About the Author
Baby boomer Haywood Smith (born Anne Haywood Pritchett) grew up as one of five children in north Atlanta, Georgia. She has incorporated many of her memories of E. Rivers Elementary, Northside High, and Buckhead into her latest, light-hearted tribute to Southern womanhood.
Inspired by Jenny Joseph's free-spirited poem, "Warning," Haywood has revisited the "big small town" of her youth in this coming-of-middle age tribute to the "Jilted Generation"-women who, like her, have emerged victorious through divorce, terrible teens, menopause, the Internet, tennis elbow, spreading waistlines, nothing but tacky clothes in the stores, and countless other modern tribulations.
Haywood loves to hear from readers who enjoy her books. Please write her care of St. Martin's Press at 175 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY 10010. or email her at haywood100@aol.com with "Reader Mail" in the subject line.
For information about future books and local appearances, please visit her website at haywoodsmith.net.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Swan Coach House. Wednesday, January 9, 2002. 11:00 A.M.
After a brief, nonproductive swing through the gift shop and gallery in search of some “thinking of you” trinket to brighten up my son Jack’s bachelor apartment or my daughter Callie’s dorm room, I went downstairs to the sunny main restaurant, cheered by the familiarity of its dark wood floors, chintz tablecloths, and padded walls bright with tastefully garish tulips. As usual, I was the first to arrive, still clinging to the illusion that punctuality was possible with the Red Hats despite more than three decades of evidence to the contrary.
“Table for five, please,” I said to the lone waitress, a plump, nondescript woman I didn’t recognize.
She didn’t blink at my red fedora, ancient sable car coat, and tailored dark purple pantsuit. The Red Hats were such a fixture here that our eccentricities had become part of the basic orientation for the staff. “Sorry, mah-dahm,” the waitress said in thick Slavic accents, “must wait for all here to be seated.” Clearly, she had no idea she was dealing with a Buckhead institution, one that was allowed to bend the Coach House’s ironclad edict. With the exception of private parties, mere mortals were never seated until everyone in their party had arrived. But owing to our longstanding presence, the Red Hats were the exception that proved the rule—provided we were discreet about it. Clearly, this new waitress hadn’t gotten the message.
I looked for her name badge, hoping the personal touch would thaw her out a little. She wasn’t wearing one, but I tried anyway. “My name is Georgia,” I said in my most approachable manner. “What’s yours?”
She arched an eyebrow in disdain. “You could not say it. Too hard.”
Serious attitude.
My master’s in Southern Bitch kicked in, smoothing my voice to honeyed ice. “What a lovely accent. Where are you from?”
“Romania,” the waitress answered with a defensive shrug.
Great. This was going to be a challenge for both of us.
“Please get the manager,” I said distinctly. “Tell her it’s the Red Hats.”
She scowled again.
I pointed to my red fedora. “Tell the manager that the Red Hats are here, and I want to be seated.”
She disappeared into the back, then returned with the apologetic manager du jour. “Sorry,” the young woman whose name tag identified her as JOSIE said in unctuous tones. “We were shorthanded, so we pressed Vashkenushka into service from the kitchen. I forgot to tell her about y’all. Please forgive us.” Despite the fact that we were the only ones in the cheery yellow foyer, she glanced about, her expression clouded with concern as she lowered her voice. “I really appreciate your continuing discretion about this arrangement, though. We’d have mutiny if the other customers found out.”
“Trust me,” I reassured her. “No one will ever hear it from us.” As if everybody who was anybody didn’t already know.
The manager’s brow eased. She motioned the waitress toward our regular banquette in the back corner near the kitchen door. “Seat the ladies in red hats as soon as they come in. Just this one group, no one else,” she instructed, “and treat them well.
They’re very special guests.”
“Yes, madam,” Miss Romania said, but her manner bristled with contempt as she led the way across brilliant slashes of winter sunshine that slanted through the white plantation shutters.
I sat down in the shady corner, but kept my coat on. The room was chilly, and I hadn
'92t been warm between November and April since 1989.
When our little group had first started meeting there—long before we were Red Hats—the waitresses had been Junior Leaguers working their required service placements. Back then, the bigger the diamond, the worse the waitress, and Atlanta’s well-to-do young matrons were seriously solitaired. The League had eventually hired paid staff, but the joke was on everybody for a while: the quality of service hadn’t improved for a long time. For the past decade, things had been much better, though still a little slow from the kitchen. But that was an accepted part of the mystique, along with the limited—but excellent—tearoom menu.
