Fortune...or Fate?

Since Lovita always seems to be the one telling our story, I thought I’d put my two cents in for a change…

My name’s Sue Jan Pritchard, but soon I’m gonna be Mrs. Monroe Madsen. My handsome hunky husband-to-be is the love of my life, although he used to be more chunky than hunky, but that’s between you, me and the tree. To be honest, I don’t mind telling you that I’m a big, bodaciously beautiful woman. So’s my bestest-estest friend in the whole world and entire universe, Lovita Mae Horton. Together we run Lovita’s Cut’ n Strut Beauty Salon and Boutique in Wachita, Texas.

If you’re wondering, Wachita’s a small little town right next to Nowheresville and just east of Timbuk-three. If you sneezed you’d already be through it. And FYI, Wachita means “Place of Stagnant Waters,” in Indian, which pretty much describes it. I’m not kidding.

Anywho, back to the Cut’ n Strut. We have our regulars—town women who come in once a week to get their hair “did.” I pretty much do all the do’s and Lovita does the boutique part of the shop. We hired Bo not long ago to do the mani’s and pedi’s and she’s a real ar-teest. She painted teeny tiny daisies on my piggys and they looked so perfect I had to wear open toed shoes for a month just to show them off. When she’s not working at the shop with us, she waits tables at her parent’s restaurant, Chun’s Hong Kong Gardens—one of our favorite places to eat. Ya’ll, I’m gittin’ hungry just writing about it.

Which brings me to the why’s and wherefore’s of how this all began. It was at that very establishment that Lovita cracked open a fortune cookie to a menacing message. Imagine that! You’re probably used to gittin’ one of those silly messages in your fortune cookie, like “You will visit the pyramids of Egypt,” or “Be true to your teeth or they will be false to you.” And so were we. But that all changed when Lovita read this message, “Your father did not die of natural causes. A man in a black Stetson will tell you more tomorrow.”

Well, I need to stop typing for a spell. I think I’m gittin’ that carpool tunnel syndrome, and besides that, I’m hungry. All this talk about food reminded my stomach it’s running on empty. So long for now. Let’s do lunch sometime, okay?

Crack the case wide open in August, 2008, with the release of Misfortune Cookies by Linda P. Kozar. The first in the When the Fat Ladies Sing series, Lovita and Sue Jan continue combing the countryside in A Tisket, A Casket and Dead As A Doornail. These big, bodaciously beautiful women have an appetite for adventure and food, though not necessarily in that order.

Linda Kozar is an award-winning author and journalist. She is the Co-Founder and Director of Words For The Journey Christian Writers Guild in The Woodlands, Texas, founded in 2003. Linda taught a women’s Bible study, Coffee, Tea and Thee, in her home for 14 years and is now Co-Leader of Babes With A Beatitude at Woods Edge Community Church. She and her husband Michael, married for 18 years, have two lovely teen daughters, Katie and Lauren as well as a black-and-white Terrier princess named "Patches.

Visit Linda at Coffee, Tea, and Thee.