The Perfect Dress(33)

“I assure you, ma’am, I’m not living with Graham,” Mitzi said in a tight voice. “Paula and I talked about moving in here when we bought the place, but we wanted to keep work and our private lives separate.”

“What changed your mind? Graham Harrison living just down the road?” Wanda asked.

“Space changed our minds,” Jody said. “And finances. We don’t have to pay rent here, and besides, after the way you’ve treated me, I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“I treated you?” Wanda screamed. “You disgraced me by living with Lyle. Now look where that got you. I called to invite you to supper Friday night, but after that comment I’m not going to. Goodbye!”

Jody tapped the phone screen and left it lying on the table. “Well, ain’t that nice.”

Paula frowned.

Mitzi reminded her that was the punch line from an old joke where a country girl told her rich city cousin that her husband had sent her to finishing school to say “Ain’t that nice” rather than “Screw you!”

Paula remembered the joke and giggled. It soon turned into laughter and a guffaw that had her snorting. Then Mitzi and Jody joined in, and the twins came in from the kitchen.

“What’s so funny?” Dixie asked.

“Mothers,” Paula said.

Tabby raised a hand. “Testify, ladies.”

That set everyone off on another bout of laughter. When Paula snorted again, Dixie got tickled, and soon all five of them were wiping tears.

“Our mother ain’t funny,” Dixie finally said.

“No, she’s downright crazy.” Tabby nodded.

“Join the crowd.” Jody took another tissue from the box and then tossed the whole box toward Tabby.

“Oh, yeah,” Paula said.

“What about you, Mitzi?”

“Her mama was a saint,” Paula said. “She loved Mitzi just the way she is, took up for her when anyone said a word about her size, and told her every day that she was beautiful. Me and Jody weren’t so lucky.”

Dixie pulled out a chair and sat down. “Or us. We figure our mama knew when we were only a year old that we weren’t going to be petite little blondes like her, so she left.”

Tabby leaned on the back of her sister’s chair. “Of course, there was the old boyfriend who came back into the picture. Daddy doesn’t know that we know about him, but we figured it all out. She left us before our second birthday and was remarried within three months to the guy she dated before Daddy. It don’t take a genius to do that math.”

“Three months?” Jody gasped. “The divorce wouldn’t have been final.”

Dixie frowned. “They got married in Arkansas. We didn’t even see her again until last year.”

“And then we felt like she was ashamed of us,” Tabby said.

Mitzi could have strangled Rita and enjoyed watching her turn blue. Gladys and Wanda were both a piece of work, but to leave your children and let them think it was because they were big girls—that should be a cardinal, go-to-hell sin.

“Well, darlin’s, we love you just the way you are,” Jody said. “Don’t ever change to suit someone else’s vision of what they want you to be. I tried that and it don’t work. I was just about your size when I started living with Lyle. I’d just gotten out of high school, and I’d been a big girl my whole life. But he wanted me to be slim, and he insisted that we be vegetarians and grow our own food like hippies. So I did and look what it got me.”

“We heard that he told you on the phone he’d done married someone else. What kind of man does that and why?” Dixie asked.

“Because his girlfriend is pregnant.” Jody’s tone was icy cold.

Dixie moved over to Jody’s chair and hugged her. “My daddy knows just how that feels, except Mother wasn’t pregnant. She didn’t ever have any more kids, thank goodness.”

“So you never want any little half brothers or sisters?” Mitzi asked.

“Not from Mother. She’d probably want us to come live with her so she’d have live-in babysitters. We used to wish Daddy would remarry so we could have a brother or sister because we love babies, but not from our mother. That would be a nightmare,” Dixie said.

Tabby barely gave her sister time to finish the sentence. “But he works all the time anyway, and never has time for dating.”

“Whoa!” Dixie said. “He dated that one woman for a year.”

“And we hated her,” Tabby reminded her. “We had to really work at making him see how mean she was when he wasn’t around.”

“Mean?” Mitzi knew she was fishing for information, but she couldn’t help herself. If someone had hurt the girls physically, she might still go after them.

“We were only thirteen then,” Dixie said. “She tried to boss us around and one time she even slapped Tabby.”

“No!” Paula’s hand went over her mouth.

“Yep, she did and said if we told Daddy that we’d get worse. We told him anyway, and we never saw her again,” Tabby said. “But now we’ve got to get back to work. We want to get our room all organized before quittin’ time today.”

The business phone rang about the time they cleared the room, and Mitzi grabbed it, saying, “The Perfect Dress.”