In Polite Company

by Gervais Hagerty

  We have a reservation at Muse, maybe the most romantic restaurant in town. As we walk into the warm night, Trip wraps an arm around me and fiddles with my ponytail. “Long day at the office? You’re a bit greasy, sweetie.”

  And just like that, the spell is broken. I think of Laudie and Tito’s comments about her clothes, her cooking. I stand a bit taller in my jeans and T-shirt, ready to pick a fight. “Is that how you want to start the night?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The first thing you said to me is that my hair is greasy.”

  “Actually, the first thing I said to you was, ‘There’s my bride.’”

  “Of course. You’re a lawyer. Your job is semantics.” I know I sound nasty. I don’t care.

  “What’s the matter, Simons? Look, I’m sorry I said your hair was greasy.”

  “Trip, I’m never going to be like those girls. You know that, right?” What was I thinking? Curlers?! What’s next, bleach my butthole?

  “Is this about moving to Columbia? It’s not forever. People make sacrifices, Simons. It can’t just be your way all the time. Charleston is great and all, but it’s not perfect. And even you know Columbia is a bigger news market. If you just gave it half a chance . . .”

  “I have a job here. A good job. Just because I don’t make a ton of money doesn’t mean it’s not worthy.”

  Trip throws his head back. “Simons, yes, it’s a good job and I’m proud of you. But it seems like every time you’re not at work, you’re running around reliving your teenage years or something. I mean, what are you doing?”

  The question isn’t rhetorical. He waits for me to answer, but I don’t tell him about late nights at the bars with Martha, accepting drinks from random guys. I don’t tell him I feel trapped, that I have feelings for Harry, that I gave a man my number. After all these years of blaming Trip for the fracturing of our relationship, I realize I’m the bad guy. Like any creature cornered, I go for the attack. “You’ve changed.”

  “You’re right. I have changed. I’m glad for it. I’ve grown up, Simons. What about you? Are you becoming who you want to be?”

  Am I? “I’m afraid I’m not becoming someone you want me to be.”

  “Shit, Cinnamon. I love you. I can’t help it. Frankly, sometimes I wish I could. You’re stubborn, and you always have something, I don’t know”—he swirls his hand near my head—“brewing in there. Like you have a secret life. Or secrets from me. I’m giving you everything. Everything, Cinnamon. What more do you want to take from me?”

  “Trip, I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

  “Where has your confidence in us gone? Doubt is a real problem, and it’s starting to get to me. It’s got me thinking differently, and I’ve never done that before.”

  He doubts us, too? What does Trip think? A small but frightened part of me wonders if there is another reason he chose Columbia, not Charleston, after I had moved back home. What goes through his mind as he drinks with beautiful women? Could he possibly want something different? I’m not sure if it’s my heart or my ego, but I can’t stand the idea of his thinking of other women, of his even considering that toxic idea.

  As though Trip senses it, too, he pivots abruptly and nearly marches down the street. I scurry behind him, scarlet letter and all. I don’t ask where we are going because I’m pretty sure he won’t answer me. I sneak my hand into his. He lets me hold it. After a few blocks, I see we’re headed back to my apartment. Okay. No dinner? Fine.

  Home, I fling open the cabinets in search of something to feed my husband-to-be. I find a sleeve of whole wheat Ritz crackers, a jar of salsa, and some pasta. I open the fridge: wilted lettuce, moldy marinara sauce, rubbery carrots, and a suspicious-looking chunk of cheese.

  “What are you doing in there?” Trip calls from the couch.

  I cut the cheddar into slices and lay them on top of a plate of crackers. “I’ll be there in two secs. I’m making dinner,” I say as cutely as I can.

  When I bring over the plate, he takes it and slides it onto the coffee table, out of my reach. He wants me to kiss him. In the quick moment before I lean in, I take stock of the man I almost pushed away. His features have matured a bit since I’ve last really looked at him. His face is thinner. The fine lines around his eyes are deepening. When he looks at me, it’s as though he sees me differently, too. He used to look at me with dopey, lovestruck eyes; now they’ve hardened. It makes me feel frantic.

