Fontaine was adamant about hosting the picture party late on the afternoon of the Fall Ball. Before everyone came over, I went out to the back porch, where she rocked away, to ask after a cashmere shrug. Surely, she must have a dozen. As a general rule, when one would do, Fontaine had a dozen (black pumps, pink lipsticks, strands of pearls).
“Check the cedar closet, middle shelf to the left,” Fontaine said. “But first, sit with me a minute.”
I scooched a rocker close to her, so we were side by side in the spongy air, and we rocked peacefully for a minute or more.
“You know, when you’re in the middle of the Panama Canal, you can’t swing a boat around in an instant,” Fontaine said out of the clear blue.
“Should I be following your train of thought?” I kept the rocker going with a push of my toe.
“Your father might have said I’m verboten. No, that’s not right. The Jewish word that means too emotional.”
“Verklempt?”
“Yes, that. And Ruthie, I want you to know. The business about staying in your social circle is not particular to the Jews. I’d likely say the same thing if you were Catholic. Cynthia Bryant had a Catholic cousin visit from Sacramento, California—an Agnes, I believe. We didn’t tell a soul the girl was Catholic or no one would’ve dated her.”
I laughed. “I’m not sure that’s better, Fontaine.”
“It is,” she said, reaching over and sandwiching my hand between hers. “The first ball of your season, it’s making me sentimental for balls of the past—your mother’s, mine. When I look back—” Fontaine stopped rocking and turned to me. “Now don’t interrupt. Let me say my piece. When I look back, I should not have forced your mother. I was the Panama Canal, and she was a ship. And I kept compelling her to turn—compelling her to come to church and compelling her to be a debutante—and what happened? Pfff. She turned herself around and went off to college in the North. I don’t want to lose you and Nattie.”
“We’re not lost. We’re here.” I knew this wasn’t about the porch, but I looked around it all the same, taking in the perfect pale blue of the ceiling and the view to the pool. “I want to be here,” I said quietly. “I want to go to the flower balls, all of them. I am in love with the South”—and Davis Jefferson—“despite evidence to the contrary.”
That made Fontaine laugh and laugh. I loved the way she looked when she was happy—eyes crinkled up, cheeks flushed. “That’s my girl. If you’re going to go, you might as well win a crown. Not today, of course. Today is out of the cards.”
“I’d like a crown.” I wasn’t sure why this was so very true, but it was. Maybe it was to make Fontaine happy. Or maybe it was to prove I was Davis-worthy or I belonged here. Or maybe I was shallow enough to want the sparkles—that was possible, too.
Fontaine assessed my chances. “You’ve gone to the requisite T and E’s—and you’ve got the southern lineage. Of course, a few other girls in the city have the same credentials, starting with Gracie Eleet.”
“Who doesn’t love Gracie? I wouldn’t mind losing to her. But I’d hate to lose to Claudia Starling.”
“Then don’t. And be careful if Claudia offers a hug—that’s a sly way to give you a little stab in the backside. The cream always rises!” She threw her arms overhead in victory.
I threw my arms up, too.
“And, win or lose, don’t leave me, Ruthie. We’ve already lost Sara, although I suppose we never quite had her. Oh! By the by, a manila envelope from Sara arrived addressed to you. It’s on the demilune in the foyer.”
“From Sara?” I tried not to let my voice jump an octave, knowing the envelope must be full of slinkies. “Sara doesn’t know what it’s really like here—how lovely everything, most everything, is,” I said, thinking of Davis and Gracie and flower balls and not thinking of cross burnings and hateful words on brick buildings. “And Nattie, too. Nattie’s happy.”
“She is—especially when she talks about that dang temple.”
Amen. Ah-mein.
At the stroke of four, with the sun slanting through the poky pines, the posse arrived, families in tow, for the pre-dance photo-a-thon.
We gathered on the grand lawn. Davis made his way over to Fontaine and Mr. Hank, showing off his good southern manners. Claudia and her parents hadn’t been to Fontaine’s place before, and they took an extra moment to admire the allée of magnolia trees, not in bloom but still impressive.
“So classical!” Mrs. Starling enthused, her blond hair held back in a tight headband. “Look at those hybrid teas. Is that the one they call the Violet Carson rose?” she asked Mr. Hank.
Mr. Hank shrugged. “Could be.”
“Who cares?” Claudia asked, but the way her eyebrows twitched, it seemed she might care a bit.
Oren looked bored out of his gourd, and so did Mr. Jefferson, a giant camera flash hanging around his neck.
We were all slick with sweat in the October heat—eighty-two degrees with heaps of humidity. I couldn’t wait to shrug off Fontaine’s shrug.
The group fanned out in an arc—boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, girl (Thurston-Ann’s Jimmy was l-a-t-e)—and the parents stood across from us, snapping away, asking us to line up just the girls, all of us in rainbow shades of tulle; then the boys, in navy suits, the unofficial uniform; then the boys putting the corsages on the girls; then the girls putting the boutonnieres on the boys.
Just as I was losing hope for Thurston-Ann, Jimmy showed up. And then the bottom fell out of the sky. The rain came fast. “Follow me,” I yelled, hiking up my skirt and dashing to the main house. Gracie and T-Ann were at my heels, Claudia, Buck, and Davis right behind them.
The girls and I ducked into Fontaine’s powder room, with its pagoda wallpaper, and bouffed up our hair—backcombing and spritzing heavily with the Spray Net that Fontaine kept in a special wicker holder topped with a tassel. By the time we reemerged, the parents were drinking gin and tonics while Birdie passed her cheese straws on a little silver tray, an invisible hand with the canapés.
