Dolly came over at one o’clock, just after Mrs. Humphreys left. “What’s going on?” she asked by way of greeting.
Aria had always lived surrounded by servants and she knew that the only people in whom one could confide were blood relatives. “I was about to have luncheon. Will you join me?”
“I’m not interested in food. Floyd told Gail who told Bill that J.T. was out all night last night. You two have a fight?”
“There is a lovely shrimp salad and cold tomatoes.”
“Honey,” Dolly said, putting her hands on Aria’s shoulders. “I know everything. I know you’re a princess and I know you want to get back to your country and I know how this marriage came about. But I also know something bad has happened, and I want you to talk to me.”
Perhaps Aria was more American than she thought. In the last few days she had sat by quietly while the other women talked and revealed the most intimate secrets about themselves.
To Aria’s disbelief, she burst into tears. Dolly’s arms about her felt good and Dolly led her to the couch.
After Aria had regained some control, Dolly urged her to talk.
“He…he made love to me.” Aria sniffed, part of her mind not believing what she was revealing. Royalty could never trust anyone not royal, as outsiders tended to write books—one couldn’t even trust the aristocracy. “But then he hated me. I don’t understand. What did I do wrong?”
“Absolutely nothing. Bill and I fought about it but he finally told me some of what J.T. said. Who is Count Julie?”
“That is Lieutenant Montgomery’s name for the man I was engaged to marry.” She blew her nose.
“Did you know J.T. thinks you’re still going to marry this count?”
Aria didn’t answer.
Dolly leaned forward. “Why does J.T. think that?”
“He wouldn’t marry me unless he believed our marriage was temporary. Of course I cannot get a divorce, it isn’t thinkable.”
Dolly leaned back. “Then J.T. will be king.”
“Prince consort.” Aria waved her hand. “But I don’t understand why he’s so angry with me now.”
“Easy. Of course he never admitted it to Bill, but he’s afraid he’s falling in love with you. He thinks he has to turn you over to someone else and he doesn’t want it to hurt so much.”
“Perhaps I should tell him the marriage is permanent.”
Dolly’s mouth dropped open. “Tell a red-blooded American male that he’s been snookered? Bamboozled? Taken for a ride?”
“Not the done thing?”
Dolly laughed. “I think you ought to make him finish falling in love with you.”
“Wear low-cut dresses, feed him strawberries and wine?” Aria said, having no idea how to make a man fall in love with her.
“First you have to get his attention. You can wear a sexy dress to the Commander’s Ball.”
“For his mother,” Aria muttered.
Dolly laughed. “I heard she might be here. She’s some bigwig, isn’t she?”
“Enough that the manners of a royal princess are considered to need work to meet her.”
Dolly put her hand on Aria’s arm. “Every man is that way about his mother. Bill told me so many glowing stories about his mother that I was ready to worship at her feet. He constantly bragged about her cooking and he insisted that I beg and plead if necessary to get her fabulous recipes. So when we went to visit the first time I took along a pad and pencil to take notes. Some cook she was! You know how she made spaghetti sauce? Two cans of tomato soup and one can of tomato paste. It was ghastly. Her ‘famous’ turkey dressing consisted of nine slices of bread cut into cubes, a half cup of water, and an eighth of a teaspoon of sage. No onion, celery, or anything else. She stuffed it into the turkey and cooked the bird until it was so dry you could have used slices of the breast for powder puffs. Then the old biddy had the gall to ask me if I thought I was a good enough cook for her little boy.”
Aria’s eyes twinkled. “Count Julian’s mother curtsies to me and addresses me as Your Royal Highness.”
Dolly laughed. “A dream come true. I’d like to see Bill’s fat ol’ mother curtsy to me. Does she kiss your ring?”
“She touches her forehead to the back of my extended hand,” Aria said airily.
“That I’d like to see.”
“If I ever get home, you have an invitation.”
“Deal. Hey! How’d you like to go to a movie? There’s a matinee on today.”
“I would love it.”
The women had heaping plates full of shrimp salad for lunch and they drank most of a bottle of wine. They were laughing as they set off to walk to the movie theater.
