CHAPTER 10
Lowe
“Looking good, Lowe Mancinkus,” I hear a woman call out as I stretch upward to paint the top of the frame around the window. Turning my head to look over my shoulder, I see Lynette Carnes getting ready to walk into Sweet Cakes across the street. She’s our town’s very own Daisy Duke. By that, I mean she struts around in miniscule jean shorts, high heels, and a sleeveless blouse tied off just underneath her very ample chest.
She’s definitely nice to look at, although she doesn’t have much going on above the cleavage.
“Morning, Lynette,” I call back. “Lookin’ good yourself.”
She grins and blows a kiss at me before walking into Larkin’s shop.
The front door opens and Mely steps out onto the porch, carrying a cup of coffee. There’s no doubt in my mind she witnessed that exchange from the other side of the doorway. It’s obvious by the pinched expression she has on her face. Still, she brings the coffee over to me and sets it on the porch rail.
“Thanks, darlin’,” I tell her as I go back to brushing paint over the layer of primer I’d put on a few hours ago. I’d decided to work half a day here at Mainer House, not because I was anxious to get the work done, but because I wanted to be around Melinda Rothschild.
She may not be strutting around in little shorts and a low-cut blouse, but she is most definitely a prettier picture than I’ve ever seen around these parts. She’s wearing a white sundress with a halter top, and her shoulders are lightly tanned with tiny freckles. Her legs are long, bare, and perfectly adorned with nothing more than a pair of simple white sandals. Her silky blonde hair is pulled away from her face at the top of her head and she looks like a breath of fresh air.
Mely leans against the porch rail, crosses her arms low under her breasts, and watches me work for a minute. I wonder if she likes what she sees.
I think so.
There was going to be another kiss last night if Morri hadn’t managed to ruin that little moment. And while I’d never stoop to mention this to Mely, I’m pretty sure he’d been hovering at the top of the stairs, just waiting to ruin it.
“Much better than hot pink,” Mely says as I continue to apply paint to the casing. I have no clue what the hell I was thinking when I painted her house pink. It was an attention getter and since the two people whose attention it got were Mely and Judge Bowe, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out I might have been pulling on her metaphorical pigtails a bit.
“I should have this finished by tomorrow,” I tell her. “Then all will be right again.”
“Odd since it took you a single night to do the damage,” she quips. I don’t look back at her, but I hear the laughter in her voice.
“Well, neon pink isn’t all that easy to cover up,” I tell her with a laugh.
She snickers and I can’t believe she was trying to get me thrown in jail last week. My how the mighty have fallen.
“When in Rome and all that,” Mely says and I turn to look at her from my perch on the ladder. She jerks her chin over her shoulder in the direction of Sweet Cakes. “Is that the standard southern girl uniform?”
Chuckling, I cut my eyes over to Sweet Cakes where sexy Lynette just disappeared into. I’m not about to tell Mely that I have actual carnal knowledge about that southern girl, even if it was back in my younger years.
Looking back to Mely, I take in her stylishly sweet dress that doesn’t reveal much but is still sexy at the same time. Giving her a wink, I say, “There’s nothing standard about you, Melinda Rothschild, so I’m advising you to stay away from that look. I think you’re mighty fine just the way you are.”
And yeah… that little blush staining her cheeks is mighty fine, too.
My attention is caught by a rumbling engine and I see the FedEx truck pull up. Mely pushes off the porch rail and turns to the steps just as Kelvin is trotting up with a large box. He looks at Mely, glances to me, and mutters, “What’s up, Lowe?”
“Not much,” I say as I set my brush down over the edge of the paint can, using the moment to wipe my hands clean on the rag tucked in my back pocket.
Mely signs a digital pad from Kelvin, who looks at Mely with open interest. People have been talking a lot about the pretty New Yorker come south, and some of the men in Chesty’s haven’t been all that polite about their interest in her.
He glances at me.
I glare back at him, and he takes the hint, accepting the digital pad from her as he hands over the box without another word.
As Mely turns, I ask her, “Morri’s dress?”
Her head lifts and her blue eyes sparkle in the rays from the morning sun cutting west across the edge of the front porch. “You really aren’t too wigged out about a black gay drag queen staying in town and having formal gowns delivered by FedEx, are you?”
“I’m a bit more liberal than most,” I tell her, and this is not a joke. There are many in this town who wouldn’t understand a damn thing about Morris D. And a few more than that who would be downright threatened by his “strangeness”.
“It will take a little getting used to that,” she says quietly… and a bit sadly that prejudice is something she’ll have to deal with while here. I hate it’s a part of my home state, but despite a broader acceptance of gays, there’s much about North Carolina that’s still quite backward.
I don’t like seeing that look on her face. Worry for Morri, and maybe for herself as she tries to acclimate, and it makes me want her to see that there are some people like me who don’t give a damn about the color of your skin or how ridiculous you look in a silk kimono robe while sporting a pair of testicles.
“Let me have that box,” I say as I jump off the ladder, coming to land right beside Mely.
She looks at me with skeptical eyes, pulling the box a little closer to herself. “Why?”
“Because I have an idea,” I say as I hold my hand out.
“What idea?” she presses.
“A joke,” I admit to her, opening and closing my hand with impatience. “A practical one. Make Morri see that I’m all about the fun.”
“The fun?”
“Okay, I want to punish him for ruining our near kiss last night,” I tell her with an impish grin, and her cheeks go pink again.
Damn, I like that.
“This is Morri’s dream dress,” she says hesitantly, but I can tell she’s intrigued. I also admire her sass when she adds on, “And I wasn’t going to kiss you again last night.”
