Chapter Twenty-Four. Grace
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
GRACE
“The carnival’s only once a year, and you missed Punch and Judy to pal around with Miss Priss!” Two days later, Stanley’s still whining.
A grown man who whines is tiresome.
Why doesn’t Glamour ever write about that?
“And you missed the bathing beauties.”
I roll my eyes. “A crying shame.” He looks at me sharply. “You could whistle at the girls without me there, that’s all.”
We’re standing out by the pool, and I’m trying to go investigate with Rose, but it’s proving difficult because Stanley won’t stop complaining about how much time I’m spending with her.
“I could whistle at ’em with you there.” He grabs my arm, his eyes narrowing. “I wear the pants around here, not you. You remember that.”
His metaphor is ridiculous, considering that I’m not allowed to wear pants. (Men can’t know I have thighs. It might inspire lustful thoughts!) But I keep the smirk off my face, because I know it will aggravate him and then he’ll grip my arm tight enough to hurt.
It hits me again: I’m doing the same careful calculus I do around Dad.
Stanley wasn’t always like this. He hasn’t found his footing since he came back from the army. Since he lost Vic.
Vic protected Stan on and off the football field. He was a big beefy guy. Not the brightest, but definitely the most loyal. Stan says it was that way in the army, too. I still don’t know what happened. Only that Vic came home in a body bag, and Stan came home broken on the inside.
Stan shakes my arm. “You hear me? I don’t want you goin’ around with your nose in the air like Miss Priss. Bossin’ everybody around.”
“I won’t,” I say. “I’m not.”
I couldn’t, even if I tried. I don’t have Rose’s authority. Her money. Her education.
“Why do you have to go to get her dress hemmed, anyhow?” he complains. That’s our excuse to visit the sheriff ’s sister, Kath Callaway Johnson, who’s a seamstress. “Tell her to stuff it and come get a milkshake with me.” Stan grins. “We could go for a drive.”
Go for a drive means finding a place to park. We just did that on Friday after the fireworks.
I give Stan a kiss to placate him. “She’s the boss, remember?”
“Her dad’s the boss. She’s a snobby little bitch.” But he pulls me down onto his lap and kisses me harder, and he forgets all about Rose, like I knew he would.
I watch in horror as Rose takes the heel of her shoe and rips the hem of a pale-blue halter-neck dress that’s nicer than anything I’ve ever owned.
!
“Oopsy-daisy!” she says with a mischievous look.
“What are you doing? That dress must have cost a fortune!” I finger the cool silk. We’re sitting in Mrs. Langford’s maroon convertible coupe in the hotel drive.
“I never wear it,” Rose confesses. “Millie told me I should never wear light colors because they emphasize my hips. My nice wide childbearing hips.”
I make a face. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Millie was a showgirl before she met Father. She has legs like a Rockette, but she’s always worried about her figure. The last time I saw her, she told me I was getting zaftig, which is a nice Yiddish way of saying fat. She tried to put me on a celery diet.”
Ugh. Celery barely counts as food; it’s only a crunch. “Please. I wish I had your figure.” At least her bosom. Rose has magnificent bosoms.
Honestly, I don’t know a single girl who’s pleased with how she looks.
Barb is self-conscious about her pug nose (and rightly so).
Jeanne worries about the spots on her forehead and tries to cover them with an ill-advised fringe.
Kitty thinks she’s too tall (taller than most of the boys in our class), so she always wears loafers, never heels.
And me? My waist is slender; my complexion is good; I don’t mind being tall because Stan is taller and I’ve got great legs. But I’m nearly flat as a board up top.
Would I mind if he didn’t make so many wisecracks about it? Barely a handful, he likes to say, which doesn’t keep his hands off them.
“We could ask Mrs. Johnson to let out the hem and take it in at the waist…” Rose darts a quick glance at my chest. “And the bodice. The color and style would suit you.”
I want that dress, I really do. But I don’t want to seem eager for her castoffs. “How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not your charity project?”
Rose sighs. “It’s not charity, Grace, it’s what friends do. Clara and I used to swap dresses all the time.”
“Who’s Clara?” She never talks about her school friends the way Ella does.
Rose taps her nails against the cream-colored steering wheel. “My roommate. My best friend, till we had a falling out.”
“Over what?” Rose has her faults: She thinks she knows what’s best for everyone, and she has no concept of the privileges her father’s money affords her. But she’s loyal, and she can keep a secret, and frankly that goes a long way with me.
