By Invitation Only

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  But back to my overserved mother? She was never, ever, ever out of control. She looked perfectly groomed from the moment she got up until she went to bed late at night. One hundred percent. Her hair, makeup, and nails were always perfect. And every stitch of clothes she owned was couture. At one point, Daddy thought she was having an affair with Warren Edwards, because every time she came home from a visit to New York, boxes of shoes would keep arriving for weeks. My mother was a clotheshorse. I liked my mother’s style, which was conservative and classic, but for me I threw in a solid dose of retro so I wouldn’t look like her clone. But I have to say, I wish we wore the same size shoes.

  I only point out the differences between the style of Frederick’s family and mine because they are pretty stark. We probably seemed shallow to them. Even Mom’s friend Judy was dripping with Chanel. Okay, we were pretty shallow, and I wasn’t proud of it. But all that aside, Frederick’s family gave new meaning to antifashionista. Just saying. And the only reason I knew my mother was tipsy was because she was acting way too friendly. Not that she wasn’t friendly as a rule, because she was, but, well, she was laughing too loud. And sort of using Uncle Floyd and my dad to lean on. And her friend.

  It was time for me to step in. Frederick’s best friend from childhood, Bill Evans, had just come over to shake his hand.

  “So!” Bill said. “Gonna tie the knot, are you?”

  “Hey, you!” They shook hands and slapped and squeezed each other on the shoulder, sort of a man hug. “Yeah, Bill, here’s why! Say hello to Shelby!”

  “Hey! Nice to meet you.”

  Bill looked at me with approval. He seemed like a nice enough guy. In fact, all of Frederick’s friends seemed very nice.

  “Nice to meet you too,” I said.

  Frederick said, “So what are you up to?”

  “I haven’t seen you in a million years, man,” Bill said. “Tell me about life in the big city!”

  “It’s pretty crazy sometimes. I’ll tell you this . . .”

  It was obvious Frederick wanted to catch up with his friend, which was the perfect moment for me to see about my mother.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said to Frederick.

  “Where are you going?” he said.

  “To tell my mom something,” I said and began working my way through all the guests.

  Well, now what was I going to say to her? Mom? WTF? No, I couldn’t drop the F-bomb. So, Mom? Are you okay? Too wimpy. Better to pull her aside and just diplomatically get to the point. I could see from where I was that she was listening to Dad telling a story, but her mouth was hanging open. Susan Kennedy Cambria was never caught with her jaw hanging open like that. She was definitely bombed. What was she thinking? And I could see the look on Uncle Floyd’s girlfriend’s face. She was super pissed! Well, who could blame her? First my mother took off with Uncle Floyd and disappeared to who knows where for who knows how long? And no matter why, that was a dumb idea. And before that they were dancing like idiots. And now she’s hanging on him. This looks very bad. Very bad. I finally reached her side.

  “Here’s my sweetheart!” Daddy said.

  “Oh, thanks, Dad.” I turned to Mom and said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Sure! Wassup, baby?”

  I took her arm in mine and led her away a few feet and I leaned in so that only she could hear me. Wassup indeed.

  I said, “Mom? What are you doing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, it’s pretty obvious you’re way tipsy. Like, what are you drinking?”

  “Moonshine! Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “What? Moonshine? What the hell, Mom!” Oh my God! Frederick must think my family is horrible! “No! it’s not wonderful! It’s terrible! This is my party and you’re ruining it!”

  “Oh, please, Shelby! Don’t be such a prude. It’s not exactly moonshine, and we’re just having a little fun. And watch your mouth.”

  “Just cool it, Mom. Okay? By the way, what have you been rolling in? The hayloft? You need a lint brush.”

  Then her friend Judy just sort of materialized from thin air. She was super annoyed.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “Does anyone know how to remove manure stains from linen?” she said through clenched teeth.

  We looked down and sure enough, her black and tan Chanel pumps were soaked with Isabella’s dark fresh poop.

