ONE WEEK AFTER Dana and her mother disappeared into the Forsyth County night, my parents sent out two hundred double-enveloped invitations to the anniversary party. The guest list was essential y their combined client rosters, which had a lot of overlap. My mother gave me three cards to send to whomever I wanted, but I only wanted Dana, and she was gone. I never had her phone number, so I couldn’t cal her. I only knew that she lived somewhere in the vast Continental Colony apartment complex. Once she had mentioned her mother being “upstairs,” so at least I knew that she lived in one of the town houses, but there were so many, and they al looked alike. I knew that my mother liked Dana, cared about her even, so I asked her to drive me to Continental Colony to look for the mailbox labeled Yarboro, but she shut me down. “James and Raleigh told me that Dana was clearly strung out on something, and the mother, too. I knew something was wrong with that girl. I just hate that I didn’t see how bad it al was.”
“But Dana and her mother knew Daddy and Raleigh already. Don’t you think that’s weird?”
She sighed and spoke in the Mother Voice. “Just let it go, baby. I think Raleigh was involved with the mom, a long time ago. Maybe Dana was hoping that she could get him to be her father. So many kids, black kids especial y, are hungry in their hearts for a daddy. You don’t know how blessed you are.”
“But it was weirder than that,” I told her.
“Chaurisse, just try and put it out of your mind. I know you miss your friend, but that girl has serious emotional problems. You don’t want to get mixed up with that.”
“Emotional problems” was my mother’s catch-al term for anybody who wasn’t quite right in the head. The neighbor kid who climbed a hickory nut tree in his birthday suit — emotional problems. When Monroe Bil s shot his ex-wife when she was walking out of Mary Mack’s, my mother said,
“Why couldn’t anyone see that he had serious emotional problems?”
“Why won’t you listen to me? Dana doesn’t have emotional problems. She just has regular problems.”
“I am listening to you,” Mama said. “
This was not a day to fight. We were in the Honda on the way to Virginia Highlands, a historic neighborhood in northeast Atlanta. Nowadays, you can take the freeway almost the whole way from southwest, but when we went shopping for my mother’s party dress, we took the surface streets the ful fifteen miles. We drove east on MLK, passed by Alex’s Barbecue, which used to have the best ribs on the planet. A mile or so later, we passed Friendship, where we sometimes went to church. After that, we cut through downtown on a series of one-ways. The gleaming gold roof of the capitol reflected in my mother’s sunglasses. On Ponce de Leon, we traveled east, past Daddy’s IHOP and Fel ini’s, where you could get pizza one slice at a time. Final y we made the left onto North Highlands and the trees seemed to bloom al at once and the streets were clean and bright.
Virginia Highlands is one of Atlanta’s oldest neighborhoods. The homes aren’t columned like over in Druid Hil s, but they’re gorgeous Victorians and the side streets are cobblestoned. We drove al the way out here because my mother had her heart set on buying a dress from Antoinette’s, which apparently is an Atlanta institution, although I had never heard of it.
Strangely enough, it turned out that my mother and father had similar taste in dresses after al . Who knew that my mother, who was extravagant only from her hairline upward, secretly dreamed of Tara? “Your father and I went to see that movie three times. It was beautiful.”
I’d never actual y seen
After we paral el-parked on St. Charles, Mama craned to read a street sign and then pointed that we should go right. “Vivien Leigh was so gorgeous. And that accent. It was Southern but not country. Elegant. I’l remember those dresses — even the one she made out of a curtain — I’l remember that for the rest of my life. That little waist!”
I turned my face away, embarrassed, but also not wanting to fal down her rabbit hole. “There’s the shop,” I said, pointing out the painted sign hanging from a purple awning.
It figured that if you wanted a white-girl dress, you had to go to a white-girl store. Antoinette’s, the sign announced, had been doing business with Virginia Highlands’ brides for more than a century. As we walked in the door, we were greeted with the delicate odor of jasmine potpourri and
“Good morning, ladies. May I help you?” spoken like sweet tea. The owner of this accent was a white girl, about my age. She was so thin that the armholes of her sleeveless dress gaped, revealing a turquoise slip. The boy’s class ring around her neck was so huge it could have been a bracelet.
“Yes.” My mother shifted into professional mode, which basical y meant she took special care to pronounce the letter
— today — a bridal-inspired special-occasion gown. I am hoping to make the purchase today.”
“I see,” the salesgirl said, doing a little double take because my mother’s chestnut pageboy matched her own, in both color and style. “Is this for yourself or for your daughter?”
“For myself,” my mother said.
“Wel ,” the salesgirl said uneasily, and we could feel her sizing us up, “you just look around and let me know if there is something I can help you with.”
The shop was smal , but my mother and I were the only customers on this Sunday afternoon. If this store was such an institution, why wasn’t anyone here? The salesgirl, as if reading my mind, offered, “Most people make an appointment, but you’re in luck.”
We were not in luck. My mother pul ed a couple of dresses from the racks, frowned, and patted her wig. A cream-colored corset dress caught my eye and I turned over the tag. It was a good thing Daddy said the sky was the limit.
“Excuse me,” I said to the salesgirl who was red-faced as she watched me. “What size do you go up to?”
She bit her lip and winced. “Ten?”
My mother returned three dresses to their racks. “Okay, Chaurisse. Let’s go.”
