4 Christmas on Ladybug Farm

by Donna Ball

  Lindsay rolled her sweater up above her midriff and stretched out in the chair, fanning her bare stomach. A look of cautious relief came over her face. “Ah,” she said, closing her eyes. “Pigs. Tradition. Tea room. Right.”

  Bridget said, “I really should help Ida Mae in the kitchen. I feel guilty letting her work so hard in this heat.”

  “If she wanted help, she’d ask for it,” Cici said firmly, “and you’re not leaving this porch until I hear about the pink pig.”

  Bridget smiled a little into her tea. “Well, okay. It really is a special Christmas memory for me. We used to go every year , my grandmother and me, from the time I was three or four. But it’s the last time we went that I remember most. That was the year I found out my great-great- grandmother was a spy, and I became a thief.”

  Chapter Two

  Ghosts of Christmas Past: Bridget

  My grandmother was the last of the southern belles. She had lived in Atlanta all her life, and remembered when Peachtree Street was a two lane road lined with real trees. She never left the house without three things: a hat, a pair of gloves, and a girdle. She still referred to the Civil War as “the late unpleasantness” or “the War of Northern Aggression” and until the day she died she would not sit down at the table with a Yankee. I swear. I couldn’t make that up.

  She had a big Georgian-style brick house with a bay window right in front where she would put the Christmas tree every year. Oh my, it was a gorgeous thing—ten feet tall and covered with those big old fashioned colored lights and an absolute curtain of tinsel. There were hundreds of glass balls, and every child and grandchild had an ornament especially made just for him or her. My cousin had a pair of ballet slippers, because she was a dancer, and my uncle had an open Bible with gold writing on it, because he was a preacher. Mine was a crown with rhinestones, because Daddy always called me his princess. Traffic would slow down in front of Grandma’s house, her Christmas tree in that window was so pretty. And her house smelled like cinnamon, oranges and evergreen the whole month of December.

  Of course Christmas at Grandma’s was a huge event, with all the aunts and uncles and cousins and in-laws, the good china and heavy silver even at the children’s table, and so much food it looked like—well, it looked like Christmas at Ladybug Farm! But the best thing Grandma did every year was to take each granddaughter out to a special lunch, all by herself. And if you were under twelve, that could only mean one thing.

  Rich’s Department Store was a landmark in Atlanta, and every holiday season they would run a tram ride for kids with the car shaped like—you guessed it—a pink pig. The ride went around the building and above the street, and it was really pretty exciting for the little kids. But as you got older, the real thrill was the other part of the tradition—getting all dressed up in your Christmas velvet, knee socks and black patent Mary Janes, putting on your rabbit-fur head band and your little white gloves, and going downtown to Rich’s tearoom to have lunch with Grandma.

  Grandma always dressed up when she went downtown. That was part of the times, I think. and partly just the way she was raised. For our lunch that day she wore silk stockings and polished black pumps that matched her handbag, and a green silk brocade suit with a mink collar. She always let me help her pick out her jewelry, because a lady was not completely dressed until she put on her earrings, you know. And what a treat that was for me! Grandma’s jewelry box was a treasure chest in every sense of the word. It was this big polished mahogany box that sat on top of her dressing table, and locked with a brass key. It opened into four or five tiers and each tier was lined with blue velvet and divided into sections for rings, earrings, necklaces and bracelets. My favorite was an amethyst ring in an old fashioned silver setting with so many intricate filigrees and curly-ques that it was impossible to clean. The design was black with tarnish in the center, and I thought it had been painted that way.

  Every year while she was putting on her earrings, Grandma would let me wear the ring. This year when I slipped it on my finger, it actually fit! Well, almost anyway. When I showed her, Grandma laughed and said, “Well, that settles it then. This ring will be yours some day.” Then she added, “Ladies’ fingers were much smaller back in the day when this ring was made, you know. Imagine a grown up married woman with a hand as tiny as yours!”

