Kitty B. teeters at the top of the stairwell wondering what her middle daughter would be like or who she would marry if she had lived to be twenty-five like Little Hilda and Priscilla. They were all the same age, you know? Born within a four-month span of one another. The three watermelon seeds.
In Kitty B.’s daydreams Baby Roberta is a younger version of herself. How she looked and felt as a teenager, stealing melons with the pack or chasing after her older brothers down Third Street when they stole her hat or her report card or the notes carefully folded in her back pocket that she and Ray would slip back and forth during Mr. Unger’s biology class.
It’s strange that she misses the young woman her baby might have become. She wonders if when she is elderly and the gals’ daughters become middle-aged, if she’ll yearn for the midlife version of her child, if she’ll imagine what particular way Baby Roberta would have taken her arm and led her out of the nursing home and into the noonday sun for a lunch at Opal Dowdy’s or an appointment with Angus.
Suddenly aware of the wide crease forming between her hips, Kitty B. turns to examine her turquoise linen dress suit in the hall mirror at the top of the stairs. She weighed in at one hundred and ninety pounds last month at the doctor’s office, and she’s not sure she can even sit down in the suit this year without it ripping open. She frowns at her wide hips and the gray in her long, stringy hair. She didn’t have time to get the newfangled Spanx that both Hilda and Ray promised would suck it all in, and her girdle is so old that it is literally crumbling at the ends, leaving a trail of synthetic threads from her closet to the top of the stairs.
She suspects she won’t be able to squeeze into her mama’s sea-foam beaded gown that she’d planned to wear to Little Hilda’s wedding, so she’ll have to find a few hours to go to the plus-size shop outside of Charleston where the made-up fat ladies with their brightly painted nails come at her like a swarm of provoked wasps, piercing her skin with their questions, “Size sixteen, ma’am?”
She used to be a size eight, and she even went down to a six right after she had her firstborn, Cricket. But when she lost Baby Roberta at three months old, cooking was the only way to calm her nerves, and it was the one thing she seemed to have a knack for in the domestic realm. So she baked and sampled along the way and woke up one day to find a size sixteen staring back at her in the mirror.
One time when her youngest, Katie Rae, was in high school, she heard one of her school friends, Betsy Burnett, say, “I didn’t know your mama was expecting.”
“She’s not,” Katie Rae said.
Betsy Burnett blushed and covered her mouth. “Oh,” she chuckled, nervously.
Now Kitty B. wobbles down the stairs, and there is a problem with one of her bone-colored Ferragamos too. One of the bows is catiwompas, busted by Honey’s paw one Sunday a few months back when she arrived home from church with the parish hall leftovers—a bowl of red rice and a Ziploc bag of poppy seed muffins. The Ferragamos are actually hand-me-downs from her mama. She inherited Roberta’s whole closet, but it’s too bad she can’t squeeze herself into half of those beautiful clothes anymore. Heavens, her mama could dress! Roberta Hathaway was as regal as they came in Jasper, with her tailored suits and the fine Italian pumps she bought during her shopping trips down King Street in Charleston.
“I’m going,” Kitty B. calls to LeMar, who is slumped under the covers in the room across the hall from hers. They haven’t slept in the same room for over a decade now, and sometimes Kitty B. feels as though LeMar is more like a cantankerous older brother than a spouse. She hears the strain of the springs as he rolls over in the bed and yawns. “The coffeepot’s on and there are some slices of toasted banana bread on top of the stove.”
He moans and clears his throat, and from Kitty B.’s angle all she can see of his room is the eyelet curtains filling out like hoop skirts as the island breeze pushes through the window.
LeMar’s room smells like medicine and metal and urine, and it takes all she can muster to go in there each day, pat his soft, wide back, and say, “Time to wake up.”
Well, she’s not even going to bother right now. She’s been up all night making petits fours and lemon squares to replace the ones lost in Ray’s collision, and if LeMar wants to lie in bed till noon and feel sorry for himself all day, so be it.
