The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club (3 page)

I wedged myself between a white-haired man in a wool suit that looked far too hot for the tail end of summer and a woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat that knocked into the side of my head every time she turned hers. Rather than rip it off her, I leaned toward the man on my left, who ignored me entirely and stared out the window.

With a
thump
, the shuttle driver slammed the door, shutting the lot of us in, the air heavy with perfume and cologne, sweat and silence. I felt like I was headed to camp with a group of wealthy strangers all muttering a prayer that one day HPPC would adopt valet parking.

The trip was thankfully brief, and I trailed the pack from the van, through the church doors to the sanctuary where the service had already started, from the sound of things.

I tugged at the knit of my dress, wishing I’d worn a slip (did I even
own
a slip?), feeling oddly self-conscious as I lagged behind the others, hoping Mother wouldn’t be ticked that I was a few minutes behind schedule.

Like a bad omen, the lilting notes of “Amazing Grace” swelled over me as I stepped inside the nave, and I sucked in a deep breath, trying hard to ignore the lump in my throat. I hugged my purse to my chest and glanced around me, focusing on the task at hand and wondering how on earth I’d find Cissy in the endless sea of black shoulders that yawned before me. I tried to spot my mother’s blond head, but every crown not topped with white or gray was blond—or hidden by a hat—making my mission truly impossible. So many bodies packed the pews. Folks stood in the far aisles and against the back wall.

My daddy’s service had likewise filled the church to overflowing. Mother and I had been overwhelmed with flowers, cards, and charitable contributions from those whose lives he’d touched. It had seemed the whole world had mourned alongside us.

I pursed my lips, mulling over my own funeral someday; sure it would not be standing room only. There certainly wouldn’t be so many in attendance that they’d run out of parking spaces. Maybe dozens, if I were lucky.

I’d always told myself that it was better to have a handful of close friends than a million acquaintances, and I firmly believed it.

Still, a part of me envied Bebe Kent and my father, for having so many who missed them that the close-packed church had looked like a sold-out Yo-Yo Ma concert.

My eyes strayed to the gargantuan columns standing sentinel on either side of the spacious hall and to the rows of mourners endlessly flowing toward the pulpit. Floral arrangements abounded, surrounding a portrait of the late Mrs. Kent, raised on an easel. Beyond stood the full choir in dark robes with white V-necks. Climbing high above was tier after tier of pipes for the organ, looking very much like a ladder to heaven, if not a stairway.

I hung back, not sure of what to do. Perhaps, it wouldn’t be a bad idea just to stick to the rear, near the doors, in case I couldn’t get through the service and needed to excuse myself.

A young man approached, hands full of programs. An usher, I guessed, with a gold cross-shaped pin glinting on his dark lapel. I turned my palm up; but rather than slap a program into it, he sidled over to ask, “Are you Andrea Kendricks?”

I nodded, hoping my forehead wasn’t blinking
LAPSEDPRESBYTERIAN
in bright neon and he wasn’t the religion police, come to arrest me for missing too many Sundays to count.

“Come with me,” he said, though I merely saw his mouth move. The amplified voice of the choir and pump of the pipe organ filled my ears, drowning out all but the nervous thump of my heart.

The fellow took my arm, leading me forward, down the aisle where I’d once, long ago, imagined my daddy would walk me one day, when I was a bride.

So much for childhood dreams.

I had rarely been back in the church since Daddy’s funeral, and I was almost afraid that lightning would strike. But it didn’t.

I kept my gaze fixed ahead, at the portrait of Bebe, and, for an instant, I saw instead my father’s polished mahogany casket, blanketed with blood-red roses from my mother’s garden. I could almost smell the too-sweet scent of them, cutting off my breath, making me sick to my stomach.

The passing faces blurred in my peripheral vision. I feared for a moment that we might keep going, straight up to the pulpit, before the usher stopped at the third row from the front, handing me over to a woman dressed in subdued charcoalgray Chanel.

Cissy.

My mother reached for my hand and drew me into the pew, beside her. Even as I sat down, she didn’t let go. Merely hung on more tightly.

As the final strains of “Amazing Grace” rang out like the chime of a bell, resonating in the air and in my skull, I glanced into my mother’s eyes and saw her tears. Emotion bubbled inside me like Old Faithful, threatening to erupt.

