A Peach of a Pair by Kim Boykin

Author:Kim Boykin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

17

EMILY

The late morning sun broke through the billowy clouds in all its glory, and it had never been more beautiful. Emily picked out her best dress, the powder-puff pink linen shift that matched her shoes and hung it on the back of the chifforobe. She sat down at her dressing table, feeling more like the age she felt inside, forty if a day, rather than her actual seventy-one years, and not just because she was quite well preserved.

She used her finger to dab the Pan-Cake Make-Up on, that new Max Factor Hollywood brand she bought at the drugstore the other day. Blending and filling in the lines until she looked almost as ravishing as Evelyn Keyes, that actress on the advertisement that promised to create flattering new beauty . . . in just a few seconds. Lord, it was an actual wonder. Emily looked fantastic and she hadn’t even applied the new rouge and matching lipstick.

Emily smiled at her reflection, happy digging in her heels and bringing the clock to a screeching halt had actually worked. She might not be able to turn back the clock to when Lurleen was young and working out in her garden like a man, but with her healed, she’d have a few more good years left for sure. After all, barring tragedy, which the Eldridges were only too familiar with, they were long livers. And surely, after the heartache Emily and Lurleen’s generation had suffered, the Fates would smile on them. Or maybe good fortune skipped a generation like twins skipped a generation. Regardless, there would be no more Eldridges to carry on, unless Teddy had lived. And Emily had given up on that a long time ago.

The loss still made her well up, and when she dabbed her tears away, she noticed a wrinkle she’d missed; it was on the side she normally slept on. She spackled the thick makeup into the crease and made a note to sleep on her back from here on. Dusting herself with a generous amount of Evening in Paris powder, she stepped into her nylon slip and pulled it up over her brassiere before shimmying into her dress. Looking at herself in the cheval mirror, she realized the outfit cried out for her mother’s pearls, which were a bit much just to go to the bus station.

Pocketbook on arm and carrying her shoes, she started down the stairs in her stocking feet, carefully navigating the staircase that normally made her knees weep, her hips ache, but not today. At the bottom of the stairs, she slipped into her shoes just as the girl was coming out of Lurleen’s room.

“I’m going to the bus station to buy our tickets for the trip and will be back shortly,” Emily announced. The girl nodded. “I’m buying your ticket as well; you’re lucky I’m not taking it out of your stipend. If I thought Sister wouldn’t pitch a fit, I would.”

“Thank you,” she said evenly.

Emily put her short, white gloves on and started out the door, down the front steps, headed toward DeKalb Street.

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