Hung Out to Die Read online

  Plus, Sally keeps me from possibly actually killing Cherry Feinster, another friend, with whom I have a much rockier relationship. She owns the business next to my laundromat, Cherry’s Chat N Curl, and half the time I’m with her, she makes me laugh, and the other half she infuriates me.

  The one thing Sally and I did have in common back in our school years was that we couldn’t stand Cherry. She was on the cheerleading squad, which in itself was fine, except she also unmercifully taunted any girl who wasn’t, much to the embarrassment of most of the rest of the squad.

  But about five years ago she bought the barbershop next door, which had been sitting empty for two years, re-named it Cherry’s Chat N Curl, renovated it, brought in two other hair designers and made a go of her business.

  Since then, somehow the three of us have bonded. Maybe it’s because we all own our own businesses in a town populated by a lot of people who still think that kind of thing is uppity for women (unless, of course, you’re Sandy of Sandy’s Restaurant—Sandy’s run her business for forty years, and nobody dares cross her). Anyway, no one would have predicted our friendship, way back in junior high and high school.

  But then, people . . . and relationships . . . have a way of changing and growing. Sometimes. If given the chance. Although not always.

  Lessons I was about to learn the hard way—although I didn’t know it the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

  See, I thought I was just doing the usual good deed of opening my laundromat for a private session only for Sally. My laundromat is closed to the general public on Sundays, it being a day of rest and all, but Sunday afternoon is about the only time Sally has to do her laundry. No space for even a stackable washer/dryer in her little trailer at the Happy Trails Motor Home Court, just outside of town.

  I’ve even given Sally a key, so she was already in my laundromat when I arrived after services at the United Methodist Church of Paradise.

  I walked in through the back office/storeroom, hung my coat on the old rack that’s been there since the day Uncle Horace originally opened the business, then stopped in the doorway that divides my cozy laundromat from the back room.

  Sally was transferring a load from a washer to a dryer. She had four other washers and dryers going and stacks of folded towels and sheets covering one table, and stacks of her sons’ clothes covering another. And she was humming “Amazing Grace.”

  I grinned. We all find peace in our own way. For Sally, after a long weekend running the Bar-None, it was catching up on laundry while her sons snoozed peacefully at their paternal grandparents’. (They were good people, at least, who had tried to raise Wayne-the-bum right.) The zen of laundry.

  Cherry sat on a plastic chair right next to Sally’s folding table. Cherry was thumbing through her latest hairstyle book.

  “Now, Sally, really, you ought to let me do the highlights and a bob like this,” Cherry said, tapping a page with a coral fingernail.

  “Forget it,” said Sally. “My ponytail is serviceable.” She swished her long, brown ponytail—clasped in a green hair elastic at the nape of her neck—in a way that suggested her ponytail might actually have unexpected uses.

  “Serviceable,” Cherry said, with a pout and a shudder. A ‘serviceable’ hairstyle was, to her, like washing dyed clothes with chlorine bleach would be to me. Unthinkable.

  I grinned wider. It was an argument these two had every Sunday. Cherry always just happened to “drop by,” and after we helped Sally load her car up with baskets of neatly folded, clean laundry, we either went up to my apartment—there are two apartments in the second story over my laundromat, and I live in one and try, mostly unsuccessfully, to rent the other out—for a late breakfast or headed across the street to Sandy’s. This was going to be a Sandy’s Sunday.

  Cherry poufed her hair, currently a highlighted strawberry-blond bob that curved to her face without, somehow, actually getting in her face. It was anything but serviceable . . . although it did make her look ten pounds lighter. While Sally was well toned, even skinny, from chasing three sons during the day, standing on her feet at the bar every afternoon plus Friday and Saturday night, and somehow working extra odd jobs as a carpenter, both Cherry and I always seemed to be fighting extra weight.

  I fingered my hair—an ordinary bob—tucking the usual annoyingly errant strand away from my eyes. The Forelock from Hell, I call it.