  I place my hand behind his neck and kiss him on the lips. He kisses me back and then quickly slides a hand between my legs, stroking a finger against the cotton underwear I got from Target.

  Maybe this is the way all married women go about lovemaking. This isn’t Martha’s kind of lip-biting, ass-slapping, vertical fuck against the bookshelf. I wrap my arms and legs around him like a vine to a tree. I cling to his warmth, his steadfastness, his promises of tradition, place, and order.

  His breathing quickens as he braces himself to lift me from the couch. He carries me to my bed—all white linens on a white wire frame. I painted the walls a silvery gray so that my bed looked like a pearl in an oyster. But instead of feeling like Venus on a half-shell, I feel like a blow-up rubber doll—a vessel of pleasure only for him.

  Trip grunts above me, then collapses. For the first few years of our relationship, at the moment after sex, I’d run my fingers over the tiny hairs on the curve of his ear or kiss his back until he fell asleep. I’d reach for his hand, fold our fingers together, and marvel at how wonderful the heat generated by our skin felt.

  Tonight, I pull the covers over my head and feign sleep. A while later, Trip gets out of bed and walks to the bathroom. He turns on the light and closes the door. While he urinates, I swallow hard to keep from crying. Why can’t I love him?

  From beneath the covers, I hear him walk to the foot of the bed. I hear the soft clink of a belt buckle and the rustle of fabric. He sits next to me; the mattress squeaks. He peels the sheet from my face. “I have something for you.”

  In the low light of my room, illuminated by the streetlight outside my window, I can see he is holding a rectangular felt box. “Open it.”

  It’s a gold necklace with about a dozen pearls spaced evenly apart. “Sit up. Hold your hair back.” Trip lifts the necklace from the box and loops it around my neck. I feel him clumsily fidgeting with the clasp. “I think I’m going to need help.”

  Pinching the ends of the delicate chain, I reach behind my neck. With my head bowed, I open the fastener with my thumbnail and hook it to the minuscule loop. Though the necklace is the right size, it feels tight around my throat.

  10.

  Secret Dances

  I grew up on the west end of Atlantic Street, which is not on the water, but the tide slaps the seawall just a couple blocks away. My parents’ yellow Charleston single is typical of the houses on this street: spacious but not gigantic, with porches on both stories supported by simple Ionic columns.

  The closer to the harbor, the grander the houses become. Many of these single-family mansions have sweeping piazzas, expansive wrought iron balconies, or rooftop widow’s walks, where sea captains’ wives once scanned the horizon for sight of their husband’s ship. Flickering lanterns flank the giant front doors. Sprawling live oaks shade the prosperous streets, their sinuous roots erupting through the slate sidewalks.

  I peel a hard left onto South Battery, roll down my grandparents’ oyster-shell path, and lean my bike against the crepe myrtle. Before visiting Laudie, I make my way to the zinnias.

  Throughout my summers, while Weezy practiced her front crawl for swim team meets and Caroline sunned by the pool, I worked in the garden with Laudie. She would stoop over her flowers, always zinnias, but she toyed with other varietals, too. One summer we planted delicate cosmos. Another year we grew scaevola nipped from a neighbor’s bush.

  When I was very young, it was my job to pick up stray oak leaves that had fluttered on top of the bark-lined beds. When I reached elementary school, she taught
me how to weed and showed me how uprooting even healthy flowers can make the others grow hardier. By the time I reached middle school, she gave me my own pair of gardening shears and designated a spot for them in her potting shed. They’re still there.

  Over the last few growing seasons, as Laudie’s vigor has waned, her semisecret garden has suffered. Still off-limits to the professional garden service she and Tito employ, her small, wild sanctuary shows signs of neglect. She can’t keep up. In the few weeks since I last checked, weeds crowd the hydrangeas. The twisting tendrils of a jasmine vine meander through our seashell collection. She did plant some impatiens, but she didn’t bury the roots deep enough and they’re not thriving. She knows better. The zinnias still command the center of the garden, but they grow in thick batches. Some have gotten to be so top-heavy they fall over, smothering the new growth. I retrieve my shears from the potting shed and prune the zinnias, cutting some for a flower arrangement, and head inside.

