Color Me Bad: A Novella (5 page)

“So, thanks for the cake, y’all. George is at the shop by himself so I better hustle.”

Ruby kept working.

Rachel kept eating cake.

Patty June was already beyond worrying about public opinion and thinking about how many words she knew in the Italian language, all of which had to do with food. She didn’t think she was going to get far on marinara, linguine, and gelato. She needed to make a trip into Savannah and pick up an English-to-Italian dictionary.

Ruby kept working and time kept passing until she finally stepped back and eyed Patty June’s hair.

“Okay… that takes care of the color. You still up for that cut we talked about?”

“Yes, and make it sassy.”

Ruby laughed. “You’re the best, you know that?”

Patty rolled her eyes. “I doubt Conrad would agree with that. Obviously Bobbette had something I don’t.”

Vesta snorted. “Yeah, big, fat collagen lips. Smack, smack.”

The women’s eyes widened from the image that brought to mind and then they snickered.

Ruby picked up the scissors and swung the stylist chair away from the mirror so Patty couldn’t watch. She wanted her to get the full effect after she was done and not before.

Patty closed her eyes, imagining the snip, snip of the scissors cutting the last of her ties with her old life. When she walked out of there today, the preacher’s wife would be gone.

A short while later, Ruby grabbed the hair dryer and began styling the cut. Patty could tell it was significantly shorter and was suddenly anxious to see what Ruby had done.

Finally, the dryer went off. Ruby squirted some product onto her hands and then rubbed them together before combing her fingers through Patty’s hair a few times.

“I think that’s about it,” Ruby said, and spun the chair around. “Patty June Clymer, meet P. J. I think you two are gonna get along just fine.”

Patty’s eyes widened as a big smile spread across her face. Her hair was as black as the funeral parlor’s hearse and almost as short as the hair of the man who drove it. Ruby had spiked the very tips just enough to give her a windblown look.

“I love it,” Patty said, feeling the tips with the palms of her hands and giggling because they were stiff. “I can’t imagine what this is going to look like in the morning.”

Ruby laughed. “That’s the beauty of this style. A little product on your hands and your windblown look is good to go. It will make getting ready a breeze.”

Patty jumped out of the chair and gave Ruby a hug.

“Thank you for giving me such a cool look.”

“Honey, you wanted badass. You’ve got it.”

Patty stood. “Put me down for the same time next week, and then after that, I’ll be gone for a while.”

Now she had the attention of everyone in the shop, including Rachel, who was getting ready to leave.

“Where are you going?” Rachel asked.

Patty couldn’t even say it without grinning. “I’m going to Italy.”

“Oh my word, I would love to go to Italy,” Rachel said.

“How long are you going to be gone?” Vera asked.

Patty’s smile widened. “A month.”

They groaned, and then they squealed. The women were still talking about it when Patty June left.

She had purposefully parked a block away so that she could show off the new look, and it was working.

She saw people in the window at Granny’s Country Kitchen pointing and staring. She waved and kept walking. Myra was putting a new display in the window of the flower shop when Patty June passed. Patty tapped on the glass and waved, stifling a giggle when Myra looked up and dropped the bowl she was holding. Water splattered up her pant legs all the way to her knees as Patty kept walking.

By the time she got to the car, there was actually a line of people standing on the curb across the street, staring in disbelief. She knew the look would be shocking, but she was a little irked that they were so blatant. Impulsively, she pulled out her cell phone and took a picture of them. When they saw what she was doing, they scattered.

She snorted beneath her breath as she got in her car and drove away.
Big
bunch
of
cowards. They can dish it out, but they sure couldn’t take it
. Fine with her. She had a lot of thinking to do while she was gone, like what she was going to do with the rest of her life when she got back.