Thank God Ray is okay. Kitty B. just doesn’t know if Little Hilda could get married without Ray at the helm of it all. If anything ever happens to her, the gals and everybody in their pack for that matter just might implode like an undercooked soufflé or a pound cake short of an egg.
In the kitchen Kitty B. stacks the five Tupperware containers of sweets as a large palmetto bug crawls out from behind her sugar jar and scoots across the countertop. She slips off the Ferragamo with the catiwompas bow and takes one swat at him, but he scurries toward the oven and escapes in a crack between the stove and the cabinet. She leans over and checks the rat trap beside the refrigerator. She catches a river rat in there every few weeks, but she doesn’t dare tell the gals about that. They might not even eat her good food.
She’s in a hurry to get these sweets in the air-conditioned car so they won’t lose their shape in the midday August heat. With the containers stacked up to her chin, Kitty B. nearly trips over Katie Rae, who giggles uncharacteristically on the porch steps with the cordless phone stuck to her ear.
“Don’t be late,” Kitty B. whispers as the dogs run up and lick her knees, their wet noses leaving streaks of slobber across her snug linen skirt.
Katie Rae nods and waves her away. “Oh, I’ve got this thing later today,” she says into the receiver. “It’s where you go and gawk at all of the wedding gifts and ooh and ahhh over them. Rather obnoxious, if you ask me.”
Before Kitty B. has to shoo away the dogs, they catch the scent of the next-door neighbor’s goat that bleats at them through the rotting wooden gate. In a flash, the canines tear off to sniff through the white picket slats where the paint is peeling off the soft wood in jagged strips.
Oh well. Kitty B. looks back at her weathered home with its mold between the clapboards and its peeling paint and the muddy paw prints along the porch. There is a spot halfway down the screened door where Honey scratches and scratches until someone lets her in on cold nights, and there is a crack in the attic window where a magnolia limb fell onto the roof during a tropical storm last October.
As she pulls out of the driveway in the Lincoln Continental that used to belong to her mama, she looks up to LeMar’s window to see Mr. Whiskers leap from the roof through the parting curtains.
“Scat!” LeMar’s voice is so deep that she can hear him through the sealed car window and the blasting air conditioner that cools the melting makeup on her face. “Kitty B.! Get this cat out of here!”
Katie Rae puts a finger to her other ear and walks out to the dock to continue her conversation with the first real boyfriend they think she’s ever had, and Kitty B. waves to no one as she turns the nose of the Lincoln toward the dirt road that leads to Jasper, leaving a swirl of dead oak leaves and one disgruntled husband in her wake.
“Thank God for you, Kitty B.!” Ray says, greeting her at the door before striking an Ava Gardner–like pose. “Now don’t I look like death warmed over?”
Ray’s deep purple eye, coated profusely in concealer and powder, can’t be hidden. Kitty B. gawks at it. Beneath the eye, a stitched-up gash traces Ray’s cheekbone in an awful blackish crimson.
“Are you all right?” Kitty B. bites her lip and cringes.
“It could have been a lot worse,” Ray says. “That air bag saved my eye, the doctor said. And Willy just happened along the same road right behind me. I didn’t wake up until I was in the Ravenel Hospital. They checked me out all over and sent me home around three in the morning.”
“Oh, Ray.” Kitty B. shakes her head in disbelief. “It could have been terrible.”
“It was—for the buck,” Richadene calls over her shoulder as she opens one of Kitty B.’s Tupperware lids and starts placing the iced petits fours on a tiered silver platter by the kitchen sink.
“How did it happen?”
“I can’t really say,” Ray says. “I was just driving home, daydreaming, I suppose, and the next thing I knew this enormous buck was striking a pose in front of me.”
Cousin Willy pops his head in from the back garden. “Biggest one I’ve seen in years—over two hundred pounds. Bent the hood of the station wagon like an accordion.” He walks over to Ray and pats her shoulder. “Now take it easy today.” He examines her gash and gives her a kiss on the forehead.
“I will,” Ray says. “Now go on. You know tea parties aren’t your thing.”
