Bellamy sips her wine and tosses back her hair, which has been flat-irone so meticulously it looks like a wig, even in the heat. In this way, she has really taken the be Cee charge to heart. Cecelia gets her hair genes mostly from her father, a big aggressive blond guy to whom all the nieces have privately likened to the university president. Uncle Charles is not here; like his children, he's found reasons to be hundreds of miles away from this celebration of his wife's ascent. But he isn't not here. Because of the president. 

Each of them has had the thought that Aunt Cassandra must have actually sought out men like this to shape the corners of her structured life. Formidable white men with vast cuff link collections. To varying degrees, they consider that this might not be a matter of accident or coincidence. But until Bellamy says what she says next, they'd always assumed it was at most some sort of subliminal affinity. 

Bellamy says: 'Aunt Cassandra is the smartest person in this whole yard, let alone in the family. You see if she's not the president of this shitty school in a couple years. Grandma Opal played this same game and wound up with a jazz club.'