  “Serviceable just isn’t going to give you the allure you need to capture a man—”

  “I’ve got plenty of males running around in my life. Literally,” Sally said. “Larry was chasing Barry all around the trailer yesterday and I thought it was going to rock off its cinderblocks—”

  “Now, Sally, you know that’s not what I mean. I mean, with your trim figure, all you need is a new hairstyle and maybe some makeup to catch you a man.”

  Sally just hummed louder—I think she was at the “how sweet the sound” part of the hymn—and folded her sons’ underwear, which she keeps organized by initialing the inside of the waistbands with permanent laundry marker, something I’d suggested.

  “Plus you need a whole new wardrobe. We could go thrift-store shopping up in Masonville . . .”

  It was time for me to break in. I walked into my laundromat. “Aw, Cherry, for pity’s sake, just because you’re plum nuts about Deputy Dean, doesn’t mean you have to try to set up every woman you know.”

  Deputy Dean was what Sally and I had taken to calling Cherry’s latest love interest—Deputy Dean Rankle, who works for the Mason County Sheriff’s Department. For some reason, it bugs her when we put the “Deputy” in front of the “Dean,” so of course we do so as often as possible.

  Cherry looked up from her hairstyle book and glared at me. Sally stopped humming long enough to grin and say, “Hey, there, Josie. You tell her. She’s getting too hot and heavy with old Deputy Dean. Why, they’ve been snuggled up in the back corner booth at the Bar-None most every night this week.”

  I started toward one of the plastic chairs near Cherry. “Really? Well, I’ve noticed Deputy Dean dropping by the Chat N Curl several times this week—after hours.” I waggled my eyebrows at Cherry while I added, “Let me guess. Private pedicures? What goes better with khaki sheriff uniforms . . . Handcuff-Me-Please Pink or Siren Red?”

  Sally giggled, which made me grin in turn. Sally is usually not the giggling type.

  Cherry glared at me. “Oh, excuse me, missy. I was under the impression that men were supposed to actually spend time with their girlfriends. At least my guy doesn’t have an ex he runs off to for Thanksgiving.”

  I gasped.

  Cherry turned her glare on Sally. “Or just plain runs off.”

  Sally stopped humming.

  I eyed Cherry coldly. “I think you owe Sally an apology.”

  “Never mind me,” said Sally. “She owes you an apology, Josie.”

  Suddenly Cherry burst out crying, put her head to her hands, letting her hairstyle book drop to the floor. “I owe you both an apology. I’m sorry. It’s j-j-just you all start teasing me about Dean and I get all nervous, because I think he might really, really be the one.” She emphasized those last two words.

  Sally tossed me one of the boys’ old cloth diapers—thoroughly sterilized and bleached since their original use, and now employed as cleaning rags—and I tossed it at Cherry.

  “Stop sniveling,” I said. “You’re forgiven.”

  Cherry grabbed the old diaper, dabbed at her face while sniffling. Then she stared at the now mascara-and makeup-smeared diaper, made a face, and started to purse her lips to form an “ew.”

  I gave her a warning look and she thought better of complaining about her makeshift hanky. “How do I look? I bet I look terrible. And I have a date with Dean this afternoon. He’s taking me to the Sir Save-a-Lot Cinema up in Masonville and then to Suzy Fu’s Chinese Buffet.”

  “You look fine. Plus you’ll end up re-doing your make-up at least twice before you see Dean.”

  “Okay,” Cherry sn
iffled. “And for the record, I just do one coat of clear for Dean’s pedicures.”

  I’m not sure who burst out laughing first—me or Sally. In any case, within a few seconds, Cherry started laughing, too. When we settled down again, Cherry and I joined Sally in taking out another load of clothes from the dryer. We all started folding.

  “Um, Josie, I’m seriously wondering, though, what are you going to do Thanksgiving, with Owen gone, and all?” Sally asked gently.

  I didn’t even pause in midfold of a tiny blue T-shirt. “Oh, I’ll be fine. I’ll spend the morning at Stillwater, of course. Then, I’ll, uh, I’ll . . .”

  I was looking forward, as always, to my visit with my cousin Guy Foersthoefel at Stillwater Farms. Guy is forty-four and a resident of a wonderful residential home, just fifteen miles north of Paradise, for adults with autism. The home is set on a renovated farm and the staff is wonderful.

