“That’s okay,” I said. “Well, you know, except for almost getting killed. Twice. It was a small price to pay for Daddy’s Harpies membership,” I added sarcastically.
“You’re a good girl, Carly Bell,” Mama said, and I wasn’t sure she understood I’d been kidding.
“In light of all that’s happened lately,” she went on, “I think it might be wise for me to postpone that lunche—”
“Praise be!” my daddy yelled.
“—that luncheon,” my mama went on, her voice tight, “until a more suitable time. You’re invited, of course. Dylan, too, on account that his mama will be there.”
I wasn’t sure that was an enticement for him any longer. “I think I’m busy that day,” I said.
“You don’t even know wha— Hell’s bells! The pair of you. It’s a wonder I love either of you so much.” She hung up.
Smiling, I hung up, too.
I walked back into the living room. “Seems my daddy is the newest member of the Harpies.”
Dylan looked ill.
Delia started laughing.
Ainsley said, “I’ll pray for him,” then glanced at the clock. “Shoot. I can’t stay, but before I go will you please try on the dress?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Really?”
“Yes, yes,” she said. “I want to see you in it.”
“Me, too,” Delia said.
Dylan smiled and nodded.
It seemed like such a Eulalie thing to do in the middle of the afternoon that the thought made me smile. “Okay, then. I think I will.”
“Need help with it?” Delia asked, already passing Boo off to Dylan.
“Sure,” I said. “The zipper up the side isn’t the easiest to manage on my own.”
Dylan raised an eyebrow. “I could have helped.”
“Too late,” Delia said, pushing me up the steps.
When we reached my room, she closed the door, and said, “Tell me everything. Talk quick.”
As I changed, I told her of my conversation with Patricia, and how I’d left things with her.
“Do you think she’ll tell him?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. I hope so. She’s been essentially lying to him for thirty years. That’s going to be a hard thing for her to admit.”
She zipped me up. “Especially for Patricia. In her mind telling him the truth now means admitting to herself that she might have been wrong keeping it from him all these years.”
“Yes,” I said softly, thinking of how Mr. Dunwoody had thought the same thing.
Patricia can’t abide being wrong.
“Wow,” Delia breathed when she walked in front of me. “Ainsley did an incredible job.”
“I want to see,” I said, brushing past her to look in my full-length mirror. My breath caught when I saw my reflection. The dress was perfection, but there was something else I noticed. It was as though Patricia telling me why she’d been so terrible to me had released a heavy burden. Knowing so brought me peace and that shone in my eyes.
“You’re so pur-ty,” Delia sang, nudging me with her elbow. She grabbed a brush and a hair clip, and in no time flat had my hair whipped into some semblance of an updo.
I smiled at our reflections, at how far we’d come in our lives, at the friendship we’d forged.
Choices.
She smiled back.
“Carly!” Ainsley yelled up the stairs. “I ain’t got all day.”
Laughing, I said, “I think that’s our cue.”
As we headed for the door, I took one last peek in the mirror and said, “You know, I never did ask you how you knew that mirror trick yesterday. The one you used on Haywood at Avery’s house.”
“A ghost taught me.”
She didn’t sound happy about it.
I set my hand on her arm. “What happened?”
Shaking her head, she said, “Let’s just say that you’re not the only one who’s had a bad experience with a ghost.”
“Delia.”
She smiled a faint smile. “It’s okay. I learned from it. And now I use it to help other ghosts from time to time. Even though sometimes there’s a bad ghost in the bunch, they help me more than I could ever help them. Seeing them cross over fills my soul. Feeds my heart. It’s what I was trying to explain to you the other day.”
“Just so you know, I learned the lesson.” I gave her a hug. “You’re a good teacher.”
Her blue eyes filled with happiness. “Does that mean you’ll help next year?”
“It’s a date.”
“Carly!” Ainsley yelled. “Don’t make me come up there.”
Delia held open the door. “I’m holding you to that. Don’t think you can back out a couple of days before, planning to lock yourself inside your house and whatnot. I’ll drag you out. Don’t think I won’t. I’ll do it.”
I laughed. “My mama’s rubbing off on you.”
As we headed down the steps, she laughed. “Maybe so.”
I came off the last step and held my arms wide and twirled.
Ainsley gasped. “As I live and breathe, Carly Bell. As I live and breathe. You look like you belong atop a wedding cake.”
Dylan slowly stood, his mouth agape. I caught his eye, and he smiled.
Oh Lordy, that smile.
“It does look a little bit like a wedding dress, doesn’t it?” Delia asked. “Perfect for a destination wedding—don’t you think, Dylan?”