Mother turned onto West Paces Ferry, the road that cut across the Buckhead section of Atlanta, from the nice part to our part, the even-nicer part. “I didn’t mean the social life. I meant the classes.”
“Those were fine.” I kept the Uncivil War business to myself.
She braked hard at a stop sign. There was no coasting with her—just lurch, brake, brake, lurch. Mother had a scarf with anchors on it tied around her neck, even though we were hours from the ocean. I momentarily missed Manhattan, which was not only an island, legitimately surrounded by anchors, but also a place where Mother never had to drive if she so chose.
As we lurched into the motor court of the main house, Fontaine was out front, something glinting in her hand. She was perfectly turned out for a Monday afternoon: a bias-cut skirt, an ivory blouse with a floppy bow, and coordinated ballet slippers. She had a flock of flats, a pair for every shade on the color wheel.
“Girls!” Fontaine said. “Come with me and tell me everything, everything about your day. Mr. Hank needs to talk to Alice.”
Mr. Hank was reading the paper in his porch rocker. “Not especially, I don’t.”
“Let’s say you do,” Fontaine said.
It was a crown—with a center stone and sparkling leaves—in her hand.
“Well, Alice, I guess I could show you what came over the Teletype about Arkansas,” Mr. Hank said, rubbing his palms against his khakis before getting up. My favorite of his canes, the one with a cobra handle, was hooked over the back of his chair. “Little Rock, big problems. We hired some hotshot from New York to cover the story. Suddenly the South is a beat people want.”
“You could send me, Daddy.” Mother pointed to the crown. “Make me Queen of News.”
The Daddy reference caught me off guard. I hadn’t heard her call Mr. Hank—whom, for whatever reason, we never called anything but Mr. Hank—Daddy in a jillion years. And it temporarily swamped me with grief for my dad/daddy. I closed my eyes and a picture of him floated up, settling in next to me with his coffee, an elbow to my ribs and a crooked smile for Fontaine. I swiped at my eyes with the sleeve of my bolero.
“Can’t remember the last time you wanted to be queen of anything around here,” Fontaine said.
Mr. Hank let out a laugh. “Al, it’s what we call a galloping story. We need a guy to hop on and gallop along. But come on, let’s see today’s disaster.”
Mother followed Mr. Hank into the study, where he’d recently had the boys from the paper install a Teletype machine, big as a radiator. It clanged like mad every time a story came across. Mr. Hank had told us three dings meant an advisory (something newsy was coming); five dings meant a bulletin (news was happening); ten dings meant a real news flash (a humdinger, in his words). In the month-ish we’d been here, most of the dings had been related to football scores and tornado warnings, or the occasional integration fight.
“Was it ten bells?” Nattie asked, but Mr. Hank didn’t hear or didn’t answer. “I guess I’ll go walk Frooshka,” she said, shoulders in a slump. “I want to feel her fuzziness.”
“Go on with that ridiculous beast.” Fontaine turned back the cuffs on her blouse to reveal a lining of pale stripes. She knew her way around the perfect fashion detail—a sweater that buttoned up the back or a ruffle that was shiny when the rest of the dress was not. To me, she added, “We’ll get you a crown of your own, but first we’ll bake.”
“Bake?” I asked.
“Your mother rather conveniently forgot any southern recipe in her repertory. But you’re of the perfect age—you need a go-to dessert you can whip up in a pinch.”
The kitchen of the main house stretched along the screened-porch side. It was always cool, even when the air conditioner wasn’t plugged in. Birdie was watching something on a little television with a fuzzy picture. She flicked it off as Fontaine clanged around. “Where do we keep the bowls?” Fontaine asked.
“Want me to make something for you?” Birdie said, taking out a glass bowl, measuring cups, and a whisk. Her hair was curled under in neat rows.
“I’ve got it, Birdie,” Fontaine said. “No need to keep us company.”
“I’ll catch the ironing then,” Birdie said before descending to the basement.
“What were you watching?” I asked. But she was already gone.
As I washed my hands, Fontaine said, “Tell me more about this first day of yours.”
