wineglass, kind of teeters a little in her high heels.
“What you had to eat today?”
“Nothing. I’m too nervous to eat. What about these earrings? Are they dangly enough?”
“Take that dress off, let me fix you some biscuits right quick.”
“Oh no, I can’t have my stomach poking out. I can’t eat anything.”
I head for the wine bottle on the gozillion-dollar chifforobe but Miss Celia gets to it before me, dumps the rest into her glass. She hands me the empty and smiles. I pick up her fur coat she’s got tossed on the floor. She’s getting pretty used to having a maid.
I saw that dress four days ago and I knew it looked hussified—of course she had to pick the one with the low neckline—but I had no idea what would happen when she stuffed herself inside it. She’s popping out like a corn cob in Crisco. With twelve Benefits under my belt, I’ve hardly seen so much as a bare elbow there, much less bosoms and shoulders.
She goes in the bathroom and dabs some more rouge on her gaudy cheeks.
“Miss Celia,” I say, and I close my eyes, praying for the right words. “Tonight, when you see Miss Hilly . . .”
She smiles into the mirror. “I got it all planned. When Johnny goes to the bathroom, I’m just going to tell her. That they were over with by the time me and Johnny started getting together.”
I sigh. “That ain’t what I mean. It’s . . . she might say some things about . . . me.”
“You want me to tell Hilly you said hi?” she says, coming out of the bathroom. “Since you worked all those years for her mama?”
I just stare at her in her hot pink getup, so full of wine she’s almost cross-eyed. She burps up a little. There really isn’t any use telling her now, in this state.
“No ma’am. Don’t tell her nothing.” I sigh.
She gives me a hug. “I’ll see you tonight. I’m so glad you’ll be there so I’ll have somebody to talk to.”
“I’ll be in the kitchen, Miss Celia.”
“Oh and I’ve got to find that little doo-hickey pin . . .” She teeters over to the dresser, yanks out all the things I just put away.
Just stay home, fool, is what I want to say to her, but I don’t. It’s too late. With Miss Hilly at the helm, it is too late for Miss Celia, and Lord knows, it is too late for me.
THE BENEFIT
chapter 25
THE JACKSON JUNIOR LEAGUE Annual Ball and Benefit is known simply as “the Benefit” to anyone who lives within a ten-mile radius of town. At seven o’clock on a cool November night, guests will arrive at the Robert E. Lee Hotel bar for the cocktail hour. At eight o’clock, the doors from the lounge will open to the ballroom. Swags of green velvet have been hung around the windows, adorned with bouquets of real holly berries.
Along the windows stand tables with auction lists and the prizes. The goods have been donated by members and local shops, and the auction is expected to generate more than six thousand dollars this year, five hundred more dollars than last year. The proceeds will go to the Poor Starving Children of Africa.
In the center of the room, beneath a gigantic chandelier, twenty-eight tables are dressed and ready for the sit-down dinner to be served at nine. A dance floor and bandstand are off to the side, opposite the podium where Hilly Holbrook will give her speech.
After the dinner, there will be dancing. Some of the husbands will get drunk, but never the member wives. Every member there considers herself a hostess and will be heard asking one another, “Is it going alright? Has Hilly said anything?” Everyone knows it is Hilly’s night.
At seven on the dot, couples begin drifting through the front doors, handing their furs and overcoats to the colored men in gray morning suits. Hilly, who’s been there since six o’clock sharp, wears a long taffeta maroon-colored dress. Ruffles clutch at her throat, swathes of material hide her body. Tight-fitted sleeves run all the way down her arms. The only genuine parts of Hilly you can see are her fingers and her face.
Some women wear slightly saucier evening gowns, with bare shoulders here and there, but long kid-leather gloves ensure they don’t have more than a few inches of epidermis exposed. Of course, every year some guest will show up with a hint of leg or a shadow