Free Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes by Cathy Holton Page B

bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs,” she said hesitantly.
    Lavonne was a little surprised. She hadn’t realized there was such a thriving community of Dixie Jews in Ithaca. “I need a caterer for next Saturday.”
    Mona’s face turned pink. She smiled and shook her head. “I’ve never cooked anything but kosher food for big groups,” she said. “I wouldn’t know how to cook anything else.”
    “Cook whatever you like,” Lavonne said quickly. She was afraid Mona would refuse and now that she’d stumbled on the idea, she didn’t want to give it up. “I’m sure it’ll all taste great. I’ll make a few things myself, maybe some crab and artichoke dip, cheese straws, things like that. Finger food.” Using Mona Shapiro was the perfect solution to the problem of the firm party, and Lavonne wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before. Her pulse stopped drumming in her head like the voice of doom. Her stomach settled down. The feeling of anxiety lifted, and for the first time in a long time she began to feel almost optimistic. “Could you do it? We’ll probably have about one hundred people.”
    “Well.” Mona thought about it a moment. She seemed to be warming to the idea. “I suppose I could.”
    “Do you know anyone who could help you serve?”
    “Usually I hire some of the girls from the temple to help me out, but Little Moses is coming in tomorrow. I can ask him and some of his friends. His record deal fell through so he and the boys are coming home to work and save some money and maybe move up to Atlanta to get something going. They could probably use the money. And my cousin Mordecai has a tux shop out at the mall. He could probably get the boys some uniforms to wear.”
    “Great. I can tell you right now my husband’s law firm will pay whatever price you decide is fair.”
    This seemed to make Mrs. Shapiro happy, which in turn made Lavonne happy. The only ones who would not be happy were Charles and Virginia Broadwell and, possibly, Leonard. Virginia had always used the same tired list of caterers every other hostess in Ithaca had used. By using Mona Shapiro, Lavonne was breaking with tradition and reminding Ithaca that she, an outsider, and a Yankee outsider at that, could do things her own way and not be bound by the same narrow-minded constraints that bound them. It wasn’t as good as telling Virginia Broadwell to fuck off, but it was close.
    “I’ll call you tomorrow with the details,” Lavonne said, looking down into Mona’s sweet, kindly face. Using Mrs. Shapiro was a small blow struck for social freedom, but it was a blow nevertheless. And it was a blow struck for something else, too, although Lavonne could not quite put her finger on what it was exactly. “We can do this, Mona, I know we can.”
    Mona grinned and tugged at her hairnet. “Well, all right then,” she said.
             
    C OMING HOME FROM the Shapiro Bakery, Lavonne thought she saw her mother standing in a queue at the bus stop. The experience left her light-headed and short of breath, again, and it was not until she was almost to the stop that she realized the woman, a small, stoop-shouldered black woman wearing a maid’s uniform, looked nothing like her mother. Lavonne blinked her eyes, wondering if she might be on the edge of psychosis, and drove on. The feeling of optimism she had carried with her since leaving the bakery began to dissipate and something else took its place, fluttering in her abdomen like a persistent moth. The feeling intensified as she pulled into the driveway and saw her husband’s car. She checked her watch and realized it was only two-thirty. She pulled slowly into the garage and turned off the engine, pondering this development. Leonard never came home early from the office. She and the girls were accustomed to eating dinner alone. She and the girls were accustomed to doing everything alone. Leonard was not a big part of their everyday lives and to find his car parked in the garage at