I was debating inviting another trustee and her husband. I knew it was probably dangerous to have Mitzi Summerset because she loved the sound of her own voice way too much. I could see her batting her eyes like a schoolgirl and going on and on about herself while my other guests went catatonic waiting for her to relinquish the mike.
Common sense prevailed and I didn’t invite her. But I did have my hair blown out and Monday night finally arrived. Mary Beth was in the kitchen with Peggy plating salads and arranging cheeses on a huge platter with fruit and crackers.
“I’m so glad you could come, Mary Beth,” I said.
“So am I,” Peggy said with a laugh. “There’ll be a hundred glasses to hand wash!”
“A hundred?” I said and narrowed my eyes at her. Lordy, Lord. Peggy did love to exaggerate.
“Okay. Fifty,” Peggy said.
“No, problem, Mrs. Waters, happy to help!”
“Great! Peggy? Show Mary Beth where the extra wine is and the bottled water. Let’s fill those water goblets at ten to six, okay?”
“Done!” Peggy said.
“I don’t know how we use all those glasses but we do. Sorry.”
“Honey? Use them all! Dirty glasses are my job security!” She laughed again.
With only seven of us for dinner Peggy probably didn’t really need Mary Beth’s help. But Peggy was getting older and she liked to go home early. Two extra hands would cut her work in half and I knew Mary Beth needed the money. It was a tiny win-win in my domestic life.
The delicious smells of roasting meat were wafting all over the house like mythical sirens calling out to sailors to throw themselves on the rocks. Maybe my prospective donors would be so intoxicated by my roast beef and mashed potatoes that they’d write big fat checks for us, and good women and children would be able to sleep safely. I almost had to laugh because a simultaneous thought crossed my mind that dreamers give birth to dreamers. Ashley came by her dreamer personality honestly. Ah, me. Another maternal insight—you always dislike about your children that which you dislike about yourself because you understand the danger of that trait. But who knew? Maybe the community relations person from All Air, Inc., would like to fund a new shelter. Maybe the retired real estate developer would like to endow our counseling services. Until somebody emphatically turned me down, the answer was still yes.
The doorbell rang promptly at six and our executive director, Tom Warner, breezed in, gave my cheek a polite kiss, and stood back.
“It smells like heaven in here! Roast beef?”
“Of course!” I said. “Where’s Vicki?”
“Allergies driving her crazy. Sneezing and hacking. God! Smell that? These fellows don’t have a chance. Am I the first?”
“Yes. Come on in. Let’s open a bottle of wine.”
“Excellent idea,” he said. “Is Clayton here?”
“In New York.”
We walked through the living room to the dining room where the wine was chilling. “Too bad. I haven’t seen him in ages. Your house looks beautiful, as it always does.”
“Oh, thanks, Tom. Peggy and I packed away a ton of stuff this morning and lo and behold, suddenly there was room to set up a bar!”
“It’s important to have our priorities straight,” he said and smiled. “Now tell me again; who’s coming? I mean, I know who’s coming. I just want to hear their names out loud. Every other nonprofit in Charleston is dying of jealousy tonight.”
I giggled and Tom opened the bottle. I removed Vicki’s place setting from the table.
“David Malcolm from All Air and his wife, Annie, and Steve Karol, the real estate mogul of all times, and his wife, Michelle. Steve and Michelle are living on Spring Island right now but thinking about moving here. And for a sledgehammer finale, Karen Jones is coming in at eight for dessert and coffee.”
