By Invitation Only

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Well, that’s why you depend on me, isn’t it? You don’t do this every day. I do.”

  A sudden breeze came from nowhere and pushed a loose section of my hair into my eyes. He reached across the space between us and moved it away. For a moment, there was something. I heard his sigh and knew not acknowledging his feelings was the safest way to handle them.

  “So, you’re coming tonight, aren’t you?”

  “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away,” he said, smiling.

  “Didn’t the Stones record that back in the day?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I can sing a few bars if you’d like. Hmmm?”

  “Save it for another time, I think.” I winced.

  He pretended to be hurt and insulted. “Ma’am, your words cut me to the quick.”

  I smiled and shook my head, and he laughed.

  “Oh, Alden! What about mosquitoes and no-see-ums? Just tell me the party’s going to be flawless.”

  “I’ve already sprayed the bushes. It will be perfect. You may depend on it.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll see you later.”

  I was dressing later on that afternoon, busying myself with thoughts of gratitude that the weather had held and that we weren’t besieged by afternoon thundershowers. I sure didn’t want a muddy driveway. Then I had a thought about what Shelby’s parents were wearing, their shoes in particular. What if they assumed that the outdoor tent would have flooring? Of course we had not rented flooring because the expenses for the night were already in the stratosphere.

  By five o’clock my parents and I were in the front parlor, pacing, waiting for Fred to arrive with Shelby and her parents. We had invited them to come early so we could share a glass of iced tea or coffee if they cared for that. I just wanted to give them the lay of the land and show them who we were if time allowed. I hoped maybe a tour of the packing sheds, the barns, and the farm stand would quell any reservations they might have. I would try to bypass Floyd’s trailer, saving that architectural wonder for another time. Besides, that crazy-looking, highly territorial dog might terrify them. Moses sure terrified me, especially after dark.

  I said to my mother, “Don’t you look nice?”

  To which she replied, “Thank you. Why are we all so nervous?”

  “It’s normal given the circumstances,” I said.

  “Now, what are the circumstances?” she said. “Party jitters?”

  “Meeting Shelby’s parents,” I said and thought, Is she kidding? But then again, I thought, lots of older people get a little confused when they’re under pressure.

  “Oh, shoot. That’s nothing.”

  “They’re here,” my dad said. He was standing by the windows, peeking through the curtains.

  “Get away from the windows like a Peeping Tom!” Mom said. “You want them to think we’re a bunch of weirdos?”

  There will be plenty of time for that, I thought.

  Chapter 4

  Really? Pig Pickin’?

  “They seem awfully nice, but I don’t know how they live like that,” Susan Kennedy Cambria said.

  I had just stepped out of the black car that delivered us from our hotel to the home of my daughter’s future in-laws. At first glance I had to say that the landscape was pretty breathtaking. There was a chalkboard in the parking lot of the farm stand that said, stop the car – you need pie! How utterly charming! I took off my sunglasses and squinted. Gorgeous oaks with long tears of Spanish moss were everywhere. And I could see the peach orchard in the distance. It was larger than I had envisioned. There were planters of flowers on the front steps of their house. Pretty, I thought. But If I had to live in a battered old house like this, I’d weep day and night. Thank God I’d had the presence of mind to get my invitations for our party out early and that my gossip girl Judy CQ canceled her trip here at the last minute. She was invited to another friend’s ranch in Montana to fly-fish for the weekend and felt she couldn’t decline because our other friend was recently separated from her husband, who was of course screwing his secretary. (And they were flying private, Judy’s drug of choice.) This was news? Really? Men screwed their secretaries? Please.

  “Alejandro?” I said his name quietly.

  “Yes?” He was trying to make a call on his cell. “I can’t get enough bars.”

  “They’re staring at us from behind the curtains.”

  He looked up briefly and then his attention returned to his phone, madly punching in the numbers again.

  “Who cares? I have to be on a conference call with our bank in Geneva now! Damn it! Do you think someone here might have a landline?”

