Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes (6 page)

Eadie grinned. “Look who's talking,” she said. “Sit your skinny ass down at the bar and I'll pour you a drink.”

Lavonne sat down. “What are we having?”

Eadie flourished the shaker like a Japanese hibachi chef wielding a Hiromoto knife. “Pomegranate martinis.” She took two frosted martini glasses out of the freezer and sat them on the counter in front of Lavonne, filling each with the pale-pink liquid. “Cheers,” she said, handing a glass to Lavonne.

“Damn, that's good,” Lavonne said, sipping. “Where'd you get the shaker?”

“I brought it from home.”

“What does that say about you, Eadie, that you travel with your own martini shaker?”

Eadie sipped her drink. “It says I like the ritual of cocktail hour. I like everything about it, the funny little glasses, the gleaming metal shaker, the routine of drinking at the same time every day. Cocktail hour is a holdover from our parents' generation. Why did we ever give it up?”

“Our generation had drugs. We didn't need martinis.”

“True.” Eadie put her drink down and went over to the pot to stir the jambalaya. “I called Nita. She's coming over for dinner. She made me promise this wasn't some crazy ploy to give her a bachelorette party, but I told her it was just you and me.”

“And she agreed to come? Silly girl. Quick, let's call some strippers.”

Eadie put the lid on the pot and turned around. “She sounds like she needs a night out. Don't you two see much of each other anymore?” She leaned against the stove with one arm draped across her stomach and the other one holding her drink.

“Not really.” Lavonne sipped her martini. “I hate to say it, on account of you getting a big head and all, but it's not the same since you left town.”

Eadie colored slightly. She smiled. “Well, we'll have to make up for lost time,” she said.

The timer went off and Eadie took the rice off the heat and stuck a loaf of French bread into the oven. Lavonne watched her work, feeling lazy and relaxed. The vodka had gone straight to her brain and she had a nice buzz going. “Are you sure you don't need any help?” she said to Eadie.

“Nope.” Eadie took the top off the shaker and poured them both another drink. The buzzing in Lavonne's head got louder. “Oh hell, that's my cell phone,” Eadie said, putting the shaker down. “It's probably Trevor. I'll
be right back.” She rushed out of the room and Lavonne could hear her a minute later in Louise's room. “Are you going to call me every hour?” she said, and Lavonne got up to turn on the radio so she wouldn't have to hear the whole conversation. The house was small and the ceilings were high so sound carried.

Winston came through the door wagging his tail slowly and Lavonne leaned down to scratch his ears. “So there you are, you lazy good for nothing,” she said fondly. He whined and grinned up at her and she went to the door to let him out. Eadie was still on the phone and Lavonne sat back down at the counter to wait. It was true what she had said about Nita; they rarely saw each other these days. You would think, in a town as small as Ithaca, that they might run into each other occasionally, but both had busy and very different lives. They had once been neighbors who saw each other practically every day, but even then it had been Eadie who had brought them all together. She was the glue that had kept their friendship intact.

Lavonne lifted the metal shaker and poured herself another drink. On the radio, Van Morrison sang his ode to brown-eyed girls. Lavonne sipped her drink and thought about all the years she had known Eadie Boone.
Twenty years
. Their friendship had lasted longer than most marriages, almost as long as her ill-fated marriage to Leonard Zibolsky.

In the back bedroom, Eadie shouted, “Don't be such an asshole, Trevor.”

Lavonne had met Eadie and Trevor Boone soon after she and Leonard moved to Ithaca from Cleveland. It was at a party at the Boone mansion, and Eadie was standing on a table singing the Georgia fight song. Trevor was trying to convince her to climb down, but he was laughing, too, and looking at Eadie like she was the only girl in the world for him. They were two of the best-looking people Lavonne had ever seen.

Eadie lost no time introducing herself. “Hey,” she said. “Don't drink that shit.” She threw Lavonne's glass of Chablis over her shoulder and handed her a margarita.

Lavonne knew immediately that they would be friends.

Leonard tolerated the friendship for as long as he could, which turned out to be about three weeks. Lavonne had been a quiet, steady girl in high school and college who concentrated on keeping her grade point average as close to 4.0 as possible. But Eadie Boone changed all that. Under Eadie's tutelage Lavonne became the crazy, irresponsible girl she'd never dared to be before. They were like Catholic schoolgirls on a weekend binge. They
went to endless parties, took Trevor's credit card and stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Atlanta, went on wild beach trips, and out to Bad Bob's to drink tequila and dance with peanut farmers and cowboys. It didn't take long for news of their exploits to reach Leonard.

