All our lives began to unravel last December 31, when Harold sheepishly announced he was leaving Danette at the overcrowded New Year’s Eve party at the Piedmont Driving Club, that venerable institution of stone and timber with the most majestic ballroom in town. Lately it was becoming the stage for too many life-changing events. It wasn’t the first time that Danette suspected Harold was having an affair with someone, I think, but she had absolutely no idea this one was so serious. They were both a little drunk. Maybe we all were. Well, maybe just slightly tipsy. It was late; we’d been at the club since eight, drinking champagne and wearing silly feathered tiaras with our gowns, and the boys in their tuxedos wore glittered top hats. As we did every New Year’s Eve we made ridiculous resolutions that no one would keep, and quietly we all wondered what the coming year would hold, each of us praying for our own private miracles. Good health. Better health. A marriage for this child, a good job for another. This hopefulness was something hardwired into our psyches, that a new year might mean some monumental something wonderful could happen to bring us happiness at a level we had never known. A new year was a chance to start over. Maybe even, just maybe, there would be peace on earth for one entire day.
The orchestra played and we danced and danced, but Lord save me, I couldn’t wait until the clock struck twelve so that I could go home at twelve fifteen and take off my heels. Those black satin pumps that I thought made my legs look so good turned out to be individual torture chambers. My throbbing feet were my priority, and then suddenly I was blindsided. What happened next was the last thing in the world I ever expected.
It was around eleven forty-five. We were sitting with six other members we barely knew, a very ancient couple who seemed sweet and two other young middle-aged corporate types and their young Barbie wives. Paolo had stayed home, still mourning and saying he just wasn’t up to celebrating anything yet. We didn’t blame him really, but his absence made me miss Tessa like crazy that night. I remember thinking, At least I still have Danette.
Harold’s cell phone kept buzzing—cell phones are strictly forbidden in the club. He had once been a stickler for rules and propriety. But lately? A silly club rule didn’t stop Harold from pulling his phone out and looking at it. Someone was texting him like mad and Danette was becoming suspicious, rolling her eyes in my direction. The next time it buzzed she grabbed it from his hand. Harold tried to grab it back from her, but she slid his phone across the table to me. Before Wes could grab it from my hands, I managed to read a partial text message that involved Harold’s tongue and the sender’s nether regions. I was aghast. Wes’s entire head turned beet red as he read it. As if by instinct he started to sweat and tossed it back to Harold. But Danette caught it and read it, and her expression was one of honest horror. I don’t know why she chose that moment to speak up and defend her own honor. She had to know it would become the Most Talked About and Exaggerated Moment in the History of the Club—well, for 2011 anyway. And why take someone on—especially your husband—in a public place when you know in your heart it could get really ugly? But she’d had just enough champagne to take the chance that a sassy reprimand would put an end to whatever foolishness he was engaged in.
“You know, Harold,” she said loudly enough for all of us to hear, “you can’t have me and your little floozy too. You have to choose.”
Harold cleared his throat, which we suddenly recognized as a harbinger of doom.
“Right now? Here?” he said.
“Yes. Right now and right here,” she said.
Without missing a beat he said, “Wes? Would you drive Danette home? I have to go and meet someone.”
I couldn’t believe it. None of us could. But Harold stood and left, the orchestra started playing “Auld Lang Syne,” and Danette dissolved into tears. Wes, in a gallant demonstration of southern gentlemanly manners, moved from his seat next to hers and handed her his perfectly pressed linen handkerchief to dry her tears.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he said. “Les and I will take you home.”
There have been many moments when I’ve wanted to kill my husband. This was not one of them. Wes could be a really great guy when he recognized the moment that called for it.
That same night, and perhaps at the same moment, somewhere across town in a romantic restaurant a promising young physician named Shawn Nicholls slipped a two-carat diamond on Harold and Danette’s only child Molly’s finger and asked her to be his wife. When Shawn brought Molly home, they found us at the kitchen table. I had never seen Molly happier in her whole life, and her young man, Shawn, was just beaming. She didn’t even notice that her mother was a total wreck.
“Mom? We have something wonderful to tell you! Where’s Daddy?”
“Dad? He’s not here. Why don’t you just tell me?”
