Georgia Bottoms by Mark Childress Page A

year? Men have way too much regard for themselves. They start thinking you belong to them, you are their property, you should be ready to entertain them whenever they get a whim to be entertained.
    Some girls might conduct their affairs that way. Not this girl.
    “No chance, Lonnie, sorry!” She kept her voice light. “I’ve got a to-do list as long as your arm. Just talking to you now is making me late.”
    Here came Little Mama down the hall. Lately her forgetting seemed to be worse in the morning. This morning what she had forgotten was her bathrobe. Here she came out of her room in a saggy old bra and big white underpants riding up around her waist. Georgia started to scold her… averted her eyes instead. Little Mama scuttled to the bathroom and slammed the door.
    Lonnie kept talking: “Come on, now, babe, you don’t know how bad I been—uhm… Yes, okay.” His voice straightened out. “Well, of course, with those debentures coming due, I’ll have to notify the bank’s attorney and then we can authorize the release of those funds. Let me call him, and I’ll call you back.”
    Thank God for whichever teller had come in early. “Okay, Lonnie,” said Georgia, “you just do that, you little sweetie. Call me tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about the luncheon.”
    The bathroom door swung open, giving Georgia a panoramic view of her mother on the toilet, baggy panties at her ankles.
    That door was out of plumb, like every damn door in this house. You had to pull up on the knob to make it catch.
    Squinting to blur the view, Georgia chucked the phone onto its cradle and sprinted down the hall. “Shuttin’ the door for you, Mama,” she called, easing it closed. Didn’t want to slam it and give the poor thing a heart attack when she was obviously not all there this a.m.
    In all her careful preparations, Georgia had never considered that Little Mama might not be well enough to stand around pretending to co-hostess the luncheon, as usual. In Georgia’s mind, Mama’s forgetting was not that bad—not so much worse, anyway, that anybody needed to do anything. Now she found herself wishing for somewhere to park Little Mama for the afternoon, get her out of the house without hurting her feelings. She couldn’t follow her around all day making sure she didn’t take off her dress in front of people.
    Georgia threw on shorts and a gingham work blouse. She made her bed extra neat, for the nosy ones who would “accidentally” wander into her room. She laid out the Lauren dress (so gorgeous, that emerald shade) and hung the Do Not Disturb sign on Brother’s doorknob. After that early-morning arrival, she could count on him to sleep through the entire luncheon.
    She hurried downstairs to look at the timing chart.
    Not even started, and already ten minutes behind!
    She could skip breakfast—that was five minutes. Also she had blocked out five minutes to call Krystal to remind her to bring the cut-glass plates for the Red Velvet, Jell-O, and Coca-Cola cakes. She decided to trust Krystal to remember, and bang! Right back on schedule.
    At this hour, all the ladies would be laying out their nice dresses, fixing their hair. The phone wouldn’t ring for the next couple of hours, which was good because the schedule kept Georgia hopping. She hurried around trimming candlewicks, smoothing creases out of tablecloths, up and down the stairs dozens of times.
    Krystal’s table settings had taken an extra-dramatic turn this year. She chose a nature theme, lots of twigs, pinecones, barebranches and mossy rocks, autumn leaves, darling little ponds of water in bowls. Napkins folded into decorative swans. Georgia’s gold-foil goody bags sparkled at each setting, amid clouds of decorative ribbon in tones of green and brown. The big house had never looked more festive. On every mantel and sideboard were greenery runners, chains of sweet-smelling balsam, heavenly splashes of freesia. (Tommy’s Dixie Florist was the big winner in all