I couldn’t start now.
“But it was her who was driving when Andy’s body got crushed and his skull got fractured right along with it. And the only thing good that came out of that was that she was incarcerated for eight months for drunk driving and I could get myself declared his guardian. So I know what life is like. I know what’s worth fighting for. And I know from what I’ve learned that I should just take the good of a nice guy looking after me when I get caught up in his life drama at the same time he offers me the best thing he can right now. Keeping me out of that drama.”
I lifted a hand and touched her arm before dropping it.
“I love that you want good for me, Lou,” I said softly. “What you need to get is that I’ve got the only brand of that I’m ever gonna get, and after all that’s gone before, I’m good with that.”
“Maybe you should meet Mrs. Swanson’s Owen,” she muttered.
I grinned at her. “How about I just keep hold on what I’ve got. My mom and whatever this is with Hix and Hope Drake notwithstanding, I like it. A great job. A great house.” I gave her a big smile. “Good friends. It’s awesome here. A quiet town. Good people in it. Peaceful. Nice. Folks look after folks. Things are simple. This Hope thing will blow over and those two will move on however they’re gonna move on. And I’ve already decided I’m done with Mom. She may be more stubborn than I expect, but I figure, the Greta Money Bank dries up, she’ll slither out just like she slithered in.” I lifted my shoulders in another shrug. “And then it’ll all be just peaceful, quiet, nice. Simple.”
“Want more for you, babe.”
At that, I laughed a little bit and kept smiling at her after I was done.
“I wasn’t being funny,” she told me.
“I know, sweetheart,” I replied. “The thing is, what I have is more. It’s the best I’ve ever had. Yes, even better than when I was with Keith because that was always shadowed by what he wanted that I couldn’t give him, all he was giving me that I couldn’t give back and me terrified when he’d figure out that I wasn’t worth it. I’m happy. So you don’t have to want more for me, Lou. I’ve got all I need.”
“I still want more for you.”
“Of course you do, you’re my friend. That’s your job,” I returned. “But right now, I want chicken tenders from the Harlequin, and if I don’t get them soon, they’ll get cold while I’m doing hair. They’re good cold, but they’re better hot.”
Lou, being Lou—that was a really good friend—let it go because she got that I needed her to.
“That’s my order too. And curly fries.”
“Like you have to say that,” I muttered, turning back to the shelves.
Lou turned to the door.
As I grabbed what I needed, she called my name.
I looked over my shoulder at her.
“I know you won’t like hearing it, but the life you’re willing to settle for being so much less than you deserve, it breaks my heart, Greta.”
My heart thumped hearing her say that.
Then she walked through the door and it closed behind her.
At seven thirty that night, I rolled my black, boxy, traveling beauty case with its steel edges up Mrs. Whitney’s front walk.
As always, she had the door open and was standing in it, waiting for me before I had to heft the case up the five cement steps that sat halfway up the path and led to the short walk to her door.
“You always have the prettiest outfits,” she told me when I got close. “You even make a shirt and jeans look like it’s walkin’ down a New York City sidewalk.”
“And you always have the sweetest things to say,” I replied.
Her eyes dropped to my feet. “But I have no idea how you wear those heels, standin’ on your feet all day.”
“Practice,” I shared.
“Come in, darlin’,” she invited, moving out of my way as I pulled open her screen door. “You had dinner?”
And she always asked if I’d had dinner.
So I gave her the answer I always gave her.
“I’ll get something when I get home.”
“Got chops and mash,” she said. “They’re still warm.”
“Thanks, Mrs. W, but I eat heavy at lunch and light at dinner.”
“All right, Greta, come in, come in.” She scooted me in through her foyer but stopped us right there. “Just gonna go look in on the mister.” Her faded blue eyes caught mine. “And I’ll have to do it again after the set, darlin’.”
“I know, Mrs. W. It’s all good. I’ll go in and get set up.”
She gave me a small smile and headed up the stairs.
I headed into the kitchen.
She came in and I washed her hair while she leaned over her kitchen sink then I sat her in a chair at the table and started my work.
“So, what’s happening in Glossop that I need to know about?” she asked.
She was probably the only woman in town who didn’t know just what that was.
This was because “the mister,” her husband, was upstairs on life support and had been since he’d had a heart attack three years ago that stopped oxygen from going to his brain.
They’d revived his body.
They couldn’t revive the rest of him.
And she didn’t have the heart to pull the plug or the insurance to keep him in a hospital bed.
She also loved him so much, she refused to leave him, terrified he’d slip away when she wasn’t around. She went to the grocery store once a week. And Pastor Keller came to her on Sunday afternoons to pray with her.
And every two weeks, I did a wash and set.
She had other friends who visited here and there.
And she had a sleeping husband who would never wake and she’d never stop taking care of him in a bed upstairs.
It was beautifully sweet. It was tremendously sad.
It was life.
I gave her the lowdown on what I knew, including my mother, not including Hixon and Hope Drake.
“I sure hope your momma doesn’t bring her trash into the House of Beauty,” she murmured when I was done.
“She will, Mrs. W. But I’m learning that’s her way and it doesn’t have to change the way I do things.”
“She did what she did to my brother that she did to yours, darlin’,” she started quietly, “don’t think I’d be givin’ her money all these years.”
I thought about the man I’d never seen upstairs and whispered, “Yes, you would.”
She thought on that a second and whispered back, “Reckon you’re right.”
I felt the need for a subject change, for both of us.
“You want, week after next, I’ll get you an appointment with Lou at the salon. You can go on in and I’ll clear my schedule to be here for the mister,” I offered, not for the first time.
“Oh, child, that’s sweet. But maybe it ain’t right to leave Burt with a stranger. I’m sure he’ll like the look a’ you, say he wakes up. But once he gets over that, he’ll still be wondering where I am.”
He wouldn’t wake up, couldn’t. His brain was more gone than Andy’s.
Yet more evidence it was futile to hope.
Even so, for the first time, I pushed, “Maybe Pastor Keller will come sit with him.”
“I don’t think so, Greta. But you’re a good girl and it sure is nice you’d offer.”