In Polite Company

by Gervais Hagerty

  “Yep,” he says in his usual cheery manner. Dan the Weatherman, like all TV weather presenters, is an agreeable guy. They’re the heroes of live television, making sure our broadcast runs precisely twenty-three minutes and fifteen seconds. If breaking news happens, which can cannibalize precious minutes of our show, I speak through his earpiece to tell him he’s got only eight seconds for his spot, when normally he’s allowed three minutes. When the photog’s camera breaks and we lose footage for a story and we suddenly have extra time that must be filled, Dan pleasantly yammers on about uneventful weather for as long as we need.

  “Hi, Jasmine, doing okay?”

  “Ready to roll.” As Jasmine looks into a compact to check her teeth for lipstick, I make a mental note to ask her what toothpaste she uses. Jasmine normally anchors on the weekends, but one of our lead anchors took today off.

  She was the runner-up for Miss South Carolina. Turns out, all those years of competitions prepared her perfectly for a career on camera. The problem is, she’s stuck as a weekend anchor until one of our regulars dies. It’s the same at all the channels. Weekend anchors can end up waiting decades for their turn. A few lucky ones get a big break—a local story that has national legs—that can land them in the major networks. That’s where Jasmine dreams of being. Though she checks the anonymous tip-line hourly, she still hasn’t found her break. And while the Sonny story will be interesting to the locals, it won’t make national headlines. I hope to find her a story that will.

  A digital clock in the corner of the studio counts down to the start of the show. I press the “WEATHER” and “ANCHOR 1” buttons simultaneously. “All right, y’all. We’re live in five, four, three, two.”

  The show starts with footage of Sonny’s car, hazard lights flashing in the dark. Jasmine speaks over the video. “This morning, a judge was released from jail. At 4:12 a.m., troopers responded to a vehicle collision involving property damage just outside of the Coburg Community Apartment Complex in West Ashley. The car belongs to Judge Sonny Boykin. According to the jail log, Judge Boykin failed a field sobriety test. He was taken to the Charleston County Detention Center under suspicion of Driving Under the Influence. He was not administered a breathalyzer test and was released after a few hours.”

  We roll into the homeless man story, then after some national headlines, show the Spoleto festival coverage. Jasmine starts the C block with box-office hits and tosses to Dan the Weatherman. Camera Two pans wide as Dan covers every possible weather scenario. While he rambles on about the remote possibility of a tornado in the Upstate, my mind wanders back to Paul’s message. Should I text back?

  After the show, I check my phone and see a call from Trip. I phoned him Thursday afternoon when I knew he had a meeting. Somehow, I’ve managed to avoid speaking to him for almost five days now. I can’t not talk to him for another eight hours.

  I walk past the makeup room and through the kitchen to the break room. A fake flower arrangement collects dust on one of the tables. The old couch smells of burned popcorn.

  “There you are,” he says in his mild southern drawl. “Can you come up next weekend?”

  “I’ll be working,” I say, suddenly grateful for my funky schedule.

  “Then I’ll come down. I’ve barely seen my fiancée since we got engaged.”

  “We really wouldn’t get to see much of each other.”

  “That’s okay, Cinnamon. We knew it would be like this for a while. I’ve got to finish this case anyway, so I’ll just hole up in the library while you’re at work.”

  “Sounds good,” I lie, forcing a smile. I once read that if you smile while talking, your words can sound more positive.

  “Did your mom find out if the William Aiken House is free that weekend? We’ve really got to secure a venue.”

  I was supposed to tell Mom to book our reception for the second weekend in May. Trip thought a party in that restored mansion, built in the early 1800s, would be the perfect place. “I’ll talk to her.”

  * * *

  Hours later, I return my socks to the drawer, pack my purse, and push the heavy door to exit the chilly, fluorescent-lit office. Outside, a wild night welcomes me to the natural world. Clouds sprint overhead, scudding across an endless indigo sky. A pop-up shower, by now out at sea, soaked the ground. The stirred, loosened earth smells like wild garlic and copper pennies, just the way it smelled in childhood when we excavated the backyard, digging for porcelain shards, old apothecary bottles, and sharks’ teeth.