•••

Willa Dean Miller had not been home for lunch in ages. Partly because Harold’s insurance office was in what used to be their garage, which limited parking if he had customers, and partly because Harold always ate nearly everything at supper, so there was never anything left over for the next day to eat at noon. But Patty June’s offhand comment had planted a seed and Willa Jean was going home—just to make sure Harold wasn’t cheating on her, too.

When she turned the corner on their street, instead of driving all the way to the house, she parked in the middle of the block and began walking the rest of the way. A part of her felt silly for acting in such a suspicious manner. But she never would have believed Pastor Clymer would cheat on his wife and he had. This was something she had to do for herself, and Harold would never have to know.

The sun was warm on the top of her head. Her heels made little clip-clop sounds as she walked. A butterfly flitted across her line of vision on its way to the roses blooming on the other side of the street. Willa Dean had always admired those roses, but today their picture-perfect blooms were taking a backseat to the high-noon investigation.

Clip-clop, clip-clop went the heels of her shoes, marking off the distance to the front door of her house.

Mrs. Mason’s black and white cat was lying on the top step of her porch licking its balls. It was a bit unseemly, although Willa Jean supposed that could be excused because it was a dumb, four-footed animal. But she was in no frame of mind to be generous with the dumb two-footed kind.

Clip-clop, clip-clop, only a few more yards to go.

In a way, this was all Harold’s fault. If he hadn’t turned into such a cold fish, it would never have crossed her mind that he might be cheating.

“Yoo-hoo! Willa Dean! How y’all doin’?”

Willa Dean cringed. Her next-door neighbor had just walked out onto her porch.

That
Sue
Beamon
has
probably
been
watching
me
ever
since
I
got
out
of
the
car. Dang
nosy
woman.

“Hi, Sue. I’m just fine. Thank you for asking.”

“Did your car quit on you?” Sue called out.

Willa Dean frowned. If Sue didn’t shut the hell up, Harold would know his wife was coming and the sneak attack would be a bust.

“No. I’m walking for my health. See you later.”

Sue smiled and waved and went back inside, but Willa Dean knew she was still watching from behind the curtains.

Clip-clop, clip-clop.

The closer she got to her house, the faster her heart began to beat. What was she going to do if she found out something she didn’t like? She was honest enough to admit that it all came down to exactly what he was doing and how badly she still wanted to be a married woman.

There were no other cars in the driveway except Harold’s six-year-old Jeep, which meant he was home and probably didn’t have any clients in the office.

She dug the house key out of her purse as she went up the steps, and then opened the door and slipped inside. The moment she closed the door behind her, she stepped out of her shoes and then listened, trying to figure out where Harold might be.

She was certain he wasn’t in the kitchen eating lunch because she would have heard the clink of silverware against the dishes. It was a habit he had that drove her crazy—that and filling his bowl with dry cereal in the morning and then crushing it down with his hand so he could get more in the bowl before he poured in the milk. Absolutely disgraceful.

She took a few tentative steps toward his office, listening for the sound of computer keys clacking or the scratch of pen to paper, but it, too, was silent.

A door opened somewhere in the back of the house. When she heard the creak, she recognized it as the door in their bathroom. She’d been asking Harold to oil that thing for a week and he still hadn’t done it; little did he know it would become a homing beacon, like belling a cat. At least now she knew where he was. He had simply gone to the bathroom, and she was making a big deal out of nothing.

She was about to say hello and suggest they go to lunch at Granny’s Country Kitchen when she heard music. She frowned. “Moon River”? She hadn’t heard that in a good four years. It was the song they used to play back when they still had regular sex.

Her heart thumped. All of a sudden she was scared. Did she really want to see what was happening in her bedroom, or should she play dumb and go on with her life regardless? Then she thought of Patty June kicking her cheating husband out of the house and lifted her chin. Whatever will be, will be, she told herself, and tiptoed down the hall.

The door was ajar.

She could hear the sound of footsteps sliding across the hardwood, like someone was dancing, which would be weird—unless Harold wasn’t alone. She clenched her jaw and pushed the door open just enough to peek in.

