Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt and Other Things I Learned in Southern Belle Hell (16 page)

Mizz Upton pursed her lips. Tension hovered in the air. It was official: the mood-killer was in the house. “What are you waiting for, honey?” Now, to most Americans and other speakers of the English language,
are
is a one-syllable word. In that moment, however, Martha Ellen Upton drew it out into about sixteen syllables, in a way that only the older class of Bienville Prepster Supreme can. So it sounded like this: “ahhhhhhhhh-er.” “What ahhhhhhhhh-er you waiting for, honey?” Had you seen the words on the page, you probably would have thought that she was encouraging her daughter to get a move on. “What are you waiting for?” would have just meant “Hurry up, honey, we need to get busy.”

But Mizz Upton had laced so much ugly through that sentence that it permeated every molecule of air in the room. Mallory halted mid-twirl. Brandi Lyn stopped her sitting practice. Ashley quit admiring herself in the mirror. Zara paused mid–inner conflict, and I ceased bitching about the bruises I'd just learned we'd all get from carrying the weight of the skirts on our hips.

“Try it on, Caroline,” commanded Mizz Upton.

Poor Caroline, she now had a full audience. She stepped one foot into the circle. Then the other. Then she bent over and started drawing the hoopskirt up her body, interminably slowly.

Until it got stuck at her hips. And she couldn't button it.

Ashley stifled a giggle. Mallory looked away politely. Zara and Brandi Lyn and I traded “WTF?” glances. Miss Dinah Mae clucked her tongue, and Mizz Upton narrowed her eyes. She brought herself up to her full height and said, “Disgraceful.”

Caroline, stupid hoopskirt stuck around her waist, shambled out of the room as fast as she could.

“Caroline, it's not your fault your mother's a complete and total bitch!” I yelled through the door separating the rec room from the laundry room. After her mother's horribly humiliating comments, Caroline had run downstairs and locked herself inside. Zara and I ran after her, or at least tried to, but we got hung up at the door with our multilayered hoopskirted dresses. Seriously, we couldn't wedge ourselves through the door in those things! “You have to bank up,” Mallory called out, instructing us on how to pull the various hoops up and collapse the fabric so that we could walk through the door, but Zara and I were in such a clumsy hurry, we ended up pulling them to our shoulders on one side and scurrying through.

Caroline sobbed through the transom. “Yes it is. She's always telling me, watch my weight, don't eat this, don't eat that.”

Zara sighed. “That was just plain mean what she did to you back there.”

“I deserved it.” Caroline wailed even louder. “I've gained too much weight since Miss Dinah Mae took my measurements!”

“Caroline, I told you to go on a diet, didn't I?” Ashley glided into the room, properly banking her skirts before she did so. She kicked up the bottom ring of her hoopskirt with her left foot, grabbed it with her left hand, pulled the bottom layers up to her waist, then reached down and did the same thing on the right side. She pulled the hoops in toward her body, which made it look like she was wearing a sky blue kayak around her waist, and sailed gracefully through the door.

Zara and I exchanged glances. “Well, at least somebody knows how to work this thing.” I hit Ashley on the arm. “But seriously, Ashley, stop being mean.”

Zara glared at her. “If you aren't going to help, just mind your own business.”

“I'm not trying to be mean. It's a cold, hard fact. If you eat too much, you can't fit into your skirt.”

Then Ashley rooted through her purse, whipped a flask out, and downed a sip. No lie!

Zara and I gaped. “What the hell are you doing?” I screeched.

“Taking the edge off. It got tense up there.”

“Well, give it here.” I ripped the flask out of her hands.

I took a swig. Vodka and cranberry juice. Nice.

“Jane!”

“So rude, not offering it to anybody else. Zara?” I handed the flask to her and she got in on the action.

Brandi Lyn arrived at that moment, still wearing her hoopskirt, making an attempt to bank it properly. “What's that smell? Ohh! Are y'all drinking?”

Ashley offered her the flask. “Want some?”

To my immense surprise, Brandi Lyn did. She had a big swig and sputtered up a storm. Then she called to Caroline over the transom. “Caroline, I can fix your waistline! It's not hard. I can put in a small panel. Or I can extend the loops for the buttons with elastic. It'll work!”

