Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes (10 page)

No one could ruin that.

V
IRGINIA CLIMBED SLOWLY OUT OF THE CAR, PUTTING ON HER
best game face. The wedding was every bit as tacky as she had expected, complete with rock-and-roll band, a crowd of people she barely recognized, and what looked like picnic tables scattered around the yard. It was being catered, of course, by Lavonne Zibolsky and her partner, that Shapiro woman.

She adjusted her skirt and took a deep breath, wondering if she really wanted to put herself through this ordeal. But then she remembered the way her son had let himself be humiliated in front of the entire town by a little scrap of a girl who Virginia hadn't even wanted him to marry in the first place. When she remembered this, she was steadfast in her resolve for vengeance.

She checked her hair in the window glass. She was probably overdressed for this sorry function. Already, her Jimmy Choo heels were caked in a half-inch of mud. At least she hoped it was mud, and not something worse. She smoothed her hair and put her shoulders back. She would prevail, even here, stuck at a wedding she didn't want to attend, in the middle of a mosquito-infested swamp with a bunch of college professors, blue- collar workers, and the three women Virginia felt certain had brought her to this sorry state of affairs.

“Let's go,” she said to Redmon, over her shoulder.

He patted her on the backside and took her elbow. She stiffened but let him keep the arm. “Hot damn,” he said, watching the wedding revelers. “Nothing I like better than a good throw-down.”

Virginia tried walking on her toes so her heels wouldn't get sucked into the sandy soil. Redmon clung to her arm, trying to steady her. “We're not staying long,” she warned him. Just long enough for her to gather the information she needed. Just long enough to figure out where to strike.

“Aw, come on, Queenie,” he pleaded. “Let's have a good time. You know I was born under a honky-tonk moon.”

Virginia muttered, “Under a trailer, more likely.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, honey, let's dance,” Redmon said. “Let's shake it up a little bit.”

“I'm not dancing to this so-called
music
,” Virginia said in disgust. They stood at the edge of the yard, watching the dancers cavort to “I Wanna Be Sedated.”

“Aw, come on, honey, loosen up. You're tight as a wood tick on a dog's tail.”

Virginia was spared the necessity of a reply by the sudden appearance of Loretta James, standing in front of them like an enraged little terrier.

Virginia put on her best smile. Her eyes swept over the little woman. “My, Loretta, what a lovely dress,” she said.

Loretta wasn't having any of it. “How come you're here, Virginia?” she said.

“I just came by to offer my congratulations to the happy couple. I just came by to see if there was anything I could do to help out.”

Loretta's eyes were gray and sharp as pencil points. “Well, aren't you
sweet?” she said. “You're just about as sweet and handy as a Braille Bible to a blind preacher.”

Virginia smiled but looked puzzled. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?” she said.

Redmon, who obviously understood what it meant, snorted. “Hey, Loretta,” he said. “Do you want to dance?”

V
IRGINIA PAID HER RESPECTS TO THE NEWLYWEDS, SMILING AND
clenching her teeth so hard her jaw ached for days. There was not much information she could pry out of Nita, at least not while her young bridegroom stood glued to her side like an overprotective bodyguard. He was polite to Virginia but she could sense his dislike, and didn't really blame him for it. He was intelligent enough to recognize an enemy when he saw one, which was more than Nita seemed capable of doing.

Virginia wandered over to the buffet table. Out in the yard, Redmon two-stepped with Loretta James to his request, “Kansas City.” She saw Eadie Boone leaning against a pecan tree, sipping her drink while she watched the dancers. Virginia was not surprised to see her here. She had expected Eadie to come in but she had hoped she'd bring Trevor with her. Virginia got up on her tiptoes and scanned the crowd. No Trevor. She spotted Grace Pearson over by the buffet table.
Now who in the world invited her
? she wondered. The woman was wearing a jeans jacket and looked like she might be headed for a hoedown, not a wedding. Virginia did not understand why women who attended schools like Wellesley could be so clueless when it came to fashion. She felt a twinge of sympathy for Ms. Pearson's mother, who had probably tried to raise her to be a good Southern girl with an appreciation of good grooming and polite society, and then made the mistake of sending her up North to be educated. When she saw women like Grace Pearson, Virginia was glad she had not raised a daughter of her own.

