Chapter 9 The Rebel Deb
The Rebel Deb
“Who Wore It Better?”
Blair took a moment to gather herself after she and Esme hung up—and to furtively google the article Esme had referenced.
Esme had flustered her. Or Jack had. One or the other of them, because she sure as hell wasn’t going to be flustered by Reggie’s new “ladylove.” What was up with the word ladylove, anyway?
What other kind of love was her very heterosexual ex supposed to have?
If one of these tabloids ran a picture of Reggie Johnston and his new “ladlove,” that would be newsworthy.
She only allowed herself to look at the side-by-side pics for a nanosecond. It didn’t matter who wore it better, because Blair had worn that dress first. And hers was in her closet right now. So either the new ladylove was trolling Blair, or it was a coincidence and she had good taste.
And again with the “actress-turned-producer”! Why wasn’t Reggie a “lawyer-turned-producer”?
Blair took a clarifying breath as she dished up the grits. She told herself to let the pot soak in the sink. She could wash it later.
She hesitated.
Let the pot soak in the sink.
She picked up the bowls.
Let the pot soak in the sink.
“Sorry about Esme,” she said as she crossed to the living area and set their bowls on the coffee table.
“Don’t apologize. I’m the interloper here.”
“Well, how about an apology for the fact that your dinner is literally just a bowl of grits with store-bought chicken on top? I intended to make a salad, but…”
“There appear to be green onions on top, so close enough.” Jack lifted his wineglass, and after they toasted, he said, “Sounds like your daughter is into music.”
“She is. More and more. Dance used to be her big thing, but she seems to have cooled on it in favor of music.” Blair wasn’t sure what had happened.
It felt like a blink of an eye ago she had been driving back and forth to dance lessons and recitals.
“Esme and I usually go to Coachella, but I only ever know the big names. Lately, she seems like she knows everything about everyone. I try to listen to her bands, but…” She shrugged.
“I’m not cool.” Whatever. She didn’t care.
Except when she did. Except when she had to face the fact that she couldn’t go see a cool local band if she wanted to, on account of the cyclone.
Jack took a bite of the grits and hummed his satisfaction. “This is so good.”
Blair was chuffed by the praise. “Another recipe from my grandmother. Not that grits are secret, but she had a secret method.” She paused. “Which is butter. The secret method is an obscene amount of butter. And an only slightly less obscene amount of white cheddar.”
“It’s funny, from what I know of your childhood, I’d expect fancier food.”
“What do you know about my childhood?” She couldn’t recall telling him anything.
“You referenced an estate behind a gate. A pool. Multiple porches.”
Right. Her embarrassing little speech about how much In Time meant to her.
“I was imagining dinner at the estate would be prime rib served under a chandelier,” he said.
“Well, you’re right. My grandmother’s recipes were not my mother’s recipes—or, I should say, the recipes my mother had our cook make.
Mimi married above her station. Those are her words, not mine.
She favored hearty, down-home Southern fare.
Sometime I’ll make you her biscuits and gravy; oh my stars, it’s so good.
Better than the tomato and cheddar pie, even. ”
“You were close to your grandmother?”
“Yes. She was great.” Blair missed Mimi so much sometimes, even all these years later.
“How so?”
“She was a character. My granddad was a banker—his daddy owned the bank—and they met when she was cleaning the bank. She had a real scrappy childhood. She used to shoot possums.”
“For fun?”
“For food! She used to wear pants, too, and it drove everyone crazy, apparently.”
“Even your granddad?”
“I think so. He died when I was young, so I never knew him firsthand, but to hear it told, he was perpetually exasperated. It would be nice to think of them having had a grand romance. I mean, why does a rich boy working in a bank marry the pants-wearing, possum-shooting girl who cleans his office if not for love?”
“Unless he got the pants-wearing, possum-shooting girl who cleans his office pregnant, I tend to agree.”
“My dad, who’s the oldest, wasn’t born until a few years after they were married, so it can’t be that.
By the time I was a tween and old enough to clock the dark family undercurrents, Mimi was firmly ensconced as the family matriarch, so everyone was deferential.
On the surface, anyway. My mother could get impressively passive-aggressive; it’s one of her special talents.