  “Darling, this is very bad timing. Conference calls on a Saturday night?” It seemed odd. I smoothed the wrinkles on the skirt of my black linen dress and swatted a huge mosquito on my arm. There was blood. I reached into my bag for a tissue to remove its carcass. “Nasty!”

  The kitten heel of my sandal was sinking into the pea gravel walkway. I had a bad feeling about the evening, but it was my duty to be polite and congenial. For the sake of Shelby and because we cared so much for Frederick, I was determined to be the perfect candidate for an in-law if it killed me. Alejandro could spend the entire night on the phone if he wished. I’d seen him do it before.

  As I began my way toward their house, which hadn’t seen a paintbrush since we’d put a man on the moon, the line from the old song began running through my mind on an obnoxious endless loop: Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home. When I reached the steps the front door opened, and out came Diane, Frederick’s mother. She seemed genuinely happy to see me.

  “Oh! I’m so glad you’re here!” she exclaimed. “Please come in! Come in! Is that your husband?”

  I turned to see Alejandro walking across the yard with his cell phone held to his ear and his other hand on his hip and then gesturing.

  “Yes, that’s Alejandro. Please forgive him. He’s on a conference call. He’ll be along in a few minutes.”

  “Oh, it’s no problem! Come meet the family!”

  She stood there in the late-afternoon light, hair uncolored, pulled back into a simple clamp. Her face was bare, except for a swipe of pale pink lipstick that I knew on instinct she seldom wore. And her unpretentious beige linen shift matched her beige flat sandals. Mother of the groom. Wear beige and shut up. I was her polar opposite in every single way. I wondered then if I should sneak into a bathroom and wash my face. And my next thought was that it must be liberating in some Little House on the Prairie way to dress so plainly and to be so unadorned. I wouldn’t go to my yoga class without a full face of makeup.

  “Thank you. I’m so glad to meet you at last!” I said this, thinking she really was a handsome woman, although her face had clearly had never enjoyed a committed relationship with a good moisturizer or an aesthetician. Nonetheless, natural good looks were rare and to be treasured. Maybe at some point down the road, she’d come to Chicago and I’d take her to Mireille’s and let Mimi work her magic. I just loved the name Mimi.

  I stepped across the threshold and was immediately accosted by a very large cat, who hurried to my side and began to walk between and around my legs.

  “Shoo, kitty!” I said. I was not a cat person.

  “Oh, don’t pay Gus no mind!” an older woman who had to be Diane’s mother said. “He’s an old pain in the neck.” She came over, leaned down, and scooped him up with one arm where he hung from her hip like a rag doll. “I’m Virnell, the GMO the G.”

  I smiled, delighted to discover some wit in the family. I shook her hand and scratched the nice kitty gingerly behind the ears.

  “Then that makes me Susan, the MO the B!”

  “Well, that’s just fine! And that’s Floyd Sr., but we all call him Pop.”

  The older man in the recliner gave me a nod and a little wave.

  “Hi, there!” I said and gave him a little wave in return.

  Virnell said, “Come on in and let’s get you something to wet your whistle!”

  I had step
ped back in time. Who said “wet your whistle”? My head swirled and the years slipped away. I was on Walden Pond.

  “I’m sorry?” I had missed whatever it was Diane was saying.

  “I said, would you like a glass of iced tea? It’s sweetened with our own peach syrup.”

  No vodka? Not even wine?

  “That sounds wonderful!” I said, climbing on the sobriety train.

  She handed me the frosty glass and I took a sip. It was absolutely delicious.

  “This is so refreshing!” I said and quickly drained the glass. “May I?”

  Virnell said, “Law, Diane, quick, get Susan a refill! The poor thing’s parched like a cactus garden!”

  “Thanks,” I said and handed the glass back to Diane.

