If Marvin Scheffler had been watching where he was driving instead of trying to get a fly out of his truck, he wouldn’t have had a wreck on his way out of town or been transported to the hospital in Blessings, afraid he was going to die. And if Marvin hadn’t been afraid he was going to hell for boycotting the church for ending bingo night, he wouldn’t have insisted on seeing Preacher Clymer before he went into surgery, and the entire day would have evolved quite differently for a lot of people. But being what it was, life was full of surprises and Marvin’s wreck was only one of them.
* * *
Conrad had just met up with Bobbette at the Hollywood Motel and wasted no time getting naked. He was, as his daddy used to say, primed and ready to go. They were about to get down to business when his cell phone vibrated all the way across the end table beside the bed.
Bobbette frowned. “Don’t answer it, sugar bear. You’re not a doctor. No one’s gonna die if you don’t show up.”
He stifled a frown as he glanced at the text.
“It’s Melba, and it’s an emergency,” he said.
“How do you know that?”
“The only message on her text is a 911.” He quickly dialed the church. “Melba, what’s wrong?”
She relayed the message and asked him what he wanted her to do.
“Tell them I’m on the way,” he said and disconnected.
“Someone had a wreck. They’re afraid he’s dying. I have to go,” Conrad said, and began grabbing his clothes.
Although she knew better than to argue, Bobbette began complaining as she proceeded to get dressed.
“This just messes everything up. What am I going to do? I don’t want to sit and wait here all by myself.”
“We can hardly go into Blessings together, and you know it,” Conrad said.
Bobbette pouted even more as she began yanking on her clothes and, in the process, broke off one of her artificial nails, which brought on a fit of monumental proportions.
She cried, then she pouted again, and then she promised Conrad to add a special little trick to the next blow job if he’d take her with him. Before Conrad knew it, they were in the car together on their way back to town.
Even though he’d driven around to the back side of the hospital to park, he’d been a nervous wreck that they would be seen together. They’d parted company in the parking lot, with the agreement to meet back there in an hour. She was going to get her nail fixed, and he would go pray with Marvin Scheffler so he could go into surgery.
Conrad had known all the way into town that it was a risk, just like he’d known from the start of the affair that he was committing a sin. But this woman had been scratching an itch Patty June could never reach. The possibility of getting caught had always been in the back of his mind, but he had a just-in-case plan.
Years ago, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart had been caught chasing tail and begged for forgiveness in front of his congregation on a nationwide broadcast and got away with it. Conrad had gone along with his own cheating with something similar in mind.
Once inside the hospital, he prayed with Marvin and sent him on his way to surgery, then went out to the parking lot to wait for Bobbette.
But she never showed up, and it kept getting later and later. The only place he knew to look for her was at The Curl Up and Dye. He’d thought seriously about leaving her to her own resources, but he didn’t want to make her mad. He’d thought to just walk in, pretend to be looking for his wife, and if Bobbette was still there, he’d soon know it.
So he headed to the beauty shop, careful to keep an eye on the streets for Bobbette as he drove. Once he arrived, he got out with his usual aplomb and poked his head inside to look around. But after Vesta’s comment about whores and wives, and seeing all that red hair on the floor, it became apparent that the train his Jimmy Swaggart plan was on had already left the station.
Conrad drove home, shaking like a sinner at the altar praying for redemption and so damn scared he felt like puking.
When he came around the corner and saw his things out in the yard, he swerved, barely missing a parked car. He wheeled into the driveway, then stumbled to the house, his legs shaking so hard he could barely stand.
“Oh my God, oh my God, please, please, please,” he kept muttering.
Unfortunately, he had not been specific enough with his prayer, and Patty June was obviously not a bit inclined toward forgiveness. He staggered past computers, office equipment, books, clothes, and what appeared to be everything he’d ever owned strung all over the porch and the yard.
But the bigger shock was the empty walls inside. It was if their marriage had never happened. He ran through the hall to their bedroom, then back through the house toward the kitchen, so damn scared now that he couldn’t call out her name.