  Stillwater always holds a Thanksgiving breakfast—turkey omelettes! Yum!—instead of dinner, in consideration of families who have other places to go later in the day. I’d linger at the breakfast, until Guy got restless—adults with autism have an internal sense of scheduling that defies understanding at times, and Guy always let me know when he was done visiting by getting fidgety—and then I’d . . . I’d . . .

  What?

  Truth be told, I’d been putting off thinking about what I’d do after that.

  Originally, my boyfriend Owen Collins and I had planned to have a romantic Thanksgiving dinner-for-two at my apartment. (The turkey breast was still in the freezer.) Then, maybe, we’d go over the plans I’d been sketching for converting the two apartments into one loft. My success in renting the second apartment has always been spotty at best—the most recent renters had just moved out to a small home on Maple Street—and I thought I could afford to turn my apartment into something more homey. Something that might have space for all the books I keep buying.

  And then, as the candlelight flickered and we grew weary of looking at my plans, maybe we could . . .

  I shook my head and told myself to focus on folding little boy T’s and undies.

  Owen had gone the day before to Kansas City to spend the week with his twelve-year-old, Zachariah, who lived with Tori, his mom, Owen’s ex-wife. Because Owen had once served time for involuntary manslaughter, Tori had full custody of their son, and until a few months before, Owen had had no contact with Zachariah.

  Owen was, understandably, excited about finally getting to spend time with Zachariah. And I was truly excited for him. Even if it meant that, by necessity, he’d also be spending time around Tori.

  Dining on her turkey and dressing and pumpkin pie . . . no doubt in some cozy candle-lit eat-in kitchen of a white-picket-fenced suburban home. With a golden retriever named something like Old Pal snoozing in front of the glowing fireplace . . .

  Not that I was jealous. Owen and his ex-wife were truly over each other, he’d assured me numerous times. He just wanted to see his son, and he was spending the week at a nearby Quality Inn Motel.

  And of course I had no doubts that Owen, while enjoying time with his son, would long to also be with me, dining on turkey and pumpkin pie in the apartment over my laundromat. With a pothos ivy named Rocky dripping yellowing leaves from the windowsill . . .

  For just a second, I hoped Tori’s turkey was tepidly tasteless.

  My older friend and the county’s bookmobile librarian, Winnie Logan, had invited me for Thanksgiving dinner in years past, but her daughter in Chicago had just had her first child—and Winnie’s first grandchild—so Winnie and her husband would be in Chicago for the holiday.

  Sally always spent Thanksgiving with the Toadferns, and since I was “dead” to the family, I had no intention of haunting their holiday festivities.

  Cherry had plans with her family and Deputy Dean’s family.

  I had other friends—none so close as Winnie, Sally, and Cherry, of course—and even customers I could have dropped a hint with, and readily been invited to Thanksgiving.

  But, somehow, I didn’t want to become some other family’s sympathy guest . . . even though I knew no one else would see it that way.

  Maybe I would just read, after my visit to Stillwater. Have the turkey and review my renovation plans by myself.

  Or maybe I’d go up to Masonville and volunteer to serve at the city’s annual feast for homeless and low-income individuals and families.

  Yeah, I thought, starting to get excited, that could be a pretty neat way to spend the day . . .

  “Well, really, Josie, Thanksgiving day is meant to be spent with family,” Cherry said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “That’s how I’m spending the morning.”

  “Well I know that Guy is family, but . . .”

  “What she’s getting at, Josie, is that you have a whole other side to your family,” Sally said. “You’ve kept the last name—”

  “Habit!” I snapped. Which was true. Plus Toadfern was my legal last name when my aunt and uncle adopted me, and since they never saw fit to change it, neither did I.

  “—but you barely know the Toadferns.”

  “Not my fault,” I snapped again. I thumped down the T-shirt I was folding, at least as much as one can thump a T-shirt. A dryer buzzed. I started toward it, stomping my feet as I walked.

  Sally turned and grabbed my arm as I walked by her, causing me to stop and whirl so that I faced her. I glared at her and jerked my arm away from her grasp.

