“I suppose you all’d like to know how your daddy and I took up with each other?” Jo asked Teddy and me one evening at the dinner table.  My dad was working late at the auto agency, and Jo was having her after-dinner cigarette and whiskey.

          We sat there, not particularly caring if she told us this story or not.  I would like to have said, “Who cares.”  However, flicking the ashes off her cigarette, and draining the last of her glass, she began:

          “Twelve years before I got here to Pittsville, I grew up in a little country section of Georgia.  Wouldn’t you know–during muh senior year of high school, the most mahvelous thing happened to me.  I was voted “Miss Georgia Peach of the Month.”  They presented me with a sparkly tiara, two tickets to our local cinema, four jars of peach jam, and a voucher for a bushel basket full of fresh peaches when pickin’ season began!  What’dya think of that?”

           “Hmmmm,” we both mumbled.

          “Now, when ah graduated, my aunt Polly– ah called her ‘aunt Polly’, but her real name was ‘Pollyanna’, invited me to come to Pittsville for a two week visit.  My auntie was real sophisticated.  She clerked in the handkerchief aisle at Pitts Department store.  Well, one day, she took me to lunch in the Tea Room at Pitts.  Oh, my, the specialty of the day was a big scoop of chicken salad, a ring of pineapple with cottage cheese and a sticky bun.  All for a dollar!  And you shoulda seen the waitresses.  All dressed in stiff gray uniforms with starched white aprons, frilly caps all bobby-pinned to the tops of their heads, and the ugliest sensible white shoes.  Mebbe I’ll take the both of you there some day.”

          “Sunshine and me have been there before,” Teddy bragged.

          Hardly stopping to take a breath, Jo continued.  “My ‘ol home town, Porter, Georgia didn’t have a department store, and let me tell you, I wandered about all wide-eyed at the wondrous sights:  rack upon rack of fancy ladies clothing, an entire shoe department with displays of the latest in foot fashion, and my God—you wouldn’t believe the underwear section. Mannequins wearin’ brassieres in all sorts of colors, and panties almost too shocking to behold; sorry, Teddy if I’m embarrassing you, but it’s the damned truth!”

          “Teddy and I have been to Pitts a few times,” I stated.

          This fell on deaf ears, for she proceded to rattle on.  “There was an elevator leadin’ to the lower level where the Men’s Clothing Department was found, a mezzanine where chocolates, sodas and the Tea Room were located.  On the second floor there were all kinds of electrical appliances and kitchen gadgets. The third floor had children’s clothing, the fourth floor was loaded with furniture, and they even had a piano department.  You could buy a piano, or even just a sheet of music which a lady would play for you on one of the Baldwins.”

         ” Yeah, we’ve heard the music,” we both said in unison. 

          Lighting another cigarette, and barely hesitating, she went on with her story of how she loved the elevator operators’ stunning uniforms of soft green gabardine with brass buttons parading down the front, and red epaulets on the shoulders, with the ‘captain’ of the elevators distinguished by epaulets of gleaming gold.  “Now get this–in addition, the operators wore immaculate white gloves, and a fresh boutonniere was pinned to their lapels.  And every Monday before the store opened, they were given a manicure and a wave at no cost, plus a five percent discount on any one item purchased from the Ladies Fashion Salon–once a month.” 

          After this long-winded speech, I looked over and noticed that her cigarette had burned so close to her fingers, I was deciding if I should run and get the first-aid kit just in case, but darn it, she noticed, and stubbed it out just in time.

          “Those operators would sit inside their cages on three-legged stools just waitin’ for the passengers to file in.  When the time was right, the captain would saunter by, and if the elevator was full, she’d snap the little yellow clicker in between her fingers.  Then that there operator would close the doors, pull the lever, and announce to all her passengers as they went up, what merchandise was on each floor. ”

          Jo went on and on.  I looked over, and Teddy’s head was propped up by his fist, and his eyes were closed.  I wasn’t so lucky.

          “Those ladies had their noses up so high in the air, there was frostbite on ’em,” Jo commented.  “Why it’s a true bonus if they as much as smile or even speak to you.  I must confess, that’s part of the reason ah loved it so.  I wanted to be jes like them.  I wanted to feel like ‘somebody””!

          Jo continued in rapturous tones about the haughty elegance of those women, how she aspired to be one, and how, after her two-week visit had ended, she traveled back to her little town in Georgia just long enough to bid her parents ‘goodbye’.

         ” My mama  said, “Sugah, I wish you’d a change your mind, but if you’ve got a hankerin’ to see the world, I guess there’s no way we’re gonna stop you.  Just remember what I been preachin’ to you since you was a young’un–you got to hang on to that virginity of yours ’til your weddin’ day.  No man wants to find out on his weddin’ night that he’s latched onta sum’un else’s used goods.  I shouldn’t a told you that part, Sunshine, but it looks like Teddy’s fallen asleep.”

          “Anyways, my daddy looked heavenward and sang out “Amen”!  The very next day, I gathered up muh baby doll shoes, some pretty clothes, muh high school diploma, and the jeweled tiara; packed ’em all into a little ‘ol cardboard suitcase, walked the ten blocks to the train station and purchased a one-way ticket to Pittsville.  That’s when I took up livin’ at the YWCA.”