Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(40)

Afterwards she abandoned all hope of returning to her old apartment and started to think that perhaps Richmond was no longer the place for her. Two days later she dug the road maps from the trunk of her car and began to consider the alternatives. For days on end she traced her finger along the various highways—North, South, East, West—until finally she colored bright yellow stars on top of Norfolk, Virginia and Charleston, South Carolina. A seaport town, Olivia thought, now that’s the sort of place for a woman starting over! She promised herself that once the weather turned a bit warmer, she’d drive over to Norfolk and look around.

But in February, everything changed. It started when Clara announced, “I’m going to need a new dress for the Valentine’s Day party.” She then suggested Olivia ought to have one also.

“Me?” Olivia answered. “Why, I’ve no need of a new dress.”

“Oh no?” Clara took hold of Olivia’s arm and tugged her over to the full length mirror. “Look at that!”

Olivia was taken aback by the reflection of a sorrowful looking woman dressed head to toe in black. “This isn’t me,” she said.

“It is you!” Clara snapped. “You’re a woman who’s forgotten how to live.”

“I’ve done no such thing,” Olivia answered indignantly.

“Oh? What then? You choose to look like a lump of sackcloth and ashes?”

“Well, no,” Olivia sighed, “but with my being here so temporary…”

The next thing Olivia knew, she’d been bundled out the door and was on her way to Baumhauser’s, which was supposedly the finest department store in downtown Wyattsville. “We’ll have lunch at the Cocky Rooster,” Clara said, tugging Olivia along, “then we’ll spend the afternoon shopping.”

“All afternoon?” Olivia moaned.

Were it not for the two glasses of burgundy Clara foisted upon her, Olivia would not have given the red tulle dress a second glance. She certainly would not have lugged it into the dressing room and slid it over her head. She was a woman of practical tastes, a woman who appreciated the reserved sophistication of black shantung, yet somehow she allowed herself to be talked into buying a flouncy-skirted thing that teetered on the brink of making her appear promiscuous.

“Whatever was I thinking?” Olivia sighed as she hung the dress on the inside of her closet door. “Me, a woman in mourning,” she shook her head in what appeared to be disbelief, “how could I?” For three days, she avoided looking at the dress. “I’ll not allow myself to be coerced into attending some silly party,” she’d grumble then quickly snap shut the closet door. And, when Clara brought over a pair of heart-shaped earrings, Olivia begrudgingly tossed them onto her dressing table.

Now, if the morning of February fourteenth had been drizzling rain, or blustery cold, things might have happened differently; but when the dawn broke with such an unseasonable burst of sunshine the residents of Wyattsville woke up believing spring had arrived. Windows were suddenly flung open and radios turned up so loud that merchants downtown figured it had to be some sort of a parade. Maggie Cooper forgot about the arthritis plaguing her knee and began tangoing across her living room. Walter Krause, a man who had not danced in twenty-seven years, pulled his tuxedo from the closet and shook the dust from it. Olivia, although she had not for one second considered going to the Valentine’s Day party, took a look at the dress hanging on her closet door and gasped, “What shoes am I going to wear?” She hurriedly dressed and headed downtown, where she was fortunate enough to find a pair of red satin pumps a scant half-size smaller than she preferred.

That evening when Olivia slipped into the red dress, she immediately felt ten years younger; and after she’d clipped the rhinestone hearts to her ears, a rainbow of sparkles began dancing across her skin. She painted her mouth the exact same shade of red as her dress, then twice checked her reflection, as if she feared the glow that had settled upon her might up and disappear the way Charlie had.

She had no sooner situated herself in a chair, when Fred McGinty strolled over and asked if Olivia would come and sit at his table; moments later Frank Casper did the same, and after him it was Wayne Dolby. Although she thanked them all, she remained in the seat alongside Clara. “I came with Clara,” she told Fred, giving him the most flirtatious of smiles, “so I’m sure you understand.”

Fred gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You’re forgiven,” he said, “but only if you promise to let me take you to the Saint Patrick’s Corned Beef Dinner.”

By the end of the evening, Olivia also had agreed to partner with Wayne for the Tuesday Bridge Club, accompany Harry Hornsby to Bingo and co-chair the spring dance along with Barbara Jean Conklin; who, she now realized, was far less snooty than originally thought. She’d danced seventeen waltzes, a dozen fox trots and a tango, without once remembering the soreness of her bunion. That night, realizing the red tulle dress was unfit for any sort of sleeping, Olivia opened her suitcase and took out a pair of cotton plisse pajamas. She then folded back the coverlet and curled up beneath the blanket where, by the oddest circumstance, she found a spot in the mattress which molded itself to precisely the same size and shape of her body.

The following morning Olivia, rationalizing the damp air of a seaport town would more than likely aggravate a person’s sinuses, went to Piggly Wiggly and shopped until her grocery cart was filled to the brim. In addition to the dozens of other things, she bought a super-sized box of laundry detergent, four green as grass bananas, and a fifteen pound sack of Idaho potatoes. The grocery order was so large that it overflowed the trunk of her car and left a canned ham and twelve bottles of ginger ale to ride in the back seat. “Oh dear,” she sighed, momentarily considering the possibility she’d gone a bit overboard. Of course such a thought flew by quickly enough, for on the way home she stopped at the florist and bought six potted plants, one of which was a hyacinth without so much as a single bud. “That won’t flower until April,” the florist warned, but Olivia plopped it into the basket anyway.