It was knowing her mother’s wishes that made her choice so difficult. That was why seeing Ginger dressed up in Rose Dupree’s white gown had been a little tough to take.
Jeanie Mackenzie had wanted Mac to don her gown too.
If you should want to wear the same dress I wore for my Rosebud Ball, I would love nothing more. Though I would understand if you chose to buy something new. Still, it would almost be as if I were there with you, Mackie, if you put on the de la Renta gown my mother watched me debut in. So think about it at the very least, would you? I would be so honored.
This wasn’t going to be easy on her, was it? Not without her mom around, encouraging her, giving advice, and offering a shoulder to lean on when Mac needed it.
A lump settled in her throat, and Mac turned the music down, telling herself not to cry, that it would be okay. Why am I still so emotional about things? Two years without Jeanie Mackenzie around and she still couldn’t get a grip sometimes. She just missed her mom so much. Mac closed her eyes, telling herself to just breathe until she felt calmer. Then she slid her journal out from beneath her pillow and sat cross-legged on her bed with the notebook in her lap. She tapped the pen against the page until she’d sorted out her thoughts. In a burst of frantic motion, she started scribbling down the words as fast as they came to her.
Sometimes I feel so alone, even if I’m in my house with my dad and Honey around, or with Ginger and Laura at a sleepover. I’m alone in a little shell that no one can penetrate. Every time I try to let something out, like how I feel about debuting, they don’t seem to understand or take me seriously. It’s like they want to impose their feelings on me, or they just ignore how I feel. Are they too afraid to deal with the deep, dark, unhappy aspects of my life? Like they have enough problems of their own, so they don’t need to handle mine, too? Why can’t I find someone who just listens and supports me? Who says, “It’s okay if you don’t want to be a Rosebud, Mac. You don’t have to do it. Be yourself.” Even if my mother were still alive, I’m not sure she’d understand why I’m conflicted any more than anyone else. I think she wanted me to be just like her, and that’s not so bad. It’s just that I’m a different person than she was. I’m Mac, not Jeanie.
She stopped writing, slipped the pen into the spine of her notebook, and closed the pages. Then she lay back against her pillows and sighed, going over way too many things in her head, like all the debutante crap, Laura hooking up with Avery again, and Ginger meeting up with this Javier dude tonight at the Sam Houston Oak. What had Ging said about that? Oh, yeah, that she was going to help stop the tree from being bulldozed to make room for more PFP parking.
Mac didn’t like the sound of it but had promised to come up with a way to break Ging out of her grandmother’s house before seven this evening. She had no clue yet how she was going to manage that without Ginger’s mom and Rose Dupree, her grandma, figuring out that something was up.
Wait a minute, that was kind of spontaneous, wasn’t it? And even if it wasn’t, what was so wrong with being sensible? At least she wasn’t going all soppy over a boy, like Laura over Avery. Mac knew he was going to blow Laura off again, like every time before. Did Avery have anything to do with Laura returning to Ginger’s soaking wet? Mac figured he had to be responsible. That guy spelled trouble with a capital T, though Laura couldn’t seem to see it through her rose-colored glasses.
Mac’s cell rang, playing the overture from Mozart’s Figaro. She grabbed it from her nightstand, reading Alex’s number before she answered with a breathy “Hey!”
“You want to come over for lunch?” he asked without prelude. “We’re having pizza.”
“Sure, sounds great,” Mac said, even though she’d had pizza last night. She would’ve eaten bologna sandwiches, for all she cared. She was just so eager to see Alex. “I’ll put on my shoes and be right over, okay?”
“Optimal!”
Mac hung up and dashed into the bathroom, heading straight for the sink so she could brush her teeth. As she eliminated her bad breath, she stared at herself in the mirror, thinking her hair looked manic, unruly brown curls popping out all over, like she’d slept on it funny. And was that a zit on her chin?
After she spat and rinsed, she dabbed a cover-up stick on the red spot and did her best to tame her mane before slicking on vanilla Chap Stick. Then she slipped on her flip-flops and raced out of her room and down the stairs to the kitchen, where her dad and Honey were playing footsies as they read the Houston Chronicle in the breakfast nook, like they did every Sunday morning. Only the step-Barbie glanced up as Mac poked her head through the door.
