Net of Jewels

by Ellen Gilchrist

  After a while I got up and took off all my clothes and put my pajamas on. I lit a small oil-filled lamp I had bought at the dime store. The smell of perfumed oil filled the room, a strange foreign smell. I turned on the radio. “Moonglow with Martin” from the ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. Every night my long-lost love, Bob Rosen, listened to that program. No matter where I was or how far away from him, if I was listening to it, so was he. Radio waves. “It must have been moonglow, way up in the blue. It must have been moonglow, that brought me near to you.”

  On Monday afternoon Stanley Mabry called me on the phone. I was upstairs in my room reading Henry IV, Part II out loud. I was walking around my room reading the king’s death scene.

  “My day is dim.

  Thou hast stolen that which after some few hours

  Were thine without offense, and at my death

  Thou hast seal’d up my expectation. . . .

  Thou hidest a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,

  Which thou has whetted on thy stony heart,

  To stab at half an hour of my life. …”

  “Rhoda.” It was Donie at my door. “Come on. Stanley’s on the phone. He wants to talk to you.”

  “Okay. Hang on. I’m coming.” I stuck a bookmark in my book and laid it on the bed. Then I went out into the hall where the phone sat upon a shelf in an old phone booth painted blue.

  “Hello,” I said. “Hello. Who’s this?”

  “It’s Stanley Mabry, Rhoda. Donie said she told you about me.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, hello.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Reading Shakespeare. I’m reading the king’s death scene from Henry the Fourth.”

  “That’s boring.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s beautiful. It’s poetry. It’s iambic pentameter. It’s wonderful. I could read it all night. I love poetry. I read it all the time.”

  “Well, look. I wondered if I could come over and meet you.”

  “Now?”

  “Sure. Why not? Donie said you wanted to talk to me before we could go out.” It was a laconic voice, dark and full of sarcasm. Where had I heard a voice like that, dark and full of challenge? Why did I think I was about to hear a lecture?

  “Okay, come on over. I’m not dressed. I’ll have to put on some clothes.”

  “I’ve seen you. Do you know that? Guess where?”

  “I don’t guess. Where did you see me? Either tell me or not.”

  “I saw you in the bookstore at the Quonset hut. You were reading books and eating potato chips.”

  “So what? When was that?”

  “Last week. You looked so cute. You had some pink scarf around your coat.”

  “Oh, yeah. My great-aunt made it for me. She knitted it. It has some gloves. Did I have on the gloves?”

  “I don’t think so. You were eating potato chips. So you couldn’t very well have been wearing gloves.”

  “So what? What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t mean anything was wrong with it.”

  “Well, come on over if you want to. Are you coming now?”

  “Yeah. Go down and wait for me. Be waiting at the door.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “I’m asking. I’m not telling. Will you do it?”

  “I guess I will. Okay. I will.”

  I hung up and went back to my room and combed my hair and put on some pink lipstick and a pink blouse and a navy blue cardigan sweater. I wiped off my shoes. I combed my hair again and put on some L’Emeraude perfume I saved for special occasions. Then I went downstairs and began to wait at the door.

  Forty minutes later he arrived from two blocks away. He came walking up the sidewalk dressed in a dark suit. He was large looking, not fat really, just large and soft. From way down the sidewalk he walked toward me. His soft laconic face, his fleshy cheeks, his spoiled bored eyes. I opened the door. He came into the house and we squared off and went into the living room to talk.

  The living room of the Chi Omega house looked enough like my mother’s living room to be its twin. A rose-colored sofa sat against one wall, a brocade one against another. An oriental rug was on the floor, bookcases, windows with a window seat and long brocade drapes that puddled to the floor. There were brocade tie-backs on the drapes with golden fringe. Behind the drapes hung curtains of white Belgian lace. The afternoon light filtered down through the trees outside the windows, took a turn through the lace, ended on the floor, fell down through the woolen threads some Asian hands had woven God knows where, God knows when. It was all a piece. The world was one, but I did not know that yet and certainly Stanley Mabry didn’t know it.

