Confederates Don't Wear Couture by Stephanie Kate Strohm Page A

Cheyenne, get up!” he hissed through his seemingly endless row of clenched teeth.
    A blond woman in a peach sateen Southern belle costume and a Mrs. America sash, whom I hadn’t noticed before, rocketed out of a folding chair in the corner of the room, mulishly clutching a Diet Coke.
    â€œYou seem a little young to be looking for some real estate,” the man said, chuckling. “Your daddy around, sugar?”
    â€œNo, he’s in Minnesota,” I replied, focusing on the center of the room. Atop a table stood a miniature housing development, chock-full of replicas of plantation homes. A thousand tiny Taras all smooshed together.
    â€œThat’s awfully far away. Well, next time you see him, why don’t you give him one of these.” He waited a minute, smiling, before growling, “Cheyenne!”
    The Southern belle stepped forward and handed me a brochure. I glanced at the cover and read:
    Â 
Bring the past into the present . . . with Dixie Acres! All the glory of the Old South with all the comforts of today.
    Â 
    I shuddered involuntarily—how tacky—before folding it up and sticking it down my dress for perusal at a later time. Luckily, I was able to beat a hasty retreat as the man had started berating the Southern belle for spilling Diet Coke on something. After the strangeness of the tent, it was almost a relief to be back in the stifling heat, and I hurried down the hill to Sutlers’ Row.
    Just past Old Doc Bell’s Wizard Elixir (I had no idea what was in those green bottles, but I wasn’t adventurous enough to find out), I arrived at the little red kettle corn tent and purchased an eighteen-inch bag. Plastic. Hmm . . . I probably shouldn’t bring that into the encampment. Popcorn would be okay, though. I mean, even if popcorn didn’t become extremely popular until the 1890s, after the invention of the first popcorn machine, a 1,000-year-old popped kernel had been found in southwestern Utah. In the sixteenth century Cortés reported that the Aztecs enjoyed popcorn, seventeenth-century French fur traders said the same of the Iroquois, and popcorn may even have been an hors d’oeuvre at the first Thanksgiving, as Native Americans often brought it as a snack during meetings with early English colonists. So even if it wasn’t typical Confederate fare, technically it wasn’t historically inaccurate. The plastic bag, not so much.
    â€œI mean, really, they needed me.” Dev and Tammy were still talking in the tent when I returned. “These women are just beyond tragic!”
    â€œHoney, I know, I know.” Tammy shook her head.
    Dev was actually right. Not everyone took accuracy as seriously as the Fifteenth Alabama, and many of the women looked like they had purchased Southern belle costumes at Party City or were recycling old prom dresses. Of course, some of them looked absolutely flawless, but there were more than a few who needed Dev’s help.
    â€œThese women needed me,” he said, “and at their darkest hour of need, I arrived.”
    â€œHere ya go.” I dropped the popcorn on the table. “Now, can I get you anything else, sir? Coffee? Evian? Massage?”
    â€œMaybe later.” Dev chose to ignore my sarcasm and opened the popcorn. “Delicious.”
    â€œDo you have anything I can put some popcorn in to take to Beau?” I asked.
    â€œOh, because it’s plastic?” Tammy asked. I nodded. “Aren’t you thoughtful! Just the sweetest thing, isn’t she?”
    â€œMost of the time.” Dev rustled around and pulled out a handkerchief. “Here, put some in this. Not too much!” he cautioned anxiously.
    I spread open the handkerchief. “LK?” There was a little pink monogram in one corner.
    â€œI embroidered them for you. There’s a whole stack.” And that was Dev in a nutshell. Just when you thought he was being ridiculous, he’d go and do something