Free The Glass Is Always Greener by Tamar Myers Page A

prove it.”
    “Cousin Calamity Jane Ledbetter Cox, is that you ?”
    “Cousin Rufus Horatio Ledbetter III Junior, is that you? ”
    “Lord have mercy,” Mama said, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
    By then the big galoot and the big bully were wrapped around each other like clumps of kelp washed up on the beach after a storm. What were the odds that we’d run into another one of the Ledbetters, one of Granny’s direct descendants, in a great big city like Charlotte, North Carolina? And in a sophisticated place like an overpriced gourmet coffee shop of all places?
    “I don’t get it,” I said. “How can someone be designated the III and still be a Junior?”
    “Sh-Sh-Shelby,” Wynnell hissed.
    The cousins disengaged. “Hey, don’t be insulting our hometown. It’s as fine a place as any to grow up. And you,” he said to Mama in particular, “don’t be tossing sodium chloride into folks’ faces—sorry about the alliteration.” Then he grabbed his coffee container and was off.

Chapter 8
    C .J. was still beaming half an hour later when we got to the Tabernacle of Joy Through Giving. It wasn’t just that we had run into someone from her past—a cousin no less—but his brutish nature aside, this man was rather normal. Sure, it was a reference to owning a horse with no mouth that made it possible for him to recognize her, but if we’re really honest about it, we’ve all had experiences every bit as bizarre. Haven’t we?
    Thus it was that when we entered the sanctuary she was at her most socially acceptable level of behavior, if I might use that term. I’d even go so far as to say that we were virtually indistinguishable from any other of the worshippers. We both were decked out in polyester flowered dresses with high necklines and distressingly low hemlines (for a shrimpette like me, at any rate). We both tied the frocks in back, but loosely, so as not to accentuate our provocative feminine attributes. Our sleeves were supposed to come down to our elbows, but in my case, they reached almost to my wrists. We even pinned our hair atop our heads, and fastened tightly rolled falls above our crowns to simulate “holy roller” buns.
    I was wearing one extra element of disguise, one that I am ashamed to admit to possessing. Just about a month prior, my optometrist, a pleasant presbyopic Presbyterian, had given me a prescription for bifocals. It was hard to adjust to the darn things, and I usually kept them in my purse, but now was as good a time as any to give them the old college try.
    But sad to say, I hadn’t been to church in a long while—certainly not one as conservative as Pastor Sam’s—so I’d plumb forgotten that we would have done well to bring our own Bibles as part of our illusion. This omission of detail earned us both looks of mild suspicion, and in C.J.’s case, an all too firm handshake. When the big gal winces, the game is on.
    “Good morning, sisters,” the deacon who greeted us said. “Where are y’all from?”
    “We’re from the Holy City,” C.J. said without missing a beat. And indeed, the Holy City is a popular name for South Carolina’s largest metropolis, on account of the plethora of churches to be found there.
    “Well, I doubt that,” the man said with a chuckle. “Youse look like lovely ladies, but real angels is men.” His accent, by the way, marked him as a former Bostonian to my ears; that would explain his lack of Carolina knowledge.
    “Why bless your heart,” I said, as I snatched up a Sunday morning bulletin from a stack by the door and sailed right on past.
    As soon as C.J. could disengage from the iron grip of doubt, she joined me in the very front pew. Experience has taught me that these seats are the last to fill up in an ecclesiastical venue. After all, nobody wants the preacher to glance down during his sermon and spot that you have fallen asleep or, worse yet, are the one whispering dating advice to her BFF in a stage whisper. Today, however, I