“I’m going over to the Bishops’,” she said, and Honey smiled.
“Okay, sweetie,” she drawled. “Have a good time.”
Her father grunted but didn’t even look up from the sports page, clearly more interested in the latest Astros score than in his own daughter.
“Bye, then,” Mac said quietly, trying not to feel frustrated by the way her dad avoided her. Did it hurt him too much to acknowledge she existed now and then? Did it just remind him of what he’d lost?
Stop it, Mac told herself, knowing that analyzing her father’s behavior didn’t do her any good. It only made her feel worse.
She flung herself out the rear French doors and onto the patio, not pausing for breath until she’d reached the tall hedge between the houses. Then she ducked through the space between the boxwoods that she and Alex had carved out when they were kids. There was even a gently worn footpath that reapplication of mulch every spring could never completely erase.
He was waiting for her on the other side, standing on the deck and pushing hair from his eyes so he could check his wristwatch.
“Hey, hey!” she shouted as she strode toward him.
Alex glanced up, and his face broke into an easy grin.
“Howdy, stranger,” he said, opening up his arms as she came within range. Mac ran right into them. Her head tucked easily beneath his chin as he squeezed her for a second, and she closed her eyes, thinking how good he smelled, just as she remembered. Like Zest soap and cinnamon toast.
“You’re taller, aren’t you?” she asked when she pulled away, because he seemed to have grown about six inches. Mac cocked her head and looked him over, noticing all the subtle ways he’d changed, besides towering over her now.
His hair was longer, cut in choppy waves that fell in sculpted curls on his brow, just touching his collar in back. Gone were the bottle-thick glasses, replaced by small wire-rims that seemed to enlarge his blue eyes rather than obscure them. He looked good, better than she remembered. Or maybe it was only the relief of having him back again.
His lopsided smile looked pleased. “Either I grew or you shrank.”
Mac gave him a nudge. “Geez, what’d they feed you at computer camp, hormones?”
“Ah, Fräulein Mac”—he looped an arm around her shoulders and guided her inside to the Bishops’ kitchen—“it was more like clean air from the Black Forest, plenty of stimulating conversation, and more beer than I could drink.”
“What, no strudel?”
“Okay, maybe a little strudel too,” he said, and pulled out a stool for her at the breakfast bar. As she slid atop the seat he went around to the other side, where the pizza box sat. He doled out several large slices on two plates, setting one in front of her and the other on the counter next to hers. He ripped two squares from a roll of paper towels to use as napkins, then came around and plunked down beside her.
“Well, your place looks the same as ever,” Mac said, glancing around, noting as usual the startling contrast between her family’s place and the Bishops’. Whereas Mac’s dad insisted the house be kept spotless—which entailed Honey having domestic help—the Bishops were way more laid-back. Sure, they had granite countertops and stainless steel in their spacious kitchen like every other updated and renovated 1950s-era two-story on their street, but the room Mac surveyed was no page out of Houston Lifestyles and Homes magazine. The large bay windows that overlook
ed the backyard and pool were smudged with streaky fingerprints, and the flowers on the glass-topped breakfast table drooped over the vase. Cereal bowls littered the sink, and sections of the Sunday paper covered sections of the tiled floor.
“But it’s way too quiet,” she added. Despite the evidence of other human life—like the dishes in the sink and discarded newspaper—Mac didn’t hear a peep. Usually Alex’s nine-year-old brother, Elliott, was running around in a Superman cape with a herd of his nine-year-old comrades behind him.
“Mom and Dad took Idiot shopping for school supplies,” Alex said, explaining the silence.
“Kind of last-minute, isn’t it? School starts tomorrow.”
“Mac, Mac, Mac”—Alex clicked tongue against teeth—“you have been away from this house for too long. Don’t you know that the Bishops are notorious procrastinators? Didn’t my parents throw a birthday party for me last year two weeks after the fact?”
Mac laughed. “I think it was more like ten years after the fact, since Chuck E. Cheese isn’t exactly the hot spot for teen parties.”
