“It’s lovely, Harlow,” Mrs. James shouted above the drill. The grating sound stopped as she added, “Just lovely,” her voice loud in the suddenly quiet room.
Will holstered his drill, starting down the ladder as Mrs. James lowered her voice and turned to her granddaughter. “Libby, what do you think?”
“I love it!” Gracie gushed. “That color is totally perfect for you.”
Libby’s cheeks turned rosy and a little dimple dented the left side of her face as she smiled slightly. Her lips parted when she looked back at the gown. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked to me like a mix of thrill and nerves on her face. “I—I like it,” she said, lightly touching the sky blue silk with the pads of her fingertips. “A lot.”
Mrs. James pulled me aside as the girls looked at the detail work on the gown and Will packed up his tools for the day. “Sorry you didn’t make it to see me yesterday,” she said. One side of her mouth lifted and she smiled. Her face looked rather worn and wrinkled. She was usually fresh as a daisy, as Meemaw would say, but not today.
“Oh, well…” I trailed off, hoping she wouldn’t press me. I didn’t want to tell her I’d overheard the argument she’d had.
“It’s a good thing,” she continued. “The workmen brought a runway instead of a stage extension, if you can believe it. Completely wrong. They’ll be replacing it in a day or two.”
I heaved a Texas-sized sigh. “Oh, good. A runway!” I said, throwing all my effort into pretending I hadn’t seen the catwalk. “That wouldn’t have worked at all.” I drew in a bolstering breath. Now was as good a time as any to broach the subject of Gracie participating in the festival. “Mrs. James,” I said quietly, “Gracie was thinking she might like to be a Margaret. I know it’s late, but I was hoping…”
I’d spoken softly so no one else would hear me, and I didn’t see Will’s ears perk or his attention shift from his toolbox, but I sensed that he was suddenly focused on hearing Mrs. James’s response.
The senator’s wife didn’t bat an eyelash. “It is late, but for you, Harlow, anything. We’ll have to work her in, and of course she’ll need a gown and an escort. We don’t have an entrance fee, of course, but there is the donation.”
I felt my eyes glaze as she rattled off a few more stipulations. Being a Margaret was serious business.
Will’s shoulders had relaxed and he’d gone back to packing up his tools. His daughter was in the pageant.
Mrs. James wrapped up with me. “Come by the club tomorrow. If Gracie is going to be a Margaret, I’ll need your help reorganizing the lineup and writing her pedigree. Not that it matters a lick, but rules are rules. First thing, say, eight o’clock?”
I forced a smile. I didn’t think it would be hard to add a girl to the roster, but Mrs. James was not the type of person you argued with. She had certain expectations and when she said jump, people were expected to ask, “How high?”
So while I wanted to say, “I really should concentrate on Libby’s dress… and now I have Gracie’s to make too,” instead I tried not to let my shoulders sag, and said, “See you bright and early.”
Chapter 4
July in North Texas is no picnic. It was only seven forty-five in the morning, but the heat index was already at the extreme-caution level. The humidity didn’t help. The second I walked outside, the moisture clung to my skin. My curly hair, pulled up into my standard ponytails on either side of my head, instantly frizzed. And I was one hundred percent positive that I was melting from the inside out.
There was nothing to do but grin and bear it. I knew it took a season for a body to acclimate to a region’s weather patterns and I’d been back in Bliss for only a few months. I grabbed a bottle of water before climbing into my ancient pickup truck, formerly owned by my great-grandmother and recently brought back to working order by Bubba of Bubba Murphy’s repair shop. The one thing Bubba didn’t fix was the air conditioner, which meant I’d look like a drowned rat by the time I got where I was going. Far from swanky country club material, but I’d been summoned by Mrs. James. Enough said.
I opened the window as I drove, but only hot air blew over me. By the time I’d made the thirteen-mile drive to the Bliss Country Club, the blond streak in my hair, a trait all the Cassidy women shared, had broken free from its restraints and hung limply down the side of my face. I did my best to tuck it back into place.
The parking lot was bursting, but only a handful of golfers were on the course. Maybe they’d all woken up with the roosters and were already on the back nine. But the second I stepped inside the air-conditioned lobby of the club and heard the hushed and agitated undertones of the people milling around, I knew the back nine wasn’t seeing all the action; every golfer in town appeared to be right here. Seeking refuge from the heat and humidity? Possibly, but the knot in my gut was telling me that something else was going on.
The whispering seemed to stop as I pushed through the throng of people toward the ballroom. Was it my imagination, or was everyone looking at me, and not in a Look, it’s the dressmaker, Harlow Cassidy, and isn’t she an icon of fashion? way, but in a Let’s give her a wide berth like you’d give one of the Salem witches kind of way.
Like day-old pea soup, the crowd thickened at the doorway to the ballroom. “Excuse me,” I repeated over and over, finally bursting through the choked entrance. The room, complete with the monstrous catwalk, looked just like it had when I’d been here with Josie. Except that the runway lights blazed. Odd, since it was so early.
I’d worn slacks this morning—not my usual clothing choice, but the club had a dress code. I’d done my share of rule-breaking as a kid. Now I was strictly a by-the-book kind of gal.
In and out, that was my goal. I wanted to get back to the shop, work on Libby’s dress, fit Gracie for hers, and ponder the ripped gown from Meemaw’s old armoire.
Mrs. James was nowhere in sight. Peering at the stage, I spotted my sewing bag, just where I’d set it down and forgotten it. It had been knocked over, the contents spilled out onto the stage. When no one was looking, I climbed onto the catwalk and was just ready to scurry down it when a voice called from behind.
“Ms. Cassidy.”
I spun around. Everyone seemed to be staring, but I couldn’t see who’d actually called me. A thread of anxiety slithered through my veins. From the moment I’d walked into the club, I’d felt like something strange was definitely going on, but now I was beginning to think it had something to do with me.
Paranoia? Being a Cassidy meant people had always looked at me like I might be about to cast a spell on them, but this… this felt different. Less cautious suspicion and more morbid curiosity.
I started down the runway, stopping short when I heard my name again. “Harlow Cassidy?”
This time when I turned around, the runway lights were like a spotlight and Rebecca Quiñones, reporter for channel 8 news, looked up at me from the end of the catwalk. She held a microphone at her side, her navy skirt and cream-colored blouse were crisp and unwrinkled, and her slick black hair was a ribbon of silk flowing down her back. I thought of my own limp hair and wondered how she withstood the brutality of the weather. “I’d like to ask you a few questions,” she said.