Liddie Langston Rose caught her reflection in the French gold leaf mirror hanging in her long central hallway that also displayed all of her ancestral portraits. Had she applied her makeup just so, or did she need to return to her vanity for adjustments? After turning this way and that several times over, she decided that it would do. Then she put her hands on either side of her waist, letting them linger for a few moments to assess its size. She was pleased with the result. That also would do.

She began practicing various faces. With the fragrance of Ma Griffe she had recently sprayed on her neck radiating from her, she dramatically lifted her right eyebrow and cocked her head to one side smartly. No, that gave her a downright arrogant look. Too extreme. Next, she widened her eyes suddenly as if someone had just surprised her with a bit of juicy gossip at one of the myriad cocktail parties she customarily attended or hosted. That didn't work, either. She looked too much like a zombie from one of those old-school horror movies, or even Elsa Lanchester as the Bride of Frankenstein, minus the crimped, electrified hair.

What to practice next? An engaging smile? But she always had that at her fingertips. She remained one of her hometown's great beauties, even though she had officially entered her "still handsome" phase past menopause more than a few years back. Perhaps, then, just a subtle lifting of her aristocratic chin and nothing more. There, that was just the noble façade she wanted affixed to her fine-boned face on this warm late morning in May. For not the first time, she reviewed in her head what she had done with her gray hair a little more than three months ago — abandoning the dramatic, swept-back-off-the-forehead style for bangs that hid her hairline and more. There was a bit of chiding at first, but she knew what she was doing.

"Trying to hide the frown lines?" Hanna Lewis had asked during one of their bridge games back then.

"Not at all, dear. There comes a time in a woman's life when a new look is absolutely necessary. There's no time to lose. If not now, then when?" she had answered, letting the remark fall rhetorically to the table. She let her three bridge buddies all sit with that for a while as they held their cards, and there were no further remarks during the auction — which incidentally Liddie had won.

Besides, they were hardly the ones to talk about changing their habitual coiffures or the cosmetics they applied to their faces. None of them had had the courage to update themselves all that much since their matriculation at Ole Miss over forty-five years ago. It was quite obvious that they viewed that period as the best years of their lives — volatile as it was.

Two of them, Bethany Morrissey and Sicily Groves, had even been kicked out of school for violating sorority curfew and other antics under the influence of gin. Ha! What else was new? It had been their partying poison of choice since their wild high school days in the quirky, wide-open, Mississippi River port town of Rosalie, tucked away in the southwestern part of the Magnolia State, and the high-spirited, socially prominent Gin Girls had made their mark early and often.

What had seemed like eons ago, the usually staid Rosalie Citizen had even done a puff piece on them in their prime, and the iconic photo that had resulted was one for everybody's scrapbook. They had lined up according to height by the side of the Rosalie Country Club swimming pool in their pastel one-piece suits with a provocative display of leg thrust toward the camera. Why, Atlantic City's bathing beauties had nothing on them, even though Bert Parks had never placed a crown on any of their heads.

Petite blond Bethany stood at the extreme left with the most contrived smile she could muster; next to her stood Sicily with her flaming red hair, that perpetual pout on her lips, and a couple of extra inches to boot; then came the lanky Hanna Lewis with her cascading brunette curls and tightlipped grin; and finally at the right of the picture was the ringleader of the Gin Girls — Liddie, herself. When she wore heels, she topped out at just under six feet. Many a Rosalie man and woman had been intimidated by her good looks and presence over the years, and her super-exclusive Rosalie Bridge Club was the envy of many a social-climbing matron. Had she made enemies as a result of her myriad haughty rejections for cruel, specious reasons? Too numerous to count, but she never let it bother her.

Liddie finished with her latest mirror session and checked her watch. Then she fidgeted with one of her family heirloom earrings and sighed in disgust. As usual, the others were late. No matter how often she told the three of them to show up on time, it did no good whatsoever.

"Why don't you all come in one car instead of straggling in the way you do?" she had suggested now and then to no avail. "Sicily, you have that great big old thing that you refuse to trade in that practically gets no mileage. You could all pile into that easily just the way we used to in my car in high school."

But she might as well have been a teacher talking to students who insisted the dog had eaten their homework and would not back away from their story. "I always have errands to run after our bridge game," Sicily would explain. "And I don't want to have to drag the girls around with me for something like that. They'd never forgive me, would you, girls?"

So Sicily, Bethany, and Hanna would all end up coming at different times in their own cars, and Liddie found it supremely annoying. It was one of the few instances in her life in which she did not get her way. Well, enough of this waiting on pins and needles while searching for just the right expression for the bridge game she had been anticipating as never before. Time to enlist the aid of her cook and maid of nearly twenty years, Merleece Maxique.

"Merleece!" she called out with a certain urgency in her voice, turning away from the front door of her two-story, brick town house, flush with the sidewalk — Don Jose's Retreat; named for one of the venerable first inhabitants of the old Spanish Provincial section of Rosalie. There was no more historic area of the city in which to reside and call home, and Liddie never tired of reminding people of the fact that the sun could not rise or set on Rosalie without her blessing.

"Yes, ma'am?" came the reply from the kitchen.

A second later, Merleece emerged from the swinging door in her starched gray uniform and tidy white apron with an expectant yet submissive demeanor and headed down the polished, hardwood floor toward her employer. It was true that she was nearly ten years younger than the sixty- seven-year-old Liddie and her friends, but that did not quite account for the snap to her step that Liddie especially lacked these days. This, despite the "heavy lifting" of domestic work she had done around the clock for decades. Even more to her credit, however, Merleece always maintained a winning smile that complemented her rich brown skin, close-cropped hair, and strikingly high cheekbones.

"Please drop what you're doing in there," Liddie continued, poking a long, bejeweled finger in her general direction. "I'm sure they'll all be here any minute. Time for you to take a seat in the foyer and greet them as they come in."

Merleece nodded with a perfunctory smile. Her Miz Liddie had her inflexible, iconic routines that people around her disobeyed at...