So Faux, So Good Page 4

  I was surprised by the harshness of his voice. “I didn’t say anything about your eyes, dear. They’re gorgeous as ever.”

  “That’s not it,” he snapped. “Don’t you ever listen to a single word I say?”

  “Of course, dear. The Surrey County Sentinel picked up our announcement from the Observer.” Something clicked. “But that’s sort of unusual, isn’t it? Our engagement is not exactly news.”

  “This didn’t come from the Sentinel. This was found in the wallet of a crash victim along I-77. It was folded around an ad for some silver. You just bid on some silver, didn’t you?”

  My knees felt weak. “Not Mama! She was going to fly, not drive.”

  Greg briefly put his arms around me. Public displays of affection embarrass him. Apparently giving comfort falls into the same category.

  “It’s not your mother, Abby. As far as I know, Mozella is fine. The crash victim was a male, age thirty-five, from Bedford County, Pennsylvania. His name was Billy Ray Teschel. Did you know him?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Pretty sure. A lot of my customers are tourists from Pennsylvania, but they usually don’t introduce themselves. Do you have a picture?”

  Greg reached into his car again and extracted a second sheet of crumpled paper. He thrust it at me like a hot potato.

  I glanced briefly at a photocopy of a Pennsylvania driver’s license. I have a friend in Pittsburgh who claims her state’s DMV trains their photographers at the Saddam Hussein School of Sadists and Torturers. Billy Ray Teschel’s driver’s license seemed to confirm that. But even allowing for the chicanery of a disgruntled government employee, the face on the license was not one I’d likely forget. Billy Ray Teschel was my vision of Satan on a bad hair day.

  “I never saw him before in my life.”

  “You positive? Maybe you need a few more facts to jog your memory. Let’s see now, the man was five feet eight and weighed one hundred and seventy-five pounds.”

  I stared at Greg. “What are you driving at?”

  “What are you hiding?”

  “Excuse me? Is there something going on here that I don’t know?”

  “You tell me, Abby. Why would a good-looking guy like that be driving around with your picture in his wallet?”

  It occurred to me for the first time that Greg might need glasses, because even a pit bull wouldn’t consider Billy Ray Teschel good-looking. Then again, perhaps with a pair of specs—or maybe contacts—Greg wouldn’t find me so ravishing. But unfortunately, it was beginning to sound like Greg’s eyes were not the part of his head that needed examining.

  “Look buster, I have no idea why he had my picture in his wallet. You tell me why. Your name is in that announcement too. Come to think of it, Greg, who sent it to you, and why?”

  The muscles on Greg’s left jaw began to twitch. “The sheriff up there is an old buddy of mine. He read my name and thought I might be able to shed some light on the situation. Do you know how embarrassing this is, Abby, to have something like this flung in your face?”

  I glanced around for something to fling in his face. Perhaps he could compare the two for me. Alas, I had only my key ring, and there was an open storm drain too close for me to take the chance.

  “Are you implying that I and this accident victim were having some sort of tryst?” I hissed.

  “If the shoe fits.”

  If there is one thing I learned from raising two kids and divorcing a lout like Buford, it is to simply remove oneself from a nonproductive argument. I got in my car, slammed the door, and drove away. I can’t tell you exactly where I drove, because I didn’t have a destination in mind. All I know is that two hours and a quarter of a tank of gas later I was back on Selwyn Avenue headed for my shop. I am pleased to report, however, that I hadn’t racked up any new speeding tickets and I was a good deal calmer.

  My serenity faded the second I saw Greg’s car. It was still parked in front of my shop, and Greg was sitting inside eating something. I drove right past him and parked six spaces down. Then I walked back and rapped on the window. Apparently he hadn’t seen me until then because he dropped the turkey sub he was holding into his lap. I heard a faint expletive before the window opened.

  “Geez, Abby, don’t scare me like that.”

  “If there’s a better way to scare you, let me know.”

  He dabbed at some mustard on his khaki slacks. “We need to talk.”

  “I have nothing to say to you until you apologize.”