Karen Jones (formerly known as Anne Marie Wilson) was a physician’s assistant whose husband, Leonard, was once a well-respected orthodontist in Myrtle Beach. Karen came to us three years ago, black and blue from head to toe with her two small equally battered children and with just the clothes on their backs. For every good reason, she was fearful for all their lives. But when she took him to court, she blew the lid off his deviant and, yes, criminal behavior and that was the beginning of the fat lady’s song for him. His practice dwindled until he moved to Salem, Oregon, but not before he threatened revenge. Leonard Wilson was as angry a man as you could ever imagine and as mean a son of a gun as you could find on this earth. An order of protection signed by any authority you could name was still a joke to him. He’d kill somebody eventually—I had no doubt of that—but for the moment he was in Oregon and Karen was living in Charleston with her children and new identities for all. She was the head of our Survivors Council and could tell the story of domestic violence with such passion that it gave me chills no matter how many times I heard it.
Mary Beth came into the room carrying a tumbler of something and said, “Here you go, Mizz Waters, I believe you favor vodka?”
I looked at her and thought, This child doesn’t know a thing about the real me.
“Mary Beth? Throw that thing right down the drain. Only Pellegrino! This is a very serious work night.”
“For real!” she said. “Pellegrino it is!”
“Thanks. Listen, these two couples who are coming here for dinner could change my world. I’m looking for money to build a new shelter that is so desperately needed. I need you and Peggy to keep your ears open and remember everything you hear, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am! I mean, Ashley told me you were involved with a crisis center, but I had no idea . . .”
“She probably thinks I answer the crisis hotline for Butterball turkeys,” I said and watched Mary Beth’s face fall. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t nice. But I have to tell you, Mary Beth, for what it’s worth, no one in my family has ever taken an interest in my work.”
“I’m gonna wash my hands,” Tom said.
“Down the hall on the right. You know where it is.”
He nodded and walked away, sensing he shouldn’t hear whatever confidence Mary Beth wanted to share with me.
“Maybe they just don’t understand what abuse really is,” she said.
“But you do?” I said. What was this child saying?
“I’m just saying that all kinds of things go on and some people are too afraid to say anything.”
I looked at her face and searched her eyes for meaning and to my great sorrow, there was nothing there I hadn’t seen in the faces of so many damaged women we counseled and tried to help at My Sister’s House.
“If you ever want to talk—” I began, but she interrupted me.
“I’d better help Peggy get that roast out of the oven instead of standing here running my mouth. And I’ll get you that Pellegrino. Lime?”
“That would be great. Thanks.”
On another night I would’ve encouraged her to sit down and talk about herself but my doorbell was ringing again. Maybe I’d call her and take her out to lunch. Yes, I would do that.
When Annie and David Malcolm arrived, I took an immediate shine to Annie. Minutes later we were gathered in my little courtyard, and they were all sipping a glass of wine. Mary Beth was passing steamed shrimp with a cocktail sauce.
“Stay right here, young lady,” David Malcolm said to Mary Beth. He popped one into his mouth, then another and another. “God, I love these things.”
Yes! I thought. I was so relieved that I wasn’t dealing with a Mr. Fancy Pants. This would make the pitch go much easier.
I took a moment to check the temperature of our party’s waters. The chatter was going nicely. Fortunately, the mosquitoes weren’t biting or the no-see-ums, because my landscaper had sprayed for us earlier in the afternoon. Maybe it was the fact that I used a landscaper that made Maisie think that I wasn’t a real gardener. We
ll, I could think about that another time. There was an intermittent breeze, laced with some sweet, Lowcountry perfume and another day began to fade away. Please, Lord, make them sympathetic to the cause. Amen.
“So how long did y’all live in Seattle?” I asked Annie.
“Twenty years. We raised our children there and we had wonderful friends. Seattle is a very special place.”
“Rains a bit?”
She laughed and said, “It’s really not all that much rain. It’s more like gray skies and the drizzles for months on end and then we have gorgeous summers.”
“Yeah, that’s actually what I’ve heard. So are you enjoying Charleston? Did you find a house?”
“We did! We bought a nice place on Daniel Island. You’ll have to come see it! It’s a great location for David’s commute. And I am absolutely loving Charleston. Every chance I get, I go to a plantation or a house museum. There’s so much history here!”
