The Fortunate Ones

by Ed Tarkington

  I followed Arch across the parking lot toward the gate, walking past a tall, burly frat boy in a green shirt, madras bow tie, and Nantucket Red pants. An old black man with a thin white mustache followed him, carrying an enormous red cooler with a Confederate flag painted across its top.

  “Jesus,” I muttered.

  “It’s just a flag, Charlie,” Arch said.

  “Not to some people,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Arch said. “Well, that guy will probably make more today hauling coolers than he makes in a month. Assuming he even has a job.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “Lighten up, will you?” Arch said. “We’re supposed to be having fun.”

  By the time we reached the infield, I’d spotted at least twenty Confederate flags—stickers on the backs of trucks, flying off bamboo poles beneath fraternity flags, hanging from portable cabanas next to the state flags of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. We spotted Jamie on the roof of a Jeep Wagoneer with two fraternity boys. The three of them took turns waving a large battle flag and attempting, with limited success, to engage the surrounding crowd in a sing-along of “Friends in Low Places.” After they repeated the chorus for the last time, Jamie threw his head back and held his arms up to the sky.

  “This . . . is . . . heaven!” he bellowed.

  Beneath him, a group of black children scooped up discarded beer cans and stuffed them into plastic garbage bags.

  A pang of shame seized me. I knew that I was a coward. An hour earlier, I was in a black church, where I’d watched my best childhood friend deliver a fire-breathing sermon over the casket of his grandmother—grieving her loss and, moreover, the loss of my first real friendship. Now I was surrounded by Confederate flags in a field of drunken white college students. Soon, I would be with Arch and Vanessa and my mother in the Haltoms’ box, enjoying the buffet. Later that night, I would attend a party in a fine house in Belle Meade. I would think a bit here and there about Terrence walking back toward the Lighthouse fellowship hall alone and maybe even lie awake in bed for a while, remembering how that must have felt. But I knew even before it happened that the guilt and regret I might feel on behalf of my first best friend would not persuade me to renounce my new one.

  ten

  Arch started at Vanderbilt in the fall. He pledged SAE and threw himself into whatever campus activities Mr. Haltom advised him to pursue, but he was never far from me. We got out to the hunting camp when we could, to shoot birds and to fish and talk about what lay ahead of us. As far as Arch was concerned, Vanderbilt was the only choice for me. Mr. Haltom would get me in and pay my tuition. Beyond college, Arch and I would soon be paving our road forward into the future together.

  This is not to say I did not savor my last year at Yeatman. Even at the outset of our final year, we newly minted seniors could already see ourselves wreathed in celebratory cigar smoke in the blue gloaming of June. Most of us would soon be accepted into Vanderbilt, Washington and Lee, Sewanee, Davidson, Furman, or Rhodes. A few would be off to the Ivy League or Stanford, Duke, or UVA. The rest would happily head off to SEC schools, to major in fraternity and minor in football. The faculty gave us a wide berth in the final months, doling out “gentleman’s Bs” with abandon. The last year was meant to be remembered as a honeymoon, seducing us into enduring affection for the school, which would eventually translate into generous contributions to the annual fund. Even before the first day, we were feted at a barbecue in the backyard of the headmaster’s residence. There were father-and-son dinners, mother-and-son breakfasts, and special meals for both the two hundredth and one hundredth days until graduation.

  We were perched on the precipice of manhood, drunk on our own importance, our futures promising, the present full of opportunity for seemingly endless firsts and lasts—first drink, first kiss, first love, first lay; last dance, last test, last performance, last season, last game. There were many dances and parties to attend: homecoming at both Steptoe and Yeatman, Steptoe’s winter formal, holiday celebrations, and, in the spring, proms and the Tennessee Breeders’ Cup. At times, it seemed our education was getting in the way of the events surrounding it. But Arch claimed that this was the education: learning how to mingle, how to hold one’s liquor in public, how to know what to wear, whom to flatter or shun, when to show up, and when to leave. Calculus mattered, Arch explained, but more in the figurative than the literal sense.

  In December, Vanessa got her letter from Princeton. Mrs. Haltom had my mother order a cake, which went largely untouched (“Sugar is your enemy,” Mrs. Haltom liked to tell Vanessa) and a dozen orange and black balloons. Arch came over with his mother. Even Jamie seemed happy.

  After the holiday, Arch began to come around more often with his new friends: young men of a similar mold, who dressed and carried themselves not just with the air of privilege but with a sense of ambition and seriousness of purpose, which made it easy to foresee their ascent in law firms and brokerages and private medical practices all around the South and beyond. I wondered if all of these boys had a father or a mentor like Mr. Haltom whispering in their ears, advising them how best to position themselves for the swiftest possible rise.

