(You don’t think someone with pretensions of blue blood ever buys her own silver, do you? No, no, no, no. It’s always handed down from before the war. The Civil War. Even though a surreptitious glance at the back of a fork may reveal a hallmark that didn’t exist before 1940, your hostess will proudly tell you how the Yankees were too dumb to discover that her clever forebears had hidden the family silver in a hollow porch column/on the smoke ledge up inside the open hearth/under great-great-grandmother’s hoop skirts as she sat in her rocking chair on the veranda when Sherman’s scavengers came riding up. “And there’s the dent where she accidentally rocked over this very same tray.” Being columnless and hoopless, my dirt-farming Civil War forebears were doing good to have tin forks for their cornbread and collards.)
Two perky young women with big hair and even bigger smiles were working the Fitch and Patterson reception table, trying to match badge names to their guest lists; but with such a crush of people streaming past them toward the open bar inside, they hindered us no more than had the guard on the street doors downstairs.
“As long as we wear badges and act as if we have been invited to these parties, no one will stop us,” said Matilda McNeill Jernigan.
We accepted complimentary tote bags and a handful of advertising flyers from more young women and sailed on into the reception amid a group of jovial bald men who seemed to be at least three drinks ahead of us.
The tote was rather attractive: sturdy black canvas with a discreet Fitch and Patterson logo in gold and white on the front. I slipped my purse inside and jammed the flyers in on top as Mrs. Jernigan redistributed some items in her own bags.
My whimsical guide had the build of a ten-year-old child or aging elf, and beneath the soft glow of the crystal chandeliers, her—dress? costume? assemblage?—of pink, green and lavender chiffon lost some of its eccentricity and took on a festive playfulness. Like a small rainbow-colored cloud, she drifted through the crowd toward the buffet where smoked salmon, boiled shrimp, fresh fruits, cheeses and crisp crackers tempted those who had evidently skipped dinner. After my turkey croissant, I was no longer hungry, but I snagged a glass of white Zinfandel and drifted after her.
“Savannah! How perfectly splendid to see you here,” exclaimed an ash-blonde, middle-aged woman in an elegant black brocade suit that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. The diamonds on her finger and ears would have gone a long way toward reducing the national deficit.
Matilda McNeill Jernigan looked all the way up into the taller woman’s face. “Were you addressing me, madam?”
The woman faltered before those piercing eyes. “It’s Elizabeth, Savannah. Elizabeth Patterson.”
Mrs. Jernigan turned away. “You are mistaken. We have never met.”
The woman gave an entreating smile. “Of course we have. You styled our catalogs three years in a row. You mentored our daughter Drew.”
“Drew?” For a moment her eyes softened.
“Don’t you remember, Savannah?”
Mrs. Jernigan stiffened again. “Even were that my name, your familiarity would not be appreciated.”
Her husky voice, so at odds with her small size and wispy chiffon, cut like a rusty band saw. “For your information, my name is Melissa Dorcas Poole. Mrs. Melissa Dorcas Poole.”
Being accosted by Elizabeth Patterson—as in Fitch and Patterson?—seemed to have made Mrs. Jernigan forget that she was supposed to be Louisa Ferncliff from Seattle.
On the other hand, she had not forgotten my nom de nuit. “Come, Miss Sotelli. Let us seek greener pastures where we may browse in peace.”
I gave the woman an apologetic smile and turned to follow, but Elizabeth Patterson put out her hand and with a dazzle of diamonds caught me by the sleeve. “Miss—Sotelli, is it? Please tell me—”
“Darlin’?”
A stocky, white-haired man emerged from the crowd and put his arm around her waist with a proprietary air. They were almost exactly the same height, but he wore only one diamond, a large square stone set in a heavy gold ring. His badge told me that he was J. J. Patterson of Fitch and Patterson Furniture Incorporated, headquartered in Lexington, N.C., less than twenty miles away.
“Oh, Jay,” said Mrs. Patterson. “Did you see her? That was Savannah.”
