Chapter 15 Divorce Croissants #2
"Your self-cleaning mouse-chasers will probably love this place with the chickens and mice," Jen said.
Bess sniggered and Tilly shook her head.
"I hope they don't terrorize the chickens," Ursula worried.
"Oh pish posh!" a gregarious voice greeted them and they all turned to see Crystal dressed in head-to-toe pink from a pink large-brimmed hat that would do just fine at the Kentucky Derby all the way to her pink feather trimmed velvet house shoes.
She had on a long pink kaftan dress the color of bubblegum and a gauzy, cotton candy wrap on her shoulders.
"The chickens are far more likely to terrorize them. "
"Crystal! You look amazing!" Tilly exclaimed and the woman turned slowly, her dress catching the cool air and floating around her.
"I have various pink accessories for all of you.
The house is a bit of a disaster. I'm afraid my nephew and his wife did not respect the space as they should have," she lamented as she walked and they followed her through a large house with old and dingy furniture stacked in corners.
There were worn-out rugs that were once probably bright and stunning.
Cracks along walls and on the ceiling of the living room where there had once been what looked like yellow paint that now looked putrid.
Eloise frowned as she got a whiff of old, unwashed linens; that mustiness mixed with the smell of toothpaste and cheap hand soap.
The wood flooring was scraped badly and as they passed rooms there were rolled-up area rugs leaning against walls and more stacked furniture.
All of the windows were pushed up airing out the great big house and Eloise had the thought that she felt a little like this house; scraped up, cluttered, and needing a good airing-out.
"It's going to need a lot of work, but this house was once glorious.
We are in the back," she said as she pushed through French doors out onto a brick patio, missing quite a few bricks which she pointed out to be mindful of, and there was a great, long table with a light pink, diaphanous table cloth.
The women gasped as they took in the entire scene.
There were six cherry blossom trees in full bloom, their white and pink petals gleaming in the evening sunlight, their branches reaching over the table in a perfect canopy.
The table itself had eight settings with gold, ornate candelabras with cream and pink tapered candles, lit and sparkling.
Bursting bouquets of flowers lined the middle of the table.
Ursula smiled at how Crystal had used the light pink and white peonies with the freesia, sprigs of pink cherry blossoms and twisting corkscrew willow branches along with dark pink roses that tickled Eloise's nose delightfully.
There were white delphiniums and dripping pink snapdragons.
Hanging from one of the thicker cherry tree branches overhead was a gold and crystal chandelier.
"I feel like we've stepped into a Home and Garden photoshoot at Barbie's house," Kelsea said. All the women nodded in silent and awed agreement.
"Yeah, Farmer Barbie," Jen added.
Wandering chickens were walking around pecking, or sitting.
There were brown and white spotted chickens that looked rather fluffy, white chickens, chickens with black heads and necks with grey bodies.
As the chickens walked freely over the patchy grass and brick patio Crystal gestured for them all to take seats where there were bowls of the most perfect-looking salads with pears, candied walnuts and feta cheese.
Four different kinds of dressings were in glass milk jars and there were two loaves of crusty bread on wood blocks with crocks of creamy butter placed on each end of the table.
"My guest is bringing out your pink accoutrements and then we will sit, eat, listen to music and then on to the main event! Don't mind the chicks. They have been cooped up by my uncaring nephew and they are reveling in their freedom."
"Are you at all a little scared about who her guest is?" Eloise whispered to Ursula who simply nodded, still taking in the plush scene in front of them as a chicken scuttled around their feet.
But then someone walked out of a white barn, the paint in similar shape to the house, and all of the women gasped and started toward the woman who was holding a box and smiling the most perfectly white smile Eloise had ever seen.
Ursula's face lifted and she said, "Jessica!" before she squeezed Eloise's hand and whispered, "That's Jessica; she was married to Rob."
"Ohmygosh, the Rob. The Rob who drugged you and tried to get the town to go on a witch hunt after you to protect his ancient relative's dark dirty secrets? "
"That's the one."
"You're so cool," Eloise commented. "My best friend in the middle of a witch hunt like a badass. You're my hero."
Ursula laughed and laced her fingers with Eloise's to pull her along.
