In the pool house, we found Jamie and Vanessa, along with the Barfield sisters, Alice Hudson, a few kids from Arch’s class, and maybe half a dozen other kids I didn’t recognize. A football game was on the television.
“I thought you’d never get here,” Jamie said. “Vanessa keeps trying to leave me alone with Alice Hudson.”
I looked over my shoulder at sweet Alice, who had long been branded as disagreeable by Jamie and the rest of the Yeatman boys, for reasons I could not discern but did not contradict. Vanessa had persuaded me to ask Alice to the homecoming dance a few weeks prior. We’d had a fine time. Alice was gracious and funny and clever, easy to talk to, amiable, and apparently sincere. Furthermore, her father was a radiologist, her mother was heiress to a substantial insurance company fortune, and her grandmother was board chair at Steptoe. But no one pointed this out to me until much later; hence, to me, she was just poor Alice, a “good girl,” pretty enough in most company but plain when compared to the likes of Vanessa.
“Come on,” Jamie said. “I’m dying for a smoke.”
I followed him around the pool and back into the woods, where he had found a tree with a knot that curved down into a bowl shape, into which he deposited his butts.
“Behold,” he said. “My ash tree.”
He lit up, while I glanced around to see if anyone might notice us there.
“There are a lot of people here,” I said.
“It was bigger last year. This time, Mother wanted something more—what was the word she used? Intimate.”
I gazed back through the woods at the amber rectangles of the pool house windows. Vanessa was chatting with a tall boy, distinguished by his coat and tie (everyone else wore sweaters or button-downs) and a prominent Adam’s apple.
“Who’s that talking to Vanessa?” I asked.
“Rhys Portis. He goes to Deerfield. It’s a boarding school.”
“Is he from Nashville?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jamie says. “He lives right down the block, in the yellow house with the fountain in front.”
“Why doesn’t he go to Yeatman?” I asked.
“Believe it or not, there are people who think they’re too good for Yeatman.”
I watched Rhys Portis’s arm extend out onto the back of the couch, inching closer to where Vanessa’s pale-blond hair met her white sweater.
“I think he’s after your sister,” I said.
“Rhys Portis has been in love with Vanessa for forever. Even back when she wasn’t so much to look at.”
“Should Arch be worried?”
“Well, it would serve him right if she did make it with Rhys Portis. But get real,” Jamie said. “Would any girl in the world take a douche like Portis over Arch? Look at him. Overdressed for the occasion, as usual. Like he thinks only boarding school kids ever wear neckties. You want a drink?”
Jamie reached behind his “ash tree” and pulled out a half-full fifth of Jack Daniel’s. I shook my head.
Jamie unscrewed the bottle and turned it up. He winced and gasped.
“Where’d you get that?”
“From the catering table,” he said.
He took another pull.
“I better check on my mom,” I said.
“What, you’re going to make me drink alone?”
“She doesn’t know anybody,” I said. “I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
“Suit yourself.”
I left Jamie and walked through the woods out to the lawn. A scattering of stars lit up the sky over the bright windows of the great house. When I reached the patio, I peered inside, scanning the faces of the guests, holding cocktail tumblers or champagne flutes and little plates of canapés in hand or perched on knees. I spotted my mother at the center of a long couch, flanked by Mrs. Creigh and a man who looked to be about my mother’s age, a little thick around the middle, hair slicked back, with plump cheeks and thick eyebrows. My mother looked as if she was having a terrific time listening to this fellow, his fat face animated with the rare good luck of showing up to a holiday party and ending up next to a woman like her.
I heard the sound of laughter. I turned and saw Miss Whitten, smoking a cigarette, talking to Arch, of all people.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted.
The two of them turned with a start.
Miss Whitten exhaled a funnel of smoke and smiled. “We were just talking about you.”