When he rounded the doorway into the kitchen, he stopped short. He’d found her, but from the look on her face, he was regretting the search.
“Patty June, I—”
“Shut your mouth, Conrad. There is nothing on this earth I want to hear from you. You have defiled me. You slept with me at the same time you slept with your whore. You have shamed me, your church, and your congregation. You are a lying, cheating bastard, and you should be grateful that my father has passed over, or he would have shot you dead where you stand. Get out of my house. Get your things off my property or I will set them on fire. When you get wherever you’re going, send me a mailing address for the divorce decree. If you do not, I will hire a private investigator to find you and proceed to ruin your name everywhere you go for the rest of your life.”
Conrad gulped. All of a sudden, he needed to pee.
“I am so sorry—”
“Yes, you are. As sorry a man as ever set foot on this earth. Get out of my sight.”
“Please. I’ll go to counseling. I’ll—”
Patty June pulled a knife from the knife block. “I won’t tell you again,” she said and started toward him.
“Jesus Christ! Patty June, have you—”
She came at him, and Conrad turned tail and ran screaming out of the house.
She stood in the doorway with her eyes blazing, the knife held tightly in her grip, watching him carry away his things. Every time he came back to the porch to take another load, it was all she could do not to take the butcher knife to what was left of his hair, the same way she’d marked his damn whore.
* * *
Conrad kept an anxious eye on Patty June as he gathered up his things, frantically stuffing them into the trunk, then on the car seats and in the floorboard, until the car was so packed he couldn’t see anything through the rearview mirror. He knew the neighbors were watching. A couple of them had even come out to their front porches for a closer look. If it would have been possible to drop dead at will, he would have already passed on. Apparently God was not inclined to let guilty bastards out of their own messes that easily.
Finally, he had everything packed in the car. He stopped by the door and looked back at his wife, unable to believe fifteen years of marriage were ending like this.
“Patty June, I—”
She went back in the house, slamming the door to punctuate the fact that she had just shut him out of her life.
His heart hurt as he got in the car and started the engine, but the car was so full that he had to hang his head out the window to back up.
It didn’t occur to him until he was driving away that he didn’t know where he was going. He’d blown a career and a marriage for the pleasure of Bobbette Paulson’s blow jobs. Looking back, he could honestly say it was not a good trade-off.
He was halfway down Main Street when it occurred to him that he would need money. He made a quick stop at the bank, then grabbed the checkbook from the console and ran inside, not realizing everyone in the bank already knew what he’d done.
He stopped at the nearest teller and began writing a check, then tore it off and scooted it toward the teller.
She looked at it and shoved it back.
“Sorry, Preacher, but that check will bounce.”
“What? But that’s imposs—” Oh shit. He cleared his throat. “What is the balance?”
She wrote it on a piece of paper and slid it toward him.
He swallowed past the knot in his throat and rewrote a check for the entire fifteen-hundred dollars, pocketed the money, and walked out with his steps dragging.
He thought about going to check on Bobbette before he made himself scarce, then decided against it. It wouldn’t be the same getting a blow job if he didn’t have all that hair to hold on to.
* * *
By the time the sun went down, nearly everyone in Blessings had heard about the preacher’s fall from grace. The board of directors from the Freewill Baptist Church arrived just as Patty was about to sit down to a solitary supper. She saw them drive up and went to the kitchen to turn the fire off under her stew. If she did what she wanted, she wouldn’t even go to the door, but eventually she would have to face them. Might as well get all the ugly stuff over in one day.
When the doorbell rang, she stood in the kitchen, waiting until they rang it the second time before she went to answer. They were rude in showing up without calling, so she didn’t feel any immediate obligation to be prompt. Once she got to the foyer she took a deep breath, patted her hair to make sure it was still in place, then let them in and proceeded to play dumb. From the looks on their faces, they were less than pleased with the day’s events, but she could have cared less. She wasn’t all that happy about them herself.
