Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt and Other Things I Learned in Southern Belle Hell

by Crickett Rumley

  With a bored sigh, Ashley rattled through the alphabet, combining letters with “ish.” “Bish, cish, dish, eish, fish, gish, hish…”

  “Wish.”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Mallory jumped up and down.

  “It’s that Pussycat Dolls song, ‘Don’t Cha W—’” Ashley guessed.

  “That’s it, that’s it!” Delighted, Mallory broke into the song and a well-choreographed series of “drop it like it’s hot” and gyrations. “Come on, Ash, remember?”

  “That is so fourth grade, Mal. Give it a rest.”

  “Well, it’s still hot. I don’t care what you say.” She was deflated, though, and plopped down onto her sleeping bag. “We could at least try to make this fun, y’all.”

  “I’m afraid I’m never going to have fun again.” Ashley sulked over to the corner.

  The doorbell rang. Miss Dinah Mae had arrived.

  We trudged up to the living room a bunch of sad sacks, and to my immense surprise, it took all of thirty-seven seconds for that vibe to change. The dresses were here! The dresses! Giant pastel-colored antebellum dresses with flounces and ruffles and bodices and corsets. I was a little freaked out by the whole thing, but they were a sight to behold, so much heavy fabric in giant cloth bags the color of our dresses that it took three of Miss Dinah Mae’s grandsons to lug it all in. Ashley dropped her catatonic state in a millisecond as she and Mallory grabbed their bags and started yanking out yard after yard of taffeta ruffles. “Careful, Maids!” called Mizz Upton. “Wait till I explain how to put it all on!”

  “Oh, don’t worry, we know!” Ashley replied, and she and Mallory commenced shimmying into everything that came out of their bags. Mizz Upton teared up with joy at the sight.

  Meanwhile, I was pulling enough fabric from my pink bag to make a dozen prom dresses. “What is all this stuff?” I exclaimed.

  Mizz Upton stifled a glare and launched into a lecture on the proper order of Magnolia Maid enrobing: hoopskirt, slip, full skirt, apron, cummerbund. In layman’s terms:

  1. Put on a corset. Like the kind that Keira Knightley wears in Pirates of the Caribbean (the first and most awesome one) when she faints and plummets into the sea while wearing the gold medallion that raises the Black Pearl and the zombie pirates. Put one on and then stand still while someone else pulls the laces so tight that the stays suck your ribs in and take your breath away.

  2. Cover said torture device—I mean corset—with a beautiful frilly bodice and wait for someone else to button all twenty of the mother-of-pearl buttons up the back.

  3. Take a hula hoop. You know, one of those unbendable plastic circles that you gyrate around your waist like some reject from a sixties beach blanket show? The kind with Sally Field in it. She’s the mom on Brothers and Sisters? Well, she used to play a surfer girl named Gidget. Seriously. Gidget. Look it up.

  So take a hula hoop. Attach it to a slightly smaller hula hoop with some white muslin. Attach that slightly smaller hula hoop to a slightly smaller than that hula hoop with some muslin, and so on and so on, until one thin hoop rests about six inches beyond your thighs and one spreads out about five feet in diameter around your feet. Lay this contraption on the floor, then step into the center and draw it up to your waist—“The natural waist!” Mizz Upton barked, but she was excited, very excited. “These are not hip-huggers, Maids! I insist that they sit on your natural waistline.”

  4. Put on the slip: it’s partially a slip, with white organza from waist to knee, but the bottom layer is the colorful lower ruffle of the dress.

  5. Shimmy into the full skirt: this consists of the middle layers of ruffles, anywhere from two layers to, I don’t know, ten? Ashley and Mallory went with more the merrier on the ruffle front, which meant they now resembled giant wedding cakes. Me, I just had two.

  6. Place your apron over the skirt—no, not an apron for cooking, but the top layer of skirt. It covers the midsection, from waist to upper thigh.

  7. Circle your waist with the cummerbund: this is the three-inch-wide sateen belt that hides all four of the waistbands of the various skirts (and the pantaloons, but we didn’t even have those yet). Fluff out the giant bow on the back of the cummerbund.

  8. Adorn yourself with all the accessories: the parasols that match the dresses, the frilly bonnets that tie in a wide bow under the chin, the dainty lace gauntlets that slip over the hands to protect them from exposure.

