I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, but that’s what came with years and years of friendship. It was almost like a secret language between tribe members, and no outsider could decipher the true meaning of what was being said.
After another minute of whispering, they turned back to me. “All set, then? Seven aprons by next Friday?”
“I’ll start planning them right away,” I said. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Harlow,” Delta said, recovered from whatever pall had slipped over her a moment ago, “I’ll see you later at my house. We can talk about my apron then.” I was happy to oblige, but I didn’t have time to say so before she turned on her sensible flats and marched off in the direction of the cemetery.
Chapter 2
Throughout my childhood, my great-grandmother was an ever-present part of my life. She was even the person who had taught me to sew, but, more important than that, she had taught me that I could achieve whatever I set my mind to. She hadn’t wanted me to leave Bliss, but when I’d set off for college to study fashion design, she walked me to Mama’s car, planted a kiss on my tear-stained cheek, and said, “Darlin’, don’t let nobody trespass on your dreams.”
In our family, our magical charms varied from person to person, and hers had been to bring whatever she wanted into reality. It was a lot of power for one person, but Loretta Mae had always used it wisely.
When she’d finally given in to her charm, wishing I’d come home, she had known that Bliss was where I was meant to be. She’d known before I did. She just helped me get here a little faster than I might’ve done on my own.
Her homespun advice always came back to me at odd times. When I walked into Buttons & Bows yesterday to find I’d left the pillows askew, my workroom a mess of fabric, and the breakfast dishes in the sink, her voice sounded in my ear. When your refrigerator is full and your bed is fresh, you feel cared for when you walk in the door.
I’d spun around, thinking maybe it hadn’t been a memory of Meemaw I’d heard in my head but her effervescent voice in my ear. After all, she had stuck around as a ghost in the house she’d left to me, even if I couldn’t see her half the time and our communication was mostly limited to clanking pipes, cryptic words written in the steam on my bathroom mirror, and low moans.
But Meemaw hadn’t been whispering in my ear. She had been MIA, in fact, for two days. If I were a betting woman, I’d lay money that she was holed up in the attic looking through the buttons, lace, trims, and fabric collected up there. She didn’t need to come down for food, she couldn’t leave the house, and she didn’t sleep, so she was perfectly content escaping into the sewing world she’d left behind.
Now, as I stood on the sidewalk in front of the square white Craftsman-style house next door to mine, another of her wise sayings came back to me. Brighten someone’s day with your smile and your words.
I frowned. Talking to Delta Lea Mobley wasn’t going to brighten my day, so I wasn’t sure how my forced smile and falsely cheery words would brighten hers. But I had an apron to make. The first of seven, so there was no time for hesitation on my part. A Jeep drove past, pulling around the corner and into the side driveway. Like so many corner houses in the Historic District, there was no driveway in front of the house. It hid on the side, letting the house itself be front and center. I knew the Jeep belonged to Mr. Mobley, even though I had never actually met Delta’s husband. Was he a stronger personality than she was, or was he a carpet she walked all over?
I couldn’t put it off any longer. I marched up the brick walkway, past the mailbox, past the Aggies flag and the flowering shrubs, mounted the steps to the front porch, and knocked on the edge of the screen door. Delta could be sweet as pie when she wanted to be, but she’d held tight to her grudge against the Cassidys for so long, I feared that trying to let it go might do her in. She might look like a rose. She might smell like a rose. But underneath it all I’d seen a mess of thorns, and I didn’t know if her stem could ever be stripped clean.
There was no answer, so I knocked again, louder this time.
Still nothing. I opened the screen door and pressed my ear to the door listening for any signs of activity inside the house. It was utterly quiet. “Delta Lea Mobley,” I said to the empty porch, “if you stood me up, so help me I’ll—”
I raised my fisted hand to knock again, rapping my knuckles against the solid wood door. As they came down a third time, the door wrenched open. “You’ll what?”
I stumbled backward, my knee buckling and my ankle twisting, but I caught myself and straightened up, wondering just what kind of game Delta was playing. Had she been standing on the other side of the door listening to me grow frustrated? I wouldn’t put it past her.