  Chapter 8

  Party’s Over

  “It was only a cow!” Virnell said.

  “Only you would say only!” Diane said.

  You plan and plan and plan, check the details a thousand times, fret over what you wish you could have done, and poof! The whole party’s over in a few hours. It was Sunday, just after church, and I was already at work in the farm stand with my mother, refilling crates of cucumbers, zucchini, and onions. I’d hardly had time to change my clothes.

  “Well, the party was a big success, if you ask me. Just lovely,” Virnell said. “Except for Shelby’s mother.” She was trimming the ends of a bushel of early beets.

  “Dear Lord,” I said. “The poor thing.”

  “I worry a little bit about what kind of a family our boy is marrying into, don’t you?”

  “Not really.”

  “And her father? Checking the soles of his shoes every five minutes? What does he think? That our whole property is a barnyard? And her friend’s poor shoes too. That was a shame.”

  “Well, I think the visit from Isabella was Floyd’s doing. And the cows and chickens aren’t housebroken.”

  “Still, I worry that her mother is a boozer.”

  “Oh, Mother. She was probably just nervous. I mean, haven’t you ever had alcohol sneak up on you?”

  “Not since Nixon got elected.”

  “Were you celebrating or mourning?”

  “Please! I’m so doggone old I can’t remember. Push that garbage can over here, will you, please? Anyway, I’ll bet you the farm she’s got regrets this morning and a big head to boot.”

  I rolled the plastic barrel over to her. It held the remains of all sorts of things that would be mulched when it was full.

  “Maybe,” I said, “but she didn’t strike me as the kind of person who has regrets. I’ll bet she doesn’t give two hoots what anyone else thinks.”

  “I think you’re right. And you want to know what else?”

  “What?”

  “Alden is sweet on you.” She pointed her finger at me and laughed.

  “Well, I’m not sweet on him.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not.” Maybe I was.

  “You can tell yourself whatever you want, but you’re my daughter and I know every hair on your head.”

  “Humph.” I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Are they going to have a big party in Chicago?”

  “Do you think Susan Kennedy Cambria would miss an opportunity to show off?”

  “Well, I’m not going, because I’m not flying and your father shouldn’t.”

  “I thought Pop did pretty well last night.”

  “He did just fine, but going through airports with all these nasty people and their germs? Who needs it?”

  I heard the gravel crunching out back. I looked through the screen door and there were Floyd and Fred way down the road, a snapshot from the past, rolling hand trucks toward us loaded with more cartons of produce from the barn. For a brief moment, I was standing in 1998, looking down the years.

  I had countless memories of Fred and Floyd together, picking peaches and other fruit and vegetables, of poring over them in the packing shed, Floyd showing Fred how to grade tomatoes and strawberries. When Fred was just a tadpole, Floyd started teaching my boy what kind of man he should become, and believe it or not, mostly by example. You never would have thought that last night, however. But when Fred was a little fellow? Every lesson Floyd taught him was always delivered with so much thought and patience. Floyd just loved kids, and I guess Fred was th
e son he never had. Just as his girls were the daughters I never had, except Sophie.

  Floyd’s first marriage was a disaster. He was all of seventeen when he married Louisa, and within the blink of an eye she gave birth to Sophie, divorced Floyd, and moved to Seattle. So, logistically, it was nearly impossible for any of us to have had an impact on Sophie’s life. I mean, as she got older she came for a few weeks in the summer, but that started to fall apart as soon as Floyd married Deb and had two more girls, Ann and Stephanie. Those girls fought like cats in a bag, to the point that Sophie came less and less. Deb died suddenly from undiagnosed lung cancer, and now Ann and Stephanie were estranged from their father. And sadly, it seems like Sophie was from another lifetime. Not one of them accepted the invitation for last night.

