“Okay, so I don’t have plans, per se,” I drawl. When Betsy rolls her eyes again, I lean my elbows on the counter and lay it out for her. She’ll mock me, I’m sure, but I’m past that. This boutique is on life support. No room for carrying around an oversized ego.
“We haven’t been doing well since my one and only employee, Caroline, left to have a baby. I don’t seem to have an eye for buying the right inventory. I’m a man, trying to get insidea woman’s head. To know what fabrics she prefers, the drape of a skirt, the proper neckline, the shade of colors. It’s all a mystery to me.”
Betsy’s face crumples into an even deeper frown, one that speaks to how much of a dumbass she thinks I am. “How is it again that you own a woman’s boutique if you can’t boutique?”
I grin, despite the insult. “Did you just use boutique as a verb?”
Betsy’s fingers snap right in front of my face. “Focus, boss. We have a major problem here, and if we don’t figure it out, the whole town is going to see it front and center on August first. It’ll be humiliating.”
“Worse than your tumble through the rack yesterday?”
That has her spine straightening. “Way worse. Because I’m just some outsider. You’re born and raised in Heaven. You should know how to boutique.”
I grip my chest, the teal polo under my palm a new offering from Deuce’s boutique. My comeback is lame and I know it. “Maybe if I had a men’s boutique…”
Betsy scoffs. “What? You’d fill it with polos and khakis? Make every grown man look like a frat boy?”
I rear my head back, insulted. My usual outfit is always polos and khakis. “I’m forty years old, Betsy.”
The woman gives my entire body a perusal, taking her time just like I’d done with her yesterday. “Forty-year-old men don’t wear…that.”
She spins on her heel and marches into the back of the shop, the curtain falling into place and leaving me all alone up front.
Touché, little storm cloud, touché.
The bell over the door rings and I turn my attention to my first customer of the day. I get busy after that, the hope in my chest expanding when I never get the chance to sit down before lunch. The last customer to leave the boutique before thenormal lunchtime lull asks about my new assistant and my hope deflates. I should have known. Small towns are predictable and Heaven, MS, is no different.
These women came in the shop today to get the gossip about the new girl in town. Everyone must have heard about her two left feet, flashing the shop, and her overall appearance that doesn’t fit in around here. I tried real hard last night to not relive the moment her skirt flew up and showed off a pair of black lace panties. It’s been way too long since I had a steady girlfriend if the panties of a woman I don’t even like are high-jacking my brain.
“Hey, Betsy!” I holler, flipping the sign on the front door toBack in a few.
She darts out from behind the curtain, pulling headphones out of her ears. “Yeah, boss?”
“You gotta stop calling me boss.” I pull an insulated bag out from behind the counter. I stopped at Burgers & Blessings to grab us lunch before coming in this morning. My way of trying to get along with my new employee.
“Okay. What do you need,frat boy?”
I give her a deadpan look. Seriously? What’s so wrong with polos? “I have lunch here for you. Maybe you could drop the nicknames?”
Betsy pulls up two stools from the back wall and plops down on one. “Best I can do is say it in my head.”
I pull out the containers from the bag and set them on the counter. I’m a guy who likes most people and most people like me. I’m not really sure how we got off on the wrong foot—probably when she flipped me off on the road if I had to guess—but I’d like to strike a truce with my employee. “Hope you eat meat.”
“Definitely.” Betsy doesn’t wait for me. She just pops open the Styrofoam container and stuffs the cheeseburger in hermouth. Her eyes roll back in her head and she sways on the stool. I study her, concerned she’s having a medical event, but then she starts to groan. A low, deep, prolonged moan that sets my hair on end. I know a satisfied woman when I hear one.
Spinning away, I remind myself she’s my employee and I don’t even like her. Somehow that’s not enough for me to be unaware of her sitting so close to me. So I start talking, figuring if I talk business, it’ll take my mind off the way her calves look delectable beneath the knee-length hem of her dress.
“So, football is a big deal in the South. Harp and Hemline needs to supply all the outfits to the mamas going to the games, the sorority galas, church. You know, all the events. Basically, I need to order new inventory as soon as possible for this Battle of the Boutiques.”
Betsy keeps shoving food in her mouth, the occasional moan slipping out to interrupt my train of thought.
“Since neither of us knows women’s fashion enough to know what to order, I have an idea.”
“Oh good. A plan,” Betsy deadpans with her mouth full.
My phone rings, the fight song for our Angels. I look at the screen to see my father’s name. I silence the phone, refusing to answer. He’s just calling to get me to close early and go tour the site he just put an offer in on. Betsy frowns at my phone but doesn’t ask questions.
“You need to do market research. I’m fixin’ to send you to Mary London’s boutique tomorrow to survey all the sorority girls’ mamas.”