  As the weather got warmer, Mr. Haltom began to host Arch’s friends for barbecues with his own circle of friends and business acquaintances. The Haltoms’ backyard became a veritable feeding trough for the recruitment of future captains of industry. Jamie and I often lurked around the periphery of these events, a bit stung by how invisible we were in such company. Vanessa fared better with the college boys. They all knew she was Arch’s girl, but regardless, anyone who planned to make a go of it in Nashville could benefit from knowing a girl like her.

  But really, how could anyone know a girl like Vanessa?

  I thought I did. Living nearby, studying with her every night at the breakfast table in the great house—or, rather, pretending to study just to be close to her—I thought I understood her, that, as it was with Arch, there were no secrets between us.

  Vanessa had the rare ability to carry on a conversation while doing her homework for AP Calculus; I was taking College Math and cruising toward graduation, confident that, thanks to Mr. Haltom’s influence, the letter offering me admission to Vanderbilt would arrive any day. I was far more worried about getting a prom date.

  “Who should I ask?” I said.

  “‘Whom,’” Vanessa said.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s ‘whom,’ Charlie. A personal pronoun as direct object must be in the objective case.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Okay,” I said. “Whom should I ask to the prom, Miss Priss?”

  “Whomever you like.”

  “Maybe I should ask you.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

  “Arch wouldn’t mind,” I said. “Don’t you want to go?”

  She put her pencil down.

  “I don’t know, Charlie.”

  “It wouldn’t be a date,” I said.

  “I know,” she said. “I just think maybe you should ask someone else.”

  “Whom?” I said.

  “I don’t know.”

  I had been only half serious; it wasn’t something I’d really considered. And yet her reaction had wounded me. If I’d thought about it before I opened my mouth, I wouldn’t have risked the rejection. But once it had occurred, my pride drove my mind to see deeper implications.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Am I too far down the social ladder to be seen with?”

  “I don’t care about that.”

  “But I am,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Socially inferior,” I said.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said.

  “Think of it as an act of charity,” I said. “Won’t everyone admire you for stooping to go to the prom with the son of your mother’s servant? Wouldn’t that look good? If you weren’t in Princeton already, you could probably put it on your application.”


  “Now you’re just being cruel,” she said.

  “Then why not?” I asked. “Is it Arch? Did he tell you not to go?”

  “Don’t talk about Arch,” she said.

  “Maybe I should ask him,” I said. “For permission.”

  “Shut up, Charlie.”

  I pressed on, oblivious. I mimed picking up the phone and dialing it. “‘Hello there, bud. It’s me, Charlie, your poor relation,’” I said. ‘Would you mind letting Vanessa off the leash for a night? I’ll have her home before bedtime.’”

  “Just shut up, Charlie!” she hissed.

  A sob broke in her throat.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Tears streamed down Vanessa’s face. She pushed back from the table and stood.

  “Don’t leave,” I said.

  “I just need to go,” she said. “Come with me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “For a drive.”

  We took Vanessa’s Saab. She drove out Highway 100, toward the Natchez Trace Parkway. It was already dark; once we passed over the bridge in Bellevue, the only lights we saw were the high beams on the road.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” she said. “I can’t keep it to myself anymore. It’s eating me alive. But it has to be a secret. That’s the only reason I’m telling you—because I know you can keep a promise. Do you promise?”

  “I promise,” I said.

  What she had to tell me should come as no great surprise. Such things happen to so many young women—even girls like Vanessa, who, as I had once suggested, should be too smart for such a thing to happen. I remembered what Aunt Sunny had said to me at the reception in the Lighthouse Church fellowship hall after Louella’s funeral. “What do you think that Haltom girl’s folks would do if she got knocked up?” she’d said. “Do you think Big Jim Moneybags would order up a ticker-tape parade? Would the Swan Ball queen call up the Tennessean to make sure the news got into the society pages?”

  Vanessa told me how she’d found out, what she’d done. How she’d kept it a secret from everyone, even Arch; even Alice. There was a clinic in Nashville, but she couldn’t risk being seen there. So she’d gone to Memphis, alone. The procedure had taken only a few hours. The hardest part, she said, was getting in and out of the building, past the protesters. On her way in, they begged her to reconsider. On the way out, someone had spit on her.

  By the time she finished, we were up on the parkway. I felt weightless, as if the car were floating above the road.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what’s the right thing to say.”

  “Just don’t judge me,” she said.

  “Never,” I said.

  I reached for her hand and squeezed it.

  “What about Arch?” I asked.

  Her head snapped up.

  “Arch can never know anything about this.”

  “I didn’t mean anything. I just thought—”

  “You promised,” she said.

  Her grip became so tight that I winced. She glanced over and saw my pained expression and relaxed her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s okay.”

  “I know how this must seem to you, of all people. I should have been like your mother. It would have been the right thing to do. It was my fault, after all. But I can’t do that to my parents. Can you imagine how my mother would react? With everything my father’s been preparing for the past year, with all of those late-night meetings.”

