Unexpected Dismounts (15 page)

“I’m surprised you didn’t put
that
on the flier,” India said. “Of course, the fliers themselves are a surprise.” She composed a patient smile and turned to Chief. “Honey, we are definitely going to need more food.”

On Thursday, Chief’s job, and Bonner’s, was to carry in the carload of imported bowls and platters and Reed & Barton sterling ware and Irish lace tablecloths that India brought over.

“I think these are probably a little more high end than what Jesus used at the Last Supper,” Hank told her.

“We don’t know that,” India said. “And it is gon’ be hard enough to get some of the women on the guest list to pass the crab puff to a man with tattoo sleeves as it is.” She headed to the dining room with the cherry silver chest, still muttering, “I’m just sayin’.”

“Speaking of invited guests,” Bonner called to her, “have you heard from Ms. Willa?”

“Not yet,” she called back.

“Don’t count on Ms. Willa,” I said. “If you’ll recall, when last she and I spoke, she was in the process of hyperventilating. I’m pretty sure she’s changed her mind about that check she was about to write.”

“It’ll be all right if she doesn’t come.” India stopped in the doorway. The look she gave me could only be described as ironic. “If half the town is going to be there now, you can probably pass the hat and make up the difference.”

“The helmet,” said Desmond, who had joined us out of nowhere. “We gon’ pass the helmet.”

“Oh,” India said. “I didn’t know there was protocol for community feasts.” I started to say something—anything—but she turned to Mercedes. “Darlin’, why don’t you help me polish the serving pieces? You have such a nice touch.”

I occurred to me that India hadn’t called
me
“Honey” or “Darlin’” for three days.

Hank brushed past me on her way to the sink with a pot of red sauce. “Later,” she said out of the side of her mouth.

“Later” meant when the Sisters had gone to their NA meeting and Chief was in the living room helping Desmond with his math facts and India had agreed to let Bonner take her down to O. C.’s for an espresso. Hank told them all that she and I would muck out the kitchen, but I was certain I was the one who was about to be mucked out.

I opted to cut to the chase. The minute we were alone at the sink, I said, “India still has reservations about the way this is shaping up, doesn’t she?”

“I never knew you to be one to understate the case, Al.” Hank chopped her hands to her hips. “She’s freaking out about it.”

“Why doesn’t she just say something to me?”

“Would it make any difference? Would you call this off and go back to pasta salad and a jazz quintet?”

“No,” I said. “I can’t. And it isn’t just what I’m getting from God. Or maybe it is.” I went after a skillet with a piece of steel wool. “I can’t see myself serving finger sandwiches to a bunch of women who can eat at the 95 anytime they want, and letting a whole community go without.”

“I applaud your compassion. We all do. But if you alienate the people who are trying to help you serve that community, you’re no good to anybody.”

I scrubbed harder. “What am I supposed to do, Hank? I’m finally getting something from God after weeks of feeling like he’d reassigned my job to somebody else. Now you want me to ignore it?”

“No.” Hank took the steel-wool pad from me and tossed it in the other sink. “But you’re going at this the way you’re scouring that pan. Of course, if God is telling you to disregard people’s feelings, then by all means, blunder on.”

I dug my hands into my hair, realizing too late that they were covered in oily suds. “What are you saying? Just come out with it.”

She handed me a towel. “India has vision too, and it comes from a place just as deep as the one you’re operating from. But you superimposed yours on hers with no regard to how that was going to make her feel.”

Hank pressed her lips together, but I knew she wasn’t done.

“Don’t stop now,” I said. “Let’s get this out.”

“India made a huge sacrifice leaving the church to be part of this cause.”

“She didn’t have to do that.”

“You had to. Bonner had to. How is she any different?”

I looked at the towel, now gray with grease. “I’ve made a hopeless mess of this, haven’t I?”

“It’ll wash out.”

“I mean with India.”

“A mess, yes. Hopeless, no. I think Bonner will be able to get her to understand. None of us has ever done this before. We’re all feeling our way.” She took the towel from me and wiped at my forehead. “Do what you have to do, but if I were you, I wouldn’t make any more changes at this point.” She looked me dead in the eye. “That Southern-lady thing does have its limits.”

By Friday night, everything was in place for Saturday except the last-minute details. The sauces were at the ready in the refrigerator. The breads were lined up on the dining room table, and Desmond was under the threat of house arrest if he touched any of the biscotti or
panforte
or cannoli that had turned my pantry into a
pasticceria
.

“The only thing missing is a final guest list,” India said.

She avoided my eyes, but I tugged her by the silken sleeve out onto the side porch. Bonner and the espresso obviously hadn’t been enough to clean up my mess.

The wind was gusting off the bay and bringing in whiffs of washed-up fish and boat oil. India sniffed at it.

“That is nasty,” she said. “I hope this dies down by tomorrow.”

