"Like in your hair?"
"No, you silly heart," she said, gently squeezing my upper arm. "A beau is a boyfriend. We're not quite engaged yet, but we're close. We're worried about them, you see. They've gone on to fight the Yankees and we decided to wait. I didn't want to wait, did you?"
I shrugged. Wait for what?
"No, you didn't either, but our beaus wouldn't hear of it. They both told us they might die on the baffle-field and make us widows before we were wives." She leaned toward me to whisper. "I heard that line in a movie." She pulled back, then took me to stand in front of the mirror. "Well?" she asked. "Do you like your dress?"
I squinted. The odor made my eyes burn. I scrunched up my nose.
"Don't worry about the smell. I told you I would spray you with lots of perfume."
I couldn't imagine looking more silly. The clumps of material bubbled out around my waist and chest, and the skirt had been pulled up unevenly so that more of my right leg showed than my left.
"Well?" she asked again. "Isn't it a beautiful dress?" She looked like she was holding her breath, waiting for my answer. I was afraid to disappoint her.
"Yes."
She clapped and seized my shoulders to turn me back to the mirror.
"Now let me do something with your hair and then we'll do some makeup and we'll be ready to have a mint julep before dinner in our parlor."
"What's a mint julep?"
"Oh, it's a civilized, polite drink. You'll love it. darlin' Melody. I had my first mint julep with my daddy on a summer night when the sky was streaking with shooting stars. He said. 'Make a wish, my little princess, for tonight it will come true,' and you know what I wished for?"
I shook my head.
"I wished for a friend like you, a wonderful, precious friend like you and here you are. Melody Ann, my own precious little friend. You came from a shooting star. Now sit right here and I'll do your hair right and proper and then"-- she paused to bring her lips to my ear--"and then well sneak on some rouge before anyone sees."
She took a brush to my hair and began,
"What the hell..." we heard and both turned to see Mae Betty in the doorway, holding a pail and a mop. "What do you think you and that child are doing, Miss Wilkens?"
"Miss Wilkens? I do believe you have made a mistake. There's no Miss Wilkens here. My name is Louise Parker Farthingham and this is Melody Ann Pinewood, You can tell them we'll be down for our gala dinner shortly."
"Damn," she said, shaking her head. "Rich people," she added and walked off.
"Don't mind that. Melody Ann. There are all sorts of confused people about these days. Pity their poor souls. They might just make a wrong turn and end up in some swamp. Now where was I?" she asked and returned to my hair. "You have such beautiful hair," she said, running her hand over my head. Her eves grew sad, and she stopped talking like a Southerner.
"I had hair like that once," she said with a note of sadness, "It was exactly the same color as yours. too. I would sit in front of my mirror and brush it
for hours while I listened to music or just dreamed. Emma would come behind me and complain about all the time I was wasting, but what would I have done with the time anyway? She always worried about time, as if there was a giant hourglass in our house and the sand was running down. Once. I turned all my clocks on their faces in my room and she hurried off to tell our father. He came to my room and looked, and then he laughed and said he wished he could do the same. Emma was fit to be tied.
"You know what I think?" she continued. "I think we should have clocks with no hands on them." She smiled. "That's what I have now, you know, clocks with no hands. It's one o'clock when I say it's one o'clock and not when some watch says it is.
"Of course, I have to be careful I don't miss my programs so I can't be completely oblivious. That's why I have this watch with an alarm. Lester got it for me and showed me how to use it. Now I won't be oblivious.
"Isn't that a nice big word? Oblivious. Emma used it all the time. Frances is oblivious. I finally looked it up. It means 'lacking conscious awareness' or 'unmindful.' What a silly word. I thought. I would tell people I was oblivious. but I didn't sound ashamed or embarrassed, and that would make Emma even angrier.
"I'll tell you a little secret," she said, actually glancing at the doorway first. "I liked making Emma angry. You mustn't tell her. It would make her even angrier," she said, "and she might do something to spoil our fun. She might even send you away to live with strangers."
She brushed and brushed my hair and began to hum to herself. As I studied her face in the mirror. I thought she looked lonely, lost. She went in and out of her imagination to keep from being sad. I felt sorry for her, living here all alone with people nearby who really didn't take care of her as they should have. Why hadn't Grandmother Emma been closer to her, taken better care of her? It was mean.
"There now," she said after she pinned my hair in the back. "Don't you look absolutely beautiful? You'll break hearts downstairs. Remember, we're devoted to our beaus. We can flirt a little, but nothing more. That's all right. Don't look at me like that. Melody. Young women like us are expected to be flirtatious. Now then," she said. "a little rouge on your cheeks."
She brushed some on me, then stood back and looked at me in the mirror.
"A little more. I think," she said. I thought she had put on too much and I looked silly, but I didn't say so. She put too much on herself as well. "Now let me spray you with perfume," she said and put on so much that I reeked enough to be smelled back in Bethlehem. "Ready?" she asked. "We'll go down and have our mint juleps on the veranda and wait for dinner."