I flopped down, exhausted, at the dinner table and laid there like a gravy-soaked biscuit. “I need some money.”
Grandmother raised an eyebrow. “More than your allowance?”
“Whatever it costs to get a tattoo lasered off.”
Grandmother raised the other eyebrow. “You have a tattoo?”
“On my shoulder, right exactly where the back of my dress has to come down, and Miss Dinah Mae is having a conniption fit over it.”
“I don’t recall signing any sort of permission form saying that you could get a tattoo.”
“You don’t need one when you have a fake ID.”
“Remind me to search your room for it tomorrow.”
I laughed and dove into the roast beef and mashed potatoes that Charisse had whipped up for us. So much better than boarding school barf-a-roni.
“Other than that, how was your first day?”
Hmm. How was my day? What should I actually tell her? Under normal circumstances, I would go ahead and confess all. Tell her exactly what had happened, that I was in serious Magnolia Maid danger and that Mizz Upton had declared war on me and Brandi Lyn and that I had declared it right back. After all, Grandmother knew every bad thing I had ever done to get kicked out of boarding school. None of this would be news to her. It would seem like just another notch in the old bad-girl bedpost.
But she was so thrilled that I had been selected for the Court, so delighted that I was following in the footsteps of a long list of Fontaine women. No doubt she would be deeply upset if I told her what had happened. She would be on the phone with Mizz Upton, Mr. Walter, the chamber of commerce, the higher echelons of Bienville government, anyone affiliated with the M&M Organization in about two seconds flat demanding to know why I had been treated this way. Did I want to stir up that kind of trouble? Jane B.M.M.—before Magnolia Maids—would have leapt at the opportunity to up the drama quotient. But Jane A.M.M.? I couldn’t do it.
“My day was… well, I decided to take your advice and act sweet. And I made a new friend. Two, actually. And we learned all this cool stuff about the dresses, and the city, and…”
Grandmother cleared her throat and uttered a most suspicious “Hmmph.”
I giggled. “Now Grandmama, what you just did there? Not exactly what I would call a ladylike utterance.”
She shook her head. “What goes on in your own home doesn’t always have to be ladylike. And when one is shocked by the behavior of another, a ‘hmmph’ can be a most appropriate expression.”
“Well, what’s so surprising?”
“You truly managed to avoid making waves today?”
“Maybe I’ve decided to turn over a new boat.” Her eyebrow raised even higher. “No, seriously I have, Grandmama!”
Her eyebrow lowered but the suspicion still played around her lips. “What a lovely turn of events this is, then.”
I continued eating and trying to act like I was the sweetest girl in the world, but her gaze lingered on me until I couldn’t take it anymore. “Okay, okay! It was not that fun! But it’s true I tried to be sweet, and I did make some friends, kind of. But Mizz Upton can’t stand me, and do you have any idea how much work we have to do?”
Grandmama slapped the table with a giggle. “There’s my girl! Oh, you had me scared there for a minute!”
“I have to learn all this history, and we have to plan these lame events, and the dresses! Do you have any idea how much they cost?”
“Don’t you worry about the money, darling.”
“That’s great for me, but Brandi Lyn, she’s freaking. And the girls! There are some serious snobs up in that joint! One in particular.”
I waited for a reprise of Grandmother’s “be sweet” lecture, but to my surprise, she chuckled. “That’s exactly how Cecilia felt.”
“My mother? Really?” My jaw dropped mid-chew, and a piece of roast beef fell out. Talk about manners unbecoming a Magnolia Maid.
“Oh yes. Well, she didn’t word it in quite the unladylike way you did.”
“Sorry.”
“But she considered some of the girls quite snobby. She would come home with the most horrendous stories of bitchery.”
“Wow. I thought Cecilia was all light and perfection.”
“We always think that about our parents. It’s never true. Cecilia behaved herself most of the time, but she nearly gave me a heart attack or two. And she could be quite critical of the organization.”
“Then what in the world did she see in it all?”
Grandmother got a mischievous look in her eye. “After supper, let’s go up to the attic, why don’t we, and I’ll show you.”