  Last I heard, Sophie was an executive with Starbucks in their Seattle home office and we barely knew her. Ann worked for some big processed food company in New Jersey trying to figure out how to extend the shelf life of all their products, as if a year to two wasn’t long enough for crackers to sit in a pantry. She had obviously inherited Virnell’s thrifty gene. And Stephanie, who was always a free spirit, lived in a commune somewhere outside of Manchester, Vermont, making cheese and probably smoking enough pot to sink the QE2. Or maybe not. Anyway, they all turned out sort of just fine. At least they were financially independent. The annual exchange of birthday and Christmas cards seemed to be enough for them. Floyd had never been a needy parent. I was not needy in an excessive way. Well, to rephrase, my neediness didn’t seem excessive to me. For Fred’s sake, I held a lot inside. I had loved him as smartly as I knew how and he grew up and left home anyway. They were all gone. They had left us and made lives for themselves everywhere else but here. I worried what would become of us when Mom and Pop went to heaven and Floyd and I were too old to run the farm. We had talked about it plenty and decided we’d probably sell off part of the land and try to make a living by getting distribution on our jams and jellies, although I couldn’t really see how that would work.

  “I’ve got to get back up to the house soon and start your daddy’s dinner,” my mother said. “He’s waiting on the ball games to start so that he can go crazy with the clicker, going back and forth from one station to another.”

  “You go on, Mom. I’ll get the boys to help me.”

  “Okay, then I will. I have to watch him, you know. Otherwise he’ll whittle in my living room and get shavings all over the place.”

  “Oh, come on, now.”

  “You have no idea! He loves that clicker because he doesn’t have to get up to change the station. Men are so lazy.”

  We both knew it was Dad’s heart condition, not laziness, that kept him in his recliner. My mother could not acknowledge the facts about certain things.

  In reality, our farm operated like a tiny communist country. Floyd had no doubt been endowed with the most alpha dog macho genes ever bestowed on a Lowcountry man. But Virnell always had the last word, because Virnell still and always would control the purse until the sad day we were parted. I imagined the purse would pass on to me.

  “Good morning, heathens!” I called out to Floyd and Fred. Only my parents and I had been in the pew that morning. Everyone else had slept in.

  “I’ll see you up at the house,” my mother said and went to the back door. “Good morning, gentlemen!” She held the door for them and gave Fred a smooch on the cheek.

  “Morning, Gram!” Fred said.

  “Who you calling heathens?” Floyd said good-naturedly. “Let’s stack these crates over here by the wall.”

  “Okay,” Fred said.

  “You’re right. I should’ve called my son a heathen and you a reprobate,” I said. “Let’s reload the string beans and the beets, okay?”

  “Okay,” Fred said. “Great party last night, Mom. Thanks for everything!”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “So, Floyd? What were you thinking getting my son’s future mother-in-law all liquored up?”

  “I just wanted to find out what she was really like,” Floyd said.

  “Oh. I see. And what did you think?” Fred said.

  “What did I think? Well, to be perfectly honest, I think maybe she’s a tiny bit too big for her britches,” Floyd said. “But that doesn’t make her a bad person.”

  Fred nodded, relieved. Floyd’s opinion mattered to him.

  “What did you think about her dad?” Fred asked Floyd.

  “Her dad? Look, Fred, these people are going to be your in-laws. I don’t want to go around criticizing them before the horse even leaves the barn, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, sir. But still, didn’t you think it was weird that he was on his cell half the night?”

  “Listen, as far as I’m concerned? He can be on his cell all night, if he thinks he has to be. But here’s what I know. When BJ was just this far away,” he said, holding his forefinger a hair’s distance from his thumb, “from stabbing my eyes out for paying attention to Susan, he took her out on the dance floor and got me out of the doghouse.”

  Invisible eye roll from me.

  “Let’s put those muffins on the counter by the cash register,” I said. “Stack them up in the basket.”

  “Okay. Yeah, I saw them dancing,” Fred said.

