I worked that kitchen and ballroom for one hour and ten minutes. Then the hotel manager came looking for the person whose name was on the contract, and I took the apron off.
My name is Wilma. I am seventy-three, and in 1971 I was the girl at Kettering High who wore her cousin’s dresses.
Bernadette Voss was the girl who counted them out loud.
I am not going to make you sit through all four years. One night will show you the shape of it.
At junior prom, Bernadette and her friends waited until I was on the dance floor with a boy named Denny Fowler. Then Bernadette cut in, laughing loudly enough for half the gymnasium to hear.
“Denny, you know she made that dress out of a tablecloth.”
She turned toward me.
“Ask her. Go on, ask her about the tablecloth.”
I had made the dress. My mother and I sewed it over three weekends from a length of blue check my grandmother had saved.
Denny looked uncomfortable. “Bernadette, leave it alone.”
“Why? It is true.”
I remember looking down at the dress, checking the seams even though I already knew they were straight.
My mother had worked hard on it. I had been proud of it when I walked into that gym.
Bernadette smiled at the people watching.
“Tell him, Wilma.”
I said, “It is my dress.”
She laughed as if I had proved her point. I left before the dance ended and did not go to another one. I did not go to graduation, either.
I went to the twentieth reunion in 1981, stayed long enough to be noticed, and left early. I will not describe why. Some memories do not need help staying alive.
After high school, I married a quiet man named Russell, who fixed heating systems. He was not interested in impressing a room, which suited me. He noticed when people were being unkind, but he did not make a performance of noticing.
In 1979, we bought a laundromat with borrowed money. The first years were hard and ordinary. We repaired machines, watched expenses and learned which customers paid on time. Later we bought another laundromat, then a linen service.
The linen service made sense to me. A woman who has sewn her own clothes knows exactly what a hotel pays for tablecloths.
Tablecloths, girls. I want you to sit with that.
Over the years, the business grew. Today, my company launders and supplies linens for eleven hotels, six restaurants and two hospitals in three counties. Russell passed in 2016. My son runs the trucks. I still handle the contracts because I like knowing who I am dealing with, and because at my age you take your entertainment where you find it.
Eight months ago, the reunion committee’s letter arrived. The fifty-fifth reunion would be held on Saturday at the Grand Regency ballroom.
I had supplied the Grand Regency since 2004.
I called Amy at the hotel.
“Can I ask who is on the reunion contract?” I said.
“Nobody yet, Miss Wilma. They are still negotiating.”
“Who is negotiating?”
Amy paused, though there was no need.
“The chairwoman is asking for a discount she is not going to get.”
The chairwoman was Bernadette Voss.
I knew the hotel had a service package. I also knew Bernadette was trying to reduce the cost. She had been doing it in writing, cutting staff and asking for favors that would have left the evening thinner than it needed to be.
