Pleating for Mercy amdm-1 Page 12

  Chapter 23

  Zinnia James, one of the women who’d come into Buttons & Bows the day Nell had died, stood on the threshold of the French doors.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said.

  I looked past her, wondering why the bells on the door hadn’t chimed.

  She followed my gaze. “It was open.”

  Gracie hopped up. “I’ll get it.” She scurried past Mrs. James and pushed the door closed.

  Mrs. James spread her arms, palms up. “You are open?”

  I shook off the chill that had crept up my neck, hurrying to her and taking one of her hands in both of mine so she wouldn’t leave. “Oh, yes, of course!”

  The cool, papery feel of her skin made me take a closer look at her. She had a heavy hand with her makeup and her silver hair was styled in a big Texas ’do. I could see that she was actively working to stave off aging. The indentation of fine lines curved around both sides of her mouth and her eyes, but her skin pulled tight over her bones and her forehead was smoother than mine.

  A face-lift and Botox. I’d seen women far younger than Mrs. James have that frozen-in-time look, the skin so taut it looked unnatural. I didn’t know what Mrs. James had looked like before cosmetic surgery and treatment, but it felt like I was looking at a cloned version of her true self.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear you discussing Miriam Kincaid’s divorce. The first in the family, I believe,” she said.

  “Gracie was telling me about it. She’s friends with Holly Kincaid,” I said, wondering just how long Mrs. James had been standing there. “I was just curious why Miriam isn’t in her brother’s wedding and—”

  “That’s easy enough to answer,” she interrupted. “Keith Kincaid always had political aspirations, but he’s been too indiscreet over the years to run for office.”

  She came closer, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m going to let you both in on a little secret—as a senator’s wife, you know.”

  I did a mental head slap of realization. Of course. Her husband was longtime Republican Texas senator Jeb James. I knew she seemed familiar. I’d forgotten they lived in Bliss.

  Gracie stood wide-eyed, stock-still, and expectant, as if the secrets of the world were about to be revealed.

  “Squeaky clean before you get into office, that’s the golden rule. After you’re elected, you can do whatever you want. People are more reluctant to admit they were wrong once they’ve voted someone into office. They’re more willing to forgive, shall we say, indiscretions.”

  Mrs. James rattled on. “Lori hung her hopes on her children, but that was a losing proposition. Nate had no interest in politics. Derek’s a wild card—too unpredictable. And Miriam? Well, she was always the black sheep of the family. She tried to fit in by marrying that newmoney Dallas boy, Jim Dexter, which, as you know, didn’t work.

  “I suspect that Miriam’s walkout has nothing to do with Nate or his bride, and everything to do with retribution. Lori never hid how she felt about the divorce. In her world, if there are problems in a marriage, you turn a blind eye or deal with it behind closed doors. Addressing it in public isn’t an option. Nor is the dissolution of a marriage.”

  Her explanation left Nate and Josie as unintended casualties of passive-aggressive payback. It also made complete sense. Another thread I could mull over as I sewed through the night.

  “There is something else,” she said, turning to Gracie. “You’re Will Flores’s girl?”

  Gracie nodded. Mrs. James’s observations of her friend’s family had her looking a little unsteady.

  “I mean no offense by this, my dear, and believe me, the irony of what I’m about to say isn’t lost on me, but the same people who are willing to turn a blind eye to a public figure’s . . . extracurricular activities, shall we say?—and who are good, churchgoing folks—are often the first to deem another’s actions immoral.”

  Oh, boy, I didn’t like the sound of this. I was quickly learning that the senator’s wife was brutally honest—and blunt—not typical Southern attributes. Personally, I liked that about her, but the stab of anxiety in my gut had me wary. “Mrs. James—”

  “That you were born out of wedlock doesn’t bother some folks—”

  My brain hiccupped on Gracie’s birth, but it stopped working altogether when I saw the color drain from Gracie’s face.

  “—and while a political candidate can speak out for the homeless and stand up for health insurance, close personal relationships with reprobates are less than desirable.”

