by Helen Ellis
My parents are guilty of aiding and abetting my fashion crimes because they stopped dressing up when they retired. Papa, who wore three-piece suits to work, takes pride in the fact he hasn’t worn a tie since. When my niece was born, Mama, who’d stopped practicing law—and with it the art of modeling Claire Huxtable–worthy ensembles—wore a cream-and-brown Christopher Walken T-shirt to the maternity ward that read MORE COWBELL!
So, is losing the will to dress up an age thing?
At casinos, I see senior citizens grazing on slot machines clad in a trend that I call toddling. Toddling is dressing like a toddler: clamdiggers and a cotton top, no belt, mall-walking sneakers. It’s a look that says, I give up. Or, I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks of me anymore. I’m not sure which. And I’m not sure whether I’m ready to grow gracefully into either.
I said to Karen, “I would love to wear a velvet tuxedo.”
She flipped the price tag. At 40 percent off (with no matching pants) the jacket was $921. She frowned. We checked the size. For once, I was happy that something so perfect for me was two sizes too small.
We moved on. Rack by rack, floor by floor. I tried on whatever Karen pulled for me. Nothing worked, but she was kind. A zipper didn’t zip, and she said, “You have an hourglass body, not a little-boy body.”
And then we found a St. John’s jumpsuit. It was velvet! It was form-fitting! It was on sale for $595! I opened the dressing-room door and Karen said, “You look like Jaclyn Smith in Charlie’s Angels!”
I thought we had a winner, but I wanted to make sure.
Karen took a photo and we texted it to my husband.
No answer.
So, we texted it to others. We group-sourced. Gay men liked it. Women liked it. But still no word from my husband. We put the jumpsuit on hold.
When I got home, I asked him why he didn’t text back.
My husband said, “It was hard to tell how you looked from the picture.”
Married to a Southern lady, my husband knows better than to say anything to me that can’t be taken as a compliment. He’d never say he didn’t like the way I looked. So, with the jumpsuit, it was the camera’s fault. It was the overhead lighting’s fault. The black velvet didn’t photograph well. But I knew he didn’t find it attractive.
He said, “You should wear something that shows your legs. You have a black dress, wear that.”
Karen was disappointed that her pick didn’t make the cut but agreed a black dress could be suitable for the party. With metallic high heels, a fun evening bag, and jewelry, I could dress it up.
I thought, Like a Christmas tree.
But the black dress wasn’t going to be as easy as it sounded. It was long-sleeved and crew-necked. It hugged my body and was as warm as a weighted thunder blanket that soothes a nervous dog. It required my one pair of Spanx, which were parked in the back of my lingerie drawer like a chastity belt. And it was a standing dress, not a sitting dress. Nicho’s party was a sit-down supper. But I resolved to wear it, because I didn’t want to shop anymore.
And then, like true love in a rom-com, when I quit looking, a dress found me.
I saw it in a window. The Zara dress was black with a neon-blue shimmer. It had a plunge neck, a ruched waist, below-the-elbow sleeves, and a slit up the leg. It covered what I want covered and flattered my butt. It was from their Disco collection. If I had found it earlier, I could’ve worn it to the Studio 54 party. It was seventy dollars. I bought it without asking anyone’s approval.
The night of Nicho’s party, my husband and I strutted into a Gramercy Park private club like we owned the place. We checked our coats and climbed a winding staircase to find the guest of honor, but he was nowhere to be found because we’d walked into the wrong club. So, down the steps we went, picked up our coats, and on the way to the right club next door, I was able to laugh because I wasn’t wearing shapewear.
“Do-over!” I shouted.
And as we walked into the right place, I felt like my four-year-old self.
TONIGHT WE’RE
GONNA PARTY
LIKE IT’S 1979
Every year, more than a hundred people crowd into our two-bedroom Manhattan apartment for a holiday party because I serve what my Alabama grandmother served in the 1970s. Forget sushi platters. The gluten-free can gnaw on mistletoe. I am a Southern lady who’s lived among the Upper East Side elite for my entire middle-aged life, and here’s what I’ve learned: If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em into submission with good old-fashioned gooey goodness. The secret ingredient is never love, it’s mayonnaise. My days of cooking fancy to fit in are over.
