Double Exposure: From a Gift of Love Read online

  Robert’s magnanimous gesture was repaid a hundredfold with savory meals of fresh fruits and vegetables grown on his own land and artfully presented amid centerpieces of flowers or whimsical baskets, or in “canoes” made from hollowed-out loaves of French bread. Even the location of meals changed according to the whim and mood of what Robert routinely referred to as “his ladies”.

  Sometimes they ate in the vast kitchen with its brick walls and copper pots hanging from an arched wall above the row of ovens and gas burners; sometimes they ate in the garden on place mats made from green and white striped cloth to match the umbrella above the table; sometimes they dined beside the pool on the low recliner chairs that Corey’s grandfather had fashioned and built from strips of wood; sometimes they ate on a blanket on the lawn, but with crystal goblets and fine china for what Mary called “a special touch.”

  This flair for dining and entertaining earneda Mary a great deal of praise a year after her wedding, when she gave her first big party as Robert Foster’s wife. At the outset, she was alarmed and intimidated at the thought of entertaining Robert’s friends, people who she feared would think they were her social superiors and who she was certain would look upon her as an interloper, but Corey and Diana weren’t worried at all. They knew whatever she did, she did with love and with flair. Robert Foster felt the same way. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he said, “You’ll dazzle ‘em, darling’ - You just be your sweet self, and do things your own special way.”

  After a week of consultations with the entire family, Mary finally decided to have a Hawaiian luau at poolside beneath the palms on the lawn. And as Robert had cheerfully predicted, the guests were indeed dazzled – not only by the sumtuous food, gorgeously decorated tables, and authentic music, but by the hostess herself. On the arm of her husband, Mary moved among her guests, her slim figure wrapped in a lovely sarong, her free arm draped from wrist to elbow with spectacular leis made of homegrown orchids from their own greenhouse, and as she encountered each female guest, she presented her with a lei that matched the lady’s apparel.

  When several men complimented her on the amazingly tasty food and then expressed amused shock at the discovery that Robert Foster had plowed up part of his lawn for a vegetable garden, Mary signaled her father, who proudly offered tours of the garden by moonlight. As Henry Britton showed the tuxedoclad gentlemen along the neat rows of organically grown vegetables, his enthusiasm was so contagious that before the night was over, several of the men had announced their desire to have vegetable gardens of their own.

  When the ladies asked for the name of her caterer, Mary stunned them by naming her own family. Marge Crumbaker, the society gossip columnist for the Houston Post who was covering the party, also asked her what caterer as well as what florist she had used, and Mary grew tense, knowing she might seem like a fool, but she admitted the truth: despite the popular notion that all domestic duties were sheere drudgery, and than any intelligent woman would want to find other, more appropiate uses for her time, Mary loved to cook, garden, and sew. Sue was in the midst of confessing that she also enjoyed canning fruits and vegetables when she noticed an elderly, white-haired woman who was sitting slightly off to one side, rubbing her arms as if she were chilled. “Excuse me,” Mary explained with an apologetic smile, “but I think Mrs. Bradley is cold, and I need to find her a wrap.”

  She sent Corey and Diana into the house to find a shawl, and when they returned, they found Mary talking to their grandmother about the interview with Marge Crumbaker. “I just know I made us all sound like The Beverly Hillbillies!” she confided miserably. “I don’t even want to know what she says about us in that column.” She shook the shawl from the girls and asked her mother to bring it to Mrs. Bradley, then she melted into the crowd to look after her guests.

  Corey and Diana were stricken at the possibility of being held up to public ridicule. “Do you think she’ll make fun of us?” Diana asked.

  With a reassuring smile, Rose put her arms around their shoulders. “Not a chance,” she whispered encouragingly, then she headed off to give Mrs. Bradley the shawl, hoping she was right.

  Mrs. Bradley was glad for the lacy, handmade shawl. “I used to love to crochet,” she said, holding it up to admire, her long, aristocratic fingers gnarled with arthritis. “Now I can’t hold a hook in my hands, not even those big ones they sell in the stores.”

  “You need a hook with a large handle that’s specially made to fit your hand,” Rose said. She looked about for Henry, saw him standing nearby, talking to a middle-aged man about growing edible flowers, and signaled him to come over. When Henry heard the problem, he nodded at once. “What you need, ma’am, is a hook with a big, fat, wooden handle that’s shaped to the grip of your hand, with small indentations low on the handle, so it won’t slip out of your fingers.”

  “I don’t think they make any like that,” Mrs. Bradley said, looking hopeful and despondent at the same time.

  “No, but I can make you one. You come by the day after tomorrow and plan to stay for a couple of hours so I can fit it to your grip.” He touched her twisted fingers and added sympathetically, “Arthritis is a curse, but there’s ways to work around it. Got a touch of it, myself.”

  As he walked away, Mrs. Bradlye watched him as if he were some sort of mythical knight in shining armor. Slowly she transferred her gaze to Rose and politely excused her to return to the other guests. “My grandson, Spencer, is attending another party nearby. I asked him to come for me at eleven o’clock to take me home. You needn’t stay here on my account.”

  Rose passed a sweeping glance over the banquet tables and, satisfied that she wasn’t needed elsewhere, she sat down beside Mrs. Bradley. “I’d rather talk with you. You’ll need to use thick yarn with Henry’s hook. I intended to teach Diana how to crochet and I showed her a picture of a place mat, hoping to spark her interest. She turned up her nose at the notion of crocheting rectangles. She suggested we make them in the shape of apples, lemons, strawberries, and things like that. She drew up some sketches. They were simple and bold. You’d enjoy making them.”

  “Diana?” Mrs. Bradley interrupted doubtfully. “You don’t mean little Diana Foster?”

  Grandma nodded proudly. “I do, indeed. That girl has an artistic streak a mile wide – they both do. She paints and does charcoal sketches that are excellent. And Corey’s fascinated with photography, and quite good at it. Robert bought her developing equipment for her fourteenth birthday.”

  Mrs. Bradley leaned forward and followed Rose’s gaze, smiling a little when she spotted the girls. “I don’t envy your life when the boys discover those two,” she chuckled.

  Unaware that they were being scrutinized and discussed, Diana and Corey observed the festivities from the sidelines near the dessert tables. It was not the sort of gathering to which teenagers were invited, and so they were pretty much on their own. At their father’s request, Corey had been acting as “roving photographer,” moving from group to group, trying to capture the mood of the party and the faces of the guests without being too obvious or in the way.

  “Are you ready to go inside?” Diana asked. “We could watch a movie.”

  Corey nodded. “As soon as I use up the rest of this roll of film.” She looked about for a face she hadn’t photographed yet, realized she hadn’t taken many pictures of her own family, and scanned the crowd to see where they were.

  “There’s Grandma, over there,” she said, starting forward. “Let’s get a pict-“ She stopped short, and her breath seemed to catch in her throat as a tall young man in a white dinner jacket suddenly strolled out of the crowd. “Oh, wow!” Corey breathed, unknowingly clutching Diana’s wrist in a vice and stopping her short. “Oh, wow…” she whispered. “Who is that? He’s over there, being introduced to Grandma,” she clarified.

  Diana followed the direction of her stare. “That’s Spencer Addison. He’s Mrs. Bradley’s grandson, and when he isn’t away at SMU, he lives with her. He always has.” Rack