  Reprobates like Will Flores. From Gracie’s stare, I guessed she didn’t understand what Mrs. James was saying. Thankfully.

  But the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as the senator’s wife kept on. “An illicit affair resulting in a—”

  “Mrs. James,” I snapped.

  “—resulting in such a lovely girl as you, but nonetheless, outside of marriage vows, would not look good for the Kincaid family.”

  “Miriam isn’t Gracie’s mother,” I said.

  “Makes no difference in the eyes of the righteous. Miriam Kincaid involved with someone like William Flores—”

  Gracie sprang off the stool. “My dad’s not reprobative or . . . or whatever you said!”

  “Simmer down, child,” Mrs. James said, waving her hand as if she were fanning a flame. “Of course he’s not. I’m merely alerting you of how some people think.” She shot a pointed look my way. “You know what I mean, Harlow, dear, don’t you? Being related to Butch Cassidy and all. Talk about reprobates.”

  I blinked, my tongue frozen in my mouth. Not many people were direct about the less than reputable side of Butch Cassidy and his Hole-in-the-Wall Gang—and my family’s connection to them. I had to give Mrs. James credit. She didn’t play games or beat around the bush like so many Southerners did. “We like to focus on the good in my great-great-great-granddaddy.”

  She gave a solemn nod. “He did leave quite a legacy with the Cassidy women, didn’t he?”

  This time I felt the color drain from my face. If people didn’t often talk about Butch Cassidy, they talked less about the charms his descendants were rumored to possess. First Madelyn Brighton had confronted me on the family magic, and now Mrs. James alluded to it. Was there no more subtle pretending in Bliss?

  Mrs. James turned back to Gracie. “Knowledge is power. Your daddy is a fine man, and he’s done right by you. It’s not every man who would sacrifice everything to raise his child by himself.”

  Any thought about my family’s charms flew out of my head. What had Mrs. James said about Will? Sacrifice everything and raise his child . . . alone?

  My heart went out to Gracie. Her insistence that a mother should be there for her daughter hadn’t been indignation over Mrs. Kincaid and Miriam. It must have stemmed from her deepest desire to have her own mother with her, something Meemaw had known wasn’t likely to happen.

  This is why Meemaw had bargained with Will. She wanted me to have a relationship with this girl, to be that woman she could talk to, just as Mama and Nana and Meemaw had always been there for me. She wanted her safe in the cocoon of 2112 Mockingbird Lane.

  Gracie didn’t blink, didn’t move, hardly breathed. “My dad says my mom blew right out of Bliss like a hurricane. She only came back so she could hand me over to him.”

  Mrs. James considered Gracie thoughtfully. “Her loss,” she said.

  I’d been in Gracie’s shoes. My father had left my mother when she was six months pregnant with me, when he discovered her gift. His first and only thought was that she was a witch and from that moment on, he’d wanted nothing to do with her—or me. He’d run straight for the hills and had never looked back.

  Mama maintained I was all Harlow and Cassidy and had no part of my father’s lineage. Tristan Walker had left Bliss behind. I was well adjusted, but even at thirty-three I thought about him, wondered if I had even a sliver of him left in me. Sometimes I longed for the wisdom a father might give his
daughter, but if I let myself think about it for too long, an ache began to grow within me until I could taste the hole.

  My hand brushed against Gracie’s and I could almost feel the barriers she had in place to protect her heart.

  “My father left before I was born,” I said quietly. “I’ve never met him.”

  She linked her fingers with mine and whether she knew it or not, we were initiated into a secret sisterhood all our own at that moment. Mrs. James noticed, and nodded.

  “My mom hasn’t been back in a while, but she’s due for a visit real soon,” Gracie said.

  The words were colored with hope.

  Mrs. James cleared her throat. “I should leave. I don’t want to interrupt the two of you any more than I have.”

  Gracie grabbed Mrs. James’s hand. “No. Please stay.”

  “But you’re working . . .”

  I waved away her concern. “It’s fine. We’re getting ready to do the bridesmaid fittings.”

  “Of course. I was here the day you were meeting with the bridal party.” She glanced at the dress form that held the very beginnings of Josie’s gown. “I can’t imagine who could have done such a horrible thing to that poor girl.”

