The Red Hat Society's Queens of Woodlawn Avenue

by Regina Hale Sutherland

  “Ma’am?” The young photographer materialized at my elbow. “Can we get you in this picture?”

  I looked over to see three women I’d known for years congregated by the fireplace, ready to have their photo taken. I hadn’t moved in my normal social circles for the past nine months, and other than smiling and nodding in the grocery store, it was the first time I’d seen most of them since Jim walked out. Pasting a smile on my face, I nodded. “Certainly,” I said and moved toward the group. Only the strangest thing happened. Actually, the most humiliating thing happened. Before I could reach them, the trio dissolved. By the time the photographer and I reached the fireplace, the antique rug in front of it was empty.

  The photographer shot me a quizzical glance. “That was weird,” he said.

  What could I say? A divorcee in their midst might be contagious. In my present state, I was the embodiment of all their worst fears—no husband, no money, no Belle Meade address. The only person they’d be less likely to accept in their midst than me was Jim’s Tiffany. I looked around for someone, anyone, to rope into having their photograph taken with me, but the rest of the women in the living room were either turning to make their way through the archway to the dining room or studiously avoiding my pleading look. Linda’s advice from yesterday morning—never let them see you sweat—rang in my ears. I refused to crumble at the first instance of adversity.

  “You’ll want to get a shot of that group there,” I said to the photographer, motioning toward some women who were huddled together, talking animatedly, on Roz’s sofa.

  “Sure. Thanks.” The photographer cast me one last pitying glance before he, too, fled from my presence.

  Roz appeared in the archway between the vast living room and the cavernous dining room, ringing a little silver bell.

  “Luncheon is served,” she called, and the women all picked up their cocktails and followed her like obedient sheep. Well, okay, most of them weren’t sheep. They were just hungry. And, in fact, not more than a handful probably realized the bad feelings between Roz and me. But those few who did were enough to make me stiffen my spine, and my resolve along with it. Thankfully, Linda reappeared in the archway beside Roz and motioned for me to join her.

  We moved en masse through the dining room to Roz’s enormous solarium, which I knew she’d built for occasions such as this. Of course she’d been named chair of the ball. After all, how many women in Nashville could host a seated luncheon for forty? It was a far cry from any of the dining rooms of my new Red Hat friends.

  “Here we are,” Linda said, motioning to the table where Roz was taking her seat.

  I must have balked like a mule, because Linda put a hand on my shoulder and practically pushed me into the chair. The table seated six, and Linda had shoved me into the seat next to Roz. She took the one on the other side of me and smiled graciously at the other women at the table as she took her intricately folded linen napkin and placed it in her lap.

  Roz turned toward me with a smile that looked like a hyena sizing up a lamb chop. “So, Ellie, how is your new house working out? I drove by the other day, and I was so surprised to see rental property across the street.” She said the two words in a whisper, as if she’d been forced to utter an obscenity in polite company.

  “The house is coming along,” I said blithely, imitating Linda by reaching for my napkin and draping it across my lap.

  “The location doesn’t bother you, then?” Roz was never one to dig in the knife without giving it a good, hard twist. “I’d be devastated to leave Belle Meade.”

  She’d led a high card, and I cast about desperately in my mind for a trump, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. The other ladies at the table might be sipping water from crystal goblets or tucking their own napkins in their laps, but I could see from the corner of my eye that they were hanging on every word of our exchange.

  “I live next door to Ellie,” Linda said, jumping to my defense. “I love my neighborhood. It has the most darling houses. Give me character and charm over some of these McMansions any day of the week.”

  Roz couldn’t prevent the corner of her lip from curling up for the briefest of moments, a snarl that revealed her for the bitch she was. I beamed at Linda, who had trumped Roz for me.

  “My new neighbors are the best part of moving,” I said. “Linda’s been lovely, welcoming me to the neighborhood.”

  I might have taken the trick, but I knew better than to think Roz would throw in her cards easily.