Rose starts the car. “We ought to get going.” Obviously she doesn’t want to tell me what happened between her and Clara. “Let Mrs. Johnson alter the dress for you. It will make our visit worth her while. Otherwise, it will only hang in my closet.”
“Well, that’s just wasteful.” I smirk. “Do you know how hard it was to get silk during the war?”
Rose nods solemnly as we rattle down the driveway. “I do. So it’s practically your patriotic duty … Also, if I know Father, he’ll bring Ella and me a trunk full of dresses from Paris. He likes to buy us nice things to feel better about leaving us motherless.”
Imagine getting a trunk full of new dresses! I flump back against the burgundy leather seat. “Fine. I’ll take it.”
That’s how I wind up on a stepstool in Kath Johnson née Callaway’s sewing room, draped in ice-blue silk while Kath kneels in front of me with her mouth full of pins.
Rose lounges on the green velvet settee in the corner, sipping a glass of sweet tea.
Mrs. Johnson’s sewing room is cozy and feminine, with vases full of pink hydrangeas and walls papered with climbing pink roses.
Fortunately, even though we showed up on her doorstep without an appointment, Kath had time to measure me for my new dress.
“What a beautiful gift,” she mumbles past the pins. “You’re lucky to have such a good friend.”
That rankles. “Oh, a dress like this is nothing to Rose. Her father’s loaded.”
“Grace!” Rose gasps at my poor manners.
Kath only shakes her honey-colored bob and laughs. “Gosh, you remind me of your aunt Emmeline.”
I exchange a glance with Rose. We didn’t even have to bring Emmeline up ourselves! “That’s what my father says,” I lie.
“I bet he doesn’t mean it as a compliment.” Kath finishes marking the hem and stands. “Does Joe talk about her much?”
“Hardly ever…” That much is true. “You knew her, didn’t you?”
“Knew her?” Kath throws her head back and laughs, loud and toothy, and I get a glimpse of the girl she must have been before the Depression and two kids and another world war.
“Honey, Kenny Carter stole my brand-new Crayolas the first day of school, and when he wouldn’t give ’em back, Em popped him one. We were best friends after that.”
“Good for her. I hate bullies.”
“She was what they call strong-willed. Bullheaded, Mom would say … Hold still, now, or I’ll stick you … I don’t think it’s so bad, fighting for what you think is right, but people don’t always care for that in a girl.” Kath eyes me as she folds the cool silk against my waist.
“So I’ve heard,” I say dryly. It sounds like Aunt Emmeline and I have some things in common.
“I’ll bet. Honey, may I be frank?” Kath asks. I nod. “Seeing you, it brings up a whole lot of memories. I knew Em about as well as anybody could, but I failed her when she needed me most. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”
My breath strangles. Why did Em need her friend so badly? What happened?
“If your dad’s been telling you a bunch of bullpucky, I’d like a chance to set the record straight,” Kath says. “It’s the least I can do.”
Rose’s eyes are round as saucers. This is like taking candy from a baby!
I try not to sound too eager. “Sure. I’d like to hear her side of the story.”
Kath fastens a pin near my bottom rib. “Well, after your granddad passed, Em had a hard time. She missed him something awful. She and Joe didn’t get along.
Never had. Joe thought Mr. Harrow spoiled her.
Said she was too smart-mouthed for her own good.
” That sounds familiar. “She could have a mouth on her. Anyhow, Joe had a mind to set her straight. Only, the more he tried to lay down the law, the worse Em got. He told her to be home by ten, she waltzed in at eleven. He grounded her, she hitchhiked into town. He locked her in her bedroom, she climbed out a window. He hauled her out of our house more than once. Made a hell of a scene. Honestly, I was embarrassed for her. Told her she should keep her head down, behave herself till graduation, and maybe then Joe would see reason. She got so mad at me. Said I couldn’t know what it was like in that house.
“Raise your arm, please.” Kath looks up at me, and I can see the laugh lines like sunbursts at the corners of her brown eyes. I wonder how my aunt would look at—I do the math—thirty-four.
Kath stabs a pin through the fabric and sticks me.
I jump. “Did I get you? Sorry, honey … Anyhow, by graduation I hardly saw her. Joe had her on a real tight leash: just school and home. He put her to work as a chambermaid. Trying to teach her the value of a dollar, he said. But that’s how she got to know Daisy, and that girl was Em’s undoing. ”
“Daisy was one of the girls who was … expecting?” Rose asks delicately.