By Invitation Only

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Hurry,” she said in a whisper. “But don’t make it look like you’re hurrying.”

  Trying to be as casual as possible, I listened to the crunch of my loafers as I made my way toward the house. I was about halfway there when I looked up to see Alden lifting a fresh Christmas tree out of the back of his truck. It wasn’t even six feet tall, but it was going to be all we needed to lift our mood.

  “Well, hey, Alden! Aren’t you wonderful?”

  “Good morning! Yes, I am sort of wonderful. Sometimes, anyway.” He tamped the end of the tree on the ground to shake out the branches. “I saw this sweet little tree and thought it might bring two of my favorite girls a little Christmas cheer.”

  “Thank you so much. You are too sweet. Let’s take it inside.”

  “Do you know where your tree stand might be?”

  “I sure do. Why don’t I get it and I’ll meet you inside?” I said. “The door’s open.”

  “Okay. See you in a few minutes.” He went up on the porch, opened our dirty front door like he lived there, and called my mother’s name. “Miss Virnell? Hey! It’s me, Alden. I brought you something!”

  Maybe I’d buy the house a couple of buckets of paint for Christmas. Maybe I could cajole Floyd into helping. At least we could paint the front of the house this year.

  The Christmas tree stand and boxes of lights and ornaments were in the storage room in the barn. And yes, the light had been left on. One nice thing about living on a farm with a barn was that we had sufficient room to put things away in a designated spot. But I noticed something new in the room – dozens and dozens of bottles of water, first aid supplies that could last for ages, dozens of rolls of toilet paper and paper towels, dozens of bars of bath soap, bottles and bottles of detergent for dishes, shampoo and cream rinse . . . Floyd was stockpiling again just as he had for Y2K. He really needed to stay off those Doomsday Web sites. Well, this was not the day to get excited about Floyd’s paranoia. That could wait until after the New Year. I found the large plastic container of decorations and the tree stand and put them on the wagon. I locked the storage room and pulled the wagon up to the house, coming in through the kitchen door.

  “I think that corner is a good one,” I heard my mother say.

  “I’ve got the stand,” I said and put it on the floor.

  “I know how to do this,” Alden said and lifted the tree into the center of the stand. “Diane, if you’ll hold it straight, I can screw it in.”

  “I’ll go get a pitcher of water,” Mom said.

  As soon as she was out of the room, I said, “How did she react to the tree?”

  “She was like a kid. Thrilled.”

  “Oh, Alden, I just love you.”

  “Really?” he said and looked at me strangely.

  “Oh, come on, you know I do. You always do the exact right thing.”

  “I wish that was true,” he said. “Okay, stand back and tell me if it’s straight.”

  I stood back and was suddenly taken by the sight of Alden on our living room floor, doing something that was such a traditional holiday thing to do, and he was doing it for my mother and for me. I began feeling emotional, which I always fought like crazy because I hated being weak. But I had a vision of him putting up Christmas trees with Betsy for the rest of his life while I was over here in my old farmhouse, alone for the rest of mine.

  “Is it okay?” he said. “Can I get up?”

  “Oh, Alden, it’s beautiful. Just beautiful.” And with that, one terrible traitorous tear bubbled over the edge of my right eye and began to roll down my cheek. Then another and another.

  He stood and looked at the tree, having no idea I was losing it just two feet away from him. Mom returned with a pitcher of water, took one look at me, put down the pitcher on the coffee table, turned around, and left the room again.

  “I forgot something,” she said.

  Alden looked at her and then me and did a double take.

  “Diane! What in the world? What’s happened here?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not fine. What’s wrong?”

  “I guess this is a more difficult Christmas than I thought it would be.”

  “Because of Pop? Of course it’s hard. It’s only been a few weeks.”

  “It’s not just that,” I said.

  “Well then, what? What is it? Tell me. We’ve been friends forever.”

  I was quiet then, waiting for the obvious to sink into his head. It didn’t, so I spoke.

