Welcome to Last Chance

by Hope Ramsay

  Clay hadn’t poked his head into the office once in the last few hours, which pretty much said it all. The man was avoiding her. He also seemed to think he was responsible for her.

  In any event, riding out Hurricane Jane on the lumpy sofa had just reached a new level of tedium when a woman wearing a bright yellow rain slicker and a pair of matching pants opened the door and said, “Goodness gracious, who are you?”

  The newcomer had a round face with a riot of curls that had been permed into place. She was carrying a large Tupperware lunch bucket filled with fried chicken.

  “Uh, I’m Jane.” Jane scrambled to her feet as the woman carefully scrutinized her out of a pair of oddly familiar green eyes. The woman’s gaze swept over the sleeping bag, Jane’s oversized sweatshirt, and her wet jeans, jacket, and tank top hung over a folding chair.

  Something seemed to hang in the balance for an instant, and then the woman let go of a large and genuine smile. “Oh, dear me, I’m sorry, darlin’, I must have scared you nearly ’bout to death. Let me introduce myself. I’m Clay’s momma, Ruby. I just brought him and Ray some dinner.”

  Ohmygod, his mother! Jane stifled the urge to tug on the neck of the sweatshirt. Heaven help her if the hickey was visible. Oh, crap, hadn’t the police chief said this morning that everyone in Last Chance was going to find out that she and Clayton P. had spent the night at the Peach Blossom Motor Court?

  Did Ruby know?

  “So you’re Jane like the hurricane?” Ruby asked, pulling Jane away from her tumbling thoughts.

  “Yeah, I know, it’s a sign.”

  Ruby’s smile got a little wider, and she looked like a former Miss America standing there with her poufy hair and her big smile. “Do you have a last name, sugar?”

  “Coblentz.”

  Ruby blinked. “Is that a German name?”

  “To be honest, ma’am, I have no idea. My pa was a coal miner in West Virginia. There were a lot of folks with German-sounding names up there,” Jane said, feeling dirty and disheveled in the oversized hunting clothes Clay had found for her. She gave in to the urge and tugged at her neckline to make sure that little love bite was covered.

  “How interesting.” Ruby paused a moment. “I reckon that would make you a Lutheran then?”

  Jane felt as if she had dropped into the middle of one of those foreign films that never made any sense. There stood the mother of the man she had slept with the night before, wearing a costume that looked like the corporate logo for Gorton’s of Gloucester, only she had permed hair, tasteful makeup, and professionally polished fingernails. And this vision of well-turned-out southern womanhood wanted to know if she was a Lutheran.

  How did she negotiate this? She didn’t think Ruby would understand her own brand of spiritualism.

  “Uh, no, ma’am,” Jane said.

  “No?”

  She shook her head. “Not a Lutheran.”

  “Baptist?”

  She shook her head.

  “Catholic?”

  Jane smiled. “My ma was raised Catholic.” She neglected to add that Ma had lapsed pretty much at the age of seventeen when she’d run off and married Pa. She had a feeling Ruby was one of those small-town holy rollers.

  “Really?” Ruby paused. “We’re Episcopalian. Members of Christ Church. We have a nice group of Baptists and Methodists in town, but no Catholics. For the Catholics, you have to go down to Allenberg. Now, if you were a Baptist, you’d be at Reverend Michael Packard’s church, which is right on Palmetto, across from City Hall. He’s such a nice man.” She leaned in and spoke conspiratorially. “To tell you the truth, Pastor Mike has a better handle on the Lord than our Reverend Ellis does. But don’t you dare tell Lillian Bray I said that. Bill Ellis’s sermons are mostly about the wages of sin. I don’t know about you, sugar, but a body gets mighty tired hearing hellfire and damnation week in and week out. Don’t you think? I reckon the Episcopalians and the Catholics are much the same in that way.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jane said. Obviously the slow-talking Clay had not inherited the gift of gab from his mother, who seemed a bit ecumenical to be a real holy roller. Jane relaxed just a fraction.

  Ruby plopped the Tupperware down on the desk and unhooked the buckles on her raincoat. Underneath she wore a denim shirt with mother-of-pearl snaps and embroidered roses on the western-style yoke.

