4. Becks Tongue-in-Cheek
AUGUST 28, 1976
Tip: The most important part of hosting any good event, Virginia—whether it’s for 5 or 250—is making sure that everyone feels cared for, catered to, and included. Come to think of it, that just might be the secret to most great relationships. Being the person who cares for others is an undervalued role in our society. But it is, I’ve found, perhaps the very most important role one can play.
Everyone knew that Rebecca Saint James’s dinner parties were legendary. They were, in fact, the hottest ticket in the small seaside town of Beaufort, North Carolina. And for good reason, she thought as she examined her reflection in the sterling silver cutlery and set each piece back down on the felt polishing cloth, a ritual she undertook before every dinner as women bustled around her kitchen, making lobster salad and her mother-in-law’s famous key lime pie. (Her mother-in-law was tricky. But her key lime pie? It was one of the secrets to Rebecca’s—Becks, to those in the know—famous dinner parties.)
Her white clapboard house, built by her husband’s family in 1769, had air-conditioning now, but Chef Evelyn, who had been with them for decades, who prepared everything based on Becks’s exacting recipes and standards, still preferred to work with the windows open, sea breeze pouring in. It made things a bit warmer for the servers, who were dressed to the nines in brass-button blazers with matching slacks and shiny wingtips. But no one argued with Chef Evelyn in her kitchen. Not even Rebecca Saint James.
Any guest in attendance could see right away that being served at a ratio of three guests to one uniformed server was extravagant. Any guest could taste that the food was fresh, fine, and cooked to perfection. They could smell that the flowers were in full bloom, feel that the linens, handed down from Becks’s grandmother, were expertly pressed. But only the most discerning guest could describe just why he or she had such a fabulous time. The secret, the magic formula, was the guest list.
Becks spent an exorbitant amount of time dreaming of her weekly “summer suppers.” It was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek title, much in the way that the sprawling, three-story, six-bedroom home was the “beach cottage.” She planned menus with wine pairings, some fancy, some fun. She chose the tableware and decor for each evening. But she spent the most time curating the perfect twelve people to sit around her dinner table. Becks brought people together who all had a common thread that bound them—one that quite often went unnoticed.
The esteemed twelve of the first summer supper this year had all been raised by parents in politics. The next, they all cheered for the same college basketball team. The one after that, the party varied in age, but they were all from the same home state of Alabama. Even if the guests didn’t recognize the commonality, it somehow connected them in an invisible way that made them leave saying, “That was the best dinner party I’ve ever been to.”
That was the enchantment of it all. Beyond the experience, the connection among the guests was paramount. And that was why, as Becks sat at the head of her dining room table with her pencil and slim white leather notebook in hand, she smiled, thinking how perfect the last dinner party of the summer would be.
The notebook was embossed in gold with REBECCA SAINT JAMES’S GUIDE TO ENTERTAINING stamped smartly on the cover. Townsend had been very proud of the gift, and they had had a good laugh over it; only Becks would need an entire notebook to keep her parties in order. But, in her Becks way, she had put it to good use, not only keeping track of her guests, menus, and checklists, as she always did, but also taking the opportunity to write notes to her twenty-three-year-old daughter, Virginia, to pass along all the wisdom she’d gleaned over decades of hostessing. A mother only had so much time, and a daughter could only listen so much, after all.
Yes, all this entertaining could be tricky. Earlier in the summer, for instance, her husband’s friend and fellow physician Daniel had sidled up to her by the poolside bar at the house he shared with his wife, Patricia, and asked: “Becks, why is it that Townsend and I fish together every week, that you and Patricia shop and chat on the phone for hours, but we have yet to be invited to a legendary dinner party this summer? Truth be told, I feel like we should be invited to them all.”
Ordinarily, asking to come to a party was an automatic cause for blacklisting. But, well, one couldn’t very well blacklist Daniel Walker. For Becks, it wasn’t because he was the town’s beloved physician or because he was widely considered a legend in his own time. It was because he and Patricia were two of her dearest friends. She would have liked to have invited her best friends to every party, it was true. But it was, alas, against the rules.
“Daniel, for one thing, we have only had three parties so far. For the other, you know very well why I can’t invite you to every one.”
He had sipped the champagne out of the coupe in his hand—they were celebrating the season, after all—and grinned at her. “But see, Becks, that’s the thing. I very much do not know why.”
Becks sighed. “Because the basis of my dinner parties is that everyone is on equal footing. You…” she waved her hand at him like she was scolding a child in mud-stained clothes before church, “suck all the air out of the room.”
She loved him, and she was partly teasing. But in every kidding, wasn’t there ten percent truth? Being the doctor in a town this size was like being royalty. Combined with the fact that Daniel’s family had founded the town way back when, people found him intimidating. Not to mention that the man had more stories than God and loved to dominate a conversation, which was a strict no-no at Becks’s dinner parties.
“What if I wear a disguise? A mask? A cape?”
He was teasing her now, but she was actually considering the idea.
“Don’t punish Patricia just because I suck all the air out of the room,” he continued. “I’ll behave, I promise.”
“No outlandish stories?”
He shook his head.
“No tall tales? No waxing poetic and enrapturing the guests so no one else gets a word in edgewise?”
He put his hand over his heart in faux offense. “I thought those qualities were what made me a good dinner party guest.”
“No,” Becks said. “Those things make you a good friend and lend you a fabulous bedside manner. They make you a tiresome guest.”
He laughed.
“You have to promise,” she said.
“Fine. No tales, stories, poetic waxings, interesting musings of any sort. I shall be dull, drab, and utterly unlikable.”
Unlikable the man was not. “Fine. If you can promise, I will consider your proposal.”
Becks smiled just thinking of the exchange as she reviewed the guest list for tonight. The last weekend in August meant the last party of the season, which just so happened to be Becks’s birthday celebration as well. They would be joined by Daniel and Patricia and their other dear friends Ellen and Milton, along with Becks and Townsend’s daughter and her very serious boyfriend, Robert. Their son, Lon, would be there with his girl of the summer. Dear Violet, who had just moved to town—single, if you could even imagine such a thing. She was excited that Patricia had dreamed up a blind date for the girl, if a little disappointed that there would be a total stranger at her table tonight. But, well, these things couldn’t be helped. And Patricia—who was the only one with the inside scoop on Becks’s dinner party connections—had assured her that her link between guests would be saved: the date was an avid boater, as was everyone around the table. Sure, it wasn’t the most inspired dinner party link. But it was passable.
As she stood and placed her notebook and pencil on the antique buffet, Becks considered whether she would dress the table in her favorite handmade lace tablecloth, the special one with details so beautiful it could bring a tear to the eye. Or if something plainer and more modern would be better.
As she walked to the linen closet where her tablecloths and napkins hung, starched and pressed all in a row, she decided that this was a night for special. Because tonight would not just be the last summer supper of the season.
Tonight would be the last summer supper of Rebecca Saint James’s life.