Wreath Read online

  He shook his head. “John David’s girl was a Willis.”

  “The names are close enough. Perhaps Wreath’s mother changed her name, or married someone else.”

  “Wreath could have a whole family out there looking for her,” J. D. said. “I’m trying to bring a piece of my son back.”

  “Do you remember the girlfriend’s first name?” Faye asked, afraid to get their hopes up, yet longing for this to be one of the answers for Wreath’s future.

  “Her name was Frances,” J. D. said. “But John David called her Frankie. I tried to track her down a time or two through the years, but she moved around a lot after she left Landry. I decided I was being foolish and quit trying.”

  Faye could barely take in what J. D. was saying, her ears ringing with the name Frankie. “Oh my” was all she could manage to say at first. Then she was adamant. “We cannot stir things up for Wreath until she’s stronger.”

  Never in Faye’s life, not even when Billy had died, had she been so tied up in knots.

  On one hand, she was thrilled beyond belief that Wreath could have an honest and good man like J. D. to look after her. On the other, she feared Wreath wouldn’t be able to fathom why her father’s family had abandoned her for all these years.

  When Faye remembered the thin girl who first stepped into the store in need of a bicycle, an almost physical pain shot through her. All that time, a family and someone who cared had been only a few yards away.

  Piecing the puzzle together made it all look so obvious. At times she had seen a similar expression on the faces of the man and the girl and not quite been able to place it. The two were both voracious readers, and they kidded each other constantly about what the other was reading. Wreath was never without her journal, and J. D. carried a small notebook in his shirt pocket, jotting down one list after another.

  They even had the same nose.

  But Faye didn’t know whether the teenager would be thrilled by the revelation or brokenhearted, whether it would stir up questions and issues best left undisturbed or bring a new wave of joy. She could not bear to see the girl hurt, even if it meant she never knew her father’s family, and insisted they not tell Wreath until they were completely certain.

  “We simply cannot bring this up without more to go on,” Faye said on their first supper date, a few nights after their conversation at the store. “She’s just now beginning to get over the death of her mother.”

  “I’m concerned, too,” J. D. said. “Have you heard anything more about this cousin she’s living with?”

  “Not a word,” Faye said. “It’s as though he doesn’t exist.”

  “What if she rejects me?” J. D. said. “Or hates me for leaving her and her mother on their own all this time? Clearly she and her mother did not have much going for them.”

  “They had each other, and that mattered a lot to Wreath.” Faye laid her hand on his. “Frankie told her that her father was a good boy, that they were kids when they met, and he was killed.”

  “My mind keeps thinking of the ways this might affect her, and about half of those aren’t great.”

  “You won’t know unless you tell her,” Faye said.

  “I’m afraid to tell her.”

  “We need to wait until the time is right,” Faye said. “I couldn’t love that child more if she was my own flesh and blood, and I won’t have her hurt. To top it off, she’s worried about college.”

  “I want to help her with that. I have more than enough money stuck back,” he said.

  “Wreath’s not much for taking money from others, and she’s about as stubborn as anyone I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure she’ll accept your help.”

  J. D. paused. “John David’s mother said he had the personality of a mule, and she blamed that on my side of the family.”

  “Maybe you should hold off for a while and see what happens.”

  “As long as you’re convinced Wreath’s not in harm’s way,” he said. “No one—and I do mean no one—will hurt that girl if I have anything to say about it.”

  A week after her bout with the flu, Wreath confirmed her acceptance into a community college up in Alexandria, buying a money order for her deposit.

  “It’ll be okay,” she told Julia while doing makeup work at lunch. “It’s not exactly what I dreamed of, but it’s a start.”

  “At least you’ll be close to Landry,” Julia said.

  Wreath grinned and tried to overcome her disappointment at not making an A-level university. “That’s what Faye said, too.”

  “Wreath …” The sound in Julia’s voice caused a knot in her stomach. “Is all of your paperwork cleared up for graduation?”

