Free Great by Sara Benincasa Page B

hated Lilly Pulitzer with an all-consuming passion.
    â€œWatch your mouth,” she said, and for a moment her Chicago accent came out. Then she pulled out a dress and showed it to me.
    I had to admit, it was actually nice. Marc Jacobs does good stuff that isn’t too flashy and embarrassing but still manages to be pretty. My mother had selected a color-blocked twill sheath dress that was dark blue on top and green from the waist down. It had an empire waist, which looks fine on me because I’ve got no curves to speak of. The straight up-and-down thing suits me just perfectly.
    â€œHow much was it?” I asked suspiciously.
    â€œYou are your father’s daughter,” she said with a sigh, rolling her eyes. “Four hundred.”
    â€œFor that ?” I was incredulous. “I mean, it’s pretty, but it’s so simple. It probably cost seventy-five cents to make. And the three-year-old in Indonesia who sewed it probably made, like, a nickel.”
    â€œIt’s perfect,” my mother said. “And you’re going to wear it.”
    Of course, then I wanted to wear literally anything but the dress. My mother’s tone made me feel for a moment I’d actually prefer wrapping myself in toilet paper and sashaying across the lawn. But the truth was that I looked good in it. For the first time in years, I let her brush my hair. She pulled it into a simple low ponytail and wrapped a piece of hair around the elastic band to hide it, then curled the tail with one of her eighteen thousand beauty appliances. She would’ve put makeup on me herself, but I howled in protest when she pulled out the medieval-looking eyelash-curling contraption. I just used some of her Guerlain mascara and put on a little lip gloss. She insisted I borrow a pair of simple pearl earrings and a strand of pearls. I drew the line at heels, so she gave me a pair of dark blue Ferragamo jelly flats with a peep toe. I watched her try unsuccessfully to hide her horror at my lack of a pedicure, but I guess she figured she’d won the sartorial battle and didn’t need to push her luck by demanding I paint my toenails.
    We both looked at my reflection in the full-length mirror inside her enormous walk-in closet. For the first time since I got those highlights back when I was twelve, I saw my mother’s eyes light up with pride.
    â€œSee,” she said triumphantly. “You really can be a pretty girl when you try.”
    â€œUm,” I said. “Thanks.” It was as close to a genuine compliment as I was going to get from her.
    I waited in the kitchen and watched through the window as the first hour of the party unfolded. Thankfully, my mother was holed up in her home office on a conference call with her lawyer about something or other and didn’t nag me about arriving on time. Everybody knows you don’t get to a party right when the invitation says it starts. You run the risk of being the first person there, with no one to talk to, which is even worse than getting there when all the other people have gathered. Then at least you might have the chance to strike up a conversation with someone you know.
    Of course, it occurred to me that I might not know anyone at this party. I tried my best to make out the people parking in Jacinta’s long driveway and along our street, and I thought I saw some of the regulars from the clambakes at Baxley’s. I grabbed my mother’s binoculars (she claims to be a birdwatcher, but I think she just spies on people across the pond) and peered through them.
    There were the Fitzwilliams sisters, Audrey and Katharine, who were notable for being Kennedy cousins and for getting drunk at every clambake or garden party I’d ever seen them at. Their parents never seemed to notice or care, which is probably why they kept drinking. They had each paired off with a Stetler brother, neither of whose first names I could recall, and they all made a beeline for the