  The rain revived the tree frogs that live in the massive oaks. With no inhibition, no self-consciousness, they call raucously to each other. Animals don’t fake smiles. They don’t use subterfuge. They do as they want; they communicate what they mean. It’s time for me to start living more like a wild, natural being, to start living in the moment, like Martha does. If I feel like texting Paul back, I should, right?

  4.

  Monday, Monday

  While waiting for Martha in Kudu Coffee’s courtyard, I spin my engagement ring around and around. It’s a diamond solitaire with a gold band. The stone is as big as a pea. When it catches the sunlight, pink and yellow sparks of light flicker up and down the nearby wall.

  When Trip got down on one knee to propose, I almost reached down to scoop him up. Don’t do it! I’m not sure if this is what I want. But how could I say no? Here was this sweet boy, down on his knee, giving me a gift he had worked so hard to purchase. How could I end a relationship at the very moment he was asking to be with me forever? Who could look into such hopeful eyes and refuse?

  “What up, Simian?” Martha scoots a metal chair over to a shady spot. Her ink-colored eyes match the black of her pupils, making her impossible to read. They’re the first thing I noticed about Martha in the girls’ bathroom. She’s unpredictable and not at all cautious. Or maybe she seems that way because her expression is inscrutable. I find her fascinating. She’s the freest person I’ve ever met.

  She’s also gorgeous: a good three inches taller than I am, with strong shoulders, a healthy C cup, a flat stomach, and long legs. She wears her raven hair in a bob like a 1920s movie star. She’s almost perfect, except for her fingers and toes. Martha has comically large thumbs, and her toes are as plump as sausages. In the twelve years I have known her, I have never seen her in flip-flops. Even on a sticky day like today, she’s wearing boots.

  “Please tell me I didn’t make out with that guy.”

  She removes her lid to drink her coffee, taking her time. “No, you didn’t.”

  I collapse in relief.

  “But you certainly acted like you were gonna go home with him. He was even buying me drinks.”

  “He texted me.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “We’re just talking.”

  She pinches a hunk of my muffin. “Maybe this is the guy you need to bang to figure things out.”

  Could I have an affair? And with that guy? “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Well, you need to try something. Curiosity doesn’t kill every cat, Simian.”

  Martha’s parents got divorced when she was in middle school; she’s pretty cynical about the institution of marriage—a view I’ve lately come to envy. She doesn’t feel the pressure to marry and have kids. She’s not looking for a birdie to build the nest. She has no ideas or prototypes for what a relationship should be.

  Maybe it’s because of her cynicism that she chooses the kind of men who scare me. Her men are older and hairier, with leathery skin that has creased into folds around the neck, revealing pink streaks when they swivel their heads. They smell like a hangover and have a look in their eyes that isn’t always kind, is maybe even predatory.

  It’s not just the men she chooses who are different. It’s also her approach to sex: Martha bangs and fucks. Those are the words she uses. I like to think I make love or, when it’s a bit more perfunctory, I have sex, but never fuck. And when she does, it’s on her terms. It often seems like a last-minute decision and usually happens
sometime after 10:00 p.m. She’ll straighten her back, squint her eyes in a knowing way. She’ll switch from beer to martinis and play with the olives in a way only pretty girls can. Sure enough, some stranger finds an excuse to talk to her, and off they go.

  I grew up differently. My parents are together and seem to love each other. It’s not a passionate love; the standard, sturdy Charleston marriages seem too formal for lust. The locals are traditional about their arrangements, and this traditionalism bodes well for just about all of Mom and Dad’s friends, and Weezy, too. So, when Trip proposed, everyone was excited. Our union fits neatly into a social construct that, apparently, keeps many people happy for decades. All I have to do is wear a floral dress, refrain from seconds, and maybe exile my zinnias to the far corner of our yard.

  I wish I were more like Mom; she seems to have no need or desire that conflicts with Dad’s. Her name is Caroline Ann Jenrette Middleton Smythe; everyone calls her Carry Ann. She briefly taught elementary school, but when Weezy was born, she decided to stay home and never really left. She keeps busy with her tennis matches and volunteer work at St. Paul’s church.