  “So you’re from Dunleith,” he said. “Do you know the Kellers there? My brother went to school with Shine Keller. Do you know them?”

  “Of course we do. But we’re not from Dunleith. My father’s family is from Aberdeen. They own Aberdeen, to tell the truth. They own the whole town.”

  “Well, not all of it.”

  “They do too. They own all the houses. So your father’s the lieutenant governor? I’m sorry I never heard of him. I wasn’t raised in Alabama.”

  “Where were you raised?”

  “In the Delta. Everywhere. I’ve lived a lot of places. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about that. So, where did you see me?” We were still standing in the middle of the living room. I sat down in the window seat. He hesitated, then drew a small armchair up beside me and sat on that. He looked very uncomfortable but he pressed on.

  “I saw you at the bookstore in the Quonset hut. I told you that. I like that. I like smart girls.” He smiled, an imitation of a sweet seductive smile.

  “I can’t help it if I’m smart. I’m glad I’m smart. Well, Donie said you wanted to take me out to dinner.”

  “I want to take you to this steak house on the river. It’s in the country. We go there on Friday nights.”

  “Who does?”

  “The law students. Would you like to go?”

  “I guess so. Sure, I’d like to go.” He kept his hands folded on his open knees. There was something I didn’t understand about him. I couldn’t get comfortable somehow, but I kept trying.

  “I won the Sigma Chi Derby with a skit I wrote. I guess you know that. Did you know the dean called us in? She had a fit because this character named Slut … it was about the Sigma Chis and in it they have this housemother named Slut. Anyway, she said goddamn a few times and the dean went crazy. I’m never writing anything else to put on here. How dare she tell us what to have in plays. I hate her. She’s so ugly. I bet she never had a boyfriend in her life.”

  “She’s married to the head of the engineering school.”

  “What?”

  “The dean of women, Shirley Lang. She’s married to the head of engineering. They have two kids. I’ve been to their home for a reception. I think you’ll like this place I’m taking you to, Rhoda. It’s rustic. They have a big fireplace and they cook the steaks inside. We all go there now.”

  “Donie said you were from Birmingham. I know a girl from there. May Garth Sheffield. Her family owns the bank. Anyway, she started drinking iodine in milk to make her bones thinner. Can you believe that? Can you believe anybody would do such a thing? Do you know them, the Sheffields?”

  “Cal Sheffield? She’s Cal Sheffield’s daughter?”

  “I don’t know. I just know her. I don’t know her father’s name.”

  “He sold us out. Of course he thinks he’ll sit on the big court for it. Yeah, I know who they are. My father knows him.”

  “I don’t know her very well. I just saw her twice. Well, that’s everyone I know in Birmingham.” I watched his face. Surely I could make him smile. Surely something made him smile. But no, he just kept watching me with that laconic expression. I guess my pride kicked in because I began to want to make him like me.

  “I’m probably going back to Vanderbilt after this semester. I just came down here to please my dad. He
gave me a car to try going to school in Alabama but I don’t think I’ll stay. The classes are so easy I don’t even go.”

  “You can get an education anywhere. Who do you have? Who are your teachers?”

  Donie came into the room. “Dinner’s ready,” she said. “We’d love to have you stay, Stanley. The housemother said it was all right. You want to eat with the girls?” She gave him a flirtatious look, then a pat on the shoulder.

  “Thank you, but I can’t. I’m swamped with work.” He stood up. “I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock Friday night, if that’s all right, Rhoda. Is that all right?” He put his arm around Donie’s shoulder. He smiled. “You Chi O’s can collect them, can’t you? I love Chi O’s. They’re all so fat and jolly.”

  “I’m not fat and jolly,” I said. “Who would say such a thing? Donie’s not fat and jolly. Did you know that whenever people say something about other people they are really just talking about themselves? I learned that the other day in psychology.” I faced him down. I moved back into the hallway with my hands on my hips, not intending to give him a chance to reply.