  Cactus garden? Wasn’t that sort of a contradiction in terms? But what did I know? There were lace doilies under every lamp and a large hooked rug on the floor. There was no artwork on the walls, only a large photograph of Frederick as a boy in his scout uniform. The tabletops held a collection of family snapshots from different occasions, all in unmatched frames. And there was an ashtray and a candy jar filled with peppermints. I had entered a time warp. Maybe it was me, but in Chicago, we hid our ashtrays and no one offered refined sugar anymore.

  And then a tall, handsome, muscular, and, may God forgive me, super sexy man entered the room. When we locked eyes, I must’ve turned every shade of red in the spectrum.

  “Hey, I’m Floyd, Fred’s uncle.”

  “Floyd helped me raise Fred along with his daughters. Who’s watching Irma?” Diane said.

  “Irma is done,” he said.

  “Who’s Irma?” I asked.

  “My favorite sow. You’ll love her.”

  A sow? He looked at me like, I don’t know, in a very personal way. Certainly, Alejandro had never looked at me like that. Uncle Floyd was not smiling. He was assessing.

  “Well, I’m Susan, Shelby’s mother.”

  “I figured that,” he said.

  He took my hand in his, and I swear, his hand all but swallowed mine. Stop it this minute, I thought, chastising myself thoroughly for wondering what it would be like to sleep with him. And it seemed like he lingered a second too long before he released my hand, and I felt my temperature rise again. Then she appeared.

  “This is my current friend, Betty Jean, but we all call her BJ.”

  “How nice to meet you,” I said, thinking, I’ll bet they call her that for a specific reason, but I didn’t raise one hair of an eyebrow, thanks to the wonders of Botox. And what did he mean current friend? This was just the kind of thing I worried about, that perhaps Shelby was marrying into a family of people who had little regard for the sanctity of marriage. On a side note, BJ was not into fashion, but she did have notable cleavage.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” she said with a faint smile. “Floyd? Would you like a glass of tea?”

  “Sure. Thanks. Hey, sis!” Floyd said. “Look at you, all gussied up.”

  Gussied up? If Diane was gussied up, I must’ve looked like I was ready for Halloween.

  The door opened again and Alejandro entered.

  “Finally!” I said.

  “Alejandro,” Diane said, hurrying toward him, “we are so happy to have y’all with us tonight! We just love Shelby so dearly!”

  “Yes,” he said. “Thank you. Do you have a landline I might use for a few moments? I need to call Geneva back right away. I’m afraid it’s rather urgent and it’s already midnight there.”

  “In Geneva, Alabama?” Floyd said.

  Alejandro looked at Floyd like he was a total idiot and said, “No. Switzerland.”

  “Switzerland!” Floyd said quietly and narrowed his eyebrows suspiciously, as though he could not conceive of the necessity of talking to someone in a place so far away, especially if it was midnight.

  “Well, you can give it a try,” Virnell said. “There’s a phone out there at the end of the hall on the hall table.”

  They still had a landline? And probably a telephone table, one of those odd little painted tables attached to a small painted chair that had a special spot for the phone book. My grandmother had owned one of those. I remembered that I used to chip off the black paint with my thumbnail when I was upset with my mother, which was frequently. I followed Alejandro down the hallway to see, and sure enough, there it was. Not every piece of midcentury furniture was museum worthy.

  Well, Alejandro began dialing and getting all sorts of recordings and becoming very frustrated. I hated his dark moods. Finally he put the phone down and looked at me.

  “I’ve got a hundred euros that says they don’t have an international plan.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “Why would they? Would you like something to drink? Diane is pouring iced tea.”

  He looked at his watch. It was six thirty. Martini time.

  “Iced tea? You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

  “No. I’m quite serious.”

  “I’m going back outside to see if I can get a signal. Please apologize for me. I won’t be long.”

  “Why don’t you ask Siri? I’ll bet she knows a way to do it.”

  “Siri’s an idiot,” he said in disgust and left the house.

  I went back to the living room and immediately their lively chatter became dead silence. I hated when that happened. So I did what all battle-ready urbanites do – I took it in stride, ignored it, and brought up a new topic.

  “So! Has anyone heard from Frederick and Shelby? Hmmm?”

