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romantic nighttime boat cruise,
and more. Much more . . .
Ladies, place your bids.
($100.00 minimum)
Married! Single! Old! Young!
Everyone welcome.
The weekend can be as friendly (or intimate) as you like.
www.weekendwithted.com
All proceeds benefit the
Wynette Public Library
rebuilding effort.
Ted snatched the flyer from her, studied it, then crumpled it in his fist. “Of all the stupid, asinine . . . !”
Meg tapped him on the shoulder and whispered, “I’d buy a dresser, if I were you.”
Torie threw back her head and laughed. “I love this town!”
Chapter Ten
On her way home from work that evening, Meg passed the town’s resale shop. She loved good vintage stores and decided to stop. Another of the red flyers hung in the window advertising the Win a Weekend with Ted Beaudine contest. She opened the heavy, old-fashioned wooden door. The sunny yellow interior smelled faintly musty, the way most resale shops did, but the merchandise was well organized, with antique tables and chests serving both as display areas and section dividers. Meg recognized the clerk as Birdie’s friend Kayla, the blonde who’d been behind the front desk at the inn the day of Meg’s humiliation.
Kayla’s sleeveless pink and gray camouflage-print dress definitely wasn’t resale. She wore it with stilettos and a set of tasseled black enamel bangles. Even though it was nearly closing time, her makeup was still flawless—eyeliner, contoured cheekbones, glossy mocha mouth, the personification of a Texas beauty queen. She didn’t pretend not to know who Meg was, and like everybody else in this stupid town, she had no regard for tact. “I hear Spencer Skipjack’s got a thing for you,” she said as she stepped away from the jewelry rack.
“I don’t have a thing for him.” A quick glance at the merchandise revealed boring preppy sportswear, pastel church suits, and grandma sweatshirts decorated with Halloween pumpkins and cartoon characters—all of it hard to reconcile with this stylish creature.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be nice to him,” Kayla said.
“I am nice to him.”
Kayla planted a hand on her hip. “Do you have any idea how many jobs that golf resort will give people in this town? Or the new businesses that will spring up?”
Useless to mention the ecosystems it would also destroy. “Quite a few, I imagine.”
Kayla retrieved a belt that had fallen off a rack. “I know people around here haven’t exactly put out the welcome mat for you, but I’m sure everybody would appreciate it if you didn’t use that as an excuse to screw us over with Spencer Skipjack. Some things are more important than holding on to petty grudges.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Just as Meg turned to leave, a display caught her eye—a gray menswear shirt with a matching bandeau top and short shorts with a paper-bag waist. The pieces were edgy updates of 1950s summer fashion, and she walked over to examine them more closely. When she found the label, she couldn’t believe what she saw. “This is Zac Posen.”
“I know.”
She blinked at the price tag. Forty dollars? For a three-piece Zac Posen? She didn’t have forty dollars to spare at the moment, not even with Ted’s tip, but still, an incredible bargain. Hanging nearby was an avant-garde dress with a beautifully constructed green and melon corset top, at least two thousand dollars new, but now priced at one hundred. The label bore her uncle’s name, Michel Savagar. She examined the other clothes on the rack and found a silky chartreuse tank dress printed with the elongated head of a Modigliani female, a startling origami jacket with steel gray pencil pants, and a black-and-white Miu Miu miniskirt. She pulled a girly fuchsia cardigan with crocheted roses off the rack, imagining it with a T-shirt, jeans, and Chuck Taylors.
“Nice pieces, aren’t they?” Kayla said.
“Very nice.” Meg put the sweater back and fingered a Narciso Rodriguez jacket.
Kayla regarded her almost slyly. “Most women don’t have the body to wear these clothes. You have to be really tall and thin.”
Thank you, Mom! Meg did a quick mental calculation, and ten minutes later, she walked out of the store with the Miu Miu mini and the Modigliani tank dress.
