in hot pursuit.
The woman turned again toward Hazel. She was wearing the snuggest maid’s uniform Hazel had ever seen. Her breasts pooched out the top of her dress, reaching for daylight. Her smile involved at least two gold teeth. “Hidey. My name’s Sweet Pea. You Miss Hazel?”
“Glad to know you,” Hazel said hesitantly. Where did Floyd find this one? she wondered. He was surely scraping the bottom of the barrel now.
Sweet Pea turned back around and surveyed the room again. “Where you get all them nice things, Miss Hazel? I never seen nothing like it in Delphi.”
That definitely tipped the scales in the maid’s favor. She gave Sweet Pea a big grin and crossed the hall to stand next to the woman. “And you won’t see nothing like it in the whole state of Mississippi, neither,” she said excitedly. She had been wanting so badly to brag on herself. “I had to order all the way to Chicago. The salesman says this stuff is just catching on. Colors nobody ever heard of before. Just invented. Parakeet green. Flamingo pink. Peacock blue. I tried to get some of each.”
Sweet Pea laughed. “Um-hum! I can see that. Look like a big flock of zoo birds done shedded all over your company room.” She took a moment to admire the yellow Formica coffee table in the shape of a prize banana, the plastic end tables with gleaming enameled metal legs, and the aluminum pole lamp with pink, blue, and green bullet shades. “Yo furniture shinier than the front end of a Cadillac. And not a stick of wood to be seen.”
“You’re mighty gracious to say so,” Hazel said delightedly. “When that salesman showed me all those pretty pictures, I said to myself, why be old-fashioned when nowadays you can get everything in plastic, chrome, and vinyl?”
Sweet Pea waggled her head appreciatively. “Must be a joy to sit here in this room when the morning sun hits it. You probably need to put you on some sunglasses to do your dusting.”
The maid’s opinion, even though it was a colored one, was doing wonders to boost Hazel’s confidence. For the first time since Floyd suggested the party, she almost looked forward to the ladies coming over. If they were only half as struck as Sweet Pea, Hazel would do Floyd proud.
After Johnny had successfully fussed his brother down from the couch, Hazel told him, “Take Davie outside and finish that quiet game y’all were playing, OK honey? We got to get things ready for company.”
Sweet Pea asked, “What we going to feed these womens, Miss Hazel?”
Hazel pulled the newspaper article from her waist pocket. It was titled Entertaining: Elegant and Easy. “Now here’s some new recipes they say everybody just loves. I thought between the two of us we could figure out how to put it together. I bought all the ingredients.”
“What you want me to do?”
“Well, I ain’t much in the kitchen,” Hazel said, “so you do the cooking part and I’ll do the opening and stirring. And you can serve it, if you don’t mind.”
This took Sweet Pea back for a moment. “No’m, I don’t mind,” she said, half smiling, amused at the thought that her minding had something to do with anything.
The doorbell rang as Sweet Pea finished spooning the crushed pineapple around the chunks of ham. “They’s just in time,” she said, looking up at Hazel. When she saw the blood drain from Hazel’s face, she comforted her, “Don’t you fret none, Miss Hazel. Everything going to come off jest fine.” She headed for the door.
Hazel checked herself for a final time in the hall mirror, once more wishing Floyd were there to tell her how pretty she looked. The bourbon didn’t seem to be working. She breathed deeply and tried to act the way she imagined the happy woman in the Lincoln advertisement would if she had to get out of her car and entertain. Straightening her shoulders, she prepared her smile and followed Sweet Pea airily to the door to meet the women.
Sweet Pea flung open the door to see that three women had arrived at once, looking like a posse. “How y’all doin’ today?” Sweet Pea bawled happily. “Come on in out the heat!”
The women stepped into the entryway and Hazel said the words she had practiced. “How good of y’all to visit me today.” Her voice was shaky yet the words clearly enunciated.
Miss Pearl, the Senator’s sister, smiled warmly and brought her handkerchiefed hand up to her delicately wattled neck. In a rush of breath she said, “Hazel, you are so kind to have us over. When Hayes told me about your new home, I felt terrible that I hadn’t stopped by before and properly welcomed you to the neighborhood. And me living across the lane from y’all. Will you forgive me, dear?”
With all those kind words having been spent on Hazel, and with so much feeling backing them up, Hazel felt her stomach settling a bit. “That’s mighty gracious of you to say. I’m just proud y’all could come today’s all.”
“Well, better late than never. Isn’t that what the sage professed, Hazel?” she smiled sweetly again.
Pearl Alcorn was an older woman with kind, misty blue eyes and an understanding smile. Her silver-blue hair looked like it was still warm from the beauty parlor. Hazel thought she was quite lovely, even if she did have a crippled hand. It was said that when Miss Pearl was a little girl living at the Columns, she was out riding and her horse stumbled, threw her off, and then rolled over on her hand, crushing the bones. From that time on, she was never seen without a lace handkerchief carefully arranged among the fingers to make the hand look useful. It gave her an air of tragic elegance Hazel couldn’t help but admire.
Miss Pearl waved her handkerchief at an unpleasant, horsy-looking woman at her side. “Hazel, I want you to meet my nieces. Hertha.” The frightful woman she pointed out emitted a little snort. “She’s your next-door neighbor. You’ve undoubted met her husband, the sheriff.”
“How do you do?” Hazel said, slow and careful. Hazel knew she shouldn’t take comfort in another woman’s ugliness, yet it did boost her confidence a bit. Couldn’t even get a man on her own, Floyd said. The rumor was that the Senator had agreed to make Billy Dean sheriff if he took the eldest daughter off his hands. At least Hazel had fought fair and square to get Floyd.
“And my other niece, Delia.”
Delia was another story entirely. She was a beautiful younger woman with lustrous blond curls and blue eyes that seemed to be laughing at something, Hazel could only wonder what. She had heard the stories from Floyd. Delia married twice before she turned twenty and had boyfriends flung as far as St. Louis.
“So you two is sisters?” Hazel blurted. “I swan, you don’t look nothing like each—”
Pearl coughed once and said, “Isn’t this nice, Hazel? I hope you will consider us your new best friends.”
Realizing she had been saved from something terrible, Hazel nodded. “Best friends. Oh, yes, ma’am. I would love that more than I can say.”
The sisters met the suggestion of friendship with blank expressions, but Pearl seemed sincere. Hazel found herself surprised she hadn’t noticed this kindness when they had occasionally passed on the street. That was back when they lived in the slave cabin, before she had officially moved up the hill into Delphi proper. Maybe now things would be different after all.
Hazel sucked in a deep breath.
