“That’s a hard act to follow,” I said. “Makes my Timex and gen-u-wine leather wallet seem kind of puny.”
Mary Bennett’s father regularly brought her exquisite gifts, most of which she’d carelessly toss into a wooden chest and shove under the bed.
“What’s your haul?” Mary Bennett said to Gerald, who was opening envelopes.
“Not too shabby,” Gerald said with a grin. “I’m already at five hundred dollars, and I still haven’t opened the cards from the Goldbergs or my Aunt Bernice and Uncle Irving.”
“What’s in here?” Mary Bennett said, picking up a package and shaking it next to her ear.
“I don’t know. My pop handed it to me after the graduation ceremony,” Gerald said. “You can open it if you want.”
“Oh, goody!” Mary Bennett said. She stared at the object in her hands. “Well, this is interesting.”
It was a book called How to Flirt with Chicks.
Gerald blushed. “My father’s worried that I never have any girlfriends.”
“Who does he think we are?” Mary Bennett asked.
“He means a serious girlfriend,” Gerald said. “My father’s old-fashioned, and wants me to date a ‘nice Jewish girl.’ He’s been trying to push me toward one of my former Hebrew school classmates, Roseanne Cohen. She has a mustache.”
“I wouldn’t discount a mustache so quickly,” Mary Bennett said. “Just means the girl has plenty of testosterone coursing through her veins. She’s prolly a wildcat between the sheets.”
“Roseanne’s not my type,” Gerald said dismissively. “What did you get for graduation, Patsy?”
Mary Bennett raised an eyebrow at Gerald’s abrupt change of subject.
“I got a new easel, a book about portrait painting, and French-language tapes. Oh, I’d love to go to Paris one day,” Patsy said. “Book” sounded like it rhymed with “spook.”
“Don’t know how you’re going to parlez-vous français when ya still haven’t gotten the hang of plain ol’ Mississippi American,” Mary Bennett said.
“Toast time! I ‘borrowed’ this from home,” I said, unscrewing the top of a mason jar and pouring a small portion of liquid gold into each of our glasses. “Gen-u-wine moonshine, kids. Daddy knows a guy across the river who still cooks up a batch every now and then. It goes down smooth as silk, cured with a peeled apple, but it will kick your ass all over town if you’re not careful.”
“Where’d Tammy go?” Gerald asked, looking about Mary Bennett’s spacious kitchen.
“Maybe she wandered off because we were talking about our graduation gifts,” I said. “That was kinda insensitive. Her mama probably couldn’t afford to get her anything.”
“Oh, she got plenty of graduation presents,” Gerald said. “Isn’t that right, Mary Bennett?”
Mary Bennett shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes. I guess she probably did,” I said with a smile. I’d forgotten about Tammy’s “gift elf.” When Tammy first joined our club she’d confessed that the main reason she hadn’t come to school the day after the Key Club incident was because she’d run out of Marcy’s house wearing a maid’s uniform, and had left her only skirt behind. She owned some slacks and blue jeans, but the school’s dress code prohibited girls from wearing pants. The next day “someone” left a basket on her doorstep brimming with brand-new skirts and dresses from The Tog Shoppe. The only person who could afford such an extravagance was Mary Bennett, but she never ’fessed up to it.
“We can’t have a toast without Tammy,” I said, plunking my glass down on the table. “I’ll get her. I know where she is.”
“Tell her to get her cute little ass in here so we can raise some hell,” Mary Bennett said, sitting in a cane-backed chair, swinging her long, tanned legs. “I can’t believe we’re shed of that shitty high school, forever.”
I went out back into the impeccably groomed yard. St. Augustine grass thick as a carpet was tickling my bare feet, and the air was perfumed with Confederate jasmine. A kidney-shaped pool shimmered like a cool blue oasis in the velvet darkness.
I saw Tammy in a tea-length white dress, standing between two boxwood hedges, gazing down the hill at a big, gray Dutch Colonial blazing with light. Snatches of conversation and laughter drifted up from the house like bubbles from a champagne glass.