  “I got the cutest little invitation yesterday,” she said, looking around at the other ladies at the table. The cater ing staff were beginning to circle the room, and one slipped a spinach salad under Roz’s carefully sculpted nose. I remembered vividly the day when I was fourteen and my mother came home from work and confided in me that Roz had undergone plastic surgery. At the time, we’d been struggling to find the money to buy my school supplies.

  “Invitation to what?” Linda asked politely before taking a bite of her salad, and a sudden, icy fear struck me.

  “A wedding,” Roz said with a laugh. “At first, I thought it was for a baby shower, it was so pink. I’ve never seen anything quite so…well, childish, I guess is the word.”

  At the far end of the table, a dark-haired woman’s eyes lit up. She set down her fork, prepared to feed on something more substantial than the spinach salad. “Who’s the lucky couple?”

  The dark-haired woman was probably the only person at the table who hadn’t received one of the pink monstrosities. Roz smiled at me in triumph. “I’m sure you can guess, Ellie.”

  Everyone at the table froze, as if waiting for the Ten-nessean photographer to take a picture. Five pairs of eyes fixed on me. Once again Roz had led a high card, but this time I couldn’t look to Linda for help. I had to trump her on my own.

  Should I laugh it off? Feign indifference? For a moment I froze, until Linda nudged me with her foot beneath the table.

  “I’m surprised,” I said, trying to look nonplussed. Roz looked so pleased with herself, and I dearly wanted to take that self-satisfied look off of her face.

  “What surprises you, Ellie dear?” Roz asked.

  I took a sip of iced tea from the Waterford crystal in front of me. “I’m surprised you didn’t get your invitation earlier. Mine came a week ago.”

  I was not going to give her the satisfaction, no matter what it cost me. Around the table, the other women whispered and tittered. Linda smiled her approval.

  “Really?” Roz pretended to look aghast. “Oh, Ellie, surely you’re not going to attend the wedding? I mean, well, that would be just too humiliating, wouldn’t it?”

  I gripped the edges of my chair, safe in the knowledge that the drape of the immaculate table cloth would hide my agitation. I was determined, as Linda had advised, not to let Roz see me sweat. “Jim and I parted mutually, and we’ll always share the children.” I forced out the words, but they tasted as bitter as they were false. “I wish him the best.”

  Roz looked around at the others and snickered. “Well, then you’re a better woman than I am. I could never be in the same room again with a man who’d betrayed me like that. And with a Hooters waitress, too.”

  “So then you’re not planning to attend the wedding?” I sent her back the same icy smile masquerading as a pleasant expression she’d been giving me since I’d arrived. “I’ll be sure to give Jim and Tiffany your regrets.”

  Roz’s brow furrowed despite the quantity of Botox lodged there, and then she rallied for one last try at uprooting me.

  “Yes, well, perhaps we should leave the small talk for now and discuss the plans for the ball. I’ve made the committee assignments.”

  At this, even the ladies at the adjoining tables fell silent, as if they’d all been listening, one ear cocked, for just such an announcement. My heart thrummed in my chest. I knew better than to hope for any mercy from Roz, and there was no way she was going to name me chair-elect. I held out a faint hope that Linda might get the nod
. At least then I could expect something better from the next year’s committee assignment. Assuming I wasn’t working as a waitress at Waffle House by then.

  Roz stood up and tapped her crystal with her sterling silver flatware. “Ladies, if I could have your attention please.”

  I’d pulled trump with Roz as best I could, but she still held the highest card. I gritted my teeth and tried to look like I was enjoying myself.

  “I know you’re all eager to get your assignments, and so I won’t wait any longer.”

  We held our collective breaths as Roz proceeded to announce who had been selected to chair which committee and what women were assigned to help her. As Roz went down the list, I gripped the arm of my chair more and more tightly, but my name was not mentioned. I had hoped at least for decorations. Or perhaps even the thankless task of rounding up donations for the silent auction. But one by one, my hopes were whittled down until nothing remained but a nub.

