man said, “Come with me, I have it all upstairs,” and whisked me in the elevator to the third floor, to a room called MODERN WOMEN’S WEAR.
“What is all this?” I asked. There were dozens of women and rock-and-roll playing and champagne glasses and bright glittering lights.
“Emilio Pucci, darling. Finally!” He stepped back from me and said, “Aren’t you here for the preview? You do have an invitation, don’t you?”
“Um, somewhere,” I said, but he lost interest as I faked through my handbag.
All around me, clothes looked like they’d sprouted roots and bloomed on their hangers. I thought of Miss LaVole and laughed. No easter-egg suits here. Flowers! Big bright stripes! And hemlines that showed several inches of thigh. It was electric and gorgeous and dizzying. This Emilio Pucci character must stick his finger in a socket every morning.
I bought with my blank check enough clothes to fill the back seat of the Cadillac. Then on Magazine Street, I paid forty-five dollars to have my hair lightened and trimmed and ironed straight. It had grown longer over the winter and was the color of dirty dishwater. By four o’clock I was driving back over the Lake Pontchartrain bridge with the radio playing a band called the Rolling Stones and the wind blowing through my satiny, straight hair, and I thought, Tonight, I’ll strip off all this armor and let it be as it was before with Stuart.
STUART and I eat our Chateaubriand, smiling, talking. He looks off at the other tables, commenting on people he knows. But no one gets up to tell us hello.
“Here’s to new beginnings,” Stuart says and raises his bourbon.
I nod, sort of wanting to tell him that all beginnings are new. Instead, I smile and toast with my second glass of wine. I’ve never really liked alcohol, until today.
After dinner, we walk out into the lobby and see Senator and Missus Whitworth at a table, having drinks. People are around them drinking and talking. They are home for the weekend, Stuart told me earlier, their first since they moved to Washington.
“Stuart, there are your parents. Should we go say hello?”
But Stuart steers me toward the door, practically pushes me outside.
“I don’t want Mother to see you in that short dress,” he says. “I mean, believe me, it looks great on you, but . . .” He looks down at the hemline. “Maybe that wasn’t the best choice for tonight.” On the ride home, I think of Elizabeth, in her curlers, afraid the bridge club would see me. Why is it that someone always seems to be ashamed of me?
By the time we make it back to Longleaf, it’s eleven o’clock. I smooth my dress, thinking Stuart is right. It is too short. The lights in my parents’ bedroom are off, so we sit on the sofa.
I rub my eyes and yawn. When I open them, he’s holding a ring between his fingers.
“Oh . . . Jesus.”
“I was going to do it at the restaurant but . . .” He grins. “Here is better.”
I touch the ring. It is cold and gorgeous. Three rubies are set on both sides of the diamond. I look up at him, feeling very hot all of a sudden. I pull my sweater off my shoulders. I am smiling and about to cry at the same time.
“I have to tell you something, Stuart,” I blurt out. “Do you promise you won’t tell anyone?”
He stares at me and laughs. “Hang on, did you say yes?”
“Yes, but . . .” I have to know something first. “Can I just have your word?”
He sighs, looks disappointed that I’m ruining his moment. “Sure, you have my word.”
I am in shock from his proposal but I do my best to explain. Looking into his eyes, I spread out the facts and what details I can safely share about the book and what I’ve been doing over the past year. I leave out everyone’s name and I pause at the implication of this, knowing it’s not good. Even though he is asking to be my husband, I don’t know him enough to trust him completely.
“This is what you’ve been writing about for the past twelve months? Not . . . Jesus Christ?”
“No, Stuart. Not . . . Jesus.”
When I tell him that Hilly found the Jim Crow laws in my satchel, his chin drops and I can see that I’ve confirmed something Hilly already told him about me—something he had the naïve trust not to believe.