Love Drunk Cowboy (21 page)

“Good luck,” Rye said.

The days went by like a blur to Austin until Friday when it started raining early that morning. Felix showed up on her porch to tell her that they couldn’t plant in the rain and the fields would be gumbo the rest of the day. He said he and the guys would be in the big implement barn down by the hog pens if she needed them. They’d use the day to service the tractor engines and make sure everything was oiled, greased, and ready to go on Monday if the rain stopped.

Austin packed all morning, stopping only long enough to heat up a can of tomato soup and make a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. She talked to Rye as he drove home twice during the morning and he called again while she was eating.

She loved sharing news of the watermelon planting, what she’d found out that day about making wine, and everything in her life… except Tulsa. Neither of them brought up the fact that this would be her last weekend in Terral. She banished that thought and let her mind go to the date they had that night. She’d think about leaving when the time came and not let it ruin today.

After she ate she took a quick shower, donned her black suit and high heels, and took the time to straighten her hair. When she looked in the mirror she was looking at a stranger.

“This is the real me,” she told her reflection. “I’ve gotten too damned comfortable in that farmer Jane look. And I look forward to Rye’s calls three to ten times a day entirely too much. Leaving here on Sunday is going to be horrid.”

She drove to Ryan in her Corvette, did the banking, and sent the guys’ paychecks to their families, put their spending money into envelopes, and made it to the drugstore by two o’clock. Molly and Greta were waiting at the first table beside the ice cream counter. She pulled up a chair and slipped off her spike heels under the table. She’d gotten so used to wearing Nikes or flip-flops that the high heels pinched her feet.

“You are still here. That’s a good sign,” Molly said.

She wore a muumuu-style dress with big yellow roses printed on an electric blue background. Her flip-flops had the yellow silk daisies at the top of the piece that went between the toes. Her wispy gray hair had been permed that morning and Austin could still smell the solution.

“Yes, I’m still here and I love your hair.”

“Well, darlin’, there ain’t much to love these days. It’s thin and finer than what grows on a frog’s ass but my poor little hairdresser does the best she can. Not everyone can be blessed with beautiful gray hair like Greta. Some of us are beautiful and smart instead.”

“Hey, now, just because you got those five hairs on your head to do something today don’t give you the right to be sassy,” Greta said.

She was as scrawny as Molly was plump. All of her calories and fat grams went into making a thick mop of curly gray hair that looked like a wig. Her face looked like she’d just taken a nap on a chenille bedspread and her mouth was thin but her blue eyes sparkled with mischief.

“If I get up in the morning and my feet touch the ground and I can sit up to the damned table and eat my breakfast then I’ve got the right to be sassy,” Molly said.

Austin looked at Greta. “What gives
you
the right to be sassy?”

“If I can eat all the rich ice cream I want and not get the walking farts until I get home,” Greta said without missing a beat.

Austin giggled. “I’m going to grow up and be like you two.”

Molly shook her head emphatically. “Oh, no! You are going to grow up and be like Verline. She was the only one that could keep us from scratching and biting each other all our lives. She and Pearlita stepped between us so many times in our cat fights on the playground that we’d have to take off our shoes to count them.”

Greta motioned for the waitress. “We’re ready to order. I want a scoop of each one. Vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate all lined up on one of them fancy long boat things. Then top it all off with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. No banana.”

“I’ll have the same with the banana,” Molly said.

“Make mine like Molly’s,” Austin said. “Now tell me more about these cat fights.”

“Greta picked on me,” Molly said.

“I did not! She was a whiny kid that was spoiled rotten at home and when she came to school she expected everyone to wait on her hand and foot. I come from a big family of boys and I had to be tough so I never could abide her whining. Good thing she married a man who was half deaf,” Greta said.

Molly pointed a long freshly manicured bright red fingernail at Greta. “Let me tell you about her. She was meaner than a junkyard dog and whooped the biggest boy in the class the first three days of school. After that nobody picked on her but me. She’d call me a sissy and I’d call her a bitch and the fight would be on. Pearlita would get between us and Verline would hold her back to keep her from killing me. But when the teacher asked us what was going on we always said it was just a game we were playing.”

