kind of gaudy.”
“Yes, but it hangs low, so it will cover my wrinkled chest.” When her granddaughter looked unconvinced, Eleanor opened her sock drawer and lifted out the diamond and emerald necklace that had been her mother’s. “This is what you should wear.”
Ari squealed. “OMG, is that real? Gram! Why have you never worn it before? Here,” Ari said, unfastening her eBay jewelry. “Put this on and let me try on that beauty.”
Ari was wearing a simple green slip dress with spaghetti straps that fit her snugly.
“That’s a very sexy dress,” Eleanor said, “but I don’t think the skirt will twirl.”
“I’ve decided I don’t want it to twirl,” Ari said with a light laugh. “I want it to hug my curves. No one would ever expect that I’m pregnant when they see me in this dress.”
“That’s true.” Eleanor sat down on the bed. “But you are pregnant, Ari. And you really need to see your physician.”
Ari sat down on the bed next to her grandmother. “I know. I do know. But just for tonight, I want to feel carefree.”
Eleanor nodded. “Well, then, let’s see how the necklace goes with your dress.”
Ari was wearing her long dark hair up in a chignon, with a few strands curling down on each side of her face. She sat still while Eleanor fastened the choker on her. She rose and walked to view herself in the mirror.
“Oh,” Ari said.
“You look regal,” Eleanor said. “Beautiful and elegant.”
Ari touched the large square-cut emerald, the diamonds surrounding it. “I’ve never seen you wear this.”
“I’ve never worn it. It was my mother’s, and the occasion never arose. For my wedding, my future mother-in-law wanted to loan me her triple strand of pearls, and I obeyed. And it was a lovely look, those pearls. But really, I don’t think women wear these sorts of jewels anymore. Too flashy.”
Ari frowned. “I don’t want to look flashy.”
“You don’t. Your hair is up and elegant. Wear small diamond studs in your ears and no other jewelry.” Eleanor gazed at Ari’s shoes. “Those heels are rather high.”
Ari grinned. “Not changing the shoes, Gram. And before you ask, yes, I can dance in them.”
Eleanor nodded. She went to her room to put on her gray satin pumps. It had been years since she’d worn them, and they were a little tight now. Her feet had spread somehow, and she had a bunion on her right foot that stuck out like a marble. The younger women didn’t wear hose anymore, and Eleanor envied them because they didn’t have to wrestle with hideous pantyhose, and felt sorry for them because they didn’t wear, as Eleanor had when she was young, silk stockings and a garter belt.
As she sat on her slipper chair in her bedroom, easing on her shoes, she sat very still for a moment. She wondered how many women had been in this house, in this very room, over the generations of people who’d lived here since 1840. At moments like this, she felt such a companionship, an awareness of all of the people who had made love and fought and dressed for a party and laughed and lived and died. It made her feel better about her eventual death. She wondered if, when she got to heaven, the first woman of this house would greet her, saying, “I love what you did with the front parlor.” It was a daft thought, Eleanor knew. Maybe she was getting senile, but she’d felt these invisible others since she was a child. It made her smile, and she could never tell anyone, but she wasn’t convinced it couldn’t happen.
Eleanor and Ari were still primping in front of the hall mirror when lights flashed. Two cars turned into the driveway. They glanced out the window and saw Silas stepping out of his freshly washed ancient Jeep and Beck emerging from his red convertible. The two men shook hands and talked for a while before walking to the door.
“I’m getting the giggles,” Ari confessed. “I’m going out with my grandmother.”
“Correction. You’re going out with that very handsome young man,” Eleanor said. “I just happen to be going out with a very handsome older man.”
Someone knocked on the door.
“I’ll get it!” Eleanor said. “Hello, Silas. You look quite presentable.”
“That’s the look I was aiming for,” Silas said, and they both chuckled as he escorted her to his Jeep.
Ari paused by the open door, smiling at Beck, and he took her breath away.
Beck wore a faded madras jacket