Read Online Bead of Doubt by Tonya Kappes - Free Book Online

Chapter One
     
     
    The Beaded Dragonfly.
    I smiled as I read the black letters on the light pink awning hanging over the storefront doors. The dragonfly with the beaded tail was the cutest mascot. I squeezed the shop key in my hand. This was it. It was the first time since my divorce that I’d done something for myself. Something just for me.
    The sign was just the first step. Today was the day the beat-up old building was going to become the home of my new bead store.
    I checked my watch.
    7 AM.
    I looked down the street to see if I saw any of the Divas, but nothing was in site, other than Willow and a snow covered road.
    “Come on, girl.” I tugged Willow’s leash while I stepped up on the front step. “Come on.”
    Willow snorted and waddled closer to the step. Her goose down jacket was a little snug around her belly, and it crinkled up when she walked. She perched her right hoof on the step as though she was posing for one of those pig calendars you see at the calendar stand in the mall.
    She snorted again, letting me know there was no way she was going to stretch her little pink body any more than she had to.
    I should’ve known better. I had one hell of a time getting her to walk through the snow to the car, much less walk up steps.
    “All right.” I picked her up. “We need to go on a diet.”
    She was a tad bit heavier than she should be, but she’s a pig. Aren’t they supposed to be fat?
    I on the other hand, really did need to lose weight.
    After getting divorced from dumbass, I decided I was tired of watching what I ate until I had to go to the elastic department in the clothing store.
    There’s nothing more humbling than buying your first pair of elastic jeans.
    I wrestled with Willow in one arm while trying to jiggle the old key with the other.
    “The lock is a little tricky when it’s cold out.” Ginger snuck up behind me and was standing on the sidewalk with a broom and mop in her hands.
    Not a good sign.
    She held them up in the air. “We didn’t have time to clean it after we got all the junk out of it.”She propped the cleaning supplies in the corner by the door and took the key from me.
    “I’m so glad you are here.” I said.
    I could always count on my best friend, Ginger Rush Sloan, and her family owned the building.
    “Do you think the Divas would leave you high and dry on one of the biggest days of your life, outside of your divorce?” Bernadine Frisk had her long crimson hair pulled back in a high pony with black fur earmuffs, creating poofs on the sides of her head.
    Standing behind her was a shivering Flora White, whose ivory skin blended into the snowy background, and an eighty-year old Agnes Pearl holding a coffee pot.
    “Well, come on.” Agnes shimmied up the step. “Let’s get this cleaning party started.”
    I’ll never forget the night I met Agnes, Ginger, Flora, and Bernadine. I was going through my nasty divorce with what’s his name, and we had just had a fight. I left our house with nothing but the clothes on my back. Just like a sign, and I believe in signs, but this was a real sign planted in the Baptist Church lawn. It read: Divorced? Lonely? Come on in. Divorce Support Group meets here at 7 PM on Monday nights.
    Low and behold, it was 7 pm on a Monday. I whipped my little Ford Focus into the parking lot and followed the signs. Everyone there had a story similar to mine, but not everyone wanted revenge like me. Well. . .except Ginger, Flora, Bernadine, and Agnes. We instantly formed a little group, The Divorced Divas. An apt name for five fabulous women in their forties and beyond.
    We decided to take our little group of five and meet on our own after Diva Flora took my suggestions of revenge a little too far and got a visit from Noah Druck, Swanee’s finest cop. She had broken into her ex-husband’s house and cut the armpits out of his designer button-downs shirts, all fifty of them.
    We’ve met in libraries, restaurants, and at each others’ houses.