Despite my best intentions, I began to weep.

For a woman I’d barely known.

For my daddy.

And for the irreparable hole in my heart that even time could never heal.

I
t was nearly eleven o’clock when the service ended, sad hymns sung, psalms read, and eulogies rendered.

My body sagged against the pew, drained in every sense.

It astounded me, the number of people who’d gotten up to gush about the generosity of Bebe Kent. No wonder the woman never had children with all the foundations she’d run and fundraisers she’d chaired. She wouldn’t have had time for them.

Which made me consider Cissy’s choice to bear a child—me—when she’d always been as devoted to philanthropy as her buddy Bea. As the story went, she’d had to leave in the middle of a thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner for the Leukemia Society at the Anatole in order to deliver. My birth, as I’d often been reminded, had lasted hour upon excruciating hour and had been unbearably painful, un-numbed by aspirin or an epidural.

I would never call Cissy a hands-off mother—because she’d always been a huge presence in my life—but she had needed help raising me due to her busy social agenda. She wouldn’t have been able to do all the things she did if Sandy Beck hadn’t been there to dress and feed me, take me to the pediatrician, or drop me off at school when my mother—or Daddy—couldn’t. Still, I knew I’d been lucky to grow up with married parents who had truly loved each other and who’d wrapped me tightly in their protective cocoon. I’d known too many kids who were the products of bitter divorces and extended stepfamilies that didn’t in any way resemble the saccharine Brady Bunch save for the sibling rivalry. (“
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!
How come
she
got a brand-new BMW Roadster when I’m stuck with Mummy’s old Jaguar XJS? You must love
her
better!”)

I glanced sideways at Mother, at her perfect profile, the gray pearls at her throat, not a hair out of place, and it amazed me to realize I had pieces of her inside me, genes that defined me as permanently hers (for better or for worse). At this stage of my life, I was only starting to recognize how much of myself came from her and my father: expressions I caught in the mirror, words that emerged from my mouth that sounded awfully familiar, quirks I swore I’d never inherit in a million years.

I might not be a carbon copy of either, but I couldn’t deny where I came from, despite my yen to be different.

I stared at Bebe’s portrait as the pews cleared, and I wondered if she’d missed out, despite all the good deeds she’d done through the years. It certainly had to be an incredible feeling to have your name on the side of a building, but bricks and mortar didn’t share your DNA.

Because, once you were gone, you were gone.

And wasn’t the point to leave behind more than a memory?

“You okay, sweetheart?” Cissy said and brushed a loose strand of hair from my face. “You look so sad.”

“We’re at a funeral,” I murmured. “Sad is part of the dress code.”

But she wasn’t buying it. “What is it, Andrea?”

I wasn’t about to tell her what I’d been thinking about, namely procreation, continuing the thread of life, passing on your bad habits to another generation. Babies was a subject I didn’t voluntarily broach with my mother, not with my thirty-first birthday looming so near, and her itching for me to tie the knot and bear her a grandchild while she was still spry enough to shop till she dropped and shower the kid with unnecessary things.

“I’m really missing Daddy today,” I admitted instead, because it was true, and a little “hic” caught in my throat.

She made a soft “hmm” sound and touched her forehead to mine, brushing noses.

“I miss him, too,” she said. “Today and every day.” She pressed a dry kiss to my cheek and passed over her handkerchief. “Now wipe your eyes and blow your nose, before we say our goodbyes.”

I did as she asked, feeling a little better after.

Mother laced her fingers with mine, holding onto my hand and tugging me along with her as she paid her respects to Bebe’s sole surviving relatives: two cousins from London who slipped Cissy their calling cards and admitted having to dash off to a lunch meeting with Bebe’s lawyers before catching an evening flight back to Heathrow.

Then Mummy Dearest was off to the races, working the narthex of the church like a thoroughbred, greeting friends with air kisses and shared condolences.

I saw more than a few familiar faces, girls I’d gone to school with, now grown women with husbands and children; soccer moms who carpooled in their fuel-inefficient Hummers, lunched at Café Pacific in Highland Park Village, and bronzed year-round at Palm Beach Tan. Not exactly my crowd, though Cissy made sure I politely addressed each, keeping me in line with an occasional well-placed elbow to the ribs. Part of her still dreamed I’d end up chums with them someday, pushing strollers around NorthPark Mall and doing car pool to Hockaday or St. Mark’s Academy.

