I stood up, clasping my purse in front of me. “I’ll do that. And if you don’t mind, I like being called by my given name. It’s Elizabeth.”
He squinted at me. “Wait a minute. You’re not Elizabeth Polk, are you?”
“I am.” I stared at him, and my mouth curled into a grin. “Hey, I know who you are. Cayboo Creek High School. Future Cosmetologists of America. You’re Clyde Bodett.”
“Professionally I’m known as Claude B.” He smiled sheepishly. “I was the only male in the FCA. I thought I recognized you. You haven’t changed since high school.”
“Same hairstyle, you mean?”
“Sorry if I was a snoot.”
“You were, but I accept your apology.”
I followed him to his station and sat down.
“You were so talented in the high school cosmetology classes,” I said. “You were the star. And now look at you. Working in this salon in downtown Augusta.”
He slapped some color in a bowl and began mixing it. “I remember you dropped out of the FCA. What have you been doing with yourself since high school? You were the smartest girl in the class. Are you still living in Cayboo Creek?”
I smiled at his compliment. I never imagined myself as smart. I told him about my job at the Bottom Dollar Emporium and how I’d been promoted to manager. “I’ve always wondered what my life would be like if I’d just passed pin curling.”
He planted a hand on his hip. “Hairdressing has been good to me. I’m making money hand over foot. The women here practically throw it at me. Guess how much I get for a cut?”
“Thirty-five?”
He hooted. “Elizabeth, I wouldn’t bother plugging in my blow-dryer for less than fifty-eight dollars a head. And that doesn’t include tips.”
I whistled. “Dang, that’s a lot of money.”
He applied a foil to a hank of my hair. “I have a brand-new Lexus, a hot tub, crocodile-skin boots, and a bumper pool table in my rumpus room.”
“Sounds nice. I’m proud of you, Clyde. I’m not earning anything like that at the Bottom Dollar Emporium. But I get by.”
“I’ll say you do.” Clyde caught sight of the ring on my hand and he lifted it up for a closer look. “You didn’t find this at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. Sister, where did you get this pretty pebble?”
I withdrew my hand. “My husband, of course. I just got married.”
“Judging by the size of this rock, I wouldn’t be surprised if your last name was Trump.”
“Actually, my last name is Hollingsworth,” I said softly, bracing myself for the effect my new surname had on most folks in Augusta.
Clyde didn’t disappoint. He went all bug-eyed and said, “Get out of here.”
“It’s the truth. I’ve been a Hollingsworth now for going on two weeks.”
“The paper cup people? You married into that family?” he asked.
“It’s not just paper cups. It’s also napkins, plastic utensils, and plates. Not to mention the condiment division that makes little packets of ketchup and mustard.”
“Did you marry a distant cousin or something?” He leaned over me to dab at my hair with his brush. “Because as far as I know there’s only one Hollingsworth son and I have it from an extremely reliable source that he’s an eligible bachelor.”
I gave Clyde a little half smile. “And just who is your reliable source?”
Clyde matched my smile with a smirk of his own. “His very own mother, Daisy Hollingsworth.”
I thought I was going to fall out of the chair. “You know Daisy Hollingsworth?”
“She’s been my client for years. She stops in for a comb-out every time she’s in town.”
“She’ll be here this afternoon, and tonight I’m going to meet her for the first time.” I paused. “Tell me, Clyde, what is she really like?”
He clicked his tongue. “That’s hard to say, because she doesn’t confide in me like most of my clients. She’s very businesslike, frosty even. But definitely a woman who knows what she wants.”
I nodded. “That’s what I’ve heard. I’m a little afraid to meet her.”
“I can understand that. She reminds me of a younger version of the Queen of England, but, of course, Daisy Hollingsworth doesn’t go around wearing those dreadful little hats.”
I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. “She’s the reason I’m here today. I wanted my hair to look nice when I meet her.”
“Well, you can say bye-bye to these roots.” He dabbed at my hair and said, “Oh, darn it. I’m getting color on this pretty little necklace of yours. I better take it off.”
He unhooked the necklace Mrs. Tobias had given me and as he was handing it to me, the locket slid off the chain and fell to the ground.
“Oh, I’m sorry about that, Elizabeth. I’m a butterfingers today.” He leaned down to pick up the locket and examined it. “No harm done. It just picked up some dust and the locket flew open.”
He squinted at it. “This is a sweet photograph of you inside.”
“What? A photograph of me?” I held out my palm. “Let me see that.”
The locket had indeed opened. The fall must have loosened the latch. And just as Clyde had said, inside was an old-fashioned photograph of a woman who looked just like me.
I felt like someone was tap-dancing on my grave. “This is unbelievably creepy.”
“What’s wrong?”
“This isn’t me. I never posed for this picture.”
Clyde studied the photograph. “You’re right. There’s something a little different about the eyes and the bridge of the nose.” He looked at me. “But other than that... Where did you get this locket?”
“One of my customers, Gracie Tobias, gave it to me. She also happens to be my husband’s grandmother. The latch on it was stuck when she gave it to me, so I’d never looked inside before.”
