay for the damage, Sam. You’d be wise to fire his ass, but since he’s your nephew, that won’t happen, will it?”
“Come on Carlene, it was just a fling. It only happened one time and I’ll never do it again,” Lenny whispered.
“Fling! Just a fling?” Bridget’s voice was as loud as a fire siren. “You promised me that you were leaving her. You promised me an engagement ring with a two-carat diamond as soon as you left your fat wife. You promised me we would have our own apartment by the time the chili cook-off happens and I could be your cheerleader for the event and you’d hang our picture above all those trophies in your office.”
“Well, he’s not leaving his fat wife. I’m leaving his cheating ass and he’s all yours. Better keep him on a short leash. He charming, but he’s a two-timin’ son of a bitch.” Carlene’s high heels sounded like fire crackers as she stormed out of the dealership.
She drove until she reached the outskirts of town, pulled over, and laid her head on the steering wheel. That lyin’ cheating bag of shit didn’t deserve her tears but they flowed down her cheeks anyway as she sat there with the engine running and the air conditioner turning her warm, salty tears as cold as her heart felt.
***
Monday morning was Josie Vargas’s favorite time of the week. She’d cooked all weekend, put up with whining grandkids and great-grandkids, sons in her living room arguing about football on the blaring television set, and daughters-in-law sipping iced tea at her kitchen table while they gossiped about people she didn’t even know. The
most beautiful sight in the world was the taillights as they all went home Sunday night after supper. Maybe by Friday she’d be glad to see them again, but right then she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and gave thanks that she’d only birthed two sons.
“Okay,” she muttered at the ceiling. “They say they are bringing the kids to see me so I don’t get lonely since Louis died. Me, I think they are coming home to be waited on and to eat my cooking. Tell me I’m wrong. No? You can’t lie?”
She warmed two leftover waffles from the day before in the microwave and drizzled a mixture of hot butter and maple syrup over them. That and coffee would keep her until she arrived at Bless My Bloomers where she sewed fancy lingerie for all sizes of women. Crazy women who wanted pearls and ribbons and fancy crap all over their under-britches. Josie couldn’t imagine wearing the things that she made. Plain old white cotton panties were good enough for her butt and Louis had never complained one time when he took them off.
He would turn over in his grave if he knew she’d gone back to work. She’d retired at sixty-five and she and Louis had twelve good years together before he died. But she got lonely after he was gone, and when Carlene came to ask her if she wanted a job at Bless My Bloomers, she’d jumped at the chance.
She was ten minutes early and parked her twenty-year-old car around back, leaving the curb space and driveway for customers. She was a short woman with a touch of gray in her hair and brown eyes set in a bed of wrinkles. She was eyeballing her eightieth birthday in another year and she loved those three girls she worked with as much as her own granddaughters. Before she got out of the car, she took out the little compact that Louis had given her for their first anniversary and reapplied her trademark bright-red lipstick.
No one else had arrived yet so she let herself in the back door with her key and headed straight to her little room. It had been the library when the house was a residence but nowadays it was her sewing room. The living room was the store. The parlor had been divided into four fitting rooms. The dining room was the stockroom and the walls were lined with basic bras, corsets, and panties in all sizes, shapes, and colors. There were three bedrooms upstairs, and sometimes the owners, Carlene, Alma Grace, and Patrice, kept extra stock up there if the dining room overflowed.
She’d been working on a fancy corset for a bride when she left Friday evening. She pulled up her rolling chair, picked up the pearls, and started sewing them one-by-one onto the lace panels between the boning. She’d always liked intricate work. Even as a child she was the one who loved embroidery and needlepoint.
“I don’t remember Carlene ever being out sick before. I hope she ain’t sick today. Alma Grace will have a prayin’ fit if she has to fit all those choir women from her church without any help.”
***
Alma Grace stopped by her mama’s house on the way to work every morning so they could have a mother/daughter devotional. They read the daily pages from the study Bible, said a prayer, and then had breakfast.
Few people in Cadillac even remembered the Fannin sisters’ real names. Sugar’s birth certificate said Carolina Sharmaine, but she’d always been called Sugar. The same with Gigi; her real name was Virginia Carlene. And Tansy had started out life the day she was born as Georgia Anastasia. They’d each had a daughter within a year of each other twenty-seven years before. Alma Grace belonged to Sugar, Patrice to Tansy, and Carlene to Gigi.
“Are you planning a surprise for the Easter program this year?” Her mother pushed a strand of ash-blond hair back behind her delicate ears. Diamond studs glittered in the morning sunlight. Both of her sisters told her that the television show Good Christian Bitches had really been modeled after Miz Sugar Magee. Those women damn sure hadn’t given up a bit of their bling or their style to be religious and neither had Sugar or Alma Grace.
Alma Grace’s curly blond hair, the color of fresh straw, was held back that morning with a silver clasp. Cute little cross earrings covered with sapphires matched the necklace around her neck and her blue eyes.