  “Did you know Nell?”

  “Oh, no. I’d seen her around, of course, but no, I didn’t know her.” Her perfectly preserved, immobile face clouded. “But there is something . . .”

  My ears perked up. My impression of Mrs. James was that she was a smart senator’s wife who knew what she wanted and was rarely at a loss for words. Not so at this moment. She trailed off, patting her silvery hair, sighing in frustration.

  “About Nell?”

  “Mmm-hmm. I came here to see . . . That is, something she said that day . . .”

  “Something Nell said?”

  “Yes, yes. Something she said that day . . . well, quite frankly, it’s been bothering me. Though,” she added, “it may be nothing.” She hemmed and hawed another few seconds before fluttering her hand. “Sometimes my mind doesn’t work the way I expect it to, you know.” She gave a self-conscious laugh. “An unhappy consequence of growing older.”

  “If it’s about Nell, maybe you should go to the sheriff—”

  “No, no. He might just laugh me out of the office.”

  “Oh.” My hope deflated. I glanced at the clock. Karen and Ruthann were late, which meant they really would be here any second. “What is it, Mrs. James?”

  Her nervous fluttering tapered off as she drew in a bolstering breath. “Nell Gellen lied, my dear,” she stated very matter-of-factly. “She stood right here in this room and lied. I’d bet my life on it.”

  Chapter 24

  “Nell lied—” she said again. “And now she’s dead.”

  “Okay,” I said, “people lie. But whatever she lied about, it’s bothering you. You can’t ignore that. It’s like my grandmother always says. You can’t ignore the girls in the attic.”

  Her mouth twitched into a small grin. “Does she still say that?”

  I nodded. “Which means, don’t ignore your intuition.”

  She shuffled a low-heeled foot against the floor, then sighed, making up her mind to speak. “Yesterday, when the bridal party was here, Lori Kincaid talked to Miss Sandoval and the bridesmaids about shopping in Fort Worth. Do you recall?”

  It was imprinted in my memory. Mrs. Kincaid had tried to pull the rug right out from under my feet. “I remember.”

  “She asked if they’d been to a restaurant called Reata—”

  “Right.” It felt like Gracie and I had breathed in every bit of air and were holding it in our lungs as we waited.

  “Nell said she’d never been,” Mrs. James continued, “but the thing is, I saw her there not too long ago.”

  I exhaled. Loudly. “She probably thought Mrs. Kincaid was talking about someplace else.”

  She wagged her finger. “I don’t think so. The name of the restaurant was repeated several times. Someone said it was at Sundance Square. She knew. In fact, I swear I could see it in her eyes.”

  I decided to play devil’s advocate, even though I was beginning to wonder if Mrs. James was a little bit dotty in the head. “Okay, so you saw Nell at Reata at Sundance Square,” I repeated, “but she’d said she hadn’t been there. Why does that bother you?”

  “Think about it a moment, Harlow Jane.”

  And bam!, the lightbulb went off over my head. I also saw Gracie out of the corner of my eye. Oh, God. Was it even okay for her to be hearing all of this? “How old are you, Gracie?”

  “Fifteen. And I’m old enough to know what’s going on,” she said, hands on her hips. “My dad says knowledge is power.”

  “He’s not the only one, so he’s in good company, then,” Mrs. James said.

  “Well?” she demanded. “Why does it bother you? Did you see who she was with?”

  Mrs. James shook her head, tapping her temple with the pad of her index finger. “I have glasses but prefer not to wear them. Pride and beauty trump age, you know.”

  Not for me. Like a Pavlovian response, my finger immediately pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose.

  “I was close enough to be fairly certain it was her. When I heard her say she’d never been to Reata, I started doubting myself, but the more thought I’ve given it, the more I’m sure it was her. Unfortunately, whoever she was meeting was already seated and too far away for me to see. But now . . .”

  Gracie gasped. “But now what?”

  “But now,” I said, finishing Mrs. James’s sentence, “it’s pretty clear she was with someone she shouldn’t have been with.”

