Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes (44 page)

And that Carlin is a hypocrite
, Virginia thought savagely. Her eyes fell suddenly on the young producer who stood next to Della talking to the older woman like they'd been friends all their lives. Virginia sipped her wine, watching the producer deliberately over the rim of her glass. She had asked Carlin what boarding school she'd attended, and Carlin had told her. Virginia knew the school, she knew the annual tuition for a boarding student was $35,000, which meant that Carlin was a “rich kid” and had probably grown up with black servants. Or Mexican. Or … whatever. Who was she to judge Virginia's insistence on the damn maid's uniform?

The more wine she drank, the more abused Virginia began to feel.

“I need to go,” Whitney said. “I told Shannon I'd meet her at the mall.”

“You're not going anywhere,” Virginia said.

“Get your stuff,” Nita said. “We'll leave now.”

“You're welcome to leave,” Virginia said to Nita. “But the girl stays.”

Whitney said, “You can't talk to my mommy that way.”

“Hey,” Redmon said, “what do you call twenty lawyers skydiving from an airplane?”

“I think I'll get another drink,” Charles said.

“Skeet,” Redmon said. He and Logan snickered and thumped each other on the arms.

Charles stepped closer to Redmon. “Better a lawyer than a crooked red- neck contractor,” he said.

“Who you calling a redneck, you high-domed pencil pusher.”

“Cheating scoundrel.”

“Lying bastard.”

“Who's ready for pumpkin pie?” Virginia said, lifting her glass.

A
FTER THAT, THINGS COULD ONLY GET WORSE
. A
ND THEY DID
.

Redmon broke out the Bloody Marys. Virginia figured her social life was pretty much over by now anyway, so what difference did it make? Whatever faint dreams of glory she had once had, had evaporated, seeping up through the hole in her head like a punctured gas line.

Thirty minutes later Lavonne and Eadie arrived. Redmon and Della stood at one end of the room singing a sloppy rendition of “Open Up Them Pearly Gates,” accompanied by Logan on the guitar. Charles watched them like a man trapped by bad odors. Nita and Whitney huddled together with their heads bowed while Nita talked quietly. Most of the guests, happy to move from wine to something more substantial, hoisted their Bloody Marys and filled the room with their raucous laughter, having long since forgotten about the television cameras. A few joined in the singing. The more sedate among them stood like hostages, unable to look away from the tragic Shakespearean quality of this televised gathering. Virginia leaned against the new armoire and sipped her Bloody Mary, wondering how hard it would be to move to Palm Beach and start a new life.

Eadie stuck her head in the front door and shouted, “Where's the
party?” When no one answered, they made their way toward the noisy living room. Virginia looked up and saw them standing in the doorway in their tacky Kudzu Ball gowns. She grimaced and lifted her drink. “Perfect,” she said. “Just perfect.”

Lavonne said, “I hope you guys don't mind us barging in like this, crashing your pre-Thanksgiving dinner.”

Eadie said, “Hey, are y'all drinking Bloody Marys?”

Redmon stopped singing to pour more drinks and Lavonne and Eadie mingled for a few minutes and then wandered over to say hello to Virginia. Virginia watched them with a look of sullen resignation. Lavonne was wearing a gold lamé dress that looked like something Donna Summer might have worn back in 1978. Eadie had on a ridiculous-looking puffy-sleeved cocktail dress and a pair of scuffed combat boots. They both wore kudzu wreath crowns, stuck with feathers and plastic beads, kind of like Mardi Gras Indian princesses.

“Well I guess there's nothing you two won't stoop to,” Virginia said, stirring her drink with a celery stick. “I never would have taken you for party- crashers.”

“Sorry,” Lavonne said. “We just couldn't help ourselves.”

“You know, I could call the police and have you arrested for trespassing.”

“Now that would look good on camera,” Eadie said. “Can't you just see it? An outside shot of your house, me and Lavonne being carried out in our Kudzu Ball gowns, kicking and screaming, by a couple of burly policemen. The interview with you, Virginia, under the klieg lights. Kind of like COPS meets
America's Funniest Home Videos
.”

“Don't think I won't do it,” Virginia said glumly, looking around the room. “This party couldn't be any more of a fiasco than it already is.”

As if to prove her wrong, Riley Weeks let out a rebel yell and broke into a kind of impromptu rap. On his sober days, Riley was a stockbroker at the local Smith Barney office. Many of the guests, who had obviously never seen a live rap performance, clutched their drinks nervously and edged away from Riley, who looked like a palsy victim trying to thread a needle.

