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headache like that.” I snapped my fingers.
    She shook her head as we passed the Razorback Feed ’n’ Seed store and Dandy’s Five & Dime. A display of Hula-Hoops and trick-or-treat costumes dominated the dime store’s hazy front window. “It’s as if we’ve gone back in time thirty years.”
    “A good part of my allowance supported that five and dime store,” I said. “There’s Beulah’s Beauty Barn and Elvis Emporium!” I pointed to a small brown natural stone building catty-corner to Billings’ Beans-N-Biscuit Cafe, known to locals as the 3B Cafe. A banner in Beulah’s window said in bright pink letters: WELCOME HOME , SUGAR - TREE BAPTIST FAMILY MEMBERS (20% DISCOUNT ON WASH AND SET WITH OUT - OF - STATE LICENSE ).
    “B seems to be a popular letter here,” she commented.
    “We’ll be spending an afternoon at Beulah’s one day this week.”
    She jerked her head around to stare at me, her mouth gaping slightly. “I don’t think so.” She touched her shoulder-length black hair in a subconscious protective gesture.
    “Not to have our hair done,” I said, laughing at her horrified expression. “To catch up on what’s really going on in town. Garnet and her friends have standing appointments. Some of them for forty years. Beulah’s a hoot. She knows more of this town’s secrets than all the Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, and Catholic ministers put together. And if you get her on the right day, she’ll give you a tidbit that you can dine out on for a month. Besides, you can’t miss her Elvis boutique. She’s in the Elvis Century Club.”
    “The what?”
    “The Elvis Century Club. To belong you have to have visited Graceland at least one hundred times. She has proof, too. Receipts and pictures from every visit. Her scrapbook is on display in the boutique.”
    “Sounds . . . lovely,” Elvia said, still holding her hair.
    After promising her a walking tour tomorrow, we drove the three blocks from the town square to Aunt Garnet’s two-story farm-style house. Tall, bushy sweet gum trees clasped leafy hands over our heads as we drove slowly over the bumpy streets. When I pulled into the long driveway, I saw someone rise up from the porch swing and move out from the shadows of the house’s deep veranda. I smiled and waved at Isaac, my gramma’s—as she liked to put it—gentleman friend. Behind him stood my uncle William Wiley, better known as Uncle WW. He was Garnet’s quiet but quick-witted husband, who’d recently retired from his fifty-year plumbing business and was now, according to Dove, driving Aunt Garnet crazy “fixin’ ” things around the house.
    “I married him for better or worse,” she complained to Dove a few months back, “but not for lunch.”
    “Hey, Isaac, how’s the South been treating you?” I called, stepping out of the car.
    He came down the steps and caught me up in a massive hug. With his six-foot-four-inch body it was like being squeezed by a big ole bear, if the bear had hair the colorof White Lily flour pulled back in a long braid down his back. I was sure that Isaac Lyons, world-renowned photographer, five-time married man of the world and founder and president of the Dove Ramsey fan club, had sent a great many of Dove’s old friends in Sugartree into a gossiping tizzy. I would have given two inches of fresh-grown hair to have been a fly on the wall of Beulah’s last Saturday morning.
    “I love the South,” he said, letting my feet touch ground again and going over and hugging Elvia in a more restrained way. “Almost as much as I love your gramma.”
    “Why aren’t you two in church?” I asked. “I can’t believe the girls let you or your wicked souls out of it.”
    “I reckon Isaac had one of them migraine headaches all you city folk seem to favor so much,” Uncle WW said, coming down the steps. I went over and hugged him, his grizzled face giving a pipe smoker’s half-smile. His scent of vanilla pipe tobacco and Ivory soap made me feel