  He looked up from what I hoped was a permanent stain. “Okay, so maybe I got a little carried away back then.”

  I gave him my most penetrating stare. This, too, I learned from my kids. Focus just above and between your adversary’s eyes. It’s guaranteed to drive them crazy. In this case it had a double benefit because it spared me from having to focus on those beautiful orbs.

  “You were over the top and under the falls,” I said. “Your insinuations hurt me to the quick. And I have yet to hear the words ‘I’m sorry.’”

  During the ensuing silence the population of China doubled and the Democrats came up with a workable welfare plan. I didn’t dare shift my gaze, and I wasn’t about to speak first. I may have learned how to walk away from verbal sparring, but I was still a warmonger when it came to a battle of wills.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

  “If that’s the best you can do—”

  “Abby, I have to tell you something very important.”

  My gaze slipped a fraction of an inch. The blue eyes were definitely troubled.

  “I’m listening.”

  “While you were gone—wherever you went—I got a call from the department. It seems that someone had it in for this Teschel guy. They’re pretty sure the brakes on his car were tampered with. There’s a nasty incline up there and apparently someone anticipated it and made sure his car couldn’t slow on the way down. You know what this means, don’t you?”

  I shook my head.

  “That somebody out there may have it in for you as well.”

  I should have been furious. The implication was there again that Billy Ray Teschel and I were an item. That there was a reason for our destinies to be intertwined. But much to my surprise, I wasn’t mad at all.

  “Where in Pennsylvania did you say this guy was from?” I asked calmly.

  Greg gave me a “you ought to know” look. “Bedford County,” he said quietly. “A little town called Hernia.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  “Damn it, Abby. Isn’t there something you want to say to me?”

  Of course there was. I wanted to tell Greg that green did not match his eyes, that his jealous streak could be seen by astronauts on the space shuttle, that if his paranoia progressed, men in white jackets were going to take him away. But I said nothing more.

  “Let me guess,” Wynnell said. “You’ve had another epiphany.”

  I untangled the phone cord before answering. “Make that two epiphanies.”

  “Does one involve you-know-who?”

  “It’s all right to say his name, dear. Greg—there, I said it for you. As hard as it is to believe, that man is more insecure than a cat at a dog show. Who would have thought!”

  “The cuter they are, the tighter they cling,” Wynnell said, as if quoting from the Book of Proverbs. “Take my advice, Abby, and look for a man so ugly his own mama won’t lay eyes on him. That is, if you value your freedom.”

  Wynnell ought to know. She’s been happily married for thirty years to a man whose face could sink a thousand ships.

  I promised that if and when I finally parted ways with my fiancé, I would let her fix me up with one of her many brothers-in-law.

  She grunted with satisfaction. “Now tell me about the second epiphany.”

  I told her about Mama’s early wedding present and the death of Billy Ray Teschel. It took much longer than it should have, because the puppets had returned and were banging on my shop door, even th
ough the CLOSED sign was properly and prominently displayed.

  “We know you’re in there,” one or both of them squealed in indignation. “We can see you sitting behind your desk.” Then they went around and tapped on the side window. I was tempted to treat them to a very unladylike gesture, but fortunately good breeding prevailed.

  Wynnell listened patiently to my fractured account. “Gracious me,” she said when I was through, “you’re not really thinking of going up to Pennsylvania, are you?”

  “It’s only a gut feeling, Wynnell. But that license plate Mama saw in Georgia, and now this Billy Ray guy—well, anyway, I haven’t taken time off for a real vacation since I started my shop. I thought it would be fun to go up there and scout around for Amish antiques. Even if I just end up buying a quilt, I can use the change of scenery.”

  “Oh, Abby, take me with you!”

  “What?” Wynnell is as fond of Yankees as she is lumps in her grits.

  “You said the magic words, Abby—‘Amish quilts.’ Do you know how much the really old ones are worth? I heard that you can buy them straight from the Amish for a song. Lordy, could I make a killing with a pile of those. Please, Abby, can I come?”