  Mrs. James touched a finger to her nose. “Exactly.”

  The sound of Gracie sliding buttons across the hardwood floor was like steady rain on the roof. One by one, she plucked them off the floor and dropped them with a ping into the jar.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told her, following the senator’s wife into the front room.

  Instead of going to the front door, Zinnia James headed straight to the display wall of my designs. “You’re quite talented.”

  She wasn’t a celebrity, but I’d take it. A politician’s wife, especially a fashion-conscious one, was a close second. “Thank you.”

  “Your great-grandmother talked about you all the time, you know. She missed you something fierce. She was convinced you belonged here. No—that you were needed here.”

  Instinctively, I looked around the room, hoping for a sign that Meemaw was around, but all was still. “She said that? That I was needed?”

  Zinnia James nodded solemnly. “She said New York wasn’t a good fit for you.”

  I hadn’t ever admitted it out loud—possibly I hadn’t ever admitted it even to myself—but with every minute I spent back in Bliss, I knew this was where I belonged. I wasn’t wired for the high stress and fast pace of Manhattan. “She was right.”

  “She usually was,” Mrs. James said with a chuckle.

  “I didn’t realize you knew my great-grandmother that well.”

  She gave me an affectionate smile. “Oh, goodness, yes, everyone knew Loretta Mae. But I was actually friends with your grandmother in school. And of course there was the Margaret Festival. We were in it together.”

  I gaped. “Really? Nana was a Margaret?” Bliss was famous—or infamous, depending on the source—for its annual Margaret Moffette Lea Pageant and Ball. The debutantes were called Margarets after Margaret Moffette Lea herself. She’d been the third wife to Texas’s favorite son, Sam Houston, former president of the Republic of Texas, back when Texas tried to be its own country. She’d become a respected first lady of the state when he’d been governor, though being shy, she’d probably roll over in her grave at the celebration we’d created in her name.

  “Reluctantly,” she said, “but yes, she was. You should have seen her gown. Spectacular. I spent my fair share of time right here in this house.”

  I’d spent my whole childhood here, but I’d never seen hide nor hair of Zinnia J
ames visiting Nana when I was growing up. Or a pageant gown fit for a Margaret.

  She continued, as if she’d read my mind. “We had a little . . . falling-out. I remember it to the very hour of the very day it happened.” Her voice took on a hint of regret. “We both had a crush on the same young man. We said we’d never let it break up our friendship, and I think we both meant it, but then he asked her to homecoming instead of me. I’m ashamed to admit it now, but jealousy reared its ugly head.”

  “You and Nana liked the same boy?”

  She laughed, nodding. “Hard to believe, looking at us now.”

  Yes, it was. She’d ended up with a good-ol’-boy politician and my grandmother had married a cowboy and talked to goats. I couldn’t imagine the type of man who would attract them both.

  “When he asked her to marry him, well, that was it. We haven’t spoken since.”

  I stared and poked my finger in my ear. Had I heard her right? “You were in love with my grandfather?”

  She nodded sheepishly. “I got over him, of course. Jeb and I are quite happy. But, yes, Wood Jenkins was my first love.”

  “And you and Nana never made up?”

  “It was one of those touchy situations. When Coleta tried, I wasn’t ready. When I tried, she wasn’t ready. Loretta Mae acted as a go-between once or twice, but it just never quite worked.”

  I couldn’t believe I’d never heard this story. Did Mama know her father had had two women fighting over him? “Wow. Meemaw was right.”

  “About what?”

  “Every day, you learn something you never knew before. The day you don’t is the day you die.”

  “Things happen for a reason,” Mrs. James said. “I do believe that. And I think Coleta and I will reconnect one day. Loretta Mae believed it would happen.”

  “If Meemaw wanted you and Nana to be friends again, it will happen. Trust me on that.”

  “Oh, believe me, I do,” she said with a little laugh. “Now, I did come here for a reason.” She pointed to the display board. “I want to commission a gown. The senator and I are hosting a fund-raising event. It’s not until late summer, but I wanted to make sure I’m on your calendar.”