  “So did you get caught in the storm? Car break down?”

  “Uh, no. I came on the bus last night.”

  Interest of a kind that didn’t seem entirely maternal sparked in Ruby’s eyes. “The nine-thirty from Atlanta?”

  What was it about that bus? That Greyhound had stopped in Columbia and dozens of other places. How come everyone just assumed that she had come from Atlanta?

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said.

  “You got people in town?”

  Jane shook her head. Ruby was interrogating her. Whatever she said would be passed along to Ruby’s friends in the Christ Church congregation, and her acquaintances among the Baptists and Methodists, too. Ruby had all the classic markers of a serious small-town gossip. Gossips loved to talk about new people in town.

  Ruby looked at her soaking-wet clothes. “What happened, darlin’, did the bus company lose your luggage?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said without batting an eye.

  Ruby’s eyes sparkled with mischief, and Jane had the feeling Clay’s mother had the same built-in BS detector as her son. Unlike Clay, however, Ruby didn’t argue about this obvious lie. Ruby pretended she believed it.

  “So what brings you to Last Chance?”

  Well, ma’am, I’m running from half a dozen loan sharks who took my hard-earned tip money and then threatened to beat me up and possibly kill me unless the lying, double-dealing, low-down, rotten, peanut-brained weasel Woody West paid them the twenty thousand dollars he owed them.

  She decided Ruby wasn’t ready for the truth. “I’m looking for work,” she said aloud.

  “Do you have any skills?”

  Well, yes, she did have some skills. But her resume—and her Florida State Cosmetology license—didn’t have the name Wanda Jane Coblentz on them.

  She cleared her throat. “I… uh… graduated from Beauty Schools of America in Miami about five years ago, but I never got my license. Actually, I’ve been working as a waitress for the last few years. I heard there might be something at Dot’s Spot.” It wasn’t the truth. The truth was that she had done a few unsavory things to earn her tuition to beauty school, and once she had gotten her license she worked two jobs—days at the beauty shop at the Best Western resort and nights as a waitress at the Shrimp Shack.

  A girl had to work double hard to save two thousand dollars in tip money. Those hard-earned savings had allowed her to follow Woody’s suggestion and go with him to Nashville. Those carefully saved tips were her cushion so she could get herself settled with a day job in Nashville before she started pursuing the dream of becoming a country-and-western singer.

  Woody said he would help introduce her to some important people. What a fool she had been to fall for that line. Instead, the bad people Woody knew—the ones he owed a lot of money to—had taken her savings as an interest payment on what Woody owed them.

  “So,” Ruby said, pulling her away from the disaster area that was her recent past. “Do you have any experience with kids?”

  “Kids?”

  “You know, like babysitting.”

  Yes, she did have some experience babysitting. But that experience came from her other life. Back when she was a teenager, she had earned almost five hundred dollars in babysitting money that she hoarded just like she’d hoarded her tip money. That money had taken her to Florida when she was seventeen. “Yes, ma’am. I have done a lot of babysitting. When I was younger.”

  “Have you ever actually done hair?”

  Right then, Jane realized Ruby was interviewing her for a job, disproving Clay’s negative statements of earlier in the day. Dr. Goodbody always said that a
person was not a victim of fate—that a person could make their own luck through affirmative thinking. And look what was happening right here in the middle of a hurricane.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said, with feeling. “I worked at a beauty shop in Florida for more than four years.”

  “Hmmm. Do you have any experience doing nails?”

  Jane nodded. “And makeup.”

  “I take it you don’t have anyplace to stay either?”

  “No, ma’am.” Jane’s elation faded away. Who would offer a job to a homeless bum like her?

  “Well, then, I reckon that makes you perfect.”

  “Perfect? For what?”

  Ruby’s cheerleader smile came out again, and she looked like she was clued in to some big secret. “For the job I have open at the Cut ’n Curl. I own the place.”

  “The Cut ’n Curl? A beauty shop?”