“Ah, but we had fun, didn’t we? Almost as much fun as I had at the International Technology Symposium. Man, it was awesome,” he gushed, pausing briefly to jump up and fetch Cokes from the fridge. He deposited a cold can in front of her.
“So many people all in one place who spoke my language. It was like Dr. Spitznagel’s AP physics class all over again.”
Mac paused with a slice of pizza in hand, the gooey cheese dripping. “Oh, yeah, I remember your telling me. It was all of, what, two other Caldwell boys and you?”
He chuckled, and Mac felt something shift inside her, like a part that had been missing had settled into place again.
“Well, while you were having fun hanging with your geek homies, I had to play with Dad and Honey at Lake Conroe.”
“Sounds painful.” He made a face. “The real question is…did you play nice?”
Mac shrugged. “I didn’t do away with her, if that’s what you’re asking. In fact, she was perky enough to drag me to Post Oak with her yesterday. She made me go to a day spa and then shopping.”
“Good God, girl. You went shopping?” Alex mumbled. He looked mortified, his mouth hanging open, and it was full of food.
“Gross, dude!” Mac elbowed him. “Didn’t anyone in Germany teach you how to chew with your mouth closed?”
He swallowed dutifully before he replied, “You think any of the rest of the techies I hung with had table manners? We’re not debutantes, you know.”
Mac dumped the pizza crust onto her plate and brushed off her hands. “Well, neither am I.”
“Not yet, anyway.” Alex smiled. “But you will be.”
Mac’s cheeks warmed. “You’re assuming they’ll invite me and I’ll accept.”
“Oh, they will, and you will,” he said, sounding awfully sure of himself, or sure of her.
She squinted at him. “And you know this because…?”
“I know you, Mac, and you’re not a quitter.”
“Being a quitter has nothing to do with it,” she insisted, tensing up like she had at the sleepover when Laura had pestered her about the same thing. “Maybe it’s not who I am.”
“What do you want me to say? ‘Be true to yourself’? ‘Don’t do it just because your friends are doing it’?” He had a cheeky smile on his face, like he knew something she didn’t. And it bugged her immensely.
Yes, that’s exactly what I want you to say!
“Precisely,” she snapped, “because it’s true.”
“Hmm.” He looked her square in the eye. “Are you sure? Or is it just what you want to hear?”
Argh! He drove her crazy when he did this, countering something they both knew was right, provoking her into questioning herself and taking a look at the other side, when all Mac wanted was for someone to agree with her. She sighed, tired of the whole “to debut or not to debut” argument.
She changed the subject entirely. “You have tomato sauce on your face, you know.”
“I do? And I usually only get it on my shirt. Is it here?” he asked, poking at the corners of his mouth with his tongue but not quite reaching the spot.
“God, you’re hopeless.” Mac plucked the paper towel out of her lap and used it to wipe the red smear from his cheek. His thickly lashed blue eyes watched her from behind his wire-rims, and she felt her pulse start thumping in the oddest way.
“Okay, all clean,” she said, and pulled away. “Now tell me about camp,” she prodded, knowing he’d dive right in and the subject of the Rosebuds would be forgotten.
His face lit up. “Oh, man, where to start? I spent most of it building my new quad-core system, which is so much cooler than my old one, since I had to use two dual cores with a motherboard that had two processor ports, and I added RAID—” He stopped talking, no doubt sensing her bemusement. “Do you have any idea what I’m saying?”
“Nope, not a word,” she replied, laughing. “But I love watching your face as you say it. You look like you did when we were eight and you took the toaster apart and put it back together.”
“And my mom says that toaster was never the same.”
“God, I missed you,” she said, the words slipping out, and she blushed at the pleasant surprise in his face.
“I missed you too.” He reached over and tousled her hair.
“Same old Mac,” he said. “You’ll never change, will you? C’mon. Let’s head upstairs to my room, shall we? My new quad-core awaits!”
Mac pushed away her empty plate. “Sure, let’s go,” she replied, following him toward the stairs, her enthusiasm suddenly a notch lower than it had been a mere second after he’d said “I missed you too.”
Same old Mac, huh?