“I won’t harm a pretty, sparkling sequin on it,” I promise in return, and then also declare. “And you were so going to kiss me again.”
“Was not,” she maintains, even as she tries to hand the box over to me.
That challenge in her eyes is what causes me to act so rashly. My hand shoots out, ignoring the box and taking her by the back of her neck. I pull her into me and bend my face down, so my mouth is hovering right over hers.
I don’t say a word and I hold perfectly still, giving her the option to pull away or push forward.
The smile is knocked right off my face when she goes to her tiptoes with a tiny sigh of capitulation and kisses me.
It’s sweet, brief, and intimate. Mouths slightly open to start, closed by the end of the kiss, and then she’s pulling back from me.
“I hate that you were right about that,” she mutters.
Laughing, I grab her hand and pull her down the porch steps. “Come on. I don’t want Morri to catch us.”
“I’m not complicit in this,” she says as she trots to keep up with me.
“You’re so complicit,” I say as I take the box from her and tuck it under my arm. I throw a quick glance over my shoulder, and snicker as I think of Morri back in the house completely unaware that his beloved drag dress has arrived.
Putting my hand to Mely’s lower back, I push her gently along the sidewalk as we head east along Wilmington Street.
Past Crump’s Grocery and Aunty Q’s, across Walker Street.
In front of the rebuild of Millie’s and into the glass door of Lady Marmalade’s, which tinkles from the tiny bell that sits above.
“Well, if it ain’t Lowe Mancinkus and the pretty city slicker from New York,” I hear from the back of the darkened shop. Lady Marmalade—aka Sissy Givens—likes to be mysterious. Her shop is always gloomy as the bright overhead lights are turned off, and the only illumination is from a handful of lamps scattered about her vintage clothing store covered in ornate, beaded shawls.
Sissy is a transplant herself into Whynot, but she’s still southern bred straight from the state of Mississippi. She followed her husband to the area for work, and they settled here almost thirty years ago. He’s a lineman with the phone company, and Sissy opened Lady Marmalade’s to keep up on local gossip. Her vintage clothing shop doesn’t get much in the way of business, but it’s always fun to hang out with the woman.
“Hey, Sissy,” I say as I wind my way through racks of clothing and mannequins dressed in garish outfits. Mely follows along behind me.
When we reach the counter, I turn to take in Mely’s reaction so far. I can tell by the look on her face that she’s not been in here exploring yet.
She looks at Sissy in odd fascination, although she’s smiling sweetly.
Sissy Givens is probably just an inch or so over six feet and she’s just as big everywhere else, probably close to three hundred pounds if I had to guess. She’s like an Amazon woman. A tall, black, thick Amazonian with a bald head.
I’m not kidding.
And yet, she’s also pretty. She’s in her late fifties I’d guess, but her skin is smoother than a baby’s butt. Despite her girth, which she hides with big, flowing caftan dresses, she somehow projects an almost ethereal quality when she moves. Her eyes are done up in silvery blue shadow and her lips are always covered in cherry-red lipstick.
And now that I think about it… she actually looks like a drag queen, and the irony of us being here with Morri’s dress is now freaking hilarious.
“Sissy,” I say by way of introduction as I place the box on the wooden counter behind which Sissy is sitting. “This is Melinda Rothschild.”
“Mely,” she says as she holds her hand out to Sissy.
“Welcome to Lady Marmalade’s,” she returns as she shakes Mely’s hand. Her eyes then go to the box. “What have you brought me?”
“This…” I say, patting the box with relish, “is going to be an epic joke.”
“I’m listenin’,” she says with a smile so bright against her dark skin that my eyes hurt.
“Inside this box,” I drawl as I lean my elbows on the counter and hover over said box, “is a beautiful, expensive, and treasured formal gown that just got delivered to Mely’s good friend, Morris D.”
“What kind a name is Morris D?” Sissy asks.
“The kind that would wear the dress in this box,” I explain. “On stage. As a drag queen.”
As expected, this news doesn’t faze Sissy. She loves all people. “Go on.”
“He’s waiting for this right now, over in Mainer House. He’d be completely wigged out if something happened to it.”
“And by wigged out, you mean?” she presses.
“He’d have a complete drama-queen meltdown,” Mely supplies for me.
I turn to find her grinning at Sissy, but then her gaze slides to me. “So, what are we going to do?”
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my knife that we’d used just last night to carve beef tenderloin. Flipping it open, I nod over my shoulder at the racks of clothes. “You and Sissy find the most godawful dress in the entire world. I mean… make it ugly, ugly, ugly.”
Both women watch me for just a few moments as I carefully stick the tip of the knife into a taped seam on the box, and delicately slice through it. This must be done carefully, as the box cannot look tampered with, and I know this because this isn’t the first time I’ve done this little switcharoo joke.
Let’s just say my brother Colt expecting a limited-edition Pamela Anderson swimsuit poster from eBay and getting Weird Al Yankovic instead was not as funny to him as it was to me.
As I stealthily break into the box to remove Morri’s dress, Sissy and Mely rummage through the clothing racks. I risk a glance at them, and it’s not lost on me that my heart beats harder when I take Mely in.
Hand over her mouth in earnest consideration as Sissy holds a hideous olive-green dress with orange feathers up for perusal. The playful light in her eyes showing me she’s got a sense of humor to match my own, which makes her even more intriguing to me.
I don’t know how long Mely plans on being around Whynot. As far as I know, she’s here to just flip the property and will be out of here soon thereafter. But I know she’s not going to be leaving anytime soon as there’s plenty of work to do on Mainer House. Based on the fact I’ve kissed that woman twice and it’s been amazing both times, I plan on making the most of her stay here.