“Well, it’s not ancient Rome or Athens but for American history? You could spend a lifetime learning all there is to know. Anyway, I’m so glad we could finally get together.”
“So are we,” Annie said, and somehow I knew she meant it.
I looked up to see Mary Beth showing Steve and Michelle Karol out to where we were. There were hellos all around. Mary Beth left to get them some refreshments and more Pellegrino for me. For the moment, Tom seemed to have them all enthralled. He was his most charming in any kind of social situation. I was a bundle of nerves.
When Mary Beth came back, she whispered to me, “Are you all right, Mizz Waters?”
“Of course! Why?”
“You just seem so serious. I just thought, you know, maybe something was wrong.”
I looked at her.
“Mary Beth? Let me tell you what’s going on around here. In 2010, there were almost fifty thousand victims of domestic abuse in South Carolina. Tell me what could be more serious?”
“Plague?” she said and made an odd face.
“This is a plague, sweetie,” I said. “It’s a bona fide plague. Is the roast out of the oven?”
“Yes, we should be able to sit in about ten minutes,” she said and hurried back into the house.
“Sorry, honey,” I muttered to myself as soon as she was out of earshot.
I hated myself when I fact-bombed people but I was so nervous, trying to hold my anxiety in check. I also realized then that Mary Beth was probably a long way away from coming to terms with the secret she was holding. But why in the world this subject wasn’t on the tip of every woman’s tongue, not just here but all over the country, I simply didn’t understand. Annie and Michelle caught my attention.
Michelle said, “Tom just told us you’re beginning a capital campaign for a new safe house. Is that true? How do you go about doing something like that?”
“Girls like us put the squeeze on our husbands and the money somehow materializes!” Annie said, laughing. “Am I right?”
“I think we’re going to be best friends,” I said. “I wish it was always that easy.”
“I was on the board of a battered women’s shelter in Seattle,” Annie said. “I’ve got the drill.”
“Oh my dear long-lost friend! Would you like to be on ours?” I said.
“Wait a minute!” Michelle said. “What about me?”
I hugged them both, all of us knowing that after the nominating committee heard about and interviewed them for two seconds, they would certainly be given the most serious consideration for board positions. We were always in need of good trustees, especially ones of means and experience.
The French doors to my dining room opened wide and Mary Beth sang out, “Dinner is ready anytime y’all are.”
Well, Mary Beth was as cute as a bug in her white shirt and black skirt, but she shouldn’t have been clanging the proverbial triangle like we were back on the Ponderosa climbing off a dusty mule train. This was Church Street in Charleston! I’d have a word with her later.
I turned to Tom and whispered, “Well, shall we knock the mud from our boots and go get us some grub?”
“Oh, don’t be so prissy, Emily Post,” Tom said and smiled again and held the door for our guests to go in ahead of us.
“You’re right. I’m just nervous.”
This was why he was the executive director and I wasn’t. He was unbothered by almost anything except our mission, which bothered both of us deeply and in the most profound way.
We were seated at the table, wine was poured, and a toast was offered by Tom.
“Thank you all for being here with us tonight and a special thank-you to Liz, our development director, for this lovely dinner in her beautiful home! Cheers!”
“Cheers!” we all said and began to eat our salads.
“It’s my pleasure!” I said and then, “Michelle asked me earlier about how exactly do we go about a capital campaign and I didn’t have the time to answer her. The truth is there are as many ways to launch a campaign as you might imagine.”
“But basically the mission is to raise money, I imagine. Right?” David Malcolm said.
“Yes,” I said, “but it’s just as important to raise awareness. And my gorgeous state of South Carolina bears the shame of being the state where more women are killed by men than any other state in America. It’s based on a per capita number but still it’s just horrible.”
“Good grief!” Michelle said. “Number one?”
“Yes. We are always in the top ten,” I said.
