My mother seemed more comfortable with the fiction. There were no “family dinners” in Montague Village either; she seemed neither affronted nor surprised when the occasion shaped up into a de facto interview.
“Now, Bonnie,” Mrs. Haltom said. “Remind me where you came from.”
“South Carolina,” my mother said. “Greer. It’s a little town just outside of Greenville.”
“I’ve heard Greenville’s lovely,” Mrs. Haltom said. “What made you leave?”
“After Charlie’s father died, I thought it might be good for us to have a fresh start,” my mother said.
“So far from your family?”
“I have a cousin here.”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Haltom said. “The singer.”
My mother offered no further explanation beyond a polite nod.
“You and Ellen Creigh have become quite close,” Mrs. Haltom said.
“She’s been very kind,” my mother said.
“How do you like working for Kenton Tate?”
“Mrs. Tate is wonderful,” my mother said. “Just lovely.”
“She adores you,” Mrs. Haltom said. “She told me you’ve come along so quickly. Isn’t that right, Jim?”
Mr. Haltom lifted his head. “Yes,” he said. “Very quickly.”
Vanessa touched my arm. “Will you help me clear the plates?”
I all but leapt from my chair.
In the kitchen, we found Shirley putting away the last of the pots and pans, two hours after the end of her normal shift. When she saw us come in with the plates, she sighed and reached for her apron.
“Please don’t, Shirley,” Vanessa said. “We’ll take care of it.”
Shirley ignored her, strapping on her apron and stepping up to the sink with a curt efficiency.
“I’m so sorry, Shirley,” Vanessa said, her voice weary with shame. “Can I give you a ride to the bus stop?”
“No, thank you, honey,” Shirley said. “Y’all just get back in there. Don’t leave that poor girl alone for too long.”
By the time we got back to the dining room, however, they were already up from the table—all but Jamie, who sat waiting for us, looking both bemused and annoyed.
“Where’d they go?” Vanessa asked.
“They’re giving Charlie’s mom a tour of the carriage house,” he said. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“Let’s go find them,” Vanessa said.
In the carriage house, Mrs. Haltom was explaining all of the work that had gone into the recent remodel. She described each phase of the project as if she’d done the job herself.
“The original floors weren’t at all what I asked for,” she said. “So I had them ripped up and replaced.”
“I’m sure these are much nicer,” my mother said.
“For twenty-six thousand dollars, they ought to be,” Mrs. Haltom replied. “Right, Jim?”
“Mm-hmm,” Mr. Haltom said.
“There are two bedrooms in the back,” Mrs. Haltom said. “Would you like to see?”
We followed her down the hallway. The master bedroom had a queen bed and a wall full of windows facing out on to the rose garden and a big private bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a shower. The second bedroom was smaller, with a double bed and a single window facing the boxwood grove in the backyard, but it had its own half bath and a desk and an empty bookshelf and a chest of drawers.
Mrs. Haltom turned toward me.
“How would you like to live in a place like this?”
“It’d be great, I guess,” I said.
“Quite an upgrade from where you are now, right, Bonnie?”
“Nancy,” Mr. Haltom said, “please.”
“I don’t understand,” my mother said. She gave Mr. Haltom a winsome glance, which seemed to plead for some gesture of mannerly intervention.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Haltom said. “Did you think I meant to insult you? On the contrary. We have a proposition for you. For you both, as a matter of fact.”
“Jesus, Mom,” Jamie said. “Would you spit it out already?”
“Jamie,” Mr. Haltom said.
“As you probably know,” Mrs. Haltom said, “it’s going to be a very busy year for me. I’m chairing three different galas in addition to my normal slate of obligations. To make matters worse, the girl I’ve had for five years has decided to go and get pregnant, and I’m going to need someone more than three days a week given all of the big things that are coming.”
“It sounds like you’ll be very busy,” my mother said.
“The long and short of it is this,” Mrs. Haltom said. “I need a new assistant, and I’d like it to be you. I know you’re working by the hour for Kenton Tate, but I’ll need much more of your time, and it will be fairly flexible. So I’d like to put you on salary—say, thirty thousand, plus we’ll take care of whatever you owe Yeatman after financial aid. And I’d need you closer than East Nashville. So we’d like the two of you to live here.”
Mrs. Haltom swung her hand back in a long, circular wave around the room.
“I don’t know what to say,” my mother murmured.
“Say yes,” Mrs. Haltom said.
“But Mrs. Tate,” my mother started.
“I’ve already spoken to her. I’ll loan you out when she needs you until she can find a new girl of her own. She doesn’t really need you, you know. She just likes the company. Same for your deal at Serenity. That was just a favor to Ellen. They’ll get on fine without you.”
“So you would want me to start right away?” my mother asked.
“You can move in tomorrow if you like.”
My mother bowed her head. Her cheeks had turned crimson. Mr. Haltom and Vanessa seemed even more embarrassed.
I should have felt ashamed, or affronted, but I was giddy. I didn’t give much thought to the reasoning behind the invitation. If anything, I assumed it was just another case of competition between Belle Meade grande dames. All Mrs. Haltom wanted, after all, was to be Mrs. Creigh—to be revered as an icon of genteel grace and largesse. I had no real consciousness of humility, or humiliation—of that sort, anyway.
Even if she knew what she was in for with Mrs. Haltom, my mother couldn’t refuse. She’d never even graduated from high school; it would have taken her years to get anywhere close to what Mrs. Haltom was offering her overnight. And Mrs. Haltom knew, by making the offer in front of me, that if my mother refused or demurred, she’d have to justify turning down a chance to get us both out of Montague Village, where the sound of gunfire and breaking bottles drifted through the walls at night and the few people who had ever greeted me with kindness now looked on me with a resentment bordering on hatred.
My mother had to take the job, but not just for me. Ever since she’d brought me to Yeatman, I could sense her longing for the kind of life she’d given up. She saw women her own age who had never been forced to work to survive, whose hardest choice seemed to be whether to spend spring break on a private Gulf Coast beach or on the slopes in Vail, whose biggest worry seemed to be whether their sons would get into Vanderbilt. By living in the Haltoms’ carriage house and working for Mrs. Haltom, my mother knew she would not be equal to any of those women, but she’d at least enjoy some proximity to their privilege.