“These are terrif,” Thurston-Ann said, pointing at Birdie with a straw. “Do y’all use paprika?”
“Yes, miss,” Birdie answered.
“Birdie’s daughter is at Spelman College,” I said, wanting T-Ann to appreciate that even though Birdie was a cheese-straw maven, she was so very much more than that.
“Miss Ruth, a word,” Birdie said to me.
We ducked into the butler’s pantry. “Do not use my children to impress your friends,” she said.
“I wasn’t—” I said. But then I stopped, because I was. “I apologize, ma’am.”
Birdie repositioned her tray and glided back out to the party.
I followed her, feeling several inches smaller. Davis sailed across the room, cheese straw in hand. He took a bite and put the other half in my mouth, like we were sharing a cigarette. I couldn’t help thinking: Three-ish hours until we’re alone.
“Gracie, are you sure you girls don’t want to spend the night here?” Mother asked. I didn’t realize she was on our side of the room. “Let me host.”
I caught Gracie’s eye. After Davis and I’d hatched our spend-the-night idea at the car wash, Gracie helped me figure out the switcheroo details.
We’d sat knee-to-knee on her four-poster bed, and she’d asked me if Davis and I had done the deed. The frankness of the question surprised me. It was a sisterly question, a best-friend question. I told her we’d fooled around. And she said, “The girls here”—Gracie was apparently a speaker for the whole third-year class, which felt about right—“aren’t as laced up as you think. We drink early. We marry early. Some of us even mess around early.”
“Are you a messer-around-er?” I asked.
“To a point,” Gracie said. “I’ve considered the deed, and Buck has definitely considered it—weekly,” she said without a trace of blush. “But it’s not for me, not yet. I’m in the no camp.”
Was I really ready to be in the yes camp? Advice on these matters wasn’t in the pink booklet, that was for sure. But, as Mother herself had said on more than one occasion, not everything worth knowing was sandwiched within a pink cover.
Anyway, the yes-camp plan for the Fall Ball night was this: Gracie was spending the night at my house, and I was spending the night at her house . . . except I was spending the night with Davis, and she was spending the night with T-Ann. I made sure the Eleets had eased over to the bar cart with Mr. Hank before I said, “They have more room.”
“Next time,” Gracie added, and Mother smiled.
The gymnasium was decorated with bales of hay and a bumper crop of pumpkins. T-Ann and the ’ettes had spent the afternoon twisting orange crepe paper into swoops. Mrs. Drummond patrolled the punch bowl, and a couple class officers manned the record player and speaker setup.
The dance part—with the Everly Brothers and the Coasters sh-booming over the loudspeaker—was not so different from a New York school dance. The wallflower-y couples wallflowered around the snack table. Claudia and Oren, who looked cooler than cool, held punch glasses in one hand (already spiked, no doubt) and each other in the other. And Buck and Gracie, in the role of big man on campus and his princess, were the sun around which the rest of us spun. What was different was me. I was in the circle. I was one of the close-in rays. I was in love with my fellow sunbeam, smiling, dimpled Davis. And, it would seem, vice versa.
My tulle skirt, not tutu full, kept Davis at arm’s length, the way Mrs. Drummond of Home Heck told us to dance—with room for the Lord between us.
The music blared and people looked like they were having a grand time, but maybe they weren’t; I couldn’t always tell when people were pretending here. I was having a blast. We danced slow; we danced fast. Davis held my hand, twirling me until the room went tipsy.
At one point, we ducked outside and he smoke-ringed it up. He delicately put his cigarette in my mouth for me to puff, but I took it out and kissed him instead all over his beautiful face, both of us laughing like fools. Right after the crowning, we’d agreed, we’d take off for his parents’ hunting lodge.
We heard the music stop and reentered the gym to see Principal Chalmers clomp up the stage stairs. “Welcome to the Fall Ball and the crowning of our first court of the 1958–1959 season. The first of our seven queens of the year. Can I have a drumroll, please?”
Thurston-Ann and a few of her majorette pals made drumming sound effects. There was no chance it would be me, since this was not a pre-deb event, where family history was a factor. Here the votes were cast by fourth-years, who knew me hardly at all. Fontaine had said as much. Still, it gave me a thrill to know it could be me next time. Or next, next time.
“The secret ballots were counted by Mrs. D.,” Principal Chalmers announced. Mrs. Drummond flapped an envelope around.
Claudia squared her shoulders and stood tall, as if pulled skyward by an invisible string. Gracie, closer to me, looked cool as a cuke.
“The first runner-up for Miss Chrysanthemum leads us with her cheer-ful disposition,” Principal Chalmers announced. “Congratulations, Miss Thurston-Ann Vickery.”
“Go, go, go, T-Ann,” I yelled, a kind of football chant, which I hoped she’d appreciate.
T-Ann took the stage, and her stomach wasn’t pulled in a bit. Good thing Mrs. Vickery wasn’t here to poke her.
Principal Chalmers tapped the microphone. “Now, for the Miss Chrysanthemum crown. I’m pleased to say it goes to . . . Miss Gracie Eleet, who happens to have gathered more votes than any other third-year on record.”
“Woooooo-hooo,” I hooted while Davis gave a two-fingered whistle. Claudia clapped politely, her shoulders fairly slumped.
First-years distributed the prizes. An acorn crown for T-Ann and a goldish tiara for Gracie, who, of course, glowed.
That was our cue. It was time to vamoose.
I didn’t even wait for Davis, always a gentleman, to open my door.