Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do: A Novel by Pearl Cleage

Author:Pearl Cleage [Cleage, Pearl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 0345456084
Google: wl-9aQ1HS3UC
Amazon: B001RLBWP8
Publisher: One World/Ballantine
Published: 2009-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

24

THE LIMO ARRIVED AT EIGHT on the nose, and Flora and I strolled out like we were used to traveling this way. Aretha wasn't coming over until later, so she stood in the blue doorway with Lu and ShaRonda, waving and issuing last-minute instructions on fashion and comportment.

“Don't forget to check your seams every once in a while.” That from Aretha, who had talked me into a pair of stockings with seams to set off my forties-style dress.

“I won't.”

“Don't forget to talk about something besides collard greens and compost.”

That from Lu, who was concerned about her mother's ability to make appropriate chitchat without her dad's guidance.

“I won't.”

ShaRonda, giggling and waving in jeans and an oversize T-shirt, looked eleven years old again. She didn't seem to have any advice, contenting herself with offering makeup suggestions that could all be summed up in one word: more. By the time we settled into the back of the black stretch that Blue had sent to fetch us, we had enough advice to last us.

Flora looked over at me as we pulled away from the curb, and we both burst out laughing. “You'd think we'd never gone to a party in our lives.”

“Well, it's been a while for me,” I said, “but I think it's like riding a bike.”

“Or sex!” she whispered, although this car was so big, the driver's seat looked about a block away behind a glass partition.

Flora leaned forward and opened the small refrigerator where a bottle of that French champagne with the flowers on it was already chilling. “I knew Blue wouldn't forget about us,” she said, draping a white linen napkin over the cork and twisting it out easily as I took two glasses from the tiny rack beside the fridge.

“Remember when we had to pretend we couldn't open champagne bottles without assistance?”

“When was that?”

“Before the women's movement.” She laughed and poured us each a glass of the bubbling, golden liquid. “In the bad old days.”

That made me smile. My mother was forever reminding me of the changes feminism had made in every corner of American women's lives. Whenever she would read one of those articles where some young, highly successful women say they're not feminists, it would make her crazy: “Who do they think made it possible for them to be sitting there behind that big desk, in that big job, acting like they got there by being smarter than every other woman in the world? They ought to read their history and bring their mamas breakfast in bed for a week just to say thank you!”

We raised our glasses.

“What shall we toast?” I said.

“Us,” she said grinning. “Let's toast us in our brandnew dresses!”

We clinked our glasses and sipped our champagne as the limo glided through the dark streets bearing us toward the party. Club Zebra was located on the site of a legendary Afro-Atlanta institution, the Lincoln Country Club. In its pre-integration heyday, it boasted several hundred dues-paying members, a nine-hole golf course, and a clubhouse where they hosted parties that were always the hottest ticket in town.

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