The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop (Cadillac, Texas #3)(62)

“That’s lovely.” Heather clapped her hands. “I’ll write that down and we’ll do it just like that. I knew you’d have some wonderful notions. Now shall we go to the barn and see what else we can come up with? Annabel, I’m just sure you’ll picture all kinds of scenarios. I’m eager to know how you think we should arrange the tables. Would you be in charge of that the day we set them up?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. I’d be honored to take care of that. Would you like me to rent the tablecloths as well?” Annabel asked.

Heather left her throne behind the desk and looped her arm in Annabel’s. “That would be lovely. Dinner will be served at eight, then, and the couples will be announced right before that. They will have their first dance together and then sit together for their dinner and then dance some more. Oh, I could just swoon thinking about it. Just keep the receipts for the tablecloths, honey, and the ball fund will reimburse you for your expenses.”

“And the meat that Everett is cooking?” Nancy asked.

Heather threw a drop-dead-and-fall-in-fresh-cow-poop look over her shoulder. “I thought that was your donation. It is tax deductible since it’s for the church. But if you are too poor to buy it, then by all means keep the receipts.”

“Thank you. I will bring them to you the day we buy the meat. The Fannin sisters and I will be donating the potato salad, the baked beans, and the coleslaw. You might want to ask someone else to volunteer for the condiments,” Nancy said.



A rooster crowed and Agnes fetched her phone from the bibbed pocket of her hospital gown. “Got to take this one, Stella,” she said.

She listened for so long that Stella was sure she’d forgotten to hang up when the call ended. But finally she hit a button and shoved it back into her pocket.

The rehab room was nicer than the hospital room that Agnes had been in for less than a week. And over there hanging on the front of the closet door were her brand-new fancy overalls. The sunlight filtering in through the miniblinds caught the stones and flashed spots of color on the walls.

“They’re downright beautiful, ain’t they? Alma Grace brought them yesterday and said that they was supposed to help me get well. I done took them to the therapy session so Violet could see them. I’m going to remake my will and be buried in either them or the dress that Carlene is making for me to wear to the ball. I hope to hell Violet and Heather wear something that requires a corset and a girdle and they’re miserable all night,” Agnes said when she tucked the phone back into her pocket.

“I bet Carlene could sell those things faster than hotcakes if she’d put some in her store window.” Stella smiled.

“Oh, no! Them is one of a kind. Me and Rosalee has got the only ones and we ain’t sharing,” Agnes told her. “Now listen to me. That was Nancy on the telephone. You already know about the dress rule. There will be no liquor of any kind, not even beer. We will be drinking lemon-infused water, whatever to hell that is, sweet tea, and of course there will be a punch bowl on the table with Annabel’s petits fours. I hope she makes chocolate ones because I intend to eat about twenty.”

“I’ll pale in comparison to a redhead who’ll be wearing an overall formal with that much bling.”

“Bullshit! Don’t you try to weasel out of going. I need my bodyguards,” Agnes said.

“But Cathy, Trixie, and Marty will be there,” Stella said. “And you’ll be in a wheelchair, Agnes, and that’s only if you are lucky and get out of rehab.”

“I’m going if I have to go in a damn hospital bed. You should see what Carlene is doing with my ball gown. I’ve had some curtains up in a trunk that I took down out of my kitchen about twenty years ago. Yellow sunflowers on a green background. Carlene is using the material for the bottom of my new formal,” Agnes said.

Stella laughed out loud. “That should bring down the house. You reckon the newspaper and television station will interview you and take pictures?”

“Hell, yeah, they will, if I have to pay them to do it.”

“Okay, then, I promise I’ll go shopping and buy a dress. What do I need to do to take care of things from my end?” Stella asked.

“I’ll do most of it with my telephone, but there’s a couple of things I’ll need help with. Nancy needs to make a trip out to old man Hinton’s. That’s all you need to tell her,” Agnes said.

“To buy moonshine?” Stella asked.

“How’d you know about that?”

“If you grew up in Cadillac, you knew about old man Hinton. You leave a twenty-dollar bill on the stump out near his smokehouse. There’s a thumbtack in the stump and an hour later you go back and there’s two jars of ’shine sittin’ there in place of the money,” Stella said.

“Well, I’ll be damned. You ever drink any of it?”

Stella shivered at the memory. “One time. But Mr. Hinton has gone out to El Paso to live with his son. He is ninety now, you know. They moved him out there last week, Agnes.”

“Well, shit!”

“Hey, hey.” Piper poked her head in the door. “Did Stella upset you about something?”

“Hell, no! Old man Hinton did. I need moonshine.”

Piper pulled up a chair beside Agnes’s hospital bed. “You can’t have moonshine in here. You might have a reaction to whatever medication they’re giving you if you mix it with liquor.”