“Only you, Kitty B.,” Sis says from the living room where she is pouring sugar into the china bowls at the tea stations, “could pull off making four dozen petits fours twelve hours before a tea.”
Sis looks so fresh in her black linen pants and pink satin blouse with the mandarin neck. Kitty B. notices her newfangled sliders—what does Cricket call them? Mules? They have a sharp pointed toe, too narrow for an actual toe to fit, and a pencil-thin heel. Sis looks as though it could be her wedding gifts the gals will see while sipping tea, as if she has a whole exciting life ahead of her.
“Look at your shoe, Kitty B.!” Ray points at the dirt-smudged ribbon that dangles by a thread from the top of her foot.
Kitty B. looks down at the shoe and tugs at her skirt in hopes that they won’t notice how tight it is, but the crease pops right back, and she walks toward the utility closet. “Got any superglue?”
“Oh, no, that will ruin the shoe.” Ray firmly shakes her head. “You need to take it to Floride—she’ll sew it on properly for you.” “Oh, Ray, I don’t care about that.”
“Me neither,” Sis giggles. “I use a glue gun to put my buttons back on all the time, and do you see this spot right here?” She points to a moth hole in her black pants. “I just took a sharpie pen and dotted it so my skin looked black underneath right there.”
“You shouldn’t tell things like that, Sis,” Ray says.
“Loosen up, Mom.” Priscilla strolls through the kitchen in nothing but boxers and a black T-shirt that reads, “W” and in small letters below it, “IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT.” Kitty B. wonders what in the world that means.
Priscilla’s hair has these kind of thick, knotted ropes that remind Kitty B. of oversized cocoons or the tubular hornets’ nests on the back of her house. Ray says they are dreadlocks, and she hates them to death.
“Hi, Priscilla,” Sis says with her arms outstretched, and Kitty B. follows behind her to give her best friend’s daughter a hug.
Priscilla smells like incense and body odor, like the hippie ladies that sell their crudely sewn dolls in the outdoor market in Charleston. When Kitty B. and Priscilla’s necks lock, Kitty B. squeezes her tight, and she can feel her sharp little shoulder blades jutting out between her fingers like angel wings. Then Kitty B. wells up with her usual child-sickness, relieved that it is happening now before the bride arrives.
Sis pats Kitty B.’s back and Ray hands her a Kleenex. They know what this is about, and Kitty B. is thankful that they don’t pay her much attention.
“Pris, have you showered yet?” Ray says.
Priscilla sniffs under her thin arms and crinkles her nose.
Ray presses at the black around her eye and winces. “The Hildas will be here in less than thirty minutes and the guests in less than an hour, honey.”
Priscilla tugs at the back of her dreadlocks. She raises one eyebrow and says, “Tell me there’s a halfway decent coffeehouse in Jasper by now.”
“Coffee!” Ray’s long, thin hands curl into two bony fists behind her back. “I’ve got coffee in the pot! Now grab a cup and get ready! You’re the maid of honor, for heaven’s sake!”
Priscilla wipes her nose on her T-shirt, and Kitty B. notices that she has some kind of small, silver hoop earring through her belly button. Ouch! You’d have to hog-tie me to get that close to my belly with a needle.
Priscilla walks over toward the coffeepot, which she lifts up and sniffs before pouring the contents out into the sink.
“Well, let’s get to work, ladies.” Ray turns back to the gals. “Sis, you put the final touches on the tea service, and Kitty B., can you pour the ginger ale in the fruit punch and stack the crystal cups around it?”
Priscilla scratches a blemish on her chin as she stares into the refrigerator, and Ray heads toward her and leans in close. Kitty B. can’t make out what Ray says to her, but in a few moments, the young woman walks slowly up the stairs toward her room.
Ray points to the portrait in her dining room of Priscilla at five, in a pale peach smocked Easter dress carrying a bundle of daffodils from the backyard for the flowering of the cross at All Saints Episcopal Church. Kitty B. notices the dimples around the knuckles of the child’s soft, round hands as Ray says, “Where did that sweet girl disappear to?”
