Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt and Other Things I Learned in Southern Belle Hell (21 page)
Read Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt and Other Things I Learned in Southern Belle Hell Online
Authors: Crickett Rumley
We all nodded agreement.
“â⦠when I say that we all would like for you to respect that she is the fifth Maid as the judges initially decreed. I will agree to serve as alternate. But it is my sincere hope that I never have to fulfill those duties. Thank you, and I'm sorry.'”
As Caroline finished reading the letter, dear Lord (sorry, Brandi Lyn!), the silence was deafening. Caroline folded up the paper and placed it back in her bodice. She looked relaxed for the first time since I had known her, especially when we all gathered behind her and presented a united front.
Mizz Upton looked like she was about to faint. She yelled toward the verandah. “Walter?! Please get in here? Walter!”
Mr. Walter came running in, and Mizz Upton yammered up a storm about how she wasn't sure that Brandi Lyn could come back after resigning. And was she allowed to wear a dress from a bygone Maid? It wasn't in the bylaws, she'd have to check with the Jaycees, Maids were required to commission their own dresses, etc. But old Walter Murray Hill took one look at the perfection that was Brandi Lyn in that dress, saw Caroline hanging back, looking relieved, and he clapped Mizz Upton on the back and declared, “Why, Martha Ellen! The dress has tradition, okay. Just like the Magnolia Maids! And as long as Miss Caroline is fine with itâ”
Caroline nodded emphatically from the corner.
“âthen we are good to go! Let's do this!” he announced. That Mr. Walter. What a good man. “T-minus ten minutes and counting,” he said.
So⦠ten minutes to go and I decided to peak outside at our audience. It looked like a billion people were crowded on the Great Lawn of Boysenthorp Gardens. Okay, slight exaggeration. More like one thousand. But that was a lot, considering how small B'ville usually felt! I scanned the crowd, searching for Cosmo. It was impossible to find anyone, though. Except Grandmother, who, all of a sudden, was standing right in front of me.
“Jane, sweet pea, can I speak to you for a moment?” she asked.
I followed her onto the verandah, the very site of my recent victory with Luke. “No problem, but make it quick, I was just looking for⦔ I trailed off. Oh no. I looked at her and I knew. I just knew. “He's not coming, is he?”
She shook her head. “He's got a big⦔
“⦠convention in the Bahamas or deal to make in Norway or⦔ I stopped. I was tired. My sarcasm tank had run out. I felt empty.
“I'm so sorry,” Grandmother said.
I shook myself. “It's okay. It's better really. Today has been so hectic anyway, you wouldn't believe all the drama we've had, and⦔ I trailed off as the wave of disappointment washed over me.
Grandmother produced a handkerchief, lace, of course, from her handbag to dab away a tear that had formed at the corner of my eye.
I laughed. At least made a pathetic attempt to. “Yeah, wouldn't want to ruin all this makeup Mizz Upton had us put on.”
A sad smile tweaked Grandmother's lips. “He'll be there for you one day, Jane. I think he's gone so often because it's easier for him not to remember. He's haunted.”
“But I miss her, too, Grandmama. I loved her, too. Why can't we miss her and love her together?”
Grandmother sighed. “Honey, sometimes it doesn't work that way. There's no telling how people are going to react to things. Sometimes they push away from each other when they should be circling in.”
I knew what she meant.
I shrugged. I wanted to believe her. Wanted to believe that one day he would come back to me. That I would be enough. But I wasn't so sure.
I looked at Grandmother and felt a surge of love. For her, I would be hopeful. “I guess I just have to accept it, don't I?”
Grandmother smiled for real and gave me a quick kiss on the forehead. “That's my girl. Now. This is supposed to be one of the most memorable days in a Magnolia Maid's year. You get back in there and have the time of your life! Okay?”
It was Grandmother. How could I possibly say no?
When I returned to the ladies' parlor, Zara could tell something was off.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
I shrugged and whispered, “My dad.” She squeezed my hand in solidarity.