“I won’t be making your apron,” I finished. I almost jammed my hands on my hips, but Meemaw’s voice echoed in my head. Smile, Harlow. Brighten her day. Pasting a smile on my face, I said, “But here you are, so let’s get started.”
There wasn’t much measuring to do. I just needed the waist, the length of her body from waist to knee, and another from waist to neck. What I ended up using would depend upon the vision I got for her. Half apron or full? Ruffled or tailored? Floral or striped? I didn’t imagine her spending much time in the kitchen, and when I looked at her now, my charm failed me. I got no image in my mind’s eye of what kind of apron would suit her. She was a mystery.
“You’re letting all the bought air out. Are you coming in?”
Her words were blunt, but the edges of her voice had a buttery softness. She was trying hard to be sweet. It just didn’t come naturally where the Cassidys were concerned.
“Harlow?”
I blinked, focusing on her standing there holding the door open wide. I’d been woolgathering, as Hoss McClaine, Bliss’s sheriff and my mother’s husband, would say. “Yes, coming.”
Inside I noticed two things right away. First, it was so dimly lit that I had to blink and strain for a moment before my eyes adjusted to the light. Anyone who stayed holed up in here a good part of every day would be in need of a healthy dose of vitamin D to replace lost sunlight. And second, the place was jam-packed with antiques. A veritable eBay store, right next door to my house. Who knew?
Delta weaved around the sideboards, ancient chairs, ottomans, and the rest of the scattered furniture, leading me deeper into the maze. “So you collect antiques?” I asked, making small talk.
She stopped short and looked at me over her shoulder. “My daughter, Megan, does. She sells items online and at local flea markets with a friend. Her husband got her into it, but she loves it.”
As she turned back around and walked on, I took it all in. Ornate hat trees, small chests, figurines, lamps, period chairs. It went on and on and on. Megan needed to clear out her merchandise right quick or they’d be overrun.
Delta rounded the corner, disappearing behind a table stacked with upside-down chairs, but I stopped to look at a curio cabinet filled with collectible figurines. One in particular caught my eye. It was a delicate ceramic woman. I wanted to say she was a dressmaker, but I couldn’t be sure.
“My mother collects those. Lladrós,” Delta said, coming back to me.
“They’re beautiful,” I said. The only things I collected were buttons, trims, fabrics, and the occasional old pattern, but these figurines were exquisite. Perhaps someday when I had more free time, I could start a new collection for myself. . . .
“They’re meant to stay in the family.” She considered me, and then looked at the Dressmaker, as if she’d made up her mind about something. “You’ll have to look more closely at them one day. Like everything in here, they have a story to tell. Now, are you coming?” she added, a slight abrasiveness returning. I suspected it was taking a great deal of resolve for her to be so nice to me, and it was wearing thin.
“Mother,” Delta said as Jessie Pearl came into view. “Harlow Cassidy is here to take our measurements.”
This time I stopped short. Our measurements? I’d signed on
to make seven aprons for the Red Hat Society ladies. Now, just hours later, Delta was adding her mother to the mix. I had a sinking suspicion in my gut that if I wasn’t careful, I’d end up making double the number I’d initially agreed to.
“Um, excuse me, Delta?” I said, moving forward again, turning at the table and chairs. “I can’t—”
The words caught in my throat when I saw Jessie Pearl reclined in a blue corduroy easy chair that looked like it had seen better days. She looked like she’d seen better days, too. Her snow-white hair was usually curled and soft, but today it was frizzy and wiry. Her skin seemed to hang loose on the bones of her face, the wrinkles pulling it down. But it was her leg, wrapped in a heavy blue plaster cast, that took me off guard. I didn’t see Jessie Pearl very often, but the sight of her laid up with a broken leg made my frustration with her daughter over adding an apron to my task list evaporate.
“Miss Jessie Pearl, what happened to your leg?” I crouched in front of her, resting my hand on the arm of her chair.
The look she gave me made the hair on my arms stand up tall, as if it had happened just minutes ago. “Let me tell you,” she began.