“Titus? Willy? Carl Wayne? What on earth are y’all doing here? The board doesn’t meet for another three weeks.”
The three men had two things in common. Aside from being on the board together, they were all three big worrywarts, in Patty June’s opinion. She could only imagine what was on their minds.
“We’re not here for a board meeting,” Titus said. “May we come in?”
“I suppose. I was about to sit down and have my supper. What can I do for you?”
The three men frowned. “As if you don’t already know,” Willy said.
Patty June stared, refusing to bite.
The men began to fidget. Finally it was Carl Wayne who broke the silence.
“When were you going to let us know about Conrad?”
“I’m sorry?”
“We have a duty to the congregation, you know.”
“I suppose you do. I, however, do not.”
Titus frowned. “Seriously, Patty June, the pastor’s wife always—”
“Technically, you no longer have a pastor, and I no longer have a husband, so—”
Willy sighed. “Is he coming back?”
“Not if he knows what’s good for him,” she muttered.
“I don’t understand,” Carl Wayne said. “We thought you two were quite suited.”
“Whatever we were, we aren’t anymore. He’s been fornicating with Bobbette Paulson. He is no longer a part of my life. What else do you want to know?”
The men turned three different shades of red.
Titus sighed. “Did it not occur to you to try counseling? I mean… this puts us in a terrible position. Sunday’s coming and we are without a pastor.”
Patty June’s eyes narrowed. Had they been wise in the ways of women, they would have known that meant she was pissed. But two were divorced and the other one had never married, which made them seriously ignorant of the warning signs.
“Get out,” she said softly.
They heard her but didn’t really think she meant it.
“If the church paid for the counseling, would you consider taking him back?” Willy asked.
Patty doubled up her fists. “Get out of my house,” she repeated.
“Titus is right. We are in a terrible position here, and your marriage vows were for better or worse,” Carl Wayne added.
“I cannot believe two divorcés and an old bachelor are trying to give me marriage advice! My husband fucked a whore on a regular enough basis that I considered killing him. Were it not for my faith in God and my adherence to the Thou shalt not kill rule, he would be dead and I would be in jail. Whatever happens at that church, I will no longer be a part of it. I was raised a Methodist. I will be returning to that church to worship. You three have outstayed your welcome!” She strode to the door and yanked it wide. “It wasn’t enough that my husband has betrayed me, but you three have just added insult to injury. Get out of my house!”
“Now see here, Patty June, you have no right to—”
She screamed.
Later, Titus would swear she hit a high C with the first breath, but it served the purpose. They ran into one another trying to be the first one out the door.
For the second time in one day, Patty June slammed her front door. It wasn’t ladylike, and she knew it wasn’t good for the etched-glass insets, but there were times when manners were highly overrated, and this was one of them.
“I swear to my time,” she muttered and went back to the kitchen to reheat her stew.
Ordinarily, this would be when Conrad helped set the table and lay out the condiments. When she made stew, he was partial to having bread-and-butter sandwiches with it. She blinked away tears and, out of spite, made herself a bread-and-butter sandwich.
“Damn Conrad Clymer to hell and back, and I’m not a bit sorry for saying that,” Patty June said, then sat down at the table, shoved her fingers through her little brown helmet of hair, and proceeded to cry until her stew was cold all over again.
* * *
For the next five days, everywhere Patty June went, people were talking about what she’d done. It was as if Conrad’s misdeeds were of no matter, even if he was the preacher. She heard the same two pieces of advice over and over. People make mistakes. People should be forgiven.
It was the revenge she’d taken that had caused the uproar. It made men nervous to realize there were women strong enough to exact that kind of retribution. It made them look at their own women in a different light. The last thing they wanted was to give them the notion that they had that kind of option.
And so they began a subtle mission, hoping to influence their females into thinking that cutting hair off a whore’s head and kicking a cheating-ass husband out of the house were the two worst things a woman could do. They were turning Patty June into a raging feminist in a culture known for its sweet, southern charm.
