“Wow!” said one of the men looking up at her. “Are you J.T.’s heartbreaker?”
They all stopped to stare up at her. Aria might not know how to dress herself or how to count money but she was quite confident of herself as a hostess. “How do you do?” she said regally, descending the staircase as if she were floating.
“Princess!” came another voice as Bill Frazier entered the door, a pretty blonde behind him. “I mean…” He trailed off, embarrassed.
“I am—” Aria began.
“Princess will do,” one man said, laughing. “It suits you. Princess, let me introduce this clan. We came to welcome the new bride.” He introduced Carl and Patty, Floyd and Gail, Larry and Bonnie. Bill introduced his lovely wife Dolly to her. There was another guest, a bachelor named Mitch.
Mitch took her arm. “J.T.’s a fool to leave a beauty like you alone.”
“Where did you get that dress?” Patty asked. They had each brought casseroles and grocery bags of food.
“Is that silk?” Bonnie asked. “Real silk?”
“I thought you two just flew in today. If I had on a dress like that, it’d be a mass of wrinkles!”
“I think I’d die for a dress like that.”
Aria desperately wanted these American women to like her. They wore pretty, flowered cotton sundresses and cool-looking sandals. Each had short hair that looked so young and carefree, and they wore dark red lipstick. Standing before them in her silk suit, her long hair drawn severely back, she felt old-fashioned—and very foreign. They were looking at her expectantly and she searched her mind for something that would please them.
“Lieutenant Montgomery bought me several dresses that are still packed. Perhaps you’d like to see them.”
One minute Aria was standing in the living room and the next she was being pushed up the stairs before a herd of stampeding women.
“What about dinner?” a husband called, but no woman answered him.
Ten minutes lat
er the upstairs was a flurry with women pulling clothes from Aria’s many suitcases. She began to smile and in another ten minutes she was having fun! For the first time in America, she was enjoying herself. She asked if Bonnie would like to try on a Schiaparelli and the next minute the four women were in their underwear.
“I have to show Larry this,” Bonnie said, wearing a gorgeous red Worth evening gown.
“In those shoes?” Aria said softly. “With socks? Perhaps these would be better.”
She held up a pair of silk stockings.
Bonnie looked as if she were going to cry and reached for them.
Aria held them back. “There’s a price.”
The woman hesitated. There was something a little daunting about Aria.
“Will you find me a hairdresser who can cut my hair like yours?” Aria asked. “And a place where I can buy cosmetics?”
The evening turned into a fashion show, with the women modeling Aria’s gowns, suits, and dresses for their husbands. Dolly was a little too plump for the suits, but what she did for one strapless dress was a sight to behold. The women laughed at the men who started cheering when Dolly descended the stairs.
“Bill was horribly jealous,” Dolly said triumphantly.
The smell of roasting meat drifted upward from the tiny backyard.
“J.T. better get back soon or he’ll miss the hamburgers,” Gail said. “Where is he anyway?”
The women paused, their hands on the clothes.
“He went to his job,” Aria said. “Do you think I look all right in this lipstick?”
The women were obviously very curious about her marriage. J.T. went away to rest after his hospital stay, came back exhausted, snapping at everyone, and a few days later a black limo pulled up on the dock, J.T. got in, and then he was gone for days. When he did return, he had a wife.