“ORPHANS?”
Janice and I sat at the kitchen table discussing our progress with the ball when my sister-in-law announced her latest brainchild.
“Yes, orphans,” she said. “They are exactly what we need at the Hundredth Annual Willow Creek Symphony Association Debutante Ball.”
I stared at Janice in all her relic hippie earth-mother organic wear and could hardly believe my ears, me, the woman who was not all that crazy about deb balls, me, the person who was all about proving I wasn’t a piece of fluff like my mother and sister.
“Are you out of your mind?” I bleated.
Yes, me, cool, calm, collected attorney who never ever bleats.
I took a deep breath. In my defense, I would like to say that we had already been at this planning session for the better part of the morning. I’d been through more coffee than was good for a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound man, much less me. I had a buzz that made my nerve endings scream and I had a craving to do violence. “What do orphans have to do with debutante balls?”
“Nothing. Which is the point I have been trying to make for the last hour. Deb balls are worthless.”
“Soooo, by bringing orphans to the event it makes them… somehow… worthy? What are you going to do, bring them along so they can watch? Dress them up in white too? Have them serve as pages? Rub in their faces what they don’t have?”
Janice considered, a pencil tapping on her jaw. “Okay, so orphans aren’t such a great idea. Even I can’t figure out a good way to tie them into the event.”
She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing, then said, “I got it!”
Great.
“We’ll have each deb wear a sash—”
“Like a Miss America sash?”
“Yeah”—said with a snicker and a sneer—“but instead of listing each state, our sashes will list topics of human rights.”
I went back to staring.
Clearly taking my mute state as encouragement, she got into her plan. “One girl will wear ‘Slaves.’ Another, ‘Suffrage.’ We can have ‘Poverty,’ ‘Homelessness.’ You get the point.”
“At the risk of being repetitive, Are you out of your mind?”
Janice considered some more. “Too much?”
A “yes” bubbled up and burst out along with a scoff.
“Okay, how about this,” she said. “Each girl stands for a pillar of good. ‘Work,’ ‘Children’—”
“Janice, you are… not making sense. This is a debutante ball we’re putting on. Remember? Not an activist rally. We are trying to raise money to support the symphony. Not run off the support.”
“Err. This whole notion of parading girls to raise money is archaic. I dream about it. I have nightmares about Susan Sontag and Betty Friedan condemning me.”
I didn’t mention that both women were dead, and even if they weren’t, a debutante ball in Willow Creek, Texas, probably wouldn’t rate high on their scale of Things in Desperate Need of Their Attention.
“Listen,” I said. “No one is going to condemn you… unless this turns into a bigger disaster than last year’s event. Then your nightmares will be justified.” For all of us, but I held that back. “So let’s put our brains together and make this work. To do that, even I know we have to adhere to a strict set of rules established by one hundred years of tradition.”
Janice looked irritated. “Yeah, rules that caused me no end of grief while I was growing up here.”
It was the first time ever I had a hint that Janice wasn’t all that thrilled that her father made it big selling nuts, bolts, and metal stuff and she wasn’t of the “society” crowd.
“Don’t give me that pity look,” she snipped. “I was perfectly fine growing up as I did. My past is what got me where I am today. It made me tough and a fighter. I didn’t want to be a part of that snobby crowd, but if I diss them, it reeks of sour grapes. If you or anyone else in the crowd disses them, it sounds like you’re above it all. I know the difference.”
What could I possibly say to that? True? No wonder you won the Pulitzer?
Thankfully, the back door banged open, then footsteps hurried through the mudroom until Savannah burst into the kitchen wearing a raincoat and Jackie O sunglasses despite the muggy and overcast day.
She looked around. “Is anyone else here?” she whispered.
“Just us,” I said.
Her eyes went wide. “I’m pregnant!” she announced, tossing her keys and purse on the counter.
Never a dull moment at Wainwright House.
“Pregnant?” I asked.
Janice looked equal parts smug and doubtful.
In case you’re keeping track of the timeline, it was barely over a week since the big inappropriate scene at the Willow Creek Country Club. Not that I know a lot about being pregnant (as in nothing) but I couldn’t imagine anyone would know so quickly.
“You don’t believe me,” she said, smiling like a Cheshire cat. “Look at this!”
She whipped off her sunglasses and raincoat to reveal pink flannel pajamas and pink Keds. She tossed the coat aside and rummaged in her oversized purse, producing a plastic Walgreens bag. After an excited look at us, she whipped out a pregnancy kit. “Voilà!”
“But it’s still in plastic. Not to be dense, but I’m not getting how this proves you’re pregnant.”
Savannah headed out of the kitchen. “It won’t be in the plastic for long. I’m about to prove I’m with child.”
Janice looked at me, then at Savannah’s retreating back, before she jumped up. “This I’ve got to see.”
Well, what was I supposed to do? Sit there?
I leaped up and followed them.
We hurried upstairs like ducks in a row, racing into my sister and her husband’s bedroom suite of tastefully neutral colors, fine fabrics, and magazine-perfect flowers. But when Janice and I got to the bathroom, Savannah slammed the door in our faces.
