by Amy Conner
I can’t help laughing, thinking of Aunt Too-Tai in Maison-Dit. “What did Dolly look like before she became a quilt?” My mother smiles faintly.
“Much as she does now,” she admits. “Maybe not quite so thin. ‘Meet Miss Colleen O’Shaunessy, soon to be Banks,’ Too-Tai ordered the hovering staff. ‘And bring us some coffee, please.’ We were in the Collections Room, sitting on a velvet settee that was fearfully deep and ferociously soft. The headless mannequins showed off dresses I knew were just the thing for this afternoon’s party, and thinking of my all-wrong outfit, I wanted to cry. Meanwhile the saleswoman bustled off to get Too-Tai the plain navy shirtwaist she demanded. Sipping my coffee when it came, wishing for the thousandth time I had money to buy what I needed, I resigned myself to disaster. Jackson’s society folk would always remember me as the girl who wore a flashy cocktail dress to her own engagement party.
“ ‘Just put it in a bag,’ Too-Tai told Dolly when she appeared with the shirtwaist. ‘I don’t need to try it on.’ She must have seen my wistful expression, though, like a child at a Christmas window, for she said next, ‘And I’d like you to bring Collie a few things to try on, too.’
“ ‘Oh, no!’ I was aghast. I couldn’t allow her to do that. ‘I have plenty of clothes. I mean, I already brought a dress for this afternoon.’ Never mind it wasn’t the right kind of dress.
“But Too-Tai shook her head. ‘Let me do this for you, child,’ she said under her breath. ‘I’m Wade’s only aunt, and I want to do something nice for his bride.’ She patted my hand. ‘I’ve never had any nieces to spoil. Please let me do this.’ ”
Smiling at her memories, my mother strokes Troy Smoot’s head and he wriggles with pleasure. “Oh, it was beautifully done. She’d seen the suit the night before, as well as the shoes that were too cheap to keep up with it. In a million years, Too-Tai wouldn’t have dreamed of pointing out that I needed clothes. She was too kind and well-bred for that. I couldn’t refuse, not after she so tactfully offered what I needed more than anything, and so that morning I walked out of Maison-Dit with the perfect dress, a full-skirted grass-green linen that took my breath away because it was so sweet, so demure, and so wickedly fashionable. Too-Tai had insisted I get green linen pumps, too, a green that was as close to dyed-to-match as could be.”
My mother falls silent. Troy rolls over on his back, begging for a tummy rub now that he knows she’s a soft touch. She obliges with a smile.
“So that was all you needed, right?” I ask. God bless Too-Tai.
“Oh, it was a lovely dress,” she agrees, “but I still had the party to get through. Back at the Banks house, we walked in the door to a controlled chaos. Jackson’s gardens must have been stripped bare for Mrs. Banks’s party, for there were masses of flowers in vases wherever you looked. The immense arrangement in the middle of the dining room table was a firework display of daylilies and phlox, early roses, ferns, marguerites, the last of the Dutch irises and tulips, all of them only just contained in a silver urn the size of a laundry basket. And I’ve never seen so much polished silver in my life before or since—epergnes, candy dishes, sandwich trays, a magnificent tea and coffee service, a punch bowl you could take a bath in, and an amazing array of gleaming flatware and serving pieces.
“ ‘Looks like Isabelle’s throwing a party, all right,’ Too-Tai remarked. ‘Good thing it’s not bee season, what with all these flowers everywhere.’ I shuddered at the sight of all those busy servants. It was going to be, as Wade had said, a crush. I took my new dress and shoes upstairs and tried to eat a sandwich for lunch, but couldn’t manage more than a mouthful.
“And so at two thirty, in the relative calm of my room, I was dressed in my new dress and heels, had checked for the fiftieth time that the seams of my hose were straight and that I didn’t have lipstick on my teeth. When there was a knock at the door, I opened it, expecting to see Too-Tai, but it was Wade, carrying a slim black leather box.
“ ‘I was going to give you these later.’ He tugged at his collar, looking nervous. ‘But Too-Tai said I should give them to you now. I hope you like them.’
“I opened the box and found a strand of luminous pearls, heavy and cool as river stones in my hand. ‘Oh, Wade,’ I said softly. ‘They’re beautiful.’