I flipped through possible responses about the wrong side of the classroom and my wrongly pinned un-awesome blossom but decided on the news Mother hadn’t cottoned to. “I’m going to the game with Davis Jefferson. Do you know him?”
“Of course. His brother is a football s-t-a-r. You’re off to a good start.” Fontaine flashed a convincing smile. Her brooch flashed, too, catching the sun.
“Except I think he has a girlfriend.”
The Teletype clanged from the other room—three sharp ding-a-lings.
Fontaine laughed and lit the oven’s pilot light. “Girls around here trade beaus like baseball cards. Go on and crack a couple eggs into the bowl.”
I cracked, then whisked. “I’ve never owned a baseball card in my life.”
“That’s enough with the eggs, dear. We don’t need a custard.” Fontaine sifted the flour and plopped it in the bowl. She folded in a heap of cocoa powder, added a cup of sugar, a small scoop of Crisco, and a fat pinch of salt. Then she beat the batter, poured it into a square pan, and slid the brownies into the oven.
Fontaine spun to me, a smile forming on her lips. “Why don’t you come with Mr. Hank and me to church on Sunday. The services are almost exactly an hour, and afterward there’s mingling. You’re half Christian, lest you forget.”
“Thurston-Ann goes there—she’s a cheerleader,” I said.
“All the better.”
But something about the notion of churchgoing made my eyes flick out to the window, to the beautiful pool where neither my sister nor poodle was in view. Our background was half Christian, but also half not—more than half not, since Mother had already converted. And I wondered, for a brief, not-breezy moment, if Fontaine was disappointed in more than half of me.
The Teletype clanged again—another three-dinger.
“Can you turn that inaaaaane noise off,” Fontaine yelled to Mr. Hank.
“The news doesn’t care what you think of it,” he yelled back.
Fontaine shook her head. “You go ahead and give it some thought, my worship overture,” she said to me. “On to more fashionable matters.” She fished two bobby pins out of her skirt pocket and handed me the tiara. It peaked in the center. “Everything is better with sparkle. This one was from Holley Ball.” I thought of Mother’s reference to the superfluous “e.” She’d likely think a tiara of any kind was superfluous. Fontaine settled the crown on my head. “You’re more beautiful than your mother.”
That was an absolute fib, and for a second, I questioned how many other fibs Fontaine had tucked in her pocket. It’s not that I wasn’t pretty. It’s that Mother (and, for that matter, Fontaine) were impossibly pretty. Maybe with the addition of a crown, I’d suddenly inherit their southern beauty. Or maybe I’d inherit Fontaine’s happiness in this place, with the help of some sparkles atop my head. Or maybe I’d inherit something I wanted even more—a sense I was part of the Fontaine-and-Alice crown continuum.
“While those brownies bake, I’ve got an idea,” Fontaine said. “Come along.”
I followed her up the back stairs, to Mother’s old room. There, hanging from the bedpost, was a pale-blue gown with a jewel neckline, narrow sleeves, and a smattering of embroidered leaves, each more ethereal than the next. It was the very dress Mother wore in her portrait, the one hanging over the mantel in Fontaine and Mr. Hank’s library.
“Give it a whirl,” Fontaine said, unzipping the back and threading crumpled tissue paper out of the sleeves. “She wor
e it for the 1933 Magnolia. The year she was queen.”
I stripped to my slip and stepped into the gown. It was Cinderella-y chiffon.
Fontaine wiggled the zipper up. “Magnifique!” she said, scrunching up the sleeves so the chiffon didn’t droop down my wrists. “Let’s get you a higher heel.”
I sashayed over to the big mirror. The dress was perfecto, the kind of gown made for starry nights and gin gimlets. The kind of gown I wouldn’t mind spending a year in.
Fontaine was back with a pair of her heels—gold T-straps a smidge too big.
I swished left, then right, chin up, chin down. In the mirror, I saw the dress first and myself second. I saw who I could be and not who I was or wasn’t.
For what seemed like a long time, Fontaine and I stood, arm in arm, elbow in elbow, like we were posing for a prom picture, her perfect chignon and my imperfect curls boinging out all around the crown.
