Where I got my Tartan Skirt

Staff meetings yesterday. I got to dress up. I have this great couture Celine tartan skirt from the sixties--a hand-me-down from Mrs. Hennessy in Miami. It's so beautifully made--you can see the tiny handstictching on the pleats--it has a few moth holes now, but I don't care. She gave it to me when I was moving back to Missouri. "You'll have a chance to wear this--god knows we never do." She also gave me a green wool Valentino couture skirt and her wedding veil, a hundred-year-old white lace mantilla. I was getting married--or, I thought I was getting married.

What would I have done without the Hennessy's? They were my family in Miami. Beautiful, kind and ruined. Good people.

I was married then and living at the time in a very poor section of the beach, in a concrete 5 floor walk-up. The local park had broken crack pipes in the sand, so I decided to go cruising for another park. I decided to go for it, and drove into the richest neighborhood on the beach--right off Sunset Island--found a great park and began using it with my kids. Trouble was, it was in the center of an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, so my little goyim stuck out like sore thumbs, and none of the other little kids were allowed to play with mine. (It's interesting to note that in the crack pipe park in my neighborhood, the Cuban and Nicaraguan and Haitian and Jamaican and African American mothers all actively encouraged their children to play with everybody)

One day, we were playing in the park and Nick (2) seemed to have struck up a friendship with a little girl whose mother wasn't snatching her away. Mom was not inside the fence, but was sitting on her car, an ancient orange porsche, watching. She had long red hair and looked like a thinner richer prettier version of me. Lilly was just a few weeks old and hadn't yet had her first reconstructive surgery (Lilly was born with a pretty severe cleft lip and palate). Hurricane Andrew had recently hit, so Miami was just a shambles. After a bit, the mom came up to me and handed me a birthday party invitation.

"Would you like to come to a birthday party?" she asked. "Catherine's turning 3 on Sunday."

I laughed. "Would you like to come to a birthday party? Nick's turning 3 on Saturday."

I happened to be hosting the party at the park--so no biggie there. Frances (that was the mom's name) was hosting hers at her house. She gave me directions.

That Sunday, my husband was out all day playing golf, so he wouldn't know about me going to the party, I loaded the kids in the Explorer and began driving, becoming progressively more and more intimidated as the houses became bigger and bigger until, finally, we were crossing the intercostal and going through iron gates and past a guard who already knew my name. Ah. A mansion. This was the real deal. There was no one around.

A wizened old woman appeared, deeply tan, with a badly repaired cleft palate. She was small and bent and dressed in men's bermuda shorts and a catholic schoolgirl's pink button up blouse. "hey!" she yelled, "Getthosedamnkidsoutofhere,"
"What?" her speech was hard to understand and I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly. "We're here for the birthday party."
"Toomanyfuckingdamnkidshatethefuckingkidsgetout"she said.
I walked up, holding Nick's hand and shifting Lilly. The woman stared at Lilly. "that'smethat'sme."she said, coming close and touching Lilly's head.
She patted her a second more.
"Okaycomeonin."she gave me a toothy smile and led me in to the hall. The house seemed empty. Where was everyone? Frances' porsche was in the driveway, so I was pretty sure I was at the right place.
The little woman scuttled into a little room off the foyer--a butler's room, maybe? A big closet? It's only purpose now seemed to be to hold alcohol. Bottles and bottles. Mostly Jim Beam. She got a glass for me and filled it with Jim Beam. Nick stuck his finger in his mouth.
"Drink,"she said, grinning and nodding. "Drink!"
"I'm here for the birthday party." I said. "Do you know where the birthday party is?"
"Ilikeyouyou'remyfriendyou'renotanasshole."
"I like you too. But where's the birthday party?"
"Oh CHRIST!" came a voice over my shoulder, from the hall. "JESUS CHRIST! Linda, go upstairs. GO UPSTAIRS!"
"FUCK YOU!" the old woman spat. "FuckyoubigfrancesthisisMY FRIEND!"
A woman entered the closet, now there were three of us, all gathered around the tiny table.
She was in her late 50's, blonde, a little overweight, and someone who had clearly, clearly been a world class beauty but had done nothing at all to preserve it. She was wearing a stained denim mumu and men's loafers. Her eyes were circled by the remnants of maybe 3 days of mascara. In spite of all this, she managed to radiate the comfortable, aristocratic glamour of a woman who is used to being the center of everything. She had a tight jawed connecticut WASP drawl--"LINDA GET THE FUCK UPSTAIRS OR I WILL LOCK YOU IN THE ATTIC ALL WEEKEND DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
"FUCKYOU!FUCKYOU!" Linda screamed, "THISISMYFRIENDTHISISMYFRIENDTHIS FRIENDISGOINGTOPLAYWITHMELOOKATTHEBABY LOOKATTHEBABY"
"NOW"Big Frances screamed. "GO NOW"
"you'reMYfriend" Linda said to me in a broken whisper, and then she was gone and I heard her running up the stairs.
"Hello," Big Frances said, as if nothing had happened. "You must be Haley! I'm Frances' mother, Francis. Everyone calls me Big Frances. Oh, look at that. You need ice." She was already putting it into the bourbon
I shook my head..."no...really...it's only 10am..."
"Oh, of course." she nodded and grabbed a bottle of soda water, which she poured into my glass, filling it to the top. "There you go. Follow me. Everyone's out back. You're the only decent one of the bunch, so thank god your here. We're so desperate for Frances to make normal friends. Drink up! I'll take the baby. God knows you look like you need a break. Just like Frances said. You're married to a real pisser, I hear." She said. I did take a drink, then, and followed her through the house, which as we went through it, seemed to be very dilapidated--peeling wallpaper, whole sections of the ceiling falling down, rooms piled with furniture. There were paintings and paint supplies everywhere and the entire place smelled like turpentine. I realized then that the stains on Big Frances' mumu were oil paint splotches. We went through the living room, which was filled with beautiful furniture with shredded upholstery. There were dogs everywhere--I counted at least 7. They all had various things wrong with them--missing legs, an eye here, bald patches. Strays, I guessed. Sleeping on the couch was a man who looked like Paul Neuman. We passed quickly through and ended up in a small room where bunch of people were gathered--I suppose it would be called the solarium.
The odd thing was there were no children. Only Catherine. The other people were sprawled all over the furniture and looked like they'd been up all night. They were club people, I realized. Some of them were still in their club clothes. Beautiful and skinny, the heroin chic look that was popular then as an alternative to grunge (grunge never got going in Miami--yuck, thank god. )Frances was standing in the middle of the room with a bewildered Catherine, proffering presents. The presents were mostly inappropriate--things club goers would pick up at Walgreen's at 4am when they remembered they were going to a child's birthday party. Things like a chess set. I had brought a stuffed bear. Dumb, I know, but safe.
Frances looked up. "Hi! Welcome to the party!" she said.
And that was the beginning of my friendship with the Hennessy's.

Well, that's way more than a 1/2 hour. I just got carried away by memory. I just talked to them on Halloween--Linda died a month ago. Got to get a card off. I'm sure I'll talk about them again.