Mother’s Magnolia Maid dress was pink. Close to twenty-five years old, it looked as if it had been worn yesterday. Grandmother had stored it on a mannequin made to size and hidden it away in the cedar closet so that pesky moths and color-stealing sunlight couldn’t get to it. Tiny white rosettes trailed around the arms and the bodice, meeting in the V of the sweetheart neckline Miss Dinah Mae had talked up that afternoon. The thing was voluminous—there was enough fabric there to clothe a dozen orphans! Seriously, the skirt trained out six feet behind the dress! It must have billowed beautifully as Mother floated through Boysenthorp Gardens on a sunny June day, twirling her parasol and winking at cute boys.
Suddenly, it dawned on me. “Oh my God. She was the queen, wasn’t she?” I pointed at the long train and the rosettes. We had learned that afternoon that the queen’s dress could be any of the Court’s favored pukey pastel colors, but what distinguished her from the other Maids was the addition of the white rosettes, uh, “magnolia-ettes,” the excessively long train, all-white accessories, and a tiara worn at indoor appearances.
Grandmother nodded and pulled the dress off the stand. “Try it on.”
All I could do was stare and think: that was my mother’s? That thing? It was just so weird to think of her in that dress. To think that she had had a body that fit into it. I know that doesn’t make any sense. Of course she had a body. Of course she had clothes. Duh. But there was something so… mystical about the fact that this had been her dress. And that today I had spent all day getting measured for my own. Somehow it made me feel connected to her.
I slipped out of my tank top and jeans and into the bazillion layers that made up the skirt. When I got the last one on, I could barely move. “Grandmama! This thing weighs a ton!”
“It’s all that taffeta.”
“No wonder those antebellum belles were always fainting and fanning themselves.”
Grandmama buttoned me into the bodice. She led me over to an antique mirror in the corner and we studied the reflection. The dress was just a little bit big for me, especially in the chest, but it was weird. I looked so different. I barely even looked like myself. “This is so crazy! It looks like I stepped out of another era!”
Grandmama nodded. “Cecilia always said she felt like she was wearing history. How she loved to put on that dress and go to her appearances! That girl could talk on and on about the South and Bienville’s place in Gulf Coast history. You know, she met your father in this dress.”
“She did?! How come I never knew that?”
She shrugged, puzzled. “I guess with everything that happened, it’s just a story we forgot to tell you.”
I leaned into the sound of Grandmother’s voice as she recounted how it had happened. Bienville was hosting a shipping convention that year, and hundreds of ships had come in from around the world. The Maids were playing hostess down at the wharves, when the man who is my father arrived from Greece with his father. The Ventouras family was huge in the international shipping industry. They had tankers and barges all over the planet, and they had come to Bienville in search of the next big oceangoing vessel. The minute he met my mother, though, my twenty-one-year-old father lost all interest in ship buying and fell madly in love.
“Your mother, she had lots of boys calling around the house all the time, but she loved this Cosmo from the moment they met. He came over to the house every afternoon for a week to court her. I was entirely against it, of course.”
“Really? Why?”
“They were so young and he was going home to Greece in a few days and I just didn’t want her to get her heart broken. Of course, the fact that he wasn’t American, and even worse, not Southern, quite upset your grandfather.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet, Grandmama. Looking out for your daughter.”
Grandmother laughed. “She didn’t listen to a word I said. Every night she snuck out the window and met him down at the Dew Drop Inn.”
My jaw dropped again. “Okay, now you’re saying she was a rebel? Like me?”
“Well, she was in love, honey! They carried on the entire time he was in town. After he left, they became pen pals.”
“What’s that?”
“Back in the days before e-mail and FaceSpace and all that, people used to write letters by hand and send them in the mail.”
“Oh, yeah, those things you put stamps on. I’ve heard about those.”
Grandmother studied me in the dress and sighed. “Most days I think you don’t look a bit like her, but now…” A tear formed in the corner of her eye. “Just think. If Cecilia hadn’t worn this dress, she never would have met your father and they never would have married, and you never would have ended up here with me today. My darling girl.”
Shoot, I even wiped away a tear at that.
We both studied me and the dress in the mirror. “Would you like to wear it? As your Magnolia Maid dress?” she finally asked.
I stood there, dumbfounded for a moment, then quickly shimmied the bodice off my shoulder. “No, ma’am. No, thank you. Too many ghosts.”
Oh, Sweet Jesus and Junipers! I just realized: the first time I see Luke Churchville, I MIGHT BE WEARING A MAGNOLIA MAID DRESS.
HORRORS!!!!!!