J.J. Patterson had a broad square face with a bulbous nose that was finely webbed by small broken veins. He looked like one of those hard-working, hard-playing, savvy businessmen you find the world over, ready to cut the cards, cut a deal, or cut a throat (economically speaking) if it would sweeten his bottom line. And he had a wide mouth that would probably broaden into an amiable smile to show you that there was nothing personal in it if he cut you off at the knees.
He wasn’t smiling now as he stretched himself to get another look over the heads of the revelers. Matilda McNeill Jernigan or Melissa Dorcas Poole or whoever she was had disappeared into the crowd.
“Savannah? Really?” asked a stocky young woman who wore a Furniture/Today press badge and carried a reporter’s narrow notebook. She had straight black hair that hung halfway down her back and swung like a shimmering curtain when she pivoted on her tiptoes and looked eagerly in the same direction.
“You sure, darlin’? Didn’t look like the Savannah I remember.”
“She’s let her hair go gray and she’s wearing color, but it’s Savannah, all right. Ms. Sotelli here was with her. It was Savannah, wasn’t it?” she asked me now.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I just met her and—”
“Home-Lite?” Jay Patterson gave a polite smile as he read my badge. “Newark, New Jersey. That’s Paul Schaftlein’s outfit, isn’t it? Ol’ Paul come down this year?”
I had a feeling this man probably had a personal acquaintance with every furniture retailer on the East Coast.
“Excuse me,” I said brightly.
And fled.
I let myself go with the flow and soon wound up in the ballroom next door.
The Fitch and Patterson reception had been tasteful and dignified. Taste and dignity did not seem to be considerations of the American Leathergoods Wholesale Association’s party. It was a let-down-your-hair romp and stomp. A four-piece combo dressed in blue leather chaps and big white Stetsons was pounding out the latest rockabilly and a large blue ox was leading a group of line dancers in front of the bandstand.
Before I could stop myself, a good-looking guy in a three-piece suit, an open shirt, two gold neck chains and cowboy boots grabbed my hand and pulled me into the line. It took me a couple of awkward steps to catch the pattern, but once I got into the rhythm, I was high-stepping right along with him.
When the set ended, my dancing partner grinned and with an exaggerated drawl said, “I’d be plumb proud to stand you to a drink, ma’am.”
Before I could agree, he did a double take. “Deb’rah? Deb’rah Knott?”
“I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, sir,” I said in my best schoolmarm voice.
But he was serious now. “It’s me—Chan. Chandler Nolan. Don’t you remember?”
The name rang no bells and I was sure I’d remember if I’d ever met somebody who filled his jeans the way this guy did.
“Frederick, Maryland,” he said. “The spring you stayed with your aunt?”
I’d done a pretty good job of erasing that nineteenth spring from my memory, but now it came rushing back, along with the face of a kid who used to mow Aunt Barbara’s two-acre lawn, a horny, pimple-faced seventeen-year-old who’d tried to grope me every time I let him take me to a movie or walk with me down to the creek that flowed through the back of Aunt Barbara’s meadow.
I was on my way to messing up my life for good that year with sex and drugs and drink. Aunt Barbara took me in, held my hand through the annulment of a disastrous runaway marriage, and pointed out how stupid I was being when she walked up on Chan and me in her gazebo one sunny afternoon.
“Chastity may be highly overrated,” she told me after Chan had grabbed his pants and fled,
“but so is this so-called free love.”
“Sex has nothing to do with love,” I’d muttered.
“Nor does corrupting children,” she’d said tartly. “Do you know how difficult it is to find someone reliable to cut my grass?”
Put like that, I’d decided it was time to move on. And I hadn’t given another thought to Chandler Nolan in all the years since.
“What’re you doing down here?” I asked, amazed that he’d turned out so handsome.
Unfortunately, he still had that randy look in his eye, and I saw him checking my left hand for a wedding band. “Let’s go get us something wet and I’ll tell you.”