“ ‘So are you. They remind me of your skin.’ He blushed. ‘Look, I know this is going to be an ordeal. This kind of thing always is for me. When mother has these dos, I used to go out and not come back. She’d get mad as a poked snake, but I’d rather that than get dressed up and have to make polite conversation with these folks. Don’t get me wrong—they’re all perfectly nice, but there’s just too damned many of them.’ ”
My mother smiles a radiant smile then. “You know, Annie, I think that was when I finally fell in love. Your father was then, as always, the most thoughtful and generous person I’d ever met. Wade fastened the pearls around my neck, and I felt them settle into the hollow of my throat like they’d always been there, a totally different feeling compared to my imitation strand. In that moment I felt as though I could take on anything, as long as Wade was with me.”
I put my arm around her thin shoulders. “We’ll always miss him,” I say softly.
Later, we’re back in the kitchen, looking for something to eat, which for once is a productive search since it’s Thanksgiving and Myrtistine has cooked up enough food for an army. We sit at the kitchen table with a plate of everything except turkey. I’m probably going to have to get around to cooking it sooner or later, but I urge my mother to keep talking.
“The guests began arriving promptly at three,” she says, “the street in front of the Banks mansion filling up with cars so that people had to park and walk from blocks away. By three fifteen, there was a stream of curious guests waiting on the front steps to come into the house to meet me.
“In the entryway, I stood in the receiving line with Mother Banks on one side and Wade on the other, shaking hands and trying to remember to smile while my feet hurt: my new shoes were pinching my toes. Mrs. Banks must have had a sore neck later that night from looking up at all the guests from her wheelchair, but you’d have never known she was anything but delighted to see everyone.
“ ‘Colleen, I want you to meet one of my oldest friends,’ she’d say. I was introduced to all of two hundred people that afternoon, and they were every one of them her oldest friend. Some of the guests brought wedding presents, too, and I had to open them then and there, handing the wrapping paper to Easter Mae to throw away. Wade and I would say how thrilled we were to receive these sumptuous presents, and then Wash would take them to a long table in the parlor so the other guests could inspect our gifts.
“I’d been standing in the receiving line for what seemed like a century when an older couple came in the door with a girl who looked about my age.
“ ‘Why, how nice of you to come!’ Old Mrs. Banks took the other woman’s hand. ‘And you brought Squeaky, too. Colleen, this is Lydia, but everyone calls her Squeaky. You’re sure to be friends—Squeaky’s going to be a senior, too. Forgive me, dear, I’m old.’ She turned her beaming face up to the girl. ‘I forget where you’re attending college.’
“ ‘The W,’ Squeaky simpered. ‘Where else?’ The chubby girl was referring to the exclusive all-girls school, Mississippi State College for Women, where everybody who was anybody went in those days while they were looking for husbands. She was squeezed into a yellow eyelet afternoon dress that clashed horribly with her pink foundation. Her handshake was as limp and clammy as a wet dishrag.
“ ‘Do you play bridge?’ she asked me peremptorily. It was easy to see how she’d gotten her nickname: her voice was a dead ringer for a needle accidentally dragged across a record. ‘Everybody plays bridge and we’re starting a club.’ Her mother was handing a white paper-wrapped box to Wade, but Mrs. Banks’s glittering gaze was fixed on me, waiting for my answer.
“ ‘I, I’ve always wanted to learn,’ I stammered. In college, I’d never had the time or
the inclination. Bridge was for sorority girls, like Tess.
“ ‘Oh,’ Squeaky shrilled, unimpressed.
“Meanwhile, Wade was unwrapping the gift. Thankful for the distraction from my nonexistent bridge skills, I turned to look at the heavy silver object in his hand, a hinged tong-like implement that I’d never seen before. It looked quite a bit like a smaller version of a tool that Wade kept in his alligator doctor bag, so I thoughtlessly exclaimed, ‘How wonderful! It’s a forceps, isn’t it?’ Wade looked at the gift in bemusement, while I gushed on about how useful it would be when he had a difficult delivery. ‘Wade always says you need the right tool for the job!’
