Chapter 15 #3
Frances was going toward Rory, arms open, but he reached down and stuck another cigarette in his mouth before she could get to him. As he lit it, she managed to kiss his cheek.
“Thank you, darling,” she said. “I’m so excited, and don’t forget—” Frances glanced at me and said softly, “Birdie leaves on Wednesday. Her train’s at noon.” He nodded, and I felt a wash of relief.
“Maybe you can meet us on the square for lunch tomorrow after we shop?” Frances asked.
“We don’t have to go anywhere fancy, Buffaloe’s Café’ll do just fine.
” I thought about Meg’s mama coming out here.
If they went to lunch, or even shopped after, maybe I could come back here and talk to her in private.
“I think I’ll come back and work out of the house since it’ll be nice and quiet,” Rory said. “So make a day of it. When you’re done, have Mr. Binny drive you home.”
At quarter to ten, Rory drove us to town.
He was quiet—and hungover, I assumed. He certainly smelled like it.
Smoking again, he had the little triangle window open, but smoke still curled inside the car.
After last night, no one dared complain.
Beside him, Mrs. Tartt was in her signature ice blue, a washable silk with fussy ruffles, and a matching pillbox hat.
In the back seat, next to me, Frances frowned down at something.
“Sorry,” I said, following her gaze. I scraped mud off the hem of my blue dress. It sort of came off. She had on her perfectly pressed navy-blue dress with comfortable black patent leather Enna Jettick pumps, since she did not intend to lose precious money-spending time due to sore feet.
“How are you so unaware of how you look?” she whispered.
“Oh I’m not. It’s just that irritating you gives me so much joy.” In truth, I didn’t like mud on my dress either, but I also knew nobody was looking.
Rory took the curve at the fork fast, gravel pinging the sides of the Studebaker.
“Slow down, son, Neilson’s isn’t going anywhere.
It’s lasted almost a century and might last another if they get our business today,” Mrs. Tartt said and chuckled.
Rory slowed down to spark a new cigarette off the old one, but by the Percy mansion, he’d sped back up.
This time, Mrs. Tartt didn’t say anything.
Turning on the square to drive the circular road around it (funny how those worked), we passed Old Miss Rondo begging on the corner.
She always shook her peach can a little more aggressively when I walked by; I guess people just sensed it about me.
In the alley beside Neilson’s, the long wooden porch rail was full of men waiting on work.
“Can we get something for you today, darling? A shirt or some new ties?” Frances asked, leaning over the front seat.
“You just concentrate on yourself, Frances,” Rory said, rolling up to the entrance.
Overhead, the sign read Established 1839 The J.
E. Neilson Co. Department Store. “Remember to call Mr. Binny when you’re done.
” Frances held her hand out over the seat for cab fare.
When Rory ignored it, she pulled it back without a word.
Frances was not about to rock the boat today.
Rory walked around and opened his mother’s door first. As he helped her out of the car, he kept hold of her white-gloved hand a second longer.
“I’ll see you later, Mama,” he said.
Mrs. Tartt looked up at him, squinting in the glare. “Is everything alright, son?”
“Everything’s just swell,” he said. He didn’t sound swell, he sounded bitter. “Take your time shopping, I could use the peace and quiet at home.”
“See you later, darling,” Frances called.
All I could say was everything felt off.
But it was probably just me, being too much myself.
I followed Frances and Mrs. Tartt under the awning, over the gray marble landing out front, through a pair of glass doors.
For a moment I stopped and just looked. I’d never been inside Neilson’s, and I’d never seen this much merchandise for sale in one place before.
Who did they expect to buy all this, in these times?
I wondered. I watched Frances, head jutted forward, eyes bright, and I knew, my sister, that was who.
It was a large room full of bright, dyed colors.
The left side, the ladies’ side, was stuffed with tables of sweaters, racks of dresses, cases of “accoutrements”—all ready-to-wear.
An octopus stand held cloche hats, pillbox hats, slouchy hats, fedoras.
On the right was the men’s department, displaying dark suits and shirts and hats, shoes and socks and silk ties.
I decided these people had either an inventory problem or a customer problem or both.
By my count, the total population in here was us, four store attendants, and a man behind a desk, his head bowed over a book.
It was the man I’d seen cleaning the windows weeks ago, who’d given me the strange look when I’d mentioned Rory. I looked back, but Rory’s car was gone.
