Free You're Busting My Nuptials (Tizzy/Ridge Trilogy Book 2) by Ann Everett

“Y’all get it, don’t you?”
    They both nodded. “I really like the one about the sensuous body,” Tizzy said.
    “Yeah, I got that from Mr. E’s prayer. Anyway, I recently picked up a new account. I’m gonna be writing horoscopes for the local newspaper. Plus, your Nana asked me to help with advertising for the new shop.”
    Synola flipped some more pages. “Tell me what you think of these. Get pawsitively great service at Doggie Style. ” She turned another page. “Oh, here’s my favorite. We desire your business. We offer great service. We guarantee a satisfying shopping experience. Remember : Desire, Service, Satisfaction, Doggie Style. Now open, downtown Brownsboro.”
    “Oh dear Lord,” Tizzy said. “I want to talk Nana out of that name. It’s just awful.”
    Tizzy craned her neck toward heaven. “The clouds are boiling. That cold front is about to blow in. It’s a good thing we’re here.” She pulled into Eldora’s driveway.
    With the rest of the crew behind her, Tizzy knocked. She’d not seen Eldora in a long time. When the old woman opened the door, Tizzy lost her breath. The bulky woman’s hair, short and spiked, looked as if she and Don King used the same barber. A gold front tooth shined against the remainder of her pearly whites. Cataracts clouded her eyes.
    Strands of beads hung around her neck, topping yards and yards of multi-colored fabric fashioned into a muumuu. The only thing missing was a Mardi-Gras float.
    Eldora waved her hands in the air, then took Tizzy’s face and brought her in close. “Child, child, let me look atchoo. Come in this house,” she said, smothering Tizzy between her massive breasts.
    Tizzy struggled for release. “How are you, Miss Eldora?”
    “Fine, Tizzy. Just fine. Lawd, look how pretty you is,” she said, an octave higher than her normal voice.
    “Thank you. You remember my cousin, Jinx Monroe, Sugarpie’s son,” Tizzy said, stepping aside.
    “How you?” Eldora asked.
    “Fine, ma’am.”
    Synola and Rayann stepped forward and Eldora took them both in a bear hug. “Lawd, y’all need some meat on them bones. Y’all too skinny.”
    “Auntie Eldora, I work hard to stay this way. Don’t you go trying to fatten me up,” Synola said.
    “Girl, don’t nobody like no bone. Even a dog a bury it ever time. Y’all come out here and set at the table. Tizzy, you set next tuh me.”
    The group gathered and took their seats.
    “Tizzy, I understand yo loss yo man,” the big woman said, as she turned out the light.
    “Yes, ma’am. He didn’t show up for our wedding.”
    “Well, I’ll do my best, but I don’t always get summin’. You understand?”
    Eldora struck a match and spoke as she lit each of three candles. “This is for the Father—the Son—and the Holy Ghost. Bless us with your presence.” She placed the votives in the center of the table and looked at Tizzy.
    “You got anything belong to him?”
    “You mean a personal item?”
    “Umm-hmmm.”
    “I didn’t know I needed one. Oh wait—can it be something he wore for just a few minutes?”
    “Yes, child.”
    Tizzy reached into her purse and pulled out the jeweler’s box. She flipped open the lid and set it on the table. “These are our wedding bands.”
    From her pocket, Eldora produced some small bones, a rattlesnakes’ rattler, a Mercury dime, and two old pennies. She explained as she placed each item on the table next to the candles. “A rattler for good luck—Mercury is the messenger of the gods—Sparrow bones because His eye is always watching—and sometimes,” she said as she stacked the pennies, “all I get is two-cents worth.”
    Eldora removed the rings from the slot and placed one on her little finger and one on Tizzy’s, then laced their fingers together, and instructed the group, “Let’s all join hands.”
    Rayann sat on the other side of the old woman. Next to Rayann sat Jinx, then Synola and back to Tizzy. They all focused on the big woman as she