“Actually, Mrs. Stovall, I should have discussed this with you and Mr. Stovall some time ago . . .” Shawn said.
“Is something wrong?” Molly said. “What’s wrong? Why isn’t Daddy here?”
“Your father and I had a little disagreement, that’s all!” She put a smile on her face. “Now tell me! What’s going on?”
On hearing the good news, Danette, being made of stronger and better stuff than her ridiculous husband, Harold, opened a bottle of champagne and began filling flutes.
“Harold’s not going to ruin everything!” Danette whispered to me and dried her eyes again. “I’m so happy for you, darling!” She hugged Molly with all her might and then turned to Shawn. “We’ve waited all our lives for a wonderful young man like you to come along! Welcome to the family—such as we are.”
Everyone laughed a little, and then she hugged him too. Happiness eclipsed Danette’s pain, and optimism ruled the balance of the evening.
“Let me get a good look at that ring!” I said.
It was the first of many important moments that Harold would miss. And it also marked the moment that Danette decided Harold Stovall would no longer have a place in her tender heart. Her daughter was getting married and that was all that mattered for the foreseeable future.
The Little Floozy in question turned out to be Cornelia Street, the thirty-four-year-old buxom redhead who was the assistant to the director of human resources in Harold’s law firm. Cornelia, who had tried out for and lost at auditions for every reality show that ever crossed the Georgia state line, was, shall we say, known to be very ambitious and extremely generous with her favors. (Read: exhibitionist, social climbing, slut of the world.)
Danette cleaned Harold’s clock rather smartly and in fact almost completely. That old saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”? Danette embodied the words, but in the way a true lady would.
Harold quickly married Cornelia on Valentine’s Day, exactly four nights before his daughter’s engagement party, which was also held at the club. At the engagement party we also had the opportunity to meet Lisette, thirty-one, who was Paolo’s personal trainer. I thought I might throw up. Wow, I thought, it took him all of a couple of months to find a replacement.
Molly, the poor child, had no idea her father, Harold, was getting remarried. Neither did anyone else. Molly was understandably devastated and could barely maintain her composure, wondering aloud to anyone who would listen, when would her father stop ruining her life? And I wondered to Wes, didn’t Cornelia know that she was barely ten years older than Molly?
When indeed? I thought.
I began to think there would never be an end to the bad taste and timing of Wes’s two remaining best friends, others having left for sunnier climes and younger arms over the years.
Danette decided back in January that she was going to dramatically change her life. Rather than beg Harold to reconsider, which was what Wes predicted, she invited Harold to get the hell out of her gorgeous center hall colonial in Buckhead and to go live with his Jezebel in her tiny one-bedroom apartment in the Allure apartment complex at Brookwood on Peachtree Valley Road. That would be NW, thank you. And yes, Allure. Harold was too smitten to have any shame. He bubbled over with a never-before-seen enthusiasm and couldn’t pack and hit the road fast enough.
Freedom from Danette’s wrath! Let my lawyers handle it! I want to be free! Free! Take the money! Give her whatever she wants! I’m outta here! Cornelia! My love!
Of course I never heard him utter these actual words, but they were all over his face every time I saw him at the club during the short negotiation period of his settlement battles with Danette. He wanted a fast divorce and didn’t even have the decency to show the slightest bit of remorse. All through dinner, Cornelia had her gelled nails all over Harold, and his hand traveled her lap to the point where I wondered when someone from the Ethics Committee would ask them to knock it off. My face was in flames, but Wes seemed not to notice a thing. The next thing I knew we were having dinner with Paolo again but now with Lisette on his arm. Oh, Lord, I thought.
Naturally, after any one or all of these dinners Wes and I would go home and the rest of the night was completely ruined. Well, for me, at least. Wes didn’t seem to care that I was so unnerved by Harold’s happiness or Paolo’s or why. He’d tell me to go to sleep and quit fretting over things I couldn’t change. He needed his sleep. He had an early tee time. He’d roll over and give me a slap on my hip, roll back, turn out the light, and begin to snore within minutes. I’d lie there for what seemed like hours wondering if Harold had lost his mind or if I was losing mine.
The sight of Cornelia and Harold together simply made me ill. It was way worse than Paolo and Lisette. Maybe because Tessa was gone.
