Five Brides (13 page)

“And I have no doubt you cannot live without my monthly gift to you, Elizabeth.”

Her mother leaned forward. “I believe those were real pearls you gave to Adela.
Really
, Betty.”

Betty waved away the shifting of subjects. “Mother. Father . . .” She chuckled at the nonsense in the conversation. “George and I are friends, yes.” Her thoughts landed on the trump card. “But George has been dating Evelyn for nearly a month now. You know that.” She threw her hands up. “I would never come between two young lovers.”

“Nonsense,” Harrison said. “That boy is only seeing the girl to make you stand up and take notice. Anyone with half a brain could see that.”

Betty placed the red linen napkin accented with tiny holly leaves on the table next to her dessert dish. “Well, fortunately, Father, I have a
whole
brain. And all my faculties. I’m well aware that George thinks he can sway me with this . . .
whatever
. . . he has going with Evelyn. But the truth is, I have spoken with him about it and I think—I
know
—he may have the spark of feelings for her.”

Her father brought his fist down on the table, clattering the dishes. “You will do whatever you need to do to reinstate your relationship with George Volbrecht or, at the very least, someone of his caliber, or you’ll not see another penny from me. It’s time you stopped this working nonsense, moved back to Highland Park, and made a respectable woman out of yourself.”

Betty stood, her legs feeling more like gelatin than muscle. “Someone of his caliber?” She looked at her mother, hoping for evidence of shock. Instead, Chloe’s face held the same resolve as
her husband’s. “What about love? Mother, you have told me more than a dozen times how much you loved Father. Almost as soon as you met him.”

Chloe blushed as she smiled. “With all my heart,” she said, looking down the length of the table.

“And did his
caliber
have anything to do with that emotion?”

Her brow cocked. “Absolutely it did. And your father felt the same.”

“Cut from the same cloth,” her father countered. “Which is why we’ve had such a successful marriage.”

“And we want the same for you,” her mother finished. “Wouldn’t any parent?”

“George is perfect for you. He loves
you
, Betty. Not this little girl he is carrying over to his parents’ home today.”

“A lamb to the slaughter,” Chloe whispered, sending Betty back to her seat.

She grasped her napkin, squeezing it for strength, and swallowed. Her eyes rested on the crumbs left behind from her serving of Adela’s pie.

Adela.
Now she understood the look the woman had given her. Adela knew. Had probably overheard her parents plotting out the path of the bombshell they would drop after dessert had been eaten.

“If George,” Betty began slowly, “is the type of man who would lead a lamb to its death, then why in the name of all that is good and decent would you want me to marry him?” She stood again, raising her chin before she could do the same with her eyes. When she did, they went first to her father, then to her mother. “Thank you for the gifts.” She made a show of studying her watch. “I must be going.”

As she stepped away from the table—and it seemed lately that she always left this way—her mother grabbed her hand. “Just think
about it, darling.
Think
about the life George could give you. The love. The adoration. Our little allowance is nothing compared to what he could lavish on you.”

Betty closed her eyes. “Or someone of his caliber?”

“Exactly,” Chloe exclaimed, as if Betty now understood.

“Thank you, Mother,” Betty said, then slipped out of the room.

Evelyn copied every move George’s sister made at the expansive table that sat in the middle of an equally expansive dining room. Even her grandmother’s home in Savannah—the one where her Aunt Dovalou still lived—paled in the shadow of this one. Until today, she’d thought it the grandest house ever with its family heirloom table, hutch and cabinet filled with crystal and china, wool carpets warming the heart-pine floorboards. But this—

“Evelyn,” George said, drawing her away from the memory.

“Hmm?” She turned to the man sitting to her left.

He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind, then gave her a tender smile. “Mother asked you a question, dear. Did you not hear her?”

Evelyn clasped her hand into a fist, her bare nails digging into the pad. “I’m sorry, no.” She glanced down the table to where the dark-haired beauty George called Mother sat in a velvet-covered seat, much like her own but with high, stately arms. “I apologize.” Her hand relaxed; she felt proud of her choice of words. George had previously taught her the inappropriateness of “I’m sorry.”

“I asked, dear, if you went to Christmas Eve Mass with George.”

“Ah—no. I’m—ah—Methodist. I went to the Methodist church near where I live.” Evelyn noted the disapproval on Vivian Volbrecht’s face. “Where I live with Betty Estes,” she added, hoping to ease her displeasure.

“I see.”

Sandra, who insisted Evelyn call her Sandie, laughed lightly from her place directly across from George. “Mother, the entire world is not Catholic, despite what you might think.”

“Perhaps they should be,” Mr. Volbrecht said, smiling.

Evelyn smiled back at him, which wasn’t difficult. Lawrence Volbrecht’s looks were soothing. Inviting. And it wasn’t difficult to see where George—
and Sandie
—had received their good looks. Both parents reminded Evelyn of a couple inside the pages of a glossy movie magazine. Or like something she’d only witnessed on the silver screen at the Lucas Theatre.

“I’ve been Methodist all my life,” Evelyn told him. “My parents were. My grandparents.” She looked from one family member to another, including Sandie’s husband, Philip, whose handsomeness didn’t quite match George’s but wasn’t far behind. “My great-grandpa Doyle was a Methodist preacher, as a matter of fact.”

