Dressing Lily

By Siobhan Shannon

Set in the 1960s South, Dressing Lily follows Olivia from Cut and Shoot, Texas to the gay world of the Big Easy theater district and back.

Olivia Lyons’ father raised her on his own in Cut and Shoot, Texas. Her mother could have taught her so much about navigating the world, but she isn’t around, and Liv’s father doesn’t talk about her. Sometimes life feels like a game where everyone knows the rules but Olivia. When she falls in love, it takes her by surprise. A further surprise awaits her when her romance is discovered, and her father spirits her away to New Orleans, where her mother has lived since the couple parted ways.

Charlie Lyons and her partner, Miss Lora Blackmon, are the leading members of the gay social scene. They own Sans Soucis House, a place where people live their lives and no one judges. They take Olivia in and try to help her along, but she can’t seem to make the right choices. Olivia starts life over working for Claude DeCloux, who owns a jazz club. When she betrays Claude’s secret, she finds herself out of work and in danger of being out of San Soucis House.

She heads out to find work in the theater district, wishing someone would give her a copy of the rules. There she meets Cajun Lily, the Queen of Burlesque, and becomes her dresser and protégé. But Olivia wants to go back home to Cut and Shoot, if she can only find a way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Decadent Publishing
• Release date: Nov 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781683611271

Book preview

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Dressing Lily

Copyright  2016 by Siobhan Shannon

ISBN: 978-1-68361-127-1

Cover art by Tibbs Designs

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

Look for us online at:

www.decadentpublishing.com

Dear Readers,

I hope you enjoy Dressing Lily.

Like Olivia, life surprises me more often than not. Like Olivia, I never know the rules until I break them. Also like Olivia, I always find myself turning back to my true love. I follow the road as it gets narrower and narrower. Then one day, I realize that I am not lost, and I have always been headed right to the place where I’m standing.

There are worse things to be than yourself. If life throws you a curveball, take a swing at it and try to hit a homerun. You won’t regret trying, even if you fail. I don’t.

Warm Regards,

Siobhan Shannon

[e-mail]

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Dedication

To H., who always believed.

Dressing Lily

Olivia Lyons’ father raised her on his own in Cut and Shoot, Texas. Her mother could have taught her so much about navigating the world, but she isn’t around, and Liv’s father doesn’t talk about her. Sometimes life feels like a game where everyone knows the rules but Olivia. When she falls in love, it takes her by surprise. A further surprise awaits her when her romance is discovered, and her father spirits her away to New Orleans, where her mother has lived since the couple parted ways when Liv was a toddler.

Charlie Lyons and her partner, Miss Lora Blackmon are the leading members of the gay social scene. They own Sans Soucis House, a place where people live their lives and no one judges. They take Olivia in and try to help her along, but she can’t seem to make the right choices. Olivia starts life over working for Claude DeCloux, who owns a jazz club. When she betrays Claude’s secret, she finds herself out of work and in danger of being out of San Soucis House. She heads out to find work in the theater district, wishing someone would give her a copy of the rules. There she meets Cajun Lily, the Queen of Burlesque, and becomes her dresser and protégé. But Olivia wants to go back home to Cut and Shoot, if she can only find a way.

Set in the South of 1960, Dressing Lily follows Olivia from Cut and Shoot, Texas to the gay world of the Big Easy theater district and back.

Dressing Lily

by

Siobhan Shannon

Chapter One

I didn’t set out to deliberately ruin my life. I don’t guess anyone does, and then, when the walls come crashing down, it’s just so…surprising. One day you wake up and nothing looks the same anymore and, the next, people are asking you why you’re destroying their lives. I don’t know. I woke up on one of those desperately close mornings in July when the air feels like a blanket and nothing was the same. I didn’t even like my coffee the same way anymore. It might have been meeting Daisy Bledsoe. Or it could have been a virus. God only knows. All I can tell you is that one morning, everything changed.

She wasn’t the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, tall and weathered and snaggletoothed. But when she smiled, her face lit up and you couldn’t resist smiling, too. She certainly wasn’t the smartest girl I’d ever met, either. At times, I wanted to pull my hair out over the things she did. But on that July morning, she mesmerized me, and before I knew it, I was making decisions that threatened to ruin my life. Strange but true, and I think I’d do it all over again.

I must have been about twenty when Pa sent me to Tom Harmon’s place to see if he had a fuel pump for our old tractor. I had never been out to Harmon’s before and missed my turn. I drove down a road that kept getting narrower until I had no choice but to go forward. I found myself on a grass track petering out among dead machines and rusting farm implements in front of a tumble-down house. I’d finally found a place where I could turn around…but then I met Daisy.

Cut and Shoot, Texas, 1960….

It was the kind of heavy-aired morning that only happens in East Texas, and I had the windows down. I came round a bend and a big black dog decided I didn’t belong there. He jumped up at the window of Pa’s truck, raising hell and slobbering on me. All I could do was hit the brakes and lean away.

Max! a voice like a sack of gravel shouted. Come heah.

Max shut up and left the side of my truck to go sit at her feet, staring expectantly up her considerable height. I could breathe again. One look at her, and I knew I was lost.

Can I help you?

I believe you already have.

She wore a blue gingham dress three sizes too big and almost thin enough to read the paper through. All angles and corners, she moved with an athletic grace that surprised me. This here’s private property.

Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. I’m lost. Say, have you got a ’54 Deere tractor you’re partin’ out?

I got a Deere. Don’t know how old. You can have the whole damn thing if you haul it off. Don’t want it nohow.

She tied Max up and showed me the tractor. It sat out in the middle of a hay field with the hay cutter still attached.

Been here since my daddy passed.

How long ago was that?

’Bout three years, maybe longer. It seems like time stops every time I come back here. I thought I was gone to Dallas for good when Mama called and told me he passed. I come home two days later and been here ever since. Then, last year, Mama passed. So now I guess I’m here forever.

She looked at something I couldn’t see, her eyes mahogany pools of quiet. Beautiful.

Her pa’s tractor seemed like it might still run, so I offered to see if I could start it for her.

I tole you, you can have it. It just reminds me of them. I seen my daddy on this tractor ever since I can remember.

Miss…? I didn’t know her name, but I wanted to.

Daisy Bledsoe,

Miss Bledsoe, you don’t need to be giving away your daddy’s tractor what still runs.

She twisted her mouth into a pout. Why? I ain’t never gonna use it.

You never know. At least sell it.

All right. She turned toward the house. Put it at the end of the lane where you come in. I’ll get a sign.

The tractor didn’t start for me, so I tinkered with it a bit. A short while later, she came back.