What the . . .
I blinked and looked around. It sounded like someone was in the office with me, but I was totally alone.
“It’s super pretty,” someone else said.
Glancing around, I noted a vent centered on the scarred wall. Directly on the other side of the wall was the showroom that featured some of the vintage quilts and silk drapes imported from France. Minutes ago, I had noticed Julie Van Ness and her eternal sidekick, Bo Dixie Ferris, walk into Printemps. Both women were friends of mine, but not friend friends. More like the kind of friends with whom I might dangle a glass of wine at a party and talk about how amazingly the soccer coach filled out his Umbro shorts. Julie didn’t work beyond doing Junior League stuff, and Bo Dixie wrote a gossip column for the local society page.
Yeah, page.
There was only one page in the shrinking Shreveport Daily dedicated to those who attended fundraisers and threw darling wedding showers. Probably because only a handful of people cared . . . and they were the ones throwing the parties.
I shouldn’t eavesdrop. Such a low thing, eavesdropping. But I was no angel, and those two were infamous for having the skinny on anyone and everyone within a hundred-mile radius. What would it hurt? Plus, I couldn’t help that the vent allowed me to overhear their conversation. Total happenstance.
“Nancy Parrington found a vintage dress here and wore it to the Dallas Symphony Derby. Everyone raved. I think something like that would be perfect to wear to cotillion this year. Or my cousin’s engagement party this fall. Or maybe something to take to San Francisco for Shaun’s conference,” Julie said.
I gave a fist pump. The display of luscious dresses, jaunty hats, and even vintage shoes had been a hunch and a secret project of mine. Period dramas on streaming television services had given modern women a peek at how gorgeous dresses once were, making them more desirable, and I had spent half a year finding the designer gems I had in my collection. Nancy had fallen in love with a soft-yellow Balenciaga and declared she’d send more people to Printemps to “upcycle.” I murmured a silent thank-you to my mother’s best friend.
“You already have your cotillion dress. Besides, Nancy’s old.”
I made a face. Bo Dixie should stick to bad write-ups of Mardi Gras balls . . . not fashion. Nancy’s sense of style was timeless and flawless.
“True. But maybe I want something unique for the California trip. What about this?”
“Ugh, you’d look like someone off The Crown. It’s stuffy,” Bo Dixie said. And who listened to Bo Dixie, anyway? She dressed like she was in high school. “All I’m saying is don’t settle. You need something fabulous because you-know-who will be in San Francisco.” The last part Bo Dixie sang in a gleeful voice.
“Shush, Bo,” Julie whisper-shouted.
“Oh, come on, no one’s in here.”
I sat back, feeling a little guilty but very curious about you-know-who in San Francisco. Didn’t sound like it had anything to do with Julie’s husband. Maybe it was an opportunity. Julie had been making noise about being an influencer. She, unlike Bo Dixie, had a head for business and a nose for style.
“Can I help you ladies find anything?” Ruby asked, her tone sounding like she’d rather help them find the door.
“No, thanks. We know what we like,” Julie said.
Silence for a few seconds.
“Okay, then. Enjoy looking around. If you have any questions . . .” Ruby didn’t finish the thought. Her voice wasn’t unkind, just . . . something. Like she knew these two were mean girls.
“What in the hell is Cricket thinking letting someone with a nose ring and tats work here? Her grandmother would roll over in her grave,” Bo Dixie said.
I had just written “hanging file folders” on my list, but hearing my name made me pause.
Julie laughed. “Cricket’s grandmother housed women of ill repute in her house on Piermont. I don’t think she would disapprove. Now, her mother . . . that’s another story. She’d fire that one on the spot.”
“And her daddy wouldn’t disapprove, either. You know he went plumb crazy and ran off with a stripper.”
I glared at the wall as if I could see Bo Dixie. That woman better thank her stars I wasn’t Clark Kent, or she’d be toast.
Gossip was the king of sports in Shreveport, and my daddy had been the talk of the town twenty-five years ago. Of course, now he lived in Florida with that very stripper and, if I were totally honest, was much happier than he’d ever been running the family-owned insurance company. I got along with Crystalle and her silly Pomeranian just fine now, but my father’s midlife crisis had hurt me for a long time. Lotsa therapy there.
“Poor Cricket,” Bo Dixie said. “And now the same thing’s happening to her.”
I froze.
Wait . . . what?
“You know Scott has to be cheating. He’s like a dog on a scent around Steph. It’s almost sad,” Bo Dixie continued.
Scott? Wait . . . my Scott?
“True. And I heard from Ron Meyer that Steph gives professional-level blow jobs. I bet Cricket has never hit her knees,” Julie said.
A Mack truck slammed into me.
Blink. Of. An. Eye.
I stumbled backward, smacking my elbow on the doorframe. Nerve-tingling pain shot up my arm. I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. Or stop the vomit rising in my throat. My other hand clutched the material over my heart.
My husband was . . . getting blown?
By a Steph? Who was Steph?
Wait, I knew a ton of Stephanies, but they were all milquetoast women who would never mess with my husband. Or at least I didn’t think they would. But who really knew the people they talked to at bake sales or committee meetings? Someone could pray out of the same mouth she . . . she . . .
I couldn’t even think it.
“Ohmygod, this dress is perfect,” Julie said, as if the words she’d uttered about my husband were no big deal. Of course, she didn’t know I was standing on the other side of the wall trying to hold together the heart shredded by the bomb she’d tossed.
“I love that dress!” Bo Dixie squealed. “It looks just like something they wear on Mad Men. If you don’t want it, maybe I could—”
“You don’t wear a size six.”
“No shit. I wear a size two. But it can be altered,” Bo Dixie laughed.
I backed out of the closet, Julie’s and Bo Dixie’s voices fading as I zombie-walked to the kitchen, mind blown, stomach lurching, heart beating in my ears.
Scott wasn’t cheating.