surprised. Her mother, Daffy Richardson, a nipped, tucked, and teased fiftysomething airhead if there ever was one, could be a poster child for the image I had of the typical Junior Leaguer. But I’d thought Trudy’s surprise marriage at eighteen to Mario Trujillo, an ordinary son of Mexican immigrants, marked a certain rebellious streak in Trudy that would defeat any further attempts at trying to get her to rise another rung. Guess I was wrong. I felt sick.
“How could you have been my friend for five years and not told me?”
“I really didn’t think about hiding it from you until Buffy Peters and Candy Streskoff started coming to you. You went on and on about how disgusted you were when they told you they had to join the Junior League to find the right middle-aged mom to impress so she’d take them home to meet her son. It made the whole thing sound like a twist on the archaic arranged marriage. Then when Zoe Severson told you she joined so her kids could get into a better private school, I knew there was no use trying to explain to you that some of us do it just to help the underprivileged in the community.”
“There are lots of opportunities to do that without the Junior League.”
“Ever heard of strength in numbers? It does make a difference.”
“Not when Buffy and Candy and Zoe are in the numbers.”
“Sometimes going to help the underprivileged helps change the perspective of the privileged doing the helping.”
“I bet that’s a line they make you rehearse until they release you from Junior League probation.”
“I wish I could think of a way to prove it to you.” Trudy’s green eyes flashed. She was angry, an emotion rare to her. The second time this morning I’d made her mad enough to spit. I was going for a record.
I’d been thinking about the resentment against Wilma in the ranks of the hypocritical socialites. What a great source of information about Wilma the Hun and her enemies! Maybe I could use Trudy’s crusade mentality to my advantage in ferreting out the real killer. “Okay. Take me to a Junior League function. Let me mingle and be enlightened.”
Mama Tru nearly choked on her last sip of coffee, spewing it across the table. I ducked, and it sprayed the window. Guess my capitulation surprised her.
But my best pal was no pushover. “I’m onto you, Reyn. You just want to go nose around in Wilma’s affairs. Maybe you’ll learn we’re not all social-climbing creeps in the Junior League. Here’s the deal. Today is the deadline for nominating new members. I’ll nominate you and get Charlotte Holmes to sign on for the second sponsor, and my mom can be your sustainer sponsor. We can go to the new-member mixer tonight.”
Whoa. The vision of me dressed to the nines with Trudy’s mom, Daffy, at my elbow was more than I could take. What a nightmare. “Hold on a minute, Trudy. How about you just have a little party with a bunch of your Junior Leaguer friends, and I can get the skinny there?”
“It wouldn’t help you investigate Wilma’s murder,” Trudy said lightly. “I’m a little fish in that big pond. Wilma and I didn’t move in the same circles in the JLSA.”
Sneaky little rat. I had no way of disproving that. “But I don’t want to be a member.”
“It’s not like you’re signing up for the Marines. You can decide you don’t want to join anytime in the process, and they won’t rip off your right arm.”
“Unless it’s wearing a David Yerman bracelet they covet,” Mama Tru chimed in, answering her daughter-in-law’s glare with an unapologetic grin and chuckle. “It was just a joke, my dear.”
Trudy looked thoughtful for a moment. “Of course, Reyn, a withdrawal is not without its drawbacks. It would make it more difficult for you, if you ever did decide to join the Junior League again.”
She read my look and shrugged. “Okay, so that’s not an issue. Let’s get busy, then.”
We all have moments we aren’t proud of. For some reason,
“How could you have been my friend for five years and not told me?”
“I really didn’t think about hiding it from you until Buffy Peters and Candy Streskoff started coming to you. You went on and on about how disgusted you were when they told you they had to join the Junior League to find the right middle-aged mom to impress so she’d take them home to meet her son. It made the whole thing sound like a twist on the archaic arranged marriage. Then when Zoe Severson told you she joined so her kids could get into a better private school, I knew there was no use trying to explain to you that some of us do it just to help the underprivileged in the community.”
“There are lots of opportunities to do that without the Junior League.”
“Ever heard of strength in numbers? It does make a difference.”
“Not when Buffy and Candy and Zoe are in the numbers.”
“Sometimes going to help the underprivileged helps change the perspective of the privileged doing the helping.”
“I bet that’s a line they make you rehearse until they release you from Junior League probation.”
“I wish I could think of a way to prove it to you.” Trudy’s green eyes flashed. She was angry, an emotion rare to her. The second time this morning I’d made her mad enough to spit. I was going for a record.
I’d been thinking about the resentment against Wilma in the ranks of the hypocritical socialites. What a great source of information about Wilma the Hun and her enemies! Maybe I could use Trudy’s crusade mentality to my advantage in ferreting out the real killer. “Okay. Take me to a Junior League function. Let me mingle and be enlightened.”
Mama Tru nearly choked on her last sip of coffee, spewing it across the table. I ducked, and it sprayed the window. Guess my capitulation surprised her.
But my best pal was no pushover. “I’m onto you, Reyn. You just want to go nose around in Wilma’s affairs. Maybe you’ll learn we’re not all social-climbing creeps in the Junior League. Here’s the deal. Today is the deadline for nominating new members. I’ll nominate you and get Charlotte Holmes to sign on for the second sponsor, and my mom can be your sustainer sponsor. We can go to the new-member mixer tonight.”
Whoa. The vision of me dressed to the nines with Trudy’s mom, Daffy, at my elbow was more than I could take. What a nightmare. “Hold on a minute, Trudy. How about you just have a little party with a bunch of your Junior Leaguer friends, and I can get the skinny there?”
“It wouldn’t help you investigate Wilma’s murder,” Trudy said lightly. “I’m a little fish in that big pond. Wilma and I didn’t move in the same circles in the JLSA.”
Sneaky little rat. I had no way of disproving that. “But I don’t want to be a member.”
“It’s not like you’re signing up for the Marines. You can decide you don’t want to join anytime in the process, and they won’t rip off your right arm.”
“Unless it’s wearing a David Yerman bracelet they covet,” Mama Tru chimed in, answering her daughter-in-law’s glare with an unapologetic grin and chuckle. “It was just a joke, my dear.”
Trudy looked thoughtful for a moment. “Of course, Reyn, a withdrawal is not without its drawbacks. It would make it more difficult for you, if you ever did decide to join the Junior League again.”
She read my look and shrugged. “Okay, so that’s not an issue. Let’s get busy, then.”
We all have moments we aren’t proud of. For some reason,
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