  The house is quiet, save for the ticking of the kitchen clock. I put the flowers in water and wander into the living room. Empty. The muted TV broadcasts a golf tournament. Large captions for the hearing-impaired scroll across the bottom of the screen. The screen switches to a commercial for a bladder medication. I turn the TV off and head toward the grand foyer.

  Light leaps through the long, vertical windows that flank the main door. Two giant mirrors hang on opposite walls, multiplying the natural sunlight. The mirrors’ gilded frames graze the old heart-pine floors and nearly touch the fifteen-foot-tall ceilings. As I make my way up the stairs, running my hand along the worn banister, I catch sight of my grandmother.

  Dusty sunlight slips through the slatted second-story shutters, striping the floor. Laudie stands at the barre, her back toward me. A fuzzy haze frames her silhouette: her long legs, the curve of her hips. She stands in first position—heels together, toes pointed out. Her right hand rests on the barre. Her left, firmly wrapped into its removable wrist cast, extends out into the room. She dips into a plié; a diamond of light flashes between her legs. The armless chair Mom gave her for practicing senior yoga stays unused in the corner.

  Since her fall, doctors have said “no ballet,” at least until her wrist gets better. Mom and Tito have told her more than once she should quit for good. I walk around Laudie, careful to give a wide berth to her sweeping, injured hand. “Did Tito come around?”

  “We’re not going to tell him.” She raises into a relevé. Her legs tremble, but she manages to stay lifted. “I’m looking forward to our ballet date.”

  “I’m guessing we’re not going to tell Tito about that, either.”

  She nods.

  We didn’t tell Tito when I snuck her out to hear bluegrass at a local brewery. We didn’t tell him when I took her out to try sushi. (She liked the miso soup, but said her nigiri roll tasted raw.) And we definitely kept quiet about the day we sat in the front row at a drag queen brunch. But she’s frailer now, and Tito rarely leaves this house; she’s more closely monitored. Things have changed. Lately, a lot of things have changed. “Laudie, can I talk to you?”

  “You can always talk to me.”

  “You promise you won’t tell Mom?”

  “Simons, we all have our secrets.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” I trace my foot over a floral medallion on the old Oushak rug. “I’m thinking of calling off the wedding.”

  She stops, her feet still in second position. Her attention is completely on me. “I was worried about this.” She reaches for her towel on the barre, gently dabs her forehead.

  “What, you thought this might happen?”

  She laughs lightly. “You hadn’t picked a venue or bought a dress or done anything the brides do these days. And, Simons, you and Trip live more than one hundred miles apart. It hardly takes a gumshoe.”

  “Maybe I just need a separation. Some time apart to think about things.”

  “But you’re separated now; you don’t live in the same city.”

  I don’t want to be like you and Tito, I want to say. I don’t want to be squeezed into some mold for a model wife. I also want to date and kiss and sleep around, to sow my wild oats, as they say, if that can be applied to women. With a clean break, I could do it all guilt-free. And if it’s a separation, I can always go back to Trip. It gives me options. “What would you do?”

  “Well, honey, I can’t make that decision for you,” Laudie pauses, puts the towel back on the barre, “though I do have my thoughts.”

  “Just tell me!”

  A door slams shut. Laudie checks her watch, still on her right wrist. “Your grandfather just got back from Battery Hall.” She unties her ballet skirt as she hurries to her room to change. She stuffs it deep into a chest of drawers and then slides on a long, Tito-approved skirt. She switches out her canvas ballet flats for her Capezio heels, folds them into her sock drawer, and shuts it tight. She grabs her towel from the barre and hands it to me to hang on a rack in her bathroom. We’ve covered our tracks before Tito makes it to the bottom of the stairs. Laudie hollers down to him, “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  When she faces me again, her face is solemn. “Come over next Saturday, but earlier so we have time to talk while Tito is at Battery Hall. It’s time I tell you about Atlanta.”

  11.

