clothes. I thought her utterly glamorous and wanted to grow up to be exactly like her. Once she started Randolph-Macon, though, she went off the rails. Started smoking and drinking and did wild, zany things. One night she danced in her slip in a downtown fountain. Mama said they were fixing to put the picture in the paper until Winnie called Ralph McGill and got him to pull it. Another night she sideswiped the governor’s limo, drag racing down Peachtree. And when she got arrested for driving under the influence, she wound up teaching the entire lockup a series of bawdy songs.”
“Are those stories true?”
“Absolutely. Daddy was the lawyer Winnie sent to bail her out of jail. He said she wouldn’t leave until the prisoners got the harmony right.”
“That’s weird. I heard the drag-racing story back when I first joined the Junior League, but at a small dinner party at Aunt Sara Claire’s one evening, I mentioned it and Aunt Sara Claire said, ‘Don’t believe those ridiculous lies, dear. Bara would never have gotten into the Junior League if they were true.’”
“Pooh,” was Posey’s inelegant reply. “Bara got into the Junior League the same way anybody else in Atlanta does, including you: because of her mother. And every one of the stories is true, no matter how much Sara Claire and Rita Louise tried to whitewash them for Nettie’s sake.”
Katharine remembered more of that long-ago conversation. “Father John and Rita Louise were at dinner that night, and Rita Louise said, ‘I always thought Bara got into difficulties because she lost her grandmother her freshman year of college. Except for Winston, Viola Payne was the only person in the world who could exert any control over that girl.’ But Father John frowned at both of them and said—pretty sternly, for him—‘Perhaps that was because Viola was the only person besides Winston who ever showed that child any love.’ Do you think he could have been right?”
“How should I know? Like I said, I was a mere infant when she was growing up. But I do know Bara stopped drinking after she married Ray Branwell.”
“For love?”
Posey’s laugh held little mirth. “For self-preservation, is more like it. Ray was the heir to a restaurant-chain fortune, but very wild. He drank a lot, got into public brawls, and my mother used to wonder if he beat her. Mama claimed Bara would never have married him if her mother hadn’t disapproved of him so strongly. But for whatever reason, Bara stopped drinking soon after Payne was born, and settled down.”
“Settled down?” During Katharine’s years in Buckhead, Bara’s excesses had provided constant fodder for conversation. Her clothes were brighter, her vacations more daring, her conversation spicier than Buckhead was accustomed to. Her most flamboyant excess had been her steamy romance with Foley Weidenauer six months after Ray Branwell died. Their escapades had furnished the Atlanta Journal-Constitution with “Peach Buzz” tidbits for two months before the couple flew to Greece and married. Bara had been forty-seven, Foley, thirty-two. Her children were fifteen and twelve.
Posey went on sharing her heartfelt concern for Bara.
“All this mess with Foley is what has started her drinking again. It’s a dadgum shame she ever married him in the first place, and let him worm his way into Holcomb and Associates. Nobody knows who his people are, but anybody could tell when he first got to town that he wasn’t raised right. His manners have improved a lot since he married Bara.”
Katharine, whose parents had firmly preached the equality of all people and had declined to raise their daughter by society’s restricted definition of a lady, felt pity for the man. “Wasn’t he a CPA? I thought that’s why Winnie hired him.” At the time of the Weidenauer marriage Katharine had been busy raising two children and keeping house while Tom traveled, but she had absorbed that much.
“Maybe so,” Posey
“Are those stories true?”
“Absolutely. Daddy was the lawyer Winnie sent to bail her out of jail. He said she wouldn’t leave until the prisoners got the harmony right.”
“That’s weird. I heard the drag-racing story back when I first joined the Junior League, but at a small dinner party at Aunt Sara Claire’s one evening, I mentioned it and Aunt Sara Claire said, ‘Don’t believe those ridiculous lies, dear. Bara would never have gotten into the Junior League if they were true.’”
“Pooh,” was Posey’s inelegant reply. “Bara got into the Junior League the same way anybody else in Atlanta does, including you: because of her mother. And every one of the stories is true, no matter how much Sara Claire and Rita Louise tried to whitewash them for Nettie’s sake.”
Katharine remembered more of that long-ago conversation. “Father John and Rita Louise were at dinner that night, and Rita Louise said, ‘I always thought Bara got into difficulties because she lost her grandmother her freshman year of college. Except for Winston, Viola Payne was the only person in the world who could exert any control over that girl.’ But Father John frowned at both of them and said—pretty sternly, for him—‘Perhaps that was because Viola was the only person besides Winston who ever showed that child any love.’ Do you think he could have been right?”
“How should I know? Like I said, I was a mere infant when she was growing up. But I do know Bara stopped drinking after she married Ray Branwell.”
“For love?”
Posey’s laugh held little mirth. “For self-preservation, is more like it. Ray was the heir to a restaurant-chain fortune, but very wild. He drank a lot, got into public brawls, and my mother used to wonder if he beat her. Mama claimed Bara would never have married him if her mother hadn’t disapproved of him so strongly. But for whatever reason, Bara stopped drinking soon after Payne was born, and settled down.”
“Settled down?” During Katharine’s years in Buckhead, Bara’s excesses had provided constant fodder for conversation. Her clothes were brighter, her vacations more daring, her conversation spicier than Buckhead was accustomed to. Her most flamboyant excess had been her steamy romance with Foley Weidenauer six months after Ray Branwell died. Their escapades had furnished the Atlanta Journal-Constitution with “Peach Buzz” tidbits for two months before the couple flew to Greece and married. Bara had been forty-seven, Foley, thirty-two. Her children were fifteen and twelve.
Posey went on sharing her heartfelt concern for Bara.
“All this mess with Foley is what has started her drinking again. It’s a dadgum shame she ever married him in the first place, and let him worm his way into Holcomb and Associates. Nobody knows who his people are, but anybody could tell when he first got to town that he wasn’t raised right. His manners have improved a lot since he married Bara.”
Katharine, whose parents had firmly preached the equality of all people and had declined to raise their daughter by society’s restricted definition of a lady, felt pity for the man. “Wasn’t he a CPA? I thought that’s why Winnie hired him.” At the time of the Weidenauer marriage Katharine had been busy raising two children and keeping house while Tom traveled, but she had absorbed that much.
“Maybe so,” Posey
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