Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
“You should’ve been there,” I told Dottie Swaggert, Happy Trails Campground manager and one of my best friends. “Those women were about two seconds from jerking each other across those tables by their pearls.”
I balanced myself near the top of the ladder, which we’d been using to hang kerosene lanterns around the tiki hut for tonight’s fundraiser, and reached my hand down automatically for the next one. When nothing landed in my palm, I looked down.
Dottie had abandoned the job completely.
She’d dropped down into one of the Adirondack chairs beneath the tiki hut with all the dramatic exhaustion of a woman who’d just survived a natural disaster instead of helping decorate for a community event.
One tanned leg crossed over the other while she dug around in the pocket of her rhinestone-studded shorts for her pleather cigarette case.
Her hot-pink sponge curlers were still rolled tight across the top of her short red hair and bounced every time she moved her head.
“Hello?” I hollered down at her. “You planning on helping me, or are you just supervising from the comfort of your throne?”
“I’m takin’ a smoke break,” she informed me like that explained everything. She stuck the cigarette between her lips and lit it with a pink lighter.
“Don’t catch those curlers on fire,” I teased. “The campground’s insured, but I’m pretty sure your hair ain’t.”
Dottie sucked in a long drag before pointing the cigarette toward me. “You hush. These curlers have survived humidity, murder investigations, and a propane explosion back in ninety-eight. They’ll outlive both of us.”
I laughed, climbed down the ladder, and grabbed another lantern from the box sitting beside the tiki hut.
Around us, Happy Trails Campground buzzed with late afternoon activity.
Campers walked toward the recreation hall, carrying Crock-Pots and folding chairs while kids rode bikes between the loops.
Somebody over near the bathhouse had country music blaring loud enough to hear three campsites over.
The smell of charcoal grills and citronella candles already drifted through the air.
And in the distance, I could hear the rattle of a golf cart where I’d asked Henry Bryant, my campground handyman, to deliver campfire wood ordered earlier this morning.
Now I was regretting volunteering the campground to host the evening fundraiser. At the time, it had sounded fun. Casual. Relaxed. A nice way for the whole town to participate after the formal Historical Society tea at the Milkery.
“I’m telling you,” I muttered while hooking another lantern onto the beam overhead, “those women have issues.”
Dottie snorted smoke out her nose. “Honey, women with money always got issues. Ain’t nobody that tense unless they’re hidin’ somethin’ or constipated.”
I nearly dropped the lantern laughing.
“Well, when I was married to money…” I recalled the event a long time ago before I lived in Kentucky and was married to Hank. “I didn’t act like that.”
“You also didn’t grow up with money.” Dottie reminded me how Mary Elizabeth raised Bobby Ray and me as a single foster mother before I’d hightailed it to New York City on a Greyhound bus on my eighteenth birthday.
“Florence Sparks alone could start three wars with just one fundraiser seating chart,” I said. “Tara Kelly looked ready to crawl out of her skin sitting beside her, and Alice Charles practically admitted she can’t stand Florence’s opinions on conservation funding.”
Dottie leaned forward in her chair so fast her feather earrings swung. “Hold up now. Florence Sparks and Tara Kelly were at the same table?”
“Yes.”
“That’s messier than a toddler eatin’ spaghetti in a white church dress,” Dottie said with a cackle.
I shook my head. “Apparently, Florence had an affair with somebody connected to a governor’s campaign.”
“Oh, everybody knows that.” Dottie waved her cigarette around. “Florence Sparks has been struttin’ around Kentucky, actin’ holier than a church casserole while carryin’ more gossip than a beauty shop on bingo night.”
“You could’ve warned me,” I said.
“Nobody warned me about life being hard.” She shrugged. “Sometimes you just gotta figure things out on your own.”
I climbed back onto the ladder and adjusted one of the lanterns. Below me, Dottie had fully settled into gossip mode now, which meant productivity was officially over.
“So what else happened?” she asked. “Don’t leave me hangin’ like drawers on a clothesline.”
I told her about the water spill, the waitress nearly crying, Florence correcting everybody’s manners every four minutes, and the weird tension floating around the table all afternoon. By the time I finished, Dottie had smoked half her cigarette down to the filter.
“That Florence woman sounds like a piece of work,” Dottie declared. “People like that don’t realize everybody around ’em is just smilin’ while secretly picturin’ pushin’ ’em into traffic.”