“Ruth, I want you to love life here,” she said, pressing her hand into my arm.
Dimpled Davis and flippy Gracie and sparkles and pink books—that’s what came to mind. I nodded.
Fontaine unlinked her arm from mine. “Better check those brownies.”
I followed her down the stairs, careful not to step on the chiffon.
Back in the kitchen, when I peeked in on the brownies—still gooey—the tiara tipped forward.
Fontaine straightened it. “You’ll have your own opportunities,” she said. “So many crowning opportunities.”
“Should I take notes?” I asked.
“Notes? Just like your mother. The peach doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
I pushed the cuffs of Mother’s dress up and dug my notebook out of my binder—Mother’s favorite kind, with a spiral across the top and “EZ on the Eyes” green pages.
Fontaine looked at me for a second before speaking, like she was taking in the whole shebang. “All righty. So, first there’s the mixer, where no crown is proffered. Then the Chrysanthemum Ball, which everyone calls the Fall Ball. Old-timers call it the Mum, but no one calls it the Chrysanthemum, because, I suspect, no one can spell it. Got that?”
“Yep.”
“You mean to say, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ ”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“The Fall Ball is a Covenant-only affair. Not even three weeks later, we’ve got the Magnolia, which is citywide.”
“Fall, then three weeks later, the Magnolia,” I repeated.
“Don’t glide over the Magnolia without recognizing its significance.” Fontaine tapped her manicured nail on my notebook. “There are flower balls all year long. But for debutante purposes, the ones that count, the ones that gather one hundred well-bred girls from all corners of the city, are the Magnolia in autumn and the White Rose in the spring.”
“Pre-debutante, Mother says.”
“Pfff. The point of the debutante—‘female beginner,’ from the French, of course—is to introduce young women to a . . .” She paused for a second. “A like-minded circle.”
I imagined a circle of blond and briefly wondered if my pen should take note of something other than the rules of the balls.
“You’re recommended by established members—like, say, a grandmother. You attend a dozen lessons in comportment and etiquette, as you’ve started to do on alternate Thursdays.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Standing there in Mother’s ethereal dress, I was struck by a quick and brutal truth: I couldn’t wait for comportment, whatever comportment was, and for every ball in my future.
Fontaine gave my chiffoned arm a squeeze. “That’s why we don’t dwell on the Jewishness. The Jewish people have their clubs and such, and I’ve heard they’re lovely. But they don’t have the balls and the debs—those are only at the best clubs, which just so happen to be restricted.” She folded a dish towel on the counter. “Unlike your mother, the debutante group doesn’t drift outside its circle. I want the very best for you, Ruthie, and people here, well, they won’t understand. I want your dance card to be full, full, full.”
I nodded. I couldn’t wait to dance with boys with single or double dimples, to see Fontaine beam down on me, a crown on my somehow magically unfrizzed head.
“Won’t understand what?” Mother asked. I flicked my head and saw her in the doorway.
I went back over my part of the conversation and decided I hadn’t said anything I regretted, not out loud. “Why no one calls the Chrysanthemum Ball the Chrysanthemum Ball,” I said, flapping her favorite kind of notebook around for emphasis.
“Because no one can spell it,” Mother said.
“Listening in long?” Fontaine asked.
“Long enough.” Mother reached into the bowl and swiped a smidgen of left-behind batter. “Ruth, please go take off that relic.”
“What about the brownies?” I asked, yanking the tiara off, or trying to. A few strands of unruly hair wound around the sides, not wanting to surrender.
Fontaine opened the oven door a crack and quickly shut it. “Nope.”
Smoke snaked out the sides of the door, curlicuing toward the ceiling.
Nattie was back with a panting Frooshka. They both sniffed at the air. “What’s burning?” Nattie asked. “And why are you so fancy?”
“Don’t touch that oven door,” Fontaine instructed. “We’re forgetting about the baked goods for the moment. We’re keeping it shut.”
“We’re not.” Mother grabbed the dish towel and took the brownies from oven to sink.