  Ruby nodded. “Now, the job isn’t exactly all beauty. I have two grandchildren, aged thirteen and seven, who need watching after school. I really don’t like to have them down at the beauty shop when I’m working if I can help it. You know how women can talk, and sometimes they say things I don’t want my grandbabies to hear.

  “So it’s like this. You work the shop until school lets out. Then I need you to keep an eye on the children either at my house or up in the apartment above the shop. You’ll have to drive Haley to her ballet lessons on Tuesday, and Lizzy takes flute lessons over to Allenberg on Wednesday afternoons and has band practice on Mondays and Thursdays. I’m assuming you can drive a car?”

  Jane nodded. “But I don’t have—”

  “Not a problem, you can borrow my Taurus. The job pays minimum wage plus any tips you make, and I throw in a studio apartment above the shop rent free.”

  The Universe had come through for her—a job and a place to stay. All that manifesting she’d been doing on the lumpy couch had actually worked. It was amazing. It was a first.

  “Excuse me, but do you always hire homeless strangers on the spot like this?” she blurted. Hoo boy, and wasn’t that just like her. Something good happened, and she had to question it.

  Ruby laughed. “Well, I know, it does sound a little crazy. But that no-account Michelle ran off with Bernard last week, leaving me high and dry without a sitter or anyone to help with the manicures. There are no beauty-school graduates in Last Chance. I’ve been praying for someone like you for a long time. In my experience, prayer usually works.”

  Jane opened her mouth and then closed it. Maybe her manifesting techniques were not so good after all. Ruby looked like the kind of woman God might listen to. “I… um… I’ll take the job.”

  “Good. I’m so glad. Now, look, honey, I’ve got a washer and dryer over at the Cut ’n Curl, and I know you’ll feel better once you take a bath, put on your face, and get back into some clothes that don’t have camouflage and bass all over them. As an employee of the Cut ’n Curl, I’m going to be counting on you to show your best face every day.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” How she was going to do this with only one outfit remained to be seen. But things were looking up.

  Ruby turned toward the door, walked through it, and hollered out Clay’s name. “Where in the Sam Hill are you, son? I brought you and Ray some dinner, and I’m taking Jane off your hands.”

  Clay appeared at the end of the power tool aisle, packing a chain saw. He looked dangerous and competent with that tool in his hand. “Momma? What are you doing out in this weather?”

  “Bringing you dinner and checking out the latest news.”

  “The latest news?”

  “Yes. I had a call from Lillian Bray this morning.” Ruby smiled sweetly.

  Clay’s eyebrows lowered. “Momma, I—”

  “I left your dinner on Pete’s desk. I’m taking Jane over to the Cut ’n Curl so she can settle in.”

  Clay’s gaze narrowed. “Settle in?”

  “Uh-huh. Did you know that she has a degree from Beauty Schools of America? She’s exactly what I’ve been praying for, which is a good thing for you, because if she wasn’t you’d have been in some serious trouble. Although, to be honest, you’re still in trouble. You’re going to have to go speak with Lillian, son.”

  Jane could hardly contain her glee as Clay stood there blinking at his mother like Ruby had just hit him across the head with a two-by-four. Jane pasted a big grin on her face. “See,” she said in a bright, I-told-you-so voice. “There are people willing to give job interviews in the middle of a hurricane.”

  “Momma, just what are you playing at? You can’t hire this woman. She’s—”

  Ruby waved her hand in dismissal. “Now, son, don’t you go using that word. I heard that word from Lillian this morning, and I didn’t like it. All in all, I would rather think that the Lord has sent Jane to us because Michelle ran off last week.”

  Ruby turned toward Jane, as she started buckling up her raincoat. “C’mon, honey, let’s get you across the street so you can wash and dry those jeans of yours. I’m thinking there might be a box of Sharon’s old clothes up in Stony’s attic that might fit you. Sharon was my older son’s wife. She passed a number of years ago in a car wreck. Sharon had such good taste in clothes, bless her heart. I know you’ll find something in that box. When the storm blows over, I’ll see what I can do about getting it over to you.”