“Why, Viktoria, what a nice surprise.” A lady, much older and thinner than Mrs. Tartt, glided toward us, hands out. She had high distinct collarbones and wore the palest of pinks. She was probably Meemaw’s age but with more teeth and definitely more manners.
“Miss Ella,” Mrs. Tartt said, clasping the woman’s hands. “It’s always good to see you. I believe you know my daughter-in-law, Frances, and this’s her sister, Birdie. Birdie, Oxford wouldn’t be the same without Miss Ella McGuire.” Miss Ella smiled hello, her lips trembling slightly.
“You must be looking forward to the young folks coming back,” Mrs. Tartt said. And I remembered, that was why they had so much inventory—the customers hadn’t gotten to town yet.
“Oh, we are. You know The Miss’ippian said enrollment’s way up this year, thank heavens.”
“Well, it’s about time, after what that scoundrel Bilbo did,” Mrs. Tartt said.
“We’re all glad the school’s finally getting its letters back.
” It’d been big news in the paper, that our former Governor Bilbo had fired all the Ole Miss teachers a few years ago, and the university had lost its accreditation.
Frances stuck her neck in, she’d had enough chitchat. “Miss Ella, I’d like to try on that red dress in the window, please.”
“Why, of course. I believe you’re a size … two?” Miss Ella nodded over to a young blond wearing a name tag that said HELLO I’M NELLY.
But Frances wasn’t finished. She looked down at a list she’d made at home titled Fashions to Get Noticed In, from ideas she’d gotten out of one of her Photoplay magazines. Such beautiful penmanship for such stupid, stupid words.
“I’ll need a hat to match the dress and a pair of tan heels and some new gloves and stockings, two silk, two rayon, a plaid skirt, but not a real Ole Missy–looking one, and are you carrying a blouse with a faille collar and big bow like Frances Dee in The Crime of the Century?”
Even Mrs. Tartt’s eyebrows went up a little, a mix of disapproving and impressed by Frances’s gall. I left them and wandered around the store.
I passed a long wooden table stacked with red and blue woolens, Swell Sweaters for the University Gal!
, for three dollars, slim fall dresses like Frances favored for three dollars, six dollars, some even ten dollars apiece.
Here I was, relieved we’d be able to afford heating oil and cornmeal this winter—and then I stopped at a snowy, winter-white wool coat.
Simple black crewelwork curled around the collar.
I felt the sleeve—good Lord, why is that so soft?
Was it made of newborn baby hair? Sewn in the back of the coat, a label said 100% cashmere, and the sign said fourteen dollars.
I stroked it again, glancing at the man at the desk, who was watching Frances trying on hats.
After a while, bored, I cut over to Ladies’ Millinery. Frances already had the red wool dress on and a red, short-brimmed hat to go with it and was turning side to side in the mirror, asking Hello I’m Nelly did she like this one or that other?
“That one,” Nelly blurted out. She was already under a mountain of sweaters and dresses Frances’d picked out. I sure hoped she worked on commission.
“We almost done, Franny?” I asked. Frances looked at me like I’d lost my mind; it’d only been half an hour. “I’m kidding,” I said. “I’m gonna go send Mama a telegram and tell her the good news so she won’t worry. I’ll be back.”
“Birdie?” Mrs. Tartt called, coming over. “Would you mind coming to the bank with me? I don’t like going in there, but I can’t stand the thought of Pic and Polly having to wait till Friday.”
“Be happy to,” I said. I could go to Western Union afterward.
“But I can keep shopping, can’t I?” Frances asked. She looked a little panicked.
“Of course, dear. We’ll be back in a little while.”
There wasn’t but one bank left in Oxford, down from three or four before the crash, a fact that my daddy would’ve approved of since fewer banks meant fewer bankers, neither of which he could stand.
Around Footely the general thinking was, Keep your money in your mattress and take fire insurance on your bed, and most had only ever put money in pants pockets and a Crisco can.
Even Mr. Parkins kept his money in an old Florsheim shoebox up under the counter.
I held the heavy oak door of the Bank of Lafayette County open for Mrs. Tartt.
We walked into a long, wood-paneled room, about the length of the Tartts’ grand hall but wider.
It was cooler in here, thank God, and smelled like pocket change, metallic, a little oily, kind of what you’d imagine a bank robber would smell like.
“Hello, Henry,” Mrs. Tartt said to a life-sized portrait just inside the door to the left, of a fiftyish-looking, broad-chested Henry Tartt. Then she took a few steps forward and waited, hands crossed over her front.