“Well, of course, Pearl,” Mother didn"t deign to look up, at me, the party"s guest of honor. “But there must be a few of my friends as well.” Ah, the truth of the matter, for her. Her truth was bent, if with nothing more than how few of the ladies of Newport were really her friends.
“Ouch!” she cried, sucking a finger. “Another little paper-cut. Oh, how many I have suffered with these invitations. Damn that Miss de Baril.”
Not a one of us spoke. It was a subject sure to charge up of my mother"s inner beasts. None of us dared remind her that Nettie, not her, had addressed the hundreds of invitations, had seen to their distribution, not her. All Mother could fixate on was that the Miss de Baril hadn"t done them. If my mother cut herself, it was on her own misplaced frustration.
theMiss Ma
