"Oh, now you know I'm just teasing you. We dated long enough to where I can do that, can't I?"

Before Johnny can answer, Hilly's shoulder is tapped and she glides over to the next couple, laughing. Johnny sighs when he sees Celia headed toward him. "Good," he says to Richard, "we can go home. I'm getting up in," he looks at his watch, "five hours."

Richard keeps his eyes locked on Celia as she strides toward them. She stops and bends down to retrieve her dropped napkin, offering a generous view of her bosoms. "Going from Hilly to Celia must've been quite the change, Johnny."

Johnny shakes his head. "Like living in Antarctica all my life and one day moving to Hawaii."

Richard laughs. "Like going to bed in seminary and waking up at Ole Miss," Richard says, and they both laugh.

Then Richard adds in a lower voice, "Like a kid eating ice cream for the very first time."

Johnny gives him a look. "That's my wife you're talking about."

"Sorry, Johnny," Richard says, lowering his eyes. "No harm meant."

Celia walks up, sighs with a disappointed smile.

"Hey Celia, how are you?" Richard says. "You sure are looking nice tonight."

"Thanks, Richard." Celia lets out a loud hiccup and she frowns, covers her mouth with a tissue.

"You getting tipsy?" asks Johnny.

"She's just having fun, aren't you, Celia?" Richard says. "In fact, I'm fixing to get you a drink you're gonna love. It's called an Alabama Slammer."

Johnny rolls his eyes at his friend. "And then we're going home." Three Alabama Slammers later, the winners of the silent auction are announced. Susie Pernell stands behind the podium while people mill about drinking or smoking at the tables, dancing to Glenn Miller and Frankie Valli songs, talking over the din of the microphone. As names are read, items are received with the excitement of someone winning a real contest, as if the booty were free and not paid for at three, four, or five times the store value. Tablecloths and nightgowns with the lace tatted by hand bring in high bids. Odd sterling servers are popular, for spooning out deviled eggs, removing pimentos from olives, cracking quail legs. Then there are the desserts: cakes, slabs of pralines, divinity fudge. And of course, Minny's pie.

" . . . and the winner of Minny Jackson's world-famous chocolate custard pie is . . . Hilly Holbrook!"

There is a little more applause for this one, not just because Minny's known for her treats, but because the name Hilly Hilly elicits applause on any occasion. elicits applause on any occasion.

Hilly turns from her conversation. "What? Was that my name? I didn't bid on anything."

She never does, Skeeter thinks, sitting alone, a table away. Skeeter thinks, sitting alone, a table away.

"Hilly, you just won Minny Jackson's pie! Congratulations," says the woman to her left.

Hilly scans the room, eyes narrowed.

Minny, having heard her name called in the same sentence as Hilly's, is suddenly very alert. She is holding a dirty coffee cup in one hand, a heavy silver tray in the other. But she stands stock-still.

Hilly spots her, but doesn't move either, just smiles very slightly. "Well. Wasn't that sweet? Someone must've signed me up for that pie."

She doesn't take her eyes off Minny and Minny can feel it. She stacks the rest of the cups on the tray, and heads for the kitchen as fast as she can.

"Why congratulations, Hilly. I didn't know you were such a fan of Minny's pies!" Celia's voice is shrill. She's come up from behind without Hilly noticing. As she trots toward Hilly, Celia stumbles over a chair leg. There are sideline giggles.

Hilly stands very still, watching her approach. "Celia, is this some kind of joke?"

Skeeter moves in closer too. She's bored to death by this predictable evening. Tired of seeing embarra.s.sed faces of old friends too scared to come and speak to her. Celia's the only interesting thing to happen all night.

"Hilly," Celia says, grasping Hilly's arm, "I've been trying to talk to you all night. I think there's been some kind of miscommunication between us and I just think if I explained explained . . ." . . ."

"What have you done? Let me go--" Hilly says between gritted teeth. She shakes her head, tries to walk off.