Listen, I’m hardly naive. I’ve seen the Jerry Springer Show. I knew that people fooled around and had been fooling around since the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. Many of them wound up divorced, but I never thought anything this brazen and embarrassing would happen to Danette. Reality shows were one thing, but Harold’s behavior just seemed so vulgar and desperate. And Cornelia was cheap. At least Tessa was dead. She didn’t have to see Paolo cavorting around with gel in his spiked hair.
Having dinner with Harold and Cornelia and Lisette and Paolo was awful. I missed my friends. Hopefully, Tessa was in heaven petitioning the good Lord for Harold and even poor Paolo to get an irreversible case of erectile dysfunction.
But what of Danette on Friday and Saturday nights? Was she home all alone in a sad chenille bathrobe, curled up on a sad sofa, watching a sad movie and drinking straight vodka, getting sadder by the minute? At least that’s what I heard Cornelia say to Lisette in the ladies’ room when they didn’t know I was in another stall.
“Actually, ladies, Danette is not sad or drinking vodka. She’s doing great! She put the Buckhead house on the market, sold it for a whopping sum, and bought herself a wonderful craftsman’s cottage in the Oakhurst section of Decatur. She’s as happy as a clam.”
“She is?” Lisette said.
“Well, good for her,” Cornelia said.
“You girls have no idea what kind of a woman Danette is. So, as her best friend of thirty years, I’m going to ask you politely not to run your mouths in public about her because it makes you sound happy that Harold left her, which you obviously are, but that sort of talk is better done in private.”
“We’re in the bathroom,” Lisette said.
“A public bathroom is not a confessional,” I said.
“It’s not public. This is a private club,” Lisette said.
“She means we probably shouldn’t gossip anywhere we might be overheard,” Cornelia said, looking at the floor.
“ ’Cause you never know who’s in the next stall?”
“Tessa must be spinning in her grave,” I said, looking Lisette right in the face.
Lisette was as thick as a brick. I walked out of the ladies’ lounge leaving them there, jaws agape and red faced. I thought, Score One for the Home Team, those little twits can kiss it.
It was true. Danette was flush with cash for the very first time in her adult life. She sold all her sterling silver and started collecting mercury glass. She gave all her designer clothes and handbags to Jody’s Fifth Avenue, an upscale consignment store, and started shopping at Anthropologie, mixing the deliberate bohemian of their tops and sweaters with her plain pants from Talbots. She began to look interesting in a new way. She got a great short haircut and bought a Prius. I didn’t mind the Prius, but to my great disappointment, she refused to discuss Harold or to say terrible things about Cornelia. I had mental steamer trunks filled with catty things I was dying to say about Cornelia. And Lisette! I was like an angry feline with a giant fur ball trapped in my throat and Danette had pulled away the soapbox the same way Peanut’s Lucy swipes the football from Charlie Brown. She was determined to be dignified. It was killing me.
“I can’t speak for Harold’s behavior,” she would say. “He’s a grown man.”
She said things like this a thousand times until I finally got it through my head that if she wanted to tell herself she didn’t care, then I should support her and tell my inner yenta to go throw herself in the Chattahoochee River.
This posture went on for some time. Danette was the Queen of Serene, the Soul of Discretion, until, that is, it was time to start seriously planning Molly’s wedding. Then she gradually shifted gears, and all conversation moved to a new story entitled “What to Do About That Little Bitch, Cornelia?” And there was a subtitle, “And Lisette.”
It was a beautiful day in early April, and I arrived at Danette’s new home carrying a take-out lunch from the Brick Store Pub, our new favorite haunt. Danette was in the nesting stage of her new life. Flowers were coming into bloom all over her front yard, and the new gardens were starting to take shape. Danette was doing a lot of the work herself, and if you could believe what she said, she loved getting dirty in the yard.
I let myself in through the open kitchen door and found her there rinsing a huge copper pot in the sink. You could see your face reflected in the patina. In fact, you could see your face in all her pots and pans that were suspended from an overhead rack above the island in the center of her newly renovated kitchen. Houses that were too clean made me nervous. And Danette, as composed as she appeared to be, had a house where you could literally do surgery. She must have been cleaning to compensate for something. She couldn’t fool me. But it was beautiful all the same.