“I felt a sharp poke in my side and looked down to see Mrs. Banks’s eyes locked on mine in a terrifying glare of mingled fury and satisfaction. ‘It’s a sandwich scissors, Colleen darling. ’
“ ‘Oh.’ I was so shocked and humiliated I couldn’t think of any reply other than that. ‘Oh.’ What in the world was a sandwich scissors?
“Wade came to my rescue. ‘Good thing,’ he chuckled. ‘I already have a brand-new forceps, but no way to pick up my sandwich.’ Everybody laughed, but inside I was devastated. Easter Mae appeared to take the paper and ribbon back to the kitchen, and Wash took the damned sandwich scissors to the display table, where a hundred gifts were lined up in shining rows of silver. I tried to turn my attention to meeting the remaining guests in the receiving line, to making polite conversation, but inside I relived that awful moment over and over. After the last people had arrived and been greeted, I knew I had to get away. I told Wade I was going to find the powder room.
“ ‘Hurry back, darling,’ he said. ‘I’m going to grab a bite to eat.’ Then he disappeared into the crowd of people who were loading up their plates with chicken salad, ambrosia, and pimento cheese sandwiches from the dining table.
“A disorganized gaggle of ladies was waiting to go into the powder room, so I leaned against the wall to take some of the pressure off my aching feet. One by one, they all went inside while I waited my turn. I don’t think they even saw me, obscured by another one of those outrageous flower arrangements on the hall table. Finally, the bathroom door opened and Squeaky emerged.
“ ‘All yours!’ she squealed as I came out from behind the flowers. I tried to smile, went inside, and shut the door. It was good to sit down and a relief to be away from the party. I had just finished washing my hands when I heard them outside in the hall.
“ ‘She didn’t know it was a sandwich scissors. She called it a forceps!’ It was Squeaky’s unmistakable voice. She giggled, a high-pitched, squealing series of snorts. I’d never heard anything like it.
“ ‘Well, she is from some little hick town in Georgia,’ some other girl replied. ‘I guess I can tell what Wade sees in her, though. She’s certainly pretty enough.’
“ ‘She doesn’t know how to play bridge either,’ Squeaky grumped. ‘Do you think we’ll have to ask her to join anyway?’ And then their voices faded into the background.
“I stared at my reflection in the mirror and wasn’t surprised to find that I was crying, big hopeless tears running down my cheeks in a slow-moving stream. I was always going to be the mill girl from Lannette, never really from Jackson. No one here would ever accept me, no matter what I was wearing. I should go upstairs quietly, pack my bag, and take a cab to the bus station. I should go back to New Orleans.
“I must have stood there in front of the mirror for a long time because finally the tears stopped. Looking at my desperate face, I wiped off their traces but was still unable to open the door. I had to have been in there a while when there was a discreet tapping from the other side.
“ ‘Collie?’ It was Too-Tai. ‘You’ve got to let me in, girl. I need the bathroom right this minute.’ I wanted to act like I hadn’t heard her, but she kept tapping.
“ ‘Collie? I’m afraid to try to go upstairs, I need the bathroom that bad. You’ve got to let me in.’
“What could I do then? I opened the door, and Too-Tai pushed her way inside. There was barely room for the two of us in the low-ceilinged powder room. ‘Honestly, girl,’ she said, sounding exasperated. ‘Why are you holed up in here? People are starting to talk.’
“At that, I broke down again. Bless Too-Tai, she dampened one of the linen guest towels and handed it to me. ‘Wipe your face,’ she said kindly. ‘Here.’ Handing me a wad of toilet tissue, she said, ‘Blow your nose, dear.’ I took the tissue and squeezed it into a ball, unwilling to meet her sharp eyes.
“ ‘You mustn’t let yourself be this way, Collie. If you love Wade, and I know you do, then you’re going to have to hold your head up in this town. You’re going to have to act as though you’re good enough for these folks, even if in your heart you’re sure you’re not. It’s all make-believe, anyway. What’s real is what’s between you and Wade. Now come on out of here and have a chicken salad sandwich, or some cheese straws. Wade’s wondering where you are.’
“ ‘But his mother,’ I said tightly, holding back the tears. ‘She . . .