But Celia clutches Hilly's long sleeve. "No, wait! Hang on, you got to listen--"

Hilly pulls away, but still Celia doesn't let go. There's a moment of determination between them--Hilly trying to escape, Celia holding on, and then a ripping sound cuts through the air.

Celia stares at the red material in her fingers. She's torn the auburn cuff clear off Hilly's arm.

Hilly looks down, touches her exposed wrist. "What are you trying to do to me?" she says in a low growl. "Did that Nigra maid put you up to this? Because whatever she told you and whatever you've blabbed to anyone else here--"

Several more people have gathered around them, listening, all looking at Hilly with frowns of concern.

"Blabbed? I don't know what you--"

Hilly grabs Celia's arm. "Who did you tell?" she snarls. did you tell?" she snarls.

"Minny told me. I know why you don't want to be friends with me." Susie Pernell's voice over the microphone announcing the winners grows louder, forcing Celia to raise her own voice. "I know you think me and Johnny went behind your back," she yells, and there is laughter from the front of the room over some comment, and more applause. Just as Susie Pernell pauses over the microphone to look at her notes, Celia yells, "--but I got pregnant after after you broke up." The room echoes with the words. All is silent for a few long seconds. you broke up." The room echoes with the words. All is silent for a few long seconds.

The women around them wrinkle their noses, some start to laugh. "Johnny's wife is d-r-u-n-k d-r-u-n-k," someone says.

Celia looks around her. She wipes at the sweat that's beading on her makeuped forehead. "I don't blame you for not liking me, not if you thought Johnny cheated on you with me."

"Johnny never would've--"

"--and I'm sorry I said that, I thought you'd be tickled you won that pie."

Hilly bends over, s.n.a.t.c.hes her pearl b.u.t.ton from the floor. She leans closer to Celia so no one else can hear. "You tell your Nigra maid if she tells anybody about that pie, I will make her suffer. You think you're real cute signing me up for that auction, don't you? What, you think you can blackmail your way into the League?"

"What?"

"You tell me right this minute minute who else you've told ab--" who else you've told ab--"

"I didn't tell n.o.body nothing about a pie, I--"

"You liar liar," Hilly says, but she straightens quickly and smiles. "There's Johnny. Johnny, I think your wife needs your attention attention." Hilly flashes her eyes at the girls around them, as if they're all in on a joke.

"Celia, what's wrong?" Johnny says.

Celia scowls at him, then scowls at Hilly. "She's not making sense, she called me a--a liar, and now she's accusing me of signing her name on that pie and . . ." Celia stops, looks around like she recognizes no one around her. She has tears in her eyes. Then she groans and convulses. Vomit splatters onto the carpet.

"Oh s.h.i.t!" Johnny says, pulling her back.

Celia pushes Johnny's arm off her. She runs for the bathroom and he follows her.

Hilly's hands are in fists. Her face is crimson, nearly the color of her dress. She marches over and grabs a waiter's arm. "Get that cleaned up before it starts to smell."

And then Hilly is surrounded by women, faces upturned, asking questions, arms out like they are trying to protect her.

"I heard Celia's been battling with drinking, but this problem with lying now?" Hilly tells one of the Susies. It's a rumor she'd intended to spread about Minny, in case the pie story ever got out. "What do they call that?"

"A compulsive liar?"

"That's it, a compulsive liar." Hilly walks off with the women. "Celia trapped him into that marriage, telling him she was pregnant. I guess she was a compulsive liar even back then."

After Celia and Johnny leave, the party winds down quickly. Member wives look exhausted and tired of smiling. There is talk of the auction, of babysitters to get home to, but mostly of Celia Foote retching in the middle of it all.

When the room is nearly empty, at midnight, Hilly stands at the podium. She flips through the sheets of silent bids. Her lips move as she calculates. But she keeps looking off, shaking her head. Then she looks back down and curses because she has to start all over again.

"Hilly, I'm headed on back to your house."

Hilly looks up from tallying. It is her mother, Missus Walters, looking even frailer than usual in her formalwear. She wears a floor-length gown, sky blue and beaded, from 1943. A white orchid wilts at her clavicle. A colored woman in a white uniform is attached to her side.