“Hey! It’s a gorgeous day out there in Decatur, Georgia! We ought to be having a picnic in the park!” I dropped the bag on a counter, took off my sunglasses, and let my eyes adjust to the indoors. “Lord! We sure do have some sun!”
“Hey, yourself! Gimme a smooch!” she said. I blew her a kiss and she blew one into the air back to me. “What’d ya bring? Just tell me they had the pimiento cheese and I’ll die a happy woman.” She rehung the pot above her head. Just for the record, until she and Harold got a divorce, I’d never seen Danette Stovall dry a pot in her life.
“I’ve got food for an army.” I began unpacking. Imitating the voice of Rachael Ray, I said, “We’ve got pimiento cheese with pickled jalapeños to be served up with crostini and EVOO, butterbean hummus presented with pita chips and EVOO, a baby spinach salad with sliced turkey and tahini green goddess on the side for you and a muffaletta for me with balsamic and EVOO. Oh! And a brownie to share. Without EVOO. Ha-ha-ha.”
Danette giggled. “You’re so bad! What? No soup?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m kidding. You want tea?” She opened her refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher that was filled with iced tea, mint leaves, and lemon slices.
“Sure. I think I could drink the whole pitcher! Want me to put lunch on some plates?”
“That would be great.”
“Speaking of great, your yard is looking amazing,” I said.
“Thanks! I’ve got a new guy to mow, blow, and go—fifty dollars a week! Isn’t that incredible?”
“I’m imagining your old bill in Buckhead was slightly more?”
“Are you kidding? It was like the Rape of the Wallet. But to be fair, it’s three acres versus one-third of an acre. You know, I met this guy, he’s a landscape architect from down the street, and he thinks we can turn the whole backyard into an oasis—new fencing, a little waterfall, maybe an outdoor fire pit, definitely a barbecue area and lots of seating. He’s drawing up a rough plan for me to consider. I was thinking if Shawn’s parents wanted to, we could have the rehearsal dinner out there.”
“Why not? They’re from Vermont! How could they possibly plan the right rehearsal dinner for a bunch of picky southerners from that far away? Now who’s this architect? Single?”
“Forget it; with my luck he’s probably gay. Brilliant but different. A little quirky but in an exotic kind of way. Anyway, Leslie, it doesn’t matter because I’m not exactly looking for a man. Am I?”
“Quirky doesn’t mean gay and you know it. And we all need something to keep our coat shiny, don’t we?”
“Oh, please!”
I looked over to the table where we had lunch last week, and today it was covered with samples of wedding invitations and notes on Post-its stuck to magazine tear sheets that showed wedding cakes, bridal gowns, and food.
“Oh my word! Would you look at all this stuff?”
“Wait till your two get married. You’ll see.” She handed me two plates and began putting all her papers back into a cardboard box. “Molly could care less about anything that has to do with this wedding besides her dress. She’s in l-o-v-e. She ought to know what I know.”
“Amen, sister,” I said and sighed and began unwrapping the food. “My kids are never getting married.”
“Oh, yes, they will. There’s a lid for every pot.”
“Whatever, but I’m not holding my breath.” We looked at each other and I could see her thinking that what I’d said was probably true. Who wants to marry a young woman with a young child in today’s world? It would take a very special man. And my son, Bertie? Marriage, family, and fiscal responsibility were a long way off in the future for him. Sometimes my children’s performance in the world was deeply disappointing to me, but what good did it do to say anything? None, I’ll tell you. Absolutely none. They had been born belligerent. I was well beyond the begging and pleading years with them and had been reduced to a life of prayer as my only weapon. Thus far the heavenly response has been sporadic. But at least we were speaking. Many families had children in rehab or jail or estranged children and I had much to be thankful for, but still, isn’t it awful when a parent has to content herself by lowering her expectations? I had such lovely dreams for them.
And then, as if Danette was reading my mind again, she said, “My momma used to say that if you lived long enough you’d see everything. Isn’t that the truth? Gosh! This looks so good! I’m starving.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
We sat down and began to eat.
“Know what?” I said with a mouthful. “I still can’t believe Paolo married that airhead Lisette. Tessa must be flip-flopping in her grave.”
“You know I hate gossiping, Leslie.”
“Oh, save me. I thought you got over that.”