And Great Day in the Morning, y'all, but you could have knocked me over with the tiniest of feathers if you had even hinted at what transpired next.
Walter Murray Hill announced that it was time for the final vote for queen. He handed out white slips of paper and instructed us each to write down the name of the Maid we thought should be queen. In the event of another tie, God forbid, he and Mizz Upton would make the final call. After all, we couldn't make a debut without a queen! I scribbled
Brandi Lyn
on my white slip and handed it back. I saw Ashley giving Mallory and Caroline the eye and thought, oh great. Ashley's
still
twisting arms into voting for her. After everything we'd done together this week. Puh-leez. Zara and Brandi Lyn breezily jotted down their votes. I smiled at them. They smiled back.
Walter Murray and Mizz Upton huddled together to tally the votes, and to my great delight, Mizz Upton looked greener and greener with every opening of a slip of paper.
“It's about time y'all agreed on something,” she muttered. But she was disgusted. I could tell. Why else would her Estée Lauder Maraschinoâcolored lips be scrunched up like a lemon? I took it as good newsâsomeone from Ashley's team had finally woken up, smelled the magnolias, and decided to vote for Brandi Lyn.
Walter Murray Hill, however, maintained an inscrutable expression until the very last slip of paper was opened, and then a grin wider than the Grand Canyon split his face. “Congratulations, Maids, we have a new queen.” He turned to us girls, and I must admit, his excitement was contagious!
We all gathered around him and joined hands like a bunch of beauty-pageant finalists.
“It is my supreme pleasure to announce that the young lady who will be our primary ambassadress of the city of Bienville, the leader of her sister Magnolia Maids, the queen of the Magnolia Court⦠is Miss Ashley Jane Fontaine Ventouras!”
Miss Ashley Jane Fontaine Ventouras.
The name reverberated in my head.
Miss Ashley Jane Fontaine Ventouras. Miss Ashley Janeâ¦
“Oh my God!” I screeched. “That's me!”
There's a whole chapter in the
Magnolia Court Orientation Handbook
titled “Manners Befitting a Maid Upon Revelation That She Is Queen of the Court.” It goes something like this, with a few flourishes for dramatic purposes:
| 1. | DO smile humbly and thank your Magnolia sisters for having faith in you and selecting you as their leader. |
| 2. | DO NOT gasp with shock, widen your eyes in surprise, then berate your sisters for being out of their minds. Magnolia Maids are supposed to be hostesses extraordinaire, and having an inherent ability to repress and ignore any and all elephants in the room is a requirement of gracious Southern living. |
| 3. | DO take your place at the head of the flight formation and prepare to lead your flock out to the clamoring crowd gathered under the oaks of Boysenthorp Gardens. |
| 4. | DO NOT remain frozen solid, actively shoving bile back down your throat as you ponder what part of “I'm the rebel in the group” those Magnolia sisters of yours did not understand. |
Guess who violated number 1, committed number 2, was incapable of performing number 3, and absolutely one hundred percent enacted number 4?
Me.
“No, no, no, you didn't mean me.” My eyes pleaded with Mr. Walter to make it all go away.
“I sure did, Jane.” He squeezed my arm. “And I think it's a fine choice for the year we're getting ready to have. Now. Y'all get in formation and let's go meet the good people of Bienville, okay!”
The string quartet launched into some ode to summer, and Mr. Walter headed out the French doors to the Grand Verandah. A moment later, a microphone kicked on and we heard Mr. Walter welcome the crowd and begin his opening speech.
Meanwhile, I was as frozen as Caroline had been when she heard her name announced as alternate. I felt milliseconds away from pulling a Brandi Lyn and fainting. Seeing my condition, the girls rallied around to prop me up and fan me with the three-hundred-dollar fans Miss Dinah Mae had made for us. I glared at them all. “How could you? What were you all thinking?”
“You take care of us, Jane,” said Brandi Lyn.
“You solve our problems,” said Mallory.
“You care about our feelings,” said Caroline.
“You have an admirable sense of justice,” said Zara.
