Her hair was a mess. That's all she could think, standing outside the little church, where she was meeting Mr. Butts. She tried to check out her reflection in the glass windows, but the sun wasn't right, and all she had was her silhouette. This grayish black shade of her head with its variety of protrusions and clumps served only as further proof that she was far from presentable.
What on earth were these people going to think of her, looking like she had just been blown in by a cyclone?
She reached for her comb. She would make one last attempt at respectability, but just then she saw him turning the corner. She was out of time, and he would just have to take her as she was.
He smiled brightly. Perhaps he had forgotten his spectacles, she thought. When he drew nearer and actually saw how she looked, he would have a different reaction.
"What happened to you?" he would ask with great concern in his squeaky drawl. "You look like you was dragged through the mud."
"I had a tough night," she would answer.
"What happened?" he would continue, and then she would have to provide a suitable answer, one that wouldn't cause him to walk away right then and there. While she was rarely ashamed of herself, Leta was also, at the same time, discreet. That she was known for having trysts with a number of men was far more vague than including the names of the men themselves. Still, her reputation already preceded her into relationships like the one she had with Mr. Butts. Providing details was more than she ever dared. Now that he was, it seemed, courting her, she needed to exercise more caution. As far as he knew, she had been married three times before the beginning of their romance. Due to a violent, unsafe living situation, she was compelled to divorce her first husband, the father of her two children. Her second husband was murdered, and her third marriage also ended in divorce when she learned he was carrying on with other women behind her back and secretly paying for his drinking and womanizing with the money she had set aside for her children...or something like that.
Ironically, Leta found it very easy to lie to Mr. Butts. Although for the most part, she considered herself a truthful person, even in her looseness, as it were, but in his case, the near-truths and untruths came easily. It wasn't an indication of a strong marriage, if they went that far, but there was something about him that made lying seem appropriate. And in this instance she would have to lie.
She would make it a simple lie. Her neighbor had fallen off a ladder. His wife was hysterical, so she had been at the hospital all night with them. He had a concussion, but he would be fine. She didn't have time to freshen up. She hadn't even been to her own church that morning. She was sorry. She had no way of getting in touch with him, and she didn't want him to think that she had forgotten about their date, so there she was.
Yes, that would suit him. It sounded plausible. He would understand.
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