“I’m working on it. As fast as I can. Is it a sin if I say that I really don’t want to see Cornelia at Molly’s wedding? Or this insipid little idiot, size zero, Lisette?”
“Gossip is not a sin. Especially when it’s just between us. And I’ve been waiting for you to say something about that.”
“And what are we supposed to do about the bridal lunch and showers? Act like what? That we’re from California circa 1970 and it’s all groovy or something?”
“Well, we could all hold hands and sing ‘Michael Row the Boat Ashore,’ or how about let’s not invite them?” I said. “I don’t care if I ever see them again.”
“In a perfect world the father of the bride leaves his trampy-looking new wife at home.” She took a bite of the pimiento cheese and moaned. “I could eat this stuff until I get sick.”
“Me too. Push the hummus over here, darlin’. Thanks.” I scooped a tablespoon or so onto a piece of pita. “So the wedding’s September eighth or fifteenth?”
“The fifteenth. I booked the club. We’re doing the ceremony there too.”
“What? No cathedral wedding?”
“I know, I know. I struggled with that, but Molly said, and she’s not wrong, that on any given Saturday we could spend an hour getting from St. Philip’s to the club because of traffic.”
“She’s probably right. Traffic is truly miserable these days.”
“Not only that, St. Philip’s already has four weddings that day.”
“Too bad you can’t co-op the flowers with the other families.”
“Isn’t that the truth? The cost of wedding flowers is over the moon. But thankfully Shawn’s parents have that bill. So are you getting excited about your Edinburgh trip?”
“I’d just as soon get salmonella as travel with them, but you know Wes! He’s been dreaming of playing St. Andrews all his life. And he can’t go anywhere without Harold.”
“Men,” she said.
“Yeah.” We looked at each other for a minute and we could read each other’s minds. Danette should have been coming to Edinburgh, not Cornelia. “Tessa had some nerve to die and leave us.”
“She certainly did. But you’ll have a good time.”
“Listen to me, I will not have a good time. I will be miserable. Cornelia and Lisette have bonded and I’m like a third wheel—an old third wheel. You have no idea how awful it is to be with them. We can’t fill a table at the club for an event anymore, which is actually a good thing because I can always hope that someone my age will accidentally sit with us. But usually it’s dinner for six, and frankly, it sucks. Now I get to travel with stupid Cornelia too? Wes acts like he’s giving me a thrill to take me to Scotland. Oh, big whoop! Not that I have anything against Scotland, but haven’t you heard me say for years that I wanted to go to Italy? I mean . . .”
“Les, Les! Stop! Listen, I know you think I’m all torn up about Harold, and at first I was! I miss our lives together—you, Wes, Tessa, Paolo, me, Harold—but it’s over, and I’m really okay with it. I’ve moved on! I’m not angry anymore, but that doesn’t mean I want to see his insipid face or Cornelia’s at Molly’s wedding, and God save me from Paolo and Lisette. It’s all too ridiculous.”
“Well, I sure don’t blame you for not wanting to see them. I don’t either! But are you really okay?”
“Totally and completely. Because I have to be. Besides, I have a wedding to plan. Did I tell you that Molly asked Suzanne to be her maid of honor? And Alicia is going to be a bridesmaid.”
Suzanne and Alicia were Tessa’s daughters. We had known and loved them from the minute they arrived in this world at Northside Hospital.
“She did?” My eyes filled with tears. “Oh! That makes me so happy! They’ve been friends since the sandbox!”
“And she’s going to ask Charlotte if Holly will be her flower girl.”
“Wonderful!”
“And old friends are a special treasure, aren’t they?”
I reached across the table and put my hand over hers, thinking how dearly I loved my friend. Let Harold be a damn fool. Danette would always be my dear, dear treasured friend.
At least that was what I was thinking about until I got home and made dinner for Wes.
We were sitting across the table from each other, and I was recounting my lunch with Danette.
I told him, “And Suzanne, Paolo’s daughter, is going to be the maid of honor! Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Sure,” Wes said. “That’s nice.”
“So you know I’m going to have to give the bride’s lunch the day of the wedding.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s tradition, that’s why. There will be a lot of guests from out of town and then the bridal party and . . .”
“Hold the phone, Les! That’s gonna cost a lot of dough!”