  “Huh?”

  “I guess that’s what you have to do,” she continued, “if you’re running for governor.”

  “Your dad’s running for governor?” I asked.

  “How could you not know?” she said. “Arch has known for months. He didn’t tell you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, he is.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  We were on our way back now. In the foreground, the lights of Bellevue became visible, shining in the rippled surface of the Harpeth River like quivering fireflies.

  “What about Arch?” I asked.

  “What about him?”

  “I thought you two were . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “What?” she asked. “In love? Arch doesn’t love anyone as much as he loves being loved.”

  I didn’t consider what I said next; it just came out.

  “I love you,” I said.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  A car whipped by us. We came over the hill and down into Belle Meade.

  “Is that why you won’t go to the prom with me?”

  It was a stupid question. But I had to ask.

  She dabbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm.

  “I guess so,” she said.

  “Because I love you?”

  “Because I’m not what you thought I was,” she said. “Now you know.”

  “It doesn’t change anything,” I said.

  “It does for me.”

  We reached the Boulevard. Before long, we were up the driveway, back at the great house. Vanessa put the car in park and cut the engine. She rested her head on her forearms, draped across the steering wheel.

  “I’m so tired,” she said.

  “I know,” I said.

  She lifted her head.

  “I’m trusting you, Charlie,” she said.

  “I promise,” I said.

  “Not even Arch.”

  “Not even Arch.”

  The next day, I began sketching out a new painting. I didn’t need a photograph or a plein air study; the image was with me all the time, floating at the edge of my consciousness. A group of black children in white T-shirts, gathering empty cans on a green field, dropping them into white garbage bags beneath a sky turning orange and purple in the sunset. Behind them, an oblivious crowd of partygoers in sunglasses, the men in pastel chinos and dress shirts and bow ties, the women in flowery dresses. In the distance, a Confederate flag flying atop a bamboo pole reaching just above the tree line, framed against the yellowing sky. The connotation—the symbolism, you might say—was blatant. But I hadn’t thought at all about its implications; I was painting what I remembered, what moved me. I wanted it to express a feeling, an emotion I considered to be complex—the juxtaposition of allure and revulsion, guilt and desire, remorse and indifference.

  “Wow,” Miss Whitten said. “I’m genuinely impressed.”

  We were alone in the art room after eighth period. Through the open window, I could hear the sounds of the baseball and lacrosse and track teams heading out from the locker rooms to the fields. The fragrance of the spring air challenged the sour scent of drying oil paint.

  “This one might push a few people’s fur back,” she said.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I think you do.”

  She looked off, out the window, as if searching for someone.

  “There’s something I should probably tell you,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “You quit?”

  “I’ve been let go, actually. Dodd didn’t renew my contract.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “You mean you don’t know, or you won’t tell me?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “God,” I said. “I’m sorry. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to live in Mexico for a while,” she said. “In a little town in the mountains, San Miguel de Allende, a few hours’ drive north of the capital. A friend of mine teaches at the Instituto Allende. He got me a gig teaching summer classes to retirees. I’m hoping I can turn it into something full-time. San Miguel is a good place to sell paintings. Lots of rich tourists, you know?”

  “Do you speak Spanish?”

  “A little. You don’t need much. All of the students are gringos anyway.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “My lease is up at the end of May.
”

  “You’re not staying for graduation?”

  “Don’t take it personally, Charlie, but I’m not exactly keen on hanging around for all the pomp and circumstance.”

  I thought I saw the beginnings of tears forming in Miss Whitten’s eyes. I looked back at my canvas.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t finish this.”

  “Once you’re done, I think you should hang it in the main lobby,” she said. “Right outside the door of Dodd’s office.”

  “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “What are they going to do?” she said. “They’re not going to withhold your diploma over a painting.”

  “If they do, maybe I’ll join you in Mexico.”

  “You’d be very welcome,” she said.

  “We could set up shop,” I said. “Sell paintings to the tourists.”

  “We’d make a killing,” she said. “Just don’t forget me.”

  “I could never forget you.”

  “You’d be surprised, Charlie, how easy it can be to forget.”

  Vanessa skipped Yeatman prom, but she took Arch to Steptoe’s. I went with Alice Hudson. Jamie was asked by Melissa McDaniel, at Alice’s behest. We all rode together in the Haltoms’ Suburban, usually driven by Scott. There was a dinner at Payne Curry’s house and an overnight after-party out at Christine Brennan’s farm in Franklin. The house had a hot tub and a pool, though it was still a bit cool for swimming at night. At some point, I ended up in a basement room with Jamie and a bunch of juniors I didn’t know very well, taking something they called bandanna shots, with vodka and Coke. Jamie and I had lost track of our dates. Couples disappeared to the bedrooms. Everyone else kept drinking.