She seemed very different, and not just because of the cigarette. Whenever I imagined Miss Whitten away from the classroom, I saw her in some austere room, seated in front of a canvas, brush in hand, eyes focused and intent—not hanging around at a holiday party in Belle Meade.
“What were you saying about me?” I asked.
“Arch caught me indulging in this dirty little habit of mine,” Miss Whitten said. “He told me you were around somewhere.”
“And here you are,” Arch said. “Where’s Jamie? You ditch him?”
“I thought I should check on my mother.”
“She seems okay,” Arch said, nodding toward the window.
“Who’s that guy she’s talking to?” I asked.
Miss Whitten smirked and took another drag on her cigarette.
“That,” she said, “is my date.”
“How are things back at the kids’ table, Charlie?” Arch asked.
“When I left,” I said, “Rhys Portis was making a pass at Vanessa, but other than that, everything’s fine, I guess.”
Arch chuckled.
“I better go rescue my girlfriend,” he said.
“You won’t tell on me, will you?” Miss Whitten said. “Dean Varnadoe would be appalled if he found out I’d been drinking and smoking with the boys at the board chair’s holiday party.”
“My lips are sealed,” Arch said. “Come on, Charlie, let’s go.”
“In a minute,” I said.
He paused for a beat, no doubt affronted that, for the first time, I wasn’t obeying his commands like a loyal terrier.
“Okay then,” Arch said.
He walked off into the dark yard.
“And you?” Miss Whitten said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She held up her still-smoldering cigarette.
“I won’t tell,” I said. “But it’s no big deal, you know. My mom smokes. So does my aunt.”
“Terrible habit. Good for concentration. Please don’t try it.”
She turned back toward the windows.
“Your mother’s very pretty,” she said. “I missed meeting her at parents’ night.”
“She had to work.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s a waitress. At Café Cabernet.”
Perhaps revealing my mother’s humble occupation would make Miss Whitten feel better about what we were looking at, I thought. She, at least, was a teacher, and an artist. My mother had only one thing going for her—never mind that it was the thing that mattered most to almost every man I’d ever known.
“I’ve never been there,” Miss Whitten said. “but I’ve heard . . . good things.”
“People call it Café Divorcée.”
“Who told you that?” she asked.
“Jamie Haltom.”
“How would he know?”
“You’d be surprised what Jamie knows.”
“I’m sure I would.”
She dropped her cigarette on the slate patio, stamped it out with the toe of her shoe, and nudged the butt into the ivy.
“Sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
I nodded toward my mother and Miss Whitten’s date. “I could go get her,” I said. “Tell her I’m not feeling good so she’ll have to leave.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said. “This was a fix-up. He can talk to anyone he wants.”
“Good,” I said. Miss Whitten deserved someone better, I thought. Despite my limited experience of polite society, I knew that abandoning one’s date to pursue another woman qualif
ied as “ungentlemanly.”
“This is our first date, actually,” she said. “Dalton works for Mr. Haltom. Jim, I mean.”
The way she said the name sounded vaguely insulting.
“Does your mother socialize much with the Haltoms?” Miss Whitten asked.
“Nope. We’re from East Nashville. My mom ran away from home before she turned sixteen. Because she was knocked up with me.”
“Charlie,” she said.
“What?”
“You don’t have to— I don’t care, you know.”
I don’t know why I wanted Miss Whitten to know these truths, which I would never dream of mentioning to anyone else at Yeatman besides Arch.
“I’d better go back inside,” Miss Whitten said. “Thanks for keeping me company.”
“Any time,” I said.
I waited until she was gone, and watched to see if she entered the room and approached her date, but she did not. After a few minutes, Mr. Haltom appeared, and my mother and Mrs. Creigh stood up from the couch and followed him out of sight, leaving Miss Whitten’s companion on the couch with no one to talk to.
By the time I returned to the pool house, Arch had his arm around Vanessa, whispering something in her ear as she nodded and giggled.
“Where’s Jamie?” I asked.