Delta came to an abrupt halt in the doorway, turning on her heels. “She doesn’t need to hear the whole sordid tale, Mother. She’s here to talk aprons.”
“That’s right, Delta Lea mentioned you were going to whip some up for her Red Hat group. Although I still can’t figure out why, exactly. It’s just the women and their husbands.”
“And the pastor, and Jeremy Lisle,” Delta said.
“Ah, well, Randi doesn’t have a husband. Maybe one of them will be suited to her. ’Course maybe her being single is a good thing. Not all women are meant for domestic life.”
“Mother, that’s enough,” Delta said, a faint scolding tone in her voice.
Jessie Pearl lowered her chin to her chest and closed her eyes for a beat. “Randi’s very nice,” she amended, “and single is fine. No judgment here.”
She turned back to me, refocusing. “Anyway, mighty nice of you to make a bunch of aprons, Harlow Jane, even if it’s a bit ridiculous.”
The cat had my tongue for a few seconds before I mustered up a response. “It’s my pleasure, ma’am. It oughta be fun figuring out the perfect fabrics and patterns for all y’all.”
I cringed at the double y’all I’d thrown into the conversation. I’d all but lost my Southern accent when I’d gone away to college, but since being back in Bliss for the past year, I’d managed to pick most of it back up. It slipped in when I wasn’t looking, and it seemed here to stay.
I maneuvered myself onto the seat of a nearby chair to settle in for the story of Jessie Pearl’s broken leg. “Fridays are my chore day, you know. Every Friday I take mop to bucket and clean the floors. I do the bathrooms, dust the shelves, and once every six months, I flip the mattresses. Used to be that I had some help, but since we’ve all bunked up together, that stopped.” She gazed up at Delta. “Whatever happened to that girl who used to come in and help once in a while?”
“You know you scared her away, Mother,” Delta said, meeting my eyes and shaking her head. The message was clear. Jessie Pearl’s memory was slipping.
I came back to the statement that had caught my attention. “You flip the mattresses?” Meemaw had come from the generation of mattress flipping, too, in the days before Tempur-Pedic and pillow-tops. The concept wasn’t unfamiliar, but I had to admit that I’d never flipped a mattress in my entire life.
“Of course. Used to take the area rugs outside and would beat them to smithereens, too. I’ll tell you this: Young people today don’t know the meaning of clean. Why, Megan and Todd bring in these old antiques and wipe them down, but I tell them over and over it’s not enough. You have to get the corners and use lemon oil—”
“Mother,” Delta interrupted.
I sensed that this wasn’t the first time they’d had this discussion, and I also suspected they’d never quite see eye to eye on cleanliness. Jessie Pearl came from a different generation and did things differently. Meemaw had been the same way, and her sense of order and cleanliness, even amidst the creative chaos of a sewing room, had spilled over to me. But that wasn’t true for a lot of people, and it looked like Delta’s daughter, Megan, may have missed those lessons.
“So,” I said, getting back to the broken leg, “you were flipping a mattress?” I fluttered my hand so she’d continue even as I imagined the frail, elderly Jessie Pearl heaving a heavy mattress up and over. I couldn’t quite picture it.
“Mattresses have gotten a good sight heavier over the years, let me tell you.”
“I’m sure.”
“I managed to flip Megan and Todd’s, although it’s a full-sized. I turned my own. It’s an old twin, nearly as old as me. Easy as pie.”
I knew she was exaggerating, but had she really been sleeping on the same mattress for as long as all that? I shot a glance at Delta, but she was focused on something in the kitchen.
“It was Delta and Anson’s big lump of a mattress that nearly did me in, do you know?” She curved the fingers of one hand and lifted it above her head as if she were trying to block an imaginary mattress from falling on her head.
“I’ve told you to leave it be,” Delta said, her head snapping back to look at us. “It doesn’t need flipping.”
Jessie Pearl balked. “You said no such thing. You said Anson wanted the thing flipped.”
Delta pivoted toward her mother. “Anson may have wanted it flipped, but you certainly don’t need to be the one doing it. Mother, you’re eighty-three years old. Your mattress-flipping, rug-beating days are behind you.”
