After my third pass of their house, there was nothing to do but buck up and park. I’d worn coral capris, a funky patterned T-shirt with a flower design that looked a lot like one of the birds-of-paradise in the yard, and wedge sandals—none of which I’d made. Better not to flaunt my dressmaking skills. I needed the Lafayette sisters to make sure the pageant happened as scheduled. Alienation wouldn’t be a good thing.
But as I walked up the plain cement walkway, a prickly sensation crept up the back of my neck—like I was being watched. As if on cue, the lace curtains in the window to the right of the front door fluttered and I caught a glimpse of a face withdrawing. I raised my hand to knock, my knuckles just barely touching the fake wood door when it swung inward, nearly knocking me off my feet.
“Honey, I’m so sorry ’bout that,” a low-pitched voice said. “I sure didn’t mean to catch you off guard.”
“It’s okay. No problem.” I straightened up to my full height and smiled—right into the eyes of the most Southern-looking woman I’d seen in a good, long while. More Southern, even, than Mrs. James. She was eighty if she was a day, but she carried her years well. She had perfect posture, her shoulders down and back, as if she practiced walking around with a book balanced on the top of her head. A strand of pearls perfectly accented her long, elegant neck. Despite the weight of the sticky July heat, she wore a lightweight, pale pink cardigan that complemented a floral skirt that hit midshin. The look was topped off with practical beige rubber-soled shoes.
While she wasn’t dainty, not by any stretch of the imagination, she wasn’t overly sturdy, either. Her short Jamie Lee Curtis hair intensified her stern demeanor. I could see how she might’ve intimidated men and why she’d never snagged herself a husband. As the thought circled around me, an image passed through my mind, like a blip from the future. She was… me… in forty or fifty years.
“Fern,” another voice, this one a bit higher pitched, called, “who’s that at the door?”
“She hasn’t given her name yet, Trudy,” the woman in front of me said over her shoulder. She turned back to me, giving me a good once-over. “You don’t look like you’re selling nothin’.” Like any good Southerner, she dropped the “g” off the end of the word—something I’d worked hard to stop doing while living in New York.
“No, ma’am, I’m not.”
The other Lafayette sister shuffled up behind the first. She wore her hair in an elaborate updo, had thick spidery eyelashes that had to be fake, wore a pair of jeggings with a long teal and black tunic, and had the same face as her sister, although hers was preserved quite a bit better. More moisturizer as a young woman, or wider-brimmed sun hats. “Let the girl in, why don’t you?” Trudy said.
I liked that idea. Preferably before they figured out who I was and shooed me off their property for jumping into their seamstress territory.
Fern held the door open for me and I passed through, following Trudy down the entry hall and into the linoleum-floored, Formica-countered kitchen. “Can I offer you some sweet tea?”
I accepted and a minute later they’d ushered me to one of the strange modular lounge sofas in the living room. Just like the sisters, the couches were a matching set. They were upholstered in pink silk, the curved and tufted pieces fitting together with a round occasional table situated between them. Hers and hers. I remembered the sisters around town when I was a child, but couldn’t remember ever seeing them up close and personal. They were one of a kind—the sisters, and the furniture. I sat on one sofa, crossing my legs. They sat side by side opposite me, looking like silver-haired, aged Barbie dolls.
“I guess I should introduce myself,” I began. “I’m Harlow Cassidy.”
Their reaction was instantaneous and synchronized. Sharply inhaled gasps, a pointed look at each other, and chins angling toward me. Trudy recovered her smile before Fern did. “Well now. Isn’t this somethin’, having you right here. We knew your great-grandmother, of course,” she said, her drawl as thick as a pot of baked beans.
“I think everyone in town knew Loretta Mae,” I offered, relieved they hadn’t hauled me off my feet and kicked me to the curb. That wouldn’t have been very Southern of them, but I’d feared it could happen just the same.
“What can we do for you?” Fern asked. Her voice didn’t have the same lightness her sister’s did. The fact that they were twins did not mean they had the same perspective or experiences.
I shifted on the furniture, uncrossing then recrossing my legs in the other direction. “Mrs. James… Zinnia James… said I should come speak with you.”Once again, their reaction was simultaneous, but this time it was Fern who spoke, and her anger was clear. “Did she, now?”
“Yes, ma’am. She asked me to… to help her with the pageant. I know how important it is—” Though not from personal experience.
Their expressions softened like butter that’s been sitting out for a spell. I clasped my hands together and continued. “Go see the Lafayette sisters, Mrs. James told me. They know everything there is to know about the pageant and ball. She’s just so… busy,” I added, praying that Mrs. James was passing in and out of the sheriff’s office and not staying for an extended visit. “So here I am.”
The laugh lines around Trudy’s eyes grew even softer, but Fern’s tightened. “Zinnia said that?” they both asked at the same time, but oddly, the emphasis was completely different. Trudy was surprised and sounded pleased with the possibility that Mrs. James had sent me their way, but Fern wasn’t so willing to let bygones be bygones.
I nodded. “She did. She said she’s really sorry you haven’t been involved in the pageant. She said that was a mistake.” I made up that part, but figured it was true on some level, and I knew it was what the Lafayette sisters needed to hear.
They both sat, waiting, so I continued. “I have a few questions. Do you mind?” I took a button-adorned lavender clothbound journal from my purse and flipped it open. “The stage is set—”
“I heard tell that it was a runway,” Fern snapped, “not a stage.”
“It was a runway, but that was a mistake. It’s all been squared away.”
Fern harrumphed. Trudy didn’t pay her any mind. “That’s a relief. When we heard about the runway, we both thought the Margaret Moffette Lea Pageant and Ball was done for. Didn’t we, Fern?”
“Completely.”
“Oh, I understand,” I said, nodding. “But there’s no need to worry. The runway’s gone.”
“How are the rehearsals coming along?” Trudy sounded almost giddy. “I’ve been dying to poke my head in and check them out, but Fern doesn’t think that’s a good idea. Better that I stay out of Zinnia’s way, but we used to be such good friends. I made her gown, you know. Just like I made your grandmother’s—”
“Wh-what?” You could have knocked me over with a feather. They’d made my grandmother’s Margaret gown? I thought Meemaw had made it. “Was it yellow?”
“Oh, yes. Coleta’s was like a gauze-covered sun and Zinnia’s was sky blue.”
“We were just learning back then—”
“Like you are now,” Fern muttered, shooting daggers at me.
“—so it took us months to make a single dress.” She slipped into a dreamy recollection. “We got to where we could make a dress in mere weeks. Satins, silks, and velvets. Every girl wears a corset and bloomer—did you know that? Oh, yes, of course you know that. You’re makin’ two dresses, is that right?”
“Four, actually,” I said, counting Gracie’s into the mix, still shocked that Loretta Mae hadn’t made the dresses I’d found in the armoire.