  “And our last committee. Transportation.”

  It was the junk assignment, the one given as a clear indication of the chair’s lowly status. In this case, a woman would prefer to simply be named to the committee rather than to chair it. Then she could fade into oblivion or perhaps move to another city to make a fresh start.

  “Our transportation captain this year will be Ellie Johnston.” Roz stopped, pressed her fingers to her lips, and giggled. “Excuse me, I mean Ellie Hall.”

  I couldn’t count the number of pitying looks sent my way. I nodded graciously to Roz and then to the other ladies as if I’d just been crowned Queen of the May. Linda might teach me all about pulling trump, but the truth was, if you weren’t holding the ace, you could never take the last trick.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Opening Bids

  “I’ve found your first client.” Later that afternoon, Jane’s bright voice penetrated the thick gloom that had settled over me after the luncheon at Roz’s house. I hadn’t made the gloom any lighter when I came home and proceeded to drag out the photo album from my wedding. The pictures of Jim and me, arm in arm, smiling and laughing, had pulled me even further into the Slough of Despond. Sitting on your Goodwill-ready couch in scruffy sweats imagining the face of a Hooters waitress on your wedding portrait was not conducive to a positive mental state.

  So when Jane knocked I’d debated once again whether I should open the door, but the manners my mother had drilled into me at an early age prevailed. Now Jane was perched on my pathetic couch drinking a glass of iced tea, and I sat to her right in a cheap wooden rocking chair Jim and I had picked up at a garage sale. I smiled at her, doing my best to cover my turbulent emotions, and nudged the wedding album a little farther under the coffee table with my toe.

  “First client?” Jane’s enthusiasm only made my despair deeper. “But I haven’t done any of the other stuff yet. Web site. Business cards. I don’t even have a name for my business.” I twisted the glass of iced tea in my hands, wishing the rest of me could be as numb as my fingers.

  Jane set her iced tea down on the coffee table, careful to use one of the coasters even though another ring or two on that table would hardly have attracted notice. “All you need to know right now is how much you’re going to charge Henri.” She said the name in a lilting French accent, hardly pronouncing the “h” at all.

  “Henri?” I echoed. The rocking chair was as uncomfortable as it had been cheap. We’d planned to put it on the porch of the lake home we dreamed of buying some day.

  “Henri Paradis. He’s in Nashville for the next six months on business. I helped him lease a condo on West End today. Very exclusive. And very expensive.” Jane’s eyes twinkled as brightly as her teeth shone. “He mentioned how overwhelmed he felt, what with working sixty hours a week and no time to acquaint himself with the city. He told me what he really needed was a wife, and voilà!” She reached into her pocket and retrieved a small white business card. “Your first client, Ellie. Isn’t it exciting?’

  Sure, except for the fact that I had no idea what my duties would be, how much I’d charge for them, or whether Henri Paradis thought Jane was a madam taking care of more than just his housing needs.

  “It’s too soon.” Setting goals was one thing, but coming up with the courage to try and obtain them was another matter entirely. And after the smackdown at Roz’s luncheon today, I wasn’t feeling particularly lionhearted.

  Jane, per usual, waved away my objection with her well-manicured hand. “You have to start sometime. Why not now?”

  I could think of a million reasons why not now—I had more moping to do, more refined carbs to eat, more pity to indulge in—but none of them would hold any water with Jane. She laid the business card on my scuffed coffee table and then nudged it toward me with one poppy red fingernail.

  “You can name your price, the man’s so desperate.”

  “I don’t want to practice extortion. I just want to earn a living.” I began to rock, despite the discomfort of the bare wood against my backside.

  “So we’ll see what he needs, estimate how long it will take you, and multiply that by an hourly rate.”

  “Today?”

  “When were you planning to start?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe next week?”As long as I can afford to be in denial. And then I thought again about Jim’s phone call and the likelihood that I might never see his alimony check at all. Nothing like the prospect of a little poverty to provide an antidote to fear and trembling.