Oh, I tried in the beginning. For our first parties, I stuffed mushrooms, blanched asparagus spears, filled puffed pastries, and threaded marinated olives onto toothpicks. I ran my oven at 450 degrees Fahrenheit, cranking out canapés from six p.m. to midnight. Yes, all this was impressive, but I never left my kitchen. My hair never left a bun. And no one remembered anything other than my grandmother’s favorite things: cheese logs, onion dip, mail-order ham, and Nutter Butter snowmen. That’s what guests don’t want to admit that they want to eat.
Nowadays, I pick through flea markets and eBay to find recipes for delicacies just like them in vintage cookbooks.
“Vintage” is Southern Lady Code for dog-eared, with ballpoint notes in the margins. If the title includes Junior League or Women’s Club or the name of a small town; if the pages offer no pictures or seemingly impossible photos of shrimp in a bread loaf or Spam shaped like a circus train; if some of the recipes read “Mrs. So-and-So’s Husband’s Favorite Such-n-Such,” I know I’ve got myself a winner. Cheese logs are found in the appetizer section, listed alphabetically between Bar-B-Q Cups and Coke Salad.
For a Hawaiian Cheese Log: Drain canned crushed pineapple, then wring it out in a dish towel. Add chopped bell pepper. Add Worcestershire sauce. Yes, you need that much cream cheese. Yes, you should wait for it to reach room temperature because there’s no worse way to give yourself tennis elbow. Mix. Shape mixture into a log. Or a candy cane. Or a reindeer’s head. Go nuts. Cover in nuts. Wrap in wax paper. Refrigerate for up to two weeks. The magic words are: Make ahead. The flavors will marry. Orgy is more like it. Yes, it sounds disgusting and doesn’t look much better.
“Is this homemade?” a guest will ask.
What she means is: That looks like a chew toy.
Slather some on a Ritz cracker and choo-choo it toward her mouth. One bite and she’s speaking in a Southern accent. Oh. My. Gawd. One bite and she’s experiencing both salty and sweet; crunchy and soft; tropical and suburban.
“You made this!” she’ll say.
What she means is: You’re a miracle worker.
Grin as she peer-pressures other guests to try the log. Everybody’s doing it! And why not? It’s fun to do something you’re not so sure you should do. It gives you a rush. Like streaking through a Best Buy.
Onion dip is not as exhilarating, but stir one packet into a sixteen-ounce tub of sour cream and you’ve got yourself a crowd pleaser. No, you can’t substitute low-fat sour cream because it most certainly does not taste the same. No, store-bought dip-in-a-jar doesn’t taste the same either. One tastes like a dirty dollar bill and the other tastes like a waste of money. Full-fat is the only way to go. It’s a Christmas party, not a funeral reception. Fine, fine, you can also serve it at a funeral reception. But either way, serve with Ruffles because nobody wants to dip celery sticks.
The only thing simpler is mail-order ham. Mail-order exists because it saves time, energy, and tastes exactly like the ham you ordered last year. Mine comes from South Texas. It’s hickory-smoked and spiral-sliced. It’s six to seven pounds. It’s fuchsia-pink and it glistens. It’s irresistible. A few sheets to the wind, someone will cradle it like a baby.
Speaking of babies, some hostesses think
Nutter Butter snowmen are only for kids’ parties. They are not. First of all: Peanut allergies. One face full of hives and your party is over. And, honestly, the work put into these showstoppers makes them too good for kids.
What you do is: Submerge a Nutter Butter in white chocolate. Add mini chocolate chips for coal eyes, orange gel icing for a carrot nose, mini M&M’s for coat buttons, and pretzel sticks for arms. Cool on wax paper. Repeat until your apron is more splattered than a Jackson Pollock. Trust me, there will be more Nutter Butter snowmen Instagrams than selfies.
See, I’ve learned that no matter where they’re from or how old they are, people like food that’s fun. They like to be daring. They like to eat art. And they like to party like it’s 1979 at holiday time.