The woman set the box down on the ground where two spotted chickens immediately started pecking through it.
The women were all talking and asking questions.
Then the tall blonde, who looked like she could be Barbie herself, saw Ursula and gave her a look that said, there you are.
Their embrace spoke of a connection that Eloise could understand, especially after hearing stories of what this woman went through.
She had on light pink chino pants that fit her long frame perfectly with a darker pink blouse and her blonde hair up in a flouncy ponytail.
"This is Eloise."
When recognition lit the woman's eyes Eloise felt warm and then she was engulfed in a hug that wrapped the scent of English roses and sun-warmed clean clothes around her. She pulled the smells into her lungs and held them there feeling like she could stay in them for quite a while.
"You were missed," she said to Eloise. "This woman here," she nudged a smiling Ursula, "showed me grace like I had never experienced before and she talked about you in the way of a lost love," she said, her blue eyes honest and sweet.
"Well," Eloise said, "Jenson may be sexy, but I know which parts to talk and stay silent through during a movie. And," she held up a finger, "I would help her bury a body."
"I really do love having that in my back pocket," Ursula nodded.
"That is soulmate kind of love," Jessica said with her wide honest smile.
"She spoke of you highly and with love. It is so nice to meet you.
" Eloise leaned in toward her. "Also, you look like a real life Barbie in the best way.
Your outfit is fabulous and your hair is doing that perfect swoopy thing and it sounds like your ex could be a villain in a book," she said it all with a smooth hand gesture.
Jessica laughed, her blue eyes twinkling.
"I like you already. If we're complimenting hair, yours is the most incredible color.
" She reached out and lightly touched a softly curled strand.
"I bet hairstylists have tried and failed to bottle this," she admired.
Then she leaned in further with a low voice.
"And my ex was for sure literary villain material. "
"I will find an author immediately to do him justice," she winked and Jessica laughed again.
Eloise smiled, both at her easy camaraderie concerning her ex-husband and the compliment. She'd always found her hair to be troublesome. Kind of brown, kind of red. It was like an old penny and she was never quite sure what to do with it.
"You and I will definitely get along," she grinned. "Wait, you're the friend Crystal needed to check on and I got the impression that there was some cheering up to do?"
Jessica turned a conspiratorial smile to Ursula who also had a question on her face then stepped back and put her hands together. Crystal joined her, wrapping an arm around her waist and the women quieted their conversations, the only sounds were the pecking chickens.
"I'm moving back to Salem," she announced and cheers went up. She waited and then said, "And Rob is getting remarried."
Silence filled the yard. Even the chickens stopped, sensing the depth of the moment, the vertiginous nature of her words announced to a small group of women unsure how to respond. A spring breeze rustled around them as the sun slid behind a pink-rimmed cloud.
"It's a good thing," she finally said with a perfect smile.
"Crystal had the idea to celebrate it, get out any bad juju, and release whatever darkness was left behind from that man, and who better to do it with than the women of The Lost Souls?
" She picked up the box and pulled out a crown with pink jewels getting the appropriate oohs and ahhs from them all.
"He's already getting married?" Jen's incredulity was strong.
"Are you even divorced yet?"
"As of one week ago," Jessica said with a white and glorious smile.
"He had a mistress in Marblehead for the last eight years.
One of many." As she said it her blue eyes found Kelsea, who looked small, tentative.
Eloise wasn't sure what passed between them, but she realized that Kelsea had been holding herself apart from the rest of them, lighting candles, helping Crystal with the table and food.
"We are good at celebrating," Tilly said as she took one of the crowns and placed it on her dark head. Her black hair with the blonde-tipped balayage was now violet at the ends and her red cat-eye glasses had been exchanged tonight for the lightest purple pair.
"We're also really good at hexing," Jen said bending for Jessica to place a pink crown on her gorgeous head. Her hair was in long, thin braids trailing down to the middle of her back. "Say the word and we will hex your ex. Just ask Sulphur the house raccoon. "
Jessica tipped her head quizzically and as Bess took her crown she explained how Jen had hexed herself.
"We do not hex anymore," Ursula said as a reminder as she straightened her pink crown.