“It has to stop,” Tom said. “It’s hard to understand how Charleston can be the number one tourist destination in the country and the state still has this unspeakable problem.”
“I did a huge Google on y’all last week but I can’t remember everything I read. How many people died from domestic violence in South Carolina last year? Like thirty?” Steve asked. “And it’s not just women, is it?”
“Right at forty,” Tom said. “And you’re right. Men are victims as well, and children, but the national average shows that eighty-five percent are women. And then there are all the unreported cases.”
“As a rule women are peace-loving creatures, but when it comes to this kind of crime, you have to take mental illness into account as well,” I said.
“Dear Lord!” Annie said. “How terrible! Why do you think South Carolina . . . or just how did this happen? Number one is really bad.”
“Well,” Tom said, “there’s not just one answer. It’s racism, sexism, homophobia, unemployment . . . the fact that the world is still so patriarchal . . . it’s a combination of circumstance, drug and alcohol abuse, economics, environmental conditioning . . .”
“Environmental conditioning! Good grief. Tom! Could you be any more antiseptic?” I had to laugh even though it wasn’t funny at all. “Look, what Tom means by environmental conditioning is, and this is another terrible truth, a boy who is a witness to domestic violence is ten times more likely to become an abuser as an adult.”
“It’s true,” Annie said. “That statistic is true everywhere.”
“Um, maybe this is a dumb question, but why don’t people who are being abused just leave?” Michelle asked. “I mean, I’d just get in my car!”
“It’s not a dumb question at all,” Tom said. “In fact, it’s the first one most people ask. What we ought to be asking is, Why are all these men behaving this way? And the answer is complicated. Domestic abuse crosses every socioeconomic line. Some of the nicest people you’ve ever known terrorize their families.”
“Tom’s right. Of course, you have to know how abusers operate,” I said. “They’re superpossessive; they monitor their spouse’s every move. And somehow, over time they manage to put up a wall to isolate her from the rest of her family. Friends too.”
“Meanwhile,” Tom said, “the guy you think is Cary Grant on the golf course is, at home, yelling his h
ead off at her, berating her until she believes that she’s worthless. The next thing you know, he pushes her, then there’s a slap with the next argument, and next is a punch with a closed fist. The woman can’t understand why this is happening. The harder she tries, the shorter his fuse becomes. But he cools off, apologizes profusely, begs her to stay, and swears it will never happen again.”
“Until it does,” I said. “It’s this slow process of drawing in the victim until she’s trapped and ashamed because he’s manipulated her into believing she’s the cause of his anger. So she becomes meek and withdrawn and can’t find the courage to leave.”
“It’s true,” Annie said. “We saw it all the time in Seattle. It’s classic. Then he says he will kill her if she leaves. Nice, right?”
“Yes. And sometimes women die,” I said and then added, “and sometimes their children are killed too. Look, imagine this. Your husband loses his job, can’t find another one, and the bills start to pile up. He’s drinking more than he ever did, and suddenly he has a trigger temper. What do you do? The dog barks or the baby cries or he hates having to be home by seven for dinner so he loses it. You get very quiet and let him rant and rave, hoping it will blow over. Does this sound plausible?”
“Sure, unfortunately . . . ,” Michelle said and the others nodded their heads.
“So tension builds and stress builds and then really awful things begin to happen. The king is no longer in charge of the castle. He is completely demoralized.”
“Well, this is terrible!” Michelle said. “We have to do something about this!”
“We’re trying to,” Tom said.
“Well, building just another safe house can’t begin to solve a problem like this,” Steve said.
The table got very quiet then. Steve Karol was absolutely right. It was going to take an awful lot more than one new safe house to change the entire culture of abuse. Had dinner gone wrong?
“Let me say something here,” Steve said. “First of all, I’m a peace-loving man. I love my new home on Spring Island for that very reason. It’s peaceful. I can ride my horses, catch a nice fat fish, watch birds, and think my thoughts.”
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