We Are All Good People Here

by Susan Rebecca White

Lauren looked pained. “It wasn’t fair at all,” she said. “And again, I’m just so sorry.”

  And then she got up quickly and hurried off, and the next time Daniella saw her, Lauren gave only the most cursory of smiles.

  • • •

  Eve, of course, was elated to hear about Daniella’s conversation with Lauren, though Daniella made her swear not to tell anyone else about it. “I told you!” she said, and then her eyes lit up even more. “Daniella! This means all we need to do is get my mother to write you a Fleur rec and the next time they give out snap bids you can get one. Did I tell you that’s how Aunt Pooh got in? She had mono during rush, but later that year Fleur just offered her a bid after someone dropped out.”

  Daniella still felt uneasy. If what Eve was saying was true, then why did Lauren seem so pained during their conversation? If Fleur wanted her and she just needed to have a letter of recommendation to get a bid, then why didn’t Lauren tell her that, tell her the exact steps she needed to take?

  There was one member of Eve’s pledge class whom Daniella really liked, a girl named Katharine Ridley from Alabama who lived just down the hall from them in Monty House. Katharine—Kitty—was goofy like Eve and always seemed glad to see Daniella. As the semester continued, the three of them grew close, and eventually Daniella allowed Eve to tell Kitty about the conversation she had had with Lauren about the alumnae group and recommendations. After that, any time it was just the three of them, Eve and Kitty would openly discuss how to get Daniella a bid sooner rather than later.

  “I think they offer snap bids after Easter break,” said Kitty, “because that’s just after midterm grades come out and some girls are forced to drop because they’re failing. That’s probably our best option.”

  “And I asked Mother to write Daniella a letter of recommendation,” said Eve. “So we’ve got that taken care of.”

  “Y’all, I don’t even know if I want to join anymore. Seriously, it would feel really queer after they rejected me.”

  “Oh, please,” said Eve, waving away Daniella’s words, as she always did when Daniella mentioned her doubts about trying to join Fleur. “Lauren said they all wanted you. It was just a stupid technicality.”

  “Here’s the thing,” said Eve to Kitty. “If they know they are going to lose girls after Easter, why not go ahead and fill up? Why not just offer Daniella a snap bid as soon as they receive the letter from Mother?”

  “Let’s ask Mandy about it,” said Kitty. “Maybe she knows.” Mandy was their pledge trainer. Like Eve, she was from Atlanta, although she had gone to the Lovett School and not Coventry.

  That night after chapter meeting, Eve returned to their dorm room in a foul mood. She wouldn’t tell Daniella what was going on, only said she was sick of all the bitches at Belmont, then stormed off to the phone down the hall to make a call. From inside their room Daniella could hear Eve yelling. Eventually Mrs. Shuler came up and gave Eve a demerit, told her she must calm down or she was going to hang up on whomever Eve was speaking with. Eve returned to their room flushed and steely eyed.

  “Well, that’s done.”

  “What’s done?” asked Daniella, looking up from her book.

  Eve flopped down on Daniella’s bed, as Daniella’s was made and Eve’s was not. “I approached Mandy tonight. I asked her point-blank if you could get a snap bid after your letter of recommendation arrives, and she pulled me aside and told me that she was going to tell me something completely confidential that I couldn’t share with anyone. And then she told me that, just like Lauren said, the girls in Fleur totally loved you and wanted you as a member, but that they weren’t allowed to offer you a bid because you’re Jewish. Apparently there’s a local alumnae association that is really adamant about allowing only Christian girls in the sorority, and they sent some representative over before Song Night to vet Fleur’s choice of girls. And I can only presume that’s what happened with Pansy, too. God, I’m just so sick I can hardly stand it.”

  Daniella felt an odd combination of both embarrassment and validation. She had been right. It was because she was Jewish. They didn’t want her because she was Jewish.

  “Did you tell them I’m Unitarian?”

  This was something of a joke, but Eve did not laugh.

  “I called Grandmother to tell her I’m dropping out.”

  “What? You can’t do that!”

  “That’s what Grandmommy said. She told me I was making a ‘grave mistake’ that I would regret for the rest of my life. She told me not to expect her to pay my tuition if I drop.”

