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frightening realization: she must have some sort of covert agreement with the doorman.
    â€œMommy,” I whined, pulling the covers up under my chin, “what are you doing here? I was at work until God knows how late last night.”
    â€œWe’ll get to that situation in a moment,” she said. “But, honestly, Minty, at least feign some excitement. I haven’t seen you in months!” She sauntered over to my bedroom window, where she pulled back the curtains gingerly, as if the fabric was covered in something unseemly
    â€œMinty, honey, these are all wrong,” she said, her face scrunched disapprovingly. “What color is this? Chartreuse? Chartreuse in the bedroom! Honey.”
    I frowned. Her tone had gone from conciliatory to patronizing.
    She peered through the windows onto Sixtieth Street and gasped. “Oh,” she said. “What an interesting view.”
    My bedroom window looked down onto a perfectly normal New York street, but it was no Central Park.
    â€œWhat do they call those little corner stores again? The ones where they play the ethnic music all day and sell overpriced cans of soup? I see you have quite the panoramic view of one of those very stores.”
    â€œBodega, Mother,” I sighed, sitting up. “Bodega.”
    â€œWell. At least you’ll never want for scratch-off lottery tickets.”
    â€œMother.”
    â€œReally, Minty.” She moved away from the window and glanced around the room again. “Any stranger walking into this apartment would think you grew up in a hovel, not one of Charleston’s most historic homes.”
    I sighed. I had been remiss in failing to create the proper environment,and Mother had found me out. And we were only in the bedroom. She still had my living room, kitchen, and bathroom to pick apart.
    â€œAnyway, Mother,” I said. “I should probably get dressed.”
    When I emerged several minutes later, wearing a plum sweater dress and knee-high suede Prada boots, she was positioned in the center of the living room, surveying its contents with disdain written all over her perfectly microdermabrasioned complexion.
    She took off her Chanel ballet flats one by one and placed them to the side.
    â€œSisal, Minty?” She dragged a pedicured foot over the surface of the rug. Her cherry-red toes shone against the drab, oily finish of the cheap weave. I’d bought it because it was quick and easy and I needed a rug! I figured I’d have it replaced before she even had the chance to see it.
    â€œIt’s just temporary, Mother!” I said guiltily.
    She stared back at me, stone-faced.
    â€œThere is no such thing as temporary,” she said. “Only second-rate.”
    The last part of that statement I said along with her, I knew it so well.
    She glared back at me, annoyed and amused at the same time.
    â€œDon’t mock me, child,” she countered with a wagging finger, a tiny smile creeping onto her face.
    â€œMommy,” I said, slipping back into a little-girl voice, “I’ve been very busy. I don’t have time to decorate. I barely have time to get dressed!”
    She looked concerned for a moment; she tilted her head to the side and exhaled. I had seen this look before: serious, then focused, and finally morphing into the calm, resolved countenance of a woman preparing for action.
    This is the thing about southern women (and my mother is a prime example of the species): They may come across as sugary-sweet and fluttery at first. They can be frivolous, fragile, trivial even. But not so fast. Beneath the perfectly coordinated ensembles; behind thehair blown dry to perfection; under the lipstick, with lips drawn in first with pencil, filled with a waxy garnet and finally blotted with the most delicate, most exquisite of handkerchiefs, southern women are all backbone. Suggest to my mother that she is not allowed to do something, even intimate to her that there is a