Her heart stopped and then kicked against her rib cage so hard that she lost her breath. She slapped a hand over her mouth and backed up so fast she slipped and almost fell. By the time she got to the living room, she was shaking and breathless. She grabbed her shoes and purse, let herself out of the house, and ran all the way back to the car barefoot, well aware that Sue Beamon was probably watching.

It wasn’t until she got in the car that she let herself feel the shock of what she’d seen. She needed to get away before she came undone, but when she tried to get the key in the ignition, she kept dropping it. On the fourth drop, she beat her hands against the steering wheel and screamed.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Hearing herself curse was so startling that she finally got the car started and drove away. She drove all the way out of town without a destination in mind. What she wanted to do was hide, but she couldn’t. She had a decision to make and she needed to do it with a clear head.

When she was a teenager, Gray Goose Lake was the place where everyone used to go park and make out. She hadn’t been there in years, so it would be the last place anyone would ever go to look for her. She wheeled off the highway and took the blacktop down to the landing, then parked beneath a grove of shade trees and killed the engine.

Her heart was pounding as she opened the car door and got out. Then she did an about-face and staggered toward the back bumper and threw up until there was nothing coming up but dry heaves. When she finally quit, there was as much snot on her face as there were tears on her cheeks. She pulled the tail of her blouse out of her pants to wipe her face and blow her nose. It was not her finest move, but need required invention. Still barefoot, she headed toward the lake.

The water was so still that it looked like glass. Not a leaf was stirring, or even a blade of grass. It felt like everything was holding its breath, waiting to see what Willa Dean was going to do. She spread her jacket on the weathered wood and sat down, dangling her legs off the edge of the pier. A pair of wood ducks paddled by, and a big snapping turtle took offense at her presence and shoved off shore into the water and swam away. She looked down at the ripples it left behind, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

A thousand thoughts ran through her head, everything from confronting Harold with the truth, to jumping in and swimming toward the middle of the lake. She would be too tired to swim back and it wouldn’t be exactly like suicide, but it was still a cowardly way to die. Or, she could pretend she never saw what she saw. Did she have the guts to do that? Did she want to be Mrs. Harold Miller bad enough to lie to herself?

She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there, but when her cell phone began ringing, she guessed it had been too long. It was most likely Precious, wondering where she’d gone. She thought about not answering, but that would create its own set of issues. Willa Dean was known as a punctual woman, and the last thing she wanted was for her secretary to alert the local police and have them put out a bulletin listing her as missing. Then she would have to explain why she was hiding out at the lake, so she cleared her throat and answered the phone instead.

“Hello.”

“Uh, Willa Dean, it’s me, Precious. I didn’t remember you telling me you weren’t coming back this afternoon, so I got worried. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I should have called. Something came up. Just take names and numbers, and I’ll call them all back tomorrow.”

“Sure thing,” Precious said and disconnected.

Willa Dean had just told a lie and felt guilty. She wondered if that was how Harold felt when he turned his back on her in bed. Their relationship was a lie. The sorry bastard. Why had he bothered to get married if he didn’t want the life that came with it?

Her truth was an ugly one, but it did finally explain why the elastic in her panties kept wearing out so fast. Harold had at least forty pounds on her and was obviously squeezing his fat ass into them on something of a regular basis. Lord. All that hair and manly bulge spilling out from under her dainties! She’d probably die with that image burned into her brain. And that red lacy bra he’d been wearing. It wasn’t one of hers, which meant he’d actually gone to the trouble of buying his own, which offered yet another set of questions, like where the hell did he hide that stuff? Had to be in the office. That had always been off limits. Now she knew why.

Another thought shifted to the forefront. He’d been wearing makeup—her makeup. Damn it to hell, she spent good money on her makeup so her skin wouldn’t break out and he was smearing it on his whiskery stubble. She could brain him gladly for that alone.