“Yes, ma’am,” Ruth said. “She’s doing really well.”

“How are you?” Maggie asked.

“Really good, ma’am.”

Ann sipped her drink. “Still drawing?”

“Every chance I get,” Ruth said.

“Good. Ruth, check with the girls and see if they’d like soda,” Ann said. “It’s vacation, and the girls deserve a treat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Treat yourself and that other girl to a soda as well,” Ann said. “Put it on my account.”

Ruth looked at Ann. “You want to buy soda for Talley and me?”

“Yes.” The gin was doing the talking now. But it wasn’t the first time it had steered her in the wrong direction.

“Thank you,” Ruth said.

“Of course.”

Ann watched her walk over to the table with the girls, who ignored her initially and then each ordered a soda. When Ann was Ruth’s age, in the before time, she helped to raise her five younger cousins and worked in the tobacco fields. Bonnie had no idea how lucky she and her friends were.

Who knew—maybe Ruth was the lucky one. Her life would follow a predictable pattern, but she was smart, and her feet would be firmly planted in this world.

Carlotta had built her own life and didn’t need a man like Peter. Ann would wager Carlotta saved her money and was planning for the day when she didn’t sing. Carlotta, the planner. On many levels, Ann envied Ruth and Carlotta.

Ann’s beauty had been her ticket to success, and she’d worked hard on her speech, dress, and mannerisms to cement her elite position. But one day, her beauty would fade, and Peter would reject her, and this world would close to her.

She sipped her gin. The thought was always jarring, frightening. She would fix the rift between Peter and her and find a way to hold on to this life.

EDNA

As Edna set a stack of warm plates at the end of the lunch buffet, she glanced out the picture window toward the pool and watched as Ruth served Bonnie, Jessie, and Dora another soda. A part of her was sad for Ruth, who wanted so much to grow up and be like the other girls, ordering and signing for drinks like their mothers. Playing the role of a grown woman and flirting with the power a woman had over a man was fun at first. Easy at that age to envy the freedom of adults, who all seemed to enjoy life’s bounties. But those rewards were few and far between, and they would all learn that freedom came with a cost.

She didn’t like that Ann Manchester had bought sodas for Ruth and Talley. “Always best not to get too well acquainted with those we serve,” her father used to say. He’d been a minister and carefully tended to his flock, but he’d always remained on his side of the line.