* * *
I was applying my eyeliner, when a knock on the door interrupted me.
“She’s gone. I’m sorry about that. It won’t happen again.”
I muttered, good riddance to myself. It was a good thing she left, as I was all primed to throw her off the balcony and let her go splat on the sidewalk. Then I was going to run down the staircase and kick her a few times for an extra measure. In my dreams. Fantasy is good for you at times, and this was one of those times.
I slipped into the kitchen. Grant was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear his shower running, so I put the flame under the pan and went to work.
It’s a good thing I was working on an omelet, as those eggs got a thorough beating. The yolks were not survivors.
Grant stepped out of his bedroom a dozen minutes later. His hair was still damp. Dressed in suit pants and a white button-down shirt, he looked fantastic. His aftershave oozed into the room, making me want to hug him, even if he had an evil ‘buddy.’
I reached into the oven and brought out his breakfast.
He stared at me as I placed his plate before him.
“What’s with the lab coat?” He asked.
I smiled. Everyone asked the question the first time they saw me cooking. “I’m a home ecology teacher. It goes with the job and I got used to cooking with one on.”
“What is home ecology?”
“Home economics.”
“So, I imagine you did have some ‘cooking’ classes in college. This is going to be wonderful.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation and placed the napkin in his collar. I could tell he was impressed and it pleased me to see the glee on his face. This was a man you could get if you concentrated on his stomach, that is if you wanted him.
“Aren’t you joining me?”
“In a minute, I’ve some baking to do.”
He’d already taken a big bite of eggs, so his next words were hard to understand. “Baking? You bake too?”
Duh. What kind of teacher would I be if I couldn’t bake?
“Well, the way I figure it, you told me there would be a crowd today, if I have some coffee and tea, along with some scones and cookies, I might get more answers than questions when people come to call.”
He mumbled around a piece of toast. “Let me know if it works, I might want to use that angle during a deposition.”
He gave me a wolfish grin and dug back into his breakfast.
* * *
After baking, I drove into town, I noticed a little boutique with some interesting clothes in the front window, so I headed there.
A bell jingled when I opened the door. Someone called out from the back. “Be there in a minute.”
“Fine.” I yelled.
The clothes were great. I noticed some cute things in my size right off the bat and grabbed them to try on. To be honest, I hate to shop. When you’re tall, it’s really not a fun thing to do. A fitting room was located in the corner, so off I went.
The voice called out again, closer this time. “Can I help you with anything?”
I hate saleswomen in stores, they lie for one thing. Oh, that looks just fantastic on you. And you know you look awful. I group them with used car salesmen and horse traders, which when you think about it, the same thing only different centuries.
“No. I’m just trying on some things.”
Two of the outfits looked great, the other was so-so. Two were good for now. I put everything back on the hangers and stepped out.
Shit! Tina stood behind the counter.
Her smile faded fast.
Then her face went into a snarl mode. She pointed to the door and pointed. “Begone.”
Begone? Begone? What planet did she drop from?
I dropped the clothes on the floor and stepped on them on my way out. “Certainly.”
I gave her a big smile as I closed the door that made her turn a rather unhealthy shade of red.
It was delicious. I nearly danced to my car.
There was a discount store halfway down the block. I could get some things there. So, I ‘begoned’ in that direction.
It was hard to wipe the smile off my face.
* * *
I was nervous about opening up the store. I noticed that Maudie had a little area close to her cash register with several chairs and end tables that looked like it would be a great place to have conversations.
So, I set up the coffee and tea things close by. There were cups and saucers in beautiful designs located in the dishware section by the kitchen, so I washed them in the ancient porcelain sink that amazingly worked. Several tiered serving plates would work fine for serving the cookies and scones.
Maudie even had a little refrigerator tucked under the cash register, so I placed milk in there. The little area looked nice after it was dusted. There was a fine layer of dust throughout the store, testifying to the long absence of Maudie.
So, I grabbed a cloth and began to dust. As I went along, I checked the prices on some of the articles. Maudie had quite an eye if the price tags were any indication. I picked up one piece of glassware, it was a round globe with a hole in the top and split sideways through the middle. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I guess I would have to start checking out her reference books and begin researching some items. It had a price tag of seventy-five dollars, so it should be something pretty special.
Noon came and I unlocked the door. I didn’t make it ten feet back into the store when I had my first customer or, would that be my first inquisitor?
A tiny woman, easily a foot shorter than I, walked in, stared at me for a second, and then began to cry.
I was at a loss. What should I do? Hesitantly, I grabbed a tissue from the box on the counter and brought it to her.
“Here, use this.”
She looked up at me, then threw her arms around my waist and proceeded to hug me. “Oh, thank heavens. Maudie has a daughter. I didn’t believe it when I heard the news last night, but look at you, the spitting image of Maudie.” She let go of me and stepped back, a large grin on her face.
I was taken aback. I looked like my mother? That news surprised me. Grant said I didn’t look like her at all. What was the deal here?
“I’m Bitsy Moreau, Maudie and I, along with the rest were the best of friends in high school.”
