Red, tousled hair, green eyes, freckles, chocolate silk
voice with a hint of the East Coast...and cigarettes...and the bedroom: Margaret.
My mother’s close friend Margaret was the epitome of sexy elegance. She was
always surrounded by the scent of Shalimar—her husband gave her a giant bottle
every Christmas—and had a temper to match her hair. But, when she got angry she
didn’t shriek, at least not in front of me; she got steely. One could almost
see the sparks flying from her gritted teeth.
Mother of four girls and a boy, she had a basket of hair
ribbons and barrettes hanging by a ribbon from a hook on the back of every
bathroom door, a practice I copied the moment I had a home of my own. The
upstairs sunporch was the girls’ dormitory, a row of beds stretching the length
of the room, each with its unique quilt. A glass-fronted cabinet of Madame
Alexander dolls resided in the upstairs hallway. The whole house was filled
with warmth and style.
It is my belief that much of my standardized testing success
was due to the Wff-n-Proof game given to the children of the family for
Christmas one year.
This is my clearest memory of Margaret: she was driving her
two oldest daughters and my sister
and I to a school event, and she was wearing a white pleated skirt. Stepping
into the driver’s seat of her Mustang convertible (what else?), she lifted her
skirt, revealing a peach-colored slip with deep lace edging. She draped the
skirt over the back of the bucket seat of her car to preserve the press. I was
awestruck.
When she was given a diagnosis of terminal cancer, she
telephoned my mother: “The first thing I thought was, ‘Oh no’; the second was
‘But I have so many books I want to re-read.’”
She never knew how I idolized her. Or, maybe she did and
graciously accepted her due.
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