Not that there was anything particularly
wrong
with either of those things—if that’s what floated one’s boat—but it’s not what I wanted. If I never had to worry about choosing silver patterns from Reed & Barton, I’d be perfectly content.

“Don’t ever burn your bridges, darlin’,” she whispered in my ear. “You never know when you’re gonna need to get over the water.”

“If that should ever come up, I’m counting on you to pull some strings so I can walk across,” I whispered back.

Mother gave me one of those “what am I going to do with you?” looks that felt strangely reassuring.

I needed no such encouragement to exchange warm hellos with a pal of mine, Janet Graham, society columnist for the
Park Cities Press
, the colorful rag that covered posh Highland Park and neighboring University Park, mostly boasting stories about the designer duds Mrs. Hoity-Toity wore at this gala or that, whose pedigreed daughter was marrying which pedigreed son, and other such vital tidbits.

“Would chat, but can’t,” Janet confessed, as she was on the clock for the paper and had to skedaddle. She had her bright orange-red hair trapped beneath a black cloche hat, and her olive-green pantsuit was vintage 1940s. It was almost shocking to see her looking so subdued, when she usually wore clothes bright enough to glow in the dark.

Janet also had on a pair of black-framed glasses—nearly identical to those Katie Couric sported during her more serious morning show interviews. Out of sheer quirkiness, Janet had adopted that particular affectation and donned hers when she wrote her more serious features. So I’d venture to guess her ode to Bebe would be far more solemn than her last column, “The ABCs of Dallas Society,” starting with “A is for Ashton Bradford, the most eligible bachelor in Big D!”

When there appeared to be no one left that Cissy and I hadn’t addressed, including the minister, the choir director, and the coat-check girl, we were finally able to pull an Elvis and leave the building.

Normally, I would have slipped out as soon as the fat lady warbled—or, in this case, a very thin, dark woman with a Met-worthy contralto—but I didn’t want to desert my mother until she was ready. Sitting beside her, passing back and forth her increasingly soggy linen kerchief, had been the closest to a bonding moment that we’d shared since Daddy had passed away. The child in me wanted to milk it for as long as it would last.

I was hoping for another five minutes.

As we descended the steps toward the sidewalk, a blast of a car horn drew my attention to the street.

The mass exodus of mourners had turned into a bottleneck on University Boulevard, horns honking as waiting limos held up traffic. I recognized the Bentley that had once belonged to my Paw Paw double-parked, smack in the midst of the congestion. Though I couldn’t see his face beyond the tinted glass, I knew Fredrik sat behind the wheel. He was Mother’s part-time driver, a young married man whose wife had a high-powered PR job in the city. He played Mr. Mom when he wasn’t hauling Cissy around on days when she didn’t feel like handling her champagne-hued Lexus or my father’s boat-sized, perfectly preserved Cadillac Brougham that rarely left the garage.

Cissy waved at Fred, giving him a finger—not
the
finger—and letting him know she’d be another minute.

“Well, I guess this is where I exit stage left,” I said and summoned a smile, squeezing her hand, proud of her for having made no cracks whatsoever about my unfashionable dress, lack of pantyhose, missing slip, or bad hair.

I was proud of myself, too, for surviving the long morning and all the memories it had dredged up, for lending my mother support when she’d needed it, and for avoiding any public arguments. It was definitely one for the books.

“I’m parked in the lot off Vassar,” I told her, as I untangled our fingers, though she seemed reluctant to let go. “I think I’ll grab a bite somewhere and then head home.”

I’d promised myself a stop at Bubba’s at Snider Plaza before I drove back to North Dallas. I had my mind set on slipping into one of their old-fashioned booths and clogging my arteries with their legendary fried chicken and mashed potatoes. I might’ve invited Cissy along, but I knew how much she liked getting her fingers greasy. (About as much as she liked watching NASCAR or shopping at the Dollar Tree. Ha!)

“I’m really sorry about Bebe.” I breathed the words against her hair as I leaned in for a hug, inhaling the cloud of Joy that always clung to her. Then I pulled away. “I’ll see you later, okay? You call if you need me.”