  9. Then pretend like you can still breathe with all those layers forcing your stomach in. And don’t even bother trying to walk!

  While Ashley and Mallory were twirling and curtsying as if they had been doing this every day of their lives, I could barely move an inch.

  I raised my hand. “Mizz Upton, I’m stuck! This thing weighs a ton!”

  “No, Jane, your dress has only two ruffles, so it weighs only about thirty-five pounds.”

  Mallory agreed. “Ours are closer to fifty!”

  “Lucky you,” I said, and turned back to Mizz Upton. “And they’re hot! If I have a heatstroke, who do I get to sue?”

  Mizz Upton shook her head. “Fortunately, you’ve signed all sorts of waivers and so has your grandmother.”

  Mallory glided by. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. And my cousin Lucinda says the bruises go away. Eventually.”

  “Bruises? What bruises?”

  Zara dragged me over to a giant mirror on the wall so that we could check ourselves out. We totally looked like we had stepped out of the 1850s into Tara. It was scary. Zara whispered to me. “Am I a traitor to my race for putting this on?”

  “Probably,” I answered. “But I won’t tell anybody.”

  Meanwhile, Brandi Lyn had pulled on the hoopskirt she made herself and was giggling up a storm. “Oh my, I feel so Scarlett!”

  “Scarlett’s dead, Brandi,” I called out to her.

  “Not in spirit!” she chirped. “Well, hello, Rhett, you devil, you.”

  “Rhett’s dead, too, Brandi Lyn.” Brandi Lyn reclined into a seat, and she would have looked quite elegant, too, if the hoopskirt had not popped right out in front of her, revealing everything she had on underneath. Great. You can’t even sit down in these things.

  “That is NOT how you do it.” Mizz Upton loomed over Brandi Lyn, scowling down at her. “And where is the rest of your dress?”

  “Oh, um, I, I’m almost done. It’s looking beautiful! I mean, not as good as what Miss Dinah Mae does, but I’m proud of it!”

  “Bring your dress to the next rehearsal. They have to be Magnolia-approved before the debut next week.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Brandi Lyn nodded vigorously, and Mizz Upton moved on.

  Miss Dinah Mae clapped her hands. “All right, you girls hush and line up and let me check you. I’m tired and I want these dresses done so I can go home and watch Dancing with the Stars.”

  We were all so busy with this final inspection that I don’t think anyone noticed at first what happened when Mizz Upton finally walked over to Caroline. All I know is that when I looked up, Mizz Upton had pulled the hoopskirt out of the bag and thrown it on the floor and said, “See what you can do with this.” Caroline was eying the thing as if it were a viper on the verge of biting her. Now, y’all, I have to say, I am not good at spatial relationships (just ask any one of the math teachers who has tried to get me to answer a geometry question right) but even I could tell that the circumference of the natural waistline did not match the circumference of the waist it was intended to fit.

  Mizz Upton pursed her lips. Tension hovered in the air. It was official: the mood-killer was in the house. “What are you waiting for, honey?” Now, to most Americans and other speakers of the English language, are is a one-syllable word. In that moment, however, Martha Ellen Upton drew it out into about sixteen syllables, in a way that only the older class of Bienville Prepster Supreme can. So it sounded like this: “ahhhhhhhhh-er.” “What ahhhhhhhhh-er you waiting for, honey?” Had you seen the words on the page, you probably would have thought that she
was encouraging her daughter to get a move on. “What are you waiting for?” would have just meant “Hurry up, honey, we need to get busy.”

  But Mizz Upton had laced so much ugly through that sentence that it permeated every molecule of air in the room. Mallory halted mid-twirl. Brandi Lyn stopped her sitting practice. Ashley quit admiring herself in the mirror. Zara paused mid–inner conflict, and I ceased bitching about the bruises I’d just learned we’d all get from carrying the weight of the skirts on our hips.

  “Try it on, Caroline,” commanded Mizz Upton.

  Poor Caroline, she now had a full audience. She stepped one foot into the circle. Then the other. Then she bent over and started drawing the hoopskirt up her body, interminably slowly.

  Until it got stuck at her hips. And she couldn’t button it.