Ray has outdone herself for the Tea and See. The floral centerpiece is so sweet and airy with the English garden roses and the pale green hydrangea, and there are similar arrangements in silver bowls and teapots and mint julep glasses in every little open space throughout the whole downstairs. The fireplaces are stuffed with fresh-cut magnolia limbs, and a large white bloom punctuates the center of each.
“Look at all the gifts!” Kitty B. says, clapping her hands together. Little Hilda has received some gorgeous things. Probably on account of the fact that her father has been the doctor to everyone in the whole town for decades now. Angus has delivered every baby of Little Hilda’s generation and beyond and set a countless number of child-sized broken arms for which he always writes a prescription for “ice cream on demand.” He’s helped each one of their parents through the aging and dying process. And now he’s rescuing all the middle-aged women by dispensing hormones in record numbers as his gals endure the big change.
The gifts are elegantly displayed on glass shelves throughout the living and dining rooms. Complete place settings of all three of Little Hilda’s china patterns, plus her silver and crystal pieces, are arranged on an antique card table in the center of the side piazza. Below each plate is a white linen place mat that Ray bought with Willy during their trip to Ireland last April.
The food is presented on the finest compilation of their silver trays and bowls. It’s as delicate as the floral arrangements and includes Kitty B.’s petits fours and lemon squares as well as Sis’s shrimp salad and cucumber sandwiches and Ray’s cheese straws, praline pecans, and fruit kabobs dipped in white and dark chocolate.
The tea stations at both ends of the dining room table are comprised of pots, creams, sugars as well as cups and saucers from the Mottahedeh china that they each received for their wedding presents, and the punch station has crystal cups that Ray bought at an estate auction in Walterboro. Kitty B.’s Mottahedeh pattern is “Duke of Gloucester,” Ray’s is “Blue Canton,” and Hilda’s is “Tobacco Leaf,” on account of her mama’s Virginia plantation ancestry.
Sis handles the mint julep and iced tea station, where the enormous collection of silver mint julep glasses and goblets that she inherited from her father’s mother is set up on the antique sideboard along with lemons and fresh mint and delicate linen napkins with her grandmother’s monogram.
“Don’t you love how the silver goblets fog up when they’re filled with ice?” Kitty B. asks no one in particular. She tugs at her skirt, glances toward the front door, and sees that Miss C. is back in business less than twenty-four hours after the wreck.
“Cousin Willy and Justin superglued Miss C.’s arm on sometime in the wee hours,” Sis says.
Kitty B. walks over to the foyer to examine the statue closely. The sleeves on her pink dress cover the crack. A mini pomander of pale green hydrangea, a smaller version of the one made for the bride, dangles from Miss C.’s concrete wrist by a white satin ribbon.
“Martha Stewart doesn’t have a thing on us!” Kitty B. says.
Ray winks at Kitty B. and beams with pride, despite the strain on her gash, as she hands Kitty B. a corsage that includes a rose, a piece of a hydrangea, and three sprigs of lavender sweet pea.
She hands her a stick pin. “Put it on.”
“Me?” Kitty B. says.
“Of course,” Ray says, pointing to Sis, who is pinning hers on in the hall mirror.
“One for every hostess.”
“Mama would be so proud,” Kitty B. says, and in her mind’s eye she sees Roberta nudging God on the elbow and pointing down at the gals. “Now how’s that for southern hospitality, Lord?”
When the doorbell rings, Kitty B. opens it to find the petite and beautiful Little Hilda standing in its center in a strapless pale pink and white seersucker dress. She’s wearing the elegant strand of pearls they helped Hilda pick out at Croghan’s in Charleston for her debutante ball four short years ago. Little Hilda is so lovely and delicate that she takes Kitty B.’s breath away.
“Hi, Miss Kitty B.,” Little Hilda says as Kitty B. stares into her face, unable to utter a word.
“Don’t you look lovely,” Ray interjects, sliding the pomander of pale green hydrangea onto Little Hilda’s minute wrist.