She was wearing hot pink gardening gloves that floated on her tiny hands. Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with the motto, “If you think I look bad now...wait till the shirt comes off!” on the front and yellow duck feet gardening clogs. She was the epitome of the I-don’t-care fashion school.
I adored her on sight.
Her face was wrinkled. I mean alligator skin wrinkled. In fact, I don’t remember ever seeing someone with so many wrinkled squares on her face. She looked like an aging wizardess stuck on earth.
I finally regained my composure and indicated the seating area with my hand. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve been gardening all morning, and couldn’t wait to see you when the store opened.” She perched herself on the lowest settee, her feet just touching the floor. “Of course, I could have trotted up the back, but Maudie hated to be interrupted during the morning, so I just thought that...oh, I’m rambling. Just black coffee, please.”
The doorbell tinkled again, and another short woman came in. This town must have nothing but short women, I’m impressed.
“Joanna. Come, sit down and have some coffee.”
Joanna looked me up and down, apparently she didn’t like what she saw, her face was disgruntled. She nodded at me and walked slowly to where Bitsy was sitting.
“Joanna likes her coffee with two sugars and milk.”
Joanna sat next to Bitsy. “It better be decaf.” Joanna muttered under her breath but loud enough to carry.
I finished pouring the two cups of coffee, placed the antique sugar and creamer on a handsome silver tray and placed it on a tea table in front of the ladies.
“Oh how nice. I
sn’t this nice, Joanna?” Bitsy said.
Joanna’s gaze moved around the store as she picked up her coffee. She smelled it, then took a small sip. “This isn’t regular coffee.”
“No, it’s a special blend of mine...do you like it?” If you could call a teaspoon of cinnamon in the grounds a ‘special blend.’ But that’s my little secret.
“Why, it’s delightful!” Bitsy slurped another portion and reached over for a cookie and took a bite. “Oh heavens, I just love lemon cookies. Try one of these, Joanna, they’re delicious.”
Joanna had a slight smirk on her face as she took the offered cookie, then grimaced after she took a bite. “It seems way too tart for me.”
I bet. I watched her sitting there, like a mouse. Her face was narrow and pinched. An old expression--“she looks like she was weaned on a pickle”--came to my mind. Her black eyes darting here and there over her cup of coffee. Looking...for something. I thought it was time I asked a few questions.
“Bitsy, you said I looked just like Maudie. Do you have a picture by any chance?”
Bitsy thought on that for a moment, “No, I don’t. Maudie hated to have her picture taken. She even missed having her picture taken for our yearbook. No, I don’t believe I ever saw a picture of her.”
“I have one.” Joanna said. “It’s a picture of the ‘six-pack’ as they like to call us.”
“The six-pack?” I asked. “What do you mean by six-pack?”
Joanna put down her cup of coffee and frowned. I don’t think the sour puss came from the cookie.
Bitsy giggled. “Oh, that was just a name our group was called. We were all short and hung around together. There was Joanna, Maudie, Edna, Naomi, Bobbie and me. I might have that picture, but it was a long time ago.”
“Edna?”
“Yes, Edna. She married a guy named Ralph just after we graduated and moved to Baton Rouge. We never saw her much after that, even on reunions.”
I felt my heart drop. Edna and Ralph were my adoptive parents. “Did Maudie and Edna stay in close touch?”
Joanna snorted, “Maudie and Edna. I sincerely doubted that. Edna stole Maudie’s boyfriend right out from under her, a first for Maudie, usually it was the other way around. Maudie didn’t care, she’d only dated him a few weeks. Can’t remember his name now, he was only here for his senior year.”
“Joanna!” Bitsy said.
“Well, it’s true. The girl needs to know that if she is Maudie’s daughter, her mother wasn’t a saint. After all, no one even knew that she ever had a daughter. And Lord knows, Maudie never married.”
“Well, you could just be a little tactful.”
“Maudie was not my friend.”
Bitsy looked down into her coffee cup, then took a sip and laid the cup and saucer back onto the table. She stood up, brushed her hands on her pants, looked hard at Joanna, and said, “She was my friend. And she was your friend too. Just in case you forgot.”
Joanna winced. “Well...yes, I guess she was.”
She stood up to leave.
“You know she was.” Bitsy turned toward me and gave me a smile. It transformed her face, open, honest, and beautiful. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Sara. I’m going to look through my albums tonight and see if I can’t find that photo, and we’ll talk together real soon.”
“Yes, I would like that. I don’t know anything about Maudie and I have a lot of questions.”
Joanna hesitated by the front door. “The last time I was in here Maudie found something I wanted, I wonder if it’s still here.”
“Feel free to look,” I said.
I watched her closely because she seemed nervous about something. She walked straight as an arrow to the table that I dusted earlier. Her back was to me, so I couldn’t tell what she picked up. She turned and I could see the glass item I wondered about earlier.
She was smiling, which was scary to say the least. She looked like the rat that ate the canary.
“Here it is.” Holding out the glassware to me. “I noticed that the price tag fell off, but Maudie told me it was ten dollars.”
Shit. She was a rat. She knocked off sixty-five dollars in a blink of an eye.