She was always embarrassed by Mimi, I think, but too superficially polite to be rude to her face.
“Anyway, I used to try to sit by Mimi at family functions, and she’d always whisper little observations about people into my ears.”
“Sounds like she had a talent for passive-aggressiveness, too, at least behind people’s backs.”
Blair considered it. “I guess, but to be fair she often was just aggressive-aggressive. And often to people’s faces.”
He smiled.
“Something she said to me was what actually gave me the guts to move to LA and try my luck in Hollywood. She died right after my deb ball, and—”
“I’m sorry, did you say ‘deb ball’? As in debutante?”
She smiled. It seemed like a lifetime ago. “I did indeed.”
“Wow.”
“Yep. I’d like to say I was the rebel deb, that I hated every moment of it.
But I kind of dug it. The dress, the dance lessons, the politics of my deb class, the drama.
There were so many stories there. And it appealed to my inner performer.
I loved it. What I hated was what was supposed to come next. ”
She didn’t like thinking about that time, the interstitial years after the ball but before she decamped for California.
That was when she’d first gotten the cyclone.
It was worse then, in some ways, because she hadn’t had any self-awareness about what was happening.
Once she’d thought she was dying and had called 911.
Thank heavens she’d been at Mimi’s. Mimi had footed the ambulance bill and agreed not to tell Blair’s parents after the doctors had proclaimed it a panic attack and Blair had convinced her grandmother that it was a one-off.
“What was supposed to happen next?” Jack asked.
“I was supposed to marry a good boy. If not Wyatt Banks Armstrong the Third, who was my escort to the ball and poised to inherit his family’s fertilizer empire, then someone like him.
” Wyatt had been a good boy. Handsome and entitled but also kind, and kindness had been a rarity among the boys in her circle.
Jack guffawed. “Wyatt Banks Armstrong the Third, the Fertilizer King. So you marry him after the deb ball. How old are you at this point?”
“I was sixteen at the time of the ball. They would have wanted me to wait until I was eighteen to get married—after high school.” No one had ever said anything overtly, but it had been assumed that she and Wyatt were endgame.
She couldn’t even remember Wyatt asking her to be his girlfriend. They had just… become a couple.
“A child bride. Charming. And then what?”
“That’s it. Until it was time to start popping out proper young ladies and gentlemen, which probably would have been a couple years later.”
“No career?”
“No. I mean, if I’d insisted, I could have had a vanity career.
Interior design, that sort of thing. In fact, one of the girls from my class went on to be a party planner.
Another acceptably cute career for a Southern belle.
She’s been wildly successful. She’s built a big company, and to hear it told, she brings home twice what her cardiologist husband does, but she still plays the role of the demure, supportive wife.
Their life is organized around him and his job.
She introduces herself socially as Mrs. Dr. Asshole. ”
“Dr. Asshole. And he’s a cardiologist? I’d say not opting for proctology was a missed opportunity.”
She laughed. It shouldn’t have been surprising that Jack was funny. Though not a comedic novel, In Time had been truly witty in places. In person, Jack was prone to wry observations and had a deadpan delivery that tickled her funny bone.
“So you ran away to Los Angeles because of something your grandmother told you,” he said, picking up the life story he seemed intent on pulling from her.
“Yes.” He was looking at her pointedly. He probably wanted her to tell him what Mimi had said, but she was not going to do that.
For some reason, those words felt private.
She’d kept them close to her heart all these years.
“To everyone’s surprise, including mine, I met with success here.
I also met Reggie. We got pregnant accidentally and… ”
“The rest was history,” Jack said.
“That’s all she wrote,” Blair parried.
“You were done like dinner.”
“Time to pull the plug.” Blair smiled. That had been fun—the second time she and Jack had entered into a spontaneous word game, a battle of synonyms. Last time it had been The Last of Us adjectives starting with H. This time it was idioms for being finished with something.
“Except,” she added, “I think our problem was the plug wasn’t pulled.
It turns out that if you don’t use birth control and you don’t ‘pull the plug’”—she made a silly face—“you’re rewarded for your youthful stupidity with pregnancy.
The result was, ironically, that I did get knocked up essentially on my parents’ schedule. ”
“Were they scandalized by the out-of-wedlock pregnancy?”