For Patty June, it was as if she’d been cheated on all over again. When she needed support most, the people who should have been there for her were condemning her instead. She went through shock, disbelief, and despair.
When the day rolled around for another hair appointment at The Curl Up and Dye, she almost didn’t go. Why expose herself to even more ridicule? But if she turned tail and ran, then she was admitting she was at fault, and that was never going to happen. So what to do? And that’s when it hit her. All of her life she’d been a good girl. Maybe it was time to find out how the other half lived. She had the money to travel and the time to do it. With two full hours before her hair appointment, she got in her car and drove downtown to the Miller Travel Agency. She’d always wanted to go to Italy, and there was nothing stopping her now.
* * *
Willa Dean Miller owned the Miller Travel Agency and liked to think that, of all the residents of Blessings, she was the most widely traveled, even though her travels had all been online.
She was pouring herself a fresh cup of coffee when she happened to glance out the window. She had always liked Patty June Clymer and was somewhat impressed by what Patty June had done, but at the same time, it didn’t pay to be different in Blessings. After all, she had her business to consider. If she went against the power of public opinion and stood on Patty’s side, that business might suffer. The economy had already slowed it down considerably. The last thing she needed was to tick off her clients. So she turned on the sarcasm and waved at her assistant, Precious Peters.
“Hey, Precious, look who just parked out front. It’s Patty June Clymer, as I live and breathe.”
Precious jumped up from her chair to run to the window, but when they both realized Patty June was coming into the shop, they made a fast scramble toward their desks instead.
When Patty walked in the door, she could tell by the flush on their faces that they’d been talking about her, but she was past caring. She strode to the front and plopped her purse near her elbow as Willa Dean came to the counter.
“Good morning, Patty June. I can’t say as I’ve ever seen you in here before,” Willa Dean said.
“Then that’s proof your memory is just fine,” Patty said. “I want to book a trip to Italy.”
Willa Dean was torn between staying snarky or getting her act together and treating Patty June like a paying client. The money won out.
“That sounds exciting,” she said. “Do you have any particular destination in mind? Maybe Rome or Venice? I hear Venice is stunning. Or maybe Milan! So many fabulous places to see in Milan. I have tours available at any of those cities. Just take your pick.”
“I was thinking I’d hit them all,” Patty June said. “I mean, now that my cheating, whoring husband is gone and I have divorce proceedings in progress, I see no reason to grieve myself silly here in Blessings while the people I thought were my friends proceed to judge me.”
Willa Dean paled. “Why, I never—”
“Oh shut up,” Patty muttered. “Everyone has. What I don’t understand is why. If that had been Harold, would you have still crawled into bed with him at night and spread your legs knowing he’d been fucking someone like Bobbette Paulson?”
Willa Dean gasped. She didn’t know what shocked her more: the idea of Harold committing adultery with anyone, or the fact that Patty had said the word fuck.
Patty frowned. “I see you have no opinion, which I find interesting. However, I’m not interested in who Harold might be doing on the side. I want to book a trip to Italy. Are you going to help me, or do I have to drive to Savannah?”
Willa Dean was still trying to get past the image of Harold doing it with anyone. She couldn’t get him interested even once a month, and the moment that thought went through her mind, the next was that she’d never wondered why. What if Harold was already “doing” someone else? What if that was the reason Harold didn’t want to have sex with her anymore?
It was all she could do to focus on booking this trip, which would be big income for the agency. Time enough to deal with Harold—the lying, cheating bastard—later.
Willa Dean waved Patty toward the chair at her desk.
“No, of course you don’t need to drive into Savannah. Sit down, honey. Precious, get Patty June some coffee, or would you rather have tea? I have a nice lavender tea I think you would just love.”
Patty June blinked. She wasn’t sure how to take this about-face, but it was nice to be treated normally, regardless of the reason.
“I believe I’d like to try that tea, thank you very much.”
Willa Dean smiled. “Perfect. Now about that trip.”