Mac knew she’d hardly changed at all, except maybe her hair now reached her shoulders and she’d actually tried plucking her brows after Miss Magnolia had gotten on her case about having “caterpillars” above her eyes. Maybe she should’ve listened to the stepbimbo about getting her bangs trimmed at the day spa.
Oh, hell, was Laura right? Had she turned into some boring reliable car?
“Do you think I’m a Honda Civic, Alex?” she asked him, hesitating with her hand on the banister.
He stopped, looking over his shoulder. “What?”
Mac shook her head. “Never mind.”
She ended up hanging out with Alex all afternoon, catching up and joking around; watching Office Space for the umpteenth time. Until her cell rang, and it was Ginger on the other end, totally frantic.
“It’s nearly five o’clock, Mac! What on earth are you doing? You need to get over here now so we can plot how you’re going to get me out of Grandmother’s dinner before seven. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Ginger hung up before Mac had the chance to say a single word.
“Who was that?” Alex asked as Mac stared at the phone in her hand.
“Just another friend who’s lost her mind,” she told him, shoving her cell back in her pocket. “I’ve got to run.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I wish I could stay.”
And Mac was sorry, because spending time with Alex had always been important to her. He made her feel grounded whenever she felt like the rug was being pulled out from beneath her.
“Hey, you want a ride to PFP tomorrow?” he asked as he headed down the stairs behind her. “I can pick you up at your door.”
“Curbside service,” she said, and took his hand in hers, squeezing it. “Sounds great. See you in the morning?”
“Cool.”
Mac gave him a backhanded wave before she dashed across the wide lawn, beneath the old tree house, and around the swing set. Then she slipped through the break in the hedge, heading home as she had a million times before. Yet something felt different this time—something subtle had changed between her and Alex. It was only a feeling, nothing she could put her finger on, but it was there just the same.
* * *
It beats me how Freud could say, “What do women want?” as if we all want the same things.
—Katharine Whitehorn
Is there anything wrong with being in love with something other than money? Or wanting a guy with soul, even if he drives a ten-year-old Volvo?
—Ginger Fore
* * *
Eleven
Ginger sat at her grandmother’s enormous mahogany dining table, linen napkin in her lap beneath her folded hands, feeling like a child again, except that her feet touched the floor and she was wearing the new blue and green V-neck sundress instead of a frilly Florence Eiseman dress with lace-trimmed socks and black patent-leather Mary Janes. She could still hear Grandmother saying, “Ah-ah-ah,” in that dry Southern drawl, followed by, “Don’t you remember the song I taught you, Ginger Dupree Fore? Mabel, Mabel, if you’re able, get your elbows off the table.”
Ginger only forgot about elbows on the table when she was chowing down with Mac or Laura. Then all her lessons in manners went out the window. At least at Whataburger there weren’t so many spoons and forks set out that you had to think before you picked one up.
“More tea, Miss Ginger?” asked a slim brown-skinned woman in a neat tan pantsuit, hovering beside her with an iced pitcher.
“No, thank you, Serena, I’m good.”
“All right, then.”
Around her, in her grandmother’s River Oaks mansion, house staff efficiently swept in and out of the room, bringing in each course on silver trays and refreshing tea and water glasses as soon as two sips were taken. There was something about being waited on hand and foot that made Ginger uneasy. Maybe it was the stiff formality of it all, or the sense of divide between master and servant, which Rose Dupree was very keen on. The house itself was equally old-fashioned, from its pillared antebellum façade to the high-ceilinged rooms overstuffed with uncomfortable antique furniture that had Ginger yearning to get back to the ultramodern Castle.
Sometimes when she visited Rose Dupree, Ginger felt like she’d slipped back into another century, one of genteel living near downtown in a secluded enclave of tidy plots of land, stately manors, and a main boulevard with old-fashioned cast-iron streetlamps that led directly to the doors of the River Oaks Country Club. Ginger’s mother had grown up in these parts and had threatened to move back after the divorce from Edward Fore was made final. But Ginger had breathed a huge sigh of relief when her father had let them have the Castle off Piney Point. Her life was centered west of the Loop, back in the Memorial Villages, while Rose Dupree’s house on Piping Rock was definitely east, closer to Rice University and a zillion miles away from Ginger’s world in so many ways.
The Debs Page 10