“Now that's just sad,” Eadie said.

“White people shouldn't rap,” Lavonne said. “And white people like Riley shouldn't dance, either.”

“Someone changed the music,” Virginia said, scowling. She had carefully planned the music for this party, loading the CD player with Handel's Sonata #1, Pachelbel's Canon, and Mozart's Serenade #13. Someone had
obviously sabotaged her musical arrangement. Across the room, Logan caught her eye. He grinned and raised his glass.

“I wish I'd worn my Kudzu Ball gown,” Nita said, moving up between Lavonne and Eadie. Charles trailed behind her like a moth caught in a spider web.

“Yes, why didn't we all wear our Kudzu Ball gowns?” Virginia said bitterly. “Why didn't we all dress like freaks and sluts? I could have used it as a theme for the party.” She swallowed her drink and looked around the room like a woman with nothing left to lose.

“A Freaks and Sluts Party,” Lavonne said. “I like that.” It was apparent to her that Virginia had been freely partaking of the wine and Bloody Marys. She was slurring her words and her hair stuck out at odd angles around her face.

“If I'd wanted to dress like a slut,” Eadie said, “I'd have worn the black leather mini with the leopard-print halter top.” She stuck out her hand to Carlin who had just come up behind Virginia. “Hey,” she said. “Y'all must be the TV people.”

“Have you been to some kind of costume party?” Carlin said to Eadie and Lavonne.

“Something like that,” Lavonne said, sipping her Bloody Mary. She'd never had one before but she liked it. It tasted healthy. She munched on the celery stick garnish that Redmon had added as a decorative touch.

“They're Kudzu Debutantes,” Virginia said, curling her top lip, and everyone tried not to notice how much trouble she was having pronouncing her words.

Eadie looked at Lavonne and raised one eyebrow. Carlin said, “What's a Kudzu Debutante?”

“It's a woman who refuses to follow dress codes.”

“It's a woman who likes to run her own life, her own way.”

Virginia said, “It's a woman with no understanding of history or tradition.” She had some trouble with
tradition
. She glared at Eadie and Lavonne, finishing up with, “A woman with no class or breeding.”

“Okay,” Eadie said. “The gloves are coming off.”

“The Kudzu Ball is a parody of the Ithaca Cotillion Ball,” Lavonne said. “It's a parody of the whole debutante tradition.”

“Cool,” Carlin said.

Nita stared at Virginia. “What favors has history or tradition ever done for you?”

“You watch yourself, my girl,” Virginia said, waving her celery stick like she was swinging a machete. “You just watch yourself.”

“What have you ever done with your life except make people around you miserable?”

“Now, now,” Redmon said fondly. He had come up carrying a pitcher of Bloodies. He went around the circle and poured everyone a fresh drink. The tension in the room didn't bother Redmon at all. He was from Alabama. He was used to family gatherings that ended in violence.

“Oh, look who's talking,” Virginia said. “Look at that poor slob standing there.” She swung the celery stick around and pointed at the hapless Charles. “So sick with misery and love for you he can't move on with his life even though he isn't getting any younger. Even though you'll never take him back.”

Charles blushed furiously. “Mother, let's check the buffet line, shall we?” he said, trying to take her elbow.

She shook him off. “Just look at him. Poor slob. The laughingstock of the whole damn town.” She pointed at each of them with her limp celery stick. “Laughingstock of the whole damn town. All of you,” she said.

“Why don't you have another drink and tell us about it,” Eadie said.

“You shut up Eadie Boone. You … Boone! You're all alike, you Boones. You think you're better than everybody else just because you're a
Boone
.”

Whitney's cell phone rang. “I'll call you back later,” she said. “You won't believe what's going on here.” She hung up and pushed the phone back in her pocket.

“I don't blame Charles for being the way he is,” Nita said. “With you for a mother, how could he be any different?”

Charles shook his head in warning. Nita was treading dangerous waters here, although she didn't seem to know this, or to care. His mother was deadly. She could smile sweetly and disembowel an enemy at the same time; they'd never know what hit them until it was too late, until their entrails lay curled on the floor at their feet. Poor Nita didn't stand a chance.

“You nitpicked your son and made him so insecure about himself he could never be happy—”

“Uh, Nita,” Charles said.

Porter focused his camera. He motioned for one of the other camera guys.

