something great. And besides, who else?”
All true: an imaginative but fluky cook, Sarah did best on a small scale. And, too, the only other people they knew were fellow-transferees, as displaced and possibly as lonely as themselves, but otherwise not especially sympathetic.
The first surprise about Hattie McElroy, that first April night, was her size: she was a very big woman, with wild bleached straw-looking hair and round doll-blue eyes, and about twenty years older than Jonathan would have imagined; Sarah spoke of her as of a contemporary. Hugh McElroy was tall and gray and somewhat dim.
And Hattie was a very funny woman. Over drinks, she started right in with a description of a party she had been to the night before. “I was wearing this perfectly all-right dress, even if it was a tad on the oldish side,” Hattie toldthem, as she sipped at her gin. “And Popsie Hooker—Can you imagine a woman my age, and still called Popsie? We went to Sunday school together, and she hasn’t changed one bit. Anyway, Popsie said to me, ‘Oh, I just love that dress you’re wearing. I was so sorry when they went out of style five years ago.’ Can you imagine? Isn’t she marvellous? I just love Popsie, I truly do.”
For such a big woman, Hattie’s laugh was small, a little-girl laugh, but Jonathan found himself drawn to her big friendly teeth, her crazy hair.
Sarah, it then turned out, had met Popsie Hooker; early on in their stay in Hilton she had gone to a luncheon that Popsie gave for the new corporation wives. And, Sarah told Hattie, “She made a little speech that I didn’t quite understand. About how she knew we were all very busy, so please not to write any thank-you notes. It was odd, I thought.”
Hattie’s chuckle increased in volume. “Oh, you don’t understand Southern talk, not at all! I can tell you don’t. That meant you were all supposed to write notes, and say you just couldn’t resist writing, even if she said not to, since her lunch party was just so lovely.”
Sarah laughed, too. “Well, dumb me. I took her at her word, and didn’t write.”
“Well, honey, you’ll larn. But I can tell you, it takes near ’bout a lifetime.”
Dinner was not one of Sarah’s more successful efforts: veal Orloff, one of her specialties, but this time a little burned.
Hattie, though, seemed to think it was wonderful. “Oh, the trouble you must have gone to! And you must have a way with your butcher. I’ve just never seen veal like this—not down here.”
Jonathan felt that she was overdoing it, but then chided himself: Hattie was Southern, after all; that was how they talked. He must not be negative.
“These mushrooms are truly delicious,” Hugh McElroy put in. In Jonathan’s view, a truer remark. Hugh was a kind and quiet man, who reminded Jonathan of someone; in an instant, to his mild surprise, he realized that it was his own father, whose shy manner had been rather like Hugh’s.
A good evening, then. Jonathan could honestly say to Sarah that he liked her new best friends; they could even laugh over a few of the former candidates for that title.
Their return invitation, to a party at the McElroys’, was less fun all around: too many people, in a cluttered but surprisingly formal house, on a too hot night in May. But by then it was almost time for the McElroys to leave, and Hattie had explained to Sarah that they just had to have all those people.
“They’re really so loved around here,” Sarah somewhat tipsily remarked, as they drove home from that party. “It just won’t be the same town.”
“It’s still very pretty,” Jonathan reminded her. “Smell the flowers.”
The spring that had finally arrived, after so much rain, had seemed a reward for patience, with its extraordinary gifts of roses, azaleas, even gardenias, everywhere blooming, wafting sweetness into the light night air. And out in the woods white lacings of dogwood had appeared.
For some reason (“I can’t think why!
All true: an imaginative but fluky cook, Sarah did best on a small scale. And, too, the only other people they knew were fellow-transferees, as displaced and possibly as lonely as themselves, but otherwise not especially sympathetic.
The first surprise about Hattie McElroy, that first April night, was her size: she was a very big woman, with wild bleached straw-looking hair and round doll-blue eyes, and about twenty years older than Jonathan would have imagined; Sarah spoke of her as of a contemporary. Hugh McElroy was tall and gray and somewhat dim.
And Hattie was a very funny woman. Over drinks, she started right in with a description of a party she had been to the night before. “I was wearing this perfectly all-right dress, even if it was a tad on the oldish side,” Hattie toldthem, as she sipped at her gin. “And Popsie Hooker—Can you imagine a woman my age, and still called Popsie? We went to Sunday school together, and she hasn’t changed one bit. Anyway, Popsie said to me, ‘Oh, I just love that dress you’re wearing. I was so sorry when they went out of style five years ago.’ Can you imagine? Isn’t she marvellous? I just love Popsie, I truly do.”
For such a big woman, Hattie’s laugh was small, a little-girl laugh, but Jonathan found himself drawn to her big friendly teeth, her crazy hair.
Sarah, it then turned out, had met Popsie Hooker; early on in their stay in Hilton she had gone to a luncheon that Popsie gave for the new corporation wives. And, Sarah told Hattie, “She made a little speech that I didn’t quite understand. About how she knew we were all very busy, so please not to write any thank-you notes. It was odd, I thought.”
Hattie’s chuckle increased in volume. “Oh, you don’t understand Southern talk, not at all! I can tell you don’t. That meant you were all supposed to write notes, and say you just couldn’t resist writing, even if she said not to, since her lunch party was just so lovely.”
Sarah laughed, too. “Well, dumb me. I took her at her word, and didn’t write.”
“Well, honey, you’ll larn. But I can tell you, it takes near ’bout a lifetime.”
Dinner was not one of Sarah’s more successful efforts: veal Orloff, one of her specialties, but this time a little burned.
Hattie, though, seemed to think it was wonderful. “Oh, the trouble you must have gone to! And you must have a way with your butcher. I’ve just never seen veal like this—not down here.”
Jonathan felt that she was overdoing it, but then chided himself: Hattie was Southern, after all; that was how they talked. He must not be negative.
“These mushrooms are truly delicious,” Hugh McElroy put in. In Jonathan’s view, a truer remark. Hugh was a kind and quiet man, who reminded Jonathan of someone; in an instant, to his mild surprise, he realized that it was his own father, whose shy manner had been rather like Hugh’s.
A good evening, then. Jonathan could honestly say to Sarah that he liked her new best friends; they could even laugh over a few of the former candidates for that title.
Their return invitation, to a party at the McElroys’, was less fun all around: too many people, in a cluttered but surprisingly formal house, on a too hot night in May. But by then it was almost time for the McElroys to leave, and Hattie had explained to Sarah that they just had to have all those people.
“They’re really so loved around here,” Sarah somewhat tipsily remarked, as they drove home from that party. “It just won’t be the same town.”
“It’s still very pretty,” Jonathan reminded her. “Smell the flowers.”
The spring that had finally arrived, after so much rain, had seemed a reward for patience, with its extraordinary gifts of roses, azaleas, even gardenias, everywhere blooming, wafting sweetness into the light night air. And out in the woods white lacings of dogwood had appeared.
For some reason (“I can’t think why!
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