  “Sure.” Wreath closed the textbook and stood. “I think I’m done with this. And my project was satisfactory, right?”

  “Your project was outstanding, as always,” Julia said, but the look on her face didn’t match her words.

  Wreath grabbed her pack and hurried to the door, but her teacher spoke again before she could escape. “Sometimes transfer students have loose ends to tie up. Be sure to check in with the counselor.”

  “Will do,” Wreath said and headed toward the cafeteria, checking her watch and wondering how she could clear up the mess she was in.

  Law, Mitch, and Destiny were nearly finished with lunch when she slid into a cafeteria chair at their table.

  “What’s up?” Law asked. “You look worried.”

  “Nothing,” Wreath said, fumbling to get an apple out of her pack. “There’s just a lot going on.”

  “Does it have something to do with Aunt Faye?” Mitch asked.

  Wreath threw him an exasperated look. “Of course not,” she said and then glanced at Law. “She didn’t want me to move back in with my cousin, but she’s all right with it.”

  “My dad thinks Aunt Faye’s up to something,” Mitch continued. “He says she’s as jumpy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

  Wreath laughed, but a butterfly flitted through her stomach. “I think she’s falling for J. D. They spend a lot more time talking lately.”

  Wreath had moved back to the Rusted Estates after only a week at Faye’s house, much to the woman’s dismay, but reassured Faye that she would stay every weekend with her and keep going to church. Law had kept his word and not told anyone that she lived at the junkyard.

  “That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he’d said when Wreath came back to school. “Are you sure you’re safe out there? Miss Watson said they haven’t found that Procell guy yet.”

  “I’m safer out there than I’d be in a metropolitan area,” she said with a laugh. “I have a baseball bat that will keep all varmints away.”

  She set her traps each day and settled easily back into her routine, her legs strengthening again on the bike rides into town. In the evenings in the Tiger Van, she read and reread the junior college catalog and filled out more paperwork.

  She was still neck and neck with Law in the senior class standings, and Wreath had begun to believe that maybe God did have a plan for her life after all.

  Chapter 37

  Faye and Julia teased Wreath about “The Great Prom Project” when April arrived.

  Confident she’d find a used dress, she had decided to scrimp on her outfit but splurge on extras for the evening with Law, digging up one can of her savings. Dear Brownie, she wrote in her diary, I’ll never be a senior again, and I want this to be special.

  Her prom list included choosing a dress (TEAL or AQUA!!!), finding killer shoes, and deciding whether she wanted to put her hair up or not. She asked Julia and Faye for opinions on where to get her hair done and what color her nails should be. She experimented with an expensive tooth-whitening paste from the drugstore and frequented the thrift shop in search of the perfect dress and matching pair of shoes.

  As the days passed and no dress appeared, she repeated her strict instructions to Faye to be on the lookout at garage sales. “It needs good lines and a soft fabric,” Wreath said. “I�
�m hoping for something in green or blue, maybe black, but only if it doesn’t look like a funeral dress.”

  “We’ll find you one,” Faye said. “If we don’t, we’ll drive to Lafayette, and I’ll buy you a new one.”

  Wreath shook her head. “I want to look pretty, but I don’t want to waste money on a dress. The school applications cost more than I expected, and I’m trying to save more money for moving to college.”

  Julia had gotten into the prom spirit, too, and signed on as one of the chief faculty sponsors and chaperones. “I haven’t gotten involved in school activities before,” she said at the store one afternoon. “Now’s the time.”

  Wreath clapped her hands and did one of her happy hops. “I’m so glad,” she said. “It’ll be more fun having you there.”

  “How about Shane?” Faye asked. “Will he be wearing a tux that night?”

  “Unfortunately, he’s on duty the entire evening. He did promise to stop by and check out my dress.”

  “You’ve already got a dress?” Wreath whined. “I can’t find one.”