  I fingered an enormous Kashmiri sapphire I wear on my ring finger. It was a bequeathal from an elderly lady I hardly knew. In times of indecision, it functions much as Mama’s pearls do for her.

  “You’re not serious, are you?”

  “Are the Carolina Panthers the greatest football team ever?”

  “Who will watch your shop?”

  “Ed will. He’s finding out retirement isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow, Wynnell. I may be gone as long as a week. Are you sure about this?”

  “Positive. It’ll be fun, Abby. Sort of a girls’ week away.”

  “Two very-long-in-the-tooth girls,” I said, and believe me I was being generous. Wynnell has a dozen years on me.

  “Hang up Abby, because I’m calling Ed right now.”

  She hung up before I had a chance to.

  6

  I didn’t have that much to do to get ready. Not with the shop, at any rate. There were a few invoices in my “in” box that needed attention, but outside of banking the contents of my register, that was it. Ever since I’d installed those new vent niters Paul Harvey advertises, my shop has been virtually dust free. As long as I pulled the blinds, there was no need to cover things with sheets.

  The loud knock on the front door came at an inconvenient time. I had a right hand full of nickels, and a left hand full of pennies, and I was so startled I opened both. With all that change hitting the floor, I might well have been trying to flush out Republican spies at the Democratic National Convention.

  Therefore, I will admit to being annoyed when the knocking continued. The puppet ladies were never going to get a price break from me.

  “Go away!” I shrieked. “There are two dozen other antique dealers on this street to drive crazy. Try Major Calloway. He sells—”

  “Abby! Abby!”

  I looked up from the floor. It was the decidedly ample figure of Peggy Redfern on the other side of the door, not the two dehydrated matrons from Myers Park. Reluctantly I picked my way over and let her in. I was only slightly less irritated than before.

  “Peggy, don’t you have a business of your own to run?”

  She was panting, which for Peggy is normal only in the bedroom—or so I’ve had the misfortune to hear. In all other pursuits Peggy moves with seductive languid-ness. I looked around for a man, but there were none in sight.

  “Abby, can I go too?” she rasped.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “To Pennsylvania. I was over at Wynnell’s shop borrowing quarters when you called. She told me about your plans. So, how about it? I’ve always wanted to go to Pennsylvania.”

  I hate being put on the spot like that. Peggy is a nice enough woman—a friend even—but she’s not on my list for sharing a vacation. The overage bag boy at Winn Dixie, the one who winks at me when he packs my bananas, is more likely to find his name there than is Peggy.

  “I’d love to have you, dear, but my Grand Am really isn’t that big and it clashes with your hair.”

  Peggy raked her hand through short but vividly red hair. “That’s all right, we’ll take my Town Car. It has oodles of room.”

  Leave it to Peggy to own a car with a back seat the size of a Japanese hotel room. There had to be another obstacle I could put in her way. I put on my thinking cap while Peggy panted.

  “Your shop, dear. Didn’t you say that both Christmas and Valentine’s Day were unusually slow this year? I mean, you can’t afford to be taking off for that long.”

  “But that’s just it, Abby, with those quilts Wynnell was talking about, I could make up for those losses. Besides, I have an employee now. Didn’t I tell you?”

  You could have knocked me over with a goose quill pen. “Since when?”

  “Since yesterday. Her name is Emma Jean Butler. She had a shop of her own in Waxhaw, but sold it when she retired. Then she got bored. She’s only part time, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind taking over for a week.”

  “But—”

  “Oh, Abby, please.”

  “Forgive me,” I said, “but have you really thought this through? Amish men are not like the guys you meet at the Nascar races.”

  The blue eyelids blinked rapidly, but she kept her cool. “You remember my niece, Flora Mae?”

  “The one who ran off to Memphis and became a barmaid?”

  “That was Nashville, and she’s a country-western singer. Anyway, she knows about this bed and breakfast up there where all these celebrities go. Real celebrities, like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.”

  I had only one excuse left. “Well, I’d be happy to have you along, but I’ll have to ask Wynnell first.” I lowered my voice. “You know how she can be.”