  I admired the ring on my finger and asked, “Which grown up married woman, Grandma?”

  “That ring belonged to my grandmother, Ivy Bodine Winchester, and she was a spy during the War of Northern Aggression.”

  Imagine, my great-great-grandmother a spy! I didn’t even know that women could be spies, especially a woman as ladylike as I was sure anyone who was related to my grandmother must surely have been. Remember, this was a time in which I had never even heard of a woman doctor, much less a woman spy. It sounded like science fiction to me.

  “How did she do that?” I asked, big-eyed.

  “It was really very clever.” Grandma carefully fastened one of the emerald earrings onto her lobe, watching herself in the mirror. “She volunteered at the mission hospital that treated Union soliders… and also at the hospital that cared for our own gallant men. The Yankee soldiers were so grateful for the compassionate nursing of a gentlewoman that they often told her more than they should, and my grandmother had no compunction about passing along that information to certain Confederate wounded who were cleared to go back to the front. One time she made friends with the aid to a Yankee major and found out the troop position for the Battle of Kennesaw. She passed the information to a handsome captain who was recuperating from a shoulder wound, and he took the information back to save his whole battalion. After the war he came back to Atlanta and looked her up.” She smiled. “He ended up asking her to marry him, and he gave her this ring.”

  I gazed in absolute rapture at the purple stone glittering on my finger, feeling as though I had been transported through the magic of the ring into a fairy tale. “Wow,” I said.

  She turned from the mirror, beautifully coiffed, exquisitely jeweled, and smiled at me. “Wow, indeed,” she said. “The moral of the story, young lady, is that you can be anything you want to be. Greatness is in your heritage. Now,” she said briskly, “get your coat and your gloves. It’s rude to be late for lunch.”

  I hurried to put on my coat and gloves, but I didn’t take off the ring, and Grandma didn’t notice. Oh, I don’t mean to pretend I forgot. I did it on purpose. I held on to it like a talisman, a magical gateway between the past and the future, because I wanted to believe it was mine, even though I knew it wasn’t.

  All through the bus ride downtown I could feel that ring on my finger beneath my glove, solid and warm, like something alive. We walked down the street to Rich’s past the street corner Santas ringing their bells and past the giant Christmas tree with its miles of garland and ornaments as big as beach balls. The store was decorated like a winter wonderland and every inch of it smelled like Christmas. Rich’s had the best Santa in town, with a real beard down to his chest, and real rosy cheeks, not painted on. I stood in line with Grandma and when it was my turn you can guess what I told him I wanted for Christmas: an amethyst ring.

  There was nothing more elegant than the Rich’s tearoom. I walked like a queen with my grandmother to our table with its heavy white tablecloth and napkins, and I sat with straight shoulders, like a real lady, and ordered a lobster salad, just like Grandma did. There was a giant Christmas tree in the corner decorated in blue and white, and a man at the grand piano playing Christmas carols. For dessert we had petit-fours with perfect little Christmas trees in the icing, and cups of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and cinnamon. It was the most wonderful lunch I had ever had.

  We rode the elevator to the rooftop and the Pink Pig. I tell you, I was on top of the world when I got on that ride. And when I got off it, I realized the amethyst ring was gone.

  I don’t know how it happened. I remembered the feel of it on my finger during the bus ride, and the sparkle of it on
my finger at Grandma’s house while I listened to the story of my courageous ancestor the spy. I remembered taking off my gloves at lunch. Frantically, I searched my pockets and shook out my gloves. It wasn’t there.

  I had no choice but to tell Grandma. I had stolen her ring, and lost it. I was so ashamed and miserable I could have died. But she just listened to me, gave one of those brisk nods of hers, and said, “Well, we’d best find it then, hadn’t we?”