  And with that, Ruby solved Jane’s wardrobe problems. And then, like some kind of immutable force, the woman sailed through the front door of the hardware store, unconcerned about the tempest raging outside, and unaware of the look on her son’s face that said there was a storm brewing inside, too.

  CHAPTER 5

  The studio apartment above the Cut ’n Curl wasn’t much—maybe thirty feet long and twenty wide. It had two narrow double-hung windows on one end that provided a view of Palmetto Avenue and Lovett’s Hardware across the street. The windows wore yellow gingham. The sleep-sofa was dressed in a spread of spring green. A couple of green and yellow director’s chairs and a battered oak coffee table rounded out the furniture. A Pullman kitchen and basic bathroom occupied most of the back portion of the apartment.

  It was homey and clean—even if the décor ran a little bit toward country Martha Stewart—and certainly better than the alternative: the nonexistent village green or another night at the Peach Blossom Motor Court.

  Well, Dr. Goodbody always said that when a negative situation arises, the best thing to do was to meet it head-on with a positive plan of action. Jane had done that, and here she was with a place to stay and a job to do. That proved, without question, that she didn’t need anyone right now, except her own self.

  And a little electricity, which had waited until she was halfway through the dryer’s cycle to conk out.

  No telling how long it would be before the power was restored. Which raised all kinds of serious issues: like whether the Cut ’n Curl would open tomorrow so Jane could start her new job and start earning a paycheck. And how was she going to afford food if it didn’t open?

  Although without electricity, the oven and refrigerator in the little apartment were useless, so food was going to be a problem either way.

  She needed to stop all this negative thinking. Worrying about stuff she didn’t have any control over would make her crazy and sap her energy. She pulled her soggy jeans from the dryer and told herself that things were going to work out.

  The sharp ping of a coin hitting the floor drew her thoughts away from her worries. She cast her gaze over the vinyl flooring in the kitchen and watched a penny roll in a crazy circle and spin to a stop. She juggled the bundle of wet clothes and stooped to pick it up. It was the “lucky” penny she had put in her jeans pocket earlier that morning.

  Jane put the penny into the pocket of her fatigues and headed off to the bathroom, where she hung her jeans and tank top over the tub to dry. Then she closed the lid on the john, pulled the penny from her pocket, and sat for a few moments inspecting its worn copper face.

  It had been minted in 194
3—more than sixty years ago. The penny had been in circulation for an entire year before her grandfather was born, and twenty-one years before her own father drew breath.

  How many washers had the penny been through? How many times had some child with grubby hands put this penny into a gum machine? How many times had this penny fallen to the ground and spun like a top? How many times had this penny been lost and found? How many times had someone picked it up and considered it a lucky thing?

  But now it was her lucky penny. Not that a penny could bring her luck. Luck was manufactured by knowing what you wanted and having a plan for achieving it.

  Still, the penny was old and unique and worth keeping. She got up and headed into the main room, clutching the coin in her palm, feeling its familiar round form and knowing some measure of comfort.

  She flopped down onto the sofa and dug in her purse for her wallet. She opened the change purse, intent on putting her special penny in a safe place where she wouldn’t spend it on some necessity of life, like peanut butter. And that’s when she saw the stupid necklace. She dropped the penny in the change purse and pulled out the plastic jade camel.

  How lame. She had thought as much when Woody presented it to her several days before with the kind of flourish that said he expected her to appreciate it. She had sort of appreciated the gesture, even if the darn thing was about as cheap as you could get. She should have seen it as a warning sign.

  After all, two months ago, Woody had been handing out hundred-dollar tips to her just for singing karaoke at the Shrimp Shack. She had mistaken him for a successful and well-connected man.

  Boy, what a fool she had been. He must have been on a winning streak that turned. And when it turned, he’d taken her down with him. Anger boiled in her gut. Unlike the penny, this necklace was not a positive object. She sincerely hoped that she never saw Woody again. Staying here in Last Chance was a good way to make that happen.

  Unless, of course, the bad stuff followed her here.

  She pushed that thought away as she snapped the change purse closed and put her wallet back in her purse. Then she stood up, walked into the kitchen, opened the cabinet beneath the sink, and dropped the jade camel into the trash can.