“You couldn’t arrange for that?” I said. I tried a smile. She wasn’t having it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said.

“It means I appreciate everything you’ve done to make this the amazing thing it’s going to be. But it’s basically out of our hands now, and I just want you to enjoy whatever happens.”

India wrapped her hand around the porch railing so hard I expected it to scream. “I have invited the wealthiest, most influential women in this city, Allison. People who have the means to allow us to minister to
every
woman who wants our help. I am
not
going to ‘enjoy’ myself if they are so uncomfortable they leave here not just without writing us generous checks, but without understanding what we’re about. They have the power to pinch off donations from now till doomsday.”

“And how are they going to understand it if they don’t see it?”

A gust picked up a panel of her hair and thrust it in her face. When she pushed it away, her deep eyes had gone deeper. “So help me, Allison,” she said, “if you are planning a field trip down to West King Street tomorrow, you better tell me now.”

“What would you do?” I said.

“You’re not, are you?”

I took her by the shoulders. “No, I’m not. Look, India, I should have discussed all the changes with you. I’ve been a complete oaf about it. Can we at least agree on that?”

She studied her manicure.

“We’re being honest here,” I said. “No ‘bless your hearts’ or any of that.”

India gave my face a full examination before she said, “You haven’t been as sensitive as I would’ve liked.”

“Is that India for ‘I wanted to punch you in the face’?”

“Pretty much.”

“Then I’ll try. I will. And if I fail, forget you have a pedigree and go for it.” I tightened my hands on her shoulders. “But I need for you to get this: We haven’t been inviting people to a big enough story.”

“Is it going to get any bigger tomorrow?” she said. “All I ask is that you tell me before we run out of cannoli.”

I let my hands drop. “I don’t think so.”

India shook her head. “I want something more definite than that.”

“I can’t give it to you,” I said.

“This isn’t fair, Allison,” she said.

She swept past me into the kitchen. I stood there smelling the fish and knowing the Southern lady might have reached her limit.

CHAPTER EIGHT

By midmorning Saturday, India and Bonner had the yard and the front porch looking like Scarlett O’Hara herself could sit down any time and entertain her beaus. Pots of jasmine and day lilies and geraniums overflowed on every step, spilling their blossoms one on top of the next, and white wicker chairs and love seats were gathered in chatty groups under the dogwoods, punctuated with coral and aqua and foam-green pillows. India must have transplanted her entire patio to my front yard, and ordered my usually sad azaleas to get happy for the day.

In the kitchen, Hank was running an impressive operation of pots simmering on the stove and aromas seeping from the oven and trays of puffed and golden appetizers covering every horizontal plane. Joe wore a chef’s hat, and crisp aprons awaited Jasmine and Mercedes and Sherry and me. I was already close to crying, but when Desmond’s bedroom door opened and he promenaded into the kitchen, I gave in to the tears I’d been choking back all morning.

The kid was dressed in a tuxedo. All starched collar and shiny cuff links and pants pressed into a crease like the sharp edge of a knife. Where it had come from, I had no idea, but a tailor was definitely involved. The coat cinched in precisely at his waspish waist and the sleeves melted over those adolescent-ape arms as if someone had fussed over them with a tape measure for hours.

Desmond was finally a Mother D.

“I look so good I made you cry, Big Al,” he said.

“Brought me straight to tears, Clarence,” I said.

India was tying my apron, the bow I made having fallen short of Morehead standards, when the first Lexus nosed its way onto Palm Row. Owen was out there to direct parking, and Desmond was at the top of the steps with a towel over his arm, practically salivating to say, “My name is Desmond and I’ll be taking care of you today,” just as India had coached him. I held my breath inside the open front door, praying that his innocent speech wouldn’t come out as something that would short out the pacemaker in this Daughter of the Confederacy. But it emerged smooth and sweet, which meant Desmond was a far better student under India’s tutelage than I had been. The well-coiffed octogenarian patted Desmond’s hand and said, “Now aren’t you just the most precious thing?”

Desmond agreed heartily that he was.

Within thirty minutes, the lawn and porch were filled with a veritable sorority of graduates from Southern women’s colleges, including Miz Vernell from next door. Granted, she probably hadn’t attended college at all, since sixty years ago most females didn’t, but she joined her cobwebby voice with the rest as they made known their appreciation for the lunch plated in the kitchen—embellished like pieces of fine art and presented to them by the trained and slightly shaky hands of Mercedes and Jasmine and Sherry and me. Bonner passed among them with pitchers of sweet tea and lemonade, chatting like it was Homecoming Weekend, probably because most of them had bought second and third homes through him as their husbands’ fortunes had risen. If Ms. Willa and I hadn’t gotten off to two starts that resembled gravel pits, I’d have wondered if it was the lack of cream sherry that kept her away. An hour into the Feast, the supposed guest of honor hadn’t arrived.

