The Red Hat Society's Queens of Woodlawn Avenue (8 page)

Roz turned toward me with a smile that looked like a hyena sizing up a lamb chop. “So, Ellie, how is your
new house working out? I drove by the other day, and I was so surprised to see
rental property
across the street.” She said the two words in a whisper, as if she’d been forced to utter an obscenity in polite company.

“The house is coming along,” I said blithely, imitating Linda by reaching for my napkin and draping it across my lap.

“The location doesn’t bother you, then?” Roz was never one to dig in the knife without giving it a good, hard twist. “I’d
be devastated to leave Belle Meade.”

She’d led a high card, and I cast about desperately in my mind for a trump, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. The other
ladies at the table might be sipping water from crystal goblets or tucking their own napkins in their laps, but I could see
from the corner of my eye that they were hanging on every word of our exchange.

“I live next door to Ellie,” Linda said, jumping to my defense. “I love my neighborhood. It has the most darling houses. Give
me character and charm over some of these McMansions any day of the week.”

Roz couldn’t prevent the corner of her lip from curling up for the briefest of moments, a snarl that revealed her for the
bitch she was. I beamed at Linda, who had trumped Roz for me.

“My new neighbors are the best part of moving,” I said. “Linda’s been lovely, welcoming me to the neighborhood.”

I might have taken the trick, but I knew better than to think Roz would throw in her cards easily.

“I got the cutest little invitation yesterday,” she said, looking around at the other ladies at the table. The cater
ing staff were beginning to circle the room, and one slipped a spinach salad under Roz’s carefully sculpted nose. I remembered
vividly the day when I was fourteen and my mother came home from work and confided in me that Roz had undergone plastic surgery.
At the time, we’d been struggling to find the money to buy my school supplies.

“Invitation to what?” Linda asked politely before taking a bite of her salad, and a sudden, icy fear struck me.

“A wedding,” Roz said with a laugh. “At first, I thought it was for a baby shower, it was so pink. I’ve never seen anything
quite so…well, childish, I guess is the word.”

At the far end of the table, a dark-haired woman’s eyes lit up. She set down her fork, prepared to feed on something more
substantial than the spinach salad. “Who’s the lucky couple?”

The dark-haired woman was probably the only person at the table who hadn’t received one of the pink monstrosities. Roz smiled
at me in triumph. “I’m sure you can guess, Ellie.”

Everyone at the table froze, as if waiting for the
Ten-nessean
photographer to take a picture. Five pairs of eyes fixed on me. Once again Roz had led a high card, but this time I couldn’t
look to Linda for help. I had to trump her on my own.

Should I laugh it off? Feign indifference? For a moment I froze, until Linda nudged me with her foot beneath the table.

“I’m surprised,” I said, trying to look nonplussed. Roz looked so pleased with herself, and I dearly wanted to take that self-satisfied
look off of her face.

“What surprises you, Ellie dear?” Roz asked.

I took a sip of iced tea from the Waterford crystal in front of me. “I’m surprised you didn’t get your invitation earlier.
Mine came a week ago.”

I was not going to give her the satisfaction, no matter what it cost me. Around the table, the other women whispered and tittered.
Linda smiled her approval.

“Really?” Roz pretended to look aghast. “Oh, Ellie, surely you’re not going to attend the wedding? I mean, well, that would
be just too humiliating, wouldn’t it?”

I gripped the edges of my chair, safe in the knowledge that the drape of the immaculate table cloth would hide my agitation.
I was determined, as Linda had advised, not to let Roz see me sweat. “Jim and I parted mutually, and we’ll always share the
children.” I forced out the words, but they tasted as bitter as they were false. “I wish him the best.”

Roz looked around at the others and snickered. “Well, then you’re a better woman than I am. I could never be in the same room
again with a man who’d betrayed me like that. And with a Hooters waitress, too.”

“So then you’re not planning to attend the wedding?” I sent her back the same icy smile masquerading as a pleasant expression
she’d been giving me since I’d arrived. “I’ll be sure to give Jim and Tiffany your regrets.”

Roz’s brow furrowed despite the quantity of Botox lodged there, and then she rallied for one last try at uprooting me.

“Yes, well, perhaps we should leave the small talk for now and discuss the plans for the ball. I’ve made the committee assignments.”

At this, even the ladies at the adjoining tables fell silent, as if they’d all been listening, one ear cocked, for just such
an announcement. My heart thrummed in my chest. I knew better than to hope for any mercy from Roz, and there was no way she
was going to name me chair-elect. I held out a faint hope that Linda might get the nod. At least then I could expect something
better from the next year’s committee assignment. Assuming I wasn’t working as a waitress at Waffle House by then.

Roz stood up and tapped her crystal with her sterling silver flatware. “Ladies, if I could have your attention please.”

I’d pulled trump with Roz as best I could, but she still held the highest card. I gritted my teeth and tried to look like
I was enjoying myself.

“I know you’re all eager to get your assignments, and so I won’t wait any longer.”

We held our collective breaths as Roz proceeded to announce who had been selected to chair which committee and what women
were assigned to help her. As Roz went down the list, I gripped the arm of my chair more and more tightly, but my name was
not mentioned. I had hoped at least for decorations. Or perhaps even the thankless task of rounding up donations for the silent
auction. But one by one, my hopes were whittled down until nothing remained but a nub.

“And our last committee. Transportation.”

It was the junk assignment, the one given as a clear indication of the chair’s lowly status. In this case, a woman would prefer
to simply be named to the committee rather
than to chair it. Then she could fade into oblivion or perhaps move to another city to make a fresh start.

“Our transportation captain this year will be Ellie Johnston.” Roz stopped, pressed her fingers to her lips, and giggled.
“Excuse me, I mean Ellie
Hall
.”

