her mother, Glory. Beatrice, Glory, and Veronica all wore elaborate, floor-length gowns. It was their habit to overdress for every occasion. They came to picnics dressed for a day on a yacht. They showed up at graduation ceremonies done up as if they were attending a coronation. They always wanted their hosts to understand that they were either on their way to or on their way from a much more important gathering.
Beatrice and Glory made a big show of not speaking to each other due to an argument they’d had on the phone that morning. Whenever the two elderly sisters came within five feet of each other, they snorted and sniffed like riled-up horses before stalking off in opposite directions.
Barbara Jean caused a stir when she sashayed in packed into a hot pink dress with a plunging neckline. The young cops looked away from their dates and stared in appreciation at this woman twice the age of their girlfriends. Barbara Jean went straight to the drinks table and hit the vodka with an intensity that worried me.
My doctor, Alex Soo, came in with a hefty woman on his arm. She was as loud as he was quiet, and she had a laugh like a rooster’s crow. She parked herself beside one of the food tables and soon made it clear that her goal for the day was to break the world record for consuming the most deviled eggs in one sitting. I liked her right off.
Ramsey Abrams and his always angry wife, Florence, arrived with their sons, Clifton and Stevie, and their future daughter-in-law. Like her mother, grandmother, and great-aunt, Sharon was dressed in the style of touring royalty. From the moment she stepped in the door, she signaled her intent to spend the evening flouncing around in her party dress while gesturing wildly with her left hand to show off the expensive engagement ring Clifton had given her. The naïve girl was completely oblivious to the way her shady fiancé broke out in a sweat when she brandished that rock anywhere near one of the many cops in attendance.
I sure wished Ramsey and Florence had used common sense and left Stevie at home. He clearly wasn’t over that shoe thing of his, or his airplane glue habit either, judging from his glassy eyes. He stared at the feet of every woman who walked past with an expression on his face that reminded you of a stray dog outside of a butcher shop. It gave people the creeps.
Clarice’s daughter, Carolyn, who is good friends with my Denise, stretched her Christmas visit out a few extra days and came to the party with her husband and her son, who was carried in already sound asleep in his father’s arms. Carolyn had gone way out of her way to find a man who wasn’t the least bit like her father. She married a Latino intellectual who teaches physics at a college in Massachusetts. He’s small, much shorter than Carolyn, and he’s had the doughy body of an idle middle-aged man since he was twenty-two.
When Richmond realized that Carolyn was getting serious about the intellectual, he did everything he could to divert Carolyn’s interest in the direction of someone he thought would be more suitable for her. He scoured the campus until he found two replicas of himself in his virile prime. Then he dragged both men to a big Memorial Day picnic at his house, where he paraded them in front of Carolyn like a couple of prize bulls. In a turn of events that I’m sure Richmond will still be trying to sort out on the day he dies, Carolyn stayed with her egghead while the two Richmond clones began a romance with each other on that Memorial Day that is still going strong more than a decade later.
Mama appeared, along with Mrs. Roosevelt, late in the evening. They both looked like they’d been to several other parties already that day. Mama’s eyes were bloodshot and Mrs. Roosevelt, who was wearing a cone-shaped silver and gold paper hat that was attached to her head with an elastic band, seemed to have forgotten her usual good manners. She waved in my general direction as she staggered in. Then she plopped down onto a footstool and began to snore.
When Mama spotted Rudy, she squealed, “Look at my boy. Ain’t he the handsomest thing?” Rudy’s a dear, but he’s mostly ears, nose, and belly. Pretty, my brother is not. I said nothing.