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mock respect and laughed as I added, “Call if you need my sophisticated skills.”
    I stood at a window and watched Ceel light citronella torches on the deck. Ceel and Ben had chosen a snug forested hollow
     over a prized mountaintop lot, and sunset’s colors had nearly faded here. The dying day remained only in the smeary pink undersides
     of high cloud wisps rippled like tidal sand.
    “You’re Hannah Marsh, aren’t you? Welcome to town,” a cheery voice said. “You’ll just
love
it here in Rural Ridge, love it. Bill and I only wish we’d come to our senses and left Atlanta earlier.” I turned to a petite
     woman wearing gold jewelry at wrists and neck and earlobes. “Doesy Howard,” she said, “your neighbor behind the overgrown
     hemlocks.”
    “Doesy?”
    “Short for Doris. Our daughter Wendy is just ahead of your son in school. Mark, right? Wendy can tell him everything there
     is to know about the Blue Ridge Rangers!”
    “I’m sure he’d appreciate it,” I said, smiling at Doesy’s effusion and wondering if Wendy Howard was equally enthusiastic.
     “He’s unhappily baby-sitting for our daughter, Ellen, tonight.”
    “You should have called Wendy! Most weekends you wouldn’t
ever
catch her home, but she’s grounded for two weeks for cutting her piano lessons. Wendy resists all my efforts to make her
     well rounded—don’t you agree piano is a good life skill? Told Mrs. Biddix she had an orthodontist appointment. Unfortunately
     Wendy forgot that she’s no longer wearing braces.” Doesy shook her head happily. “The little liar! A social creature if ever
     there was one. Always has something going on. Of course, it’s all my fault. I couldn’t wait for her to be a teenager so I
     could live it all over again.
Frances!”
she trilled to a woman wearing drawstring pants and a needleworked tank. “Come meet Ceel’s big sister, Hannah.”
    Frances Mason greeted me and regarded Doesy skeptically. “You’re resplendently overdressed. What kind of soiree did you think
     you were attending?”
    Doesy was unfazed. “I’m trying to impress our new rector. The parish offices are dire, haven’t been touched since the fifties.”
     In a stage whisper to me she added, “Frances is our village agitator.”
    Frances tipped her bottle of beer and took several long swallows. “Loosely related to the community curmudgeon.”
    I laughed. “Who do you agitate and curmudgeon?”
    “Anyone who’ll let me.”
    “Oh, hush,” Doesy said, wagging a finger. “Frances gives me a terrible time. And I’m Picky-Picky’s
best
customer. Anything new in stock?” she demanded. “You know I get
first
choice.” Doesy gave me an earnest look. “I’m an interior designer. Give me a holler if you need help with your house. I know
     a place where you can get
darling
kudzu-vine furniture.” I thought of the decorating books I’d consigned to the Dumpster.
    “Jesus, Doesy,” Frances said. “You’re the kind of female who gives the South a bad name.”
    Doesy stuck out her tongue. “Look after Hannah,” she directed Frances. “I’m going to mingle.”
    “Mingle, mingle,” Frances called after her.
    “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,”
I said.
    She was clearly surprised. “Showing your age. And your good memory.”
    “I’m afraid so. Doesn’t she mind the way you tease her?”
    Frances gave an economic shake of her head. “Nah. We know each other so well that we don’t have to fake anything.”
    “What’s ‘Picky-Picky’?”
    “My store. I run a sucker joint.”
    “Velvet Elvises?”
    “Other end of the scale.
Up
scale. Cutesy cocktail napkins, placemats made of leaves, yard art, hideously overpriced hand-smocked nightgowns. You know,
     useless essentials.”
    I did know. I’d been introduced to useless essentials— monogrammed jewelry pouches, quilted checkbook covers, piped and plaid
     garment bags, satin-padded coat hangers—at boarding school. Before Wyndham Hall I’d never seen a