Fontaine pulled the chain to get the ceiling fan going.
“Take it off now, Ruthie,” Mother said, her short hair winging up in the breeze.
“How about we dip them in milk?” Nattie asked.
“Lost cause,” Fontaine answered.
I went upstairs to change, and their words drifted up behind me, along with a whiff of scorched chocolate. Mother’s voice was clipped. “Why put Ruth in that dress and talk up these balls at clubs that won’t let her in? No daughter of mine is falling for southern cotillion if it comes with a whisper of hate.”
“Your fight is not Ruth’s fight,” Fontaine said, which contradicted the peach and the tree. “She wants to fit in. She wants to take on the opportunities.”
“She doesn’t know what she wants,” Mother said.
I couldn’t let that one go. “I know,” I yelled down the stairs. “I know exactly what I want, and it includes dancing and crowns.”
“Don’t yell, dear,” Fontaine yelled. Then quieter but still audible, she said to Mother, “And I told her she could come to church with me.”
“Church?” Nattie’s voice was squeaky. “We’re Jewish.”
“Half,” Fontaine said.
“I converted, Mother. The girls are Jewish.”
I hung Mother’s dress just so, threading the tissue paper back through the sleeves.
By the time I came back downstairs in my too-red school clothes, Fontaine had thrown the dish towel over the brownie fiasco, Mother was at the kitchen table with Nattie on her lap, and Frooshka was sacked out, front paws crossed, on the linoleum.
“Ruth—good news,” Mother announced in a voice that said otherwise. “Keep your Saturdays free.”
“Saturdays, plural?” I said, imagining pool parties and gown shopping with the pastel posse. “I think my dance card will be full.” I shot a look Fontaine’s way.
“I think not.” Mother’s lips flattened into a line. “Starting this week”—she circled her hand around the table—“our Saturday mornings will be spent honoring Shabbos.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Fontaine said.
I brushed my fingers over my wrists, where Mother’s dress had recently draped itself on and over me. “Why? We haven’t gone once since Dad—”
“I’ve been hearing good things about the rabbi on Peachtree,” Mother said over me.
“He’s an integrationist,” Fontaine said.
“Ruthie,” Mother said, and I looked at her. “You want to go to all these pre-debutante festivities, then you spend time at temple. One for one.”
And I thought: Fine, I could be Jewish on Saturday mornings as long as my dance card was full, full, full on Saturday nights.
6
Score Squeeze
The home bleachers were packed. Fweeeeee, wheeeeee. I followed the sound of a two-finger whistle to see Gracie waving. “Over here!”
In Gracie’s world, a few rows up, smack in the center, she’d spread a sunny patchwork quilt over the bench. “Say hey!” she said, handing me a pom-pom. “When Thurston-Ann gives us the signal, we swish this around.”
Claudia and her fashionably long legs and circle skirt sat nestled against Davis, a pair of pom-poms at her feet.
I’d worn a tricolored shift of red, black, and white. I was glad Gracie had told me to dress up, because girls and guys were decked out like they were on dates. Davis had on a blue blazer, as though it weren’t approximately a jillion degrees.
“Scoot,” Davis said to Gracie. He moved left, and Gracie moved right.
Before I could second-guess the lineup, I squished between them. Davis smelled good, like soap and sunshine and beer. Claudia sat on his other side.
Amid growing hoots and applause, the majorettes took the field.
“Which one’s Thurston-Ann?” I yelled to Gracie.
“T-Ann is always front and center. She cheers like no other. Go on, wave your pom.”
Wave, I did.
I spotted T-Ann’s pink cheeks under a red-feathered hat and thought she must be awfully hot under that plumage.
On the field, Principal Chalmers walked out to the microphone. Everyone settled down. “We are honored”—ahhh-nod—“to have Coach Parker to start us off.”
A short man in short sleeves stepped forward. “Bow your heads.”
Even though I was still ticked that Mother had thrown a fit over her Magnolia dress, as a tiny tribute to her and my promise to attend temple, I raised my head slightly.
In the Neighborhood of True Page 5