George cleared his throat as he brought the linen napkin to his lips and wiped them. “Mother, please let Katherine know how delicious this dinner is.”

“Doyle,” his mother said. “Is that Irish?”

Evelyn pushed her glasses up her nose. “It is.”

“The Volbrecht name is German,” his father added.

“My grandma—my grandmother’s family—my father’s mother—was of German descent.”

“Tell me,” Vivian spoke up from her end of the table, “what it is your father does.”

Evelyn glanced at George, hoping she didn’t embarrass him. His father worked day in and day out as a fancy lawyer in a swanky office, just as George did. Not that she had seen his office, but she’d
imagined
it dozens of times.

“My father is . . .” She struggled.

“A farmer” sounded dirt-poor. Growing up, she’d seen him in overalls more than in any other form of dress. For church, of course, he wore his Sunday best. But even at night, after a hard day in the heat, working often-unyielding earth, he changed from one pair of overalls into another. She pictured him sitting in the front-porch rocker, talking to her, his words filled with gentleness. Kindness. Godliness. She thought of him slipping money into her hand, money she knew he could hardly spare, and then sending her on her way to Chicago. To this land of tall buildings and fancy houses and people who spoke strangely.

Evelyn swallowed the fear of answering and said, “My father is a farmer.” She glanced at George, who turned red as his jaw muscles flexed. He picked up both fork and knife, holding them the way she’d learned to do, and made a show of cutting the meat on his plate.

“Agriculture,” Lawrence Volbrecht said, bringing everyone’s attention to him. Evelyn mentally kicked herself for not using that term. “What would we have done without those who made their living in agriculture during the war years?”

“Indeed,” Philip added. He raised his glass in a toast. “I say, ‘To the farmer.’”

Evelyn looked at George again. His face had softened and he smiled, reaching for his glass. She quickly did the same, raising hers as she saw the others do, including George’s mother. Although she also noted she was the last one to do so.

Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” greeted Betty as she entered the apartment on Greenleaf. Her arms ached from carrying the same bag she’d used to transport the few gifts out to her parents’. It now overflowed with unwrapped packages, throbbing reminders
of the cost associated with being the daughter of Harrison and Chloe Estes.

The Christenson sisters sat together on the sofa, their feet tucked under them and the skirts of their housedresses covering their legs. Joan, who sat in one of the occasional chairs, still wore her pajamas along with a thick quilted robe and Japanese-inspired slippers. The three were in midconversation, their hands wrapped around mugs. The unmistakable aroma of hot cocoa lingered in the air and Betty’s stomach rumbled.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” she said, so happy to be home that she could hardly keep herself from smiling.

Joan leapt to her feet, helping Betty with the bag. “Someone made out well,” she said, and Betty laughed.

“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” she said, not wanting to talk of the truth behind it all. She glanced at the sisters. “How did it go at your aunt and uncle’s?”

The girls were even more resplendent than usual. They both wore their hair brushed away from their faces, and it appeared the chill of the day and the warmth of the cocoa had left a glow on their cheeks.

“Like Christmas in Sweden,” Inga said. She tossed her blonde hair and said, “
God jul
, Betty.”

“Where shall I put these?” Joan asked her, lifting the bag.

“My room. Thank you. Oh, and there’s a pie at the bottom of the bag.” Then to Inga, “What is ‘God . . . God . . .’ what?”

“God jul,”
Magda answered with a laugh. “Merry Christmas.” She looked to her sister and then back to Betty, who held on to the back of Joan’s chair to balance herself as she removed her rubbers. “We really did have a good time last night and today. Sometimes I forget how important our traditions are. And all the scrumptious food on the
julbord
.”

Betty raised her eyes without lifting her head. “Sounds heavenly. Any cocoa left?”

“Plenty,” Joan said, padding back into the living room and carrying the pie. “I’ll pour some for you. Maybe we can slice into this later?”

“Absolutely.”

“Sit, then,” Joan told her.

Betty didn’t have to be asked twice. She took the chair near Joan’s, then called over her shoulder, “What about you, Joan? What did you do all day?”

Joan returned within a minute, carrying a steaming cup of cocoa topped with three giant marshmallows. “Here you go.”

Betty took it, inhaled the aroma of sugar and chocolate, thinking it almost enough to stop there without taking a sip.

“How was your day?” Joan asked, picking up the mug she had placed on the coffee table. “Looks like your parents were generous.”

Betty pushed a smile upward. “A typical day at the Estes home.” She blew into the cocoa, watched as the melting thick mounds of white shimmied to the other side.

“Did Adela appreciate the pearls?”

Betty swallowed her first delicious sip, felt it traveling past her throat, slipping down her esophagus, burning on the way to her stomach. “She did. They looked quite pretty on her.” She looked down the hall. “I take it Evelyn’s not back yet.”

Magda stole a glance at her watch. “Should be soon.”

Joan shook her head. “I don’t know. She told me that after eating over at George’s they were going to go out for coffee and dessert and exchange their gifts to each other.” Joan chuckled. “She’s quite beside herself wondering what he will give her.”

Betty nodded. “I hope he’s generous then,” she whispered, but added nothing more.