*Author's Note: Any and all persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.
*****
Chapter 21
Shirley St. Martin smiled as she; Theresa Weinstein and Briah Weinstein stood in the Bridal Boutique of Babbage's Department Store and waited for Caitlin Weinstein to come out. Theresa looked uncomfortable and haggard and Briah looked slightly bored.
Finally, the door opened and Caitlin came out, looking around nervously.
"Oh, my God, that is, oh wow," Shirley said as Caitlin looked at the bridal gown in the mirror.
"God, it is so beautiful," Theresa whispered.
"Aw yeah, girl," Briah enthused.
"But it's two thousand dollars!" Caitlin whined.
"How many times I got to tell you?" Shirley fussed, stamping her foot. "Don't worry about how much it costs! That's not important!"
"Ma'am?" Nicole Dumas asked Briah. "Have you had the final fitting of your brides' maid dress?"
"Yes ma'am," Briah smiled excitedly.
"You have the shoes...?" Shirley asked and Caitlin lifted the hem of the bridal gown to show her that she was indeed wearing the ivory pumps.
"Okay, get out of that; we still have to go to T. Dayton's," Shirley said.
"Miss St. Martin, I get married you buy my dress?" Briah asked.
"Briah!" Theresa snapped, highly embarrassed.
"Honey, if I approve of your young man, I see no reason why not," Shirley said, patting Theresa's arm to let the woman know she wasn't offended by Briah's comment.
Bye, Mrs. Dumas, tell Coach I said 'hi,'" Caitlin said as the four women trooped out of the department.
"And are they really going to the Dead End for their bachelor party?" Briah asked.
"Yes," Caitlin screwed up her face.
"Oh, don't worry about it," Shirley laughed, hugging Caitlin. "We're going to the Hammer in Elgee! Whee!"
"And will you have red wine?" Caitlin teased the sixty four year old woman.
"Oh Honey, you better believe it!" Shirley laughed.
The quartet got into Shirley's Rolls-Royce.
"Mrs. St..." Theresa started.
"Honey, how many times I got to tell you? It's 'Shirley,' all right?" Shirley chided the woman.
"Shirley, I really, I just can't thank you enough," Theresa said.
"Really? It's my pleasure," Shirley said.
At Superior Motors, Henry St. Martin came into the showroom, whistling a happy tune.
"Got them singles?" Jack asked, smiling.
"Singles? Singles! My boy, we're going to the Dead End. Those are the upper echelon of hos," Henry sneered at his friend.
"I didn't know hos had echelons," Bob commented.
"I got fives," Henry said, showing them the bank envelope.
"Marie said if it costs more than forty, I better keep it in my pocket," Bob admitted.
"Forty?" Jack sneered.
"Uh huh, and what'd Melanie say?" Bob smiled.
"Twenty," Jack admitted and the three men laughed.
"Damn it, I wish he'd go down to the light," Henry said as they watched Barry dash across Highway 52 with their lunches from Side By Side.
"Yeah, hate if anything happened to my steak, too," Jack admitted and laughed when Henry punched him.
Four blocks behind Superior Motors, Stacy Falgout was showing Anita Lopez and Toni Delacroix a condominium. In the Lambert Condominiums Association.
"This is a three bedroom two and a half bath unit," Stacy said. "Right across, the woman there did something real interesting. She took the two guest bedrooms, knocked down the wall and made it one long bedroom and expanded the guest bath."
"She also has a hanging bed, oh, and put hardwood floors throughout," Anita agreed.
"Oh?" Stacy asked.
"Yeah, that's like Paula's condo," Toni said.
"You've uh, you've been in her...?" Stacy asked, surprised.
She'd never been in Paula Lambert's condominium; another real estate agent had told her about the renovations.
"Couple of times," Anita agreed, wrinkling up her nose at the lack of counter space and cabinets in the small kitchen. "Kitchen sucks."
"Yeah, that two bedroom one had like a better kitchen," Toni agreed.
"And a better back deck," Anita agreed.
"Y'all want to go look at it again?" Stacy offered.
"What you think?" Toni asked Anita.
"Make an offer," Anita shrugged.
Stacy finally gave in to her curiosity and blurted out, "So why are y'all looking for a condo?"
She wanted to hear the salacious gossip; wanted to hear that Barry finally had enough of his slut daughter fucking around. Or got tired of his daughter and her lover flaunting their homosexual lifestyle in his face. Or even more delicious, that Barry had made inappropriate advances on the very attractive and very shapely Anita.
"Well, like Daddy's getting married and we kind of figured they'd like to have the place like you know, to themselves," Toni shrugged.
"Barry's getting..." Stacy stammered, stunned.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Toni said, embarrassed. "I like thought you knew that."
"It was in the church bulletin," Anita said, also embarrassed.
"Who's he, don't tell me he's marrying that little red headed freak," Stacy snapped.
"Caitlin," Anita confirmed.
"But I like really don't appreciate you like calling her 'freak;' that's so totally uncalled for," Toni snapped.
"You know what? It really was uncalled for and I apologize," Stacy said quickly.
She wasn't sorry in the least, but she also didn't want to lose a ninety three thousand dollar sale.
"They want ninety... Offer then eighty five," Anita said.
"Twenty five percent down," Toni agreed.
"So, how much is Barry chipping in?" Stacy asked as she pulled up the form on her IPhone.
"Uh, none," Toni said, insulted that Ms. Falgout would thing that Barry was paying for her to buy a home.
"None?" Stacy looked up. "You can't tell me your little soap thing's..."
"We're shipping between a hundred to three hundred bars every day," Anita said. "Plus what we sell at T. Dayton's."
"Anita designed like the best web site ever; our very first day it was up we had two hundred and nine orders," Toni smiled proudly at her friend.
"And your mortgage will be through..." Stacy asked as she tapped out the information.
"First Union," Toni said.