  Ashley stifled a giggle. Mallory looked away politely. Zara and Brandi Lyn and I traded “WTF?” glances. Miss Dinah Mae clucked her tongue, and Mizz Upton narrowed her eyes. She brought herself up to her full height and said, “Disgraceful.”

  Caroline, stupid hoopskirt stuck around her waist, shambled out of the room as fast as she could.

  “Caroline, it’s not your fault your mother’s a complete and total bitch!” I yelled through the door separating the rec room from the laundry room. After her mother’s horribly humiliating comments, Caroline had run downstairs and locked herself inside. Zara and I ran after her, or at least tried to, but we got hung up at the door with our multilayered hoopskirted dresses. Seriously, we couldn’t wedge ourselves through the door in those things! “You have to bank up,” Mallory called out, instructing us on how to pull the various hoops up and collapse the fabric so that we could walk through the door, but Zara and I were in such a clumsy hurry, we ended up pulling them to our shoulders on one side and scurrying through.

  Caroline sobbed through the transom. “Yes it is. She’s always telling me, watch my weight, don’t eat this, don’t eat that.”

  Zara sighed. “That was just plain mean what she did to you back there.”

  “I deserved it.” Caroline wailed even louder. “I’ve gained too much weight since Miss Dinah Mae took my measurements!”

  “Caroline, I told you to go on a diet, didn’t I?” Ashley glided into the room, properly banking her skirts before she did so. She kicked up the bottom ring of her hoopskirt with her left foot, grabbed it with her left hand, pulled the bottom layers up to her waist, then reached down and did the same thing on the right side. She pulled the hoops in toward her body, which made it look like she was wearing a sky blue kayak around her waist, and sailed gracefully through the door.

  Zara and I exchanged glances. “Well, at least somebody knows how to work this thing.” I hit Ashley on the arm. “But seriously, Ashley, stop being mean.”

  Zara glared at her. “If you aren’t going to help, just mind your own business.”

  “I’m not trying to be mean. It’s a cold, hard fact. If you eat too much, you can’t fit into your skirt.”

  Then Ashley rooted through her purse, whipped a flask out, and downed a sip. No lie!

  Zara and I gaped. “What the hell are you doing?” I screeched.

  “Taking the edge off. It got tense up there.”

  “Well, give it here.” I ripped the flask out of her hands.

  I took a swig. Vodka and cranberry juice. Nice.

  “Jane!”

  “So rude, not offering it to anybody else. Zara?” I handed the flask to her and she got in on the action.

  Brandi Lyn arrived at that moment, still wearing her hoopskirt, making an attempt to bank it properly. “What’s that smell? Ohh! Are y’all drinking?”

  Ashley offered her the flask. “Want some?”

  To my immense surprise, Brandi Lyn did. She had a big swig and sputtered up a storm. Then she called to Caroline over the transom. “Caroline, I can fix your waistline! It’s not hard. I can put in a small panel. Or I can extend the loops for the buttons with elastic. It’ll work!”

  “Really?” Caroline’s weak voice came fluttering back.

  “Really.”

  “Come on out, Caroline. Let us help. We can fix this.”

  “I don’t know.”

  At that moment, Mallory glided in, but she wasn’t the sweet, fun-loving puppy dog we all knew and loved. She was raging. “All right. I have had it. This is supposed to be the greatest day of our lives.”

  Brandi Lyn looked confused. “Isn’t that supposed to be our wedding day?”

  Mallory ignored Brandi Lyn. She was on a roll. “I have waited twelve years to wear this dress! Twelve years to serve our fine city as a Magnolia Maid! And, so help me God, I am not going to let all y’all ruin it with your bad moods and your bad attitudes! Give me that.” She grabbed Ashley’s flask and chugged from it. She handed it back. “It’s almost empty. Now, listen up. Caroline, you come out of that laundry room right now. Everybody else, go sit your butts down and let’s figure out what we have to do to make this work. Everybody hear me?”

  You should have seen the glances flying between me, Zara, Brandi Lyn, and Ashley. “Go, Mallory.”

  “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “Who would have guessed?”

  “Look who’s got her bloomers in a bunch.”

  Suddenly self-conscious, Mallory giggled. “Well, I’m fired up, and when I’m fired up, I speak up.”

  “Nice job.”

  “Come on, Caroline,” Mallory called over the transom. “Will you please come out?”