  “Then you have to stay in.”

  “No, I don’t. My parents will pay it if she doesn’t. She’s just a mean old bitch; she really is.”

  Daniella looked at Eve, whose face was locked in defiance. “Don’t drop out for me, okay? It really doesn’t matter all that much. All it means is I don’t go to chapter meetings and I don’t have to pay dues.”

  “It means so much more than that and you know it,” said Eve.

  • • •

  Clearly it did, because the next evening Eve’s grandmother showed up, having been driven to Roanoke from Atlanta in her pale blue Lincoln Town Car. Daniella happened to be returning to Monty House from tennis practice when “Grandmommy” arrived. She watched as the colored driver parked on the gravel in front of the house. He got out of the car and walked around to open the rear door of the sedan, holding out his gloved hand to help his tiny passenger emerge from the back seat. Though Daniella had never met her, she knew immediately who it was. Grandmommy wore the Fleur colors, a bright pink jacket over a light pink dress, her elfin feet strapped into pale pink heels, her Fleur pin secured close to her heart. Around her neck were three thick strands of pearls, and in each ear a pearl so fat it must have popped open the oyster it grew in.

  Daniella ran up the front steps to find Eve and warn her, but Eve was not in their room. Surely she was with Kitty down the hall, but Daniella hesitated to go look for her, indulging for a moment in the fanciful thinking that if she did not help it along, perhaps this ensuing drama would not unfold. It was all so humiliating, to be the source of so much trouble.

  A few moments later there was a knock on her dorm room door, but when Daniella opened it she was faced with Mrs. Shuler, not Eve’s grandmother.

  “Is Eve here, dear?” Mrs. Shuler asked.

  “Try Kitty’s room,” said Daniella.

  Mrs. Shuler turned with a sigh and headed toward Kitty’s room, knocking on the door, then speaking quietly with whomever answered. And then Eve shot into the room, as if launched by a slingshot.

  “Oh my Lord, oh my Lord, oh my Lord. Grandmommy is here, as in right now, and my hair is a mess and I haven’t taken a shower in three days!”

  Eve was wearing dungarees and one of her dad’s old shirts, her greasy hair pulled back into a low ponytail. She looked pretty, but not at all like a debutante.

  “How can she be mad you’re not ready for her? She didn’t tell you she was coming.”

  “ ‘A lady is always dressed for visitors,’ ” said Eve. “One of Grandmommy’s rules.” As she spoke she was tearing off the flannel shirt and putting on first her soft pink cashmere shell and then the matching cardigan. She slid off the dungarees and slid on an A-line skirt, then shoved her feet into a pair of kitten heels that happened to be resting beneath her dresser.

  “There’s nothing I can do about the hair, but how does the rest of me look?”

  “Good. You should put on a little lipstick, though.”

  “Right.” Eve ran a tube of pink lipstick across her lips, rubbed them together, then headed out the door. “I would invite you to come with me, but I promise, it’s not going to be pleasant.”

  • • •

  Daniella did not know what to do with herself while she waited for Eve to talk with her grandmother. She felt antsy sitting in the room, but she felt embarrassed venturing outside of it. The school was so small, surely news had gotten around that Eve was dropping out of
Fleur because of her and that Eve’s grandmother had come all the way up from Atlanta to talk her out of it.

  She was causing so much trouble. She was keeping Eve from the institution that nearly all of the women in her family belonged to. An institution she might have belonged to as well, if only she could have better hidden her Jewishness. Oh God. What was she even thinking—that she would change her last name? Use her mother’s maiden name instead? Wear a cross around her neck? No. She would not be ashamed of who she was. She would not be ashamed of her father—she loved her father; he was the smartest person she knew, and he made her feel smart, too.

  She wondered again if perhaps she should transfer to a different college. She had been accepted at Barnard, but her mother had worried about her living in New York City and Belmont had such a good tennis team and such a lovely campus—and was closer to home. But maybe a place like Barnard was a better fit. There would certainly be more Jewish girls there. She wondered if she would need to apply again or if the fact that she had been admitted once would be enough. She supposed she could have her father telephone the admissions office or perhaps ask a dean at Belmont about doing so. She would miss Eve, miss her terribly, but they were from different worlds, and she didn’t want to continue causing Eve angst.