“What exactly is it?” I turned it over in my hands, and could feel the gumminess from the sticker still on the bottom.
“Oh, it’s a fairy light. I collect them.”
“Fairy light?”
“Yes, they were designed to be used as night lights in the 1800's. Much better than a plain candlestick, as a small candle fits inside, and it gives a most delightful glow, plus you don’t have to worry about fires.”
“How interesting. And you collect them?”
She turned inwards then, wondering I’m sure if I was going to let her have it for the price she set.
I decided to be as cagy as she was. “I really couldn’t sell you this for ten dollars.”
Clear disappointment settled on her face.
“How about I trade it for that picture you have of Maudie?”
I could see the wheels turning in her mind.
“Oh, yes. I would gladly trade.” If she could dance in delight, then she was certainly trying to, her body quivered. She was positively excited to get her hands on the piece of glassware.
I took it to the counter and began to wrap it in newspaper that was located on a bottom shelf.
“Oh, you don’t need to wrap it, I’ll just take it like it is.”
“Are you sure?” Her fingers were actually grasping in midair reaching for the glassware. I handed it to her. She clutched it to her bony chest, like a treasure. She then turned and made an beeline for the front door.
“I’ll bring in the picture this week,” she said.
“I’ll be waiting. Enjoy your fairy light.”
She finally gave me a genuine smile. How sad, to have to revert to duplicity in order to obtain something you want.
The door closed behind her and the room felt cleaner for some reason.
“I like how you handled that.” Bitsy said.
“Well...” I hesitated, not knowing what to say next.
“It was sweet.” Bitsy reached up and placed her hands on both sides of my face. “Maudie would have been proud.” With that, she pulled me closer and gave me a kiss on the cheek. It surprised me and I drew back quickly.
“Forgive me. But you looked like you need a kiss.”
“I’ll gladly kiss her.” A masculine voice said.
We both turned toward the door and there was Grant.
“Hi, Bitsy.”
He bent over and grabbed her, giving her a hug and a kiss, while twirling her around.
“Let go of me, you big lummox.” She slapped him on the shoulder but he continued to twirl her.
He stopped and gently let her loose, then turned to me with his arms outstretched.
“Next?” He said.
Yeah, Tina the bitch would like that. “I’ll pass. What are you doing here?”
Before Grant could answer, the door opened.
T-Jack Couvillion, cub reporter, hustled in.
Bitsy took one look at him and said, “I’ll talk to you later about your mother, Sara.” She then moved out of the door and down the street as fast as she could, her plastic duck feet making a slapping sound on the pavement.
T-Jack stared after her. “Now, that is a snappy little woman.” He turned and looked at me with a big grin. “Ready for your interview, girlie?”
I know I must have grimaced, because he laughed and said, “Hey, it won’t be that bad.”
Grant gave me a goofy grin and as he turned the doorknob, he said. “I see you’re busy, we’ll talk tonight.”
The dog. Slinking out like that.
T-Jack smiled a crooked grin. “Ready, girlie?”
“Well, I guess so. Would you like to sit down and have a cup of coffee?”
“Coffee? Sure, that would be great, I hope it’s not that decaf junk.”
He sat down on the sofa that Bitsy and Joanna vacated. He b
rought out a notebook and took a pencil from his pocket.
“So, tell me. Who’s your daddy?”
CHAPTER FIVE
I was scraping carrots when Grant came in.
“Honey, I’m home!”
He still had the goofy smile, which was really quite something with the dimples. He took off his tie and draped it over a chair. He walked up behind me and looked into the sink.
His closeness almost made me scrape my knuckle.
“Ugh, carrots. I hate carrots,” he said.
“Too bad.”
“Maudie never cooked carrots.” Slowly he began to unbutton his shirt.
“I’m not Maudie.”
“So I noticed.” There was a long pause, then he said. “What else are you cooking?”
He removed his shirt and added it to the tie. Thank heavens, he had a t-shirt on. His slow striptease was interesting, but distracting.
“Just a meat loaf, some mashed potatoes, a salad, dessert.”
He moaned. “Sounds great, except for the carrots.”
Again, there was another long pause. I looked at him briefly and caught a serious look to his gaze.
“Can I ask you something personal?” he asked.
Personal. After the questions I’d been asked today, I think everyone knew what bra size I wore.
“Why not? Everyone else in town seems to think it’s okay to ask exceedingly personal questions.”
He smiled. “Oh, T-Jack got to you?”
“Yes, T-Jack, and about two dozen visitors after him. I think word got out that I had coffee and cookies. I was cleaned out in no time.” I put down the knife and, checking the clock on the stove, slipped the rolls into the oven.
“Well, I did warn you.” He chuckled.
I washed my hands while thinking of an answer. “Yes, you did. Now, what did you want to ask me?”
“Did you find out what you wanted to know?”
“No.” My answer was blunt. Grant frowned.
“You know it might take awhile.”
“I know. I just hoped.”
“Hope’s good.” He hesitated. “You look fetching in your lab coat.”
I threw him a look, telling him I knew he was lying.
“And you smell good.”
The Devil Has Dimples Page 5