“Pretty view, isn’t it?” I said. Mary Bennett’s house was perched on one of the highest points in Jackson, and several of the stately homes could be seen from this vantage point.
“I guess,” Tammy said, looking away quickly. “I just wanted a little air. It’s so nice out tonight.”
Pointing at Marcy’s house, I said, “I heard some kids mention she was having a big graduation shindig tonight.”
“Really? I hadn’t heard,” Tammy said, her eyes cast downward. She was one of the lousiest liars in the world.
Marcy’s house did look enticing, glowing brightly like a lit-up birthday cake. But almost everything seems more attractive when you are outside looking in.
“I promise they aren’t having as much fun as we are,” I said. “Money won’t buy a good time, ya know—and it sure as hell won’t buy real friends.”
“I know,” Tammy said, smoothing the bell-shaped skirt of her graduation dress. It looked expensive and fit her beautifully, so I was sure it came from the “gift elf.” She was dressed as if she belonged at Marcy’s party.
“One day they’ll be talking about you,” I said. “They’ll say, ‘I used to know Tammy Myers in high school before she became a famous country-and-western singer.’ At class reunions, they’ll all be sucking up and clamoring for your autograph. They’ll hope to God you won’t remember how shitty they were to you.”
“You think?” Tammy said, and I could tell by her tone that she very much liked this daydream.
“Someday, you’ll have the power to fix ’em good. You could write a number one song called ‘Marcy Stevens Deserves to Die,’ but the truth is you won’t care enough about her to humiliate her. After all, you’ll be this huge star, rubbing elbows with George and Loretta, and she’ll just be an aging perma-blond, small-town socialite with bad teeth and a cheating husband.”
“Wow,” Tammy said. “You have such a vivid imagination. It’s almost as if this could be your dream.”
I toed the grass with my sandal. “Well, it was my dream. When I was a kid I always wanted to be a Supreme, or at the very least a Pip, but unfortunately I was born white with the vocal talent of an under-laid cat in heat.” I shook a finger at her. “That’s why I’m counting on you to conquer Nashville so I can vicariously live my life. Swear to me you won’t let me down?”
She gave me her first smile of the evening. “All right, Jill. I swear.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss me on the cheek. “Thanks.”
“Thank God, that’s settled. Now, let’s go inside—I brought a little something for a special toast.”
The Queens drank like a band of gypsies that night, and after a raucous celebration that included dancing, skinny-dipping, and the rabid consumption of a vast array of decadent foods like Pig Candy, Chocolate Stuff, fried chicken, barbecued ribs, and big wads of cheese, we were all sprawled on the floor of Mary Bennett’s rec room, surrounded by empty glasses, food wrappers, and a formidable pile of well-gnawed ribs and nekkid chicken bones.
Giddiness had given way to melancholy. I saw a pity party coming on as soon as Gerald started whistling “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”
Mary Bennett was the first to lose it, possibly because she’d had the most to drink. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do without my friends,” she slurred. “After all, what’s the point of being the most famous actress in the world if I don’t have y’all to lord it over? Let’s promise that we’ll never lose touch with each other.”
She dangled a bag of corn chips from her hand. “Swear on this fag of Britos,” she said, mixing her words, and of course we all swore, knowing how seriously Mary Bennett took her Fritos. She called them
the Manna From Heaven.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Each of us solemnly touched the Frito bag and whispered, “I swear.”
I was the last one to make the vow, and as I did, memories of the last two years zipped through my brain: dancing to “Land of 1000 Dances” until I wanted to collapse, eating until I thought I would burst, laughing until my sides ached, and riding in a convertible with the wind whipping through my wig, singing “Tiny Bubbles” (the Queens’ theme song) at the top of my lungs. But most of all I remembered our long talks about our secret hopes and dreams—talks that were like stitches, knitting us together in a way that I thought would last forever.
I rose to my feet, glass in hand, and demanded they all join me in a toast. “Repeat after me,” I said, “HERE’S to US…” They echoed it back to me, in tones more dutiful than enthusiastic, until they heard and roared the ending—of what was to become our battle cry—“and FUCK EVERYBODY ELSE!”