  The Little Death

  Harry plays tonight. For days, I’ve been mapping out the evening, minute by minute. I’ll freshen up at my apartment in fifteen minutes flat. When I get to the bar, I’ll drink a gin and tonic to loosen up and sip water the rest of the night so that I’m not in absolute shambles for work tomorrow. I’ll try to re-create the eyeliner I once (and only once) totally nailed. I painted my toes midnight blue and bought a toe ring at the Walgreens on my way to work. I’ll wear sneakers to the concert, of course—but who knows where the night could take us?

  Martha still hasn’t texted me back. “See you at 8:15?!” I stare at my phone, impatient for her reply.

  My script waits at the copier, neatly collated and warm to the touch. I swing by the bathroom for a pit stop before taking my seat in the control room. I put on my headset and stare at the digital clock as the red numbers count down to the start of the show.

  Sixty seconds. What happens if Harry wants to kiss me? Am I capable of being a cheater? Thirty seconds. But what if a kiss is all I need to decide whether to stay with Trip? What if I could finally know for sure how I feel? Ten seconds. What if I already am a cheater because my heart isn’t where it should be? “Going live in five, four, three . . .”

  We air the news without a hitch. Dan the Weatherman recaps his predictions for the weekend. No rain. Forget the umbrellas. Remember the sunscreen. The anchors wave goodbye. The credits roll. Badda bing, badda boom. I’m outta here.

  The second I enter my apartment, I turn on the faucet to get warm water running. I eat a spoonful of peanut butter, wash my face, reapply deodorant. I pull on my just-washed dusty-red corduroys and a soft black T-shirt, put on the toe ring, lace my sneakers.

  My phone chirps. It’s Trip. I decline the call.

  It chirps again. This time, it’s Martha texting back, finally. “10–4.”

  It’s already 7:50. Time for the pièce de résistance: cat eyes. I pump the tube and swipe the liner over my right lid. Nailed it. I try again on the left. Damn. After a few more attempts and six Q-tips, I am pretty close to having the look I want: nonchalant, don’t-give-a-damn, what-the-hell, take-me-or-leave-me sexy.

  Before leaving, I place my engagement ring in my medicine cabinet, behind an old tube of Retin-A. It could fall off at the concert, right? Better safe here.

  At Dudley’s, the bar closest to the Music Farm, Martha waits for me. She sits at the lacquered bar, poking at a green olive in her martini glass with a teensy straw. She’s wearing lipstick. It’s a burgundy-wine shade. “That’s a new look,” I say.

  “I do it all the time,” she says.

  Never, in all our years together, has she worn lipstick.

/>   The bartender slaps a cocktail napkin in front of me before I have the chance to speak. His bicep is covered by tattoos, mostly of cartoonish monsters with goofy, bulging eyeballs. “What’ll it be?”

  I consider a martini but don’t want olive breath. I stick with the plan. Isn’t that what successful generals of invading armies do? “I’ll have a gin and tonic, please.” Martha lifts a freshly painted fingernail to signal she’s ready for a second. “And another martini for her.” I pull out my credit card to start a tab and glance at my ticket to double-check the start time of the show.

  “You bought a ticket?” Martha asks.

  “Online. I printed it out,” I say. “What now?”

  “Nothing . . .”

  “You can’t just say that, Martha. What?”

  “You know what.” Martha plays with her straw against her teeth. She should bleach them.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Just be careful. He plays in a band, Simons. I know you and your little fairy-tale princess romances. I just don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all.”

  “It’s not like that,” I say, but I can feel my flushed cheeks betray me. “And what does that have to do with my ticket, anyway?”

  “They’re not a big band, Simian. They won’t sell out or anything, that’s all.”

  “I like this kind of music. I love music . . .”

  “Simons, you couldn’t name one band that doesn’t get radio play.” She eats her olive and licks the juice from her fingers.

  * * *

  A dozen people loiter near the entrance of the Music Farm, nearly all of them sucking on cigarettes with laser-like focus. The crowd is mostly college-age. The bouncer checks IDs with a flashlight. He draws black X’s on the hands of the underage girls ahead of us.