  “That might be the problem, Alden.” I sniffed and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “That might be the problem.”

  “What do you mean? Diane, you have to tell me. I’m not psychic.”

  “Boy, that’s for sure.”

  Then it hit him.

  “Come here,” he said. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  He held me close and I blubbered like a teenage girl.

  “You know me, Alden. All this emotional stuff terrifies me, but being terrified of it doesn’t seem to make any difference. It gets to you anyway. And now I’m facing this terrible Christmas with no father, a depressed mother, my son’s so far away, and you’re going on a cruise to nowhere with another woman. It’s just a lot for me to absorb, you know? It’s a lot.”

  “I’ll only be gone for a few days,” he said, leaving me to wonder if he understood what I was trying to tell him at all.

  “Oh, Alden, you don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  He didn’t get it. There was no reason to pound the point home, which would, I could see then, lead to further humiliation for me and embarrassment for him. I stood back from him. And cleared my throat and ran my hands up the sides of my head, making sure clumps of my hair weren’t hanging down all over the place.

  I smiled and said, “It’s okay. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

  “There now. Good! Much better. Let’s get those lights on this pretty little tree, huh? What do you say?”

  “Sure. Let’s do that.”

  Men.

  Chapter 18

  Shelby Takes a Lowcountry Position

  “What if Dad says no?” Shelby said.

  “He would never say no to you,” Fred said.

  It was Christmas Eve and we were just arriving at my parents’ home for a special holiday dinner.

  “Mom? Dad?”

  I took my bag of groceries to the kitchen and dropped it on the counter.

  I knew my parents weren’t going to like the plan Frederick and I had cooked up, but we were going ahead. Too bad. We’d led a self-centered life long enough. It was time to think of others. And to do something for someone else. This is just one of the many reasons I love Fred so much. He makes me a better person.

  “We’re in the living room, having champagne and little nibbles. Come join us!”

  “Give me your coat, babe,” I said to Frederick. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

  “Okay,” he said and kissed my cold cheek. “Love you.”

  “Love you too!”

  I threw our coats and gloves and hats and scarves on the bed in my old room. I felt a chill run through me even though the room was warm. It was so cold outside I couldn’t adjust right away. What a terrible winter!

  On the way to the living room, I stopped to have a peek at the dining room. Mom’s silver candelabra glistened like mirrors and her Belgian linens were starched to the point that you couldn’t fold them or they might crack. The table was set with her Tiffany holiday china, her Lalique crystal, and her two-hundred-year-old huge sterling silver flatware. The flowers in the center of the table were drop-dead gorgeous. I didn’t even know what they were. Or care. I mean, it was beautiful, but who needs all this stuff? My mom, that’s who.

  We were having takeout for Christmas Eve dinner. How pathetic is that? I looked in the pots. Okay, not so awful. Mom had somebody cook lobsters and take them out of their shells to serve warm over mashed potatoes. That
same person, or maybe somebody else, made a fish chowder that was creamy and delicious. Being the more accomplished cook in the family, I had brought two bags of prewashed romaine lettuce to make a salad, with cherry tomatoes and a container of mini mozzarella balls in water.

  “The table looks amazing!” I said to her and kissed both of her cheeks without touching her skin, so I wouldn’t, God forbid, wreck her makeup. “I can’t believe you did all of this by yourself!”

  “Oh, please. Tina did everything. I sent her home two hours ago. I mean, it is Christmas Eve,” she said. “Ashland Addison did the flowers. Aren’t they sensational?”

  “They’re unbelievable,” I said.

  Daddy handed me a flute and said, “Merry Christmas, sweetheart! Cheers!”

  “Try one of these,” Frederick said and offered me a plate of baked cheese balls that covered up something. “There’re olives inside!”

  “Yummy!” I said.

  We all wished each other a merry Christmas. I looked out over the skyline of Chicago and thought, Boy, is this a dream? I always remind myself that I was crazy lucky to have grown up in this life of privilege. So many people had so little. If I ever had a ton of money, I’d probably give it all away. But to be honest, I was a bit of a hypocrite, considering what I was about to ask for.