PART TWO
1974
Chapter
5
You’re up four pounds, Mrs. Mitchell,” I said to the portly woman with a poodle cut who stood before me in an overtaxed satin slip. I’d guessed the news was going to be bad when she removed almost everything, including her bobby pins, before her weigh-in, hoping she’d somehow cheat the scale.
“I don’t know why,” she said, all red-faced and flustered. “I followed the diet to the letter.”
Boy hidee, if I had a nickel for every time one of my clients said that, I could have bought my own weight-loss center.
One or two pounds up didn’t necessarily indicate a cheater. Water retention could account for small fluctuations in weight, but four pounds? Mrs. Mitchell had definitely been face-first in the feedbag—frequently.
I consulted my clipboard. “So, you didn’t have cookies, cakes, chocolates, or doughnuts?”
Her cheek twitched a little at the mention of “doughnut,” and I knew I’d hit pay dirt.
“Now that I think about it, I recall I may have nibbled on a doughnut or two.”
Make that one or two dozen doughnuts, I thought.
“But they weren’t those heavy cake doughnuts. They were Krispy Kremes, and they were just light as air. I assumed they didn’t count.”
Ha! The things dieting women thought they could get away with! Snacks eaten on the run didn’t count, and neither did “tasting” food while cooking it. Cokes and alcohol surely didn’t count. “I just tinkle it right out,” said one clueless client, who claimed ice cream didn’t count either as long as it was nearly melted.
If women consistently deluded themselves about something as simple as the food they put in their mouths, what other gigantic lies were they telling themselves?
“Mrs. Mitchell, this diet is so scientific and delicately balanced that the slightest deviation can throw it clean off track.”
“I’ll try to be more careful,” she said, slipping back into her blouse. “But it’s hard to imagine that a couple of slices of cake would—”
“Cake?” I said with a raised eyebrow.
“It was carrot cake, which I assumed was perfectly acceptable since you people are always foisting vegetables upon me.”
“After you get dressed, go in and see the nutritionist. She’ll tweak your food list, and remind you of which ones aren’t allowed.”
People are always attracted to forbidden fruit, I thought as I closed the door to the weighing room.
“Speak of the devil,” I said softly as I saw Tammy in the reception area, wearing her white nurse’s aide uniform with her purse tucked under her arm.
“I was just coming to see if you were ready to have a little lunch,” she said. “Wanta go to Miz Coleman’s?”
Tammy never made it to Nashville after graduation. For the last several years, she’d worked in a gynecologist’s office a couple of blocks away from the Quick Weight-Loss Center. She’d only intended to work there the summer after graduation, and take off for Music City in the fall. But then a teeny-tiny complication came up.
“It’s going to happen,” Tammy said breathlessly as the two of us left my office and trudged to Mrs. Coleman’s Dream Kitchen, which was three blocks away. “He’s going to leave his wife!”
The “he” Tammy was referring to was Dr. Deke Day, tanned, blond, and preppy—a poster boy for country-club living and therefore powerful juju to Tammy.
“Is the special today pork chops or country-fried steak?” I said. We’d only been outside for a minute, and I already felt a trickle of sweat at the back of my neck.
“I could see it in his eyes,” Tammy said, taking fast steps with her size-five feet to keep up with me. “This time he really means it.”
I stopped short and straightened my body to its full six feet one inch. Maybe she’d listen for a change.
“You mean as opposed to the fifty zillion times before?”
“He’s at a medical conference for a few days, but he said as soon he gets back he wants to talk about the future.”
“That doesn’t mean a damn thing,” I snapped. “Maybe he just wants to talk to you about giving him more blow jobs in ‘the future.’”
She blushed, and tucked her hands into the pocket of her smock. “I don’t care what you say. This isn’t about sex.”
“Bullshit, hunny! It is ALL ABOUT sex,” I said in a low voice. We’d reached the entrance to the Dream Kitchen, which was a small gray building with loose roof shingles and peeling paint. The rule in the South generally is, the more pitiful the restaurant on the outside, the better the food was apt to be on the inside. That certainly was the case with Miz Coleman’s.