We looked at each other and shrugged, then started to pace.
“Hurry up in there,” Janice called out.
“I’m peeing as fast as I can!”
Finally, we heard the flush, then seconds more passed before the door opened. Savannah’s face was white.
“What is it?” Janice asked, her brow furrowed.
Savannah pointed and we saw the stick sitting on the marble counter. “I can’t look.”
Janice marched in, I followed, and she and I circled around the stick like scientists observing a lab experiment. My sister hung back.
“What does it say?” she asked.
“Nothing yet. It takes two minutes,” Janice explained.
Then Savannah surprised me when she rushed forward and took both of our hands. “Wish me luck,” she whispered.
My sister, vulnerable? No way. Regardless, my heart suddenly started racing as we watched that stick.
Like magic, two pink lines appeared on the early pregnancy test.
“I knew it!” she shrieked. “Janice, you’re a miracle worker! All it took was seducing my husband and the next thing I know I’m pregnant!”
“What’s all the noise about?”
My mother stood in the doorway, wearing another lingerie set.
“Mother, I’m pregnant! Isn’t it marvelous?”
Our mother appeared perplexed.
Seconds later, Ben walked into the room behind my mother, dressed in what even I knew was his usual attire of blue blazer, white shirt, striped tie, and khaki slacks. He even wore horn-rimmed glasses, and if he hadn’t had a distinct Texas drawl he could have passed for a preppy Northeasterner.
“What’s going on?” he asked, his sandy hair falling forward.
Before my sister could tell her husband the news, my mother said, “Your wife is pregnant.”
Silence.
“Mother!” Savannah whined. “That’s my job.”
Ben stood stock-still, then sighed and raked his hair back. “But, Savannah, sweetheart, the doctor said—”
“Pooh on the doctors.” She sniffed. “I’m pregnant and this time I know it will work.”
“This time?” Janice asked. “Have there been problems before?”
Savannah stamped her foot. “Everyone stop this instant! Stop being sticks in the mud.” Her bottom lip trembled, then suddenly she smiled wide and clasped her hands. “Did you see that? Mood swings. I’m having mood swings. This is wonderful. Every baby book I’ve read said that mood swings are a sign of great surging hormones. See, it’s going to be fine. My moods are all over the place! And morning sickness. I was sick all morning long!”
Ben didn’t look so convinced. “But we talked about adoption.”
Back went the mood, and if indeed swings were a sign that all was well, Savannah was on the way to having the healthiest baby ever born in the state of Texas.
I was having a mood swing of my own, from coffee buzz to concern, elation, then back to a concern I couldn’t quite get my head around.
“Just stop it, Ben,” Savannah said.
Tears started to well up and he relented. The man my sister swore was perfect for her stepped forward and took his wife in his arms. “Don’t cry,” he said.
My mother shook her head and left the room.
“You’re right, it’s going to be great.” Ben said the words with a firm nod, then suddenly he smiled. “You’re right,” he repeated, ease coming into his voice. “It is going to be great.”
She stayed in his arms for a second, and you could see a visible easing. Then she sprang away. “Oh, my gosh! I have so much to do. The nursery to decorate, names to choose…”
My cell phone rang, and thankful for any diversion, I flipped it open. “Carlisle Cushing,” I said without bothering to look at the number.
“Carlisle, listen.” I knew right away it was Phillip. “Morton Bagwell thinks his wife is cheating on him. But he hasn’t been able to prove it.”
This was Divorce Law 101. “He needs a PI to tail her.”
“He did. But they came up empty-handed.”
“Who’d he use?”
“Trotter.”
“No wonder. Trotter is worthless.”
“He’s the best in town.”
“Yeah, if you want Internet searches, credit reports, county records, the easy stuff. But when he tails people, they know it.”
“No way.”
“Yes, way. He’s a six-foot-four-inch Russian. He stands out, Phillip.”
My fiancé grumbled. “Fine. Then who should I tell Morton to use?”
“Becky Mumps.”
“That airhead?”
“She is not an airhead.”
He scoffed.
“Fine. Keep using Trotter. But I’m telling you, Becky is the best. She blends in, and even if people notice her they forget her the next second. She doesn’t look like someone who’d be tailing you.”
I heard Phillip tapping his pencil on his desk. “Okay. What’s her number.”
I reeled off the number by heart. “Tell her I told you to call.”
Another pause.
“I miss you,” he said.
Instantly I felt the ease. “I miss you too,” I said. “Has your big case started?”
“Not yet. Let me come down. Meet your mother. Charm her.” I could tell he smiled.
“Right now isn’t a good time.” Which wasn’t a lie.
He hesitated. “Are you embarrassed of me, Carlisle?”
“Oh, my gosh, no!” Guilt kicked at me. “I know you are going to dazzle my mother. But right now, I just hate for you to come down here when she’s distracted. That’s not how I want things to start off with you two. But soon, Phillip. I promise.”
“If you’re sure.”
“Positive. I love you, Phillip. Really, I do.”