Maid of Honor

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Do you have to remind us?” Persis growled. “She did send something, in case you’ve forgotten. How about that late Federal sterling silver cake basket she brought over last time she was here and hasn’t even got thanked for yet? If Loni doesn’t like it, Gran says she’ll be glad to take it back. We saw one just like it only with the little ivory pineapple on the handle broken off in an antique shop this morning. Gran told the guy she’d inherited a mate to the one he had, but with the pineapple still on, and he almost went out of his skull.”

  “What?” snapped her mother. “Persis, are you making this up?”

  “Go see for yourself. It’s in a window over in Lowrey. That place near the hardware store. First he offered Gran two hundred, then he went up to five, but he wouldn’t show her the price on the one he was selling, so she knew five hundred was peanuts compared to what he expected to get, and turned him down. Then he practically chased us down the street yelling, ‘Five fifty.’ So I told her Loni was crazy about the basket and the note must have got lost in the mail or something.”

  Muriel Green turned in bewilderment to her husband. “Charles, do you honestly think—”

  “Mother was putting him on? Why should she be? I suppose you thought that cake basket was some old piece of junk she’d had kicking around the house. My folks weren’t exactly beggars, you know. At one time, they were a darn sight better off than—”

  “All right, Charles, I’ve heard that one before. I never said anything against your family, did I? And antique silver has appreciated tremendously in value these past few years. What did he call it, Persis?”

  “Late Federal. That means after the Revolution. Early eighteen-hundreds, I suppose. The pineapple was a symbol of hospitality and widely used at the time in ornamentation,” she quoted as nearly as she could remember.

  “Late Federal. Hospitality.” Muriel Green gave herself reminders as she ran to get the cake basket from her husband’s den, which she’d preempted for housing the wedding presents.

  “This really is an exquisite thing,” she gloated, coming back with the gleaming silver serving dish in her hand. “Look how beautifully that little pineapple’s carved. And of course it makes the piece more valuable. I must get over to Lowrey first thing Monday morning and find out what he’s asking for the mate.”

  “You’re not planning to buy another one?” yelped Charles Green.

  “No, Charles. I’d like to know, that’s all. A fine old family heirloom! You know, Charles, that was awfully sweet of your mother. Nancy Cowles will be sick with envy. This is one thing she could never buy, with all her money. The Cowleses haven’t an ancestor among them. Not one they’d care to admit to, anyway. Not that it’s anything against them,” she added hastily. “Loni’d better phone her grandmother right away instead of waiting to write a note. She’s so touchy, she might take a notion not to come to the wedding. She did say she’s coming, didn’t she, Persis?”

  “Oh yeah, she’s planning on it. I’m not sure about the rehearsal dinner.”

  “Oh, but she can’t miss that! Not after giving us such a valuable gift. She’s got to back me up about the cake basket, tell how it came into the family and how long they’d had it, that sort of thing. Otherwise Nancy will think I simply went out and bought it. Take your dress upstairs and hang it in your closet before you tear it again. I hope you thanked her properly. And get Loni up. She’d better talk to her grandmother right away so she won’t be late for her manicure appointment. I don’t know why everything always winds up falling on my shoulders.”

  “I don’t know why a man can’t get a bite to eat in his own house,” was Charles Green’s complaint. “That damned maid won’t even let me in the kitchen.”

  “Mary’s sore because Mama’s making her work tonight,” Persis told him. “Her boyfriend was going to take her roller skating. I’ll get you something.”

  Persis and Mary got along fairly well, as a rule. A little coaxing and she was back in a few minutes with coffee, some leftover potato salad and cold cuts, and a couple of buttered rolls on a tray. “Okay, Dad?”

  “That the best you could do?” he grunted.

  “Yes.”

  “All right. You needn’t snap my head off like everybody else around here. How’s Mother?”

  “Fine. She made blueberry pancakes.”

  Her father looked at the tasteless bakery roll, sighed, shrugged, and stuffed half of it in his mouth. “What else did you do?”

