“Yes, ma’am,” I said as her husband took her by the elbow to help her stand, gently taking her wineglass from her and putting it down next to a collection of Botox boxes.
“Anna,” he said, coaxing her into the floral armchair in the corner.
Her eyes were glazed, but she pressed her lips together, put her fingers to them, and turned an invisible key.
Even though she’d zipped her lips, her words stayed with me. Meemaw had definitely been keeping things on the down low. From the cell phone conversation Gina had overheard at the café, it seemed Macon Vance had had a secret. Mrs. James herself had been arrested. If I was wrong about her, then her secret was that she’d killed the man. Anna Hughes would probably want her drinking tonight to be kept a secret. The list went on and on. I’d just never thought Meemaw would keep things buckled up tight under her rhinestone belt, but it seemed she had.
There was a knock on the doorjamb. “Is it my turn?” a woman from the party asked. If she had wrinkles, they were microscopic. She had to be a regular… and addicted.
The doctor held up his hand. “One minute, Carrie Ann.”
“Sorry. We’ll get out of your way,” I said, ushering Josie and Madelyn back into the hallway as Buckley whispered in his wife’s ear.
“See you around, ladies. Thanks for coming by.”
Anna met my eyes. “Yeah, thanks for comin’ by, y’all. Y’all have a good night, ya hear?”
We said our good-byes and skirted around Carrie Ann, who waited patiently for her treatment.
“Quick,” Josie said with a hiss, “before they ply us with alcohol and make us get it done.” She started down the hall, but we all turned at a sharp sound. Dr. Hughes hurried up behind us, snapping his fingers again. “I just remembered something,” he said, grinning big and wide.
Josie, Madelyn, and I looked up expectantly. “What?” we all said at once.
“She said that when her great-granddaughter came home—you, I assume—”
I nodded, holding my breath for the great revelation about Meemaw.
“Right. She said that when you came home, things in Bliss would change. Even for me, she said. For everyone. Wrongs would be righted. Things would settle and be like they were supposed to be. Then she mentioned something about a wedding.”
Josie’s wedding.
At that we left Buckley to his work, escaping with more questions than answers.
An hour later, as I carefully stitched the torn section of the replica gown back at home, I thought about the Cassidy charms. They came with a checks and balances system. For everything Meemaw made happen, someone else lost something they’d wanted. There had to be bad with the good. If I made the dress I had in mind for Mrs. James, would there be a consequence for someone else? It was a question I couldn’t answer.
I moved on to the hem of Libby’s dress, slip-stitching it, the length of every stitch painstakingly precise. It was tedious, but allowed me time to think. But after another hour, I still couldn’t come up with a reason why Mrs. James would be involved in Macon Vance’s murder, or why I was even getting involved. Finally, I wandered to the kitchen in search of corn bread. And fried okra. A Southern woman’s sustenance.
Chapter 17
With my stomach full of fried okra and corn bread and the kitchen cleaned up, I headed back toward my workroom. As I stepped out of the kitchen and into the little dining room, the front door swung open and a strong breeze ruffled my hair. Mama burst into Buttons & Bows with a potted plant under one arm. Typical.
At the very same moment, Nana threw open the Dutch door in the kitchen, tossed her Crocs off, closed the door on Thelma Louise with an admonishment to stay put, and turned to me. “Harlow Jane,” they both said at exactly the same time, with the exact same Southern drawl, and just like that, the whole crazy situation was back in my head, front and center.
I looked from Mama to Nana. This was my future. Blue jeans. Cowgirl shirts. And perfect timing. My words tumbled out with lightning speed. “I needed you. How did you know? I have to make these dresses, but Mrs. James is in jail and your boyfriend thinks she killed the golf pro, and I’ve been calling for Meemaw but she won’t talk to me, and… and… and…” All my Southern strength faded as I sank onto the wood steps at the base of the staircase.
Nana took one long look at me, put her hands on her hips, and turned to face the front room of Buttons & Bows. Nobody messed around with Coleta Cassidy. “Loretta Mae Cassidy,” she said to the room at large, her voice as sharp as cactus thorn. “Enough of these games. I know you can hear me. You just get on out here and show yourself. You’re causing our girl here quite a bit of turmoil with your antics.”
And just like that, a rush of warm air blew past me, leaving a shimmery trail in its wake. Meemaw was back. Not that she’d ever left, because I was quite sure she hadn’t.
“Meemaw,” Nana said again, her tone sharp and annoyed. “You brought Harlow back. You got what you wanted. She’s here, but now it’s time to clear some things up.”
The pipes upstairs groaned and something clanked. It sounded like a wrench being hit against a metal drum. I dropped my hands and snapped my head up. This wasn’t my feisty great-grandmother. This was a haunting.
But Nana wasn’t about to be intimidated by a bunch of ghostly noises. “Stop that,” she barked. And everything went utterly silent.
“What’s happening?” I whispered, standing and moving toward Mama.
“This is your house and you have work to do,” Mama said. “We’re here to settle Loretta Mae down and get you some peace,” she said as she reached behind her to close and lock the door.
I pointed to the lavender plant she carried. “What’s that for?”
“I work with my strengths. Lavender promotes cooperation, love—of course I’m not using it for that right now—and harmony. I’m thinkin’ Meemaw’s a hair unsettled in her transitional state.”
I’d used my Scarlett O’Hara trick of not thinking about the fact that I’d be a ghost someday if what Mama and Nana said was true, but now all that anxiety crashed through me again. All the more reason I couldn’t possibly have a relationship with Will and get married anytime soon. Or a relationship with anyone else for that matter. I was almost a… a… a witch and just how was I supposed to keep that quiet? “That’s good,” I said, “because I could sure use some peace and harmony. Look at that gown.” I lifted my chin toward the workroom and to Libby’s dress, which I’d put on the pulley contraption. “And I’m working on one for Gracie Flores, now, too.”
“We’re the cavalry, darlin’,” Nana said. “You just have to holler and we’ll come a-runnin’. And sometimes we come a-runnin’ even if you don’t holler.”
Like now. Thank God for family. “How will lavender help?”
“I’m leaving this plant here. Now, you take care of it, you hear?” Mama walked past me and set it in the center of the dining table right across from my little computer table, the lavender blooms fragrant and abundant.
“I don’t have a green thumb—”
“But I do.” Little bit of an understatement, but I let it go. “It’ll be fine.” As if in response to her words, the stalks shimmied and swayed. The tiny flowers turned from a light to a vibrant royal purple.
I peaked out the window and sure enough, a cluster of weeds had grown in the flower bed by the front gate. “I’ll pull them as I leave,” Mama said, looking over my shoulder. “You just work on that dress.”
The shimmering trail that had lingered in the air gathered together as if someone were patting biscuit dough into a mound before flattening it out to cut into rounds. It began to spin, like a funnel cloud gathering strength; then, just like last time, we could suddenly see the faint image of a person—of Meemaw—take shape. Slowly, like steam evaporating from a mirror after a hot shower, she became clearer. I could make out details. First her blue jeans, then the snap buttons of her plaid cowgirl shirt. Next, the pointed toes of her cowboy boots, and finally, the streak in her hair, more pronounced than I remembered it being, but maybe being a ghost’ll do that to a person.