Aria was smiling and laughing when she heard Dolly gasp. When she turned to look, Dolly placed herself in front of Aria. “Let’s go this way,” Dolly said. “The cannonball tree is in bloom. I hear it’s the only one on the island. It’s really very beautiful and—”
Aria stepped around Dolly to look across the street. J.T. sat at a tiny table at a cafe, a pretty redhead across from him. While she watched, he lifted the woman’s hand and kissed it.
“Yes, let’s see the cannonball tree,” Aria said, starting to walk briskly.
Dolly ran after her. “So what are you going to do?”
“A wife ignores her husband’s infidelities.”
“What!” Dolly grabbed Aria’s arm and halted her. “That may be the way in your country but that’s not American. You should have gone over there and snatched that floozy bald.”
“The woman? But what has she done? She merely accepted his invitation. Perhaps she doesn’t know that he’s married. It is Lieutenant Montgomery who has committed the wrong.”
“I never saw it like that, but I guess you’re right. So, anyway, what are you going to do to get him back?”
“A royal princess is above revenge,” she said, her nose in the air.
“There’s the difference between you and me. I’d do something.”
They were silent the rest of the way to the theater. The movie was Springtime in the Rockies and one of the players was an outrageously dressed woman named Carmen Miranda. To Aria, she was a caricature of what Americans seemed to think all foreigners were like. Dolly kept laughing at the woman’s eye rolling and mispronunciations but Aria did not find the performance amusing.
That’s what Jarl thinks the people of my country are like, she thought. He’s not sure but what I won’t show up at his American ball with a dozen bananas on top of my head. He worries that I’ll embarrass his pedigreed mother when the truth is my ladies-in-waiting have more exalted family trees than she does. He worries about my conduct while he publicly consorts with a redheaded harlot—a fake redhead, at that.
Dolly’s words—What are you going to do to get him back?—echoed in her head.
Maybe she was becoming an American, maybe the short hair and the flowered cotton dresses were making her an American, because she didn’t feel like ignoring Jarl’s (Only my mother calls me Jarl, she thought with disgust; one’s initials were what was embroidered on one’s linens) infidelity.
She looked up at the movie. Carmen Miranda was wearing a purple and white frothy concoction now.
Aria began to fantasize about meeting her illustrious mother-in-law with her belly bare, a slit up her skirt, and an eighteen-inch headdress weaving about on her head.
“Something that sparkles,” she whispered.
“What’s that?” Dolly asked.
“Has this woman recorded any of her songs?”
“Carmen Miranda? Sure. She has lots of records out.”
Aria smiled and began studying the woman’s movements. She was so exaggerated that she would be easy to imitate.
After the movie Dolly saw by Aria’s eyes that she was happier than she had been. “Cheer you up?”
“I am going to be just what my husband thinks I am. I am going to the Commander’s Ball dressed as Carmen Miranda. I am going to meet Lieutenant Montgomery’s mother and
pinch her on the cheek and say, ‘Chica, Chica.’ ”
“I…I don’t think you should do that. I mean, the Commander’s Ball is the biggest event of the year and it’s very formal—only the top brass. Bill and I aren’t invited. J.T. is because his mother’s coming. And, Aria, you have to be nice to your mother-in-law. I think it’s a law somewhere. She can treat you like dirt but you’re always supposed to be nice to her. Believe me, an angry mother-in-law can make your life hell.”
“More hell than it is now? I don’t have a country; my husband spends his time with another woman and treats me as if I am nothing. He said I was cold and inhuman. I shall show him that I am not.”
“J.T. said that? You definitely should get him back but there has to be a better way. I’d rather face a firing squad than anger my mother-in-law.”
“Who can we get to make the dress? I think I’ll have it made in red and white and we shall use the very cheapest fabrics. What is the sparkling powder?”
“Glitter. Aria, really, I don’t think the Commander’s Ball is the place—”
Aria stopped walking. “If you help me with this, when I get back to my country, you can come for a month-long visit and I will let you try on every crown I own. There’s twenty-some of them.”
