Plantation by Dorothea Benton Frank Read Free Book Online

to be a woman my age—all in a dither over who knows what, but at least she had the good manners to apologize.
    In two hours I get to meet my soon-to-be son-in-law.
    Don’t think I’m not going to give him the good “once-over”
    at least twice! At least there’s some Jack Daniels in the minibar.Think I’ll have a nip and a nap. . . .

    Three
    Make No Misteak!
    }
    ILLIE just called. It was so good to hear her voice and know that she’s here! Then I called Mother to Msee if she was all right and she said she had no complaints. I asked her if I had the wrong number and she told me I wasn’t funny. I asked her if she wanted to come over early and see our new apartment and she said she was tired and wanted to rest. I couldn’t blame her for that. She had just spent all night on a train.
    I splurged and put everyone at the Pierre because then everyone was within walking distance of our apartment. Trip and Frances Mae were due to arrive anytime, and I was finally starting to get nervous. Richard should have been home at three; he promised he’d leave early. Well, I guess something came up.
    I called the Post House to reconfirm our reservation for six people. I had extended an invitation to the rabbi, but he declined because he had to hold services on Friday night. Apparently the other rabbi was away for the weekend or something.

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    D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k Our apartment was spotless. I could just see Mother running her hand over the mantelpiece and finding dust. Not this girl! All in all, I thought she’d be pleasantly surprised to see it.
    Richard and I had bought this small two-bedroom co-op a year and a half ago, and Lord what a horrible dump it was then!
    Neither one of us had the money to hire a big decorator, so I took on the job myself. Well, actually, Richard had the money but didn’t want to spend it on something so philistine as decorating. Now, if there was one thing Mother taught me—like all normal daughters, I took ninety percent of everything she said and ignored it—
    Mother taught me never to apologize for trying to make the world a more beautiful place.
    I just didn’t want to fight with Richard about money. It was something he seemed sensitive about. It was no big deal. Really. I just sat down and figured out how to decorate on a budget just about the size of an Oreo. I knew when Richard saw what I could do with those worn-out rooms, he’d be very proud of me. We spent our nights in unmarried bliss in my tiny studio while the work progressed. He gave up his apartment near Columbia to help cover the costs of the project.
    I was focused on the job with all the intensity of a mother pigeon feathering her nest. They’re living in sin! I could hear Mother’s voice the whole way from the Edisto River. My mother’s friend Miss Sweetie would say, I thought they were living in the Village .
    Then Millie would say, Humph! That child ain’t capable of sin! So there was a lot of clucking going on while I renovated and the southern contingent waited to see what would become of our relationship.
    Once again the doorman at our new building turned out to be a well of information. Through him I hired a fellow to gut the apartment back to the bricks. I had it rewired, restored the chimney, reinforced the floors, cut through the walls for air conditioners, built an entirely new kitchen, and redid both bathrooms. I bought most of the fixtures from Ikea and the appliances from Sears dur-P l a n t a t i o n
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    ing their Fourth of July sale. Honestly? They looked almost as good as anything in Architectural Digest .
    To save money on plastering, the walls of the living room were padded Sheetrock, upholstered in a slubby white rayon-and-cotton fabric that I found on Thirty-ninth Street for seven dollars a yard.
    The wall-to-wall carpets were textured ivory wool in a basket-weave pattern, found in huge remnants at ABC Carpet. The curtains were white sheers shot with silver metallic threads, looped