“She’s probably waiting for a limo to pick her up,” I said to India.

She didn’t answer. A second wave of guests was arriving, on Harleys that rattled the silverware on the china plates.

“Are they coming here?” asked one obvious alumna of Randolph-Macon.

“Surely not,” her classmate replied.

Desmond stopped before them, a tray full of sherbets balanced precariously on one hand. “Yes, ma’am, they are,” he said proudly. “Those are the HOGs.”

Another woman, who was a decade younger and thus had not steeped as long in the waters of propriety, looked at me and said, “And they’re here because …?”

“Because they’re the ones who’ve set the bar,” I said. “They’ve already given more than any human being should be expected to and will probably give more.” I directed a wide-eyed look at a Junior Leaguer. “Go figure, huh?”

The laughter on the lawn tittered out as Ulysses and Stan and Rex and three quarters of the St. Augustine Harley Owners Group made their way up the lane, their leather clean and soft, their boots shined, their do-rags doffed respectfully. Almost as one, female heads turned to the porch, where India stood with her hands folded at her waist, silk spilling over them.

“How come it got so quiet?” Desmond whispered to me. “Somebody choke or somethin’?”

“I think they all did,” I whispered back, and then placed my arm casually around his neck to prevent any more too-astute observations.

India was still watching the HOGs come up the walk. She waited so long I was about to say something myself, but she finally smiled that smile that made bankers lower their interest rates and said, “Welcome! There are still plenty of chairs on the lawn and we’re bringing out more.”

God love her.

Mercedes was already in the doorway with a tray full of lunches, and I let Desmond go so he could usher them to their seats. Rex tried to take the tray from Mercedes as she came down the steps, but she shook her head firmly.

“We here to serve you, now, Mr. Rex,” she said.

Rex’s face blotched. Stan hitched his shoulders as Desmond brushed invisible dust from his chair. Even Ulysses seemed to have a hard time sitting down as long as Mercedes was standing.

I went to Nita, who Jasmine had finally convinced to take a seat and a plate, and pushed my voice above the unanimous thought I could almost hear:
Write that check right quick so we can go. The next tier down is here.

“Y’all need to relax and let us pamper you,” I said. I bit into my cheek and let my “breeding” resurrect itself. “And please, introduce yourselves to some of our other guests. Ulysses, have you met Mrs. Kathryn Pendleton-Price?”

Ulysses took off his riding glove and extended his hand to the crepe-bosomed woman sitting behind him. The look she gave it before coming through with a finishing-school handshake was an instant too long. At least, as far as I was concerned.

The breeding bristled right out of me and I moved on, pairing the Randolph-Macon sisters with Nita and Leighanne, encouraging Stan to enlighten a knot of forty-something Junior Leaguers on the refurbishing of Sacrament House, complete with the tale of the devil of a time they’d had replacing the toilet the former tenants had filled with concrete.

India, I observed, was still smiling, still wafting her silk among the guests. Still schmoozing as only she could do.

“We have so much, don’t we?” she said to them. “It’s time we shared some of that, now, don’t you think?”

To me she whispered, “It’s only going to take one to get it started. We need Ms. Willa.”

She craned her neck to look down Palm Row, and I watched her neck tighten. A round figure with a trail of mahogany hair was virtually waddling up the lane, carrying a heap of clothing. I could barely see Erin O’Hare’s face above the pile.

Rex was up from his seat before she could get to the gate and relieved her of the burden. Her cheeks glowed like a pair of ripe tomatoes.

“I thought you could use these for the women,” she said in the same volume she undoubtedly used in the classroom. “I don’t have cash, but I’m a consignment store junkie and I do have clothes, in every size, depending on what diet I’m on, or not on!”

She laughed and then turned appropriately solemn as Desmond approached.

“I’ll be takin’ care of you today, Miss All Hair,” he said.

Jasmine materialized with a plate and Erin was escorted to a seat among the Junior Leaguers. I winced. It was like watching a scene from a teenybopper film where the clique is forced to sit with the wannabes. Liz Doyle arrived to complete that picture, eyes blinking and straw spring purse spilling out stuff. She tried to get Sherry to sit down with them and let
her
fetch
Sherry
a glass of sweet tea, but Sherry was firm. I’d seen her grow so weary at times of waiting on people at C.A.R.S., her martyred sighs could be heard all the way to St. George Street; today, she couldn’t seem to get enough of refilling glasses that had barely been sipped from and rewarding an unspoken longing for just one more cannoli with said cannoli suddenly there on a china saucer with a tasteful sprinkling of powdered sugar.

“Allison,” someone said.

A woman two facelifts into her seventies beckoned me to sit beside her.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” she said. Her voice reminded me of a kitten, And not in a good way.

“Give me a hint,” I said.

“I’m Trish Todd. Your mother and I were real close friends.”

