Rescue Me

their etiquette lessons, Sadie shucked her dress and ran wild. As a result of her mashed education, Sadie knew how to waltz, set a table, and converse with governors. She could also swear like a cowboy and spit like a ranch hand.
    Shortly after graduating from Lovett High, she’d packed up her Chevy and headed out for some fancy university in California, leaving her father and soiled cotillion gloves far behind. No one saw much of Sadie after that. Not even her poor daddy, and as far as anyone knew, she’d never married. Which was just plain sad and incomprehensible because really, how hard was it to get a man? Even Sarah Louise Baynard-Conseco, who had the misfortune to be born built like her daddy, Big Buddy Baynard, had managed to find a husband. Of course, Sarah Louise had met her man through prisoner.com. Mr. Conseco currently resided fourteen hundred miles away in San Quentin, but Sarah Louise was convinced he was totally innocent of the offenses for which he’d been unjustly incarcerated, and planned to start her family with him after his hoped-for parole in ten years.
    Bless her heart.
    Sure, sometimes in a small town it was slim pickings, but that’s why a girl went away to college. Everyone knew that a single girl’s number one reason for college wasn’t higher education, although that was important, too. Knowing how to calculate the price of great-grandmother’s silver on any given day was always crucial, but a single gal’s first priority was to find herself a husband.
    And Tally Lynn Cooper, Sadie Jo’s twenty-year-old cousin on her mama’s side, had done just that. Tally Lynn had met her intended at Texas A&M and was set to walk down the aisle in a few short days. Tally Lynn’s mama had insisted that Sadie Jo be a bridesmaid, which in hindsight turned out to be a mistake. More than the choice of Tally Lynn’s gown, or the size of her diamond, or whether Uncle Frasier would lay off the sauce and behave himself, the burning question on everyone’s mind was if Sadie Jo had managed to snag herself a man yet because really, how hard could it be? Even for a contrary and notional girl with flat hair?
    S adie Hollowell hit the button on the door panel of her Saab and the window slid down an inch. Warm air whistled through the crack, and she pushed the button again and lowered the window a bit more. The breeze caught several strands of her straight blond hair and blew them about her face.
    “Check that Scottsdale listing for me.” She spoke into the BlackBerry pressed to her cheek. “The San Salvador three-bedroom.” As her assistant, Renee, looked up the property, Sadie glanced out the window at the flat plains of the Texas panhandle. “Is it listed as pending yet?” Sometimes a broker waited a few days to list a pending sale with the hopes another agent would show a property and get a bit more. Sneaky bastards.
    “It is.”
    She let out a breath. “Good.” In the current market, every sale counted. Even the small commissions. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” She hung up and tossed the phone in the cup holder.
    Outside the window, smears of brown, brown, and more brown slid past, broken only by rows of wind turbines in the distance, their propellers slowly turning in the warm Texas winds. Childhood memories and old emotions slid through her head one languid spin at a time. She felt the old mixed bag of emotions. Old emotions that always lay dormant until she crossed the Texas border. A confusion of love and longing, disappointment and missed opportunity.
    Some of her earliest memories were of her mother dressing her up for a pageant. The memories had blurred with age, the over-the-top pageant dresses and the piles of fake hair clipped to her head were just faded recollections. She remembered the feelings, though. She remembered the fun and excitement and the comforting touch of her mother’s hand. She remembered the anxiety and fear. Wanting to do well. Wanting to please, but never quite pulling it off. She remembered the disappointment her mother tried and failed to hide each time her daughter won best “pet photo” or “best dress” but failed to win the big crown. And with each pageant, Sadie tried harder. She sang a little louder, shook her hips a little faster, or put an extra kick into her routine, and the more she tried, the more she went off key, off step, or off the stage. Her pageant teacher always told her to stick to the routine they’d practice. Go with the script, but of