“This is just like an episode of the Twilight Zone” His eyes widened. “Oh, my Lord. You don’t suppose you’ve been cloned?”
“I’m sure there’s a much more reasonable explanation.” I paused and shook my head slowly. “But I don’t have any idea what it might be.”
Twenty-Eight
If I were in your shoes, I’d walk right back to me.
~ Selection F-9 on the jukebox at the Tuff Luck Tavern
I was about twenty minutes late meeting Clip. I was half-expecting a no-show, but no sooner had I pushed open the battered door of Maurice’s than he hopped off the bar stool to meet me.
“Come on,” he said. “I got us a booth reserved in the back so we can have our privacy.”
I followed him to a yellow vinyl booth with mood lighting courtesy of a neon Pabst Blue Ribbon sign. I could hear the clicking of billiards from the pool table in the back.
Seconds later, a man in a dirty apron plopped down a double order of onion rings in a plastic basket, as well as a roll of paper towels. He set a fishbowl-sized glass of beer in front of Clip. I got a Sprite.
“I went ahead and ordered for you. Hope that’s okay.” Clip glanced at my drink. “Hey, you forgot the lady’s cherries,” he said to the man. “That’s how she likes her drink.”
“I ain’t got no cherries,” the man said with a shrug, just before he left the table.
“Sorry about the cherries, Liz.”
I rubbed my finger over the initials carved into the wooden table, wondering if any of these couples were still together. “It doesn’t matter to me, because I don’t even like maraschino cherries. They’re too sweet.”
Clip scratched the hair at his temple. “But I thought it was you—?”
“I like ginger ale, easy on the ice.”
Clip knocked himself on the side of his head with the palm of his hand. “It must be my mom who likes the Sprite wit
h cherries, or maybe it’s my sister.”
“Yeah, right.” I pushed the Sprite away from me. Rush Limbaugh ranted on the radio up front, the signal fading in and out. “Okay. Let’s get to it. Why did Gracie Tobias come by to visit you?”
Clip smiled his lazy smile again—the one I figured he’d spent hours in the mirror getting just right. Today it reminded me of a smile from a barracuda.
“Liz. You look beautiful with your hair up like that. It shows off that delicate neck of yours.”
“Clip, these onion rings are going to be nauseating enough without your cheap flattery as a chaser. Get to the point.”
Clip flinched. “What’s happened to you, Liz? You can’t even take a compliment from me anymore?”
I leaned across the booth. “I am here for one reason only: to find out why Mrs. Tobias came to see you. This is not a social visit.”
Clip reached his hand over the table to touch mine. “Can’t you and I get re-acquainted first? It’s been so long since I’ve been this close to you, Liz.”
I sprung up from the booth. “Okay. That’s enough. I’m leaving. Obviously you have nothing to say about Mrs. Tobias and this was all a trick—”
“No, wait, Liz.” He stood up. “I do have something to say and it’s important that I get it off my chest. Please sit down. I promise I won’t touch you again or get out of line.”
Clip took a swig of his beer and then set it on the table. “This isn’t the easiest story to tell, Liz.”
“I’m listening, Clip.”
He swallowed. “It all started the night of our engagement party. You remember that after the party I went out with Dooley and some of the other boys? I was intending to have a drink or two at the Tuff Luck Tavern and then I was heading home. I wished to God I had gone home.”
Clip nervously licked his lips and swatted at the bangs that fell over his forehead. “The boys were ragging on me about becoming an old married fellow and they kept putting shooters in front of me. Now, I’m more of a beer drinker, so I wasn’t really expecting the wallop that those crazy shooters packed. After a few of those things, I didn’t know which end was up. And I swore that if I’d been sober, I never would have ended up in the mess that I did that night.”
“What happened?”
“I’m still not exactly sure.” His fingers rifled his sideburns. “All I know is the next morning I woke up stark naked in Jonelle Jasper’s bedroom.”
I realized I’d been holding my breath, so I exhaled slowly. “Oh, Clip,” I said in a soft voice.
“I know.” He massaged his brow. “I got sick to my stomach when I saw where I was. All I could think of was how you’d react if you found out. I sprinted out of that bed and got out of there as fast as I could, praying you wouldn’t find out what happened.”
Rush Limbaugh was over and now Charlie Daniels was singing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” We sat in silence.
“I don’t know why you’re telling me this now,” I finally said. “Months after the fact, I find out that not only did you break off our engagement, but you were cheating on me as well. What’s the point of this confession? To cause me more pain?”
“No, Liz.” His voice was throaty. “You just needed to know what happened that night so that what I’m about to tell you will make sense.”
Tears wet my eyes and I angrily wiped them away.
“Just hurry up and finish what you have to say.”
Clip shifted in his seat and took a deep breath. “When I got home that morning, I was laid up on the couch with one doozie of a hangover. Just as I was dozing off, the doorbell rang. When I answered it, I saw this lady all dressed up in gloves and high heels. Her white Cadillac was parked in my drive. I asked her to come in but she said, ‘I’d like to conduct our business on your porch, if you don’t mind.’ I figured her for one of those born-again Christians wanting me to accept Jesus as my savior. But when I stumbled out on the porch she looked me in the eye and said, ‘I know where you spent last night, Mr. Jenkins.’”
