In Polite Company

by Gervais Hagerty

16.

  Fences

  Martha told me about a house party. She didn’t specify if Harry would be there, but my heart quickened at the possibility. It’s the weekend, so I don’t get off work tonight until 11:30. I told Martha I could be there by midnight.

  The eleven-o’clock show moves smoothly. Per usual, our weekend audience gets the full weather report. “Showers later this week will cool things off a bit, but the next few days will be in the high nineties. Put on that sunscreen and make sure to keep Fido and Kitty hydrated. It’s hot out there, folks!”

  Thank you, Dan the Weatherman.

  The party is on James Island, two bridges away. I pull off Folly Road and enter a subdivision named, elegiacally, Carolina Parakeet Manor, for the now-extinct birds that once flourished here. They were hunted for their feathers, which haberdashers used to embellish ladies’ hats in the nineteenth century.

  I drive in circles through the subdivision. I should have turned on the GPS. House after brick ranch house rolls past. Each has an identical lawn stretching to the street. Each has an attached garage. Only one is lit. Cars are parked on both sides of the street. Finally. Bingo.

  I tap the brass knocker. No one hears me, so I push the door open. A few heads spin my way. None are familiar faces, but they do smile back.

  The minuscule living room is ablaze with light. It’s easy to tell a bachelor lives here. First, the room has just one sofa but two enormous flat-screen TVs. Bare floor. No rugs. No potted spider plants or fiddle-leaf figs. A Bud Light poster hangs above the mantel; a busty blonde in a bikini winks at me. Air conditioning pumps furiously from a window unit. Scented candles flicker on a coffee table. The air reeks of a Yankee Candle flash sale.

  In the kitchen, I find Martha, alone. Is she waiting for me? She leans against the sink beneath the only light in the room—a buzzing fluorescent. Still, her hair shines like obsidian. Her skin reminds me of Mom’s porcelain claw-foot tub—white, smooth, cool to the touch. “There you are.” She lifts her cup, a 1920s-looking coupe, and purses her mulberry lips over the rim to take a dainty sip.

  “Martha, I did it. I called it off with Trip.”

  “Holy shit, Simian.” She reaches for my head and tousles my hair. “Who knew you could be such a rebel?”

  “Yeah, I can’t believe it myself.”

  “Nothing like a little gift from Martha to get the ball rolling.” She winks.

  I want to ask if Harry is here, but for some reason I feel that asking that question will downshift the mood. “Thanks for being my friend through all of this. You’ve had to listen to me talk about Trip a lot.”

  “Well, now you’re going to talk to me about all the kinky sex you’re gonna have.” Martha gestures broadly around the room. “Welcome to the wild and fucked-up world of the single life. The booze is out back on the table under the tree. Grab a drink and come back immediately.”

  “You want to come with me?”

  “Too fucking hot.”

  “You won’t get lonely?”

  “I’ve already talked to every loser here. Just hurry back.”

  I open the back door and enter a scene that makes me glad to be young, single, and free: people talking, laughing, and making music. I run my thumb over my third finger, left hand. No ring. No Trip. I am unattached. I am my own woman. I enter my brave, new world.

  A glaring floodlight blanches the faces of a crowd milling around a keg on the patio. My eyes take a few moments to adjust. Eventually, I make out at least a dozen people under a towering longleaf pine tree that grows smack-dab in the yard’s center. The night air is humid, piquant, alive with possibility. My nose detects a trace of salt and sulfur; we’re not too far from the ocean.

  I walk toward the bar, into the anonymity of the shadows. I lift one bottle after another trying to find one with enough wine to fill a glass. I feel around until my hands alight on the contours of a coffee mug.

  “That’s mine.”

  Harry. I’m zapped. Weak-kneed. On fire. At the Music Farm, in the greenroom, I was an adulteress. Not now, though. He stands behind me, close enough for me to catch the commingled scent of Ivory soap and mint gum. “Would you like to share?”

  “Sure,” he reaches for the mug. Our fingers touch; I can almost see sparks fly.

  I start to ask him about how he ended up back in Charleston, but he says he can’t hear and that we’ll need to move farther away from the music to talk.

