“That’s okay,” Ellie says reassuringly.
“Yeah, but… it’s still weird.” Annie Laurie moves toward the bar, but glances back over her shoulder. “Even Jesus drank wine.”
Once Annie Laurie has moved away from earshot, Ellie whispers, “Yeah, and Jesus would tell her she doesn’t need any more today.”
Ellie and I trail behind as Annie Laurie walks right up to the bar. There are two men serving drinks. “Well hello, Miss Annie Laurie,” one of the bartenders says. “Don’t you look lovely today?”
“Thank you, Robert,” she says with a confident grin.
“What can I get you girls?” Robert’s happy expression and the tone of his voice make me feel welcomed.
Annie Laurie glances around at the display of liquor bottles on top of the bar. “I’ll have a… a… mimosa.” Robert pulls a large cup from the stack, pours a generous amount of champagne, then tops it with orange juice.
He hands it to her, then turns to us. “How about you two ladies? What’s your pleasure?”
“I’ll have a glass of orange juice, please,” I say.
“No champagne with it?” Robert chuckles.
“No, sir. I’m good.”
“Oh comeon,” Annie Laurie says, then looks at Robert. “They’ll both have a mimosa.”
The next thing I know we all have mimosas. With little bar straws. And Colonel Reb stir-sticks. While following behind Annie Laurie to the food table, Ellie rolls her eyes and we share an irritated look. But we get over it quickly when we see the food. The smell of it makes me want to drool.
Working our way around the table the three of us fill our plates with roast beef, eggs, bacon, grits, and fruit.
Once I sit down in one of the cushioned chairs and dig into my meal, I relax. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I took my first bite of thick, crispy, maple-flavored bacon. When I carve into the roast beef and pop a bite in my mouth, it melts, literally melts, on my tongue. It’s juicy and pink, and although I was hesitant to try meat this undercooked, the moment I taste it I have to restrain myself from shoveling the rest in my mouth immediately.
Annie Laurie only eats a small portion of hers before putting the tray on the ground underneath her seat. Ellie and I watch as she strolls up to a towering display of oysters, which, personally, I have zero desire to try. Annie Laurie sure does, and fills an entire plate, with cocktail sauce in the middle.
“I should be a horny toad by the time I finish all these,” she says, laughing, and almost misses the edge of her chair when she sits back down.
Ellie and I steal looks at each other.
Three oyster shells fall onto her lap and slip between her legs onto the ground. Cocktail sauce has rubbed onto the hem of her romper, so she dabs at it with her napkin. Then her phone beeps. Balancing the plate on both knees, she pulls the phone from her bag, reads the text—hiccups—then types frantically with her thumbs. “Let’s go, y’all,” she says, jamming her phone back inside her bag.
Covering my mouth with one hand, I thrust my other her way. “Wait, I’m not through yet.” My words are garbled from the bite of scrambled eggs I had just taken.
“There’ll be plenty more when we get back,” she says. “My friend Carter just texted me. He’s with two of his pledge brothers. We’re supposed to meet them in five minutes.”
“Can’t they come here?” Ellie asks.
“They’ve already eaten.” Annie Laurie puts the plate of oysters on top of the other plate under her chair, wobbling a bit when she stands up.
I look at Ellie. She looks at me. We know we shouldn’t go. What is the hold Annie Laurie has on both of us that we follow our tipsy friend right out the front of the tent anyway?
TWENTY-SIX
WILDA
At twelve thirty, Haynes finally agrees to mosey on over, but we can’t move ten feet without running into someone we know. It takes us another thirty minutes just to plow through the crowd. When we see Bill and Becky Barkley, the sweetest couple in the world, I hardly speak to either of them, because by now my anxiety about being late is killing me.
Lilith said their tent was directly across from the Lyceum, next to the road, and impossible to miss. When we finally come upon it, impossible to miss is an understatement.HOTTY TODDYTHE WHITMOREWAYis screen printed in large white letters on an oversize navy blue tent, taking upthreeGrove spots. I’ve heard college boys get paid well to secure spots when the University opens for setup, around midnight, but to get three in a row, in this prime location, has to be a costly challenge.
There is only one way in, at the center of the tent, and when Haynes and I step inside, the smell of bacon, eggs, and sausage makes me feel like we’ve left the Grove and entered New York’s Plaza Hotel for Sunday brunch. A mammoth table with silver-domed chafing dishes is set up beneath a crystal chandelier hanging from the apex of the tent. The flowers on either side of the table look like something out of Versailles. Two gigantic arrangements ofwhite lilies, red roses, and blue hydrangeas are masterfully and artistically displayed in elegant French urns.
In one corner, a black man wearing a white jacket and a chef’s hat is behind a prime rib carving station: in the other corner a different chef is flipping made-to-order omelets. In elegant dinner party fashion, three servers—all African American—are strolling around with silver trays, each wearing black pants and white jackets, their first names embroidered in black.