“What?” I asked in disbelief.
Clip had just stubbed out his cigarette and was lighting another.
“I didn’t know this lady from Adam’s house cat and here she was all up in my business. I said, ‘Look Lady, I don’t know who you are or how you know my name, but you best run along now.’ That’s when she said, ‘Mr. Jenkins, if you don’t listen to me, your fiancée, Elizabeth Polk, will know exactly what you were up to last night. I hired a private detective who took some very compelling photos of your shenanigans with that dark-haired woman.’”
“I don’t understand this.” I choked out the words. “This makes no sense at all.”
“That’s not all,” Clip said, folding his hands in his lap. “She offered me thirty-five thousand dollars to break off my engagement with you.” His eyes fell to his beer and his voice sounded like it was coming from inside a barrel. “I took it.”
My mouth went dry and I took a sip of my drink.
“Let me make sure I have this straight. Gracie Tobias said she would give you thirty-five thousand dollars if you broke off your engagement to me. Is that what happened?”
“That’s about the size of it.” He shrunk back into the booth as if he thought I might smack him. “It made sense to me at the time. I figured you’d break up with me anyway once you’d heard that I’d spent the night with Jonelle. I decided there wasn’t any point in being broke and heartbroken, so I took the money.”
“Oh mercy. Give me that beer.” I grabbed his mug and drained it down. Clip was eyeing me cautiously. “So why have this discussion at all? Why not enjoy your money and keep quiet about this? Why tell me now?”
“Because I made a terrible mistake.” Clip’s voice was thick with tears. “That money’s caused me nothing but grief. First, I couldn’t explain where it came from and when I bought the truck, everyone in my family thought I was up to something illegal.”
His voice softened and he searched my face with his dark eyes. “I had no idea how much I’d miss you. Every time I passed your house or the Bottom Dollar Emporium I’d just ache inside.”
“So you decided to seek comfort with Jonelle,” I snapped. “That’s very touching.”
Clip tugged at his shirt collar. “That woman would not let me be. I didn’t want to have anything to do with her, but she kept calling and dropping by. Then she claimed she was pregnant and I was the daddy. That’s when I told her I’d think about marrying her, but just to give her baby a proper last name. Later I found out she’d been lying about being pregnant and I told her never to come around me again.” His chin dropped. “I knew I needed to own up to my mistakes, so I was going to sell the truck and give Mrs. Tobias her money back, but I could only get twenty-eight thousand dollars for it. I started working the night shift at the Corbitt Can factory after my RC route. I just now made me enough money to pay her off. I’ve been calling and calling her, but she hasn’t been picking up her phone. As soon as I get in touch with her, she’s getting every cent of her money back.”
I stared at Clip, who looked as spent and limp as an empty seed bag.
“Clip, I’m glad you told me this. And giving back the money is the right thing to do. But if you did it to win me back, it’s too late. I’m a married woman now.”
Clip rubbed the sides of his face with his palms. “So you still want to be a member of that crazy family?”
“Clip, I’m married to Timothy and he doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
He snapped his lighter to a cigarette. “How do you know that? Maybe he got his grandma to bribe me so he’d be able to move in on you.”
“That’s impossible. Timothy was still in California when you got the money from Mrs. Tobias and broke off our engagement. He didn’t even come to Augusta until two months later.”
Clip rested his chi
n on his hand. “And you really love this fellow? It’s not just a way to get back at me?”
“No, Clip. I do love Timothy. Very much.”
Clip cast his eyes downward and his nose reddened. “And you don’t love me anymore? Not even the least little bit?”
I watched the jukebox light up as a man stuck in a quarter.
“I’ll probably always have feelings for you,” I said softly. “You’re my high school sweetheart. But I’ve found the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
He sniffed. “Liz, that night was the biggest mistake of my life. If I hadn’t done it you would be Mrs. Clip Jenkins right now, instead of married to Timothy Hollingsworth. Why do you suppose that Tobias woman went to all that trouble to prevent you from marrying me?”
That was a very good question.
Twenty-Nine
Despite the high cost of living, it’s still popular.
~ Notice on the bulletin board in the bingo hall
Why Mrs. Tobias had bribed Clip was the million-dollar question all right, but I didn’t have any answers. It was all I could think about after I left Clip stewing at Maurice’s and drove home. Why in the world would a woman who was a complete stranger to me only months ago try to prevent me from marrying Clip? And how would she explain the photograph in the locket? As soon as I got home, I was going to call Mrs. Tobias in Hilton Head and get some answers.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t notice until I got out of my car that Timothy’s Volvo was parked in front of the house. I glanced at my watch. It was five p.m., and Timothy didn’t get home until well after six p.m. I couldn’t imagine what he was doing home.
I ran up the steps and flung open the door to find Timothy pacing the living room. His face was ashen.
“There you are, finally. Thank God,” he said.
“What’s going on? What are you doing home?”
Bet Your Bottom Dollar (The Bottom Dollar Series Book 1) Page 18