  By the time Eve returned to the dorm room, Daniella had pretty much decided she was leaving Belmont. Eve’s eyes were red from crying, but she was smiling. “Would you come downstairs and talk to Grandmommy? She wants to meet you.”

  Why hadn’t it occurred to Daniella that Eve’s grandmother might want to meet her? She was still in her tennis clothes, still sweaty from practice, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Oh well. She smeared on the same lipstick Eve had used, shrugging at her reflection.

  She and Eve walked down the curved front staircase to the parlor, where Grandmommy waited, perched atop an antique armchair. Miss Louise, who had replaced Miss Eugenia, was pouring the old woman a cup of tea from the silver service that belonged to the house, bequeathed by a childless alum who had no one to pass her treasures on to. Every surface of every piece of the silver was imprinted with flowers. During their first days at Belmont Eve had identified the pattern for her—Repousse by Kirk. “Repousse is one you either love or you hate,” Eve had declared. Daniella loved it.

  “Cream or sugar, ma’am?” asked Miss Louise.

  Grandmother waved away the offer, imperious as a tiny queen. “Neither. Eve, would your friend like a cup of tea?”

  “No, thanks,” said Daniella, but she was so nervous her words were barely audible.

  “Speak up, dear,” said the woman.

  “No, thank you,” said Daniella. She had no idea if she was supposed to sit or wait until she was instructed to do so. Suddenly, her rebellious side took over and she thought, Oh, to hell with it, and just plopped down on the sofa across from the old lady. Eve sat down beside her, so close their thighs nearly touched.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Elliot,” she said. “Eve speaks so highly of you.”

  “I hear you are from Washington, D.C.?”

  “Georgetown, actually.”

  “Georgetown has some lovely old homes.”

  “It does,” said Daniella. She wanted to tell her that she grew up in one of them, but she held back. She did not want to pander.

  “And my granddaughter tells me you were raised Unitarian?”

  “Guilty as charged,” said Daniella. “Weaned on Emerson.”

  “Well, that’s just fine. A little unorthodox, but fine. And why did you decide to come to Belmont from all of the way up in D.C.?”

  Daniella resisted the urge to remind Mrs. Elliot that Georgetown was closer to Roanoke than Atlanta was. She knew Mrs. Elliot was not talking about geographic distance, but rather culture. “I love tennis, and I was offered a spot on the team. And my mother attended Sweet Briar, so it seemed nice to have a similar experience to hers.”

  “Sweet Briar is a fine institution. And tennis is a wonderful game! I always told my children that as long as they learned to play tennis and golf they would do well in the world.”

  “Well,” said Daniella, “I’m one for two.”

  The old woman smiled and looked at Daniella directly for the first time. Perhaps she was being paranoid, but it seemed to Daniella that Eve’s grandmother lingered for an extra second on her nose, weighing it, determining just how “ethnic” it was.

  “You seem like a perfectly lovely girl. I understand now why my granddaughter is so fond of you. And you aren’t flashy at all. There’s really no need for the alumnae group to be concerned. I’m going to talk to them and things should open up for you at Fleur, all right, dear?”

  It was as if one half of Daniella split from the other, because there was a part of her, sitting in the formal parlor of Monty House, that felt such pride at having passed muster with Eve’s grandmother, as if being deemed not too Jewish were a great accomplishment. And then there was another part of her that wished she knew Hebrew—or, better yet, Yiddish—so she could curse the old lady in the language of her ancestors. “Not too flashy.” What the hell did that mean?

  But it was Eve who spoke, her voice quiet at first, contemplative, as if she were formulating her thoughts while she said them aloud. “Grandmommy, did you know beforehand that the Fleur alumnae would insist on Daniella being blackballed?”

  “Why, I didn’t give it any thought,” said Grandmommy, but the expression on her face was furtive.