  Mom said, “Let’s go to the table, shall we? We can have the soup now.”

  “I’ll help you serve,” I said.

  “I’ll just eat the rest of these thingies,” Frederick said, popping another cheese olive in his mouth. “They’re amazing.”

  “I’ll give you a box to take home. Actually, they’re from Charleston! Did you ever hear of Callie’s Biscuits?”

  “Nuh-uh,” Frederick said with his mouth full.

  “You can order them online,” Mom said. “Easy-peasy. Come on, Shelby. Let’s feed our men.”

  Mom and I were alone in the kitchen. She turned up the flame under the soup and stirred it with a wooden spoon, checking the temperature with her finger. I was opening cabinets, looking for the salad bowl.

  “The crystal bowl for salad is on the counter, darling. I put the oil and vinegar out for you. I’m so glad you can make salad dressing. I can never get it quite right.”

  On her meds, I thought.

  “Happy to help,” I said.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to get married in June as a Christmas present to me? It would make me so happy.”

  “Oh, Mom, let it go,” I said and dropped the lettuce into the bowl from the bag.

  “Okay. But you know it breaks my heart.”

  “Stop! You’ve got to stop! I just want to get married and live in peace, okay?”

  “Okay. But you’ll let me go with you to buy your dress?”

  “Mom! We have an appointment with the bridal department at Saks on Wednesday the twenty-eighth. Didn’t you write it down?”

  “Oh, I’m sure I did.”

  She’s losing it, I said to myself. Champagne and Ativan, jiggly combo.

  I drained the mozzarella balls and rolled them on a paper towel to dry them a bit. Even I knew that salad dressing didn’t stick to wet anything. Then I rinsed the cherry tomatoes and let them drain on more paper towels.

  “Okay, good! Now, where’s the mustard?”

  She reached in the refrigerator and handed me a jar of Maille.

  “Here you go, sweetie!”

  Actually, I liked her better when she was like this.

  “This is the best mustard in the world,” I said.

  I put a healthy teaspoon in the bottom of a small mixing bowl with a big pinch of salt. Then I added a bit of red wine vinegar and a slug of canola oil, whisking it all together like mad. I thinned the dressing with vinegar and thickened it with oil until I had enough for the whole salad. I added the cheese and the tomatoes, poured the salad dressing over it all, and tossed it with a large fork and spoon until it was all covered and slick. One more pinch of sea salt, one more toss, and we were ready to go. You could learn anything you wanted to know on YouTube. I took the salad to the table and came back to help Mom ladle the soup into soup plates. Then we grated a little pepper and a tiny bit of nutmeg over it.

  “This smells delicious,” I said.

  “Doesn’t it?” Mom said. “It’s important to know who to call.”

  “Always,” I said, and even though I didn’t like the fact that in my entire life, she never made home-cooked meals beyond breakfast cereal with milk, I was glad that after dinner we didn’t have to clean a kitchen that looked like a bomb went off in it.

  We sat and Dad raised his glass. “Merry Christmas, everyone!”

  “Merry Christmas!” we all said and had a spoonful.

  “This is really fabulous,” Frederick said. “It reminds me of the she-crab soup my uncle Floyd makes.”

  “I thought he was a pit master,” my mom said.

  “He can cook anything,” Frederick said. “My mom bakes, but my uncle, well, he’s sort of inspired.”

  “I see,” my mom said, and I knew exactly what was running through her dirty mind.

  “How is your family, Frederick? This is going to be a difficult holiday for them, I’m sure.”

  “They’re pretty sad,” Frederick said. “Especially my grandmother.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I was going to ask you for a huge favor, Dad.”

  “Anything, princess. It’s Christmas, after all.”

  I couldn’t help thinking in that moment that he sure was filled with mirth for someone who practically spent his life with a phone at his ear, screaming in four languages.