“Ain’t no way I’d be the schoolyard rat,” Greta said.

“She tried to get rid of me but I married her brother and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do but suck it up.”

The waitress bought their ice cream and set it down.

“Can you hear that singing? It’s my fat cells jumping around inside this big old floppy dress and getting ready for the first bite,” Molly said.

Greta picked up the spoon and set about eating. “Austin didn’t come in here to listen to us old hens fussin’ about the past. She come for advice, didn’t you, sweetheart?”

“What?”

“Advice,” Greta said.

“About what?”

“You are still here. You’ve had dinner with Rye and you’ve been plowing and planting. You’ve packed a few boxes and you’ve found her wine cellar, which intrigues you,” Molly said.

“How’d you know all that?” Austin’s eyes widened.

“Honey, you can’t fart in Terral without Oma Fay calling Pearlita and telling her what you ate for dinner and we talk to Pearlita every night on the telephone. Remember we told you that Oma Fay is Kent’s momma and he stops by there on his way home every day to pick up his boys. God, them is some wild kids. If anyone ever wants to bring them to your house tell them if they do you’re goin’ to drown them in the Red when they do,” Greta said.

“Good Lord!” Austin shoved the melting ice cream into her mouth.

“Last time I checked He was good,” Molly laughed. “So what do you want advice about? Staying? Leaving? How to get Rye to propose?”

“None of the above,” Austin said. “Why would you even think that?”

“Look under the table,” Greta said.

“What’s on the floor?”

“Your bare feet. No hose today and those pretty shoes are hurting your feet after you’ve got used to work boots or sneakers or whatever it is you wear out on the tractor,” Molly said.

“You mean you can’t tell me what brand of shoes I wear? Oma Fay must be falling down on the job,” Austin teased.

“Some kind of sneakers. I expect they’re them fancy kind but Oma Fay didn’t know the brand.”

“Nike,” Austin said.

“Aha!” Greta grinned. “Now we know something that she don’t. Tell us more so we won’t be the poor white trash cousins.”

“What?” Austin giggled.

“Oma Fay is the queen because she knows more than us. Pearlita is the princess because Oma Fay talks to her because they’re cousins. Me and Greta is third in line. So tell us something to make us more important.”

“Like what?”

“Well, we know you went to the river with him for a picnic and a bunch of kids came up and you went to sleep. We got that because one of the kids had to take a leak and found you sleepin’ and saw the picnic stuff. He’s Oma Fay’s nephew and he told Kent so Kent could tease Rye when he gets back from Mesquite. We want to know if Rye kissed you yet or if you been to bed with him. That would be a real biggy that them other women don’t know because Rye wouldn’t tell Kent jack shit,” Molly said.

“Good girls don’t kiss and tell,” Austin played coy.

“We don’t give a damn about good girls. Did you sleep with him yet? I’d love to be the first one to know that bit of news. Oma Fay would have a shittin’ hemorrhage if we found out when you sleep with him before she does. I bet if you do you don’t ever leave Terral, not even for one day.”

Austin fought the grin so hard that her mouth hurt. “I did not sleep with him. But I’ll tell you something so you won’t be the white trash cousins. We have a date tonight. We’re going to eat Chinese and go to a movie up in Duncan.”

“Don’t wear that outfit,” Molly said seriously.

“What should I wear? I only brought this, two more suits, and some capris,” she said.

Greta pointed toward the back of the drugstore. “Go on up the road toward Waurika. Over on the left hand side of the road is a consignment shop where you can buy some decent jeans and shirts. Might even be able to pick up a pair of broke-in cowboy boots and a hat. Stuff is cheap enough that if you only use it this next week and then trash it, it’ll be worth it.”

Austin raised an eyebrow. “A consignment shop?”

That’s one thing she sure wouldn’t tell her mother. If she ever found out her daughter had bought a wardrobe out of a secondhand store she would have her committed for sure.

“Yeah, it’s a red barn place. Everyone in these parts calls it the red barn but I think it’s got a name like the Clothes Closet or something like that. I forget what it is in the phone book. I buy lots of things in there,” Molly said.

