The Light of Paris(8)
“Who are they?” Margie whispered, leaning forward and cocking her head toward the smokers.
“Southern,” Emily Harrison said, with a touch of haughty contempt, which was rich, considering her parents had come to Washington from Atlanta and her mother had an accent so thick you could have spread it on toast. “But those girls,” she said, nodding toward the group at the fireplace, “are European royals. Can you believe it? Minor, of course. Rumor has it they’re making the rounds looking for husbands here because their parents are flat broke.”
“Don’t gossip, Emily Harrison,” Grace scolded. Grace had always been overly kind, the sort of girl teachers selected to pal around with the new student, and prone to fits of tears over the tiniest of disappointments. “I’m sure they’re perfectly nice.”
“I didn’t say they weren’t perfectly nice, I said they were perfectly broke,” Emily Harrison said. She lifted her hands and examined her fingernails. “Everyone in Europe is broke. Everyone here, too, it seems. My mother says there never would have been a ball with this many debutantes in her day.”
“They’re so glamorous,” Margie said dreamily, looking at the Europeans. They faced away from her, a few of them with dresses cut low enough on their backs to reveal skin luminous as snow. Were they princesses? Margie wondered. Two of them wore tiaras, sparkling in the firelight, but Margie wore one herself and she was hardly a princess. It was just that they seemed so graceful, so perfect, every movement of their hands expressive as ballerinas, the curves of their throats, the bones of their faces as though they had been carved from marble. Their spines were stiff, their shoulders straight, and Margie self-consciously pulled herself back from slouching. Even if they weren’t princesses, they were royalty, and they would be walking down the steps with her.
“Isn’t it exciting?” Margie asked. She couldn’t contain herself. She supposed she ought to be blasé, like Anne and Elsie, so languidly aloof on their fainting couches, but she couldn’t. The night lay in front of them like a glittering promise, the sparkle of it, the elegance, the mystery of the excitement to come. Oh, Anne and Elsie were old poops, that’s all there was to it. She was going to dance with Robert Walsh, the terribly handsome friend of the family who was to be her escort, and drink champagne even if her parents didn’t approve, and she was going to enjoy every moment.
“Dreadfully exciting,” Grace said, and the sparkle in her eyes matched Margie’s, even though Grace was assured of marrying Theo Halloway—their families had arranged it long ago—and might not have bothered coming out at all if her mother hadn’t practically run Washington society. “I saw the ballroom on the way in, Margie. It’s simply gorgeous. And your gown is really stunning. You look lovely.”
“Thank you,” Margie said demurely, though inside she fluttered at the compliment.
Her father had said, “You look pretty, kitten,” but that was his job, and her mother had said, “Your tiara’s on crooked,” and then, after she had fixed it, “Nellie didn’t do a horrible job with your hair,” which was the closest thing to praise Margie had ever gotten from her mother, a tiny, precise woman who had never understood the starry-eyed, lead-footed daughter she had managed to produce.
“You look pretty too,” she said to Grace. Under normal circumstances that might have been an exaggeration—it was a good thing Grace was so kind and her parents were so wealthy, because Grace was so plain—but not that night. Grace was dark and the pale yellow of her gown glowed against her skin, and she looked happy, and Margie felt a little rush of sentimental nostalgia for the girls they had once been and the women they were becoming.
“Ladies.” Grace’s mother, Mrs. Scott, appeared at the doorway. The Southern girls quickly pitched their cigarette ends out the window and Margie saw the flask of not-lemonade disappear into one of their skirts. Mrs. Scott sniffed the air and looked at them disapprovingly. “We are ready to begin.”
Margie’s last name, Pearce, put her solidly in the middle of the line, right behind Emily Harrison Palmer, but that night she wished it were Robertson, or better yet, Zeigler, so she could savor the anticipation, the shiver in her stomach, the heat in her face. At first all she could see was the hallway and the line of debutantes in front of her, but as Emily Harrison began her slow descent, Margie saw it all laid out before her: the chandelier brilliant above, the pale glow of the girls’ dresses, light sparking prisms off hundreds of diamonds, setting the hall aglow. Her breath caught hard in her chest and she didn’t breathe, didn’t move, holding the moment in her hand like crystal, like snow, terrified it might disappear, shatter and whirl away in the air.
She promised herself she would remember it all, hold on to every moment. But as soon as she set one satin-slippered foot on the stairs, it became nothing more than a lovely blur. She stored away memories of everything she could—the plush carpet beneath her shoes, Robert’s hand under hers, the fall of her dress around her knees when she executed her curtsy, graceful and slow as a dancer’s plié. The sparkle of champagne on her tongue, and Robert standing beside her, stiff and formal in his white tie, and the kiss her father dropped on her forehead as they waltzed, and the sight of all the debutantes with their escorts, swirling around the enormous dance floor like flowers, like snowdrops, like everything beautiful and bright and enchanted.