“No, Charles, let me finish.” Nita put a finger up for him to be quiet. She pushed her face close to Virginia's, her eyes gray and ominous as thunder
clouds. “You screwed up your son's life and now you want to screw up my daughter's life and I'm not going to let you. My children are mine, Virginia, not yours.” Nita thumped her chest for effect. “You had your chance to be a mother. And you failed.”

“Oh, well now, aren't you just the most perfect little thing?” Virginia said, showing her sharp little teeth. She twirled the limp celery stick around and then lifted it and took a bite off one end, chewing slowly. “Aren't you just the most perfect mother in the world, running off with another man and leaving your husband of sixteen years to pick up the pieces of his life.”

Nita stared steadily into Virginia's face. She shook her head slowly. “You failed your son and you failed your daughter, too.”

“Adulteress,” Virginia said.

“Lunatic,” Nita said.

“Hey, do y'all know ‘Baby, Let's Play House’?” Redmon said, looking around his dysfunctional family circle. He and Myra had never had kids, and marrying Virginia and becoming part of her extended family had made him as happy as a pig in a peach orchard. Redmon came from a family of twelve siblings, although most had died before they reached fifty of alcoholism, heart disease, lung cancer, or various accidents involving farming implements or cotton mill machinery. He had once seen his uncle Rafe shoot his uncle Faris in an argument over a Plott hound, and more than one Redmon family gathering had been broken up by violence. That being said, Redmon felt perfectly at home in Virginia's family.

“How about ‘Daddy Was a Preacher but Mama Was a Go-Go Girl,’” Eadie said.

“I'll get to you in a minute,” Virginia said, cutting her eyes at Eadie and then back to Nita. Something bothered Virginia. There was something stuck in her brain, hung up like a scrap of cloth in a briar patch. What was it the woman had said,
You failed your son and you failed your daughter, too
.

“Y'all are gonna need some more Bloodies,” Logan said cheerfully, taking the empty pitcher from Redmon.

Charles watched his mother's face change. He thought,
Danger, danger
. He thought,
This can't be good
. He said in a false, jovial voice, “Well, Mother, Nita and I need to get going. Thanks for a lovely afternoon.”

Virginia bared her teeth. She shook her head grimly. “No one leaves until I say they can leave.”

Daughter
. So that was it, the threat Nita had been implying all along, the
knowledge that had made her so bold as to go up against Virginia in her own house, at her own party. Nita knew about her lost daughter. She knew the secret Virginia had kept hidden for forty-nine years. And now she meant to blackmail Virginia just the way she had blackmailed Charles into going along with the divorce and keeping his mouth shut. Well, Nita had underestimated her enemy. What was it Eadie Boone had said,
The gloves are coming off
. Indeed they were.

“That's why they're here,” she said to Redmon and Charles, pointing at Nita, Lavonne, and Eadie. “These Kudzu Debutantes. That's why they've come. To make me pay. To blackmail me. They know I had a child out of wedlock …”

Charles blinked. “What?” he said.

Redmon said, “Hurry up with those Bloodies!”

Virginia set her teeth and smiled brightly. “A child out of wedlock with Hampton Boone,” she said.

“What?” Charles said.

Virginia lifted her chin. “A love child with Hampton Boone that I gave up for adoption forty-nine years ago!”

The room got quiet. Redmon chewed a celery stick and blandly watched his wife. Charles stared at his mother with a look of dawning horror. One eye fluttered and wandered off on its own. His top lip spasmed and rose on the right side like it was being pulled by invisible strings. In the long silence that followed, Charles thought about moving out of state to open a new practice. He wondered how hard it would be to pass the Alaska bar exam.

“That's not all we know,” Nita said grimly. She wasn't letting Virginia get off that easily.

“Yes, yes a daughter,” Virginia said, squaring her shoulders like a prizefighter. It felt good to get it off her chest, the secret guilt she had worn for forty-nine years like a hair shirt. Virginia was overcome suddenly by a feeling of buoyancy and elation. She looked around the room and said loudly, “I gave up a daughter. So what? What do you know? You girls had birth control. Legalized abortion. What did we have? Shame. Homes for unwed mothers. I did what I had to do. I had my baby and I gave her up for adoption and I never looked back. It was the right thing to do, the only thing I could do. And I never told Hamp Boone. I never spoke to him again, after my wedding day. I kept it all inside and never told anyone.” She lifted her head triumphantly. “So go ahead. Do your worst. Spread your rumors. I don't care. I've gone up against bigger villains than you three and survived.”
She put her hand over her heart and lifted her pointed chin, looking a little like Napoleon in that famous portrait by David, only with more hair.