The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop (Cadillac, Texas #3)(49)

“Barely,” Charlotte answered.

“Want to talk about it?” Piper asked.

“I’d love to, but I don’t know what it is. I just know I’ve got to get out of the forest or the trees are going to swallow me up and I can’t breathe. I want to curl up underneath my desk and cry or else kick the hell out of something,” Charlotte said.

Stella quickly went to hug Charlotte. “Then by damn, we’ll get out of the forest. We haven’t had a girls’ weekend out in forever. It’ll be good for all of us.”

“Good mornin’,” Cathy hollered from the door. “It’s going to be another hot one and being pregnant sure doesn’t lower the temperature a bit. You ready for me, Stella?”

“Waddle right on over here and get in this chair,” Stella teased.

Cathy and Marty were twins and if they didn’t wear their hair different—and if Cathy wasn’t as round as a beach ball—folks wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. Marty had always been the extrovert who spoke her mind, slept with cowboys, and didn’t give a damn what anyone said or thought. Cathy had been the good-girl peacemaker up until Ethan Prescott pushed the wrong buttons the year before. They’d been engaged but she broke it off when he insisted that she sign a ridiculous prenup. Now she was happily married to John, who owned the Rib Joint, and was fast becoming a rising star in mystery writing. They’d eloped a couple of months before and the baby was due in the next few weeks.

“Hey, now, it might be your turn next,” Cathy said.

“Not me. Charlotte is knitting for you, not me. How’d you get away from the café?”

“I’ve got the roasts in the oven to put out on the noon buffet. Marty and Trixie are running the breakfast crew and Darla Jean came over to help at the cash register. With the crowd we’ve got, I should have called and canceled. Everyone wants to talk about Violet and Agnes,” Cathy answered.

Piper giggled. “I wonder if Ethan will put her in a home after her knee surgery on Monday. I mean, what with the dementia and all.”

“Shame on you. Agnes just said that to start a rumor. Trixie said she’s awake and bossy already this morning. They’re going to get her up and make her walk this evening. Sassy as she is, she could probably walk all the way home.” Cathy laughed.

Piper slapped her thigh. “I wouldn’t doubt it, and then she’ll crow about how she beat Violet home.”

Stella whipped a cape around Cathy’s shoulders and laid her back in the shampoo chair. “So y’all think she’ll sabotage the ball from her hospital bed?”

Cathy shook her head. “No, she told Marty this morning she was passing that torch to you and if you don’t pass the test, she’s going to make you dye your hair black. Hey, Piper, I heard Gene had him a boy hissy in the parking lot at the football field last night.”

Piper nodded. “And I had a girl hissy right back at him. The folks around here get the news faster than those telecasters who get to the story seconds after it happens.”

Cathy laughed. “That’s the gospel truth. I’m glad that you didn’t let that man back you down and you stood your ground.”

“We married too young. He’d just finished his freshman year in college and I graduated from cosmetology school one week and we got married the next. He didn’t get the running around out of his system and now he’s regretting it,” Piper said.

“Other guys marry young and don’t act like that,” Cathy said.

“You’re right, but they aren’t spoiled little boys who got tired of playing husband and daddy games with a boring, plus-size wife,” Piper said.

“And if you say anything more like that, you don’t get to go to the spa day,” Charlotte said.

Cathy groaned. “Oh, a spa day sounds wonderful! I’d almost clean up Trixie’s room just to have a spa day, but things are too busy for me to take any time off right now, especially when I’ll have to be off when the baby comes.”

Stella giggled. “Hey, Agnes was fussing about Trixie’s room last night. What was she talking about?”

“Trixie is not a neat freak. She does ceramics and scrapbooking and her room looks like a trash truck exploded in it most of the time,” she explained. “Agnes says that the only way she’ll go in there is if the hazmat team goes in before her. Trixie really loves that old fart, but I’d never tell her that. She wants to grow up and be just like her. Full of piss and vinegar and giving everyone hell.”

Alma Grace arrived at the shop and quickly shut the door behind her and said, “Don’t want to let this good cold bought air out. It’s going to be a scorcher. Weatherman says it’ll hit a hundred and fifteen by noon. Thank God it’s Saturday and we don’t work tomorrow. I’m so ready for a day off. The shop is overflowing already this morning but I snuck out anyway.” She crossed the floor and sat down in Charlotte’s chair. “Just a shampoo and style. I hear that Violet Prescott has been diagnosed with dementia and has gotten so violent that Ethan might have to put her in a nursing home.”

“Agnes broke her hip, had emergency surgery last night, and will be elated to know that the gossip she started is spreading, but Violet does not have dementia. She already had knee surgery scheduled so they’re keeping her until Monday when they’ll do the surgery,” Cathy said.