Plus One
PLUS ONE
ELLA
Guess who’s coming to dinner…
—ALICE LEE GADDY BOCH BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
1978
In the fall of 1978, Ella, who had graduated early with honors from NYU and would attend Harvard Law the following year, was summoned back to the farm to spend a week with the family.
The Senator, as Eve Lynn now singularly referred to her husband, insisting everyone do the same, had been feeling nostalgic for the gaggle again, and since Ella had gone to Europe just after graduation, he had made a personal appeal that she visit. It had been far too long since they’d all been together, and the family was expanding at a rate that made the Senator misty. After all, Knox had a new girlfriend, a Dupont, no less, and Alice Lee would be there with her new husband, Phillip Boch, whom she’d married the year before—fulfilling Eve Lynn’s manifest destiny that the South, or at least her circle within it, would rise again.
The ultra-formal wedding had been held at the Gaddy farm: all the staff had been dressed in livery, with polished brass appointments, and it had been written up in the Courier Journal as the Event of the Decade, befitting the daughter of the senator from the fine state of Kentucky, and his wife Eve Lynn Knox Gaddy, one of the South’s most celebrated ex-debutantes. The union of these two families solidified Eve Lynn’s place among the fortunate 500.
A reluctant bridesmaid, Ella had been warned not to do anything to embarrass her sister, and certainly not to make a scene. So, instead, she made an impression. The once gangly and gawky redhead had somehow acquired sophistication and polish, and while Alice Lee was cautious when it came to all things Ella, others were smitten.
There was just something about the youngest Gaddy girl that made you look twice. Sitting next to her sister for a wedding portrait, she not only dwarfed Alice Lee, blond and petite in her custom-made ivory Christian Dior gown, but Ella pulled the focus, looking stately and elegant in her lavender duchess satin bridesmaid dress, with a floral wreath of baby’s breath and violets crowning her long, curly red hair, which, while still untamed, seemed to halo her face in a most attractive manner.
“She’s a real beauty,” Boo had said under his breath, observing his two daughters from afar.
“Yes, she is,” Eve Lynn agreed, but they were not looking at the same child.
The gaggle hadn’t been together since.
“Honestly, she is always late,” Alice Lee complained, annoyed that once again they were waiting on Ella. Alice Lee and her husband and Knox and his girlfriend had all arrived at the farm punctually for a noon lunch.
But Ella, who apparently still lived by a different clock, had not.
“Now don’t you start,” Eve Lynn warned, reminding her daughter that everyone else lived nearby, and Ella lived in New York City. “That doesn’t matter,” Alice Lee responded, resenting the special dispensation that her younger sister still received. “She is as rude as ever,” Alice Lee declared in a huff.
Eve Lynn searched Alice Lee’s porcelain face imploringly. “Please,” she said. She didn’t want arguments, certainly not in front of the Dupont girl, and she was genuinely looking forward to the family reunion. Eve Lynn had settled into the idea that Ella was finding her way. And as long as that way was at a good distance, Eve Lynn would make the best of it. She hoped Alice Lee would as well.
“By the way,” Eve Lynn said confidentially, trying to change the subject, “she’s bringing someone.”
“Who?” asked Alice Lee.
“She didn’t say,” Eve Lynn told her. All Eve Lynn knew was that Ella had called the Senator from the airport and told him that she wasn’t coming alone.
And that also annoyed Alice Lee. “Why do you let her get away with that kind of behavior?” she asked, chastising her mother for not only allowing but perpetuating Ella’s rude sense of entitlement. “You are not doing her any favors,” Alice Lee scolded.
“Well, I think it’s that Jewish boy she was dating,” Eve Lynn confided.
“Don’t be so certain,” Alice Lee said smugly. “After all, it could be a woman,” she said, adding that there had been a rumor at her boarding school that Ella Joy was a lesbian.
“You stop that talk right now,” Eve Lynn snapped, casting a look toward Knox’s girlfriend, who was within earshot.
“I’m not making this up, Mother,” Alice Lee told her, less trying to upset Eve Lynn and more attempting to reinforce her spot as the number one.
Ever since Ella had gone away to college, then gotten accepted on her first try to Harvard Law School, there was, Boo had noted, a bit of jealousy that Alice Lee exhibited toward her younger sister. Eve Lynn had dismissed the Senator when he mentioned it, saying that Alice Lee wasn’t even a bit envious and had everything she’d ever wanted, but in truth, Alice Lee had everything Eve Lynn had wanted for her.
“Here she is now,” announced the Senator, overjoyed as Ella walked toward them with her arm around Essie. It was hot outside, and she wore a poncho, shorts, and flip-flops. Her red hair hung long, and a pair of granny glasses covered her eyes.
“Here’s our brilliant scholar,” the Senator said, walking up to her expansively with Eve Lynn in tow, who was looking around for Ella’s guest.
“I thought perhaps you’d be bringing Mr. Finklestine,” Eve Lynn said, mispronouncing his name either due to some ancient anti-semitism so deeply ingrained she’d be insulted by the mere suggestion, or just a lack of familiarity with - steens, - stines, or - stones.
“We broke up ages ago,” Ella told her.
“Well, I thought the Senator said that you said you were bringing someone?” Eve Lynn responded, confused.
“No, Mother,” Ella corrected, “I said I wasn’t coming alone.”
“Well, what on earth does that mean?” interrupted Alice Lee, enjoying neither the riddle nor the riddler. “And aren’t you melting in that heavy poncho?”
“I am,” Ella said, taking it off and exposing her plus-one.
Ella Joy Gaddy was heavily pregnant.