health.
“It was fine, Adela.” Chloe Estes smiled up at her as she swallowed hard. “I’m just ready for the next course, and I don’t want to spoil my appetite.”
“Not sure how that could happen with a little soup,” Adela mumbled as she gathered up the dishes, then moved to the other end of the table. “How about you, Mr. Estes? Are you done?”
Betty’s father took another hurried spoonful before adding, “I am.”
Betty took a final spoonful as well. Best to do so while she could. These weekly dinners—plus the ones after Mass on Sunday—were sometimes the best food she ate. Not that she would admit that to her parents. And not to mention that no food anywhere in the state of Illinois could come close to Adela’s cuisine.
“Thank you, Adela,” she whispered before the housekeeper whisked the dishes away to another room. Then she looked at her father. “You might be interested to know that I recently received a raise from Mr. Ferguson.”
Her hopes that her father might be impressed were dashed by reality. Instead, he pointed a manicured finger at her. “You shouldbe running that department, not working as a secretary. When I think of the money I spent sending you to college and the diploma collecting dust in my office—”
“It’s doing no such thing,” Betty said before Adela returned with the next course. “Adela would never hear of dust collecting on anything in this house.” She smiled, hoping to get her parents to do the same. But a quick look at her father and then her mother told her they weren’t in the mood to play.
“Betty,” her mother said, pressing her fingertips against the edge of the table and making a show of pressing the linen, “have you heard from George?”
Betty’s stomach clenched. “You mean since he and his family were here on Sunday for brunch?” Her wheat-colored hair tossed as she shook her head. “No. Mother, we’re not a couple. We’re friends.”
“You’re twenty-six years old,” her father all but barked.
“I know how old I am,” Betty snapped back. “You reminded me on my last birthday by making sure the cake looked like a house on fire once the candles were lit.”
“At twenty-six, your mother was married with a child running underfoot. She was climbing her way to the top of social clubs, doing charity work . . .”
Betty blinked. “You act like I’m turning forty on my next birthday. Twenty-six is not an old maid. At least, not anymore.” She took a breath. “And Mother never had a child running underfoot.” Perhaps Adela had, but not Chloe Estes.
Her mother sighed so deeply Betty wondered if she’d forgotten herself. Ladies, she had often told Betty, do not show signs of emotion at the table. “The least you could do is entertain George’s affection toward you.” She brushed imaginary strands of hair from her brow, as if her locks would dare fall out of place. “When Ithink of that splendid ring he gifted you with last Christmas . . .” Her voice trailed as Adela returned with the serving cart loaded with plates of steaming food.
“Saved by the serving cart,” Betty said.
“Are they picking on my girl again?” Adela asked as she rolled the cart between Betty and her mother.
“Aren’t they always?” Betty asked.
Adela set a plate in front of Betty’s mother before picking up another and walking it around to her father. In the interim, Betty grasped the opportunity to change the subject. “Mother, the new painting over the sideboard is amazing.” The artwork—a late-nineteenth-century piece depicting a French farm scene—had been recently snagged from a Chicago gallery for more money than Betty’s annual food bill. At some point between Sunday afternoon and this evening, her mother managed to get it to the house by courier and professionally hung.
How did she do it all?
“You like it?” her mother beamed, her eyes taking it in.
“Very much so.” At the very least, it brought a smidgen of color