  “I thought you said you weren’t learning anything. I just meant that as a joke. I meant it as a compliment. Listen, Rhoda, are you going to be ready on Friday? Are you going with me?”

  “Of course she is,” Donie put in. “She’s going to go, aren’t you, Rhoda?”

  “I’ll be ready. I don’t have anything else to do.”

  When he was gone Donie and I went in together to the dining room. “I think he liked you,” she said. “I think you did all right.”

  “With that fat morose guy. You must be kidding. I had ten boyfriends at Vanderbilt that were cuter than that.”

  “His father’s the lieutenant governor. He was vice-president of the student body when he was an undergraduate. He’s a very big man on campus.”

  “People in my family are governor if they run for office. Not vice-president or lieutenant governor. You know what Stanley reminds me of? You know what I was thinking while I was sitting there? A line from T. S. Eliot. ‘Will do … to advise the prince . . . Deferential, glad to be of use.’ I don’t know why I said I’d go out with him. Why’d you get me into this?” I stared off into a corner.

  “Because I’m your big sister, Rhoda. I’m supposed to guide your career. You can be somebody here if you make the right connections.”

  “Oh, my God. Listen, Donie, I can arrange my own life, okay? I don’t need anybody watching over me. I don’t need a big sister. I’m a sophomore. So just stop being my big sister. Find a pledge to oversee.”

  “We always assign big sisters to transfers, Rhoda.”

  “Not to me. Not anymore. I don’t want any help from you.” I walked into the dining room and began to help myself from the buffet. I piled a plate high with scalloped potatoes and meat loaf and took it down to the end of the table where my pledges from Montgomery were eating quietly by themselves. Their names were Spooky Douglas and Imogene Sayre. Imogene was the one who was the niece of Zelda Sayre. “Can I sit down?” I asked.

  “Oh, Rhoda,” they said. “Oh, please do. Please sit with us.”

  “Did you read that book I lent you yet?” I asked Imogene. I had loaned her a copy of This Side of Paradise.

  “I started reading it,” she said.

  “Your aunt inspired that, Imogene. She was a great writer’s muse.”

  “I’d read it,” Spooky said. “Can I read it when Imogene gets through?”

  “Sure you can. Listen, we can’t let the Supreme Court tell us what to read. My cousin in Mississippi is reading William Faulkner and I’ve got two copies of Tallulah Bankhead’s autobiography. They’d kill me if they knew I had it.”

  “Oh, Lord.” Imogene paused with a forkful of green peas delicately balanced in the air. “I wish I could read faster.”

  “Well, hurry up,” Spooky said. “So I can read it too.”

  “Listen,” I added, just to take the meal a notch higher. “We are going to get a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover this summer. A boy we know is bringing it from Paris.”

  “What is that?” Spooky asked.

  “It’s a book about a woman who does it with her gardener in the woods. I don’t know what all is in it. This English lady whose husband is a lord. It’s banned everywhere but we are going to get a copy.” I sat back, let it sink in. Neither of them knew what to say to that. They grew quiet. Their eyes shone out above their careful silverware and dinner. I had inspired a full measure of awe and fear in my sweet pledges and I was satisfied.

  “She’s going out with a law student on Friday night,” Spooky said. “Aren’t you, Rhoda?”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Donie told everybody. She was really excited about it. They like us to make contacts.”

  “He isn’t very cute. He’s kind of fat and he thinks he’s God Almighty.”

  “But you’re going, aren’t you?” Spooky’s eyes were wide with interest. “You’re going to go?”

  “I guess I will. I might need the experience for something that I write. Besides, I have a new suit I want to wear. It just hangs in my closet. I never get to wear it.”

  “How old is he?”