  Martha is waiting for me. I should return to the party to clink glasses with my best friend, celebrate my new independence. Instead, I let him lead me to a secluded spot along a wooden privacy fence. “My lounge.” He gestures to some overturned buckets. A crabbing net leans against the far wall.

  Harry takes a seat on the taller bucket, taps on its sides. Drumming to the music that’s coming from the party, he explains he lived in Boston after college. He joined a band for a couple of years. When the lead guitarist broke his arm, he moved to Nashville for a year but couldn’t find a good band to join. “Most of the gigs were for country pop bands, anyway.” He eventually moved to Savannah, where he reunited with his high school pal Randy and together they formed Stone’s Throw. They’ve been on tour for four months, and now they are taking a break.

  “What about you, Lois Lane? I hear you’re a reporter.” He passes the mug of wine to me.

  “Yeah, that’s pretty close,” I say.

  “But it’s not right.”

  “Right,” I say. “You’re right that you’re wrong, I mean.”

  He laughs.

  “I’m a producer for News 14. I basically spend my days writing what the anchors say.”

  “They don’t write that themselves?”

  “Producers do it. We decide what goes on the news, like what’s in your refrigerator that’s going to kill you . . . tonight at seven.”

  “You’re funny.”

  Am I? Above us, the tree stretches so high that it’s impossible to see its upper boughs. It seems to reach above the troposphere, into the stratosphere, and beyond into outer space itself. Time dissolves into the drumbeats, the wine, the moist night. We drink from the same cup.

  He stands, takes my hand. I follow without question. He leads me into the farthest leafy reaches of the long suburban lot.

  The earth beneath my feet is pliant. He’s moved us to some swampy otherworld that’s dense with possibility and unknowing. Placing his hands on my hips, he presses me against the fence. He rubs his hand over my breasts and up my throat. He bites my neck just behind my ear; my head tumbles to the side in absolute surrender. He kisses me. His lips are generous, supple, fuller than Trip’s. Harry’s tongue confidently sweeps through my mouth. He tastes like wine and an irresistible, thrilling kind of danger.

  “I found you.” Martha’s dark figure blocks us from the party. She takes a step closer, into a sliver of moonlight. Her skin is ghostlike. She pats me on the shoulder and turns to Harry. “You hear she’s newly single?”

  Harry steps back from me, his strong arms limp at his sides. “Martha.”

  “She is, really. Hot off the press. We were going to celebrate with a drink, but then she just disappeared. But here she is, our darling southern belle.”

  “I’m sorry, Martha.” In high school, Martha drove me to the Waffle House for chance encounters with Harry. She hand-delivered him to me at Edisto. She took me to his show, walked me up to the greenroom. Then I abandoned her when she was ready to celebrate my big leap to independence. I’m a bad friend.

  All that pleasure—the energy of the starry night and the magic of the tree—now just makes me feel jittery. I made a selfish choice, and I’m busted. The moment is over. The magic is gone. “I’d better go. I have to work tomorrow.”

  Harry pushes past Martha. “I’ll walk you out.”

  I look to Martha, my decisive friend, to dole out my punishment. She lights a cigarette. “Better get going, then.” Though she smiles at me through a stream of smoke, I can’t read her eyes. I can never read her eyes. />
  I follow Harry but pause to yell back to Martha. “I’ll call you for drinks soon. My treat.”

  Harry moves fast, not slowing to talk to anyone. When we reach my car, I don’t immediately get inside. I hesitate, give him a chance to give me a proper goodbye kiss. Instead, he taps the hood of my car twice. “Drive safe.”

  * * *

  It’s impossible to sleep. My mind replays our kiss, Martha’s inscrutable face, and how Harry patted the hood of my car. What does it all mean?

  The AC hums. The ceiling fan revolves overhead. The streetlight illuminates my sheets; its white peaks and valleys look like meringue. My eye catches the gold-and-pearl necklace Trip gave me. I had draped it over the side of the vanity mirror the second Trip left and have not touched it since. At the time, the necklace felt like an exchange for my freedom. I felt that if I were to wear it, I might as well get my towels monogrammed and develop my own recipe for cheese biscuits—more cheddar, less buttermilk. But now, after another confusing night, the necklace looks like what it is and has always been: a thoughtful gift from a bighearted guy.

