The Baltimore Book of the Dead by Marion Winik

Author:Marion Winik
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2018-08-11T16:00:00+00:00

The Belle of the Ball

died 2012

IN BETWEEN MY FIRST marriage and my second, a big green-eyed food writer with wavy hair and a mustache caught my eye. One day I was discussing the pros and cons of this guy with my good friend when her mother, an exquisitely preserved woman of seventy-some with sparkling eyes to match her sparkling jewelry, spoke up. That’s a good-lookin’ man, she said in her deep Texas drawl. If you don’t want him, I’ll take him.

As a girl who loved to dance, my friend’s mother had in her youth dated some fine young fellows; what she loved most was to drive into Austin or San Antonio to see Duke Ellington or Count Basie. I was wild, she later conceded, but I had high standards. It was interesting when, at twenty-one, she returned from business college to marry the man who later became my friend’s daddy. This was a man who didn’t dance at all, and didn’t exactly have a profession, either. Since her mother was about to take over the town credit union, the money thing wasn’t an issue, but how did The Belle of the Ball marry a man who didn’t dance?

My friend got an inkling when in her early adolescence, she was given the sex talk by her daddy, who had been put in charge of most of the upbringing while her mother was at work. When he explained the situation to her, she said, That sounds like it hurts. He said, Oh yeah, at first. After that, you’ll be chasin’ him around the room to get your hands on him.

These days, my friend and I love to raise a glass to our mothers, both of whom loved to raise a glass. We discuss their fashion convictions: her mother’s went right down to the skin. If she wore a pink dress, you could be certain she was also wearing a pink bra, pink slip, and pink panties. She had a drawerful of filmy nightgowns to sleep in and even in her nineties would not put on a pair of pajamas without a little lace on them. Neither my friend nor I ever dressed properly, and we were often told as much by our mothers. Yet we both know how it feels to have a very particular woman with whom you didn’t always see eye to eye admire how you turned out and what you’ve accomplished. It’s pink silk lingerie for your soul.

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