“Thank y’all so much,” she says, looking to each of the gals. “Especially you, Miss Ray, for hosting this and for putting everything together.” Then she tucks a loose strand of blond hair behind her ear and blushes. “Mama’s running late.”
Sis swats the air, “That’s okay, honey. We know your mama very well, and we wouldn’t expect it any other way.”
Little Hilda grins before whispering, “Did y’all know that she still sits in a hot tub for an hour after putting on her makeup for it to ‘soak in’?”
“No, not the Princess of Jasper?” Ray says cutting her eyes at Sis. “I can’t imagine her spending more than, say, a half hour letting her makeup soak in.”
They laugh at Hilda’s expense.
“Well, there must be something to her lengthy grooming procedures,” Kitty B. says, patting Little Hilda on the back, “because she’s always the most gorgeous person in the room.”
“Besides the bride,” Sis says, hugging Little Hilda tight. “We’re so happy for you, sweetheart.”
Kitty B. tears up again, and Little Hilda reaches out to squeeze her hand. She’s probably the most sensitive one out of all of their children, which surprises the socks off Kitty B., considering she was reared by the self-centered daughter of the dictator of Jasper.
“It’s okay,” Little Hilda says to Kitty B. as she dabs her eye with one of Sis’s linen napkins. “I understand.”
Next Cricket and Katie Rae arrive, and Kitty B. is delighted to see that Katie Rae found a skirt, not to mention a little lipstick. Those boys that she’s meeting on the computer have got her primping for the first time ever. Kitty B. doesn’t care what people say about the evils of the Internet, she’s thanking the good Lord for online dating services!
“Hi girls,” Kitty B. says. “Don’t y’all look nice.”
Truth is, Cricket is the only one in the Blalock clan to have gotten her act together. She married one of the McFortson boys of the large and successful McFortson Funeral Home business that has locations up and down the South Carolina coastline. She even works there part-time while she and Tommy try to start a family. Cricket’s dressed in a sleeveless, teal linen dress that looks like one of her tailored Talbots, size-four specials with a tasteful gold slider necklace that has an octagonal medallion charm with her monogram dangling just below the center of her neckline.
Cricket is in good shape and well-proportioned with a short hairdo that always looks freshly cut and in place, and sometimes she seems so together that she makes Kitty B. uncomfortable. Like maybe Cricket should be the mother and Kitty B. should be the daughter so that she could rear her up with the kind of order and organization that Kitty B. has never been able to muster.
“We came in a hearse, Mama,” Katie Rae snickers, and Kitty B. notices a piece of pepper or spinach lodged in between her daughter’s front teeth.
Katie Rae turns and points to the street, where sure enough there is a long black hearse parked in front of Kitty B.’s brother Jackson’s house. “To carry the wedding gown.”
“Of course,” Kitty B. says. That is Cricket’s role to play in the wedding—to pick up the wedding gown from the cleaners and carry it in the hearse, so it has plenty of room to lie flat, to the church dressing room.
Cricket clears her throat. “Check your teeth in the powder room,” she whispers to Katie Rae, who covers her mouth and scurries into Ray’s half bath beneath the stairwell.
“Good to see you, Mama,” Cricket looks her mother up and down. “What happened to your Ferragamo?”
“Oh,” Kitty B. says, patting her on the back as if to console her. “It broke on the way over. I’ll get it fixed next week.”
Cricket pulls a roll of double-sided tape out of her little square teal purse, then leads Kitty B. by the elbow to the corner of the dining room, where she kneels down and tapes the bow back on her mother’s shoe.
“That’ll hold it for now,” Cricket says, standing up and shaking her head gently as her do settles back into place. She smiles at Kitty B. and pats her forearm. “You okay, Mama?”
“Yes.” Kitty B. nods. “Now go over and greet the bride.”