  Tears prick my eyes. Shit. I can’t go back to Trip now. I can’t cave after finally making a bold, resolute step toward my future. I jump from bed, grab the necklace, hurl it across the floor. It slides somewhere underneath my bed, out of sight.

  Back under the covers, I grab my phone to avoid thinking about Trip or Harry. The screen shows three missed calls and a voicemail, all from Mom. The voicemail begins with an audible inhale. “I know you think it’s none of my business, but I just need to say that I hope you called Trip. I hope and pray it will all work out. I really do. And Caroline’s debutante brunch is the last Sunday in June. I’m reminding you now so you’ll have time to buy a nice dress.”

  17.

  Ham Biscuits

  Like Mom, Louisa Lachicotte married a local lawyer. Also like Mom, the only time she didn’t live South of Broad was when she went off to Vanderbilt University. Louisa has been Mom’s BFF since they were first graders at Crescent Academy. Mom even named Weezy after her (Louisa got shortened to Weezy). Now, they’re doubles partners and both have leadership roles in the Ladies’ Charleston Charities. They host parties for each other’s children to celebrate major occasions. Louisa hosted a debutante brunch for both Weezy and me. Now, she’s doing it for Caroline.

  Louisa’s house appears frozen in time. Nothing ever was—or ever will be—out of place. Perfectly manicured ficus vines grow on the risers of the steps leading up to the front piazza. In the planting bed that runs alongside the driveway, the Ligustrum must have been trimmed with embroidery scissors and a magnifying glass.

  A single row of blue agapanthus provides the one touch of color in an otherwise monochromatic landscape. “Too many colors would compete with one another, don’t you think?” Louisa once asked me. While I can see her point, I prefer the bombastic, exuberant blooms of Laudie’s mismatched zinnias.

  Because I’ll spend the better part of this day in a windowless newsroom writing stories about beach options for the July 4 weekend, I take a moment before going inside to sit on the joggling board.

  Lots of Charlestonians have a joggling board on their piazzas; it’s a long, thin, flexible plank of southern pine supported on either end by rockers, which moves the joggler up and down, side to side. It’s traditionally painted “Charleston green,” a green so dark it is barely distinguishable from black. The story goes that young, aspiring lovers would each sit demurely at one end; as an evening of bouncing and rocking wore on, girl and boy would gradually find themselves side by side at the dip in the middle.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” Mom calls from the front door. She wears a pleated lavender dress and kitten heels.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  She sits next to me. The joggling board sinks a bit farther; we slide a little closer together. The Ashley River glitters in the distance. Pillowy cumulous clouds drift overhead. “Have you called Trip yet?”

  “No.”

  “I haven’t told anyone about you two. You could get back together, you know. Plus, we want to keep the focus on Caroline.”

  “It’s a special day for her.”

  “It is.” Mom studies her hands; she toys with a cocktail ring on her right hand.

  “Is that from Dad?” She must have cashed in a few birthday gift cards.

  She lifts her hand. “It’s a tourmaline. Do you like it?”

  Tiny white diamonds encircle a pink stone. Part of me wonders if those are blood diamonds. Another part of me wants to wear it. “I think it’s pretty.” I pat her skirt. “Let’s go inside.”

  We enter the foyer. An enormous bouquet of Madonna lilies and white roses perfumes the house. A curving staircase draws my eye up toward the crystal chandelier, which, refracting light, scatters jewel-like rainbows over the crowd.

  Caroline’s friends look like professional models: tiny waists, shiny hair, good bones. Mom’s friends also look lovely, though it’s likely many have had facelifts—discreet ones, of course—and probably all have been recently Botoxed.

  Young, old, and in between, we all wear dresses. Some debutantes push the hemline, but for the most part, we wear what we’d put on for an Easter service. The dresses are either in solid colors—lemon, cantaloupe, raspberry, pistachio—or else patterned with flowers. No black, brown, or beige in sight. I’m no exception. I purchased a floral dress—one with pink peonies—from a consignment store. Since Mom didn’t comment on it, the dress passes muster.