“Y'all are going to ruin your reputations,” Leonard said one night at dinner. He'd only been in Ithaca a few weeks but already he used “y'all” like he'd used it all his life. Leonard had lost no time going native, standing in front of the bathroom mirror and practicing his Southern accent, wearing loafers without socks and madras plaid shorts to numerous parties.

“This isn't high school, Leonard.”

“But it is a small town. A small town I have to make a living in. What you and Eadie do reflects poorly on the firm.”

“You have to be kidding me.”

“No, Lavonne, I am not kidding you.” He was chubby and balding and when he got angry the bald spot on the back of his head glowed under the overhead lights. “You and Eadie seem to think you can run wild with no repercussions. You don't see Nita Broadwell acting that way. She doesn't jump naked into swimming pools or streak across the Wal-Mart parking lot.”

“That was Eadie. I never take my clothes off.”

“Nita Broadwell does everything Charles tells her to do.”

“Yeah, well, Nita needs to get a life. Charles is an asshole.”

Leonard looked offended. “He's my law partner,” he said, his bald spot pulsing. “And Nita Broadwell is a good Southern wife.”

She reached out and flicked his nose like she was killing a mosquito.

“Well, Leonard, if you wanted a good Southern wife, maybe you should have married one.”

She had been angry then, but Lavonne chuckled now, remembering. Leonard's new trophy wife, Christy, was Southern. She was from Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, and called herself
Creesty
.

“What are you laughing at?” Eadie said, coming back into the kitchen.

“Nothing. Can you make up another shaker of those martinis?”

“Is the pope Catholic?” Eadie said. “Does a fifty-pound sack of flour make a big biscuit?”

By the time Nita showed up thirty minutes later, they had finished off their second shaker and were giggling about the time they sent a Stripagram to Worland Pendergrass's husband, Connelly, during the middle of a big dinner party.

“Nita!” Eadie said, when she saw her standing in the doorway. “Come over here, girl, and give me a hug.”

“Y'all aren't drinking are you?” Nita said, taking off her coat and laying it over the back of one of the chairs. She hugged Eadie and then Lavonne.

“Of course we're drinking,” Lavonne said. “Join us.” She patted the stool next to her and Nita sat down at the counter. Eadie stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray and got up to make some more drinks.

“Where'd you get the cigarettes?”

Lavonne blew a couple of smoke rings at the ceiling. “Ashley's room. We found them in the bottom drawer of her dresser next to a box of diet pills that she also told me she didn't use.”

Nita giggled. “Y'all are terrible,” she said.

Eadie danced around the kitchen, shaking her hips to the rhythm of the cocktail shaker like a hyperactive Carmen Miranda, like Charo on speed. She opened the freezer and took out three freshly chilled glasses and poured martinis all around.

“This'll put hair on your chest,” Eadie said.

“Nectar of the gods,” Lavonne said.

“Is something burning?” Nita asked, sniffing.

Eadie looked at Lavonne. “Oh shit,” she said. “The bread.” She threw on a couple of mitts and flung open the oven door. A thick cloud of black smoke rolled out and Eadie reached in and retrieved the loaf of bread that now looked like a long narrow charcoal briquette. She carried it out onto the back deck, smoke billowing in her wake, and set the baking sheet down on the railing. Lavonne followed her out. They both stood looking down at the black lump of burned bread.

“Oops,” Eadie said.

“Martha Stewart you're not,” Lavonne said.

“That's the problem with martinis. You lose track of time. It's like being caught in a time werp.”

“Did you just say a time
werp
? Have another martini, Eadie.”

Eadie put her arm around Lavonne's shoulder. She pointed at the brick of burned bread. “Who's hungry?” she said.

Nita stood in the doorway and watched them laugh. She hoped it wouldn't take long for the martini to work its magic. She hoped it wouldn't take long to feel whatever it was they were feeling.

Eadie put her other arm around Nita and they went back into the house.
Lavonne and Nita sat down at the counter. “I haven't laughed that hard in a long time,” Lavonne said. “I think I might have pulled something.”

Eadie took some bowls down from the cupboard. “Who wants jambalaya?” she said.

Later, after they had finished eating, Nita got up to stack the bowls and silverware in the dishwasher.