When Trudi Crenshaw, Angus’s girlfriend who claims to be his fiancée, arrives before Hilda with her plump twelve-year-old daughter Dodi, the junior bridesmaid, in tow, they are all a little uneasy. Little Hilda greets them merrily, and Ray directs them to the fruit punch, and before you know it, half the women in town are making their way through the foyer. There’s Mayor’s wife, Tootsie Whaley, and Missy Meggett and the ladies who make up the garden club and Junior League of Jasper.
When Sis’s mother and the rest of the older ladies arrive on a bus from the Episcopal retirement home on Seabrook Island, Ray runs out to greet them and help them down one by one, making sure their canes and walkers are on firm footing on her new slate walkway.
Some of them eye the hearse with concern, and Ray pats their hands and says, “It’s for the wedding gown. Cricket’s picking it up from the cleaners this afternoon.”
Then Vangie Dreggs and her sister-in-law pull into the middle of the front yard in a golf cart as if they are on a putting green or in the small confines of an exclusive island resort. They come in with a bang, laughing and hooting and making their introductions.
Now Kitty B. notices Hilda’s long white Mercedes as it creeps quietly up into the driveway. From the kitchen she sees Hilda check her makeup twice in the rearview mirror before slipping in through the back door in her cream silk pantsuit.
“Hi, gal,” Kitty B. says, pinning the corsage on her and lying, “You haven’t missed a thing.”
“I’m sorry I’m late.” Hilda fans herself with her hands.
“You look lovely,” Kitty B. soothes as she rubs her friend’s back.
“Thanks, darling.” Hilda straightens her posture before she enters the dining room to greet everyone with a painted smile.
Kitty B. takes her place at one end of the dining room table, where she mans the Earl Grey tea station. Before she knows it, a line of tea drinkers forms, and she pours cup after cup of tea as the familiar buzz of feminine chatter swells up and falls away over and over like the waves on a choppy day at the mouth of the Edisto River.
The older ladies cluck over the gifts, and the young girls form a circle around Little Hilda, who blushes and shows her engagement ring, an antique-set princess cut that belonged to Giuseppe’s great-grandmother who is buried in the Tuscan village of Trassilico that crowns one of the mountaintops they will visit on their honeymoon next week.
“How much do you want for the whole house, Ray, furniture and all?” Kitty B. hears Vangie Dreggs say, half joking. She points to her sister-in-law, who’s visiting from Houston. “Deanna says she’ll give you a million-two for the whole kit and caboodle.”
“Oh my,” Ray says, straightening out her powder blue linen top. “Well, I appreciate your interest, I suppose”—she nods to Deanna—“but our home is not for sale.”
“Of course it isn’t.” Vangie squints her faux emerald eyes. “I was just pulling your leg.”
Ray laughs nervously and catches Kitty B.’s eye from across the room. I told you so!
Thing is, Kitty B. was the one who convinced the gals to invite Vangie to the Tea and See. Vangie has volunteered to do so much for the wedding that Kitty B. just felt they had to. After all, the “Lone Star” is putting up Giuseppe’s entire family in her newest block of furnished apartments between here and Beaufort, and she managed to get a suite donated for Senator Warren, Giuseppe’s boss, at the newfangled five-star Sanctuary on Kiawah as well as the honeymoon suite for Giuseppe and Little Hilda on their wedding night.
But the look on Ray’s face tells Kitty B. that Ray thinks she was dead wrong in insisting.
~ JULY 7, 2005, ONE MONTH EARLIER ~
“You do have Vangie on the guest list for all of the Prescott parties, don’t you?” Kitty B. asked Ray while they’d picked out the wedding tent from Thomason Rental.
“Don’t be so naive,” Ray said. “Can’t you see that Vangie’s just trying to buy her way into our town?”
“I don’t think that’s true.” Kitty B. shook her head and turned to Ray. “She’s gone out of her way to be helpful. You have to admit that.”
Ray rolled her eyes.
Then Kitty B. blurted out, “You were new here once, too, remember?”
Ray’s eyes narrowed as if Kitty B. had accused her of committing a crime. “That was thirty years ago.”