“Give your guests what they want,” Grandmother said.
That’s Southern Lady Code for: There’s nothing less fun than caviar on toast points.
HOW TO BE THE
BEST GUEST
Everyone appreciates a hostess with the mostest, but a hostess with the mostest appreciates the Best Guest.
The Best Guest arrives on time and, from the moment she walks through the front door, spews compliments like a sprinkler.
She says, “Oh my word, look at the dining room table! That centerpiece looks like something out of Barbra Streisand’s wet dream! Did you bedazzle those two dozen pinecones yourself? You did! Did you take a class for that? You didn’t! You could have your own craft show. And, just so you know: your outfit is everything.”
The Best Guest does not then hand off a bottle of wine like a relay baton because the hostess has already taken great pains to pick wine for the night. Nor, for the same reason, does she push her homemade cookies.
She has already sent flowers that morning. She spends as much as she would spend on a nice supper. Yes, including alcohol and tax.
No, the hostess’s party will not look like a botanical garden. It will look like a liquor mart or school bake sale because not everyone behaves like the Best Guest.
The Best Guest eats what she is given. If an hors d’oeuvre is on a toothpick, she does not sniff it suspiciously like baby-laxative-cut cocaine. She sucks that toothpick clean. And then she asks for seconds.
The Best Guest does not question canapés. She gets a cheese log rolling. She brags to latecomers, “That mango chutney cheddar used to be shaped like Donald Trump!”
She brags about the mini quiches: “I’ve eaten eight and slipped one in my purse.”
The Best Guest goes where the hostess directs her. She does not dawdle. With the speed and enthusiasm of a game of musical chairs, she sits where her place card instructs her to sit.
She exclaims to the hostess, “Your handwriting looks like something off of Downton Abbey. Did you take a calligraphy course? You didn’t! You could make a fortune addressing wedding invitations. Oh my word, that ham looks like it was glazed by angels!”
The Best Guest then makes conversation with the worst guest, who is talking to no one. The worst guest has been invited because he is married to someone or is somebody’s boss or does somebody’s taxes. Nobody likes the worst guest because he finds eye contact challenging. He eats hunched over the hostess’s wedding china as if it’s a trough.
The Best Guest asks the socially awkward accountant, “What’s the sexiest of tax forms? Yes, I’m talking to you. You must have an opinion. The FBAR Form 114! Please, do go on!”
And then she leans in and hangs on his every word as if he’s Brad Pitt talking about how he made love to Geena Davis in Thelma and Louise.
After supper, the Best Guest does not challenge the hostess. When the hostess says she doesn’t want help clearing the table, the Best Guest doesn’t lift a finger. When the hostess asks that everyone move into the living room for games, the Best Guest takes the worst guest by the arm and leads the parade.
The Best Guest picks the worst guest as her charades partner. When she pantomimes talking on a phone for—TV show, three words; second word, one syllable—Better Call Saul, she isn’t a bad sport when the worst guest guesses: “Brain Tumor! Hair extensions! Oh, one syllable. EAR!”
The Best Guest knows when the hostess has had enough. A telltale sign is when game time is over, guests have gotten into the good Scotch, secrets are spilling, and strangers are getting handsy, but the hostess can’t stop staring at the worst guest, who is balancing the remains of his cherry pie on his medically diagnosed “shaky leg.”
Before the plate hits the carpet, the Best Guest knows it’s time to call it a night.
The Best Guest is the first one in and the first one out.
And she is the first to write a thank-you note because the stationery and pen are laid out by her bedside for when she gets home.
WHEN TO WRITE
A THANK-YOU NOTE
“Did you write your thank-you notes?” is a Southern lady’s “Good morning.”
Mama said it to me after birthdays, Christmases, and countless other occasions when someone gave me a gift or a gift of their time. Now I say it to myself. It’s like a mantra. Instead of Om, I wake up and think, Did you write your thank-you notes? If the answer is no, the writing of the note is my meditation.
