“Good to know,” I said, and as I walked to the Hughes’s house with Madelyn, it was my fingers that fluttered up to the space between my eyebrows where two little lines had started to etch into my skin. I quickly dropped them.
Madelyn was right. No more lollygagging.
Chapter 15
I’d always imagined that cosmetic procedures were common practice for women who felt it was part of their job to be beautiful—meaning actresses and models. But from the amount of cars parked along the street, there was apparently a pressing need for wrinkle management in North Texas.
When Madelyn, Steven, and I walked in, we all stopped short. The doctor’s house was teeming with women carrying wineglasses, laughing, chatting, and all lined up for a session with a syringe or a turn at the massage chair or the pedicure spa.
“Wow.” Madelyn stared wide-eyed at the mass of women with their perfectly coiffed hair and their blinged-out flip-flops and flirty cut T-shirts. “There’s more sparkle in here than at the Academy Awards,” she whispered.
I looked down at my own Gypsy Soule chocolate-colored sandals decked out in rhinestones and turquoise, a last season discounted item I’d picked up in New York before I’d moved back home. With an artfully messy updo, my brown capris—store bought—and my Cassidy Designs turquoise blouse, I fit right in with the rhinestone cowgirls and junk gypsies of Bliss.
As Madelyn and I linked arms, each taking a step into the Botox fold with our right foot forward, I felt like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz taking her first step on the Yellow Brick Road. I was starting to have second thoughts about trying to get information from this crowd of well-off women. I was out of my league. But Madelyn was my Scarecrow, urging me forward. “You’ll regret it if you change your mind,” she whispered.
“How do you always know what I’m thinking?” I whispered back.
She adjusted the strap of her Epiphanie camera bag, which doubled as her purse, over her shoulder. She never went anywhere without it. Or the camera she had tucked inside. “You advertise what you think on your face,” she said. “Your expressions tell a story. Don’t you ever mess with that.”
Steven walked past us, gave a little wave and a smile, and was instantly enveloped by the crowd. Madelyn and I took another step before a woman suddenly appeared in front of us, two glasses of wine in her hands, and an absolutely perfectly wrinkle-free face. “Welcome!” The sides of her mouth curved up in a smile, but it didn’t quite stretch all the way to her eyes. No wrinkles meant no laugh lines, but it was like the smile was incomplete.
She handed us the wineglasses, then picked up her own. “Chardonnay. Is that all right? If you’d rather have red, I have—”
“This is perfect,” I said, stopping her before she rattled off her entire bar selection.
Her smile broadened, but still looked stiff. “I’m Anna Hughes, Buckley’s wife.” She offered us a limp hand. Meemaw always said you could tell the strength of a person’s character by the strength of their handshake. Steven and Will’s handshake had looked solid and firm. Strong personalities, both of them. But when I took Mrs. Hughes’s hand, it felt even weaker than it looked, as if I were shaking hands with a coil of cooked spaghetti.
I recognized her from around town. Life in Bliss, being so small, meant everyone frequented the same places, particularly the women and the shops. I’d probably seen her in Seed-n-Bead, Josie’s store, or maybe at Villa Farina. “I’m Harlow, and this is Madelyn,” I said. “I’m a friend of Will’s, next door. Your husband helped Will move my grandmother’s armoire down from my attic a few days ago.”
“Right! The dressmaker! How wonderful.” Her voice was growing louder and more boisterous, and I wondered if it was because her face wouldn’t stretch to show her enthusiasm. I had to pay close attention to decipher some of her West Texas twangy accent. “He told me, but when I asked him what kind of designs he’d seen, he couldn’t give me a single detail. Isn’t that so like a man? I’ve been meanin’ to come by and welcome you back to town. And see some of your designs, of course. I hear you’re quite a force in the fashion world.”
The warmth of a blush rose to my cheeks. “Come by anytime,” I offered.
She got lost in a thought as she took a sip of her wine. “My sister would do just about anything to have her wedding dress made by an actual New York fashion designer,” she said absently.
I stood up straighter. Another commission would certainly help me with the shop and all the repairs the old farmhouse needed. “When is she getting married?”
She shook her head and scoffed. “You mean the most recent one?”
“Oh. How—how many have there been?”
She leaned in closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “This is number three. Third time’s a charm. Isn’t that what they say? Pft.” She flapped her hand around, sloshing her wine.
“I just made a wedding gown and bridesmaids dresses. I’d be happy to—”
Her palm went up and I stopped short. “I’m not in the wedding. I haven’t been in any of them.”
“Ah.” So what were we talking about? I was a little lost. “So maybe what you need is a Wow! dress,” I said. A vision of Mrs. Hughes in a long black taffeta gown, flower detailing on one of the thick straps suddenly filled my mind.
She glanced over my shoulder, the shadow that had cast its pall over her face lifting. “A Wow! dress. I like the sound of that. I sure would love to show all those people who…” She trailed off, looking at the glass of wine she held in her hand before directing her gaze down the back hallway. “A Wow! dress.” She nodded her head, her eyes narrowing as if she’d just come to an important decision. “I do think I need me one of those and I think you’re just the one to make it for me.”
I bustled with pride. It looked like Macon Vance wasn’t the only person in Bliss with a reputation. Every custom order I snagged meant I could keep the doors of Buttons & Bows open that much longer. And at this point, I wanted nothing more. This was good. I would help Anna Hughes show whoever she wanted whatever she wanted to show them, and her deepest desires would come true in the process. It was a win-win.
“Where’s the wedding?” I asked after I told her again to come by the shop. The issue at hand, though, was how to turn the conversation to Meemaw and whatever cosmetic procedures she’d had done, or to Macon Vance and Mrs. James. I was here to learn whatever I could.
“Out in the Panhandle. Amarillo,” she said, but her attention had fractured.
There was a weighty pause in the conversation. I didn’t know what to say and I suddenly longed for some embroidery or crewel to keep my hands busy.
Finally, her eyes darted over my shoulder to the front door as another handful of women sashayed in. “Drinks are on the sidebar,” she twanged. She pointed to bottles of wine and beer on a metal-and-glass occasional table in the dining room, then added, “Excuse me,” and she hurried past us to greet more of her husband’s potential clients.
I deflated. Maybe I wasn’t such a celebrity, and maybe her enthusiasm was more the wine talking than her desire for a custom dress. She’d probably forget this whole conversation and I’d never have the chance to make her that black taffeta dress.
“So where do we start?” Madelyn asked as I caught up with her. She’d ogled the portable massage chair, but stepped aside to let another woman sit down and put her face in the cradle.
I spotted Fern and Trudy. “The Lafayette sisters,” I said.
Gripping her arm, I dragged her with me, plowing through the chattering women with determination. The wine loosened their tongues plenty and Zinnia James’s arrest was the hot topic. “That poor woman,” a lady with the most ratted-out Texas hair I’d ever seen was saying. “Mortifyin’. Absolutely mortifyin’.” The woman by her side nodded, a sympathetic expression on her face. “I feel for her. She’s never had it easy, and now this.” She shook her head. “I sure do hope she’s holdin’ up all right.”