  The food is arrayed on old silver and Delft china platters that have been placed around the mahogany dining table. Everything on offer has been miniaturized, downsized, feminized: baby ham biscuits, mini tomato pies, itty-bitty crab cakes, and—essential at all South of Broad events—Mrs. Harley’s crustless tea sandwiches on white bread. Each sandwich is bonded with liberal amounts of mayonnaise and then quartered into soft triangles. Most parties serve all four types of Mrs. Harley’s sandwiches: chicken salad, pimento cheese, shrimp, and cucumber.

  “Where’s Laudie?” I pop a mini tomato pie into my mouth.

  “She’s not coming.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Tito doesn’t want her to get hurt. As I’m sure you recall, she nearly collapsed at the barre.”

  “You told Tito.” It’s hard to swallow.

  “Of course I told him. He’s there all day and can keep an eye on her.”

  “But she wants to be here—”

  “It’s not worth the risk, Simons.”

  In a rustle and blur of aquamarine silk, Louisa appears. “How are you?” she asks in the familiar drawl of a woman with a proper Charleston pedigree. Her smile exaggerates the ligaments in her neck. She flings her arms wide for a hug.

  I lean in, careful not to muss her hairdo. “Hi, Louisa. It’s such a lovely party. Thank you so much for doing this for Caroline.”

  “Of course!” She blows me a kiss, dispatching me toward the bar.

  In the creamy white living room, a pair of mint-colored tufted chairs has been pushed beneath the window. A couple of Mom’s friends roost on the chairs’ edges, legs crossed, skirts tucked over their knees. Directly beneath a brass chandelier is the bar. On it are cocktail nuts, cloth napkins, and bottles of white wine dotted with tiny beads of water. A ladle rests in a scalloped punch bowl, which is filled to the brim with the shimmery cocktail I recall from my debutante days—the Pink Panther.

  Because I need to be at work in a couple of hours, I help myself to iced tea. But then I think, When will I ever have a Pink Panther again? Just as I pour myself the mix of champagne, cranberry juice, and maraschino cherries, Caroline appears.

  Her cheeks are naturally rosy. Her tan is even: no strap marks. And it’s not sprayed on. With her yellow dress nipping in at her waist, she has a Barbie Doll figure. She comes by it authentically—she’s the sister who got Laudie’s figure. “Jeez, Sims. Double-fisting before noon?”

  Well, that’s annoying. I start to tell her that only o
ne hand holds alcohol, but instead I go on the offensive. “I need to loosen up for your debutante striptease.” I churn my hips.

  “Hilarious,” Caroline huffs.

  “Hola, sissies!” Weezy appears behind us. Francie clings to her mother’s shapeless aubergine dress. It looks out of place among the flowery frocks, but it’s probably the only thing that still fits her these days. Weezy turns to me. “I just saw Laudie. She says you’re taking her to a ballet in a couple weeks. That’s really thoughtful of you.”

  Caroline coils a long, shiny lock around her slender finger. “She can’t go. She nearly died the other day, Simons. Plus, Tito has her on lockdown, anyway.”

  “She didn’t nearly die. She had a dizzy spell because she hadn’t eaten her lunch.”

  “Well, if she can’t come to my brunch, she certainly shouldn’t be going to a ballet.”

  “She has a point, Sims,” Weezy adds reluctantly.

  I agree but try not to think about it.

  Weezy brightens. “On another note, I’ve finally made a decision. I’m having this baby at a birthing center.”

  “Gross,” says Caroline, only half-playfully. “Y’all have fun talking about that.”

  She spins toward a friend. I recognize her; she’s the one I met at the bar who interned with Trip. Bennett. A strange flash of dislike flickers over me. I shake it off. “Aren’t all babies born at birthing centers?”

  Weezy sinks into the love seat, swinging Francie from her hip to her lap in one smooth, maternal motion. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

  “I’m sorry.” I drop down next to her. “I’ve been a little preoccupied.”

  “So, remember right after Francie was born, she had to go back to the hospital for four days?”

  “Yes, of course.” It was awful. The wires and monitors attached to Francie’s little body terrified me.

  “Well, I’ve been doing some research. I found out about something called HAI, hospital-acquired illnesses. She got sick because she was in the hospital.”

  “You mean right after she was born?”