The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop (Cadillac, Texas #3)(28)

Beulah beamed. “Yes, I did, from scratch. It’s Jack’s favorite, so I made two.”

She pulled a bill from her pocket and shook her head when Beulah started to give her a dollar back. “Just add that to the fund. We all want to see Stella happy, don’t we?”

Heather wiped her face with a lace-trimmed white hankie. “This is about more than just finding a husband for Stella. It’s about the beginning of turning Cadillac from a backwoods, two-light town into something like Tulsa with theaters and a shopping mall as well as a place where we can have an elegant ball—” She stopped midsentence. “Well, hello, Sugar Magee. Where are your sisters?”

“Gigi is parking the car and Tansy is right behind me. Why didn’t you tell me the church was having a bake sale? We would have donated something,” Sugar said.

“This is for the Prayer Angels. You aren’t on that committee. Y’all take care of the Easter egg committee, remember?” Heather said.

Charlotte slipped away with her cake and two popcorn balls as the snippy, sugar-sweet remarks started.

“Hey, where are you?” she yelled at the back door of the Yellow Rose.

“In here getting ready to shampoo my hair,” Stella yelled back.

Charlotte set everything on a nearby table and hurried into the shop. “Don’t start yet. Sit down in the chair and I’ll do it for you and then you can do mine. I want some more highlights and it’s hard for me to get the back done right.”

“Deal,” Stella said. “I smell caramel or chocolate. Don’t tell me you went to that damned bake sale.”

“I did and I bought two popcorn balls for us to share and a chocolate cake that Beulah made. And the Fannin sisters—strange how folks still refer to them by their maiden names when they’re together, even though they’ve all been married for years, isn’t it? Anyway, they showed up just as I was leaving and . . .”

Agnes pushed through the front door, stopped under the air-conditioning vent, and said, “God almighty, but it’s hot out there. Do I smell chocolate cake?”

“I bought it at that bake sale. What’d you buy?” Charlotte asked.

“Not a damn thing, but I’m glad you did. It’ll throw them hussies off and make them think we’re supportin’ them. What’s the cake for?” Agnes asked.

“It’s to eat. Go cut yourself a piece. We got two popcorn balls, too, if you want to share them,” Stella said. “I’m not sure I’m going to eat any of it since the proceeds are going to find me a husband.”

“Gossip this morning is that you are sleeping with Rhett. He’s going over to Piper’s tonight to play baseball with her boys and eat hot dogs with them. Everyone says he’s being nice to her because she’s your friend and he’s hoping to learn more about you. You told me last night that you weren’t interested in him. You didn’t lie to me, did you?”

Stella sat down in the chair and leaned her head back in the sink. “Sure, I did. I’m a good liar. Truth is, I’m screwing Rhett Monroe every chance I get.”

Agnes giggled as she headed toward the back room. “I know you ain’t screwin’ Rhett, because he’s been coachin’ the little boys’ baseball team this summer down at that new field they built. And he was there while your car was parked at the nursing home. I haven’t figured out whose car or truck is gone at the same time your car is parked out under that cottonwood tree at the backside of the lot, but I will.”

Charlotte’s quick intake of air was audible all over the shop.

Was Stella lying, joking, or telling the gospel truth about not being involved with Rhett? If she was telling the truth, then Piper should be warned.

Stella threw up both palms. “I’m busted, Miz Agnes, but could you just let Piper and Mama think it’s Rhett that I’m sleeping with? It’s the only way we’ll get Piper to let a guy into her life and it’ll drive Mama crazy.”

Charlotte wet down Stella’s hair and massaged the shampoo into her scalp. “You flat-out had me going there for a minute. So you think Rhett is interested in Piper? Maybe I should buy some more baby yarn for the next blanket.”

“Good grief, Charlotte! She don’t know that he’s flirting with her. Don’t be buying a pregnancy test or baby yarn either just yet,” Stella answered.

Agnes came back with a big chunk of chocolate cake on a paper plate. “I may live. I was having a damn chocolate attack. Trixie says I’m addicted to it, and she might be right. At my age, when sex is out of the question, I guess it’s better to be addicted to chocolate than it is to whiskey.”

“You mean that when I’m eighty, sex will be out of the question? Well, thank you for ruining my day,” Stella said.

Agnes sat down at the table and commenced to eating cake, talking between bites. “Sorry, kid, but it is what it is. Better get all you can before you are eighty and all the men you know dry plumb up. It ain’t us women who have to have them pills to get ready. Hell, no! It’s the men.”

“Who is your snitch?” Charlotte changed the subject.

“A person don’t tell them things.” Agnes accentuated every word with a poke of the pink plastic fork in her hand.

“Why?”

“Privacy act that some president or ’nother put into law sometime in the past. You can’t tell your snitches’ names or else you get banned from heaven or the FBI will come haul your ass off to jail and you have to live in orange jumpsuits for the rest of your life. You know how hard it is to get them damn things down to go to the bathroom? And old women have to go real often, so it’s a pain in the ass. Besides, my mama always said that redheaded women do not ever, ever wear orange,” Agnes said.