  “So, you know? He’s probably okay. He probably has a lot of stress we don’t even know about. Anyway, it’s good to know he’s a man’s man.”

  Another eye roll.

  “Who wants coffee?” I asked and filled my thermal cup.

  “Not me. Yeah, well, he’s super nice to me. He travels a lot. Which I think is hard on Mrs. Cambria.”

  Floyd said, “Is that what you call her?”

  “Yeah,” Fred said. “I asked her what she wanted me to call her and that’s what she said. Mrs. Cambria.”

  That pretentious little witch!

  “How’d you like her friend Judy?”

  “I’ll take a cup. Just black. That woman’s not her friend,” Floyd said quietly. “Mrs. Cambria, huh? That’s kind of cold.”

  “As long as you don’t call her Mom, I’m okay with it,” I said, filling a cup for Floyd.

  “Never in a million years,” Fred said. “And even if I did call her Mom, it wouldn’t mean the same thing.” Fred stopped what he was doing and gave me a hug. “What are you worried about?”

  “Who, me? I’m not worried one little bit!” I said and handed Floyd his cup. I thought I’d like to see one woman on this earth who didn’t worry that another family might steal their child’s heart, especially when the distance between them was so great and the lifestyles were so different. “So, brother dear? Everything’s cool with BJ now?”

  “Yeah, Lady Di. I gave her my Target card and told her to go to town on it—but I gave her a limit.”

  I giggled to myself and took a sip of my coffee, feeling the caffeine bringing me back to life. His Target card. I could just imagine Alejandro giving Susan or Shelby a Target card with a spending limit.

  “How much?” Fred asked.

  “Fred! Have you lost your mind? You don’t ask your uncle things like that!” I said.

  “Sorry, Uncle Floyd. But you know, I need to know these things. Like, what’s the price tag for freedom from a woman’s wrath?”

  Floyd broke up laughing and I did too.

  “Oh, my! Golly, Fred! That was funny!” Floyd said and then got serious. “Well, son, it depends on the crime you commit. I told her she could spend a hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “That much?” I could spend $150 before I even got to the grocery section. “You always were the last of the big-time spenders.”

  “Hell, it ain’t her birthday, is it?” Floyd said.

  “Oh, Floyd. Hey, Fred? Do they have a date for the party in Chicago?”

  “Yep. The Saturday before Thanksgiving. Y’all gonna come?”

  “Well, I am definitely coming!” I said.

  “Me too,” Floyd said. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “You bringing BJ?�
�� Fred asked.

  “Maybe,” Floyd said. “Maybe not.”

  I knew BJ would not see Chicago, at least not on Floyd’s arm. BJ just didn’t understand how Floyd’s mind worked. All his life, Floyd never wanted any woman he could easily have unless she gave him no ultimatums. Last night she showed him some tooth over Susan, and Floyd would put up with only so much of that kind of possessiveness. Their relationship had been converted into a bomb on a short fuse. She’d be better off with someone else.

  I heard a truck door slam and looked up to see Alden. I blushed, remembering dancing with him last night. As quickly as possible, I put on my mask of indifference and smiled.

  “Good morning!” he said, coming through the old screen door that stood between us and the elements. “How are y’all doing this fine day?” He was grinning wide.

  “G’morning!” I said. “Coffee?”

  “Sure, thanks!” he said. “I just came by to meet the guys from Snyder, you know, make sure everything goes back where it should.”

  There was no way you couldn’t love Alden. Like a brother, I reminded myself.

  “That’s so nice of you, Alden. Would you like a blueberry muffin? Still warm from this morning.”

  “Who could say no to that?” Alden said.

  “I wouldn’t mind a muffin,” Fred said.

  I reached in the basket, pulled out two, and tossed one to my son.

  “Floyd? Muffin?”

  He was dumping green beans and carrots into the bins from cardboard boxes.

  “No, thanks. I had something earlier. Trying to watch my waist, you know.”