We snaked our way through laughing, perspiring dancers to the far end of the room where two long serving tables stood draped in blue calico. On one of them, several shiny galvanized washtubs held ice and five or six different brands of beer. The other table featured huge platters of Texas-style ribs, fried chicken, jalapeno cornbread, corn on the cob, and some sinfully rich-looking chocolate brownies. Instead of napkins, the American Leathergoods Wholesale Association had thoughtfully provided blue-checkered washcloths.
Favors were scattered at intervals along the table: bookmarks cut from supple, multicolored leathers and stamped in gold with the ALWA ox-head logo. As I waited for my Maryland cowboy to push his way up to the beer tubs, two buyers? sellers? designers? in front of me began to rub the bookmarks against one of those washcloths as if to see if the bright clear colors would come off on the white checks.
“Nice hand,” said one, flexing the bookmark carefully, “but in this range of color, it has to be naked aniline.”
“They swear it’s pigmented,” said the other. “One-point-five on the gray scale.”
“You believe that, I’ve got a bridge I’ll sell you.”
“But even if it’s only a three,” he said as he whipped out a pocket calculator and began punching in some numbers, “we could use it to create a whole new pricing umbrella, elevate points right across the board.”
“If it comes in at no more than two-fifty a square,” his colleague agreed doubtfully. “Sure does have a nice hand, though.”
They were talking in tongues as far as I was concerned.
Through an opening in the crowd I caught a glimpse of pastel chiffon, and there was Mrs. Jernigan standing halfway down the food table. She had draped one of her pale green scarves over her head, but strands of gray hair strayed from beneath the edge.
Chandler Nolan, who had a beer in each hand, had been waylaid by a couple of corporate types and he gave me a shrug.
Just as well, I decided, now that I’d had a minute to think it over. I really wasn’t in the mood for Remember when—? And though I wasn’t wearing Kidd Chapin’s ring on my finger or through my nose, Chan had a plain gold band on his significant finger and I never mess around with married men.
(“Not if you know they’re married,” came the voice of pragmatism in my head.)
I gave him a cheery wave, warbled, “Good seeing you again,” and headed instead toward the woman who’d promised to find me a bed tonight.
As I came up to Mrs. Jernigan, I saw her slip a zip-lock plastic bag filled with fried chicken into the new Fitch and Patterson bag between her feet. From the damp stain spreading across the bottom of her second tote, I could only assume that she had helped herself to a few cans of iced beer as well. She reminded me of my Aunt Sister, who keeps similar plastic bags stashed in her carryall bag because, and I quote, “I just can’t stand to see good food go to waste.”
(Let her loose at any restaurant with an all-you-can-eat buffet or serve-yourself salad bar and Aunt Sister comes home with enough food to feed her and Uncle Rufus for three meals. “Well, I never eat enough to feed a bird,” she rationalizes, “and you know good as me that they’re just going to throw out anything that’s left over.”)
To my surprise, J.J. Patterson was there at her elbow and seemed to be helping her stow away a couple of drumsticks while the reporter with the long dark hair watched in fascination.
One of Mrs. Jernigan’s plastic bags had fallen to the floor. I bent to retrieve it and was almost stepped on by some sales rep who’d shoved in to fill his plate. As I straightened up, a soft hand touched my arm and for the second time that night, a surprised voice said, “Deborah? Deborah Knott?”
I turned and saw a familiar face. The shining chestnut hair, slanted feline eyes, and long leggy body were familiar, too, but I was blanking on her name.
“Well, I’ll be blessed! It is you and you haven’t changed an inch since law school. What the L-M-N are you doing here at Market?”
Her law school reference and that L-M-N substitute for blunter language brought her into focus.
Dixie Babcock.
We’d sat next to each other in several classes, shared notes and lunch, and were even in the same study group for contract law. We had liked each other well enough, but she was nearly ten years older and a single mother struggling for a law degree after too many dead-end jobs that barely paid for day care. At that point in her life, she just didn’t have enough time to develop any strong new friendships so our tenuous connection stayed tenuous despite splitting an occasional pizza at the Rat on Franklin Street Then she had to drop out for a semester when her daughter got hit by a car and after that we pretty much lost touch with each other.