  This year, and on into the next, she’s the envy of all her friends. Weezy is due in the fall with a boy. Shortly after, Caroline will make her debut, which is a series of brunches, cocktail soirees, and white-tie balls at which Charleston families formally present their daughters to society. The parties start in the summer and ramp up during the holiday season, when the debutantes are home from their senior year of college. The following spring, I am to get married.

  Like most couples, Mom and Dad have their routines. They venture out to Edisto—our home in the country—one weekend a month. When they’re in town on Saturdays, Dad golfs and Mom plays doubles. Every Sunday after church they stroll over to Battery Hall, where they have a standing 12:15 brunch reservation. Dad orders the shrimp and grits and a beer. Mom orders the quiche and a glass of chardonnay. That’s been their weekend for the twenty-six years I’ve known them. No fights. No drama. Their marital life is a gentle meander through time.

  This template never bothered me before. In fact, the mildness of their relationship paved the way for my idyllic childhood: swims at Laudie’s, Wednesday night cotillion, my school days at Crescent Academy. Perhaps Mom sacrificed tiny bits of her freedom so that her children could lead such charmed lives. After all, is it so hard to slip on a Lilly Pulitzer dress and avoid second helpings of potatoes au gratin?

  Martha shoots up from the table. “I have an idea. It’s brilliant, really.”

  “What?” Martha’s ideas come suddenly and often have lasting consequences. When we were seniors, she got a tattoo on a lark. I went with her, gobsmacked as she selected a random picture off the wall. She chose a sparrow. How could she commit to something forever when she only just thought of it that moment? What did a sparrow mean to her, anyway? But I loved her for it—for making choices quickly. I couldn’t decide on almond or oat milk for my latte. Martha doesn’t hesitate. Her bold decisiveness landed her Bruno, too. She was smoking a cigarette outside Recovery Room—her favorite hole-in-the-wall—when a woman walking a foster dog strolled by. Now, he’s hers forever.

  “A gift. I’m going to bring you a perfectly fuckable gift, and you’re going to love me for it.”

  “I don’t want a vibrator.”

  “It’s not a vibrator.” She beams, then leans forward to touch the tip of my nose with her pointer finger. “You’re going to love it.”

  5.

  Surf’s Up

  Charleston’s water babies have three beaches to choose from: Sullivan’s Island, Isle of Palms, and Folly Beach. Sullivan’s lies close to the harbor’s entrance and near a rock wall called the jetties. This wall breaks up the chop from the Atlantic so cargo ships can safely roll into the harbor and tie up against its loading docks along the Cooper River. These tranquil waters are ideal for boats and boat-watching but terrible for surfers and surfing. Just north of Sullivan’s is Isle of Palms, away from the jetties but more of a drive, and the waves don’t get much bigger.

  Folly Beach lies just south of the peninsula, east of James Island and away from the shipping channel. Because it’s the only beach in the area with decent surf, it attracts a more alternative crowd. Shirtless beach bums with blond dreadlocks cruise the streets on oversize bicycles. Bumper stickers like “No Blood for Oil” and “I Love Small Waves” plaster rusty hatchbacks and funky storefronts. Station wagons are custom-painted with trippy images of mushrooms and fairies with rainbow-colored wings.

  My secret parking spot beneath a towering oak is empty except for a growing puddle. I take a photo and send it to Angela. She texts back immediately: “Breaking news . . . a puddle!”

  I reply, “Clear skies. No rain. One day you’ll see the light.”

  My flip-flops squeak and slide as I make my way over the boardwalk. At the top of the stairs, the horizon stretches before me. Billowing cumulous clouds ride the hidden airstreams in a cobalt sky. The sand, as fine as Morton Salt, collects around posts, vegetation, and seawalls. Grain by grain, the sands gather together, forming modest but powerful barriers that protect the land from storm surges.

  I squint to measure the surf. The tide just turned and is starting to go out; the waves are still big enough to ride and a bit more organized than they’ll be two hours from now. For my feet to have traction on the board, I rub surf wax on its top using small, circular strokes. Because I’m goofy-footed, I Velcro the leash around my left ankle. A snarl of fishing wire, which can be deadly to sea turtles and other marine life, pokes out of the sand. Before heading into the surf, I wad it up and stuff it in my bag.

