“I guess so,” I said, busying myself organizing the hard-sided rol ers.
“Plans?”
“Probably Georgia State.”
Mrs. Grant’s voice was loud because she was under the hair dryer. “I know Laverne is real y proud of you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I probably need to go help her.”
I opened the back door and started up the concrete steps. No doubt my mother was upstairs. It seemed that $750 was a lot to pay for a dress that was stil so much trouble. Like Grandma Bunny used to say, “Pretty ain’t easy.” Wel , unattractive and unmotivated wasn’t easy, either. I knew Mrs. Grant had asked about my plans to be kind. Going to Georgia State was what I would probably end up doing, but it wasn’t a
I thought about my flute and picolo, snug in their velvet-lined case. I’d lost interest even before I discovered that I wasn’t any good at it. Blowing a flute could never get you anywhere. There is not one flautist in the whole world that anyone has ever heard of. Every boy that plays the trumpet dreams of being Miles Davis, but the flute is something you take up because you couldn’t think of anything better to do.
I crossed through the den, passed the kitchen, and entered my parents’ bedroom, fol owing the crisp swish of crinoline. I found my mother, struggling beneath her wig-heads, contorting herself to reach the zipper in the middle of her back. “Help me,” she said. Her face had grown damp with the strain of it. I tugged the tiny zipper up its track, sealing her soft brown body into a casing of silk and whalebone. A flush of tenderness overcame me and I pressed my lips to the spot just above the hook and eye. “I love you, Mama,” I said as she stepped toward the mirror and reached down her front and lifted each of her breasts and settled them into the sweetheart neckline.
The women in the shop were a wel -behaved audience. Mrs. Grant, who seemed to enjoy clapping her hands, led them in applause as my mother entered through the back door. They marveled over the detailing at the sleeves, the embroidered bodice, the tiny seed pearls, obviously attached by hand. My mother waved off the praise, apologizing for her bulging waist. She explained that she was going to wear Grandma Bunny’s 1950s girdle. “That wil be my something old,” she said. Catching her own eye in the mirror, she added, “I guess my own self is my something old. I’m forty-three this year.” Everyone protested that she was not old at al , and no one pointed out to her that this was just a party, not a wedding.
I’d been carrying her train like a lady-in-waiting, but I dropped to my knees to demonstrate how it could be gathered into a bustle, earning me one of Mrs. Grant’s rounds of applause. While I was on the floor, matching satin loops to tiny pearl buttons, there was a jangle of bass bel s as someone entered the Pink Fox. My mother’s voice was thin as plastic wrap. “Hel o there, Dana.”
I pushed the dress aside like a heavy curtain to see my lost friend standing beside her mother. They were both dressed like schoolteachers —
pencil skirts, button-down tops. If I didn’t know them, I would think they were missionaries for some sort of strict religion. “Dana!”
“Dana!” her mother mocked.
“Finish what you’re doing,” my mother said when I started to rise from my crouched position at her feet. Although my mother was wrapped in layers of expensive cloth, I could feel her body tense, sheltering me. My hands were unsteady, but I stayed on my knees and matched each button with its loop until the bustle was tucked below her waist. Mama stood stil until I finished and Dana and her mother waited, too. Looking back, I can see this little pause as a courtesy.
Mama took two steps in the direction of Dana and her mother, extending her hand. “I am Mrs. Witherspoon. You must be Dana’s mother.”
“I am,” Dana’s mother said. “I am Mrs. Gwendolyn Yarboro.”
I could see that Dana was a younger, more frightened version of her mother. The corners of her mouth twitched every few seconds as she tried hard not to look at me. With the toe of her pump, she scratched her leg, running her hose.
“I need to speak with you,” Gwendolyn said to my mother.
“I’l be with you in a moment,” Mama said. “Just let me go and change out of this dress.” She put her hands on her stomach where the dress was tightest. Then her hand drifted up to hide the plumped cleavage.
“Is your husband here?”
“He’s working,” my mother said. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Mama,” Dana said, “let’s just come back later.”
Gwendolyn looked at her daughter. “We have to see this through.”
The customers were uneasy in their seats. Mrs. Grant offered to leave even though she was stil wet under the dryer. My mother waved her hand.
“No, stay. There’s nothing happening here.” She picked up a blow-dryer and turned it on even though she was stil in the party dress. “Miss Yarboro is going to come back later.”
“You can’t turn me away,” Gwendolyn said, reaching to take the roaring dryer away from my mother. “Turn that thing off and listen to me.”
“Hey,” I said. “Don’t touch my mother.” My voice, feeble in my own ears, gave away how afraid I was. In Gwendolyn’s hands, the blow-dryer may as wel have been a pistol.
“I’m a missus, too,” she said. “You are not the only one. I may not live in as fine a house, but I am a missus, too.”
My mother looked around like she was looking for a place to sit, but every chair was occupied and every eye in the room was on Gwendolyn, who held a sheet of paper folded in two. She thrust it toward my mother like a subpoena. I looked to Dana, who studied her shoes. Whatever that paper was, it was something bad. Mama refused to take it.