Dolly swallowed, her eyes wide. “We could put red Christmas balls in your hair and Bonnie’s landlady has the biggest, ugliest pair of seashell earrings from Cuba that you’ve ever seen. They’re red and white polka dot.”
“Perfect,” Aria said, smiling. “Now let’s go buy some records. I plan to sing while I dance. I shall get Jarl Tynan Montgomery’s attention all right.”
“I hope you can handle it. His mother is going to hate you.” Dolly brightened. “But men do like women with spunk. They don’t like cowards. You know, this might work.”
“He’ll look at me and not that redhead.”
“I can guarantee that. It’s just how he’s going to look at you that worries me.”
Chapter Twelve
WE made it,” Dolly said, leaning against the rest-room door. “Did J.T. believe your reason about why you couldn’t attend the ball?”
“I gave him something to think about. I said I was suffering from morning sickness.”
“You didn’t,” Dolly said, giggling. “I almost feel sorry for him. Here, let’s get you dressed. I gave the maid five dollars to keep people out for fifteen minutes, so let’s get to work.”
Aria removed her long raincoat, then untied her skirt so it fell to the floor. It was made of cheap white satin, tight across her hips and slit from her hip to the floor. The slit and the hem were covered with three layers of one-foot-wide gathered nylon that was sprinkled with dots of red and white glitter. The white satin halter top left her stomach bare. Red satin ribbon trimmed the waist and halter. The sleeves were three layers of nylon dotted with more glitter.
On her arms were gaudy red bracelets that reached from wrist to halfway up her forearm. Around her neck she wore fourteen strings of cut-glass beads that hung almost to her waist.
But the pièce de résistance was the headdress of five seven-inch-wide nylon flowers and a half-moon piece of cardboard covered in glitter set on top of a white satin turban. The earrings were sewn to the turban.
“Now, if we can get this thing on,” Dolly said, holding the headdress aloft. She halted when, behind them, a toilet flushed. “I didn’t check,” Dolly whispered miserably.
Out of the stall came a pretty woman, tall, slim, with dark chestnut hair and wearing a stunning draped, black Molyneux. She had beautiful skin that refused to tell her age.
Both Dolly and Aria stood frozen, Dolly with the turban held above Aria’s head.
“Is there to be a show tonight?” the woman asked.
“An impromptu one,” Aria answered.
“Oh. May I help with that?” she asked Dolly, referring to the turban.
“Sure.”
The woman adjusted Aria’s hair in the back and pulled the turban in place. “Is it heavy?”
“Not bad,” Aria said. “I guess I’m ready.”
“Oh no, my dear,” the woman said. “Your makeup isn’t nearly enough; your face is lost against the glitter. I have a few cosmetics with me. May I assist?”
Obediently Aria sat down in front of the mirror and the woman went to work.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but I take it this has to do with a man.”
Aria didn’t say a word but Dolly let go. “It’s her husband. He’s been…well, the SOB has been seeing another woman and Aria and I decided to pay him and his mother back.”
“His mother?” the woman asked.
“She’s some Yankee snob, came down here to give her daughter-in-law the once-over, and J.T. acts like Aria hasn’t got sense enough to pour—”
“Dolly,” Aria cautioned.
“I see,” the woman said, standing back to look at Aria’s face. “I think that’s much better. Now, why don’t I give the maid another five, then I’ll persuade the band to play a little calypso and you can make an entrance?”
“This is awfully kind of you,” Aria said.
“I’ve had a mother-in-law and I have a husband. Don’t ever consider allowing a man to get away with infidelity. I hope he’s very embarrassed and you teach him a good lesson. I have a feeling he’ll not be so neglectful in the future. Oh, what shall I have the band play?”
“I know the words to ‘Chica Chica Boom Chic,’ ‘Tico-Tico,’ and ‘I, Yi, Yi, Yi, Yi, I Like You Very Much.’ ”
“All of my favorites,” the woman said, and they all laughed. “Wait until you hear the music.”
