The Wife Upstairs(61)

Tell me when.





PART VIII



BEA





The party is held at the Tutweiler, an old hotel in Birmingham that Bea has always loved. Blanche had her wedding here just six months ago, and Bea had known then that she’d have to host some kind of event here herself.

The launch of the latest Southern Manors line plus the celebration of the company going public seems like the perfect occasion, and Bea spends months planning every detail. When the time finally arrives, the reception is even better than she’d hoped for.

The ballroom is decorated with Southern Manors items, each table holding a sterling silver apple, or a crystal pig, or a blown glass vase decorated with a gingham ribbon. It’s classy and elegant, but warm and friendly, the exact brand Bea has worked to cultivate over the past few years.

She tries to be the embodiment of that brand herself, her dress beautifully made and outrageously expensive, but not overly dressy, her jewelry understated.

Blanche looks overdressed in a long black dress, her diamonds on display, and Bea enjoys that more than she should, enjoys Blanche seeming out of place in this space that was originally hers.

It’s a perfect night, and Bea is the perfect hostess even though, as she looks at all the couples around the room, it occurs to her that she should probably pair herself up at some point. It’s the one thing missing in her life, a partner, and as she watches Blanche slip her arm through Tripp’s, she wonders why she hasn’t given any thought to her romantic life before now.

She knows it’s mostly because she had more important things to do, that Southern Manors has been her entire world since she graduated from college, but she suddenly feels the lack keenly and resolves to do something about it.

But not tonight.

Tonight is for her, for her success. For what she’s made from nothing.

Her mother is there, wearing a mint-green dress that Bea picked out for her because she thought it would look pretty with the soft red of her mother’s hair. But she sees now she chose wrong—it only brings out the yellow, jaundiced look of her skin, makes her seem tired and faded.

“Mama, do you want to go up to your room?” she asks quietly, leaning close as her mother sits at a table, a bottle of sparkling water by her elbow. Bea has given all the waitstaff strict instructions not to give her mother a drink, and so far, they seem to have been complying.

“No,” Mama says softly, reaching up with a trembling hand to push her hair back. She’s wearing her diamonds tonight, too. Not as ostentatious as Blanche’s, and in dire need of a cleaning given how dully they attempt to glitter, and Bea can’t believe she forgot to get Mama new accessories, something from Southern Manors.

“So proud of you, Bertha-Bear,” Mama says, smiling, and Bea doesn’t even correct the name. Tonight, she’s finally put that past behind her, emerged shiny and new.

She circulates the rest of the night, and that was the mistake. She should’ve kept an eye on her mother, should’ve insisted she go on up to her room.

And, of course, she doesn’t realize that mistake until she’s on the dais, giving a speech, thanking everyone for coming, for making Southern Manors a success. For making her a success.

“Southern Manors is a family,” she says, her voice ringing over the sound system. “And the seed for this company started with my own family. With my mother’s antiques. My grandmother’s quilts. My father’s love of a weighty bourbon glass.”

The crowd laughs politely, and Bea clutches the edge of the podium, thinking that her father never gave a shit what he was drinking out of so long as the alcohol kept flowing. That she’d never met her grandmother, that anything of any value in her mother’s home had been sold off before she’d even been born.

She knows these things are lies, but they’re lies she’s been telling for so long, it doesn’t even occur to her Mama won’t go along with the act. Why wouldn’t she when it’s these very lies that keep her in booze and Neiman Marcus?

Bea can see it playing out before it even happens, which is what makes it even worse when there’s nothing she can do to stop it. She sees her mother rise from her seat, the stagger in her step, the way she sways even when she’s standing still. Bea’s throat clenches and her heart sinks somewhere near her knees.

“Bertha, what in god’s name are you talking about?” Mama calls, her voice ringing out over the crowd even though the words are slurred.

A few heads turn her way, and Bea remembers that no one here, no one but Blanche knows it’s her real name.

“Her daddy didn’t know a bourbon glass from a beer bottle,” Mama goes on cheerfully, like this is all some funny anecdote, like she’s not punching holes in everything Bea has built.

Authenticity. It’s one of the fucking buzzwords on all their marketing materials, and here her mother is, blowing it all to shit.

“And her Nana Frances died before—”

It seems to happen in slow motion. Mama turning to regale her tablemates, the waiter moving forward at the same time, tray of champagne glasses lifted high. Not just any glasses, of course, but Southern Manors’ glasses, little champagne coupes shaped like peach halves, complete with glass leaves.

The collision is almost balletic, almost. Mama stepping on the hem of her dress, the waiter attempting to both catch her and somehow hang on to his tray.