  “Nothing special. We went grocery shopping. And she fixed the dress and I washed the dishes.”

  “How come she gave you the locket?”

  “She thought it might take my mind off that lousy dress. Besides …” Now was the time. Persis hadn’t felt any too happy this morning when her grandmother had said, “Charles must be tickled to pieces about your winning the gold medal and the scholarship,” and she’d had to reply, “I haven’t told him yet.”

  “Say, Dad—”

  She didn’t get to finish. Her mother’s voice came through the door, loud and shrill. “Hold on a second, Mother Green. Loni wants to—Loni? Persis! Persis, where’s Loni? What are you standing around down here for?”

  “I was getting Dad some lunch.”

  “Couldn’t he have waited two seconds? I told you to wake Loni. Your grandmother’s on the phone. Well, move, can’t you? Tell Loni to get on the upstairs extension, quick. And don’t forget to remind her about the cake basket.”

  Just for the sake of argument, why couldn’t her mother have waited another two seconds to put in the phone call, if it came to that? Persis had sense enough not to ask. She grabbed the mauve dress, ran upstairs with it, roused her unwilling sister from a nest of ruffled eyelet pillows with little blue bows on them, and propelled her to the telephone.

  “It’s Gran Green. You’ve got to thank her for the cake basket.”

  Loni yawned. “That old thing?”

  “It’s a valuable antique.”

  Loni woke up. “How valuable?”

  “At least a thousand dollars. Probably more.”

  “Really?” Loni picked up the phone, all sweetness and light. “Hello, Granny darling.”

  Persis left her sister cooing into the mouthpiece and went to hang up her remodeled gown. So now Dad would get on the phone with Gran and hear the news from his mother instead of his daughter. So what?

  As she left her bedroom, however, she met him coming upstairs to shave and dress. “Dad, aren’t you going to talk with Gran?” she asked in surprise.

  “I said hello downstairs before Loni got on.”

  “Was that all you said, just hello?”

  “If there’s anything else to say, your mother’s already said it.”

  He went into his own room. He probably didn’t mean to slam the door in Persis’s face, but that was what happened.

  That slam set the tone for the rest of the day. Persis didn’t even get time to practice. Her mother screamed if she or anybody else even went near the living room, where the baby grand stood in the bay window at the far end, for fear an ashtray might get pushed half an inch out of place or a footprint be left on the freshly vacuumed carpet.

  Charles Green gave up the struggle and went to play golf at the club. Loni trotted off to her manicure. That left Persis to do the odd jobs for her mother and the increasingly disgruntled Mary, who’d already given notice twice that week and mustn’t be allowed to quit until after the wedding. She didn’t dare balk at helping, because she could sense that her mother was already about two screaming fits away from a nervous breakdown. Somebody had to stay sane, whether she liked it or not.

  Chapter 7

  The dinner party was about what Persis had expected. To begin with, Grandma and Grandpa Dane showed up half an hour before anybody was ready, carrying presents and expecting a royal welcome.

  “Here you are, Muriel dear,” said Grandma Dane. “I brought some yummy petits fours, and a dozen lovely, fresh eclairs. Now you won’t have to bother about dessert.”


  “But, Mama, I have dessert already arranged,” Muriel Green protested weakly.

  “Then just pop yours in the freezer and save it for another time, darling. What’s happening in the kitchen? I’ll run out and make myself useful while you dress.”

  “No, please!” Mary was on the verge of quitting again, as it was. “Everything’s under control, Mama, honestly. What I’d really love is for you to—”

  Persis caught the little pause. What Mama would really love was for Grandma to go away and come back when she was supposed to. What she said was, “—to come upstairs and help me and the girls finish dressing.”

  “Women!” snorted Grandpa Cowles. “Why couldn’t you be ready on time, Muriel, for once in your life? Take these, Charles. I figured I’d better stop and buy you a box of decent cigars. Cowles turns up his nose at anything but Imperials.”

  Persis wished her father would reply, “I know. I got some yesterday.” But he only smiled in a sickly sort of way and muttered, “Nice of you to think of them.”