Aria let the calypso music play for a couple of minutes before she burst from the rest room. She had been practicing for days and had seen Carmen’s movie four times, so by the time she entered the ballroom with its sedate lighting, its conservatively dressed matrons, its hushed music and conversation, its polite and genteel laughter, she was Carmen Miranda.
She had a thick Spanish accent and an exaggerated wiggle as she made her way through the astonished crowd.
“You are so cute,” she said to one admiral as she pinched his cheek. “It is so many stars on his shoulder, no?” she said to the admiral’s wife.
One by one the crowd stopped and watched her.
She plopped down on a lieutenant commander’s lap and moved her bottom back and forth. “You want we should chica-chica-boom-boom?”
“Young lady!” the man said, astonished. “Were you invited to this?”
“Oooh yes,” she squealed. “I am zee wife of a very powerful man.”
“Who?” the man bellowed. He was trying to get her off his lap.
“Zere he is.”
J.T. had been watching this with amusement, having no idea who the woman was.
“Oh my God,” he said when he realized it was Aria. He bounded across the room and pulled her off the lieutenant commander’s lap.
“I’m very sorry for this, sir,” J.T. said. “I had no idea she…I mean, sir…”
“You seem to like women in red,” Aria said so only he could hear, “so I wore red. Maybe this red is dyed with the same dye she uses on her hair.” She turned to the crowd. “He ees so forceful, no? So…” She rolled her eyes then stuck her rear end out, baring one leg to her hip, and moved her bottom down J.T.’s leg. “Ooooh,” she squealed.
“Lieutenant Montgomery!” an admiral shouted.
“Yes sir,” J.T. said weakly.
“Oh, but I want so bad to meet hees mother,” Aria said petulantly. She broke away from J.T. and undulated over to a captain. “Men can be so cruel, do you not think?”
“I am Jarl’s mother,” said someone behind her.
Aria turned and her face fell. It was the woman from the rest room. “Oh my God,” she said, for the first time in her life using the Lord’s name in vain. “I…I…” she sputtered. I want to die, she thought. Please, God, strike me dead now.
Mrs. Montgomery leaned forward to kiss Aria’s cheek. ??
?Don’t give up now,” she whispered. She turned to the others. “My daughter-in-law and I are going to sing you a song. Jarl, loan me your pocket knife.”
“Mother, I’m going to take the two of you home.”
“Yes, Lieutenant, I think that would be wise, and tomorrow morning I want you in my office,” said an admiral.
“Yes sir.” J.T. saluted smartly and took Aria’s arm firmly.
“Coward!” said Mrs. Montgomery to Aria as she was pulled past.
Aria jerked away from J.T. “He is a tyrant, no?” she said loudly. “He makes me to clean the dishes, to scrub the floors, to wash his back, but he never lets me to sing.”
Several people laughed.
“Let her sing,” called someone from the back.
“Yes, do let her sing,” said the admiral’s wife.
“Your knife, Jarl,” said Mrs. Montgomery. She took his knife and slit the skirt of that divinely beautiful and very expensive dress to above her knee, exposing a shapely leg. She took three huge red hibiscus from a table decoration and tucked them in her hair.
“Tell the band to play ‘Tico-Tico,’ ” she told J.T.
Aria and her mother-in-law put on an extraordinarily good performance in spite of the fact that they had never rehearsed. They played well off one another because neither was afraid of an audience. Aria had a repertoire of sexy moves she had seen Carmen Miranda do, but Mrs. Montgomery had the lifelong experience of being a sexy woman. They began to play a game of who-can-top-this? If Aria moved one way, Mrs. Montgomery moved another. They passed the song back and forth, moving their shapely bodies to the music. The band began to participate with drum rolls and long instrumental sections. All Aria’s years of dancing lessons paid off.
When at last the song ended with the two women with their arms around each other, the applause was thunderous and many flashbulbs went off. After many bows they made their way to the rest room.
“Can you ever forgive me?” Aria said to Mrs. Montgomery as soon as the door closed. Dolly was waiting for them. “I had no idea you were…Lieutenant Montgomery said you were…Oh, I am so sorry.”