Free One Hundred Years of Marriage by Louise Farmer Smith Page A

This was the last family in the world in which she would ever feel comfortable.
    “Are you two going back now or staying?” Mrs. Brady asked from the doorway. Alice sat there dumbfounded. How would her own mother have put that question? “I hope you’re not rushing way.” Or “Supper’s almost ready. It would be such a treat if you’d stay a little longer.”
    Behind his mother, Cecil dashed through the front hall with his hat on and a paper bag in his hand. Alice heard the front door slam.
    “It seems we’re leaving.” Alice stood up. Elinor came down the stairs and Estelle came out of the kitchen.
    “Looks like you ruined your shoes,” Elinor said. “Too bad the hired girl isn’t here today to clean them up.”
    “Oh, no, Daddy will do it.” She blushed. Was there no opportunity she’d pass up to embarrass herself? She measured the distance to the front steps and felt Cecil’s family closing in behind her as she walked into the late afternoon shadows. Cecil had started the car. She paused on the porch to make a proper farewell. “It was kind of you to have me, Mrs. Brady. The dinner was delicious.”
    “Glad you could come,” Mrs. Brady said, her arms hanging at her sides.
    Estelle, delicate and lovely, had come only as far as the threshold and stood framed by the brown doorway. “You’re going to be driving in the dark.”
    For over thirty miles neither of them said anything. Alice’s back ached from sitting up so straight. What was there to say? He’d misled her. At least, he’d certainly left out a lot and given her no warning at all about how cold his mother and sisters could be. No one mentioned her gift of the preserves with their water-colored labels. His family acted like she’d come empty handed. Kindness counted for nothing. Courtesy or generosity—all signs of weakness. Mother would be so disappointed.
    “The Gamma Phi Betas won’t rush you,” Cecil said finally. “Elinor told me. It’s completely out.”
    Her head snapped around. “Cecil! How did this come up? You said you didn’t care if I wasn’t in a sorority. I could never afford one anyway, and it’s humiliating that you even discussed it with your sister.”
    “Elinor says, for a future in society, a person should have this valuable connection. She said you have the clothes and manners, but she says you don’t know how to make the best of yourself.”
    “In what way is it that I do not make the best of myself?”
    “Everything. You never mentioned that you’re on the radio every week. Or that your grandmother went to college. You talked poor from the moment you walked in.”
    And you’ve talked big ever since I met you—all your father’s holdings. Saying that would have stopped him, but she didn’t say it aloud. Nor did she say, how can you, who talk with your mouth full at the table, say I do not present myself well? She stared through the dusk at the rolling tree-covered hills. In another hour they’d be back in the flat land.
    “Look, Alice!” He sounded truly irritated. “I didn’t want to take you out there. But you insisted. Now you’re giving me the silent treatment.”
    The silent treatment was surely a whole lot better than the ugly bickering she’d heard at his folks’ table. She’d be embarrassed to have her family see them. They had made her feel lonely, and she felt lonely now. The sun was going down, and she had so far to go with this angry man.
    “God damn it!” Cecil yelled. “You didn’t want this to go well. Every word out of your mouth—”
    She raised her hand to hush him. She could not allow them to sink to this—yelling and cussing. Her parents never raised their voices in anger.
    “You!” The word spurted out of his mouth. “You pass yourself off as too good for us. An artist who wouldn’t think of socializing with sorority girls.”
    “Cecil, I never said that. I’d love to be in a sorority.”
    “Estelle says you’re a phony.”
    “Estelle?” Alice wanted to