“She could shop in New York City with all the money she’s got, but she’s so tight, she squeezes her pennies so hard, it makes Abraham Lincoln cry,” Greta said.

“Why would I want them big city clothes? I’m old and shapeless and I’m damned sure not going to punish my fat cells with a girdle. I burned all my Lycra years ago and I’ll be damned if I go buy another one. Them things weren’t nothing but torture. I’m sure a man invented them and the bra,” Molly said.

Greta poked Austin on the shoulder. “In our day no self-respectin’ woman would be caught at a dog fight without her Playtex Living Girdle. You don’t know how good you got it, girl.”

“Okay give me advice, girls. What should I wear tonight?” Austin asked.

Molly laid her spoon down and got serious. “Pair of them hip slung tight fittin’ jeans, boots, and a knit shirt that’s a size too little to make them boobs look bigger and your waist even smaller. A good lookin’ belt with a big buckle that sparkles so his eyes will go to your waist and his hands will itch to undo the belt. Some of them under britches that wouldn’t sag a clothes line even if they was soppin’ wet. What do they call ’em, Greta?”

Greta touched her chin with her finger and made a thinking face. “Not bikinis. Thongs! That’s it. Sounds funny, don’t it, since we call our flip-flop shoes that name. But wear some of them things with a string up in your ass and a little lace patch over Miss Lily.”

Austin blushed scarlet. “Over who?”

“That’s what we call it because we are too old-fashioned to call it by the name in the medical book,” Molly whispered.

“Old-fashioned? You two?” Austin asked.

“We’re old and we can say anything we want and get away with it but some things is too much even for us,” Greta said. “Now you’ve finished your ice cream so get on out of here and run up to the consignment shop and get yourself all dolled up for the night. I can’t wait to get home and call Pearlita and tell her that we know something before she does.”

Austin slipped her feet into the spike heels and paid for all their ice cream on the way out of the drugstore. She backed out of the diagonal parking space and drove a block up the street, made a U-turn, and drove back down to the stop sign. She had no intentions of going to a secondhand store. She might make a fast trip to Nocona, Texas, to the western wear store if she had time. But when the coast was clear she turned left toward Waurika instead of the right toward Terral. It was as if her car and her heart were joined together and overrode all her better judgments.

Ten minutes later her bright red ’Vette was parked in front of a big red barn-looking building. She eased out of her car and went inside the store to find racks and racks of clothes. Bewildered, she stared at the whole place and wondered where to even start since she only had half an hour.

“Could I help you, honey?” the lady behind the counter asked.

“Jeans?”

“What are you? About a seven?”

“With a long, long inseam.”

She pointed to the right. “Racked up by size. Your size will be at the far end. Either try them on or hold them up to your side. Dressing rooms are to the far left. You sure you are in the right place?”

“Molly and Greta sent me.”

“Oh! Well, come right on. I’ll help you,” she said enthusiastically.

Half an hour later there were six pair of jeans, a belt with a flashy buckle shaped like interlocking hearts, two pairs of boots (Barbara would get severe acute diarrhea if she knew her daughter was putting her feet into someone else’s boots, but the lady said she knew the woman who’d owned them and they were good), five knit shirts with different screen prints on the front, and six western blouses. One of the blouses was stretch lace and had flouncing ruffles on the sleeves.

She almost fainted when the lady added it all up and the total price was less than a hundred dollars. She couldn’t have bought the blouse for that amount at the dress shop where she shopped in Tulsa.

“Thank you for all your help,” she said as the clerk ran her credit card through the machine.

“Thank you for the biggest sale I’ve had all day. Tell Molly and Greta hello for me. They send a lot of customers my way. By the way, who are you, so I can tell them that you were here?”

“Austin Lanier. I’m Verline Lanier’s granddaughter.”

“Oh, my! I sure do miss Granny. She did a lot of business with me. Bought nearly all of her overalls in here. I miss her advice. I’d have left my husband if she hadn’t convinced me to give him another chance,” the woman said.

“Really?”

“Yep. She said to give him one more chance and if he went back to drinking then she’d whip his sorry ass for me. I live between Terral and Ryan. She got me the job working here two days a week, too. Verline was a wonderful woman.”