“Leave it, Nita,” Lavonne said, lighting up another cigarette. “We'll clean up in the morning.”

“Pass me one of those cancer sticks,” Eadie said.

Nita sat back down at the bar. She was working on her third martini now and she was feeling relaxed and happy. She giggled. “I definitely won't be driving home tonight. I'll have to call Jimmy Lee to come get me,” she said.

“Just spend the night here,” Lavonne said.

“Yeah,” Eadie said. “Let's have a slumber party.”

Jimmy Lee wouldn't like that one little bit. He wouldn't tell her
no
, but he wouldn't be very happy about it, either. “I've got class in the morning,” Nita said. “I shouldn't even be staying up this late when I have to get up at seven o'clock.”

“Oh come on, Nita, live a little.”

“Yeah,” Eadie said. “It's bad luck for the groom to see you before the wedding.”

Nita didn't like to think about this. She didn't like to hear
bad luck
and
wedding
spoken in the same sentence. She was jittery enough as it was. She sipped her drink and said to Lavonne, hoping to change the subject, “Were you able to find those little sweet peppers we talked about?”

“Don't change the subject,” Lavonne said.

“What are you studying at school?” Eadie said. “What are you hoping to be when you grow up?”

“I'm not sure yet. I'm trying to decide whether to major in women's studies or elementary ed.”

“I can see you as a teacher,” Eadie said. “You're always so patient. I'd rather poke sticks in my eyes than work with a bunch of kids all day, but you'd be good at it.”

“Is that meant to be a compliment or an insult?” Lavonne said.

“I like kids,” Nita said. “I volunteer at the school every chance I get. I substitute teach when I can.”

“What was the name of that little girl you practically adopted back when your kids were small?”

“Angel,” Nita said. “Angel Phipps.”

“Hey, I remember Angel,” Eadie said. “She kind of reminded me of myself at that age. She's the one you bought clothes and books and toys for. The one you had over for dinner all the time.”

Lavonne said, “The one who let the air out of Charles's tires. The one who played street hockey with his golf clubs and put rocks in his shoes.”

Eadie grinned. “She didn't much like him, did she?”

“She was a sweet child,” Nita said.

“Hell, Nita, you'd say that about little Charlie Manson. You'd think little Jackie the Ripper was precious. You think everyone is sweet.”

Nita colored slightly and shook her head. “No I don't,” she said.

Lavonne said, “Little Jackie the Ripper?”

Eadie smiled lazily and twirled her hair around one finger. “How're your kids doing?” she said to Nita.

“They're fine,” Nita said. “Logan just got his license and he drives Whitney to school for me every morning. He likes public school so much better than he ever liked Barron Hall. He seems a lot more comfortable there.” She looked apologetically at Lavonne, whose daughter had graduated early from Barron Hall and gone off to college just a few weeks ago.

Lavonne shrugged. “Hey, private school isn't for everyone,” she said.

“How about Whitney?”

Nita frowned, looking down at the pale-pink liquid in the bottom of her glass. “I'm not sure if Whitney is happier or not. Nothing much seems to please her these days.”

“Don't worry about that,” Lavonne said. “She's an adolescent girl. It's her job to be surly and ungrateful. Trust me, I know. I've raised two daughters.”

“I was terrible to my mother,” Eadie said, finishing off her drink.

“Really?” Nita said, feeling hopeful. She had always felt it was her duty to make her children happy, it was one of the primary reasons she had left Charles, and Whitney's morose behavior left her with a sense of her own failure as a parent. She and her own mother, Loretta, had always been close. Nita could not remember ever fighting with Loretta the way Whitney fought with her.

“Lavonne says you're writing a paper that might get published.”

Nita smiled shyly, happy to talk about something besides her daughter. “It's for my Women's Roles in the Post-Depression America class. I've been interviewing women who worked as domestic servants in the South prior to
the civil rights movement. My professor thinks it might be good enough for publication.”

Eadie put her arm around Nita. “I'm so proud of you,” she said. “See how everything's worked out for the best? A year and a half ago you were still married to that asshole, Charles Broadwell, and now you've taken control of your life and gone back to school and you're getting ready to marry the man of your dreams.” She got up and poured another round of drinks. Nita wished she could feel as optimistic as Eadie did. She didn't tell them how the women's sad stories had affected her in a way that went deeper than the usual relationship between an interviewer and interviewee.