A faint red blush stained Jessie Pearl’s cheeks, and her lips tightened, the lines on her face deepening into harsh crevices. “They’ll be behind me when I’m dead.”
I stared at Jessie Pearl wondering how I could have possibly misjudged her and the muscles she apparently had under the saggy skin of her arms. “So you lifted their mattress by yourself?”
She uncurled her fingers and fluttered them at me. “Pshaw. It wasn’t anythin’. You just have to work your way under one corner with your arm, then your shoulder. Once you’re under it, you climb on the box spring, lifting as you go, and then—” She clapped her hands as she said, “Bam!” I jumped. “It falls. Then you do it all again, only this time around, you have to pull it back up onto the box spring. It gets tricky, but I have a method.”
“That method stopped working when the mattress fell on you and you were trapped, you mean.” Delta still kept one eye on whatever was occupying her in the kitchen, but she seemed to have her full attention on our conversation. I got the impression she didn’t want to leave me and her mother alone where we could have an unmonitored talk.
“I’ve been flipping the mattresses for years and years. Longer than you’ve been in the world,” she said. “Haven’t I asked for help? Good thing for me Megan and Todd showed up when they did or I might still be under that bed and you’d all be talkin’ about me at Christian Brother’s Mortuary instead of talkin’ with me right here, right now.”
“We’re glad we showed up, too!” a man’s voice called from the kitchen.
So Todd was in the kitchen.
Jessie Pearl grinned, exposing the outline of her dentures. Her smile was contagious. “This time the dang thing felt like it was alive. I thought I was going to be smothered. Todd was trying to help, and I couldn’t even hear him. Megan screaming at him to hurry gave him the gumption he needed to heft it off of me.”
“It is a good thing they got here when they did,” I said.
“And now they’re makin’ supper for us tonight. Sweet, right? They’re the ones who need aprons. They’d actually use them.”
I ignored that hint, not wanting to take the apron count up to ten, and instead I focused on Delta’s hyperattentiveness to the kitchen. Had Todd and Megan been in the kitchen the whole time, or had they come in from a back door?
More than wondering when To
dd and Megan had started cooking, I was curious about Delta’s attentiveness to them. Did she not want a mess left after they were done? Was she trying to learn what was on the menu? My own interest was piqued. If there was anything that could help me pinpoint the style and fabric choice for Delta’s apron, it was a glimpse into her kitchen.
“Very sweet,” I said, wishing someone would come over next door and make me dinner. With all the tasks on my plate, cooking was going to go by the wayside. At least I had the progressive dinner to look forward to.
Jessie Pearl continued on as if there hadn’t been a break in the conversation. “You’d be surprised at what I can do, but this time . . . this time it was different.”
“You’re eighty-three years old, mother,” Delta said. “You had no business trying to flip it.”
“I was a suffragette, I’ll have you know. I’ve always been a doer, not a watcher. I know what matters, and I’m not afraid to stand up for what I care about.”
Miss Jessie Pearl directed a stern glare at her eldest daughter. I’d wondered a few times how in the world she could have given birth to Delta, but for a moment, I saw the likeness between them. Jessie Pearl had gumption, just like Delta did, and they were cut from the same cloth in a way I had never noticed before.
“Like I said, there wasn’t anyone to help. If you want somethin’ done, do it yourself. That’s a rule I’ve always lived by, and I ain’t about to change it now.”
“’Course she has so much money, she couldn’t spend it all if she tried,” Delta said to me, but to Jessie Pearl, she said, “Good for you, Mother. Now, do you want Harlow to make you an apron or not?”
The wrinkles on her forehead deepened as she slipped into thought. “I don’t know if true suffragettes wore aprons.”
“You were born too late to be a real suffragette, Mother,” Delta said, rolling her eyes.
Jessie Pearl drew her lower lip up and over her upper lip, ignoring Delta, so I jumped in. “I bet a good many of them did,” I said. “Women don’t like to be defined by just one part of themselves. They shouldn’t be. We’re layered, right? Complicated. We can wear aprons and still believe in equality.”
A Seamless Murder Page 2