"Now, Mama, don't you get in that refrigerator tonight. I won't have you keeping me up all night with your indigestion. You go right to bed, you hear?"

"I can't even have some of Minny's pie?"

Hilly narrows her eyes at her mother. "That pie pie is in the garbage." is in the garbage."

"Well, why'd you throw it out? I won it just for you."

Hilly is still a moment, letting this sink in. "You? You signed me up?" You signed me up?"

"I may not remember my name or what country I live in, but you and that pie is something I will never forget."

"You--you old, useless . . ." Hilly throws down the papers she's holding, scattering them everywhere.

Missus Walters turns and hobbles toward the door, the colored nurse in tow. "Well, call the papers, Bessie," she says. "My daughter's mad at me again."

MINNY.

chapter 26.

ON SAt.u.r.dAY MORNING, I get up tired and sore. I walk in the kitchen where Sugar's counting out her nine dollars and fifty cents, the money she earned at the Benefit last night. The phone rings and Sugar's on it quicker than a grease fire. Sugar's got a boyfriend and she doesn't want her mama to know.

"Yessir," Sugar whispers and hands me the phone.

"h.e.l.lo?" I say.

"It's Johnny Foote," he says. "I'm up at deer camp but I just want you to know, Celia's real upset. She had a rough time at the party last night."

"Yessir, I know."

"You heard, then, huh?" He sighs. "Well, keep an eye on her next week, will you, Minny? I'll be gone and--I don't know. Just call me if she doesn't perk up. I'll come home early if I need to."

"I look after her. She gone be alright."

I didn't see myself what happened at the party, but I heard about it while I was doing dishes in the kitchen. All the servers were talking about it.

"You see that?" Farina said to me. "That big pink lady you work for, drunk as a Injun on payday."

I looked up from my sink and saw Sugar headed straight for me with her hand up on her hip. "Yeah, Mama, she upchuck all over the floor. And everbody everbody at the whole party see!" Then Sugar turned around, laughing with the others. She didn't see the at the whole party see!" Then Sugar turned around, laughing with the others. She didn't see the whap whap coming at her. Soapsuds flew through the air. coming at her. Soapsuds flew through the air.

"You shut your mouth, Sugar." I yanked her to the corner. "Don't you never let me hear you talking bad about the lady who put food in your mouth, clothes on your back! You hear me?"

Sugar, she nodded and I went back to my dishes, but I heard her muttering. "You do it, all the do it, all the time. time."

I whipped around and put my finger in her face. "I got a right to. I earn it every day working for that crazy fool."

WHEN I GET TO WORK on Monday, Miss Celia's still laid up in bed with her face buried under the sheets.

"Morning, Miss Celia."

But she just rolls over and won't look at me.

At lunchtime, I take a tray of ham sandwiches to the bed.

"I'm not hungry," she says and throws the pillow over her head.

I stand there looking at her, all mummified in the sheets.

"What you gone do, just lay there all day?" I ask, even though I've seen her do it plenty of times before. But this is different. There's no goo on her skin or smile on her face.

"Please, just leave me alone."

I start to tell her she needs to just get up, put on her tacky clothes, and forget about it, but the way she's laying there so pitiful and poor, I keep quiet. I am not her psychiatrist and she's not paying me to be one.

On Tuesday morning, Miss Celia's still in the bed. Yesterday's lunch tray's on the floor without a single bite missing. She's still in that ratty blue nightgown that looks left over from her Tunica County days, the gingham ruffle torn at the neck. Something that looks like charcoal stains on the front.

"Come on, lemme get to them sheets. Show bout to come on and Miss Julia gone be in trouble. You ain't gone believe what that fool done yesterday with Doctor Bigmouth."

But she just lays there.

Later on, I bring her a tray of chicken pot pie. Even though what I really want to do is tell Miss Celia to pull herself together and go in the kitchen and eat proper.

"Now, Miss Celia, I know it was terrible what happened at the Benefit. But you can't set in here forever feeling sorry for yourself."

Miss Celia gets up and locks herself in the bathroom.