Free Georgia Bottoms by Mark Childress

“We have a couple more in the garage.”
    “One is plenty,” said Georgia. “I hope you know you’re saving my life! I didn’t even know my card table had a bad leg till I went to set it up this morning. Talk about the eleventh hour! Hey, and this is a nice one, too. Much nicer than mine, I think Mama ordered it from Sears a hundred years ago. You better remember to ask for this one back, or I’m liable to keep it. Where’d you get it?”
    “Let me think.” Emma Day looked pleased to be asked. “I think the Tar-jay.”
    “The what?” Georgia said.
    “The Tar-jay? You know, Target. In Mobile. Everybody calls it Tar-jay like in French. Cause it’s like a fancy Walmart.”
    “I never even heard of it,” Georgia confessed. She prided herself on keeping up with the latest trends in retail, even if she did live in a hick town that didn’t have any better store than a half-sized Belk’s.
    “Oh my God, Georgia, in that case we’ve got to go! They have the greatest stuff. It feels more expensive than Walmart, but really it isn’t.” Emma Day seemed excited by the notion of the two of them going off on a shopping trip. She’d sounded thrilled on the phone when Georgia asked for the loan of a card table for her famous September luncheon.
    Georgia and Emma Day were friendly enough, but they didn’t socialize. Emma Day had more money; Georgia was more popular; on looks, Georgia probably would win. Georgia had to inviteEmma Day to the luncheon because she was best friends with Trisha, Krystal’s first cousin, who couldn’t
not
be invited.
    “This coffee is delicious,” Georgia said. It was some kind of milky cappuccino, a sprinkling of cinnamon on the foam.
    “Isn’t it good? Oh my God, Georgia, I never thought an expresso machine could change my life, but it absolutely has. Do you have one? You have to get one. It keeps me so wired I get twice as much done! Some nights I used to find myself pining for a double expresso after dinner… Now I just go in and make one! I can get the whole house clean before bedtime!”
    Emma Day would make a great spokesmodel, Georgia thought.
    On a pedestal in the corner of the Florida room stood a sculpture of a fawn, a rough-hewn bronze Bambi grazing in the bronze grass at its feet. To Georgia it looked tacky. But she didn’t know the first thing about art. Anything that came with its own pedestal and spotlights must have cost a fortune.
    She wondered where Floyd Pettigrew got the money. His job with the highway department didn’t pay enough to buy bronzes of fawns, or fancy white wicker furniture, or his-and-hers Infinitis. If there was family money it must have come from Floyd’s side. Emma Day was a Windham from right here in Six Points. Nothing wrong with the Windhams but they never had any more money than anybody.
    “If I drank coffee I’d never get to sleep,” Georgia said.
    “I drink it all day and never have a problem,” said Emma Day. “I guess if you’re an addict like I am… I give myself a workout in the yard, with my roses and all. I really am kind of obsessed.”
    “I work out sometimes too,” Georgia said, picturing herself snuggling onto Eugene’s lap. “But it doesn’t help me sleep. Sometimes it gets me all worked up, you know? The opposite effect.”
    Emma Day laughed. Once you got past the cotton-candy hair, Emma Day was all right. Georgia had wondered if her hairstyle was ironic, the way some modern girls favor old-fashioned cat-eye glasses, or corny decoupaged purses shaped like steamer trunks. One look at the bronze Bambi and Georgia knew Emma Day did not have an ironic bone in her body. She should have guessed, from the two perfect children who sat between Emma Day and Floyd every Sunday, the only kids in church who actually seemed to listen to the sermon.
    “You really do have the most beautiful flowers, Emma Day. How do you keep ’em looking so good?” To Georgia there was no more boring subject on earth. Who cares what grows in