"Yes. Charlotte, oh. yes."
"We met some nice people at lunch, didn't we?"
"Yes," Mommy said. "We did."
"Especially that Grover Fleming." Charlotte said, her voice full of teasing. "He nearly wore lines in your face with the intensity of his looks. I've never seen him so infatuated with anyone. And he's a catch, worth millions!" she emphasized.
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"He was very nice," Mammy admitted. Her eves looked as dream filled as a teenager's.
"And don't forget we've been invited to dinner in Atlanta this weekend," Charlotte continued.
"Dinner?" I asked. "But how... who?"
"Friends of Charlotte's," Mommy said.
"Grover will be there," Charlotte added.
"I'll tell you all about it later." Mammy said. "Let's take all this up now, please," she insisted and started up the stairway.
I glanced back at Charlotte. Her look of cold satisfaction put a stick of ice on the back of my neck.
As soon as we entered Mommy's room, she began to unpack her things to show me one outfit after another, matching shots, new blouses, belts, even some expensive-looking costume jewelry.
"The saleswoman said I looked ten years younger in this," she told me when she held up a burgundy pantsuit.
"When I looked at the price. I nearly fainted. but Charlotte didn't blink an eyelash. Take a guess at how much she spent on me today. Go on. Take a guess."
"I don't care. Mommy. This is... sick." "Sick? Why?"
"Why would she do all this for you and spend so much money on you?"
"We've been all through that. Rose," Mammy said, dropping the outfit onto her bed and reaching for hangers. "It's a trade-off. I don't feel a bit guilty or strange about any of it either. Well earn our keep here. I'm sure. You've already started becoming friends with Evan and helping him, haven't you?"
"I'm not doing it to earn my keep, Mommy. He is my half-brother, isn't he?"
"Charlotte's told me so much about him, how introverted he really is and how much it troubles her," she continued as if I had not spoken. "You know he's never on to a movie? He doesn't want to go for rides or go into the city. She has to pull teeth to get him to get new clothes and shots. He doesn't care what he wears, and look at his hair! She's considered having him drugged and then having a stylist sneak in and do him one night."
"Brilliant. That's sure to bring him out," I said and plopped into the French Provincial chair in her sitting area.
Mammy paid little or no attention to me. Her eyes were fixed on each outfit as she hung it up and described how she had looked in it when she had put it an in the store.
"The other salespeople came around to remark how nicely everything fit me," she continued. "I had my own little fan club for part of the afternoon, just the way you did that day I bought you your outfits for the beauty contest, remember?"
"They do that only to get you to buy things. Mommy," I said.
"Now, Rose, they knew we were going to buy things. They didn't have to do anything. Charlotte's well-known in these stores. The way they cater to her, jump and drop everything they're doing when she appears... it took my breath away to see such devotion."
"It's not devotion. It's servitude.. They're beholden to her for what she spends there."
"It's the same thing in the end, isn't it. Rose? Who would you rather be, the salesgirl or Charlotte?"
"Never Charlotte." I insisted.
Mommy laughed at me as if I was saving the silliest things. I found myself getting more and more infuriated. I could see from the way she paused to gaze at herself in her vanity mirror every other minute that she was infatuated with her new look.
"Why did you let them cut your hair like that, Mommy?"