We curtailed our conversation while we joined the cafeteria line. Two rather large women named Mamie and Caroline served up the food, and they didn’t stand for the least bit of dilly-dallying. If you didn’t say your order fast enough to please them, they’d likely scream, call you names, or short you on portion size. No one ever questioned their reign of terror—their food was just too damn good.
When I reached the head of the line, I hopped to attention and rattled off my order: “Country-fried-steak-fried-green-’maters-collards-corn-bread-sweet-tea-to-drink.”
“You want lemon in your tea, sugar pie?” said Mamie in a saccharine voice as Caroline ladled up the food on my tray. If you followed orders and didn’t bottleneck their line, Mamie and Caroline were gentle as lambs.
Tammy and I walked with our trays in hand, looking for an empty seat. We found a place beside the window and, as soon as I sat, Tammy proceeded to douse her food with pepper sauce without even tasting it first.
“By the time the others get to town, I’ll probably be announcing my engagement,” Tammy said.
The Queens were due in three days. I hadn’t seen any of them (except Tammy) since the summer following graduation, although we talked on the phone and exchanged letters.
“Suppose hell freezes over, and Dr. Dick actually does leave his wife. What then?”
“We’ll be together for always, instead of sneaking around,” Tammy said, her eyes dancing like candle flames. “And I’ll be the wife of a doctor! And please don’t call him that.”
I laid my fork down. “That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? It’s not Deke you’re interested in. It’s that he’s a doctor. Hang a stethoscope around a guy’s neck and you’re ready to drag his ass down the aisle. How can you give up your dream of being a country-western singer for a married man?”
Tammy shook ketchup on her home fries. “Honestly, Jill, I wish you’d stop nagging me about that whole Nashville thing. Do you know the odds of me succeeding? Talk about wanting the impossible.”
“Yet you think it’s more probable that your horny little doctor will leave his wife. Don’t you read ‘Dear Abby’? They NEVER leave their wives!”
“Keep your voice down,” she said, looking about nervously. “And he is leaving her, I tell you. And, for your information, I’m very much in love with Deke. Yes, I like the fact that he’s a doctor.
And it’s true I crave the security of a Professional man—with money. You would too if you grew up living hand to mouth the way I did.”
“Even if he does leave her, it won’t be the fairy-tale life you’ve been dreaming of,” I said in a fierce whisper. “Everyone will treat you like a home-wrecker. Men will flirt with you in inappropriate ways, assuming you’re a loose woman. Women will treat you like trash, because you’ve broken up a family. Meanwhile, the entire time you’re married to your darling Dr. Day, you’ll have to be on guard, because once a cheater, always a cheater, and pretty soon, you’ll be the one finding lipstick on his collar.”
Tammy violently shook her head. “The only reason Deke cheats on Linda is because she’s completely frigid, and she doesn’t understand him like I do.”
“Gawd, Tammy. I can’t believe you’re swallowing the absolute oldest line in the whole book of ‘Lyin’, Cheatin’ Sacks-of-Shit.’”
Thank heavens I’d met myself a steady-Eddie fellow. I took a quick glance down at my diamond engagement ring. It was dinky as all get-out, but my fiancé, Sonny, promised he’d get a bigger one down the road.
Tammy must have noticed me looking at my ring because she said, “Just think. We both might be brides this year.”
“You wanna LOOK at food or you wanna EAT some, mister? Get outta my line ’til you decide what you want!” came a booming voice from the serving line. Mamie’s metal spatula went sailing and made a noisy clatter when it hit the floor. The customers at the Dream Kitchen were so used to her outbursts, hardly anyone looked up except, of course, the guy she was aiming at.
I shoveled collards into my mouth and glowered at Tammy. “You’ll be marrying Dr. Day when the last wild monkey flies outta his ass.”
Chapter
6
The appliances in the kitchen are all from Sears and Roebuck’s,” the real estate agent said, sweeping her arm in front of a refrigerator as if it were a prize on Let’s Make a Deal.
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