Within seconds Ray pointed to the tent that she wanted for the wedding without so much as asking Kitty B.’s opinion and turned to face her.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Just as Kitty B. nods to Ray, who summons her to a talk in the kitchen, Little Hilda comes over with a frosted glass of mint julep and says in a hushed tone, “Miss Ray, have I told you about Giuseppe’s friend Donovan?”
“No, honey,” she says.
“Well,” she says, her cheeks flushed from all of the excitement. “He’s from New Jersey and he worked on Senator Warren’s campaign a few years ago, and now he’s a medical resident at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Anyway, he wants to be introduced to a nice southern girl, so I’m trying to persuade Priscilla to look after him this weekend!”
“Oh, that’s a fine idea,” Ray says and Kitty B. can see her tension over Vangie fading. Ray is no fool. A liberal Yankee is not ideal, but she would certainly take a nice doctor any day of the week over Poop 2.
With Ray diverted, Kitty B. ambles over to chat with Sis’s mama and some of the other older ladies who were Roberta’s friends. They all want a report on LeMar’s health, and they are already organizing a time to bring over a casserole dinner next week. Just when she thinks her mama’s gals are grinding to a halt on account of old age and death itself, Kitty B. learns that they still have a little more gas in the tank—what a pleasant surprise!
Then Sis comes over, pats Kitty B.’s elbow, and says, “Hilda’s simply not acknowledging Trudi Crenshaw’s presence whatsoever.”
“What’s Trudi doing?” Kitty B. asks.
“Well, go see for yourself and report back to me,” she says. “I’ve been staring at both of them too much.”
So Kitty B. grabs a cup of tea and checks out the situation. Trudi seems to be avoiding Hilda like the plague, making a point of scurrying into another room whenever Hilda changes places.
Now some of the guests are picking up the gifts and looking on the bottom of them to note the manufacturer or the pattern. This isn’t the most mannerly thing to do, but one can understand since they are on display. Trudi follows their lead, noting to her daughter the names beneath the china and the crystal. But then, in a nervous frenzy, Trudi goes from picking up the gifts on display to picking up the knickknacks and doodads from the shelves and end tables all over Ray’s home. Now, that’s just not something you do.
Then Vangie Dreggs and her sister-in-law, curious as ever, are right behind Trudi, peering over her shoulder to see. Kitty B. knows that even the Lone Star pain in Ray’s behind knows better than to do this, but, by golly, she’s not going to miss the opportunity to snoop.
This goes on for about fifteen minutes—Trudi picking up antique plates and picture frames and books as Kitty B. watches in astonishment, sipping her tea and nibbling on a lemon square.
Suddenly, Hilda walks over to Trudi, who is studying the bottom of a small antique wooden box from Ray’s great-aunt Nell Pringle, and says plainly, “The whole house is not on display.”
Then Hilda grabs the box, turns it right side up, and continues, “Let’s mind our manners,” before she places it back on the bookshelf where it belongs.
“Oh my,” Vangie says, with her hand over her thick painted lips. She turns back to her sister-in-law, who nods in acknowledgment, as though she is up to speed on all of the Jasper drama.
Kitty B. eyes Sis as the whole party seems to stop and stare. Then Ray steps in. “Oh, don’t give it a second thought, Trudi. I’m honored that you’re admiring that piece. It belonged to a dear old aunt of mine from Charleston.”
But Ray is too late. Trudi’s eyes fill with tears before she scuttles out the front door, her hefty daughter Dodi chasing after her.
“Mama!” Little Hilda runs over. “That was awful!” The little bride slings the pomander off her arm and runs after Trudi. The ball of hydrangeas lands on the Oriental rug in Ray’s living room, where it rolls beneath the coffee table, leaving a small trail of flowers.
Hilda looks up and around at everyone. A few throats clear before she says through clenched teeth, “Thank you so much, Ray and Kitty B. and Sis. This has been lovely.” Then she walks through the kitchen and slams the back door.
The gals look around at one another, wondering why in the world she’s mad at them, and the guests clear out faster than you can say, “Boo!”