Free The Orange Blossom Special by Betsy Carter Page A

hug.
    â€œYou look beautiful,” he said.
    â€œThank you, honey,” said Victoria, nuzzling into his chest.
    â€œHow about we open up a bottle of nice Rosé and get an early start on the party?”
    Every Memorial Day, the Landys had a family barbecue. The tradition was that they’d each do some sort of performance. This year, they invited Dinah and Tessie because, as Ella put it, “Poor souls, to be alone on Memorial Day is a crying shame.” Victoria had little interest in meeting the girl’s mother. She could barely stand having the girl around.
    Still, on issues of what was right and wrong, Victoria was always on shaky ground. She had the self-awareness to recognize that about herself, and to yield to Charlie, Maynard—even Ella—all of whom she felt had a greater sensitivity toward other people than she did. So begrudgingly, she invited Tessie Lockhart to the barbecue.
    â€œIf the merry widow is half the jackass that her daughter is, this will be one zippydeedoodah Memorial Day,” she said to Maynard.
    â€œYou are so graceful with the English language,” he answered.
    Victoria never knew whether or not he was kidding.
    D INAH TRIED TO prepare her mother for her meeting with the Landys. “She’s a snob,” Dinah said. “For all the times I’ve been there, I don’t even think she knows my name.”
    Dinah didn’t say that Mrs. Landy made her embarrassed about being poor and not having a father. “The only thing she’s ever said to me was that she had this fancy beautician who knew everything about hair straightening.” And she surely didn’t mention that time in the bathtub.
    â€œWell that’s pretty awful,” said Tessie, who’d been agonizing about the invitation for the past week. She’d already figured out that, since the barbecue was called for seven, she could have a glass of wine at six in the privacy of her own home.
    â€œYou’re dreading this, aren’t you?” Dinah asked her on that afternoon.
    â€œI’ll be honest, I am a little. I mean these people don’t exactly sound like my cup of tea.”
    Dinah thought about how her mother hadn’t visited anybody since her father died, nor had anyone visited her.
    â€œMom, you haven’t had a cup of tea in four years,” said Dinah.
    â€œThat’s so, isn’t it?” said Tessie. “Well, I’ve had cups of other things.”
    T HE HOUSE WAS even grander and fancier than Tessie had imagined. “What am I supposed to say to all this?” she wondered as Ella took them through it to the backyard: “Nice place you have here?” She decided against saying anything and joined Maynard and Victoria in a semicircle of lounge chairs by the pool.
    Conversation got off to a desolate start. “So, how are you snowbirds enjoying Gainesville?” Maynard asked as Tessie sipped her Rosé and Victoria picked at her cuticles.
    â€œI have a wonderful new job,” she said. “Lithographics, the printing plant on old Butler Road.”
    â€œOf course,” said Maynard. “It’s the biggest one in central Florida.”
    â€œI’m the office manager,” said Tessie embellishing her position.
    â€œI know Senior and Junior,” said Maynard. “We’re in the Rotarians together. Devout Baptists, both of them. Can’t drink, can’t cuss, can’t gamble. Junior comes into the store every once in a while looking as guilty as an underage kid. ‘I just need one of those little bottles of Scotch,’ he’ll say. And each time, he reminds me, ‘Flora doesn’t have to know about this now, does she?’ Nice guy, but scared to death of his wife.”
    Tessie was buoyed by the knowledge of Glenn Jr. being a little henpecked. The thought emboldened her to remark on some of Lithographics’ clients, as though they’d all been friends for years.