“Now Mama, you know I never give away all my secrets about the Easter program. That’s why we have such a crowd. Everyone knows it’ll be spectacular and even bigger than the year before. But I will tell you this much. The teacher from the drama department at the school is working on a gizmo to make me fly as I sing the final song and there will be sparkles on my wings. It’s going to be breathtaking. They’ll still be talking about it at the chili cook-off. Maybe even at the festival this fall.”
Sugar’s eyes misted. “It will be the best thing that’s ever happened in our church, and when your sweet voice starts to sing the final song, it will be like the heavens open up and the angels are singing.”
Alma Grace dropped a kiss on her mother’s forehead. “Thank you, Mama. I’ve got to go to work.”
Sugar sighed. “Lord, I wish you wouldn’t have…”
Alma Grace laid a hand on her mother’s arm. “I prayed about it, remember? And God told me it was just underwear. Carlene, Patrice, and I are making a good living at Bless My Bloomers. And just think of all the happy men in the world who are staying home with their wives because of our jobs.”
Sugar nodded seriously. “That’s the only thing that I take comfort in, darlin’. Now let us have a little prayer before you go. We’ll pray the blood of Jesus will keep you pure as you work on all those hooker clothes.”
“Mama!”
Sugar tilted her chin up. “Well, God didn’t tell me that those things were fit for decent God-fearin’ women so I intend to pray about it every day.”
“I’ve got to go or I’ll be late. Dinner at Miss Clawdy’s at noon?” Alma Grace asked.
“Not today. Gigi and Tansy and I are going up to Sherman to look at a new car for Gigi. She’s still driving one that’s four years old. It’s a disgrace, I tell you. She’s got a son-in-law in the business and she drives a car that old. Why, honey, it’s almost a sin. I guess I should be happy that she’s driving a car instead of a truck, but honestly, four years old!”
“Well, y’all have a good time and bring the new car back by the shop for us to see. That Lenny is so good to his family. Maybe someday I’ll find a husband like him. Carlene is one lucky woman.”
Sugar waved from the front door. “Yes, she is.”
Alma Grace parked the car beside Josie’s and went in through the back door. “Hey, no coffee? Where’s Carlene?” she yelled.
“Ain’t here yet. Hope she ain’t sick. Y’all have got all those church women coming for a fitting today.”
Alma Grace rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. She’d forgotten about that appointment. Thank goodness, her mother was tied up with Aunt Gigi’s new car business or she’d have had to cancel lunch with her. Sugar Fannin Magee pouted when she got all dolled up and didn’t get to go out and it was not a pretty sight.
“Think I should call her?” Alma Grace asked.
“Hell, no! She’ll call us if she’s sick. Maybe she’s finally pregnant and got the mornin’ sickness.”
“A baby.” Alma Grace almost swooned.
“I didn’t say that she was. I said that she might be, and if she is, she’ll tell us when she damn well gets ready. Why don’t you make coffee?”
“Because Carlene says that my coffee isn’t fit to drink. I’ll get the lights turned on and the doors opened. I’m sure she’ll be along in a little while. Patrice is late all the time but I’ve never beat Carlene to work since we opened the shop last year.”
***
The alarm rattled around in Patrice’s head like steel marbles banging against the edges of a tin soup can. She groaned and shoved a pillow over her eyes with one hand and used the other hand to slap the hell out of the clock, sending it scooting across the floor. That the plug came loose from the wall was the only thing that saved the damn clock from being stomped to death that morning.
Damn Monday mornings after a weekend of
hell-raisin’ sex and booze. Wine, beer. Jack Daniels and half a gallon of rocky road ice cream after the fight with her boyfriend did not make for a good start to a new week. Hangover, bloat, and tears were poor bed partners, especially on a Monday morning.
She kicked the covers off, took a warm shower, drank a cup of tomato juice laced with curry, ate half a can of chilled pineapple, and popped two aspirin. It was her special recipe to cure a hangover.
Her job at Bless My Bloomers was keeping books, inventory, and anything to do with a computer. Lord, she hated to face columns of numbers and deal with the wholesale sellers all morning with her head pounding like she was standing next to a jackhammer.
No one at the shop could help her, either. Alma Grace, bless her heart, could sell a blinged-out corset to a saint, but she could not add up a double column of figures even with a calculator. Carlene, God love her soul, could design something so sexy that the devil would hock his horns to buy it, but she was all thumbs when it came to keeping track of what went out and what came into the shop. If things got hectic in the sales room, Patrice could talk to customers, show them the merchandise, and even make a sale, but she didn’t enjoy it.
The bathroom mirror brought about a loud groan. Her aqua-colored eyes looked like two piss holes in the snow and her platinum blond hair, straight from a bottle down at the Yellow Rose Beauty Shop, was only slightly better looking than a witch’s stringy strands in a kid’s movie. Hell, next week, she might cut it all off and wear it in a spike hairdo. It would damn sure be easier to fix than getting out the curling iron every damn morning.
“Grandma Fannin would have your hide if you did that,” she whispered to her reflection.
When she’d done enough to cover up most of the hangover, she pulled a pair of skinny jeans from her closet, along with a tight-fitting shirt that hugged her double Ds and black, shiny, high-heeled shoes that she could kick off under her desk.
The Cowboy's Mail Order Bride Page 30