  “I know it’s not your fault, Josie, everyone knows that. Believe it or not, I’m not the only one in the family who has appealed to Mamaw Toadfern . . .”

  “Yeah, well, you’re the only one, besides Billy, who has bothered to really have anything to do with me for the past twenty-two years. For pity’s sake, I was two when Daddy ran off, and that bitter old woman we call Mamaw blamed my mama, and five years after that, when Mama ran off and I could have used some support, she totally cut me off from the family and scared most everyone else from having anything to do with me!”

  My eyes pricked with tears. I was surprised by how much Mamaw’s rejection bothered me, all of a sudden. I told myself it was just because I’d only driven Owen to the airport, up in Columbus, the day before.

  “Now, you listen to me,” Sally said. “Mamaw Toadfern’s had a change of heart. She regrets her decision to cut you off years ago. And . . . and . . . she wants you to come to dinner for Thanksgiving!” Sally finally blurted out.

  I narrowed my eyes at Sally, partly to try to push the tears back. “If she wants me to come so darned badly, why hasn’t she called me herself? Or come on down here to the laundromat? It’s not like I’m hard to find. Practically everyone in the county knows who I am and where to find me.”

  It was the God’s truth. Sure, most everyone has a washer and dryer these days. But they don’t always work. And out in the country, when the water tables are low, people come in. And home washers can’t handle big comforters or throw rugs. Plus, there are still those who don’t have a washer/dryer at home.

  And mine’s the only laundromat in the southern part of Mason County.

  “Well, it’s because Mamaw Toadfern is, well . . .” Sally actually paused to sniffle. I resisted an eye-roll. “She’s just so unhealthy lately . . . something about her liver or her stomach or . . .”

  I wasn’t able to resist bursting out laughing.

  “Now, Josie, that’s not too kind,” Cherry said. “I know your Mamaw Toadfern hasn’t exactly been the ideal grandma, but—”

  “Oh, Cherry, I’ve heard rumors for years about Mamaw’s illnesses. Someone’ll come in here who knows her and start talking about how Noreen Faye Wickenhoof Toadfern has been having a bout with bronchitis, or ulcers, or backaches, and how she’s sure it’s her time to go meet her maker, and I’ll start to feel all guilty that I’ve never gone to see the old woman to offer up an olive branch—even though she rejected me when I was just an innocent little kid—and then I’ll run into her at the Corner
Market or the Antique Depot or Sandy’s Restaurant—and what does she do? She gives me this long, piercing glare, sticks her nose up and her scrawny little butt out, and struts away, and—”

  I stopped. I was actually starting to choke up. What was wrong with me? I didn’t care about what my old biddy Mamaw or other Toadferns who snubbed me thought . . . did I? Maybe it was the holiday season, the prospect of kicking it off without the company of Owen or any of my friends on Thanksgiving evening.

  “She’s having real problems lately,” Sally said. “Last time I went to see her, she told me she had bleeding ulcers.”

  “I had a great-uncle who was kinda like your all’s Mamaw,” Cherry said thoughtfully. “He was a hypochondriac, too, but even hypochondriacs can get sick for real, Josie. He only lived a few weeks after about the thirtieth time my mama called me to say his doctor told him he didn’t have long to live.” Now she sniffled, too. “Always regretted not seeing him.”

  “Oh, you two, please,” I said. “What is it about the Thanksgiving holiday and families and the guilties?”

  “I don’t know,” Cherry said. “But it sure gets to me every year when I go home for dinner and Mama says at the end of the blessing, ‘and God bless all our loved ones gone before us, especially Uncle Bubba, who no one believed was sick. Amen.’”

  “And it’s working me up that Mamaw said to me just last week when I was over to her house to fix a squeaky door. ‘Now Sally,’ she says, ‘there’s something I need to tell Josie and I know you’re the only one who can get her to come to your poor old sick Mamaw’s for Thanksgiving . . .’”

  “No,” I said.

  Sally glared at me. “Josie, aren’t you the least little bit curious about what Mamaw wants?”

  “No,” I said, lying. But I wasn’t about to give in to emotional blackmail.

  “Then go to make my life easier,” Sally said. “Mamaw’ll never let me hear the end of it if I don’t convince you—”