The Perfect Dress(29)

Tabby yanked her phone from her hip pocket. “Daddy, we need help moving Mitzi, Paula, and Jody to the shop. They’re goin’ to live upstairs. You and Aunt Alice can meet us here at five thirty, right?”

She only listened a second before putting it back. “He says he’ll have to go home and change clothes, but he’ll be here soon as he can. Now come on, Dixie. We got a mannequin to move and a bouquet to make. God, I love this job.”

“Me, too,” Dixie said as she headed toward the kitchen.

“You going to let them move it all by themselves?” Jody whispered.

Mitzi pushed back her chair. “Not only that, but I’m going to turn them loose on redoing the foyer.”

“I’m likin’ this idea of having helpers a lot,” Paula said.

Jody frowned. “But what if they don’t do it to suit us? Will you let them down easy when we have to redo it ourselves? I couldn’t bear to hurt their feelings.”

Memories flooded back of all the times when she’d tried to do something nice for her mother only to have it backfire. No wonder it had been so easy to move in with Lyle and to want to please him so much after living with her mother. Jody remembered one time when she thought it would make Wanda happy if she cleaned house for her while she was at the beauty shop.

Without even realizing it, Jody put her hands over her ears as she replayed the sound of her mother screaming that day: “You’ve washed all the glitter off my precious angel. Now it’s worthless. Why can’t you ever do anything right?”

Wanda had picked up the tiny angel knickknack, thrown it in the trash can, and for years, if she thought about it, she still got angry.

So that’s why I tried so hard to please Lyle, Jody thought.

“Of course,” Mitzi said as she left the room.

It took Jody a while to remember why Mitzi would even say that, but then she remembered the conversation about the foyer.

“She’s still crushing on Graham, isn’t she?” Paula whispered.

“Probably always will.” Jody toyed with one of her long braids. “Is that the reason she wants his daughters around?”

“I don’t think so. She loves kids and they remind her of us when we were in school.” Paula pulled her dark hair out of her ponytail and shook it loose. “I’m getting a headache, so I’m going to the kitchen for an aspirin.”

“Are you all right? Do we need to call the doctor?”

Paula held up a palm. “I’m fine. It’s just a headache.”

“I’ll go with you. I want a soda and one of those candy bars in the drawer,” Jody answered. She had to push back the guilty feelings about eating candy and drinking soda. First her mother had fat shamed her and then Lyle had, too.

The girls had a notebook and a tape measure out when Jody and Paula passed through the foyer. They were deep in conversation about how to arrange things so folks could get around the furniture to go to the fitting room and the kitchen, and yet to show off the mannequin at the same time.

“Guess I misjudged them,” Jody admitted when Mitzi handed her a can of root beer in the kitchen. “I swear they could be your kids.”

“No, mine would never be that beautiful,” Mitzi said.

“So how’re you feelin’ about Graham coming to help move?” Paula swallowed two aspirin and opened the drawer where they kept the candy bars.

“It was just a high school crush,” Mitzi answered. “With all this help, we should be out of there before dark.”

Paula ripped the paper from the candy bar and took a bite. “I’ve been craving chocolate like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I never met Clinton. What does he look like? Are you hoping the baby doesn’t look like him?” Jody grabbed a candy bar and told the niggling voice in her head to shut up.

“He’s about six feet tall, blond hair, blue eyes, and just slightly overweight,” Paula answered. “If the baby has blue eyes, I’m going to say that they were inherited from Aunt Mitzi. If the baby has blonde hair, we’ll declare that it came from Aunt Jody.”

“And if it turns out to be a big person, it’s from all of us,” Mitzi told them.

Jody bit off a chunk of candy bar and chewed slowly. If by some crazy reason she was pregnant, then what would her baby look like? She was blonde and had brown eyes. Lyle had brown hair and green eyes. Would it be a girl or a boy? Suddenly, having a baby didn’t scare her like it used to do. If Paula could do this alone, then so could she.



Mitzi was busy tidying up her work space at five o’clock when Dixie and Tabby bounced into the sewing room, both smiling as if they’d just won the lottery.

“Come and see what we’ve done. If you don’t like it, then we’ll change it but . . .” Tabby paused.

“But we just know you are going to love it. The bouquet in the mannequin’s hand matches the sofas, and we did a pretty floral arrangement in shades of pink for the coffee table, and we had so much fun.” Dixie finally stopped for a breath.

Mitzi pushed the material back and stood to her feet. “Okay, ladies, it’s quittin’ time. Let’s go see what these interior decorators have done.”

Dixie and Tabby went ahead of them and stood on the bottom step of the staircase as they filed into the foyer. Mitzi almost didn’t even want to look out of fear that she wouldn’t like it, and it would break her heart to tell them to put it back the way it was. She inhaled deeply and kept her eyes on the floor until she could see the mannequin in her peripheral vision.