  “I don’t know. I already love a boy who’s older than he is. I’ve been in love since I was fourteen with a boy who’s out of college.” I hung my head, took a bite of meat loaf, decided to tell the story once again. “I was fourteen years old and it was the end of summer. We were having a dance at the Coca-Cola bottling plant on the tennis courts, and I was in charge of it. We had cases of Cokes in big tubs of ice and we had the courts all cleared and I was helping put the records on the record player. Then he was standing there with his back against the backboard watching me. He watched me all night. Every time I would look at him he was laughing. He thought everything I did was funny. Then he took me home in his car. He told me about the stars and infinity. He told me so many things. When he kissed me I grew up that night. He used to direct my career at Harrisburg High School until my daddy made me move. He has cancer. He’s going to die. I will never love another man, not really. The rest is marking time.” They had stopped eating. Spooky sat with her fork on the plate, her head bowed. Imogene was biting her lip. “There’s nothing to be sad about,” I added. “It’s just what happened to me. Someday I’ll write a book and dedicate it to him. I hope I write it before he dies. Anyway, I have to go upstairs and study now. He likes for me to study and be smart. He likes me to make good grades. He hears about me. Everything I do gets back to him. Thanks for eating supper with me.”

  “Oh, Rhoda,” Spooky said. “We love you, don’t we, Imogene? We love you more than anyone we know.”

  Friday afternoon was terrible. The heat had returned. After two weeks of cool weather, a heat wave had moved in and turned the air back into mush. If the heat continued into the evening, I would burn up in my new suit. Still, I would wear it anyway. When we costumed ourselves in 1955 we looked good at any cost. If it meant sweating all over the armpits of silk blouses and the silken linings of Davidow suits that was the price we had to pay. We did worse things than wear wool suits in hot weather. We wore Merry Widow corsets, girdles that reached from our rib cages to our thighs, thick silk hose, three-inch heels, hats and gloves in every weather.

  “You’re going to burn up,” Spooky said. She was sitting on my bed. “I’ve got a cotton shirtwaist you can wear. It came from Black’s. It’s very pretty.”

  “No, I’m wearing this. I’m only doing this to meet some other people. So I have to look good.”

  “I don’t like to go out all the time. I like to stay around and rest up on the weekends. My boyfriend from Washington and Lee might call tonight. He’s fixing it so we can go to Fancy Dress in the spring.”

  “Why are you so happy, Spooky? You’re always happy.”

  “I don’t know. I just am.” She laughed a charming bell-like little laugh. She was the only child of a wealthy family in Montgomery. Her parents liked her so
much they came down nearly every weekend to take her out to dinner. They brought her dog to visit. A cocker spaniel the color of her hair. The dog was very old and coughed all the time from distemper and Spooky and her mother hugged it while it coughed.

  “I’m so glad you pledged Chi O.” I turned from the mirror, went over to the bed, and hugged her. She was the epitome of what a girl should be. A small blonde girl with a pretty face who was satisfied to wait till spring to go to a party. A girl who was content to have her love life consist of long-distance phone calls from a boy she had gone steady with since the sixth grade. It was a level of emotional detachment that was beyond my ken. Still, I sensed its power and was mildly, sadly, longingly jealous of it.

  “You don’t have to go out with this Stanley,” Spooky said. “Tell him you got sick. The Sandwich Wagon’s coming by later. We can get some pork and pickle sandwiches and have a room feast. We can find some girls and play bridge.”

  “No. I have to go. He’s taking me to dinner at this place where all the law students go.” I went back to the mirror, added a string of pearls and small pearl earrings to my outfit, put on my shoes, navy leather pumps that were at least a size too small. I stuffed my feet into the shoes and turned back to Spooky. “How do I look?”

  “You look perfect. I hope you don’t burn up.”

  “I’m sweating all over this goddamn blouse.” I stooped and gave her a kiss. “Okay, wish me luck. I’m going downstairs and wait for him.”

  I went downstairs to the parlor, holding the handrail as I got my balance in the shoes. It was ten to seven. At seven forty-five, fifty minutes late, he picked me up.