An hour and a half later, Patty June left the agency with a handful of pamphlets and an itinerary that would have made world travelers Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie blink. Not only was she stopping in every big-name city in Italy, but she wasn’t coming home for a month. She could hardly wait to go shopping, but first things first. Next stop, The Curl Up and Dye.
* * *
Willa Dean watched Patty leaving with no small amount of envy. She’d always wanted to go to Italy, but Harold, the sorry bastard, didn’t much like the idea of travel. She needed to talk to her friend Myra, who ran the flower shop. Myra had been a woman of the world before she settled down and married her husband, George.
Willa Dean made the call and then peeled the foil off a Hershey Kiss and popped it in her mouth while she waited for someone to answer.
“Pots and Posies, this is Myra. How can I help you?”
“Myra, it’s me, Willa Dean. I think Harold might be cheating on me,” and then she choked on the chocolate and broke down in tears.
* * *
Unaware of the seeds of discontent she had just sown, Patty June drove down the street to the beauty shop and parked. The moment she got out of the car, she began to relax. This was probably the only place in Blessings where she would not be judged.
The bell jingled over the door as she walked inside.
Ruby looked up, waved, and smiled.
“Be right with you, honey! I’m just finishing up LilyAnn’s hair. Vesta and Vera brought cake today. It’s their birthday. Go on over to the table and cut yourself a piece, and don’t tell me you can’t eat cake before lunch ’cause I’ll know that’s a big, fat lie.”
Patty smiled. She had tickets to Italy, a new outlook on life, and she was about to eat dessert in the middle of the morning. Talk about living in the fast lane.
She set her purse down on the table and cut herself a big square of bakery cake, making sure to cut a pink sugar rose with it, then sat down to eat while watching Ruby finish up LilyAnn Bronte’s hair.
As she eyed LilyAnn’s profile, Patty suddenly appreciated her own screwed-up life. At least she’d had fifteen years of being a wife. Poor LilyAnn’s boyfriend had died right out of high school before the couple had gotten past a promise ring.
Patty June lifted the icing rose off the cake and popped it in her mouth, letting it melt slowly on her tongue as she thoughtfully eyed the tall blond. It was hard to imagine LilyAnn ever being the Peachy Keen Queen, although, as she remembered, LilyAnn had been a real looker in high school. Now the woman was overweight, never wore makeup, and her clothes were so oversized that they hung on her like sacks. She had such a pretty face. It was a shame she’d let the rest of herself go to pot.
Patty June took another bite of cake as guilt washed over her. Of all people, she should be the last one to judge. Patty June’s man had not gone to war in Afghanistan straight out of high school and gotten himself killed. He just fucked a whore and got himself caught. Poor LilyAnn. Surely she had grieved herself into this condition. That was all.
A few minutes later, LilyAnn left the shop. As soon as she was gone, Ruby waved Patty over and gave her a hug.
“What was that for?” Patty asked.
Ruby smiled. “Are you trying to tell me you didn’t need it?”
Patty June sighed. “No. It was nice. In fact it was the nicest thing anyone’s done for me since I was here last. According to the people in town, I have gone from goody two-shoes to hell on wheels, just because I kicked my lying husband out of the house.”
“Well, you did shave a path through his whore’s red head wide enough to park a car on,” Ruby added.
They stared at each other and then burst out laughing.
“Put your cake down and let’s get you shampooed,” Ruby said.
“Okay, but I want you to do something different today,” Patty June said.
Ruby stopped.
Vesta and Vera came out of the break room, and Mabel Jean stopped folding towels.
“Really?” Ruby said.
Patty June nodded. “Sister, my hair has been the same mousy brown all my life. I want to do something different with it.”
This set the women in the shop abuzz, offering one suggestion and then another. Finally, Ruby called a halt.
“Girls, that’s all well and good, but Patty is the one who’s gonna be wearing it. What do you want, honey?”
Patty June eyed the array of swatches in her lap and then looked up and grinned.
“I don’t know. I don’t care. Just give me a color with edge. You know what I mean. I want you to color me bad.”