“Really?” Caroline's weak voice came fluttering back.

“Really.”

“Come on out, Caroline. Let us help. We can fix this.”

“I don't know.”

At that moment, Mallory glided in, but she wasn't the sweet, fun-loving puppy dog we all knew and loved. She was
raging
. “All right. I have had it. This is supposed to be the greatest day of our lives.”

Brandi Lyn looked confused. “Isn't that supposed to be our wedding day?”

Mallory ignored Brandi Lyn. She was on a roll. “I have waited twelve years to wear this dress! Twelve years to serve our fine city as a Magnolia Maid! And, so help me God, I am not going to let all y'all ruin it with your bad moods and your bad attitudes! Give me that.” She grabbed Ashley's flask and chugged from it. She handed it back. “It's almost empty. Now, listen up. Caroline, you come out of that laundry room right now. Everybody else, go sit your butts down and let's figure out what we have to do to make this work. Everybody hear me?”

You should have seen the glances flying between me, Zara, Brandi Lyn, and Ashley. “Go, Mallory.”

“I didn't know you had it in you.”

“Who would have guessed?”

“Look who's got her bloomers in a bunch.”

Suddenly self-conscious, Mallory giggled. “Well, I'm fired up, and when I'm fired up, I speak up.”

“Nice job.”

“Come on, Caroline,” Mallory called over the transom. “Will you please come out?”

“I just want to know… y'all won't laugh at me?”

“We're here, aren't we?” I said. “Of course we're not going to laugh at you.”

“Ashley?”

All eyes turned to Ashley. She sighed. “Caroline, I like to pride myself on always telling the truth, but I guess sometimes the truth hurts and I could be more respectful of other people's feelings.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are we actually calling that an apology?”

“Trying!” Ashley groaned. “I'm sorry, Caroline. I really am!”

The door unlocked and a tear-covered Caroline appeared in the doorway. Ashley offered her the flask. She drained it of the last drop. “Thank you. Why are y'all being so nice to me?”

We stood there for a moment, contemplating. And there it was, happening. The very bonding that Mizz Upton had been exhorting us to create for three weeks straight. All the board games and charades in the world could not have achieved what witnessing the Armageddon of Ashley's love and Caroline's humiliation had. Nothing brings people together like tragedy. I mean
nothing
.

“Because we're Magnolia Maid sisters,” Ashley stated. “We're a team.”

It turns out Team Magnolia Maid, without even talking about it, was definitely on the same page regarding something else—getting a party started. Back in the rec room, I dove into my duffel bag and pulled out a bottle of tequila that Teddy Mac had donated to the cause, courtesy of his mother's well-stocked bar. “You're going to need this,” he'd said. Ashley yanked out a liter of vodka, Mallory pulled out Grand Marnier, Zara brought out a bottle of champagne, and even Caroline revealed a bottle of Boone's Farm. Brandi Lyn accompanied Caroline to the kitchen for ice, limes, cranberry juice, and every supply necessary for good cosmopolitans, and within fifteen minutes we had set up a bar as fine as any tailgating party the South has ever known.

Then we sat down to talk. Or tried to. Nobody had bothered to change out of their dresses, so we were all hoopskirted up. It was a disaster. Balancing our drinks, Zara and I carefully sat down on the couch, only to have our skirts fly right over our heads, just like Brandi Lyn had done earlier. We howled with laughter. And did it again just for fun.

“Are you kidding me?” I yelled. “Are we not even going to be able to sit down in these things?”

“No, you can,” replied Mallory. “I'll show you. Move.” I jumped out of the way. Okay, that's an exaggeration. There's no jumping when you're wearing thirty-five pounds' worth of skirts. One side at a time, Mallory kicked up the lower rung of her skirt and grabbed it. Then she shimmied her butt up to the couch, lifted the back of the skirt, plopped it over the back of the couch, and sat. “See, the skirts fly over your head if you sit on the hoop. If you move the hoop out of the way, and don't sit on it, you'll be fine.”

“That's like a ten-step process to sit down. And you look ridiculous backing your butt up to the couch like that, by the way.”

Zara asked, “How do you know all this, Mallory?”