  “I just want to know… y’all won’t laugh at me?”

  “We’re here, aren’t we?” I said. “Of course we’re not going to laugh at you.”

  “Ashley?”

  All eyes turned to Ashley. She sighed. “Caroline, I like to pride myself on always telling the truth, but I guess sometimes the truth hurts and I could be more respectful of other people’s feelings.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Are we actually calling that an apology?”

  “Trying!” Ashley groaned. “I’m sorry, Caroline. I really am!”

  The door unlocked and a tear-covered Caroline appeared in the doorway. Ashley offered her the flask. She drained it of the last drop. “Thank you. Why are y’all being so nice to me?”

  We stood there for a moment, contemplating. And there it was, happening. The very bonding that Mizz Upton had been exhorting us to create for three weeks straight. All the board games and charades in the world could not have achieved what witnessing the Armageddon of Ashley’s love and Caroline’s humiliation had. Nothing brings people together like tragedy. I mean nothing.

  “Because we’re Magnolia Maid sisters,” Ashley stated. “We’re a team.”

  It turns out Team Magnolia Maid, without even talking about it, was definitely on the same page regarding something else—getting a party started. Back in the rec room, I dove into my duffel bag and pulled out a bottle of tequila that Teddy Mac had donated to the cause, courtesy of his mother’s well-stocked bar. “You’re going to need this,” he’d said. Ashley yanked out a liter of vodka, Mallory pulled out Grand Marnier, Zara brought out a bottle of champagne, and even Caroline revealed a bottle of Boone’s Farm. Brandi Lyn accompanied Caroline to the kitchen for ice, limes, cranberry juice, and every supply necessary for good cosmopolitans, and within fifteen minutes we had set up a bar as fine as any tailgating party the South has ever known.

  Then we sat down to talk. Or tried to. Nobody had bothered to change out of their dresses, so we were all hoopskirted up. It was a disaster. Balancing our drinks, Zara and I carefully sat down on the couch, only to have our skirts fly right over our heads, just like Brandi Lyn had done earlier. We howled with laughter. And did it again just for fun.

  “Are you kidding me?” I yelled. “Are we not even going to be able to sit down in these things?”

  “No, you can,” replied Mallory. “I’ll show you. Move.” I jumped out of the way. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. There’s no jumping when you’re wearing thirty-five pound
s’ worth of skirts. One side at a time, Mallory kicked up the lower rung of her skirt and grabbed it. Then she shimmied her butt up to the couch, lifted the back of the skirt, plopped it over the back of the couch, and sat. “See, the skirts fly over your head if you sit on the hoop. If you move the hoop out of the way, and don’t sit on it, you’ll be fine.”

  “That’s like a ten-step process to sit down. And you look ridiculous backing your butt up to the couch like that, by the way.”

  Zara asked, “How do you know all this, Mallory?”

  “Told you. Twelve years I’ve been waiting. In the meantime I’ve been practicing in my cousin Lucinda’s hoops.”

  “There is an easier way to sit,” added Ashley.

  “Oh yeah, show them, Ash!”

  “You just cross your ankles and kind of flutter to the ground.” Ashley demonstrated, ending up in a flurry of flounces and ruffles as her skirts and hoops collapsed all around her.

  That did look easy. “Aha! That’s what I’m doing.”

  So we moved the furniture out of the way and we all “fluttered” to the ground in a circle, ending up looking like a bowl of pastel sherbets.

  Finally, the talking began. Ashley started. “I thought Jimmy and I would be together forever,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, Ashley,” Caroline said. “I thought y’all were the perfect match, what with your fathers being in the same law firm and everything.”

  A tear came to Ashley’s eye. “I did, too. I thought everything was set. We’d finish high school, go to college, get engaged senior year. Get married the next summer. I wanted to have my first baby by the time I was twenty-four.”

  Wow. “Isn’t that young?” I asked.

  “Not around here,” said Brandi Lyn. “Anyway, it’s good to have a life plan.”

  “I had it all planned,” continued Ashley. “We even got a room reserved at the Riverview for next Saturday after our Boysenthorp debut for, well, you know…”

  Mallory gasped. “What?! You didn’t tell me that!”

  “He said he couldn’t wait to get a certain dress up over my head.”