I climbed down the ladder again and wiped my hands on my shorts before looking out toward the lake. Fifi was still out in the water, paddling around with the ducks while Chester sprinted up and down the dock, barking himself hoarse like he personally worked for lake security.
“Those dogs,” I muttered. “Fifi’s gonna smell like swamp water by tonight.”
The sound of gravel flying up around tires made us both look up immediately.
“Well,” Dottie drawled slowly while squinting through her cigarette smoke, “whoever that is, is drivin’ like their britches are on fire.”
I gave a sharp whistle toward the lake. Chester immediately whipped around while Fifi ignored me entirely and kept paddling beside the ducks like she suddenly belonged to wildlife now.
Both dogs were great about staying away from cars, but whistling at them helped me get their attention just in case they were keyed in on something else.
As Dottie pushed herself out of the chair with a groan and tucked her pleather cigarette case into the waistband of her rhinestone-studded shorts, both of us watched to see who was about to round the corner near the recreation hall.
“Good gracious, get me a fan,” Dottie gushed dramatically, waving one hand in front of her face the second the pamper camper rolled into view. “That man’s got more chest exposed than a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store.”
Tex leaned one tanned arm out the driver’s-side window of the remodeled camper van he and Glenda Russell used for Cascades Mobile Spa.
Like always, he was shirtless. Of course he was shirtless. The man could probably survive a blizzard without ever considering fabric, but luckily for him, I did let him stay at Happy Trails during the winter months, since it was the offseason.
His bronzed chest looked like it belonged on the cover of one of those outdoorsman magazines stacked beside the checkout counter at the gas station, and the snug cutoff shorts he wore looked painful enough to require circulation checks every thirty minutes.
His cowboy hat sat low over his eyes while one hand lazily drummed against the steering wheel to whatever music was playing inside the camper.
The pamper camper itself looked more polished than half the vacation rentals around Normal.
What used to be an old camper had been completely transformed into a rolling spa sanctuary, with painted wood siding, soft lantern lights strung around the awning, and little flower boxes secured beneath the windows.
The back trailer carried massage tables, rolled-up hammocks, and supplies for the outdoor setup they planned to create near the woods beside the campground.
The camper door swung open, and Glenda Russell stepped down, carrying three wooden crates filled with oils, lotions, and neatly folded towels.
Unlike Tex, Glenda looked exactly like somebody who sold herbal remedies and talked about aligning your energy.
Her long silver braid hung nearly to her waist, layered necklaces bounced against her loose linen dress, and she smelled faintly of lavender before she even reached us.
“Well, don’t y’all look busy,” Glenda called with an easy grin.
“We’re doing actual work while Dottie ogles chiropractors,” I answered.
“I got eyes, don’t I?” Dottie shot back. “Ain’t dead yet.”
Tex climbed down from the camper, grabbed one side of a folded massage table with one hand like it weighed absolutely nothing, and nodded toward the tiki hut. “Evenin’, ladies.”
“Lord, he smells good too,” Dottie muttered loudly enough for all of us to hear. “That oughta be illegal this close to church people.”
Tex laughed while Glenda rolled her eyes like she’d heard every variation of Dottie Swaggert’s commentary imaginable.
“We brought the cedar oils, peppermint rollers, and the forest blend,” Glenda said as she started unloading boxes. “Tex made extra after Mae told us the tea-party guests were taking the samples.”
“That’s what I wanted to ask!” Tex pointed toward me while balancing the massage table against his hip. “How’d the oils go over with the fancy ladies?”
I leaned against the ladder and crossed my arms. “Depends on which lady you ask.”
“Oh no,” Glenda groaned. “What happened?”
“Florence Sparks happened,” Dottie answered immediately. “That woman’s tighter than a pickle jar lid.”
Tex barked out a laugh while Glenda shook her head. “She didn’t like them?”
“She said they smelled earthy,” I answered.
Glenda blinked once. “Earthy?”
“Bless your heart,” Dottie said sympathetically. “That’s rich-lady code for ‘smells like somebody rubbed a tree on me.’”
Tex nearly dropped the massage table laughing.
“Wait.” Tex stopped. “Did you say ‘Florence’?”
“I did.” I nodded. I saw a very confused look on his face. “Why?”
“That’s the lady who called me this afternoon and had me come over to the Milkery for an adjustment.” He looked at Glenda.