“But I pick fights! I get you into trouble!” I whirled on Ashley. “You agreed to this?”
“It was my idea.”
“You've lost your mind. I thought you wanted to be queen.”
Ashley shrugged. “What with my recent heartbreak and not-so-private humiliation, I've had enough of being in the public eye for a while.”
“Well, what about Brandi Lyn? Remember? Weren't we going to vote for her?”
“That's sweet, Jane,” Brandi Lyn said. “But we all agreed. You're our true leader.”
Off in the distance, I could hear Mr. Walter working the crowd. It was happening. The debut presentation had actually started.
Mizz Upton butted her way through Brandi Lyn and Mallory. “Jane, what in the world is going on here? You're supposed to be out there in two seconds! Do we need a doctor?”
“No.” I am sure it did look that way. I would have fallen on my ruffle-encased behind if Ashley and Zara had not been holding me up.
“What then? Are you refusing to be the queen? It is a rather”âher evil eye traveled angrily around the circleâ“unusual choice. If you aren't feeling up to it, we can recall the decision and Walter Murray Hill and I can choose.” Anticipation dripped from every one of Mizz Upton's words. Once again, she was dying for me to resign.
And frankly, this was one of Mizz Upton's ideas that actually sounded appealing. As Brandi Lyn would have put it, being queen was so not in my five-year plan. I was no queen. I was the anti-queen. What were the girls thinking?
I searched the beautiful bright faces all around me: Zara. Mallory. Ashley. Caroline. Brandi Lyn. I glanced out the window at the gorgeous Bienville summer day and once again wondered⦠what would Cecilia do now?
Brandi Lyn, wearing my mother's dress, squeezed my hand. “Please, Jane,” she said. “We need you.”
Suddenly, I knew the answer.
I aimed one last petrified glance at the girls, painted a glittering smile onto my face, and addressed the firing squad of Mizz Upton. “Actually, ma'am. I believe that if the girls want me, we should follow tradition and honor our legally held election.” I nodded at the Maids. “Get into position, Maids!”
“But this is a terrible idea!” Mizz Upton sniffed. “This can't possibly work!”
Ignoring her, the girls lined up behind me. Brandi Lyn and Ashley on one side, Zara and Mallory on the other, Caroline, many happy steps behind.
“It's going to work just fine,” I said. “Ready, girls? One, two⦔
On three, we all stepped forward in perfect unison with our right feet. The French doors to the Grand Verandah magically swung open and we floated as one outside to greet the mass of cheering Bienvillites.
And it was at that moment that I finally heard it. The voice that had eluded me for nine years. It was only eight tiny little words, but I felt them in my heart, just like Grandmother said I would.
Welcome back, Jane,
said my mother with warmth and hope, love and joy, reassurance and affection.
I'm so glad you're home.
I couldn't write a novel about the power of friendship without giving a shout-out to my family and to all my friends who encouraged its writing from the very beginning, especially Gail Lerner, Gina Neff, Karyn Kusama, Lisa Brown, and Daniel Handler.
Many thanks to Hedgebrook and the Elizabeth George Foundation for supporting the writing and research of the project and to the many good people who launched the finished book into the world: particularly my crackerjack agent Meredith Kaffel, who found it a home with the fabulous Regina Griffin at Egmont USA, and Molly McGuire, the most insightful, cheerful editor a girl could ask for.
A curtsy to the City of Mobile, Alabama, and its beautiful Azalea Trail Maids for inspiring the world of the story. Special thanks to the Boutwell family for their kind hospitality, especially to Emily for aiding and abetting my research. I am grateful to the Azalea Trail Maid alumnae who so enthusiastically shared their experiences on the Trail and explained the ins and outs of the hoopskirt: Dr. Be Phetsinorath, Meridy Jones, Leslie Foster Gaston, Katie Patterson, Anna Flock, and Alexandra Twilley.
Last but not least, this book would not exist were it not for Susan Boutwell Cannon. Thanks for being the one person I could talk to back then, and for being the one person who truly understands it all now.