I shoved my bag under the edge of the table and gave her a hug.
She hugged me back, then held me at arm’s length to assess time’s changes. My Jacki Sotelli badge made her laugh. “Newark? You?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, but my hopes began an upward rise as I did my own assessment: expensive haircut, manicured nails, the blue-enameled gold collar that topped a deceptively simple green shift. This was not Kmart chic.
According to her name tag, she was now the executive director of the Southern Retail Furnishings Alliance. I had never heard of the Southern Retail Furnishings Alliance, but surely its executive director would have an extra bed she could offer to a former classmate?
Dixie shook her head sympathetically as I gave her an abbreviated version of why I was in town and how I was beginning to wonder if I’d have to sleep in my car beside the courthouse.
“Judge? God, I’m so impressed! But I can’t believe they’d let you come over here during Market week without a room reservation. I’d invite you to stay with me if I didn’t already have a decorina friend from California on my couch. My granddaughter’s sharing with me, and my son-in-law has the guest room. When he bothers to come home,” she added with a touch of bitterness that made me wonder if said son-in-law had a roving eye.
“Your daughter’s not with them?” I asked.
Raw, naked pain shafted across her face and I saw the lines of age and grief that had, till then, been hidden beneath her skillful makeup.
“Evelyn’s dead,” she said bluntly. “She took a bad fall. A year ago last October. The baby she was carrying died, too.”
I was stunned. “Oh, Dixie! How awful!”
“Yeah,” she agreed bleakly. Then she took a deep breath, smoothed her gleaming hair, and visibly collected herself. “So you need a bed, huh?” Her voice became bright and cheerful again. “I bet I know where there’s one going begging.”
“That’s okay.” Suddenly I was feeling gauche for presuming upon what really was a very slender friendship. “Mrs. Jernigan here knows someone.”
I turned to that lady, who was adding several large wedges of jalapeno cornbread to her tote bag. The gauzy green scarf had slipped from her hair and now trailed from her shoulders.
“Mrs. Jernigan—”
She completed her raid on the table with a couple of brownies, then looked up at me with a cold eye and in that distinctive, husky voice, said, “My name is Hadley Jones Edminston. I cannot fathom why all of you continue to address me incorrectly when I have never met any of you.”
With that, she crushed her lavender straw hat down squarely on her head, gathered up her bags and st
alked away. The Furniture/Today reporter hurried after her and I was left to stare blankly at Dixie Babcock and J.J. Patterson, who seemed to know each other.
Dixie’s brown eyes widened as she gazed after Mrs. Jernigan. “That voice—was that Savannah?”
Patterson nodded. “I couldn’t believe it either at first I had no idea she was back in town.”
But Dixie was still processing what she’d just seen. “Savannah with gray hair? In a dress? Wearing color?”
“Who’s Savannah?” I asked. “And what’s the big deal about color?”
Patterson put out his big hand. “Jay Patterson, Ms. Sotelli. We didn’t get a chance to talk before, but—”
I took his hand as Dixie said, “Come on, Jay. Does she sound anything like a Sotelli from Newark?”
“Well—”
“This is Deborah Knott, an old friend from law school. She’s a district court judge now. Sitting here for a week.“
He grinned. “So where’d you steal that badge, Judge?”
“You accuse a judge of theft?” I bantered. “Actually, Mrs. Jernigan, or whatever her name is, gave it to me.”
“Aha!” said Dixie. “Receiving stolen goods. That’s even more serious.”
“You be serious,” I said. “Who’s Savannah What’s-her-name?”
“Savannah’s all I ever heard.” She looked at Patterson, who nodded.
“Me, too. Hell, when she did her first catalog for us and our payroll department head kept trying to get a full name for the W-2 forms, she told him to draw her check to S.A. Vannah if it’d make him happy, ’cause that was all he was getting.”
“She was the best designer and stylist in the business,” said Dixie, “and she did everything with panache. Dressed only in black—black shoes, black stockings, black hats, black mink, onyx cigarette holder. Drove black Porsches.”
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