She picked up a glass of white wine and strolled over to visit with Eadie. She had gotten halfway across the lawn when Grace Pearson swung around suddenly and headed toward her. Virginia, dismayed and realizing she could not, at this stage, turn and run for cover, rearranged her face into a blank, pleasant expression.

“Ms. Pearson,” Virginia said, smiling grimly.

The big woman nodded her head curtly. “Madame President,” she said.

Really, Virginia would like to smack her. She'd like to wrap her fingers in that mop of red hair, pull her face down to eye level, and slap her repeatedly. They squared off in the middle of the yard, eyeing each other warily. Eadie, watching from the sidelines, thought they were a perfectly matched set, which was odd given the disparity in their physical sizes.

Virginia broke away first. “Excuse me. I think I see someone I know,” she said in a cold, tinny voice.

“Always a pleasure,” Grace said, moving off.

Virginia continued on toward Eadie, who saw her coming and ducked her head, turning one shoulder slightly. Virginia pretended she didn't see this.

“Yoohoo! Eadie!” she called gaily. “How
are
you?”

“Hello, Virginia.” Eadie looked tired. Something around the eyes, Virginia noticed with satisfaction, a puffiness that promised to get worse with age.

“Did you not bring your gorgeous husband with you?”

“My gorgeous husband is at home,” Eadie said flatly. “In New Orleans. He couldn't make it.”

“You tell him we're just so
proud
of him, with the book and all. He's our very own celebrity author.” No one had ever been able to figure out how Eadie had managed to bag and hang on to the most eligible bachelor in Ithaca. Sure, she was beautiful, but there were lots of beautiful girls around, and every one of them had a better pedigree than Eadie Wilkens, who had grown up in a trailer on the wrong side of town. Virginia looked her over carefully, trying to figure out Eadie's secret.

“It's just so exciting,” Virginia murmured, sipping her drink. “Just think, to have had a famous writer living in our midst all these years and not even know it.”

“Yeah, well, you never know how things will turn out,” Eadie said. She had one arm crossed over her stomach and the elbow of the other arm, the one holding her wineglass, rested lightly on it.

“Did you not?” Virginia said, looking at her curiously. “Did you not know how things would work out?”

Eadie cut her eyes at the older woman, trying to decide what she meant by this. For some reason it sounded vaguely insulting, and knowing Virginia, it was probably meant to be. Eadie sipped her wine and wished she had something stronger to drink. She wished she'd thought to make up a
shaker of vodka martinis to bring with her. Or hell, she thought, glancing at Virginia, maybe even two shakers.

Virginia crossed one little foot in front of the other. “If you could have looked into a crystal ball as a child,” she said dreamily, “wouldn't you have been surprised to see the way things turned out? Just like a fairy tale.”

Eadie always did her best not to let Virginia rattle her, but today she felt strangely vulnerable. As if to make matters worse, Lee Anne Bales strolled by and Eadie turned her head, hoping Lee Anne hadn't seen her. Eadie had hated her since high school. She and Lee Anne were in the same home ec class, and Lee Anne was the one who had started the petition to have Eadie expelled from school after she managed to sew her finger to her apron and set fire to the simulated kitchen with her version of Tuna Surprise. The fire had only destroyed half the classroom, but it had done enough damage to cause cancellation of the Home Economics Cook Off, an annual tradition where the home ec girls donned homemade aprons and cooked and served meals to members of the Ithaca High football team. Being denied this opportunity to show off their educations hit the home ec girls hard. They got up a petition, signed by everyone but Nita, and Eadie was deemed an example of womanhood gone wrong, everything the home economics curriculum was trying desperately to stamp out, and she was suspended from school for three days. After that, Eadie got her revenge by thumbing her nose at Ithaca every chance she got, not the least of which was marrying Trevor Boone.

Virginia watched Lee Anne disappear in the crowd. “It's gotten so no one will ever recognize a real bosom,” she said archly, “with all the false ones there are in the world today.” She looked down smugly at her own petite, well-rounded figure and then glanced at Eadie's chest. “Of course, you and I don't have to worry about false bosoms. We can be happy with what the good Lord gave us.” She was trying to draw Eadie in, and Eadie wondered why.

“Look, Virginia, I didn't marry Trevor for his money, if that's what you're implying. I didn't marry him because I thought he'd be famous some day.”