  I wish you could have seen her. She insisted that the entire ride be stopped and every seat searched, and you know what? No one questioned her. We went back to the tearoom and she had the maitre d’ search every square inch of the restaurant, and he was happy to do it for her. I had always thought of my grandmother as elegant and beautiful but I don’t think I’d ever realized what a powerful woman she was. She didn’t give orders, she never raised her voice, but the Queen of England couldn’t have commanded more respect than she did. All she had to do was ask, in that gentle Southern drawl of hers, and suddenly fifteen or twenty people were scurrying around trying to make her happy. She never once did or said anything to make me think she blamed me , and she never let me see the disappointment she must have felt. She didn’t have to, of course. I was disappointed enough in myself for both of us. And I couldn’t bear to think about what my mother would say when she found out what I’d done.

  But my grandmother never told her. We didn’t find the ring, despite all those people searching for it. I might have been young, but I knew what irreplaceable meant, and I knew how valuable something that old must have been. I just wanted to die. And I think Grandma knew I was punishing myself more than any adult could have done, because she said on the bus ride home, “Let’s just keep this between ourselves, shall we? After all, I said the ring belonged to you, and what you chose to do with it really is no one’s business but your own.”

  That was the moment I understood something about my grandmother that I had never been able to put into words before: She was a lady, from the inside out. That was what gave her her power. A genuine lady was more than someone who wore gloves on the bus and knew which earrings went with which hat. It was more, even, than someone who could shut down the most popular ride in the city at Christmastime just by asking. A lady was someone who would do everything in her power to make certain everyone around her felt good about themselves, because when the people you love are happy, you are happy.

  I had started out the morning with my head full of dreams about my heroic ancestress, the Confederate spy, and if you had asked me then I would have said there was nothing in the world I wanted more than to be like her. But by the time I kissed my grandmother good bye that afternoon, I knew who the real hero was. And that was when I decided what I wanted to be when I grew up: a lady.

  Chapter Three

  In Which There Are a Few Complications

  “That was the last Christmas we had with my grandmother,” Bridget said. “She had a stroke the next summer and died at home. Of course, that made her Christmas gift to me all the more meaningful, but even if she had lived another twenty years, I would have treasured it the rest of my life.”

  “What did she give you?” Cici asked.

  Bridget stretched out her hand to display a silver filigree ring with a small amethyst stone on her pinkie finger.

  “You found it!” Lindsay exclaimed.

  Bridget nodded. “One of the waiters at the restaurant turned it in, and of course the manager called my grandmother immediately. I couldn’t believe she would give it to me after I had been so irresponsible. Heaven knows, if it was one of my grandchildren I’d certainly think twice. But it was like a secret promise between us, and I think she understood that I valued the secret even more than the ring. My mother thought it was costume jewelry; if she had known the truth she never would have let me keep it. I only wear it at Christmas, and every time I look at it I think about the courage of one southern lady, and the classiness of another.”

  Cici sipped her tea, nodding thoughtfully. “So there really was a pink pig.”

  Lindsay stood. “I have got to get out of these clothes.”

  “And I’ve got to get back to work.” Cici finished off her tea and picked up the tray. She glanced at Bridget. “Are you coming, Bridget?”

  Bridget seemed for a moment not to hear her, her expression absent as she turned the ring slowly on her finger. Then she smiled, and got up to follow the others inside.

  Noah pushed open Lori’s door and came inside. “Hey,” he said.

  Lori finished tying her sneaker, frowning at him. “You could knock every once in awhile, you know. And I don’t have any money, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  He leaned against the doorjamb, arms folded, his expression preoccupied. “You always have money.”

  “Not at Christmas I don’t.”

  “Anyway, I’ve got my own money. I’ve got a job, remember? Unlike some people.”

  Lori’s scowl deepened. “What do you want?”

  “What did you get your mom for Christmas?”

  She tied the other shoe. “She likes Shalimar,” she said.

  “Perfume? You got her perfume?”

  “Expensive perfume,” she clarified.

  “That doesn’t seem very…. I don’t know. Personal.”

  “I didn’t have time to knit her a scarf.”