  “But you knew that Daniella and I were going through rush together, and you knew that her father was Jewish and her mother was Methodist and she was raised Unitarian. I told you all about it over Christmas dinner, and you told me about the Jewish doctor you once met on a cruise ship to England. You said, ‘Some of them are perfectly fine people.’ ”

  “Clearly they are,” said Grandmommy, smiling affectionately at Daniella, as if the two of them were old friends.

  “You knew. You knew she would be rejected. And I bet Mother never wrote her a letter of recommendation, did she?”

  “Well, now we are seeing to it that she is accepted.”

  “Oh, it all just makes me want to scream!” Eve cried, the force of her convictions propelling her right out of her chair, so that she was standing, flush with indignation. “You know what? Daniella can join Fleur if she likes, but I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

  Eve’s grandmother jerked her neck up sharply in order to glare at Eve. “Don’t be such a child,” she said.

  “Don’t be such a bitch,” Eve responded.

  Daniella was sure the old lady would heave herself out of her chair, march over to her impertinent granddaughter, and slap her. Or at least beat her fists against her shoulders, as Eve was a head taller than she was. But instead her eyes pooled with tears and her lips started trembling. And then tears were running down her face, and she was shaking her head and saying, “Well, I never. I never.”

  Eve remained standing. “Oh, Grandmommy,” she said, her voice not at all sorry, only exasperated.

  A feral look crossed over Mrs. Elliot’s face as she turned her gaze upward to address her granddaughter, index finger wagging. “I nearly died when I gave birth to your mother. Do you hear me? I lost so much blood I nearly died. But it was worth it because she was my own, my flesh and blood, my child, and she went on to have children of her own. And you—you nearly killed her when you came out, but it was worth it, too, because you were flesh from her flesh, blood from blood. And how do you repay us? By turning your back on your family, by turning your back on all we hold dear.”

  “I didn’t ask to be born into this family,” said Eve, and she walked out of the room, leaving Daniella alone with Grandmommy, who sat very straight in her chair, lips trembling as she dabbed at her eyes with a white handkerchief she had pulled from her pocketbook, its sides embellished with antique lace.

  Chapter 3

  TRANSFER

  Atlanta, 1963

  “That girl has too much influence on
you,” said her mother as she and Eve sat on the back porch overlooking the rear of the Whalen estate, which they referred to as “The Compound.” The manicured yard complete with cutting garden and greenhouse eventually gave way to woods that led to a rippling creek. It was the second week of April and nearly everything was in bloom, including the creamy white flowers on the dogwood trees, Eve’s favorite. Beyond the woods were the stables and the tennis courts, out of view from where Eve and her mother sat. And beyond that was Grandmommy’s “cottage,” which wasn’t a cottage at all, but rather an old barn converted at great cost (though no Whalen would ever be so gauche as to speak of money) into a window-filled, high-ceilinged home that included two bedrooms, a full bath with a claw-foot tub, and a small kitchen so that Grandmommy could heat up food prepared by Ada on evenings when she did not want to join the rest of the family in the main house for supper. So far she had stayed away during Eve’s trip home for Easter break.

  “Mommy, she’s my best friend. She’s like Aunt Pooh was to you.”

  “More like Aunt Jew,” muttered her mother, but she said it softly enough that Eve wasn’t sure she heard the words right, and so she ignored them, because she was doing everything in her power to persuade her parents—her mother, really—that she should switch schools for her sophomore year, transfer to Barnard with Daniella. She had history on her side, to an extent: The women in Eve’s family typically didn’t attend Belmont all four years. They went to Belmont, joined Fleur, and then transferred after two years to the University of Georgia, where they would pledge a national sorority, though none so beloved as the bouquet.

  “If you don’t let me transfer, I might be too upset to go to any deb parties this summer,” Eve threatened.

  “Don’t you dare even suggest such a thing,” warned her mother.

  “I’m serious, Mommy. If you make me go back to Belmont without Daniella, I’ll probably be so melancholy I’ll have to miss a bunch of the parties.”

  “I presume you’re arguing that the converse is true, that if Daddy and I were to allow you to transfer to that school up north you would fulfill your duty as a member of the Atlanta Debutante Club, acting with honor, grace, and good cheer?”