Read Online The Last Girls by Lee Smith - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Lee Smith
Tags: Contemporary, Adult
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the difference. Courtneyâs bright red smile stretches all the way across her face. She holds a silver tray of hors dâoeuvres, one of her favoritesâshrimp tarts, Miss Evangelineâs recipe.
Oddly, the same hors dâoeuvres are visible on the table in
this
photograph, too, in the scrapbook devoted to Little Evangelineâs wedding which Courtney held at home. Vangie wouldnât get married at Saint Matthews because she didnât believe in God, she said, and neither did Nate, her fiancé as Courtney kept referring to him, hopefully, as if this designation would somehow make him shape up and act like oneâlike a fiancé, like a husband, instead of like a bass guitar player, which he is.
In the photograph, Nate and Vangie are laughing hysterically and feeding each other bites of cake which is falling all over the seed pearl bodice of Vangieâs wedding dress. It cost twenty-two hundred dollars. Vangie has taken out her nose ring for the occasion. The long lace sleeves nearly hide the vine tattoo on her upper arm, and of course nobody can see the butterfly on her thigh and who even knows what other tattoos or piercings she might have or where she might have them? Courtney shudders to think. Vangie has never told her mother much about her life, which is just as well. As with Hawk, sheâd rather not know. The things Courtney
does
know about her daughter, the public things, are disturbing enough, such as the name of Vangieâsband, the Friends of the Library. But at least Courtney has the satisfaction of knowing that
she
has done her duty, by all of them, her entire difficult family. This wedding alone took a full year of work.
She could never have done it without Gene Minor, that sweet thing. His presence is everywhere in this wedding albumâeverywhere and nowhere, for of course he is not pictured. His company, Florenza, handled everything. Gene Minor convinced her to be more, well,
theatrical
than sheâd ever considered. âIf itâs not fun, donât do itâ is Geneâs motto, and since Vangie didnât care one way or the otherâshe was on a West Coast tour and hadnât wanted such a big wedding in the first placeâCourtney did it all. She did everything Gene Minor suggested, and it was brilliant. People are still talking about it.
Gene was the one who held out for an evening wedding, the one who convinced her to go with the red roses for all the bouquets, Vangieâs too, the one who ordered the tent and supervised its erection in the back garden and had it all rigged up with those thousands of tiny white twinkling lights and wound the tent poles round and round with garlands of babyâs breath. Gene Minor personally created the spectacular soaring silver and red arrangements on each table (âHey, baby, you gotta think vertical!â). He wove roses and silver sprays through the ivy of the old arched trellis where Vangie and Nate would say their vows, a project that could not be accomplished until the afternoon of the wedding itself. While Gene Minor was out in her backyard doing this, Courtney hovered between house and garden like a butterfly, too nervous to light down anyplace, though once she dared to tiptoe up behind him and actually touch his sweaty T-shirt. Gene Minor jumped as if shot, then toppled off his little ladder onto his back like a giant turtle, arms and legs waving helplessly in the summer air. âWhy, Mrs. Ralston!â he exclaimed in that high squeaky voice. âOh my, Mrs. Ralston, oh oh!â Courtney got so tickled she had to sit down right there on the grass, too, holding her sides in laughter. âMom! What are you
doing?
â Vangie cried out the window.But Courtney couldnât quit laughing for the longest timeâin all her life, nobody has ever made her laugh so hard as Gene Minor. He is such a
nut!
Heâs the one who suggested the fireworks, too, which were fabulous, capping off the
Oddly, the same hors dâoeuvres are visible on the table in
this
photograph, too, in the scrapbook devoted to Little Evangelineâs wedding which Courtney held at home. Vangie wouldnât get married at Saint Matthews because she didnât believe in God, she said, and neither did Nate, her fiancé as Courtney kept referring to him, hopefully, as if this designation would somehow make him shape up and act like oneâlike a fiancé, like a husband, instead of like a bass guitar player, which he is.
In the photograph, Nate and Vangie are laughing hysterically and feeding each other bites of cake which is falling all over the seed pearl bodice of Vangieâs wedding dress. It cost twenty-two hundred dollars. Vangie has taken out her nose ring for the occasion. The long lace sleeves nearly hide the vine tattoo on her upper arm, and of course nobody can see the butterfly on her thigh and who even knows what other tattoos or piercings she might have or where she might have them? Courtney shudders to think. Vangie has never told her mother much about her life, which is just as well. As with Hawk, sheâd rather not know. The things Courtney
does
know about her daughter, the public things, are disturbing enough, such as the name of Vangieâsband, the Friends of the Library. But at least Courtney has the satisfaction of knowing that
she
has done her duty, by all of them, her entire difficult family. This wedding alone took a full year of work.
She could never have done it without Gene Minor, that sweet thing. His presence is everywhere in this wedding albumâeverywhere and nowhere, for of course he is not pictured. His company, Florenza, handled everything. Gene Minor convinced her to be more, well,
theatrical
than sheâd ever considered. âIf itâs not fun, donât do itâ is Geneâs motto, and since Vangie didnât care one way or the otherâshe was on a West Coast tour and hadnât wanted such a big wedding in the first placeâCourtney did it all. She did everything Gene Minor suggested, and it was brilliant. People are still talking about it.
Gene was the one who held out for an evening wedding, the one who convinced her to go with the red roses for all the bouquets, Vangieâs too, the one who ordered the tent and supervised its erection in the back garden and had it all rigged up with those thousands of tiny white twinkling lights and wound the tent poles round and round with garlands of babyâs breath. Gene Minor personally created the spectacular soaring silver and red arrangements on each table (âHey, baby, you gotta think vertical!â). He wove roses and silver sprays through the ivy of the old arched trellis where Vangie and Nate would say their vows, a project that could not be accomplished until the afternoon of the wedding itself. While Gene Minor was out in her backyard doing this, Courtney hovered between house and garden like a butterfly, too nervous to light down anyplace, though once she dared to tiptoe up behind him and actually touch his sweaty T-shirt. Gene Minor jumped as if shot, then toppled off his little ladder onto his back like a giant turtle, arms and legs waving helplessly in the summer air. âWhy, Mrs. Ralston!â he exclaimed in that high squeaky voice. âOh my, Mrs. Ralston, oh oh!â Courtney got so tickled she had to sit down right there on the grass, too, holding her sides in laughter. âMom! What are you
doing?
â Vangie cried out the window.But Courtney couldnât quit laughing for the longest timeâin all her life, nobody has ever made her laugh so hard as Gene Minor. He is such a
nut!
Heâs the one who suggested the fireworks, too, which were fabulous, capping off the
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