“Told you. Twelve years I've been waiting. In the meantime I've been practicing in my cousin Lucinda's hoops.”

“There is an easier way to sit,” added Ashley.

“Oh yeah, show them, Ash!”

“You just cross your ankles and kind of flutter to the ground.” Ashley demonstrated, ending up in a flurry of flounces and ruffles as her skirts and hoops collapsed all around her.

That did look easy. “Aha! That's what I'm doing.”

So we moved the furniture out of the way and we all “fluttered” to the ground in a circle, ending up looking like a bowl of pastel sherbets.

Finally, the talking began. Ashley started. “I thought Jimmy and I would be together forever,” she said.

“I'm sorry, Ashley,” Caroline said. “I thought y'all were the perfect match, what with your fathers being in the same law firm and everything.”

A tear came to Ashley's eye. “I did, too. I thought everything was set. We'd finish high school, go to college, get engaged senior year. Get married the next summer. I wanted to have my first baby by the time I was twenty-four.”

Wow. “Isn't that young?” I asked.

“Not around here,” said Brandi Lyn. “Anyway, it's good to have a life plan.”

“I had it
all
planned,” continued Ashley. “We even got a room reserved at the Riverview for next Saturday after our Boysenthorp debut for, well, you know…”

Mallory gasped. “What?! You didn't tell me that!”

“He said he couldn't wait to get a certain dress up over my head.”

I grinned. “I will say this, that's more original than doing it after prom.”

“I guess he just couldn't wait for me.” More tears came to Ashley's eyes. Poor thing.

I had to ask something, though. “Out of curiosity, Ashley, how did Jimmy feel about your whole life plan?”

“Well, he didn't know about all of it. I mean, we'd talk about where we'd live if we ever got married, but mostly it was something our mothers talked about. That I talked about with them. They just loved the idea of us as a couple.”

“Hmmph,” I said, sounding like Grandmother. “It sounds more to me like y'all didn't have much choice.”

“Yeah, like it was something that your parents expected you to do,” said Zara.

“But you loved him, right, Ashley?” asked Caroline.

“Yes, of course I did! I mean…” Ashley trailed off.

As Ashley sank into her own head, Mallory turned to Zara. “So what's your problem?”

Zara sighed. “Ugh. My controlling, freak-show father is ruining my life!”

“Sounds familiar,” said I.

“He went through my phone.”

“Oh no.”

“This can't be good.”

“I hate it when my parents do that.”

“What did he find?”

“Texts. Lots of them. Between me and this boy.”

Mallory leaned closer. “Who?”

Zara went conspicuously silent. Totally buttoned up.

“I know!” I said. “It's that guy from the pictures!” I turned to the other girls. “Y'all, I have seen this specimen and he is indeed hottie pa-tottie! Tell, Z, tell!”

“Well,” Zara demurred. “It is kind of scandalous, you guys.”

“We love scandal!” Mallory cried.

“That's why my father is about to kill me.”

“Now I'm interested,” Ashley said. We all leaned forward toward the front edge of our dresses.

Zara suppressed a grin. “Well… he was a teacher at my school.” We all shrieked. A teacher? How taboo-licious! “Well, he isn't really a teacher, he's a teaching assistant and he's only three years older than me, so it's not that terrible, but still. Daddy is livid.” She explained that the specimen's name was Charlie, and he was a student at Georgetown University and he had been the darkroom monitor for her photography class. They had hit it off during the long hours Zara spent developing film and printing pictures, which had turned into having coffee, which had turned into hanging out at his dorm room on a Friday night, which had turned into them dating until her parents had viciously moved her here to Bienville.

“It must be so hard for you!”

“Do you miss him?”

“Every single day. What can I say? He's my muse.”

“Awwwww.”

“You have a muse?”

“I've never known anyone who had a muse before.”

“The thing is, I was supposed to go to DC in a couple of weeks, to see my friends, so Charlie and I started texting, and…” Deep breath in. “He invited me to stay with him.”

“To stay with him!”

“Here comes the scandal!”

“… and my dad read all those texts and now he's making me cancel the trip.”

“That's so sad!”

“You poor thing!”

“He was threatening to call my old school and get him fired, but Momma talked him down off that ladder.”