“We’re not poor people, Wes. We can afford to give a lunch for twenty people. Besides, your granddaughter is the flower girl!”
“Know what? I think it’s a good idea if you split it with Lisette.”
“What?”
“Yes, Lisette. After all, Harold is the father of the bride, and he’s paying for the wedding. And at some point you’re going to have to act like you’re friends with those two. For the sake of appearances, if nothing else.”
“Never. Not in a million years.”
“Come on, Les. Cut the poor girls some slack. We’re traveling with Harold and Cornelia, for God’s sake! In like a week we’ll be in Scotland with them. You’d better figure this one out!”
“Wes, our daughter is five years younger than Cornelia and only God knows if Lisette still goes to summer camp. It’s the truth.”
“And I bet you think that’s funny? Well, it isn’t.”
He cut a piece of the roast beef and pushed it onto his fork. Instead of eating it, he put his fork down on the side of his plate, tightened his lips, and said, “Then you aren’t giving a lunch for twenty people with my money. Unless you want to go out and get a job. How’s that?”
“Really? Is this an ultimatum, Wesley?”
“No, you should know better than to be this way. It looks bad for you to be hostile. Do you know what people will say?”
“How am I going to explain this to Danette?”
“Aw, for God’s sake, Les, why can’t you girls just get along?”
I felt like screaming, They’re girls, I’m an adult, and it’s an important distinction. I’m not going to Edinburgh. Screw you and the Old Course at St. Andrews too! And while we’re at it, screw Harold and Paolo too! But I said none of those things.
Did he know how much it was going to hurt Danette if I hosted a bridal lunch with Lisette? Did he care? The lunch, which had just become the dreaded lunch, was still six months away. I’d surely find a diplomatic way to tell Danette before then. What choice did I have? If Wes said I had to do something, I had to do it. In fairness to him, he didn’t dig his heels in that often. Get a job? Yeah, right. The want ads were stuffed and bulging with jobs for women my age. It was too depressing to dwell on it, but it was all I could think about while I was packing for our trip. The ugly cold hard truth was that the painted corner in which I stood was fashioned by my own hand. I should’ve finished college like my mother wanted me to do and gone on to do something like become a CPA, a job I could work at while I was raising our two children. I just really hated it when Wes reminded me that I had no financial assets. He probably had no idea how upsetting it was, and even if he did, he probably wouldn’t have cared. In any case, I wasn’t looking forward to Edinburgh.
I laid out all my clothes and accessories I planned to take across the bed in Bertie’s room. Then I stood back and looked at them—all the sensible shoes and cardigans in case I caught a chill and the tiny umbrella and the collapsible hat to protect my hair in case it was windy or raining—and I thought, Wow. These are the belongings of a much older woman than I considered myself to be. I called my daughter, Charlotte.
She answered on the second ring.
“Hi, Mom! What’s going on?”
I told her what was happening and she said, “I knew you were going to hate this trip. I told Daddy so. And I totally don’t blame you. Just go to Phipps and buy a bunch of Eileen Fisher! It’s a total no-brainer.”
“I’d feel better if you came along, you know, so I don’t buy the wrong thing?” I hated admitting I was insecure about my fashion sense, but I was. Anyone would be next to Cornelia. Charlotte had met her and Lisette and thought they were, in her words, a couple of obvious opportunistic bitches. It was one thing we totally agreed on. There was a long pause from her end of the phone. I knew she was thinking that it was rare for me to ask her to do something for me. She was trapped, and she knew it wouldn’t be nice to refuse.
“I have to bring my kid,” she said with a groan, still angling for a way out.
“Why don’t I pick y’all up?” I said, cringing at her unattractive reference to my sweet Holly.
“Nah, then I have to move her car seat and that’s a whole big pain. I’ll pick you up.”
We only lived ten minutes apart so she was there in my driveway before I could even reapply some lipstick. I hurried outside to meet them so Charlotte wouldn’t have to unbuckle Holly and then repeat the whole rigmarole of lifting her up into the car, waiting for her to scramble into her seat, and buckling her up again. A three-year-old little girl was not like a bag of groceries you could just pick up and toss into the backseat of an SUV.
“Gammy!” Holly squealed with delight when I opened the door and got in.
