The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop (Cadillac, Texas #3)(35)

Agnes pulled a blue bandanna from her hip pocket and mopped sweat from her face. “You want to cut your boyfriend’s hair, that’s all right, but do it at your house. Hell, girl, it would be more fun to cut his hair naked than in a beauty shop filled with women, anyway. And I mean both of you naked, not just him.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Piper blushed.

“Bullshit. He cooked on your grill last night. That’s more solid than sharing a hymnbook with him in church. And you’re all dressed up fancy in them tight things on your legs and that shirt today, so I bet you was hopin’ you’d see him. He’s a fine-lookin’ man. If I was twenty years younger, you wouldn’t have a chance with him,” Agnes said.

“Agnes Flynn!” Trixie exclaimed. “You old coot. You’d have to be fifty years younger and you know it.”

Agnes narrowed her eyes at Trixie. “You should know better than to mess with me, girl. I’ve put you in your place often enough that you ought to have learned your lessons by now. And FYSA, I was plenty spicy enough to chase down men prettier than Rhett Monroe twenty years ago. Hell, slow as all y’all move, I might still outrun you. I’d done been married more than ten years by the time I was y’all’s age.”

“It’s FYI. The initials mean ‘for your information,’?” Charlotte said.

“I don’t like your alphabet soup world, but maybe I meant for your stupid ass when I said FYSA,” Agnes smarted off.

“But you are an old dinosaur and you would have been sixty twenty years ago and that would have still been too old to unzip Rhett’s pants. What does your snitch say today?” Trixie deftly changed the subject.

“That Piper done read the cards wrong when she thought Rhett was interested in Stella. And that her ex-husband, Gene, already knows that she’s got a boyfriend who is taking her boys to New York City to see the Yankee Stadium. Do you need a chaperone, Piper? I always wanted to watch a ball game in that stadium. Y’all got any more of that chocolate cake in the back room?” Agnes headed off in that direction.

Piper gasped. “I’m not going to New York City with Rhett or anyone else. And yes, there’s cake in the back room.”

“And hot dogs,” Stella said.

“Your mama’s baked beans?” Agnes looked at Piper.

She nodded. “You can eat whatever you want if you’ll tell us who your snitch is.”

“I intend to eat some of them beans but I’m not telling you jack shit about my snitch. The FBI or the NASA would come haul my skinny ass off to jail if they knew who I had in my pocket.”

“NASA is the place that sends spaceships to the moon and Mars.” Trixie laughed.

Agnes waved her hands around. “Well, if they’d stop using letters instead of names, I wouldn’t get confused. The FBI or the CBS or one of them god-awful places that listens in on my phone is who I’m talkin’ about. Hell, the NASA might be involved. You think they’re sending them rockets up there to see if little green men live on Mars? Hell, no, they’re sendin’ them up there to spy on us. I watch NCIS. I know all about that shit.”

Trixie paid Charlotte and whispered, “All us at Clawdy’s are dropping down on our knees and givin’ thanks that y’all got a hornet’s nest stirred up down here at the Yellow Rose. Agnes was about to wither up and die. If she and Violet aren’t into it about something, chocolate cake can’t even make her happy. Now tell me the truth—is that baby stuff really for Cathy?”

“Yes, it is. But Violet isn’t stirring up stuff. It’s Heather,” Charlotte said.

“Heather is her niece, so it’s practically the same thing. Agnes will have something to keep her from sinking into depression,” Trixie said.

Agnes yelled from the back room, “Hey, did y’all hear that Violet is getting a new knee? Won’t be the same without her at the ball, but I’ll bet that she manages to show up and make an appearance if they have to push her in there on a hospital bed. Heather is so green that she won’t be any competition.” They could hear Agnes opening the refrigerator door.

“What competition? Is Heather competing with Violet for the queen bee of Cadillac crown?” Stella asked.

“Hell, no! They’ll have to pry that out of Violet’s cold, dead hands. The competition is between me and Violet, and if she ain’t there, then Heather will be standing in her place and I could outsmart that young’un standin’ on my head in hot ashes. It’ll be like taking candy from a baby.”

Stella laughed out loud.

“It’s not funny. I’m bein’ serious,” Agnes called out. “Now, where’s them baked beans, Piper? I can’t find them.”

“Do you have any idea who her snitch is?” Charlotte asked Trixie in a low whisper.

Trixie shook her head slowly. “We have no idea. She just started talking about her contact or her snitch when all this about Nancy putting Stella on the prayer list came up. I thought it might be Kayla, but then the snitch knows things that happen in places where Kayla doesn’t go.”

Alma Grace handed Stella a check and said, “I’ll walk up the street with you, Trixie. You can tell me all about that doctor you are keeping company with and fill me in on the rest of the gossip before I go to Bless My Bloomers. That way Carlene and Patrice won’t have to play so much catch-up.”