“When I accepted the scholarship to West Texas A&M in Amarillo. She wanted me to commute the fifteen miles to Commerce and go to Texas A&M there. She said I owed it to her and Daddy to live close by and take care of them,” Paula answered. “She didn’t speak to me the whole first semester. At Christmas I’d planned to stay on campus, but Selena guilted me into coming home.”

“That’s when you stayed with me the last few days of the break, and we told my parents that I was quitting school and going to work full time at the bridal shop in Amarillo, wasn’t it? I was sure glad you were there when I told them,” Mitzi remembered.

Paula finished her breakfast and carried her plate to the sink. “Best holiday I’d ever spent. Made me kind of glad that Mama kicked me out.”

“Speaking of the holidays, are we going to your dad’s this Christmas?” Paula asked. “Or will we invite all of them to join us here?”

“I vote we have it at Graham and Mitzi’s down the street,” Jody teased. “And before we get into that, I want to apologize for that hateful remark Lyle made yesterday. Him calling y’all fat made me madder than him telling me that his precious Kennedy deserved something better than a trailer house. I fumed about it all night, even dreamed that I burned the trailer to the ground before he could move it.”

“Forgiven,” Paula said. “And I like your idea. That gives Mitzi and Graham six months to get over their shyness and for one of them to ask the other one out.”

“Forgiven, and I’m not shy,” Mitzi protested. But Paula was right. When it came to Graham, she acted like an awkward teenager.

“I was there yesterday when he showed up to get the girls. There’s definitely vibes between y’all. You may have to be the bigger person and ask him out if he doesn’t get up some nerve,” Jody said.

“Maybe the time is right for something to happen between y’all now,” Paula said.

“I’ll wish in one hand and spit in the other and take bets on which one fills up the fastest,” Mitzi said.

Ellie Mae arrived right on time at eleven thirty that morning, and Mitzi ushered her back to the fitting room. Ellie Mae quickly removed her shirt and stood in front of the mirror. Mitzi slipped on the bodice of her dress, and Ellie Mae squealed like a little girl.

“It’s going to be exactly what I wanted, only prettier than I could have ever imagined,” she said.