  Then Grandpa helped himself to one of the cigars, sent Charles to fix him a drink, and settled himself in the best easy chair, scattering newspapers and cigar ashes around the living room his daughter had been so desperate to keep clean. Persis decided she might as well go upstairs and finish getting changed.

  When she got to her room, she found Grandma Dane rummaging through her dressing table.

  “Oh, there you are, Pussy dear. Where on earth do you keep your hair spray?”

  “I don’t have any,” Persis told her. “It’s bad for the environment.”

  “But, sweetie, how do you ever expect to catch a husband if you don’t learn the importance of good grooming? Now you sit right down on this stool and let Grandma fix your hair. Loni always had the loveliest hair, right from the day she was born. Those sweet little blonde curls and that dear little innocent baby smile.”

  “Yeah,” said Persis. “She hasn’t changed a bit.”

  “Now, darling, I know we can’t all be like Loni, but we can make the most of what we have. I always say it’s not what you look like but what you are underneath that counts.”

  And so on and so on and so on, until it was time to go down and listen to the women talk about the upcoming wedding and the men about their golf games; and watch Loni and Chet go through their lovebird routine with about as much animation as Persis’s old Barbie and Ken dolls. What they thought about this charade, if they thought at all, Persis could not imagine.

  Since nobody was paying her any attention, Persis had nothing to do but sit back and watch. It was curious how Mama turned into a second Loni when her own mother was around. She and Daddy were acting exactly like Loni and Chet, being good little kids in front of their elders.

  So were Chet’s parents. That pair were about as exciting as two bowls of tapioca pudding, Persis decided. At least her own parents knew how to keep a conversation going. Once her father even remembered to throw a remark her way.

  “Enjoying you new dress, Puss?”

  That was supposed to be a joke, but Grandma Dane took it as a personal compliment, for some reason.

  “Muriel and I picked it out together. Muriel has lovely taste. Gets it from my side of the family, they say. People always tell us we’re more like sisters than mother and daughter. Don’t they, Murrie?”

  “Yes, Mama,” Mrs. Green answered obediently. “Could I give you a tiny bit more of the Pommes Duchesse?”

  “No, sweetie. I’m saving room for an eclair.”

  One more round to Grandma Dane. Persis wondered when they’d get to eat the Baked Alaska that was supposed to have been the grand finale of the meal. Never, most likely. Why couldn’t grandparents mind their own business?

  She supposed she ought to be thankful Chet’s folks had brought only one set of ancestors with them. His mother’s relatives weren’t coming up from Florida until the day of the rehearsal dinner. Tonight there were just the elder Cowleses to endure. They were more than enough. Chet’s grandfather kept interrupting everybody to remind them he was even richer than Murton Dane, therefore even more entitled to their undivided admiration. His wife was, if possible, worse. She had Grandma Dane’s trick of picking you apart and showering you with compliments in a pitying way that made you feel not only like an idiot, but like a homely idiot with rotten taste and no manners.

  As far as taste went, Persis thought she’d never seen anything more revolting than the bright blue satin dress Mrs. Cowles was wearing, unless it was the enormous brooch she’d pinned to her shiny bosom. The brooch was in the shape of a heart with a red ribbon wiggling down across its middle. Persis entertained herself with picturing how the brooch would look attached to the back of her bicycle as a reflector while Mrs. Bowles was letting her hostess know the sparkling stones with which the heart was solidly paved were real diamonds. The red stones that made up the ribbon were genuine rubies, and not baby ones, either. Mrs. Cowles told her presumably enraptured audience the exact number of diamonds and rubies involved, and how much they added up to in carats.

  “It’s insured for ten thousand dollars, Muriel. I want you and Charles to know that. Because”—she unpinned the brooch from her bosom with a fine, dramatic flourish “—this is going to be my personal wedding present to Loni and Chet.”