“Too-Tai snorted in contempt. ‘Don’t you ever forget this, girl. Isabelle Gooch grew up barefoot in a dirt yard on a truck farm that was out from Chunky. Before she married Wade’s father, her claim to fame was that she could kill two chickens at the same time, wringing their necks like a field hand. She comes from the same place you come from—not here.’ She kissed my cheek and walked out of the powder room.
“Wondering, I touched the pearls at my throat, cool and smooth, sweet to me as Wade’s smile. Then I straightened my shoulders, blew my nose, reapplied my lipstick, and went back into that party. I have never cried in a powder room again. That day I learned what make-believe was, but as time passed I also learned how to play bridge, how to entertain, how to pretend that I was as good as anybody, until one day, I realized I wasn’t pretending anymore. I’d found a real life, one even better than a seventeen-year-old girl’s dream. I’d found your father.”
I get up from the table, take our plates to the sink, and run some water over them. “I had no idea,” I say. I’m at a loss for words, really. What a valiant bravery she had, how hard she fought for her dream.
My mother gets up and comes to the sink, turns the water off, and turns my shoulders so that I’m looking her square in the eye. She gazes at me searchingly before she says, “And then you, my own child, my only, beautiful child, wanted no part of this life I’d worked so hard for. You wanted . . . oh, I don’t know what you want, but this obviously isn’t it. You’ve never wanted this life, you’ve rebelled against it, fought it to a draw. You’re terrible at pretending, dear heart. Find your own dream, no matter where it takes you, Annie. You need to be at peace with who and what you are.”
She folds me into her arms and we hold each other tight.
CHAPTER 17
I’m pregnant.
Du came back after a couple of days, ready to be magnanimous and forgive me, but it wasn’t any good between us. He wanted me to say I was sorry, but I wasn’t, so I couldn’t, and as you might expect, this Christmas was a nightmare of unspoken recriminations. (My present from Du was a Bible with the parts about women honoring and obeying their husbands underlined in red.) We lived under one roof for another week until the new year came, sleeping in separate bedrooms, staying out of public life, and making polite noises when we ran into each other in this monstrous house, but as the days wore on, I began throwing up in the mornings. I didn’t need an EPT test to tell me I was pregnant at last, and I didn’t need a calendar to know it was Ted’s baby.
Well, today’s New Year’s Day, a cold morning possessed of an uncompromising, cut-crystal brilliance. After another night of bourbon-fueled argument, Du’s packed and gone for good this time. I’d like to say I’ve never considered making up with him, letting Du think the baby’s his. God knows that was my first thought. I mean, for one thing, I don’t know if Ted would even care, and for another, I’m not sure I can raise a child on my own. Finally, though, after a day or two
of some serious soul-searching, I know I can’t live with myself if I’m not truthful, not even if lying would let me hang onto the old, self-indulgent life of Annie. No, not after that night with Starr last year, not after I’ve begun to realize that it’s way past time I begin to live my life the only way I know how, and not by Jackson’s canon.
So since I haven’t even a notion as to what Ted’s last name might be, much less how I’m supposed to get in touch with him, early this morning after I finish throwing up, I buckle on my big-girl shoes and drive down to the Fair Grounds in New Orleans.
I’m not more than six weeks along, but Bette knows the instant she slams open the Airstream’s door in answer to my knock.
“You’re pregnant!” she crows, her little brown eyes alight with ursine delight for me.
“You’re the first one who knows,” I say. “I haven’t even told my mother yet.”
“Dang.” Bette shakes her head and one of her hot rollers falls off onto the Airstream’s steps. “But you can’t miss it, honey. You’re lit up like Grandmaw’s birthday cake.” I pick up her roller and hand it to her, and she motions me inside her trailer. “C’mon in. What brings you here? I don’t see you for years, and this is the second time in a couple of months.”
Inside, I look around and notice she’s added a swan clock, its wings telling the hour and minute, and a new swan-bracketed paper towel holder. There’s a racing saddle propped on the sofa arm and a pair of miniscule, brown-topped boots by the door next to the cement swan, so I gather that her boyfriend Jesús’s broken leg has mended and he’s come back to the Airstream at last.