The Red Hats didn’t come for the service, anyway, or for the food. We came because the Coach House was an Atlanta institution, a link to our past with a great tea party quotient. I couldn’t count the bridal showers, baby showers, luncheons, and receptions we’d all attended there.
“To drink today?” the waitress asked with a decidedly aggressive note.
“I’ll have unsweetened tea, please,” I said. “No lemon.” I like iced tea, and I like lemon, but nowhere near each other.
“No coffee?” she challenged. “Isss cold today. Maybe hot tea?”
“No, thank you.” I suppressed a blip of irritation. She would learn. “Just plain iced tea, please, no lemon.” It’s a Southern thing, drinking iced tea at lunch even in the winter. Shrimp salad just doesn’t taste right with coffee. “And I’ll need lots of refills,” I said, smiling in an effort to lighten things up. “I’m a heavy drinker.”
Not a flicker of amusement crossed her broad face, prompting me to wonder if she didn’t understand, or if total lack of humor was one of the main requirements for working there, as I had long suspected.
“My friends will be here soon,” I told her. “We usually stay until closing. If you’ll keep our f0glasses filled, we’ll give you a big tip.” It was only fair, since she wouldn’t be able to turn the table.
“Big tip,” she seemed to understand, but she didn’t break a smile.
“I get your tea.”
A Romanian waitress at the Coach House. What next?
I still wasn’t accustomed to Atlanta’s being crowded with people from other countries.
Outwardly, I had met the onslaught with resolute enlightenment and Southern hospitality, but inwardly, a lingering part of me wanted to circle the wagons. Gone were the narrow social boundaries of my childhood—Crackers, Blacks, Catholics, and Jews, Mainlines and Pentecostals—erased by this new invasion that made unlikely allies of anybody who’d grown up here.
Maybe that was why we Red Hats clung even tighter to our little group as we grew older. It was the one solid connection to our past.
“George!” Diane called to me from across the room. She must have just had her hair colored, because her white roots were not in evidence below her red beret. She’d worn contacts since she was nine, but today the thick glasses I hadn’t seen in years contorted her attractive face into a peanut shape, reminding me of the momentous day we’d met so long ago.
Lord, I’d forgotten how blind she was without her contacts.
“I lost a lens and almost didn’t even come.” Even more flustered than usual, she muddled her way between the tables, poking through her enormous Vuitton shoulder bag as she bumped the chairs. “Dad-gum it. I put that paperback you loaned me in here somewhere, but now I can’t find it.”
Considering the shape the paperback would probably be in, I quickly reassured her, “Well, don’t worry if you can’t.” She was notorious for loving whatever she read nigh unto death—breaking the spines, slopping coffee on the pages, sometimes even baptizing them in the tub with her—so I only loaned her the ones I could live without.
i0I changed the subject. “Did you remember your joke? It’s your turn, you know.”
She flopped dramatically into the seat beside me. “Yes. But it’s getting harder and harder since Sally”—her good ole girl hairdresser—“had that stroke. She was my only source.”
“What about the new girl?”
Diane grimaced. “She weighs eighty-seven pounds, has black lips, piercings, and a fuchsia streak in her ‘bedhead’ hair. I don’t think she would know a joke if it bit her.”
I laughed. Diane was naturally a stitch, but she could not tell a proper joke for beans. “How many times have I told you?” I said, “You need to get e-mail. People send me jokes all the time. You should try it. Lee’s been dying to set it up for you.” Her only son, Lee, had graduated in business with a minor in Japanese from Harvard and a master’s from Wharton. Now he made big bucks consulting for a major Japanese company in Asia.
“Lee?” she scoffed. “From Tokyo?”
“He comes home every three months, and you know it.” We baby boomers might be dragged kicking and screaming into the Age of the Internet, but not our grown sons and daughters; they were all computer-savvy.
Diane, on the other hand, seemed to consider it a matter of honor to hold out. Very passive-aggressive, which was definitely her style. I loved her, but you had to be careful or she’d store up hurts, then bite you on the ankle when you least expected it.
“I swear,” I harped, “once you get on-line, you’ll love it. Instant gossip, honey.
And Lee would probably e-mail you every few days from Tokyo, instead of just calling once a month.”
“Right. And what about spam and viruses and upgrades and expense?” She adjusted her thick glasses.
I stifled the urge to laugh.
rd
She peered at me earnestly from the depths of distortion. “I haven’t got tim...
