A Southern Exposure Read Online Free PDF Page B

sheer drop to the sea, the dizzying curves of the road.
    “Are you okay?” kind, solicitous (silly) Fleurette keeps asking.
    And Brett murmurs, “Yes, yes, I’m okay.”
    By the time they get to Kansas, she knows that she is not okay. “I had an abortion,” she whispers to the doctor. “You mustn’t tell my husband.”

     5     
    At the Bigelows’ party, that hot September Sunday, the guests were all such very old friends and had been to so many parties together that it hardly mattered anymore who spoke what lines; anything uttered by anyone could as well have been said by another person. Even the presence of the new Yankees, the Bairds, and the stray comments that their stylish presence occasioned did not radically alter the general tone.
    “Trust a Yankee to show up in black on the hottest day of the year.”
    “It
is
September.”
    “So smart of her to keep her hair so long. I always did like that old-style way.”
    “Such a lovely day for a party!”
    “Did you see? Dolly must have been making these beaten biscuits for weeks. Her icebox must be just jam-packed with those things.”
    “Dolly. More likely Odessa.”
    “Her roses never seem to last through early September. I wonder how come mine always do.”
    “…  lovely day for a party.”
    “So brave of Dolly to invite these brand-new people.”
    “You have to admit, he’s real good-looking too.”
    This last was spoken in a slightly lowered voice as Harry approached the group.
    “Oh, how do you do, Mr. Baird. We were just standing here admiring your wife’s lovely dress.”
    “Well now, that’s right kind of you ladies. I’ll tell her what you-all said.” Harry smiled a new Southern smile, to go with his new accent, and moved along; an expert party guest, he was rarely still.
    “Are the Byrds really coming later on? I heard they had this terrible accident in Oklahoma.” Paying no further attention to Harry for the moment as local talk again predominated.
    “Look a there. Jimmy Hightower’s actually drinking iced tea.”
    “Kansas. Not Oklahoma.”
    “I just love that dress. I was so sorry when they went out of style.”
    “They ran over some little child. Was that it?”
    “Horrible!”
    “Black attracts heat. We all know that down here. It’s why in the tropics, English folk wear all that white.”
    “Well, you know Brett’s handwriting. ‘Indecipherable’is just the beginning. So God knows what they actually ran over.”
    “Yes, she does look a lot like Carole Lombard. Especially in that black dress.”
    “Wouldn’t you say more Ginger Rogers?”
    “Well, whatever they had the accident with, you can bet Russ will get a lot of new poems out of it.”
    “Oh, sometimes you’re downright mean. Ginger Rogers! So cheap!”
    “Speaking of beauties, have you all heard that Deirdre’s coming back to town?”
    “No! Deirdre Yates?”
    “Well, of course, what other Deirdre is there around these parts? With her little brother. The one her mother died in California giving birth to.”
    These Yates events were both too confusing and too terrible to contemplate for long, and so attention shifted back to the Bairds—for a moment.
    “How old is their little girl, these Bairds? Bads, whatever they call themselves.”
    “She’s around here somewhere. They brought her to meet the boys. And the Lees brought their little Betsy, I think.”
    “Too bad the Byrd kids are all still out of town. Melanctha. Now isn’t that some name?”
    “Trust Russ Byrd to name a child after some colored girl in a book.”
    “For all we know, Brett meant ran over a pig.”
    “Well, if they do show up later we’ll hear all about it.”
    “Harry darling, I’m not understanding a word that’s said to me.” Some private signals brought Cynthia and Harry to a small space beside a giant boxwood, where they could almost privately talk.
    “It’s okay, angel. You look beautiful.”
    “I don’t know, I’m not sure this black was the best