I couldn’t count the number of pitying looks sent my way. I nodded graciously to Roz and then to the other ladies as if I’d
just been crowned Queen of the May. Linda might teach me all about pulling trump, but the truth was, if you weren’t holding
the ace, you could never take the last trick.

CHAPTER SIX

“
I
’ve found your first client.” Later that afternoon, Jane’s bright voice penetrated the thick gloom that had settled over me
after the luncheon at Roz’s house. I hadn’t made the gloom any lighter when I came home and proceeded to drag out the photo
album from my wedding. The pictures of Jim and me, arm in arm, smiling and laughing, had pulled me even further into the Slough
of Despond. Sitting on your Goodwill-ready couch in scruffy sweats imagining the face of a Hooters waitress on your wedding
portrait was not conducive to a positive mental state.

So when Jane knocked I’d debated once again whether I should open the door, but the manners my mother had drilled into me
at an early age prevailed. Now Jane was perched on my pathetic couch drinking a glass of iced tea, and I sat to her right
in a cheap wooden rocking chair Jim and I had picked up at a garage sale. I smiled at
her, doing my best to cover my turbulent emotions, and nudged the wedding album a little farther under the coffee table with
my toe.

“First client?” Jane’s enthusiasm only made my despair deeper. “But I haven’t done any of the other stuff yet. Web site. Business
cards. I don’t even have a name for my business.” I twisted the glass of iced tea in my hands, wishing the rest of me could
be as numb as my fingers.

Jane set her iced tea down on the coffee table, careful to use one of the coasters even though another ring or two on that
table would hardly have attracted notice. “All you need to know right now is how much you’re going to charge Henri.” She said
the name in a lilting French accent, hardly pronouncing the “h” at all.

“Henri?” I echoed. The rocking chair was as uncomfortable as it had been cheap. We’d planned to put it on the porch of the
lake home we dreamed of buying some day.

“Henri Paradis. He’s in Nashville for the next six months on business. I helped him lease a condo on West End today. Very
exclusive. And very expensive.” Jane’s eyes twinkled as brightly as her teeth shone. “He mentioned how overwhelmed he felt,
what with working sixty hours a week and no time to acquaint himself with the city. He told me what he really needed was a
wife, and
voilà!”
She reached into her pocket and retrieved a small white business card. “Your first client, Ellie. Isn’t it exciting?’

Sure, except for the fact that I had no idea what my duties would be, how much I’d charge for them, or
whether Henri Paradis thought Jane was a madam taking care of more than just his housing needs.

“It’s too soon.” Setting goals was one thing, but coming up with the courage to try and obtain them was another matter entirely.
And after the smackdown at Roz’s luncheon today, I wasn’t feeling particularly lionhearted.

Jane, per usual, waved away my objection with her well-manicured hand. “You have to start sometime. Why not now?”

I could think of a million reasons why not now—I had more moping to do, more refined carbs to eat, more pity to indulge in—but
none of them would hold any water with Jane. She laid the business card on my scuffed coffee table and then nudged it toward
me with one poppy red fingernail.

“You can name your price, the man’s so desperate.”

“I don’t want to practice extortion. I just want to earn a living.” I began to rock, despite the discomfort of the bare wood
against my backside.

“So we’ll see what he needs, estimate how long it will take you, and multiply that by an hourly rate.”

“Today?”

“When were you planning to start?”

“I don’t know. Maybe next week?”
As long as I can afford to be in denial.
And then I thought again about Jim’s phone call and the likelihood that I might never see his alimony check at all. Nothing
like the prospect of a little poverty to provide an antidote to fear and trembling.

“It won’t be any easier next week.” Jane pushed the card even closer. “Why don’t you give Henri a call right now?”

With tentative fingers, I picked up the card from the coffee table.

M. Henri Paradis

Chief Financial Officer

The Triumph Group

The address was in one of Nashville’s largest downtown office buildings. I’d never heard of the Triumph Group, but if the
man was working with Jane, who handled real estate matters for a healthy slice of the city’s wealthiest elite, then he must
be a solid citizen. Or at least as much of one as a Frenchman could be. I remembered my mother, who had done a semester as
an exchange student in Paris, telling me as a child never to trust a Frenchman. The thought of my mother, though, was the
one thing that could get me to summon my courage. She’d faced just what I was facing and had never shirked from the challenge.
And I was my mother’s daughter. At least, I hoped I was.

“All right. I’ll call him. Although I don’t have the foggiest idea what I’m doing.”

Jane stood up and I did the same. “That’s okay, Ellie. Neither does he. In fact, he’ll probably need you for a lot more than
picking up dry cleaning.”

“Like what?” Suddenly I was suspicious again, because Jane
was
sounding like a madam now.

“Nothing like that.” She laughed. “Although, if you’re given an opportunity to socialize with the man, don’t turn it down
on principle. He’s—how do they say it?—
magnifique.
”

“Don’t you make it a policy not to date clients?” I didn’t know why I was even asking, since I had no interest in dating anyone.
Ever. Again.

Jane’s brow creased. “Well, I guess that depends.”

“On what?”

“On what you need more—the date or the client.”

Since I couldn’t imagine ever opening myself up to a repeat of the pain Jim had inflicted on me, that shouldn’t be a problem.

“Call him,” Jane said again as she let herself out the front door. She didn’t wait for me to answer, yanking the warped wood
closed behind her as best she could.

I took a deep breath, and fearing that if I procrastinated I’d never find the courage, I walked to the phone. Then I picked
up the receiver, punched in the number on Monsieur Paradis’s business card, and flung myself farther into the abyss of my
brand new life.

O
f course he was out of the office. Isn’t that always how it goes? His assistant put me through to his voice mail while I leaned
against the kitchen counter and watched through my curtainless window as three squirrels raced around my backyard.