I didn’t remember my mother having any close friends, real or otherwise, but the fact that they’d even been acquainted would account for my not being able to recall this woman. I’d made it a point to forget anyone my parents had associated with.

Trish teased my hand out of my apron pocket and tucked it into hers. “Your mama would be so proud of you today. You know, she always hoped you’d come around from being such a little rebel. And now, look at this. You’ve spared no expense, not for anybody, no matter what their walk of life.”

God—tell me she did not just say that. Please tell me.

I don’t know what I would have said if a commotion hadn’t arisen at the front gate and India hadn’t sung out, “Allison! Our guest of honor has arrived!”

A polite smattering of applause rose and fell across the lawn. That woman on the porch said again, “Surely not!”

But Ms. Willa Livengood had indeed made her entrance and was being escorted up the front path by Desmond, who gazed in open astonishment at the old lady’s hair. Her colorist was clearly in her teal period this week. If Desmond didn’t come out with, “How come your hair’s blue?” I would be flabbergasted.

Fortunately, India took over, leading Ms. Willa to a padded love seat on the porch where she could look down on the party. That was, if she could see over the rose-colored collar that fanned up almost to her cheeks. Matching flowered pants completed the day’s ensemble and made her look like a tiny teddy bear dressed for Easter.

You’d have thought the Queen Mother had arrived. Every woman over fifty, and that was most of them, approached her in turn to pay homage. The few fortyish guests plastered on polyurethane smiles and pulled out their cell phones.

“Tell me they aren’t texting each other about Ms. Willa,” I said to Chief.

“One generation younger and it’d be on YouTube.”

“That’s not the kind of PR we’re looking for,” Bonner muttered at my other elbow.

“Ladies,” India sang out, “and gentlemen.”

“And others,” I said under my breath because a number of latecomers had by now collected outside the fence. A few more HOGs. Two of Desmond’s other teachers. Nicholas Kent. I felt my chin drop when I saw the Reverend Garry Howard among them.

I folded my fingers around Bonner’s wrist. “What’s he doing here?” I said between my teeth.

“I invited him,” Bonner said. “We’re never going to win him over if we don’t show him what we’re doing.”

I bit back,
Who said we wanted to win him over?
and said instead, “Let’s get those people in here.”

Bonner and Chief went to the fence and urged them all through, creating a hubbub that unsettled the texters and jostled those going to kiss Ms. Willa’s rings or whatever it was they were doing. I was so busy locating chairs and dispatching the Sisters to the kitchen for more food, I almost missed the figure who trailed in behind Desmond’s art teacher.

A Hispanic girl of about twenty-two, she slunk forward, looking over her slight shoulder as if she’d gotten past the bouncer without paying the cover charge. She looked familiar, but I had to blink twice to realize she was the prostitute from the Monk’s Vineyard, the one who kicked Kade Capelli out of her room.

Bonner put out his arm to gather me into the fold he’d now formed with Garry Howard, but I maneuvered past them and went straight to the girl. She was obviously having second thoughts about being there because her almost almond-shaped dark eyes darted from face to face and she was already twisting at her willowy waist, back toward the gate. I wasn’t too subtle about planting myself between her and the exit.

“You came!” I said.

Her eyes swam across my face like she was trying to place me. One sniff and I knew why. The girl was hungover at best. The brass she’d shown in George and Lewis’s upstairs apartment hadn’t returned after last night’s binge; the whites of her eyes were sallow, and even as I watched she licked her full lips like she was lapping at cotton.

“I don’t guess you’re interested in anything to eat,” I said.

She visibly shuddered and shook her head.

I nodded mine. “We’ll fix you right up.”

Desmond appeared and bowed to the young woman, a recent addition to his presentation.

“I’ll be taking care of this guest,” I told him. “Will you tell Hank we need a serving of bread and a cup of tea?”

“You want cream in that?” he said to her.

I thought I saw her face go a little green.

“No, thanks,” I said. “We’ll be on the porch.”

“Up there?” the girl said when Desmond was gone.

“Best seat in the place,” I said.

She shrank back. “I’m not dressed right.”

I’d been so focused on the vulnerability of her face, I hadn’t noticed what she had on. Okay, so leopard leggings and a rib-high black satin jacket that did a poor job of covering her bosom weren’t necessarily appropriate for an afternoon lawn party. I pulled off the pale pink scarf India had so skillfully draped around my neck and draped it with a whole lot less skill around hers. The bosom disappeared under it.

“Feel better?” I said.

“I guess,” she said.

I took her hand and tried to make our approach to the porch inconspicuous. But as soon as I tucked the young prostitute in beside Ms. Willa, nobody looked at anything else.

Ms. Willa took no notice. She was busy squinting up at Mercedes, who was about to hand her a plate.

“I know you,” she said.

“I know you, too, ma’am,” Mercedes said.