  “Well, if the plane’s just sitting around, we were wondering if we could go to South Carolina and spread a little cheer and . . .” I said.

  He held his hand up, indicating I shouldn’t speak any further.

  “Shelby, when I consider the amount of money you are saving me by getting married next month, a round trip to South Carolina is nothing at all.”

  “And we’d like to pick up Frederick’s cousin Ann in New Jersey. It’s just for an overnight. Please, Daddy?”

  I saw the color drain from my mother’s face. “But, but, but . . .” she said.

  “But what?” my father said.

  If Dad hated anything, it was being overruled.

  “This is her last Christmas before she gets married!” Mom said, as if I wasn’t in the room.

  “There will be plenty of other Christmases,” I said quietly.

  “But we have a reservation at the club for Christmas Day dinner!” she said.

  “So what?” my father said.

  “It’s prepaid!” my mother said, realizing Dad didn’t care.

  “So I’ll lose two hundred dollars. If that was the most money I ever lost, believe me, I’d be a happy man!”

  Seeing she was defeated, she rose and left the table.

  “Wait just a minute, Susan,” my father said.

  “What?” She turned to face him.

  “Do you think I might have a little more soup? Please?”

  Dad smiled at Mom, letting her know the argument was over. I think that if my mother could have sent his soup plate flying across the room like a Frisbee, she would have. But she did not. She was too well mannered to throw things. Besides, she was cruising the Big Pharma River.

  “Of course, darling,” she said, took his bowl, and left the room.

  And so Dad arranged for us to have wheels-up at ten on Christmas Day, with a short stop in Morristown to pick up Ann, and then we’d be knocking on Frederick’s family’s door by three. They were going to be so surprised.

  “Ann is so excited,” Frederick said. “She said that she realized when we were together for Pop’s funeral that somehow in her mind, she just depends on things on the farm staying the same, like believing Pop would be around forever. His death really shocked her.”

  “I get that,” I said. “Too bad I don’t have any grandparents to expect to live forever.”

  “Yeah, it is. Well, anywa
y, she’s psyched because she gets to see her dad and my mom and hopefully bring some joy to the day.”

  “I like your style,” Dad said to me last night. “It’s important to do things for other people, and those people, no matter how strange and peculiar they may seem to you, are going to be your family too.”

  “Frederick already is, Daddy.”

  He looked at me so sweetly, I could almost feel love coming from his eyes.

  “That’s so wonderful, Shelby. Give them our best, will you?”

  I had promised that I would. Why did he think they were strange and peculiar? They’re the normal ones, I wanted to say.

  We were in the front two seats of Dad’s Gulfstream G550, high above the clouds, cruising along at a cool 560 miles an hour. This G550 might be the prettiest private plane I’d ever been in. Sometimes my life was maybe like being the child of a rock star, which would have been easier to explain than what it was my father actually did for a living.

  After an hour or so and the reading of a People magazine front to back, we touched down in Morristown and taxied to the hangar.

  “Should we go get her?” I said to Fred. “She’s got the tail number, but . . .”

  “I think she’d like that,” he said. “I mean, we’re probably the only plane landing on Christmas Day, so, she’s not getting lost. But what the heck?”

  “Yeah, I think it’s way more hospitable,” I said. “And it’s Christmas, after all.”

  We climbed off the plane and hurried over to the terminal. There was Ann all bundled up, waving at us.

  “Hey! Merry Christmas, cuz!” Frederick called out to her.

  “Fred! Merry Christmas! This is just the best idea you ever had!” Ann said. She was bubbling with excitement. “Shelby! Give me a hug!”

  I hugged her, and between her puffy coat and mine, it was a smush collision of two comforters.

  “Merry Christmas! Let’s go!” I said. “No point hanging around here!”

  We left the terminal and crossed the tarmac toward the plane.

  “It’s so cold here!” Ann said.

  “Come to Chicago,” Frederick said with a big grin. “It was seven degrees when we left.”

  “No way,” Ann said, knowing it was true.