I don’t write thank-you notes every day, but I do write them for dinner parties or a special night out with a friend. When it comes to marriage, they should amend the bride’s vows. Do you promise to love, honor, and write the thank-you notes? You do. Do you have to write a thank-you note to your husband for picking a squirrel corpse out of the roof gutter? You don’t.
But it would be nice.
There’s nothing nicer than unexpected appreciation. Hallmark doesn’t make a card for everything, so sometimes we make a judgment call. No, I don’t mean texting. My motto is: if you’re grateful, get a pen.
When I became an aunt, I wrote a thank-you note to my godmother for setting an example of how to be a good influence. I wrote a note to a high school friend for saying something kind to me at our twentieth reunion. When I had a tooth crowned, I wrote a note to my dentist (for alleviating my fear of dentists), the hygienist (for holding my hand when the dentist stuck my gums with a needle as long as a Samurai sword), and the receptionist (for politely calling me back to rebook my appointment every time I’d canceled). I wrote a note to a vet for putting our cat down.
But just because I write a lot of notes doesn’t mean I always write a note. If I can’t find something sincere to say about the thought behind an awful gift—and I have thanked people for bad art and canned fruitcakes—I don’t bother. Mama didn’t raise me to fake it.
For example, I did not write a thank-you note to a boyfriend who gave me Hanes panty hose in his sister’s size.
Mama said, “Helen Michelle, that screams hussy. Break up.”
And I did not write a thank-you note for a box of thank-you cards.
Mama said, “Helen Michelle, giving someone a box of thank-you cards is another way to say you never say thank you. It’s passive-aggressive. It’s like a punch in the face.”
Not everyone needs to write thank-yous, though. I’m officially letting these folks off the hook: new moms, the bereaved, and women jilted at the altar. If your breasts are leaking at the Piggly Wiggly, or your daddy’s under the dirt, or your bedazzled white dress can’t be returned, you don’t need to write me a note for a onesie, or a casserole, or a chip-and-dip bowl. And while I’m at it, I’m pardoning teenage boys. Because my idea of hell is being sentenced to read nothing but one-sentence fill-in-the-blank notes written by teenage boys.
But the rest of us should send our thank-you notes. And no, it’s never too late.
AN EMILY POST FOR
THE APOCALYPSE
Visiting my parents in Alabama, I sat with my mother over my traditional breakfast of Coke and cinnamon toast and told her a story that my friend had told me
about a neighbor who’d blown his own head off, in front of his two young sons, five minutes before his ex-wife was due to pick them up.
Mama said, “Well, that is just rude. Helen Michelle, if you’re going to commit suicide, what you do is get into a bathtub fully clothed. That way, when you shoot yourself, your brains will go all over the tiles, and it will be easier to clean up. And since you’re not nekkid, it will be less embarrassing for the person who finds you.”
All my life, my mother has taught me to be polite in extreme situations. Teaching your children to say “Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir,” to chew with their mouths closed, and to pick their noses in private is for amateurs. My mother is an Emily Post for the Apocalypse.
There’s etiquette for the insane: “Helen Michelle, that man rocks by the Winn Dixie because he is crazy, but we still wave at crazy people when they wave at us.”
Etiquette for phone solicitors: “Helen Michelle, the way you stop someone from calling again is by saying, ‘Thank you so much for calling, but I’ve just murdered my husband and need to finish digging a hole in the backyard. Good-bye.”
Etiquette for sons-in-law: “Helen Michelle, when your husband calls me, please have him start with ‘Hello, everything is fine, I’m just calling for fill-in-the-blank.’ Otherwise, I’ll assume he’s calling to tell me you’ve been kidnapped and sold into sex slavery.”
Etiquette for hospital visits: “Helen Michelle, after your husband’s grandmother has her leg amputated, don’t sit on her bed in the flat spot where her leg used to be.”
Etiquette for street crime: “Helen Michelle, always carry money for a mugger—three one-dollar bills wrapped up in a five. Keep the cash in your purse flap. This way, when you’re mugged, it’s easier for everyone involved. You grab the wad of bills, hold it up for the mugger to see, and shout, This is all I have! Then throw the money and run, screaming Officer down!”
