Ain’t She Sweet?

“I love perfume bottles, don’t you?”

All the blood rushed from her head. Winnie was wearing Diddie’s pearls…

“Whenever I see an old perfume bottle, I always wonder about the woman who owned it.” Her fingers caressed the necklace, the gesture deliberate. Cruel.

Sugar Beth couldn’t do this. She couldn’t stand here and look at Diddie’s pearls around Winnie Davis’s neck.

She turned toward the door, but she moved too quickly and bumped against one of the tables the same way Winnie used to bump against desks at school. A brass candlestick wobbled, then fell and rolled to the edge. She didn’t stop to pick it up.

Dinner’s gonna be nasty tonight, and not just because we’re having steak, which I ree-fuse to eat due to global warming, et cetera, but because of Her. Why can’t she be more like Chelsea’s mom instead of having such a stick up her butt all the time? I’m not anything like her, no matter what Nana Sabrina says. And I’m not a rich bitch, either.

I hate Kelli Willman.

“Gigi, dinner’s ready.”

As her mother called from the bottom of the stairs, Gigi reluctantly closed the spiral notebook that held the secret diary she’d been keeping since last year in seventh grade. She pushed it under her pillow and swung her legs in their baggy corduroys over the side of her bed. She hated her bedroom, which was decorated in this gay Laura Ashley crap her mother luvvved. Gigi wanted to paint the room either black or purple and trade in all the prehistoric antique furniture for some of the awesome stuff she’d seen at Pier One. Since Win-i-fred wouldn’t let her do that, Gigi’d stuck up rock posters everywhere, the nastier the better.

Setting the table was her job, but when she got to the kitchen, she saw that her mother had already done it. “Did you wash your hands?”

“No, madre, I dragged them through the dirt on my way downstairs.”

Her mother’s lips got tight. “Toss the salad, will you?”

Chelsea’s mom wore low-riders, but Gigi’s mom still had on the boring gray slacks and sweater she’d worn to work. She wanted Gigi to keep on dressing like last year in seventh grade, in all kinds of crap from the Bloomingdale’s catalogue. Her mother didn’t understand what it was like to have everybody call you Miss Rich Bitch behind your back. But Gigi had fixed that. Starting last September she wouldn’t wear anything that didn’t come from the Salvation Army Thrift Shop. It drove Win-i-fred nuts. Gigi’d also stopped acting like such a geek at school. And she’d found cool new friends like Chelsea.

“Mrs. Kimble called about your history test. You got a C.”

“C’s okay. I’m not as smart as you used to be.”

Her mom sighed because she knew it wasn’t true, and for a minute, she looked so sad Gigi wanted to tell her she was sorry for being such a brat, and that she’d start working up to her potential again, but she couldn’t say it. Her mom didn’t understand anything.

Gigi hated being thirteen.

Win-i-fred set the last salad plate on the table. They were using the tea leaf ironstone china tonight, probably because her dad was home for dinner for a change. Their oak pedestal table wasn’t nearly as cool as this awesome French farm table Win-i-fred had sold right out from under them, even though Gigi’d loved it and they didn’t need the money. Gigi wished she’d close the store, or at least hire more people to help out so they could eat something decent for dinner once in a while instead of frozen crap. Her mom said if it bothered Gigi so much, she should cook a few meals herself, completely missing the point.

The teak bowl held one of those salads-in-a-bag with nothing except lettuce and some dried-up carrot turds. In the old days, even with all her board meetings, her mom used to make salads with good stuff like fresh tomatoes and Swiss cheese and orzo, which looked like fat grains of rice but was really pasta. She’d even fix croutons from scratch, with lots of garlic, which Gigi adored, even if it made her breath stink.

“I want orzo in it,” Gigi complained.

“I didn’t have time.” Her mom went to the back door and stuck her head out. “Ryan, are the steaks done?”

“On the way.”

Her dad grilled on the patio all year-round. He didn’t like grilling too much, but her mom said meat tasted better that way, and he felt guilty because half the time he didn’t make it home for dinner. He was chief operating officer of CWF, which was a big responsibility. Her Nana Sabrina owned the window factory, but the board of directors ran it, and her dad had worked his way to the top like everybody else, except Gigi heard her mom tell Nana that he worked harder than ten people because he still felt like he had to prove himself. Nana lived in this really cool mansion on Scenic Drive in Pass Christian, down on the Gulf, which her dad said was almost far enough away.

Their finances were complicated. Some stuff like the window factory was Nana’s, but Frenchman’s Bride used to be her mom’s. Her mom wouldn’t live there, though, and it was closed up till Colin bought it. Gigi loved Colin, even when he got all sarcastic because she hadn’t read crap like War and Peace. Two years ago he’d volunteered to coach the high school boys’ soccer team, and last year they’d gone all the way to State.

Gigi dropped the salad bowl on the table. “I’m not eating steak. I told you that.”

“Gigi, I’ve had a long day. Don’t be difficult.”

“Here we go.” Her dad came through the door carrying the steaks on one of the tea leaf ironstone platters, which, even if Gigi liked tea leaf ironstone, which she didn’t, she wouldn’t have let herself get attached to because her mom would sell it right out from under them, too. Her mom was a history nut, which was why she liked the antique store so much.

Her dad winked at her as he set the platter on the brass trivet. He was thirty-three and Win-i-fred was thirty- two. Most of her friends’ parents were a lot older, but Gigi’d been born while her parents were in college. Premature, like, ha-ha, anybody would believe that.

The smell of the steak made her mouth water, so she forced herself to think about all the cow burps that were screwing up the ozone layer and causing global warming. Two weeks ago when she’d decided to become a vegetarian, she’d tried to explain it at lunch, but Chels told her to stop talking like a geek. But that weird Gwen Lu had overheard and wanted to strike up this big intellectual conversation about it. As if Gigi’s reputation could stand being seen talking to Gwen Lu.

“Wine tonight or not?” her dad asked.

“Definitely.” Her mom took some disgusting frozen french fries from the oven and dumped them in a bowl.

Her dad pulled a bottle from the wine rack.

In seventh grade, when Gigi had still been friends with Kelli and everybody, Kelli had said Gigi’s dad looked like Brad Pitt, which was a total lie. For one thing, Brad Pitt was short and old, and his eyes were squished too close together. Also, could anybody honestly imagine her dad going around with his hair messed up all the time and looking like he never shaved? It grossed her out when some of the girls said they thought her dad was hot.

Gigi mainly looked like him, her mouth and the shape of her face. But her hair was dark brown instead of blond, and she didn’t have his goldy-colored eyes. Hers were like her mom’s, light blue and sort of creepy. She wished they were goldy brown like his. No matter what Nana Sabrina said, Gigi was a lot more like her dad than her mom.

She wished he didn’t work so much. Then her mom might not have opened the store. They sure didn’t need the money. Her mom said with Gigi in school and Ryan working such long hours, there wasn’t enough for her to do, even with all her committees. In Gigi’s opinion, she could stay home and make some decent salads.

He carried the wineglasses to the table, and they all sat down. Her mom said grace, then her dad passed the steak platter. “So, Gi, how’s it goin’ at school?”

“Boring.”

Her parents exchanged a look that made Gigi wish she’d kept her big fat mouth shut. They thought one of the reasons her grades were going down was because she wasn’t getting enough intellectual stimulation from her classes, which was true, but that didn’t have anything to do with her grades. Lately she’d started to get scared they might send her away to some boarding school for the gifted like Colby Sneed’s parents had done, and Colby hadn’t been half as smart as her.

“Mainly because of the kids, though,” she said quickly. “Classes this week were very stimulating, and my teachers are excellent.”