The Chamberses had held dinner for them, and they’d eatenoff fine china, with ancient silver, served by servants in aprons-in a huge dining room under the portrait of a man in a Confederate colonel’s uniform.
Afterward, they sat on rocking chairs on the veranda of the mansion while hordes of noisy insects battered themselves against a hanging light.
Ann’s mother announced there were some boys coming down from the university with Ann’s brother Charley tomorrow afternoon.
“And your cousin Eddie, Ann Jenny Chambers told her daughter. “He and his friend from the Navy will be here for the weekend.”
She went on to say that Ann’s older brother and his wife would also be coming up from Mobile. Sarah knew perfectly well what that meant. There would be two simultaneous parties at The Plantation. One for “the young people,” she, Charity, Ann, and the young men being imported for them by Charley Chambers, who was twenty-one and an Alabama senior. And a second party for everybody elseeverybody who’d be older and more interesting.
At half past ten, Sarah went to her room. It was furnished with antiques, another oil portrait of a Confederate officer, and a bed with a canopy.
It was so quiet that Sarah took a long time to go to sleep.
The next morning, an enormous breakfast was served in what they called the morning room. There were three kinds of eggs, and biscuits, and ham, and bacon, and sausage.
Afterward, the girls put on bathing suits. Ann and Charity wanted to take advantage of what they called real sun.
By noon, Sarah knew that she had had enough sun. She tanned too easily, even under the shade of an umbrella. So after lunch, when the girls went back to poolside, she went instead into the library and looked around until she found something with pictures: Hincker’s Illustrated Chronicle of the Army offorthern Virginia, an old, huge volume of etchings of the Civil War. She fell asleep with it on her lap.
She woke to the sound of an automobile horn tooting “Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits” and looked out the French windows to the drive in front of the house.
A shiny Buick convertible, with roof down and red leather upholstery, was pulling up. Two good-looking men were in it, wearing white uniforms that seemed very bright in the sunlight. And, she noticed, gold aviator’s wings were pinned to their breasts. The driver got out, reached into the backseat, and picked up a white uniforrn cap. Sun glinted off the insignia and gold strap. Then he walked around the front of the Buick and came up onto the veranda, moving with muscular grace. She was disappointed when he disappeared.
He was the best-looking young man she had ever seen. He must be Ann’s cousin, she thought, or Ann’s cousin’s friend.
Then the door to the library opened, and there he was.
“Hello,” he said. He smiled. He had beautiful teeth. “I’m Ed Bitter. Where is everybody?”
Sarah felt naked in her bathing suit. Naked, she thought, but not ashamed, even when she saw him looking at her legs and chest.
Ann’s mother appeared, then Robert and one of the maids.
“We were all upstairs, trying to bed down the army… or should I say, the Navy… we’re going to havel” Jenny Chambers said, giving Ed Bitter her cheek to kiss. She saw Sarah. “I see you’ve met Sarah. Sarah, this is Edwin Bitter, my sister’s son.”
“How do you do?” Ed Bitter said. The flicker of interest in his eyes died… she’d become only a friend of Ann’s-which is to say, a kid.
“Go out by the pool,” Jenny Chambers said, “and I’ll send some beer out, and I’ll sort out who’s going to sleep where. Sarah, take him out and introduce him to Charity, will you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sarah said, furious with herself for her polite, little girl’s response. She should have said something adult: “I’ll be happy to,” or “Certainly,” or something like that.
The other man in the car came in. He was taller, but not nearly so good-looking as Ann’s cousin.
“Welcome back, Dick,” Jenny Chambers said. “Follow Sarah to the pool. There’s beer.”