  Everybody was properly flabbergasted, especially the bride-to-be. Surely Loni must realize what a great, vulgar hunk of ostentation she was getting stuck with. She might not have brains, but she did know good from ghastly when it came to personal adornment. Nevertheless, she rose to the occasion, fluttering and exclaiming and running around the table to kiss her future grand-ma-in-law, pretending she thought Old Man Cowles was cute when he pinched her on the panty girdle.

  “Let me pin it on for you,” he kept insisting.

  Loni wasn’t that dumb. “I can’t,” she told him. “Chet bought me this beautiful orchid corsage, and I wouldn’t dare do anything to spoil the effect. You’d hate me forever, wouldn’t you, sweetie-pie?”

  Sweetie-pie obediently said he would. Anyway, there wouldn’t have been room for all those carats, with so much expensive purple foliage sprouting over the tiny bodice of her frock. Loni’s was mauve like Persis’s, also cut in the Empire style. The design and color were perfect for her slighter build and delicate complexion. Even Persis had to admit she looked enchanting as she leaned over the embroidered tablecloth and lifted the floral centerpiece off the mirrored tray on which it had been sitting.

  “I’m going to put the brooch right here in the middle of the table where everybody can get a good look,” she said. “There, isn’t that gorgeous?”

  Persis thought the mirrored tray made the brooch look twice as large and even more hideous, but she dutifully agreed with the rest that it was gorgeous. Then Mary served the champagne, forgetting to wrap a napkin around the bottle until Muriel Green hissed at her. They all drank to generous grandparents who gave wonderful presents. When the champagne ran out, Mrs. Green moved her party into the living room, carrying the brooch before her on the tray as if it were the crown jewels at a coronation.

  While her elders sipped their coffee and liqueurs, Persis sat trying not to yawn, wondering how a roomful of people could manage to be such a pack of bores without seeming to realize how dull they were. Escape was hopeless. If she moved or spoke, somebody took it as a signal to send her for a drink of water or some clean ashtrays. She didn’t mind the going so much. It was the coming back that was tough.

  Muriel Green had set the trayful of rubies and diamonds on the piano. That led Chet’s mother to ask, “Who plays?”

  Persis said, “I do,” hoping she’d be asked to perform so she could impress them with her concerto, or at least “The Whiffenpoof Song.” But old Mrs. Cowles launched into a monologue about how she’d hated piano lessons when she was a girl, so her daughter-in-law had to say she’d hated them, too. Then her son said he’d never understood what anybody could see in that highbrow stuff, and the grandfather took up the tale
of how he’d once got dragged to a classical concert and gone into a make-believe coughing fit so he’d have an excuse to get up and leave. They were all supposed to think that was funny. Persis was going to tell him it wasn’t, but her mother caught her eye and gave her a look.

  She settled back into sullen silence. Might as well sulk if she felt like it, nobody was paying attention to her anyway. Even if she were to bring out her gold medal to show them, they’d only say it wasn’t worth insuring and how could she waste her time on that highbrow nonsense anyway?

  Persis thought they’d never go; but at last they did, in a great bustling and babbling, planning to meet tomorrow for Sunday brunch at the country club. Loni didn’t try to hide her relief as her allegedly adored Chet went off with his family. Nor did she greet him with delight when he rushed back.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “My grandfather left his gold pencil.”

  Mrs. Green started into the living room after Chet, but he was already running out again.

  “I found it. Got to go. They’re waiting.”

  Loni yawned, not at all prettily. “Thank God that’s over. I’m going to bed.”

  “You might help your mother straighten up first,” said Charles Green, hoping thereby to get out of doing it himself.

  Loni was already halfway to the landing. “Why can’t Mary?”

  “She took off for the roller-skating rink as soon as dinner was over,” said Mrs. Green wearily.

  “Then let Persis help you. She’s got nothing better to do. I’ll be a wreck tomorrow if I don’t get some sleep.”

  Loni yawned her way out of sight. Charles Green grabbed the depleted tray of liqueurs and took them back to the dining room. His wife flapped around, walloping sofa cushions into place, moaning about a scratch on the coffee table, then scooped up as many glasses and coffee cups as she could carry.