  Peggy beamed. “Oh, I already asked her. She said ‘the more the merrier.’”

  I smiled through gritted teeth. Wynnell was going to owe me big time.

  When it rains it pours, they say. Given my life experiences I should carry hip boots and a bumbershoot everywhere I go. Maybe even an inflatable ark. I guess I should have expected the phone to ring the minute Peggy left. Believe me, I wouldn’t even have answered it had not the optimist within me held out hope that Mama had finally come to her senses. At least I had the presence of mind to pretend I was an answering machine. In all modesty, I do such a good imitation that only the woman who potty-trained me can tell the difference. Or so I thought.

  “You have reached the Den of Antiquity,” I said in my best mechanical voice. “I’m sorry we are unable to come—”

  “Abby?”

  “Mama?”

  “Don’t be silly, Abby. It’s C. J. What’s this I hear about an all-girls trip to the Poconos?”

  “It isn’t the Poconos, dear. Just a little town named Hernia. There’s nothing there.”

  “Then why are you going? And Wynnell? And Peggy? Abby, you promised to include me next time y’all got together and did something fun!”

  “We’re driving four hundred miles to buy quilts. I hardly count that as fun.”

  “Oh, Abby, everything you do seems fun to me. Did you know I think of you as the big sister I never had? Unless you count Ruebella. She was a monkey my parents got for a wedding present, but she died when I was only three.”

  I’ll admit to being flattered. Nobody, including my younger brother Toy, has ever wanted me for a big sister. I put my hand over the receiver just long enough to let out a sigh worthy of a teenager.

  “Do you really think you’d have fun cooped up in a car with three older women?”

  “Oh, sure. My grandmother Parker, three of my aunties, and our minister’s wife and I were all locked together in a linen closet—”

  “If you don’t finish that story, dear, you can come. We’re leaving tomorrow morning from my house at eight sharp. There’ll be ro
om for you and the others to park your cars in the driveway if the first person pulls right up to the garage.”

  “Gee, thanks, Abby!”

  “Eight sharp,” I said, as sharply as I dared, and hung up.

  The day was more than half gone and I needed to swing by Mama’s house in Rock Hill to make sure she had locked it, and then say good-bye to my kids who were (finally, and only by the grace of God!) both enrolled in Winthrop University. Somewhere along in there I needed to drop Dmitri off at Happy Paws Pet Motel on Arrowood Road. Then there were the minor things like stopping by the post office and filling out a “hold mail” card, and calling the newspaper to halt delivery. Never mind packing my clothes and watering my house-plants.

  But when I closed the door of my shop behind me and turned smack into Purnell Purvis, I was too flabbergasted to be annoyed. Purvis almost never leaves his happy little kingdom in Pineville. He certainly never makes personal appearances on Selwyn Avenue. I could hardly have been more surprised if Santa himself had shown up and invited me to tug on his beard.

  I must hasten to assure you that I was not injured by my close encounter with the icon of the Carolina antique world. Purvis, like Santa, has a lot in common with an automobile airbag. Because I am vertically challenged, my face burrowed into his tummy—rather, his tummy billowed around it. Since my nose tends to be on the sharp side, it was not me, but Purvis, who took the brunt of the impact.

  “Oomph,” he gasped, but remained upright.

  It took me a few seconds to recover my composure and to debate my course of action. They say the best defense is a good offensive, and I can be just as offensive as the next gal, but I really didn’t have the time.

  “Sorry, dear,” I said as I tried to step around him.

  “Abby, can we talk?”

  “Here? Now?” Those were, or course, rhetorical questions. When the mighty Purvis leaves his ivory tower to talk, one listens. Either that, or one drives five hours to Atlanta to shop the auctions there. Besides, the autocratic auctioneer was wearing a pale blue summer suit and a cherry-red tie. I had never seen him so dressed up.

  I led him into the shop and settled him into a substantial eighteenth-century Italian baronial armchair. It was a piece acquired from a hefty Foxcroft matron who is almost as tall as Purvis, so I guessed that her weight would be about the same—give or take a ballpark. Still, I prayed that the piece would hold.