Page 10 of Home Body
“Run!” the mother hen ordered her chick.
They made it down a side hallway that led to the dressing room, slammed the door shut, and took a breath. Mother and daughter glared at one another in shock, then fell into each other’s arms.
“Oh my god, sweetie. That asshole.” Her mom pulled away. “But honey, your dad might kill Chad. Or at least maim him for life. I have to get back out there and calm him down. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mom. Go.”
Llayne O’Brien left her daughter and Kenyon found herself alone in the room with Dalia, who stood by the outside door, bulky makeup bag in hand and the clothes she’d loaned to Kenyon draped over her arm.
“Well,” Dalia said, “you did it. I’ll fill in Mama. She’ll laugh her ass off. But seriously, Kenyon, I’m glad you dumped the douchebag. You can do a lot better than that.”
“Thanks, Dalia. For everything. Thank your mom and Rose, too, will you?”
“Sure.” Dalia opened the door and stepped over the threshold. “’Bye, Kenyon. It’s been nice getting to know you. But how about if you stay out of strip joints from now on? They’re nothing but trouble. Have a happy life, you hear?”
Kenyon had so much she wanted to say but Tamara and Jessa burst into the room. Dalia took the chance to escape. Tamara screamed at Kenyon, Jessa hollered at Tamara to stop screaming at Kenyon, and Kenyon didn’t say a word. She ran to that outside door, flung it open, and watched with a sense of loss as Dalia’s old truck drove away.
CHAPTER 7
Dalia had to admit that Kenyon had balls. That had been the most entertaining wedding on record.
She passed a sheriff’s car that was headed in the direction of the church and, sure enough, Brody McIntyre drove. He turned his head toward her as he went by, sending s shiver down her spine. This whole secret life of hers was becoming far too dicey. She needed to talk to him about keeping mum. But he’d not hesitated as he drove by, most likely on his way to deal with the mess at the defunct wedding. Somebody at the church must have called for help, meaning a fight must have broken out.
She wished she could’ve stayed to see it. That Chad deserved whatever he got. She’d skedaddled, though, to get home to help her mama with baking and then leave for her shift at the club. Ugh. She hated thinking about that place.
But hopefully Brody would be off duty here in time to be there, and they could talk. And even more hopefully he’d agree to keep her secret, although why he’d agree to do that she did not know.
She arrived at the farm to be greeted on the porch by Rose and Rover.
“Mommy! Grammy said Miss Kenyon can be our friend. Where did you take her?”
“I, ah, took her to meet her mom and dad for, ah, lunch.” She wasn’t about to explain a rollicking, bogus wedding to a five-year-old. Still, it always stuck in her craw to lie to her child. She’d had to do it every time she left to go to work at Babette’s. To top it off, lying to her mama made her feel like scum every time she did that, too, which was six times a week for the last month.
This dancing gig might not last. She tossed that thought aside. It had to or she’d never have the money for Mama Mamie’s Bakery, which was the whole point of the dancing debacle.
“Boo honey,” Mamie called to her from inside the house. With the front door open and only the screen door closed, it’d been easy to hear her. “I have something for you!” They went inside where Mamie stood on the stairs. “Up here in the sewing room.”
Once there, Dalia instantly saw that three crisp, white blouses hung on a rack. Her knees went weak, and she almost crumbled with humility and shame. Her mama had made her white blouses for the fake uniform supposedly required for her fake job at a fake restaurant.
“Mama! They’re beautiful.” Dalia ran a hand over them, marveling at her mama’s superb craftsmanship as a seamstress. There wasn’t anything on the home front that Mamie Blackburn couldn’t do. “You didn’t have to do this. Thank you so much.” She struggled not to cry, to act normal in this twisted scheme of illusion.
“Oh I know, honey. But I wanted to. You only have those two white blouses you keep washing over and over to wear to work. You need some extras. Now I know you only plan on keeping that job to the end of summer, but a woman can never have too many white blouses, don’t you think?”
“I think.” Dalia said, “Little one, did you know about this?”
Rose giggled. “Yes! Grammy showed me. We had a secret.”
A secret indeed. They had no idea what manner of secrets existed in this house.
This double life thing was getting to her. This whole arrangement was becoming tenuous with two people from her hometown having identified her. She couldn’t believe Brody and Kenyon had stumbled into her secret existence after all her fastidious plotting. It had all become extremely tenuous.
Dalia felt like the end of her farcical money-grabbing scheme might be near. It’d seemed innocent enough when she’d started, but the creepiness and sneaking around were getting to her. She had no choice, though, but to buck up and stick with it.
Full of angst and dread, she would once again go to work and morph into Scarlett Blaze, tucking her real world away in a sacred place that she would never allow to touch Babette’s Gentlemen’s Club. She would leave for work feeling like an imposter, a fraud, a lout. She’d take one of the lovely, new white blouses with her, along with the black skirt she supposedly wore for work. Her Mama had no idea that uniform never saw the light of day.
Kenyon had promised to keep her secret, but that Brody McIntyre’s volubility threatened to destroy her carefully constructed charade. He had to be stopped at all costs. How she’d do that, she didn’t know. But do it she must.
CHAPTER 8
