Belle of Bellville Ch. 05-06

The electronic bell in the Postal Plus made a hollow but not unpleasant ring as she entered the air-conditioned shop. It was fairly packed with customers since the post office was a bit far for most residents, and the Postal Plus was a godsend.

She immediately caught the attention of the Brody's, an elderly couple that had purchased the franchise with their retirement money, and she had built a friendly rapport with them. They were also the ones who had suggested she try getting the job of housekeeper and cook at the Barrington Ranch.

"Well, howdy, Miss Isabella!" Stan Brody greeted the pretty and spunky young lady from Louisiana.

She smiled as she walked up to counter. "Hello, Mr. Brody. Mrs. Brody," she returned with a charming smile. "Any mail for me?" she asked as she stepped to the counter and slipped off her bag to pull out some envelopes she wanted to mail.

"As a matter of fact, I think we've got an important looking envelope for you from Nevada," Mrs. Brody, a pudgy, ever friendly gray haired woman said with a nod as she turned to the square shelves behind her that were filled with mail.

"Nevada? Really?" she asked, and then looked curiously at a wall with TracFones. "Are those disposable cell phones?"

"Yea. And they're on sale, too. Wanna see one?"

"Don't mind if I do," she said as he handed her a plastic-sealed box with the phone. "How much are these?"

"They're goin' for nineteen ninety five with a ten dollar setup fee. But you get unlimited texting, internet, and calls for a whole thirty days, and you can add time after the thirty day special for just twenty-five dollars."

"Sounds like a deal."

"It is a deal," Mr. Brody said with a smile.

"I'll have one," she said and handed the box back so he could get it setup.

"Here it is!" Mrs. Brody exclaimed and turned with a large orange envelope.

She took it and a slight frown appeared on her brow as she read the sender's name but didn't recognize either the company or the address.

"You look as if you don't know who it's from," Mr. Brody said. "Don't know anybody in Nevada?"

"Not really. But I've been there for a while," Isabella said before she raised her eyes and smiled. "I really can't fathom who this could be from."

"Maybe you won a prize!" Mrs. Brody said with an excited smile. "I hear they mail out those kinds of official looking envelopes to people who've won big prizes in contests around the country."

"Well, that would be curious indeed. I've never entered any contest," she said as she shook her head with a smile and stuffed the envelope into her macramé bag before she pulled out her Paisley purse to pay for the TracFone.

"I hear they've got this lottery going on around the country where they take random names from the registry and send people cash prizes worth up to two thousand dollars!" Mrs. Brody confided with a gossipy look and tone.

She smiled at the woman's penchant for spreading news—any news. "Really? I never heard of it," she said. "But two thousand dollars would come in handy right about now."

"You haven't heard about it cuz it's nuthin' but one o' them urban legends going the rounds at college campuses," Mr. Brody scoffed. "Those things ain't nuthin' but one of them chain letters that don't get anyone richer but the postal service."

"That's not true, Stan! Mable told me that her second cousin's second cousin in California got one of those letters and he won fifteen hundred dollars that paid for his vacation to Hawaii.

"Yeah well, I'll believe it when I see it," Stan Brody scoffed and earned himself a narrow-eyed glare from his wife which only made him chuckle as he handed Isabella her newly setup TracFone. "All ready to go."

Isabella smiled as she watched this cute exchange between two people who'd been together for more than forty years. "Well, if this is one of those letters, I'll be sure to let you know," she said with a smile and a wink.

"Now don't you get my wife here started, Miss Isabella," Stan Brody said with a sigh of exasperation.

"Stan!" Then Mrs. Brody looked at the pretty young lady on the other side of the counter. "I'd just noticed that your name is Isabella Beaumont-Boucher," she said.

Isabella paused with returning her change to her purse and smiled as she looked at the older woman, seeing her eyeing her. "I haven't had time yet to change my Nevada driver's license to a Texas driver's license," she said.

"No, that's not it," Mrs. Brody said, shaking her head. "It's been a while back, some thirty years maybe when I was younger woman..." She hesitated.

Now Isabella looked curious. "Yes?"

"It might just be a coincidence, but back then there was a young woman from Louisiana comin' through here from California, much like you," she said. "I tended my Ma's sewing shop back then when people still needed seamstresses." She shook her head. "She was the talk of the town. She was so ladylike and so beautiful." She sighed in fond thought. "The people around these parts called her the Belle of Bellville cuz she was."

"But I'm from Nevada, not California."

"Yea, yea," Mrs. Brody said as she nodded and waved that away, "but your name is hyphenated. That young lady's name was Elisa or Eleanor or some name like that, but her last name was Beaumont. Like yours. She was a pretty lady, too."

Isabella's smile faded some but she quickly put it back on. "Really?"

"And now I'm lookin' at you, you resemble her a great deal, Miss Isabella."

"What a coincidence."

"Yea," Mrs. Brody nodded, "and ain't it a coincidence that she had known the Barrington's, too? I recall John Barrington, back then a strapping young man, had fallen hard for our Belle. He had just gotten married to Meredith Cole and she already expectin' their first child, John Jr., but everyone could see how he looked at Belle. There was somethin' strong between Belle and John." Then she sighed sadly. "But Belle left as suddenly as she'd come and we've never seen or heard of her again."

"Oh yea, Mabel! I recall pretty Belle," Stan Brody said. "She wasn't here long, though. Stayed maybe a month or so at the Abri de Nellie Bed & Breakfast . She was always so sad, but whenever she saw John Barrington, she'd light up whole Bellville with her smile and eyes."

"And his heart. That man was clearly smitten with Belle."

"Well, I have to be going. I have a grocery list I need to bring to the grocers," Isabella said with a polite smile.

"Of course! So," Mabel Brody winked, "if that's a cash prize you got there, we're lookin' for investors for the Postal Plus."

"I'll keep that in mind," Isabella said with soft laughter before she said her good-byes and left the shop, hearing their jovial good-byes. She exited the shop on her way to the grocers, and she waved through the window and the elderly couple waved enthusiastically back.

"Now that young lady sure is real charmin', ain't she Stan? Not like some of those uppity tourists we get from California from time to time," Mabel Brody said with a shudder.

"That she is, Bee, that she is," her husband said with a nod.

"Wonder if that maverick, Jacob Barrington, has noticed, too," she said with a giggle.

Her husband chuckled. "If he ain't by now, the boy's gone blind."

"Don't you think those two would make a nice couple? Like Belle and John only without the matrimony keepin' them apart."

Stan looked over at her, seeing a matchmaking gleam in his wife's eye.

"Now woman, I warn you," he narrowed eyes on his suddenly innocent faced wife, "don't you go playing match-maker, hear? You know what happened with Boris and Cynthia and how that ended."

"Oh don't worry, Hon. Jacob Barrington don't need no help from no old woman when it comes to lassoing himself a pretty thing. If he can see what we see, he'd be after her soon enough, and she ain't gonna be able to resist him once he sets his sights and Texas charm on her."

"Well, you keep that in mind if you get it in your head to try to get those two together. Jacob Barrington's got more women swooning after him than is good for any mortal man."

"Oh you!" Mabel laughed as she smacked her husband's arm. "You're just jealous of the boy."

"Damn straight!" And earned himself another slap on the arm.

To be continued

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