Our Bridal Shop

Chapter 9 - Charlotte

It had happened before. Bound to happen again. No one went through such a stressful time in life without getting a little something lost in translation. The Ramsay bride insisted the bridesmaid gown shade was salmon ella after she saw it listed that way on Charlotte's order form—salmon for color, dress designer, Ella. The Hayes-Beauregard wedding last June had a mother-in-law who kept calling the forest glen shade of the bridesmaid gowns foreskin. Lord, Charlotte had heard everything from flaccid to encephalitis, but this was the first time she had an audience cracking up around her. She darned near lost her manners right there on the phone.

"Well, now, I'm certain the shade was ecru. I have it on file right here," Charlotte said to the out-of-state bridesmaid. "Ecru is a lovely shade of blush. Very feminine."

Alex was going over the shop's taxes beside her at the register. Something about the office combusting if she had to co-exist with Jonah in that tiny space. Charlotte never imagined things had gotten so contentious between them. But her sister was doing more eavesdropping now than number crunching.

Charlotte held the phone away from her ear. She was nothing if not accommodating.

"I wrote it down," said the woman on the phone. "Ecru-ment." She then spelled it. Sure enough, ecrument, not even ecru and mint.

Alex broke into a wide smile. She wore it well, like bringing out a pair of Mama's sparkly earrings after they'd been buried in a drawer.

"Maybe you heard her speaking about wedding favors." Charlotte commandeered the phone back. "Peppermints or some such."

"I'll have the bride call you," said the woman.

"That might be best."

The moment she hung up the call, Alex said, "Order the shitty dress, Charlotte."

"Bless her heart."

They shared a greater laugh. The kind that percolates at the surface for some time and brings everyone's mood right along with it. Charlotte only wished Freesia had been there for the ride. Once the cold snap lifted, Freesia had taken to exploring the countryside in Daddy's old truck, sketchbook riding shotgun. Said nature was the only place that sparked her creativity. One day, she even headed to the Gulf before Charlotte and Alex could warn her about the fickleness of Daddy's Ford. After an afternoon spent on the pier and a bartered cheese sandwich for a jump start, she aimed her headlights back to Devon. Until she pulled up on March land, Charlotte wasn't certain they'd ever see her again. Something kept her coming back. Charlotte hoped it was enough to sustain her while they navigated the shop out of the ditch.

A woman yelled outside the shop.

Charlotte ran to the display windows, Alex on her heels, Jonah already out the door. Bernice stood on the sidewalk in her two words, one finger t-shirt, sun hat, and red stretch pants, bakery sacks fallen to Bethel Lane, donuts rolling into what little traffic existed. As Jonah reached her, she pointed up. At Match Made in Devon.

The sisters charged outside.

Donuts weren't the only carnage.

A half-dozen furry carcasses littered the sidewalk. Upon closer inspection: bushy-tailed gray squirrels.

"What on earth?"

No sooner had the words exited Charlotte's lips than movement in the dogwood branches overhead caught their collective attention. A chub squirrel the size of Beatrice's head barked and chattered and carried on before squeezing down on four haunches and exercising his freedom to fly.

Directly at the shop's newly-installed metal roof.

The little guy's legs turned cartoon-like, a blur of cyclical motion that gained him no purchase on the slippery surface. What unfolded was a slow-motion scramble with only one destination: the rodent afterlife.

Charlotte gasped and looked around for an impromptu fireman's net. Without a planter or flower pot to spare, she snatched the next best thing—Bernice's sun hat.

"What the hell are you doing?" Bernice attempted a defensive move to retrieve her hat.

Jonah strong-arm blocked her.

Charlotte lined up the flailing squirrel like she was the clutch softballer she was in high school. By the time he reached the lip of the sheet metal, the animal was a twisted ball of fur, ass over head and prone, catching substantial air. One sidestep right then overcorrected to account for the stiff breeze. The squirrel landed cattywampus inside the hat, sprang back out for the nearest branch, and scrambled away.

Every one of them stood in reverent silence. Earl Frizeal, who had stopped his shuffling toward the barber shop, studied the massacre, removed his netted cap, and placed it over his pacemaker-ed heart.

"Who thought a metal roof was a good idea?" asked Earl.

Everyone looked at Alex.

Isabel picked right then to walk up, backpack on her shoulders. "What's going—?"

Jonah covered her eyes.

She squirmed free.

Charlotte handed Bernice her hat.

"I don't want it back. Rat probably took a dump in it."

They all looked.

"Fittin' for a bridal shop, I'd say," said Earl.

"The leaping?" asked Bernice.

Earl shook his head. "The death. Hope, freedom, sex, you name it."

This time, Jonah covered Isabel's ears.

She squirmed free.

"Could add a flange," said Jonah. "Catch them before they sailed off."

"Then they're trapped," said Charlotte.

Bernice chimed in, "Probably take dumps everywhere."

"How about a slide?" asked Isabel.

Earl perked up. "A fine idea. Tube or corkscrew?"

"Make it out of PVC pipe," said Jonah. "Like a closed gutter."

"The ladies down at the church can make it artsy," said Bernice. "Label it the Honeymoon Highway, in keeping with the shop's theme and all."

The more the ideas flowed, the more pronounced the vein at Alex's forehead became. When everyone started talking over each other about the most appropriate wedding colors to paint the slide, with Beatrice, loudest of all, suggesting an Elvis theme—given that he stopped in Devon once for tacos—Alex raised her arms.

Isabel snapped a photo. A crowd gathered.

"Has everyone here gone insane?"

The chatter died swiftly, not unlike their closest furry neighbors.

"This is a business, not a zoo habitat. No flange, no Elvis, no slide."

"And no customers if we start a squirrel graveyard at the entrance," said Charlotte. "Instead of altering the building, just alter the tree. Trim the branches on this side."

Alex's idea gained momentum until Isabel informed them that gray squirrels had a jumping distance of ten feet.

"They're smart," said Alex. "They'll figure it out."

"Eventually," added Earl.

Alex stormed back inside the shop, muttering crazy-talk about southerners and brain synapses. Charlotte wasn't exactly sure what a synapse was or why it wasn't firing, but as smart as Alex was, she had yet to remember the workings of a small town—think small, act big. Right now, Match Made in Devon needed to picket in Washington D.C. for gray squirrel rights if it meant more business.

Charlotte clapped Jonah on the shoulder. "Build that honeymoon highway, sir." And to the crowd, she added, "Let's save some squirrels."

The fur-fueled battle cry went over a little like an announcement of more mulch added to the landscape at the courthouse building, but it dissipated the rank and file of Devon who had wandered over because dead squirrels were the most exciting thing to hit town all week.

Back inside the shop, Charlotte made a call to the taxidermist.

Alex rolled her eyes and moved her work back upstairs.