  “Not yet, but I’m thinking about it.”

  Wreath’s excitement about the prom and graduation spilled over into her enthusiasm for the store, and she came up with a long list of possible rooms to put together. “I have a new idea for the window,” she told Faye, rushing in from school. “Let’s do a prom thing, featuring clothes and furniture from the fifties.”

  Then another idea hit her. “We can offer to let girls who buy dresses here have their picture taken in the store displays, wearing their dresses.” Wreath, generally fairly calm, buzzed around the store, framing imaginary pictures. She even dashed to the sidewalk to see how the idea could work from outside.

  Faye followed with a bemused look. “You have a talent for this, Wreath. This could be your best idea yet.”

  “Maybe the school yearbook will publish some of them. Think of the publicity for Junkyard Couture,” Wreath said. She had her journal in hand and stood sketching ideas, Faye looking over her shoulder.

  “You ladies casing the place?” J. D. asked, wandering over from the hardware store. His voice had a gentle quality.

  “Wreath’s coming up with those marketing ideas she’s so good at,” Faye said. “She’s making one of her famous lists.”

  “I like to write things down,” she said to J. D. as he looked down at her notebook. “What do you think about this look?”

  The man laid his hand on her shoulder as he peered at her drawing. “That’s imaginative,” he said. “Where’d you get that artistic talent?”

  Wreath shrugged. “From my father, I guess. Frankie—my mama, that is—said I sure didn’t get it from her.”

  “So your parents passed away?” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Wreath said, moving back toward the store, not wanting to mar her excitement with thoughts of Frankie. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to finish this up before closing time.”

  “I shouldn’t tell her yet, should I?” J. D. said to Faye.

  “I don’t think so,” Faye said, taking both his hands in hers. “Let her have the joy of prom before we blow up her life again.”

  Julia threw her artistic energy into the Durham’s Fine Furnishing prom window design, laughing as she and Wreath sketched and experimented.

  One day she arrived at the back door carrying three huge canvases, an old-fashioned ball gown painted in a pastel color on each canvas. “We’ve been hoping you’d let us display your art sometime,” Wreath exclaimed. “We can hang one in the boutique, one in the new prom parlor I’m putting together, and one in the window.”

  “Just what I hoped,” Julia said.

  Excited by Wreath’s quest for an old dress, Julia had called her father, who dug around in the attic and shipped her senior prom dress to the store. She ripped into a box covered with brown paper and tied with twine and pulled it out in front of Wreath and Faye. A beautiful plum color, it had spaghetti straps and a small ruffle around the neck and hem. “You can wear it if you want,” she offered, holding it out.

  Wreath fingered the soft fabric even while she shook her head. “It looks just like you,” Wreath said. “You have to wear it.”

  “I want you to wear it, though.”

  “No,” the store owner said to Julia. “Wreath’s right. That dress was made for you.”

  “I hope I can still fit into it.”

  “All that running has to be good for something,” Faye said. “Try it on, and we’ll see if I need to do any alterations.”

  The girl and the older woman drew in their breath when Julia walked out of the workroom, gliding like a glamorous model.

  “That is stunning,” Faye said.

  “I would laugh at the looks on your faces,” Julia said, “but I’m afraid I’d tear a seam.”

  Within minutes Faye was seated on the floor with her old red pincushion shaped like a tomato. She pinned here and basted there, mumbling to herself about nips and tucks.

  “Stand still,” she said, the words garbled by a host of pins in her mouth.

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” Julia said with a salute and then winced when a pin poked her. “You did that on purpose,” she said.

  “I most certainly did not,” Faye said, and Wreath laughed.

  Wreath felt as though she had gotten on a tall slide at the park and started down before she was quite ready. With homework a priority, college plans gradually settling, and work at the store, she was constantly busy.