  “It won’t be any easier next week.” Jane pushed the card even closer. “Why don’t you give Henri a call right now?”

  With tentative fingers, I picked up the card from the coffee table.

  M. Henri Paradis

  Chief Financial Officer

  The Triumph Group

  The address was in one of Nashville’s largest downtown office buildings. I’d never heard of the Triumph Group, but if the man was working with Jane, who handled real estate matters for a healthy slice of the city’s wealthiest elite, then he must be a solid citizen. Or at least as much of one as a Frenchman could be. I remembered my mother, who had done a semester as an exchange student in Paris, telling me as a child never to trust a Frenchman. The thought of my mother, though, was the one thing that could get me to summon my courage. She’d faced just what I was facing and had never shirked from the challenge. And I was my mother’s daughter. At least, I hoped I was.

  “All right. I’ll call him. Although I don’t have the foggiest idea what I’m doing.”

  Jane stood up and I did the same. “That’s okay, Ellie. Neither does he. In fact, he’ll probably need you for a lot more than picking up dry cleaning.”

  “Like what?” Suddenly I was suspicious again, because Jane was sounding like a madam now.

  “Nothing like that.” She laughed. “Although, if you’re given an opportunity to socialize with the man, don’t turn it down on principle. He’s—how do they say it?—magnifique.”

  “Don’t you make it a policy not to date clients?” I didn’t know why I was even asking, since I had no interest in dating anyone. Ever. Again.

  Jane’s brow creased. “Well, I guess that depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On what you need more—the date or the client.”

  Since I couldn’t imagine ever opening myself up to a repeat of the pain Jim had inflicted on me, that shouldn’t be a problem.

  “Call him,” Jane said again as she let herself out the front door. She didn’t wait for me to answer, yanking the warped wood closed behind her as best she could.

  I took a deep breath, and fearing that if I procrastinated I’d never find the courage, I walked to the phone. Then I picked up the receiver, punched in the number on Monsieur Paradis’s business card, and flung myself farther into the abyss of my brand new life.

  Of course he was out of the office. Isn’t that always how it goes? His assistant put me through to his voice mail while I leaned against the kitchen counter and watched through my curtainless windo
w as three squirrels raced around my backyard.

  “Monsieur Paradis,” I said after the beep, hoping my four years of high school French had not been in vain and that my inflection was at least passable. “This is Eleanor Hall. Jane Mansfield gave me your card and said you might be in need of my services.” Ouch. Did that sound suggestive? I hadn’t meant it to. “I’d be happy to discuss your needs at your convenience.” Oh, shoot. That was even worse. I left my phone number and ended with, “and welcome to Nashville.” I tacked on that last bit as an afterthought, but at least it sounded hospitable. With an exasperated sigh, I shoved away from the counter. If nothing else, waiting for Henri Paradis to return my call would take my mind off of Jim’s upcoming wedding as well as my demotion to Transportation Chair for the Cannon Ball. To be honest, nothing was going to take my mind off those things completely, but the prospect of landing my first client might at least mitigate the stench of failure that had begun to cling to me a Roz’s luncheon yesterday.

  My mom had always told me that any job worth doing was worth doing well. This sentiment had seen her through years of underappreciated service to Roz’s father, and it had helped me to graduate magna cum laude from Vanderbilt. But when I thought about the prospect of chairing the transportation committee for the Cannon Ball, I couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for my old aphorism. Especially not as, one by one, the women Roz had named to my committee called to tell me they wouldn’t be able to help this year after all.

  “I’m having a root canal,” one said. I decided not to point out that a root canal generally didn’t put one on the disabled list for six months. We both knew the score. The Cannon Ball was the most prestigious event of the Nashville social season, and, as in real estate, the ball hierarchy was all about location, location, location. The transportation committee was to the Cannon Ball as the septic tank was to a house up for sale—important, but no one wanted to actually be responsible for it.