Dallas Called My Ex Rich and Barren, So I Found Out He Was Neither novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Full Price

Carolyn Kellum came into Ybarra Alterations on Tuesday afternoon with the plum garment bag over her arm and the bell ringing behind her.

She stood on my pine floor in her camel coat, with her neck bare, and looked at the wall of wooden lasts.

"Mrs. Kellum," I said.

I did not stand up from the butcher-block table.

"I would like this gown taken in," she said. "It's too large now. I'm told I've lost weight."

"You have."

"I'm told a good deal of things this week."

She laid the bag on the block and unzipped it.

I picked up my yellow tape.

"The rate is a hundred and forty dollars an hour," I said. "Paid up front, and no discount for family."

"That's more than Tatum's charged."

"Tatum's never paid me what I was worth. I do now."

She considered that, and nodded once.

"And I have one more term."

Carolyn waited.

"A year from now, the Heart Luncheon. Same ballroom. The radio host will make his joke, because he always does."

"Yes," said Carolyn.

"You take the microphone before he finishes. You tell four hundred women whose fault it was."

Her mouth tightened.

I watched her think about it, and I watched her not look away from me.

"I said you couldn't deliver," she said slowly. "At a table with four hundred witnesses."

"You did."

"And I took money from my son for two years, and called it a trust, and spent it on tablecloths," she said.

"Yes."

"A year is a long time to wait to be sorry."

"It's long enough to mean it," I said.

She opened her handbag and counted out bills on the butcher block.

She counted them twice, which made me think of her son.

Then she took out a small black velvet box and set it down beside the money.

"I sold my pearls on Saturday morning," she said. "All three strands. The man who bought them also had a watch in his case."

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