  “Yeah, especially since you’d have to learn to knit first. What do you think she’d like?”

  “Who? My mom?”

  “No. You know.” He shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably and jerked his head toward the front of the house. “Her.”

  He could have been referring to any of the four women downstairs, but Lori did not pretend to misunderstand. “You mean Aunt Lindsay,” she said. “Your mom.”

  Again, he shrugged and looked a little embarrassed. “And don’t say perfume. Perfume is stupid.”

  She got to her feet, catching her hair back at the nape with a scrunchie. “You’re being awfully picky for a guy who waited 'til Christmas Eve to do his shopping. This isn’t Charlottesville, you know. Nothing is going to be open in town. Why don’t you give her one of your paintings? She’d love that.”

  “She sees my paintings every day. That’s not for Christmas.”

  “Well, maybe jewelry then. Every woman likes jewelry.”

  “Maybe,” he muttered, but looked unconvinced.

  “And have the store gift wrap it. That always makes it look special.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’ll have to go to Staunton. And you can’t borrow my car. I’m using it.”

  “Don’t need it.”

  “Look,” Lori said, “the important thing is that she knows you thought about her. That’s all moms really want—to know you’re thinking about them. Although,” she added with a shrug, “like my mom always says, diamonds are nice, too.”

  He regarded her for another moment, expressionless, then pushed away from the door. “See ya.”

  He started down the stairs and Lori called after him, “You’re going to have a hard time carrying my forty-two inch flat screen on the back of that motorcycle!”

  The grand old house had been returned to the splendor of a Victorian Christmas for the traditional Christmas party that was scheduled the next day. Swags of evergreen and ribbon adorned every doorway and was wrapped around the stair rail. Each bathroom had its own Styrofoam Christmas tree covered with moss and decorated with bouquets of dried flowers. There was a massive Christmas tree in the parlor and another one on the second-floor landing, overlooking the foyer. Even the pots of the two big ferns that flanked the doorway were filled with shiny multicolored Christmas balls.

  But Lindsay, the artist among them, always surveyed the interior with a critical eye.

  “You know what’s missing?”she said, not for the first time. “Mistletoe. We always have mistletoe.”

  “I told you, there wasn’t any this year,” Cici replied. “I sent Farley out looking for some but he said it had been
too dry.” Farley was their handiman and closest neighbor. There were not many things the ladies had not learned to do on their own, but when they did come up against something they couldn't handle, Farley was the one to call.

  “Besides,” added Bridget, “What do three middle-aged women living alone need with mistletoe?”

  Lindsay returned an arch look. “Maybe you’re middle aged.”

  Lindsay started up the stairs just as Noah bounded down them, two at a time. “Back in a bit,” he said, without pausing.

  “You promised to sweep the walk,” she reminded him, but was speaking to his back before all the words were out.

  “And fix that string of lights the wind knocked down!” Cici called as he blew past her.

  “And I need you to help me hang some more garland!” Bridget said.

  He threw up a hand without looking back. “Later!”

  “Be back before lunch!” Lindsay called. “Don’t forget we’re having our family Christmas dinner tonight! And, hey! ” She took a step down, raising her voice. “Keep an eye out for mistletoe!”

  The screen door banged.

  Cici opened the door and called after him, “Paul and Derrick are coming for lunch! Don’t be late!”

  The only reply was, after a moment’s delay, the roaring of a motorcycle engine, followed by the frantic barking of Rebel the border collie as he chased the machine around the house and down the drive.

  Lindsay leaned against the evergreen-draped banister and watched through the screen door as the motorcycle disappeared in a cloud of dust and Rebel came trotting back up the drive, tongue lolling, his job done. She looked troubled.

  “I’m a lousy mother,” she said.

  “Welcome to the club,” Bridget replied cheerfully. “Being lousy is part of the job description.”

  “No, I mean it. I don’t think Noah’s happy with the way things have turned out.”