Buddy and Matthew were the men of the hour. Adele had always known her brother was a handsome man, but the ladies of the Harbor Pearl thought moreso. They cut away from their beaus at the change of every tune, and by the gluttonous expression of satisfaction on Buddy’s face, Adele understood he was in hog heaven. And what woman would pass up a chance to dance with a dashing young gentleman from Washington? Matthew was fair, but he was fairer in his blue-black suit and his slick hair precisely combed and parted like a young millionaire. At six feet and four inches, he towered above all the others like a silver screen icon, and the ladies waltzed to him like Shakespearean nymphs, alight with the fruits of gaiety and eternal youth. Adele smiled behind her champagne glass, warmed to see Buddy and Matthew both so enjoying themselves. Jealousy and envy did not touch her. She’d grown up in Mother’s boutique; she’d helped clothe the wealthiest and most affluent ladies of Roe for their annual festivals and political soirées. She helped dress the most beautiful and fashionable brides and debutantes in the parish for their birthdays and engagement parties. She’d helped make North Louisiana’s glories even more glorious, but she never felt even a pang of inferiority. She certainly wasn’t lacking in beauty, but as Adele matured, she began to realize how fleeting beauty truly was. Fannie Usher was a stout, curvaceous woman in her early sixties. She was a gorgeous woman once upon a time, and thanks to the twin-miracles of cosmetics and couture, she was a gorgeous woman still. She had dark, deep-set eyes; high, sharp cheekbones; and excellent teeth. She was probably the boutique’s most profit-yielding customer; there was always a dress or a suit or a coat of one kind or another on order for Fannie. If Mother were sewing for her, she sewed five or six garments one after the other. If Mother placed a large order from Dallas or Houston, chances were, a good half of the merchandise was for Fannie. Fannie loved her wardrobe, and she loved Mother. But she loved Maybelle Price even more, because Maybelle Price was her beautician. Maybelle Price was solely responsible for Fannie’s Clara-Bow peepers, for her Dietrich cheeks, for her white-marble complexion that looked like glass milk. A young woman might be terribly intimidated by the likes of Fannie Usher, but not Adele. Adele was a bit saddened by it. Why fight so hard against something so natural and inevitable? she thought. She considered her Mother, bent at Fannie’s side, on one knee with the tape measure in her soft, dry hands. Mother winced kneeling down and standing up, because the arthritis pained her often, but when she sat or stood, she was the image of grace. She didn’t wear red lipstick and rouge the way Fannie Usher did; Rather, she dusted her cheeks and forehead with talc and dabbed onto her lips a bit of blackberry extract in beeswax--just enough to color her speckled Irish face. That was all the color Mother needed. She was a Rosalind, and all of Roe came to recognize the Mercurial copper-red of a Rosalind stepping into that shop or sitting in that pew. Mother was a tired woman, and she was aging. Adele could see not hints, but definite lines etching the corners of Mother’s eyes and lips. Her face was thinner, her neck narrower and more fragile. Next to Fannie Usher, Mother might’ve been mistaken to be the elder of the two. But that red hair.... It was no wonder women like Fannie Usher tried so hard. Tonight, dancing girls set the room like several tiny diamonds in a golden crown. They all tried as hard as Fannie Usher, and they were all young. Adele watched them weave between Buddy and Matthew again and again, smiling coquettishly and blinking their black-butterfly eyelashes. Their shoulders were bare, and every now and then, a girl would laugh in such a way she’d raise one of those bone-colored sculptures toward her partner’s face, tempting him to kiss it. But Buddy and Matthew never did. They were perfect gentlemen to the end, to the disappointment of many a dancing girl. The razz and chang of the band billowed then settled, like a great chiffon cloud. A saxophonist lowered his mouth to his instrument and began to breathe out a most wonderfully delicate melody, to which the pianist graciously replied. A lithe black woman in cobalt blue with a large magnolia in her hair slid up behind the microphone, and when she opened her throat, velvet issued forth. Adele closed her eyes and wrapped herself up tight in that voice. That voice, that pulled from her the red satin ribbon of her heart and sent it floating and flying away above the crowd. That voice, that curled its fingers through Adele’s red Rosalind tresses and smoothed its palms over her temples. That voice, the opened up a banquet hall of sensation and invited her in to twirl along the laced and scalloped edges. That voice.... “Will you dance with me, Adele?” She opened her eyes to see Matthew bow and extend a ready hand. He stared at her, purposeful and expectant. “Yes, thank you,” she said. Her voice poured from her deep and womanly. At that moment, she wasn’t Buddy’s baby sister. She was Miss Adele Rosalind Cavanaugh, and Yes, thank you, she would choose to dance with the handsome Mr. Matthew Eaton. The lady in blue softly cried her song. Buddy occupied Adele’s thoughts no more, neither the diamond ladies all around her. Her hand nestled in Matthew’s palm, Adele stepped in close and allowed him to encircle her in his arm. They began to move together, and it was like crossing a cider lake on the wing of some great white bird. Their feet turned and circled together as pine seeds chasing down through the treetops after a dislodging breeze. The air burned between them, and it was like a blindingly brilliant Southern sunset, searing the sky with its licking hems of fiery hues, and behind it, a cool blue night spilling in slow and silent, wordlessly stilling the sun’s flashing arms as it lastly lashes, fierce and forgiving, to another sleep.