It isn't every day a movie star steals your husband. When that day comes for Chiffon Butrell, of Cayboo Creek, South Carolina, she looks to the Bottom Dollar Girls to help her out of one fine mess. As a waitress at the local Wagon Wheel restaurant, Chiffon pegs her fortunes to a winning entry in a local video store's Be-a-Movie-Star contest. But her celluloid dreams are dashed when her baby takes sick and her husband, Lonnie -- one fine specimen of Southern manhood -- heads for the Hollywood Hills solo. On set, he turns the head of leading lady Janie-Lynn Lauren, whose siren call is Oscar caliber. Back in Cayboo Creek, Chiffon manages to lose her temper and her job in quick succession -- only to discover that Lonnie's paycheck from the Nutra-Sweet plant has been forwarded to a California address. With three kids to feed, Chiffon comes up more than a dollar short. Her good friends try their best to pitch in. But there are too few hands to lend, what with Elizabeth and her husband, Timothy, expecting their first baby any day and the rest of the Bottom Dollar Girls knee-deep in their secret -- and possibly scandalous -- plan to raise money for the Cayboo Creek Senior Center. When a slick of Wesson Oil at the Winn-Dixie gets the better of Chiffon's ankle, there's just one thing to be done -- call on estranged older sister Chenille, who hails from Bible Grove, South Carolina. A prissy, fussy spinster prone to dressing her dog, Walter, in matching plaid "mother-son" outfits, Chenille is everything former beauty queen Chiffon detests. Suddenly the tabloid media gets wind of Janie-Lynn and Lonnie's torrid romance, landing sleepy Cayboo Creek on the star map. Under the glare of camera lights, the sisters must put aside their longtime grievances to forge a newfound relationship. As crisis reigns, Chenille is welcomed by the Bottom Dollar Girls for her cool head and quick thinking. And when Chenille runs into a little trouble of her own, she begins to see the future in friendship. A rollicking, hilarious novel about two sisters who are each one of a kind, A Dollar Short is a delicious page-turner worth every last cent.