As if answering a cue, Jamie appeared in the doorway. He rounded the corner of the couch and fell in a great heap of drunken flesh into the plush cushion next to Vanessa.
“I love you, sis,” he said.
Arch looked over at me. “How’d you let him get like this?”
I led Arch back to the ash tree and showed him the bottle of Jack Daniel’s. It looked empty but for a bit of spittle backwash.
“How much was in here when he started?” Arch asked.
“I don’t know. Half, maybe?”
“Idiot,” he said. “Well, we can’t let him go into the house. Come on.”
From the dining room, we saw my mother, this time outside the kitchen, standing between Mrs. Haltom and a woman I didn’t recognize.
“Why have you been hiding your lovely mother from us?” Mrs. Haltom cried.
“I didn’t know I was hiding her,” I said.
Mrs. Haltom laughed as if I’d said something clever.
The buffet was spread out on the dining room table and two sideboards. At the center sat a large stewpot full of steaming gumbo, surrounded by gold-rimmed china bowls. On one of the sideboards: platters heaped with turkey, slabs of beef tenderloin, and roasted vegetables. On the second sideboard: pies and cookies and tarts. These were the leftovers?
“Fix yourself a plate,” Arch said. “I’ll take care of Jamie.”
When we returned to the pool house with the food, Jamie’s eyes were red and stained with tears. Vanessa sat beside him on the couch, arms folded, her eyes dark with fury.
“Fixed a plate for you, Jamie,” Arch said.
“I can fix my own fucking plate,” he said, but when Arch set the food in front of him, he grabbed the tenderloin sandwich.
“Come on, Van,” Arch said.
Vanessa stood and smoothed her dress. I followed the two of them out onto the pool deck.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” Arch said. “Don’t let him go anywhere.”
“How’s Mother?” Vanessa asked. “Did she ask about Jamie?”
“I think she’s having too much fun to care,” Arch said. “She’s showing Charlie’s mother off like she’s some sort of acquisition.”
“Oh God,” Vanessa said, turning toward me. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Mom’s having a good time, I think.”
“And Daddy?” Vanessa asked.
“Didn’t see him,” Arch said. “He’s probably in the study having man talk with the big dogs.”
“That’s good, I guess,” Vanessa said.
I enjoyed the idea of teaming up with Arch and Vanessa, conspiring to preserve the illusion of domestic bliss in the Haltom household. I tried not to smile.
“What if Jamie tries to go inside?” I said. “I don’t think I could stop him.”
“Just turn on a video game,” Arch said. “He’ll stay out here all night.”
“Good idea,” I said.
Arch could see how excited I was about being entrusted with what I took to be a vital and significant responsibility.
“We should go,” Arch said.
Vanessa leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.
“Thank you,” she said. “You’re such a good friend.”
I watched the two of them walk back toward the house, my body thrumming, a faint breeze from the open door cooling the spot where Vanessa’s damp lips had touched my skin.
Back inside the pool house, Jamie was making a mess of himself.
“I’m such a fucking loser,” he moaned.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. I’m a fucking joke. Right now, all those assholes are in there laughing at me. I should just kill myself already. No one would care.”
“Don’t talk crazy,” I said. “Come on, let’s play some vids.”
As usual, Arch was right. Once I turned on the Nintendo, Jamie calmed down into a benign state of inebriation.
In retrospect, Jamie’s self-loathing made perfect sense. By the time he’d reached high school, the weight of expectations had ground his ego into grist. His father was charismatic and commanding. His mother was frosty and supercilious. His twin sister was blond and blue-eyed and leggy and clever. Jamie, on the other hand, was awkward and ungainly. He was neither an athlete nor a scholar. He was not hale or beautiful. If we’d all been born pigs, Jamie would have been the runt of the litter, denied the sow’s teats and left to starve. And in a way, Jamie had been starving, for a very long time—more so since Arch’s father’s death had made it possible for Jim Haltom to shift his attentions to Arch.