  Nearly every girl in the senior class had come by to look at the store’s Junkyard Couture collection of party dresses. Faye had updated some, with touches suggested by Wreath, and the result was an amazing array, lacking in only one thing. The perfect dress for Wreath.

  One afternoon Faye was at her desk assembling a box in the purple and gold colors of Landry High when Wreath came in from school.

  “So you decided to come back,” Faye called out automatically when the bell sounded.

  “Couldn’t stay away,” Wreath said.

  “What’d you learn today?”

  “That my boss is holding out on me.”

  Faye’s mouth fell open for a moment. “What?”

  “Miss Watson told me about your marketing ideas,” Wreath said.

  Faye exhaled. “Oh, you’re talking about my prom-shopping box.”

  “What’d you think I meant?” Wreath asked, plopping down next to her.

  “Nothing.” She held up a brown box with a pink ribbon. “Voilà! Open it and see what you think.”

  Inside were a tube of lip gloss, a small piece of high-end chocolate, and a packet of tissues with fancy high-heel shoes printed on them.

  “Let’s give the prom shoppers the red-carpet treatment,” Faye said, “including punch and cookies and a box of favors. The shopping experience can be like a party.”

  “I love that idea,” Wreath said. “How’d you think of that?”

  “I’ve been doing research myself,” Faye said with a smile.

  Wreath couldn’t resist and threw her arms around Faye’s neck. “We need a sign on the highway,” she said. “We’re about to go big-time!”

  Chapter 38

  Between a billboard hastily designed by Julia and Wreath and word of mouth, the store exploded with customers. Students, best friends, and moms from all over the region oohed and aahed over dresses, sipped punch, and nibbled on cookies while declaring they had to watch their diets. They bought dresses by the shopping sack full, gearing up for proms at every high school in the area.

  Grandmothers began to tag along, too, putting their feet up and sipping Faye’s new blend of tea, often leaving with a custom-ordered designer pillow or one of the pricey candles that she had ordered wholesale.

  Faye paid off a line of credit Billy had carried for years and opened a savings account in which she deposited regular amounts for tuition without telling Wreath.

  Through all the busyness, she and Wreath bought leftover belongings from others, needing more and more merchand
ise to keep up with the demand, visiting house after house in Landry’s old neighborhoods. They had started getting phone calls from people with merchandise to sell, and Faye recruited Julia to watch the store in late afternoons so they could check out potential goods.

  “These people heard about us from a neighbor,” Faye told Wreath one afternoon as they drove to a worn neighborhood to look over the contents of a house. “The owner is moving to an independent living center and wants to get rid of a lot of furniture. “I do believe we’re developing a bit of a reputation as junk lovers.”

  “We’re called pickers,” Wreath said matter-of-factly. “I looked it up at school.”

  “I suppose I’ve been called worse,” Faye said and punched the gas on the old car. “Although technically I believe pickers are people you hire to do the dirty work for you.”

  Wreath cast a sideways glance.

  “I keep telling you that I’m doing my research, too,” Faye said with a smile and turned the big car onto the street where the house sat. She even drove differently these days, faster, with more confidence. She had begun to imagine herself in a sports car instead of the gigantic model.

  When they pulled up next to the curb, Wreath visibly stiffened, and Faye’s lighthearted mood shifted. “You’re awfully quiet all of a sudden. You’re not having a relapse, are you?” Ever since Wreath had gotten sick, Faye hovered over her. She regularly served her fruit juice and lectured her about getting enough rest.

  “I’m all right,” Wreath said, “but I think I’ll wait in the car.”

  “You’re sick again, aren’t you?” Faye touched her forehead. “You’re clammy. I’m taking you home. I can reschedule this anytime.”

  Wreath drew a deep breath. “I’m not sick, but I can’t decide if I want to go in this house or not.” She paused long enough for Faye to look puzzled. “It’s where my mother grew up.”

  “Oh, Wreath, this must be so hard for you,” Faye said. “Why don’t I take you to my house, and I’ll come back.”