The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop Read Online Free Page A

Clawdy’s Café and sat down in the porch swing to catch her breath. Thank God, the Andrews girls had left the porch swing up when they’d turned the old house into a café after their mother died.
    How would Stella feel if she just keeled over right there on that swing? Fell forward with her eyes rolled up in the back of her head and her hair needing fixed.
    She frowned as she dabbed at the moisture running down her neck and beading up under her nose. She smeared makeup over a tissue when she ran it over her face and across her eyelids. She was not going to apologize to Stella for something she hadn’t done, by damn. But she would turn that damn sign into splinters if it wasn’t down by noon.
    That was, if she lived until noon. Was everything truly ready for her to pass on to eternity? Her hair was a fright but the undertaker could call in Ruby to fix it. She’d rise right up out of her coffin if they let Stella anywhere near her after the way she’d carried on about the prayer list.
    It had been weeks since Nancy had plucked her eyebrows. Well, Ruby would have to take care of that, too. She had shaved her legs the night before so there shouldn’t be too much flak about that when the old gossips talked about her passing on at such a young age right there on the café porch.
    Did her underbritches have holes in them? She couldn’t remember, so she discreetly pulled her shirt up and checked. They were the new ones with the good elastic, so yes, she could pass away right there on Main Street if she got too hot or too angry. She had on clean underpants, so not a single woman in town could fault her.
    She’d cleaned her house and her oven the day before in case God answered prayers real quick like and Stella brought her new fiancé’s parents to visit on Sunday after church. So when the ladies came to mourn, they wouldn’t find a nasty oven to heat up the casseroles. She hoped they all brought corn casserole, because Stella hated it.
    Just thinking her daughter’s name twisted her heart up into a hangman’s knot. She’d never liked fighting with Stella, not even when she went through that rebellious stage in high school and wore her skirts too tight and her makeup too thick.
    Nancy took a deep breath, banished thoughts of caskets and weeping, and said aloud, “I’m not going to give Stella the satisfaction of me traipsing up to the pearly gates before God sends her a husband. I didn’t know they were going to publicize this damn thing, but she can just damn sure get ready to pick out a big white dress and look at wedding cakes.”
    That’s when the tears broke the dam and flowed down her cheeks to mingle with the salty sweat on her neck. She put her hands over her eyes and let them come. Whether in anger at Heather or sorrow at fighting with her daughter or a mixture of the two, they didn’t do their job. When she wiped them away with the soggy tissue in her hand, she was still mad and sad at the same time.
    She pushed out of the swing and with determination walked the last half block to Ruby’s. It had been Ella’s Beauty Shop until she retired and her younger sister took over the shop. A blast of cold air met her when she threw open the door, and she inhaled deeply only to start coughing when the pungent aroma of permanent solution and nail polish remover filled her lungs.
    It was about half the size of the Yellow Rose, with only one styling station, two dryer chairs, a chair for pedicures, and a table for manicures. Folks who were waiting in line had a choice of one of four folding chairs pushed up under a little round table over in the corner.
    “You better sit down,” Ruby said. “You look a little dewy, like you’re about to pass plumb out. Did you walk through a sprinkler? We heard that you and Stella got into it down at the Yellow Rose. Kids! They’re worse than husbands.”
    “I did not walk through water, and yes, ma’am, kids can be trying, especially when they grow up and think they know