Stranger at the Door. Laura Abbot
mother’s postwar efforts were directed toward transforming her gangly adolescent daughter into a lady. Not just any lady, mind you, but a genteel Southern lady. Posture: “Isabel Irene Ashmore, stand up straight.” Etiquette: “I didn’t hear you say ma’am.” Table manners: “My dear, a lady never talks with her mouth full.”
I dreaded most her advice concerning boys, whom she referred to as beaux. “Flirt, Isabel. Bat those pretty brown eyes.” I had little interest in the pimply-faced males in my class at Springbranch Elementary School. The idea of flirting with them was humiliating.
Mother meant well, but I always believed I fell short of her expectations. Even though she is long dead, I don’t remember ever experiencing unconditional love from her. Maybe she had to be the way she was. Daddy was lost in his books and Grandmama filled my head with fairy tales. Somebody had to take me in hand.
Throughout my girlhood, I did my best to please her. Every Sunday I wore a hat and gloves to St. John’s Episcopal Church. I didn’t use slang expressions, and I always changed out of my school dress before going outside to play. I even practiced the piano the requisite half hour a day.
Not surprisingly, I liked school—the wooden desks lined up in neat rows, the dulcet tones of teachers’ voices, the sense of accomplishment in winning a spelling bee. I tried very hard to be what others referred to as “a good girl.”
In sixth grade Twink came into my life. School started right after Labor Day and standing just inside Miss Vinnie’s classroom was a strange girl, covered with freckles and sporting a wild mop of carrot-colored curls. Never had I seen such green eyes. She was a leprechaun come to life, and I loved her from that first moment.
“Hi.” She took a step forward. “This is my first day.”
“I know,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Twink Montgomery.”
“Twink?”
She scowled, daring me to laugh. “Aurelia Mae Starr Montgomery. How would you like it if people called you Aurelia Mae?” She strung out each syllable in challenge.
“I wouldn’t, I guess.” In fact, I wasn’t crazy about my mother calling me Isabel Irene. From that first meeting with Twink, I longed for a nickname. “I’m Isabel Ashmore.”
“Isabel.” She rolled the name around on her tongue. “That’s not as bad as Aurelia. Close, though.”
We burst into a fit of giggles, the first of many.
When I told Mother about my new friend, she was horrified. “Twink? What kind of name is that? What are her people thinking? Why, why—” she sputtered “—it’s almost as bad as someone referring to you as Izzy!”
Izzy. Now there was a nickname! From the beginning, I liked it, but I knew Mother would swoon if she ever heard anybody call me that. Twink often used it when we were alone, but was careful not to slip in front of Mother.
Something weird happened the next year. Boys started paying attention to Twink and me. Not in a smooth-talking, Tab Hunter manner, but awkwardly, fumblingly.
Then, over the summer, to my horror, my breasts started budding. Mother and Grandmama simpered about how wonderful it was that I was “developing.” I hated that word. It conjured images of being sent, like a roll of film, to the Kodak camera shop for some mysterious metamorphosis.
Those times seem pretty tame now. As a naive thirteen-year-old I had never heard of condoms, wet dreams or oral sex. My goodness, finding out about menstruation had about done me in.
Oh, I started to write about Twink and me. She was still straight as a stick, but didn’t have any qualms when it came to talking to boys, whereas I became virtually tongue-tied.
This brings me to the Springbranch Cotillion—a tradition as established as sweetened ice tea. Held in the parish hall of the Episcopal church and sponsored by the Springbranch Women’s Club, the Cotillion was a series of ballroom dancing classes for eighth graders from the “best” families.
Every other Tuesday evening, dressed in our taffeta dresses and black ballet slippers, we girls were dropped off at the church where we suffered under the tutelage of Mrs. Collins Wentworth, self-proclaimed grande dame of local society.
Our very first night, Twink sailed toward the boys, dragging me reluctantly in her wake. Dressed in ill-fitting suits, shirts and even bow ties, they looked nothing like they did at school. When the boys averted their eyes and shuffled their feet, I realized they were no more enthusiastic than I was about the upcoming ordeal.
Mrs. Wentworth, clapping her hands over her head, sashayed to the center of the floor. “Please number off for partners.” My eleven was matched by Laidslaw Grosbeak’s. Yes, that was actually his name, and it suited him, because his thin, sallow face was overwhelmed by a long, aquiline nose. I towered over him. In memory, I can still smell the combination of his Juicy Fruit gum and Brylcreem hair tonic.
Twink shot a triumphant smile over Jimmy Comstock’s back. With the luck of the Irish, she had snagged the man of our dreams. After the briefest instruction, they were actually waltzing, while Laidslaw and I were still stumping in one place, eyes fixed on our uncooperative feet.
The Grand March mercifully brought an end to the evening. Two by two and then four by four, we circled the room and then were dismissed into the humid Louisiana night.
“How was the dance?” Grandmama asked later, her eyes sparkling in giddy anticipation. I stood in the living room doorway, mute with embarrassment.
Mother looked up from her darning. “I’m sure she enjoyed it, Mama.” She turned to me. “Didn’t you, Isabel?”
“It was all right.” I started toward my bedroom, eager to strip off the scratchy dress and remove the glittery rhinestone barrettes from my hair.
“Tell us more. Who did you dance with?” Hearing my grandmother’s plaintive tone, I knew a debriefing was unavoidable. Surrendering, I sat beside her and did my inventive best to paint a glowing picture of the debacle.
When I finished, Mother, a triumphant gleam in her eye, said, “See, Mama, I told you Isabel would do us proud.”
That night as I lay in my bed watching the moon rise over the treetops and feeling the restless breeze cool my body, I had the strongest premonition that something important was expected of me. Something involving boys.
Shortly before I closed my eyes, a shaft of moonlight settled on the billiken sitting on my curio shelf. For the fraction of a second, he seemed to wink at me.
EVEN THOUGH TWINK’S parents had bought an antebellum Southern mansion and drove the latest model cars, they were carpetbaggers in Springbranchian eyes. Mr. Montgomery had made his money in stocks, a specious enterprise in our part of the agricultural South. Mrs. Montgomery, called “Honey,” defied convention by hosting cocktail brunches on Sunday and driving to Shreveport to have her hair done.
I reveled in the sense of the forbidden whenever I was in their home, where full liquor decanters and a silver cigarette box sat on a table right in the living room. If my mother had known, she might have forbidden me to be friends with Twink.
Best of all was the gazebo at the back of the Montgomerys’ deep yard. Shaded from view by hundred-year-old oaks, it was our secret hideaway. One hot July afternoon following our eighth grade year, we took lemonades and a Monopoly set out there. But before we set up the board, Twink looked around, making sure she wasn’t being observed, and then pulled a soft-covered book from beneath her sleeveless camp shirt. “Want to see what I found?” In her expression excitement mingled with disgust.
Prickles traveled down my spine. “What?” I pulled my legs under me and waited.
“This was in my mother’s dresser drawer, way in the back underneath her nightgowns.” As if it were a hot potato, she handed me the slim volume.
I had intended to ask why she’d been snooping in her