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other Texas thrifts. Constance Letterman bought it in a foreclosure sale six years ago and turned the large, high-ceilinged rooms into shop spaces for ten or so tenants. Gretel and her mother have the candle shop on the first floor, in what used to be the best parlor. On the other side of the hall, in the second-best parlor, Clarissa Owens sells vintage clothing—forties and fifties dresses, plastic jewelry, beaded purses. Behind Clarissa is the old dining room where Andrew Drake was opening his new photography studio, Faces. That’s where Peter Dudley used to have his Depression glassware shop. A few months ago, Peter reduced his inventory and moved upstairs to the nursery.
    A new business is a big deal in Pecan Springs, and people were jammed elbow to elbow in the old dining room, which had been elegantly updated with a gray and mauve color scheme, trendy chrome furniture, and Andrew’s artistically spotlighted photographs. I saw Mayor Pauline Perkins talking to Helen Jenson, owner of Jenson’s Travels and president of the Chamber of Commerce. Madeline Martin, the manager of the Book Nook, was discussing the drought with Oscar Perkins, owner of the Packsaddle Motel, and Herschel Schwartz, president of Hill Country Fidelity Bank. Jerri Greene, of Jerri’s Health and Fitness Spa, was talking hair with Roxanne Spivey of Mane Attraction. (Roxanne trims mine once every two months and keeps pestering me to do something to liven up the brown and cover the wide swathe of gray at my left temple.) The other Emporium tenants were there, and Constance too, wearing a strawberry red tent dress with three or four loops of what looked like gilded dog chain around her neck. She was ladling lemonade punch and doling out cookies at the refreshments table. A little sign in front of the cookie tray said “Cookies by Adele’s Sweet Shop.” Whoever made the punch must have wanted to remain anonymous.
    “You’d never know this used to be a dining room,” I told Ruby, as Constance poured my punch and handed me two oatmeal cookies. “Lester Kyle did a nice job with those lights.” But Ruby had deserted me. I spotted her standing next to Andrew.
    “I’ll say this for Andrew Drake,” Constance remarked, “his taste isn’t all in his mouth. Money doesn’t seem to be an object, either.” She rolled her eyes in the direction of the former kitchen. “You should see the equipment back there— cameras, lights, the whole works. He must have put ten thousand dollars in that old kitchen.” She nodded toward the bank president. “Probably got it at Fidelity, and Herschel came to see what he spent it on.”
    “Do you think Andrew will make it?” I asked. “It’s not exactly an economic boom time.” I thought unhappily about my own bottom line.
    “He’d better make it,” Constance said. “His rent’s due the first of ever’ month.” Constance rides herd on her tenants like a cowboy minding a bunch of irresponsible dogies.
    The object of our speculation, Andrew Drake, was making small talk with the mayor, while Ruby looked on adoringly. If she was after good looks she’d found the right man. Andrew was six feet plus, with an engaging smile, a perfect nose, and brown hair cut fashionably long and (I’d bet) sprayed to keep its shape. He wore a pale gray turtleneck, a darker gray sport jacket, and elegantly tailored gray slacks. Among Pecan Springs’ males, Andrew’s haute couture definitely made him different.
    I was studying Andrew and Ruby and wondering whether they were really soul mates or whether Ruby had been misled by a pretty face when Bob Godwin came up beside me. Bob owns Lillie’s Place, a bar and grill a couple of blocks up Guadalupe. He’s in his late forties, a Vietnam vet with thick reddish hair, eyebrows like two furry red caterpillars, and a tattooed spider on one hefty forearm. He wore Levi’s, scuffed cowboy boots, and a disgruntled look on his rugged, pockmarked face. “It wouldn’t of been so bad,”