“Hey, princess!” I said. I kissed my fingertips, slipped my arm into the backseat, and squeezed her toes. She giggled so spontaneously that I could feel it in my heart. “Hey, darlin’!” I leaned over and gave Charlotte an air kiss.
“Hi, Mom!” She made a smooching noise and smiled. “Okay. Want to start with Saks?”
“Why not?”
We backed out of the driveway and headed toward the Phipps Plaza Mall.
“What’s the temperature going to be in Scotland?”
“Probably about ten degrees cooler than here,” I said. “And I think it drizzles a lot.”
“Okay, so we’re looking for things to layer,” she said. “Got it.”
“You see? This is why I wanted to shop with you. You just know to make a strategic plan and then go for it. I’d be rambling around all day!”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
Before long I had an armful of new clothes, all of it on sale, of course, and I was standing at the checkout counter, ready to pay. Between Charlotte and an excellent saleswoman I felt like the choices I’d made took a few years away from my appearance. Shopping had seldom been easier or more efficient.
“Thanks for coming with me and doing this,” I said to Charlotte.
“No problem. I don’t like to think about those two little hoes making you so unhappy.”
“It’s just a really terrible situation that’s never gonna get fixed.”
“Well, when they see you in that pink jacket, it will give them something to think about.”
“I hope so.”
Charlotte and Marcy, the saleswoman, had run all around the store pulling clothes in khaki and black for me to try on. I stayed in the dressing room with Holly and colored in her coloring book. Then once we established the core pieces, they ran around again for accessories and I colored some more. I had scarves and belts and faux jewelry and all sorts of things I probably never would have chosen for myself. And the best-looking pink silk blazer I had ever seen. I hoped Wes wouldn’t kill me for spending so much money. But look how much I saved! And then I thought, Really? To heck with that! He could rant and rave until he barked like a fox, I deserved some new clothes from time to time. Did he check with me when he bought a new suit? No. He did not.
“You know what’s amazing, Mom?” she said. “The difference in your posture and your attitude when you’re all accessorized from head to toe. You’re just, I don’t know, more sure of yourself.”
“You’re right. Isn’t that funny? But I think that would probably apply to most people. Anybody want to go to the Varsity for a chili cheese slaw dog and a chocolate shake?”
“I do! I do!” Holly said.
“Let’s make it quick.” Charlotte said. “I’m supposed to show a house this afternoon. Can you take Holly for a few hours?”
“Of course!” I said and knew Charlotte would come in around eleven, smelling like alcohol and that I’d say, Holly’s asleep—why don’t you let me just bring her home in the morning? Then I’d say, Come sit on the couch by me and let’s watch House Hunters International and she’d fall asleep in five minutes. I’d cover her with a blanket like I always did and I’d go to bed. In the morning, I’d make breakfast, and neither Charlotte nor I would say a word about the previous night. My daughter was a bit of a barfly and I knew it. I hoped with all my heart that she’d meet a nice guy and Holly would have a daddy in her life. But cruising the bar scene was probably not the best way to meet a nice guy. Maybe I’d suggest one of the online services to her—wasn’t that how people found love these days?
The following week Wes and I were in our living room, having a glass of wine with Paolo, Lisette, Harold, and Cornelia. We were waiting for our car service to take us to the airport and Paolo and Lisette had come by to wish us a safe trip.
“Boy, it’s a good thing we live in Atlanta or else we’d have to change planes.” I said this in the direction of Cornelia and Lisette, deciding to make small talk, you know, to set a lighthearted tone.
“What are you talking about?” Cornelia said.
“Well, there’s an old saying that if you die and go to hell, you still have to change planes in Atlanta,” I said in my most charming voice. And youthful voice too. Yes, I sounded decidedly youthful.
They looked at me as though I’d lost my mind.
“I never heard that,” Lisette said and looked to Cornelia. “Did you?”
“No,” she said. “What does it mean, Les?”
“Oh, never mind,” I said, feeling two thousand years old. “It’s a dumb saying anyway.”
“Oh,” they said, and they began discussing Lady Gaga’s latest concert.
Now, just to set the record straight on this one, I’m well aware of Gaga’s meat dress and that she was born that way and I even sort of like her music.
Not really. But right there and then I knew it was going to take a lot more than a pink silk jacket to get me through this trip.