Family Linen (31 page)

Tomorrow, nobody will remember exactly who was the first one in the pool, but soon it's full of churning bodies, pale flashing flesh beneath the water. Karen and Theresa, all wet, do the cancan at poolside, red roses in their teeth. Lacy's Bill is diving: a flip, a back flip, a jack-knife, a swan. “Aah,” goes everybody. The Rhythm Masters attempt “Mule Skinner Blues,” which means they get to yodel. Lacy is pretty drunk; she smiles and shakes her head. Bill, diving, is darling. Old Ernest Dodd is darling. Strange that Lacy can't remember his son, the Dodd boy, at the lake, especially since he was sweet on her. But then suddenly Lacy has an idea of him, outlined against the blue water, braced against the pull of the rope, his bright open face a shining blur in the rushing wind.

About the Author

Lee Smith
is the author of fifteen works of fiction, including
Oral History
,
Fair and Tender Ladies
, and her recent
Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger
. She has received many awards, including the North Carolina Award for Literature—and an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; her novel
The Last Girls
was a
New York Times
bestseller as well as winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in North Carolina.