Free Blessings by Belva Plain Page A

shoulders and another one at the hem. The short puffed sleeves were laced with ribbons and bows. It was a little girl’s party dress, just barely passable for a girl of fourteen. On Jennie it was ridiculous. Dismayed, she regarded herself in the full-length mirror.
    “A charming dress,” said Mrs. Mendes. “We had it made for Sally June’s birthday. But she’s been gaining weight.” She wagged a finger at her daughter. “It fits you perfectly, though,” she said to Jennie. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
    “Very,” Jennie said, and thought, Mom would laugh her head off if she could see me in this.
    “Your bra straps show, but you can pin them back. And shoes. What size do you wear?”
    “Seven and a half.” What will she bring out, Mary Janes?
    “Oh, dear, Sally June wears six.” The shoes, white kid slippers with low curved heels, were acceptable, except that they were a size and a half too small and set up an instantaneous shock of pain.
    “Do they hurt?” asked Mrs. Mendes.
    “Yes, some. Yes, they do.”
    “Well, my feet are even smaller, so I guess you’ll just have to manage.” At the door she remembered something else. “I have a bag I can lend you. Fortunately it’s unseasonably warm, so you won’t need a wrap.”
    Jennie, emerging from under the ruffle, caught sight of the girls lying on the twin beds and silently giggling. Sally June’s eyes slid away as soon as she met Jennie’s. Strange that the same beautiful eyes, which were so kind and mild in her brother’s face, could be so cold and mocking in hers!
    She put her suit back on and folded the dress over her arm. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry to have bothered you with this.”
    “I don’t mind at all,” Sally June told her.
    They despise me. I don’t look queer, I have manners as good as theirs, and a hell of a lot more heart, Jennie thought. But they despise me all the same.
    The cousin’s home out in the country had ample land around it, fields, and a brook with a bridge, but the house was very like the Mendeses’, even to the portrait of the same ancestor over the mantel.
    Mrs. Mendes, standing next to Jennie, whispered, “You recognize the portrait? He’s their great-grandfather, too, but this is a copy. Ours is the original. Somebody allowed them to have a copy made, which I thought a mistake. However …” She shrugged and moved on.
    Jennie, barely hobbling on her tortured foot, was on her way to the powder room. They were three hours into the party; if her feet hadn’t pained so much and she hadn’t felt so conspicuous in the foolish dress, she would have enjoyed the spectacle. To her it was just that: a spectacle. The enormous house, the servants, the lanterns on the terrace, the flowers in stone jardinieres, the orchestra, the girls in their beautiful dresses were all theater.
    For someone who hated these affairs, Peter was having a surprisingly good time. He had introduced her all around and danced with her so often that she had told him he must pay attention to someone else, certainly to the cousin whose birthday was being celebrated. She had had many partners herself, neat young men with neat faces and neat haircuts, very different from the men she knew at home. Their conversation was different, too, mostly courteous banality. Over their shoulders, as she whirled and turned, she kept glimpsing Peter’s laughter and high spirits. But why not? These were his people, and he hadn’t seen them since Christmas. So she kept whirling and turning until her feet could tolerate no more and she had to excuse herself.
    The powder room was really a little sitting room with mirrors, a couch, and two soft chairs. In one of the chairs an elderly woman sat reading a magazine. Jennie took the shoes off and groaned, rubbing her feet.
    “Your heel’s blistered,” the woman observed. “It’s bleeding.”
    “Oh, God. Blood on Sally June’s shoe. That’s all I need.”
    “You seem pretty miserable.”
    “I am. To