As someone who had never known his father nor grown up in luxury, I’d have been entitled to hate Jamie. But I felt sorry for him.
He had sobered up somewhat by the time Arch returned.
“Your mom’s looking for you, bud,” Arch said to me. “Folks are starting to leave.”
I set my game controller on the table.
“I better go,” I said.
Jamie paused his game but did not sit up from the couch.
“Thanks for chilling with me,” he said, as if it had been a typical evening. I suppose for him it was.
I followed Arch back across the lawn.
“Sorry for leaving you out there babysitting,” he said.
He stopped in his tracks and gazed across the lawn at the house.
“About sixty percent of the people in that house right now are complete assholes,” he said. “And about thirty-five percent are total imbeciles.”
“What about the other five percent?”
“Well, two of them are standing right here,” he said.
You can imagine how it felt to hear that.
We found my mother in the entrance hall with Mr. Haltom and Dr. Dodd. People were putting on their coats and heading out to their cars, talking and laughing and waving to one another. Everyone looked “a little tight,” as polite people liked to say.
“Thanks for letting us steal Charlie so often, Miss Boykin,” Arch said. “He’s a great kid.”
“You really are too kind, Arch,” my mother said.
Too kind.
My mother and I shook Dr. Dodd’s hand and waved to Mrs. Creigh and thanked the Haltoms. We walked silently down the driveway, passing out of the light into the shadows, the only sounds the crunch of our feet on the stone pebbles and the fading voices of partygoers. When we reached our car and climbed in and shut the doors, we both drew in a deep breath, as if the journey from the house to the car had been an underwater swim.
Driving home, my mother breathlessly chattered about the people she’d met, the things they talked about. I mentioned Miss Whitten; she said they’d spoken. She made a few dry remarks
about Dalton, Miss Whitten’s date. She told me about Dodd, and the Haltoms, and Mrs. Creigh, who had been “just lovely.” She gushed about the house, and the food, and the general grandness of it all.
“You are so fortunate to have made these friends, Charlie,” she said. “So fortunate.”
six
After her debut at the leftovers party, my mother became a kind of mascot to a small coterie of society women, led by Ellen Creigh. Given that Arch’s sisters—both married and moved away—were not much younger than my mother, it was only natural for Mrs. Creigh to turn her attentions toward this fallen angel, rescuing her from Café Divorcée and surrounding her with a less outwardly dubious caste of people. Within a week, Mrs. Creigh had arranged a job for my mother as a personal assistant for the elderly Mrs. Kenton Tate, whose late husband had been a prominent insurance company executive, and a second job as a salesperson at an appointments-only dress shop. How could my mother turn these down? What woman would prefer schlepping drinks in a shady bar for a bunch of leering creeps to helping a genteel matron host tea parties in her manse on the Boulevard? And thanks to Mrs. Creigh, my mother soon found herself being extended every imaginable courtesy by women who would otherwise have looked down their noses at her.
“Watch yourself, honey,” Sunny told my mother. “Those Belle Meade folks might seem nice, but you’re trash to them.”
Sunny did not envy the country club set, nor did she believe in miraculous escapes from hard living and hard times.
“They’re not like you think,” my mother said.
Sunny took a long drag on her cigarette.
“We’ll see about that,” she said.
A week or two before exams and the end of my freshman year, Mrs. Haltom invited my mother and me over for family dinner. I’d been around long enough to know that “family dinner” was not really a thing in the Haltom home. But when we arrived, Mrs. Haltom behaved as if the four of them held hands and said grace six nights a week over wholesome meals prepared by her own design, if not her own hand. The twins and I exchanged a few curious glances. But we played along.
My mother seemed more comfortable with the fiction. There were no “family dinners” in Montague Village either; she seemed neither affronted nor surprised when the occasion shaped up into a de facto interview.
The Fortunate Ones Page 5