  The early May air is warm, but the water still holds some of the chill from winter. Woolly fog lines the shore. I tiptoe into the ocean, then hop on my board to paddle out to the calmer waves beyond the surf. I lay my head on the board and listen to the ripples lap its underside while waiting for the next set. The rolling waves rock me gently; a sudden, unbidden thought of Paul makes me shudder.

  I stalked his social media last night. In one photo, Paul pees on the wheel of a yellow Corvette. Mid-stream, he flashes a thumbs-up at the camera. In another, he clenches a knife between his teeth, ropy veins bulging from his neck. I didn’t need to see more; I texted him back to tell him I’m getting married. Is this what’s out there? Lone wolves pissing on cars and biting knives? What am I doing? Trip is so much better than Paul. He works late. He calls his mother. He donates to St. Jude and Ducks Unlimited. How dare I flirt with someone else?

  A set comes in. I let the first wave roll underneath me and ready myself to catch the second one. I align my board with the shore, kick hard, and paddle harder. I drop into the wave, grab the rails, and pop up into a wide stance.

  A beautiful storm of noises envelops me: the churning of the water underneath plays the melody; the fizz of the ocean spray chimes in. My board slices through the water, creating a sound as pure and whole as a tuning fork. I shift my weight to steer, heading south along the shoreline. And then . . . nothing. For a few sweet seconds, I’m so swept up into the moment that the world dissolves into the simplicity of movement.

  Gliding over the water, I’m not engaged. There is no Trip. There is no Paul. I’m not even me. In the water, I experience pure freedom, a release from the guilt of having everything a girl could want, if only she could make some minor concessions.

  6.

  Dress Code

  Mom and Dad wait for me in the atrium of Battery Hall. The club turned one hundred the year I was born. After all that time, the membership has remained white, male, mostly Protestant, definitely Christian, and—as far as I can gather—straight. Few Charleston newcomers know about this club; it doesn’t even have a website.

  Membership is capped at four hundred. Tito is a member. So is my father. My sister’s husband is, too. Members’ wives and their children are welcome as guests but only in the dining hall and only four days a week. Otherwise, the small but well-manicured compound is f
or members only.

  The club was originally built as a sort of entertainment den: a billiards hall, an oak-paneled anteroom for cards and chess, a shuffleboard court outside. As Charleston grew in power, so did Battery Hall’s members, and it has since become a place where decision makers gather. Partnerships are formed here, candidates are anointed, and deals are brokered.

  To accommodate the changing nature of the club, Battery Hall removed the shuffleboard court sometime in the eighties and built the dining hall that doubles as a giant meeting room. Quarterly, all members gather for a surf and turf dinner and a talk from one of the South’s leading politicians.

  During the hot minute South Carolina had a woman for governor, the members debated whether to invite her to the annual gubernatorial supper. When the rules were written, the all-male membership simply never imagined a woman holding the top political seat in the state. In the end, they invited her to speak. How radical.

  Dad mostly comes to have a glass of bourbon and play the occasional bridge game. In high school, I pressed him about the policy on women. “Why is Battery Hall just for men?”

  “Oh, Simons,” he responded in a calm, reasonable tone. “It’s very normal for the sexes to separate. Your mother wouldn’t want me barging in on her Ladies’ Charleston Charities meetings. Besides, Battery Hall is nothing more than a boys’ club. We just want a place where we can hang out with each other in our leisure hours. Where is the harm in that?” I found his points hard to argue; it was also the first time I wondered if he had wanted a son.

  For the last few years, I’ve managed to dodge family meals at the club, always having to drive back to Chapel Hill on Sundays. Today, I don’t have an excuse. Plus, we’re here to celebrate Mom’s birthday. Everything looks the same. On the far wall are portraits of the past twenty-five Battery Hall presidents. With his back to me, Dad studies the oil paintings, each rimmed by a gilded frame and stamped with a little plaque that notes their years of leadership.