"Do you think I'll get to taste one of her famous margaritas?" Bess asked in a tentative voice and when Eloise gave her a look she smiled mischievously. Eloise shook her head with her own smile.
"We need to descale the espresso machine," Tess said tersely. She looked frazzled, her skin dull with a few pimples on her chin and Eloise got a whiff of burning weeds and cleaning solution.
"Alright, I can take care of that before my break." Bess's tone was less than gentle.
"Thanks so much," Tess threw back at her before she walked to the storeroom.
"Okay, want to tell me what is going on there?"
Bess rolled her eyes. "She's been more aggravating than usual lately," she said. "And she is super aggravating in normal circumstances. She's like-"
Eloise held up a hand cutting Bess's words off. "Stop. That is your work colleague, and while I know she can be," she sought out words and Bess beat her to it.
"Frustratingly selfish, unkind with her judgement and lacking in reciprocal conversation skills?"
She held up a finger. "First of all, well-said. It's a little scary that you're only sixteen," Bess smirked before she added, "but secondly, you have a choice to use that overgrown wisdom and be kind to someone who I suspect doesn't have much in the way of relationship and hasn't been taught how to reciprocate." Her eyes pinned Bess's, holding her still in that thought for a moment.
Then Bess let out a great sigh, reminding Eloise that she was in fact only sixteen, and she said, "Fine. Her dad does seem kind of the worst."
"He does seem absent," she said softly. Remembering the man's unsure eyes when landing on his daughter. "Which I believe you would understand," her gentle reprimand and reminder of her own mother made Bess purse her lips. Then she pulled Bess in for a hug which started with scrunched-up shoulders from the teen then relaxed into a softer hug. "Alright, I'm out. Want to meet at Lost Souls tonight?"
"Yeah, can I come there after school?"
"Always," she said with a wink and grabbed her things to walk home. She sent a text to their group and within a few minutes all the women were in for dinner at Crystal's pink glitter chicken farm.
At exactly seven, six women stood on the wide, slightly dilapidated front porch of a large farmhouse that looked like it had once been white and was now a suggestion of the pristine color with patches and scraps of the paint missing. The front porch wrapped around hugging one side of the house where there was mismatching furniture that did not look as if anyone should be sitting on it. Maybe a cat, but certainly not a human. Sulphur and Georgia had followed them on the fifteen-minute walk and they were now wandering around the porch, sniffing out spots here and there with extreme skepticism.
"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 ratherfluffy, 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."