Virginia did her best to look horrified. “Oh dear, I've said the wrong thing,” she said, putting her fingers to her mouth. “Of course, I never
meant
to imply you married for money.”

Eadie lifted her drink and said, “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”

Virginia decided to ignore this remark. She smoothed the front of her suit jacket and scanned the crowd. After a minute she smiled and said, “Anyone who's ever met Trevor could see why you married him.”

Eadie wondered what the woman was getting at. It was apparent she had some kind of agenda. Eadie sipped her wine, thinking about that time in the principal's office after the home ec fiasco when Lee Anne had broken down and cried and the principal had instantly sided with her. It was the thing Southern girls did when dealing with irate male authority figures. They broke down and cried and tried to look as small and helpless as possible. If Eadie had used the same tactic, she might have received nothing more than a slap on the wrist. But she had never been able to bring herself to grovel. Her stubborn, dry-eyed, stoicism had earned her the three-day suspension.

Virginia watched Nita and Jimmy Lee dance by, doing some kind of modified two-step. Nita had her head thrown back and was laughing loudly. Virginia said, “I do hope Nita will be happy. I do hope
this
marriage will work out for her.”

Eadie glanced at the older woman but her face seemed calm. Virginia's voice seemed a little sharp but her manner was composed and sincere. Eadie figured given other circumstances, Virginia might have been one of the greatest stage actresses of the twentieth century. She might have been a cold war spy capable of withstanding torture or sophisticated lie detector tests. “Speaking of marriage,” Eadie said, “how's Redmon?”

Virginia's face shifted slightly, a ripple occurred just beneath the veneer of calm composure. But when she looked at Eadie, Virginia's eyes were smooth and blue as colored glass. “Isn't it wonderful,” she said brightly, “to have finally found your true soul mate?”

She was good. Eadie would give her that. A mist seemed to have formed over Virginia's eyes, a trembling veil of unshed tears. Eadie looked away. Any expression of strong sentiment made her uncomfortable. Eadie never cried. If she had given way to tears during her wretched childhood, she would have cried herself blind by now.

Virginia sniffed and ran one well-manicured finger lightly beneath her damp eyes. She waved at someone she knew across the yard. “But of course you already know about soul mates,” she said to Eadie, “married to Trevor and all. I mean, the Boone boys just
ooze
charm.”

Eadie clutched her drink and looked at Virginia curiously. “Boone boys?” she said.

It was Virginia's turn to flush. “Trevor's father, Hampton, was a handsome man, too. But you probably don't remember him.” She turned slightly to look at the assembled wedding guests. Eadie was quiet for a moment, considering this. Her wine was almost gone and when the drink was finished, she decided, this conversation was, too. “How's Charles?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

Virginia took her time answering. She sipped her drink. Her cheeks turned a slight shade of pink. “Why, Charles is fine,” she said finally. “He's been dating a girl from Valdosta. An accountant. She's got a small child, a boy I think, about ten years old. I don't know if anything will come of it, of course. But I hope it will. Charles was always so good with children.”

Eadie shuddered. She thought, Poor
kid
. She thought,
Poor lady accountant
.

“We're thinking about going skiing in March and he's talking about bringing the accountant and her son. Out west somewhere. Maybe Park City. Maybe Crested Butte.”

Eadie finished her drink.

“Of course Charles hasn't been out West since that last hunting trip. The one they all took last year. Does Trevor ever mention that trip?”

“Never.”

“I guess he wouldn't since he came back early.” Virginia looked down at her glass. “Since he came back before all the fun and games started. Those bad boys, those little rascals.” She smiled indulgently, like she was describing a slumber party for ten-year-olds.

Eadie yawned and pushed herself upright. “Well, Virginia, it's been nice talking to you. I think I'll go see if Lavonne needs a hand.”

“Of course Trevor was there for all the other trips. It was a tradition started by the Judge, you know. A trip where men get to do manly things and leave all the cares and worries of work behind them. I always encouraged the Judge to go. He was in such a good mood when he got home! Still, I have often wondered what men get up to when they're playing at being boys. I always wanted to be a fly on the wall.” She put her hand over her mouth and giggled conspiratorially, her face becoming pink and childlike. “I've often wondered what shenanigans they got up to. Haven't you always wondered, Eadie? Haven't you always wanted to go along? Haven't you always wished …”