Apron Strings Read Online Free PDF Page A

netting, which came down just below her eyes. The netting and diamonds bobbed up and down like a swarm of flies whenever Miss James moved her head, something she did every time she spoke or took a drag off her cigarette. She was a tiny woman, not much bigger than me, in a gray suit with turquoise and orange bumps all over. Draped around her shoulders were three dead minks that looked like they were biting each other’s tails just as they were run over by a car.
    Helen was having a hard time maintaining her precious smile with the cigarette waving around her head, cutting invisible lines through the cloud of perfume. Smoke hung around my sister’s head like words in a cartoon. “I just think this shopping center idea that Joe has is so exciting,” Miss James was saying. “I hear they are the rage in Connecticut. My great-niece says that everybody in New Canaan shops in shopping centers now. It is just so
exciting
.”
    Helen pulled on my mother’s dress and looked up at her, pleading without a word. “Excuse me, Emily,” my mother said. “Helen, honey, would you mind passing the sandwiches?” My mother smiled at Helenas she guided her toward the tea table. “That’s a good girl. Emily, could I get you some more sherry?” she asked as she refilled her own glass.
    While Gordy and Helen followed the script, I straightened, clawed, squirmed, and straightened again, attempting to relieve the misery of my dress. The ladies jabbered away. Gordy nodded like a slinky toy going down a staircase as Miss Eades talked about her godson. I knew she was talking about her godson because that was all Miss Eades ever talked about. Ethel said Miss Eades was “stout.” I thought she was just plain fat. She wore the same kind of stockings Ethel did: the ones that roll up just under the knee. You could see the rolls when she sat down and her dress hiked up. Miss Eades didn’t just spill out of everything she wore; she spilled
on
everything she wore, too. Stuart swore she once saw a whole cucumber sandwich stuck in Miss Eades’s pearl necklace. The pink frilly dress she was wearing showed food stains when she walked in the door. Her purse looked like it might have been a better size for Helen. The tiny little thing was stuck on her wrist like a rubber band and swung about as she sucked from her teacup. I watched as she stuffed a sandwich in her mouth and blew crumbs on Gordy’s shirt. He looked mournfully over at me. I started to laugh, which made my dress start to itch again.
    I should have already been mingling. When my mother asked her usual question—”Have you spoken to everyone?”—I would need an affirmative answer before there was any hope of being dismissed; squirmy or not. In the throes of what must have looked like a mild fit, I had failed to pay attention to my surroundings. Mrs. Mason’s approach startled me. I swallowed and tried to remember the crucial steps of the “first greeting” my mother had drilled into each of us:
look them in the eye, remember their names, smile and be pleasant, and above all—no dead fish handshakes!
    “Why, Sallee, you are getting prettier and prettier, turning into quite the little lady,” Mrs. Mason said, sitting down next to me before I could jump up and shake her hand. She reached over and patted my knee. I didn’t know if I should stand up and shake her hand or remain seated and smile.
    “Thanks…I mean thank you, Miz Mason,” I said, caught in an awkward crouch. I limply reached out my hand to shake hers. She took myhand in both of hers; an action decidedly absent from the script my mother had drilled. Her charm bracelet jingled. My eyes grew wide with admiration. “Oh, can I…I mean, may I…look at your charms? I love charm bracelets. I can’t wait to be big enough to have one,” I gushed. It wasn’t so terribly difficult to greet someone, especially someone like Mrs. Mason. But my mother insisted it must be done properly, and there were so many rules that only she