  “They should be here any minute,” Diane said. “Fred wanted to show her where he went to high school.”

  “Susan,” Virnell said, “Pop and I were just wondering about what y’all do for a living.”

  “Well, Alejandro owns a private equity firm. It’s small, but he’s been very lucky. Before we were married, I did public relations for a large firm in Chicago. Once Shelby arrived, I began doing volunteer fund-raising for different arts and cultural institutions. Keeps me busy and out of trouble.”

  Pop said, “What’s private equity?”

  “Well, basically a select group of people give my husband money and he invests it on their behalf. It’s a very personal business built on trust. But Alejandro is practically clairvoyant when it comes to what to invest in next.” I said this to them and it was clear to me they had no idea what I was talking about. “Let’s say you open a savings account at the bank, right? That money doesn’t sit there. The bank uses it to invest for you and for the institution. Alejandro is sort of a one-man bank.” We lived in a very different world.

  Virnell said, “Well, every time the banks around here open a new branch, I set up a little account.”

  “Because she gets a free toaster oven!” Pop said and slapped his knee with a laugh.

  “Or a blender! What’s the matter with that?” Virnell said defensively.

  “Nothing!” I said. “Not a thing in the world!”

  Virnell was a pip. She reminded me of an aunt I used to have. Spunky and spry.

  “Here’s another thing I wanted to know,” Diane said.

  All eyes were on me.

  “Isn’t Chicago really, really, terribly, unbearably cold in the winter?” she said. “How do you stand it?”

  I laughed out loud then. “You’re right! Sometimes it’s so cold you could scream! But you get used to it. Let’s be honest. It’s no colder there than it is hot and humid here.”

  “Touché on that one,” Floyd said.

  “Well, the caterer has taken over our kitchen and I can hear the band, so I guess we’d better make our way to the party,” Diane said. “We have so many nice friends who are very excited to meet you and your husband.”

  Virnell said, “And to welcome Shelby to the Lowcountry! She’s not the first Yankee we adopted!”

  “I’m originally from Vermont,” BJ said.

  “Midwesterner, Mom. Shelby is from the Midwest.” Then Diane whispered to me, “She means well.”

  �
��‘She’ is the cat’s mother!” Virnell said.

  I had no clue what that meant, but I guessed it meant Diane shouldn’t refer to Virnell as she.

  “Vermont is a really beautiful state,” I said as we stepped outside.

  BJ smiled nervously at me. Why was she nervous? I could see Alejandro about a hundred yards in the distance; his fist was dug into his hip and he was holding his cell phone tightly to his ear.

  “Thank you,” she said. “One of Floyd’s daughters lives there.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Stephanie is about twenty-three. She’s lives in a commune and makes cheese.”

  “I see,” I said and thought, She’s probably a stoner, a term I learned from Shelby.

  BJ sighed. “I miss the Canadian maples when they change color in the fall.”

  “I’d miss that too!” I said.

  I smiled back at her. I got the feeling then that she didn’t have many friends. But then, if I was being honest, neither did I. Not real ones anyway.

  “Ain’t nobody got your feet nailed to the Lowcountry floor,” Floyd said. “I’m going on ahead to check on Irma.”

  BJ gasped a little. “I don’t know why he says things like that,” she said to me. “He promised to behave himself tonight.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. Usually men say things like that so you’ll reassure them there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.”

  “Or because they don’t care if you stay or go,” she said.

  Oh, boy, I thought. Here’s the first crack in the wall. “Or because all men are babies sometimes? What do you think?”

  She paused for a moment before she spoke. “I think you’re a smart cookie,” she said.

  We made our way along the gravel driveway, following the others who were hurrying toward the tent. I looked over to a field of sorts where arriving guests were parking, directed by young men wearing matching T-shirts with a company logo. Shelby and Frederick drove past us, parked by the barn and got out of their car. I waved to them.

  “I’ll wait for them,” I said to BJ.

  BJ stopped, looked at my face, looked away and then back at me again. “You know what?” she said.