In Polite Company

by Gervais Hagerty

  “Oh, but, honey, that one is so elegant on you.”

  “Thanks, Mom. Why don’t you help Simons find a few dresses to try on?”

  My dress? I glare at Caroline, angry at her for bringing up the fact that I was originally supposed to be buying my wedding dress on this shopping trip. Though, I’m sure, Mom hasn’t forgotten that minor detail.

  “You still need a dress to wear to the ball, Simons,” she clarifies.

  True.

  “I’m buying you one,” Mom says, more of a statement than an offering. “Just don’t tell your father.”

  Another olive branch. An expensive one, too. “Thanks, Mom. Will you help me pick it out?”

  We gather a half-dozen non-white dresses—in tulle, lace, organza, silk—and I carry them over my arm to the dressing room. I start with the navy-blue one—the one she picked out. I slide it over my head. The heavy lace dress is itchy. I wouldn’t normally pick out a dress like this anyway; who under the age of fifty wants to wear a high boat neckline?

  Now it’s my turn on the stage. I’m surrounded again by hundreds of copies of myself.

  “It’s lovely, Simons. It’s flattering.” Mom is pleased with her choice. She climbs on the platform and adjusts the bodice so there are no creases. “You haven’t told me who the lucky man is.”

  “Who?”

  “Your date for the ball, Sims,” Caroline hollers from the dressing room.

  “You can’t just pick anyone off the street, honey. He’s got to be able to do the foxtrot at the very least.”

  “I know.”

  Caroline steps onstage in a different dress. This one has a mermaid cut and is far sexier. “How about Clay?”

  Oh, Jeebus. Clay? First, he’s Ashley’s younger brother. Second, he’s Caroline’s age: a rising senior in college. And third, we’re plainly not each other’s type: he can’t drink a beer without his camo koozie, and his main topic of conversation is his recruitment duties for Chi Psi. Besides, I doubt he’d want to go with me, anyway.

  Mom shrugs. “Well, I know his mother did send him to cotillion. He must own tails.”

  True as well. Clay would be a fun, easy date. But I hold tight to the idea that the evening has potential for romance, a new start even. “Give me a week and if I can’t find someone by then, I’ll see if Clay’s free.”

  A desperate electronic jingle bleats from inside Mom’s purse. Mom drops the dresses and digs for her phone. “It’s the hospital,” Mom says and retreats to a corner of the showroom. “Hello? Yes, this is Mrs. Smythe.” She hunches over the phone, every fiber of her being tuned in. “Well, is she okay?”

  Caroline and I follow her, lifting our dresses so we don’t step on the hems. Caroline places a slender hand on our mother’s back. “Mom, what is it?” Caroline asks.

  Here’s the thing about Charleston women—the true-blue bloods: They are not dramatic. They do not scream or sob or faint. They do not cry tears of joy when their children marry, and they don’t squawk like chickens over gossip about a friend’s divorce. They don’t fall to pieces in public at a funeral. They act with decorum. They respond politely. They do not draw attention to themselves.

  Instead, they focus on the moment—the marriage, or maybe news of an accident. As members of the tribe, these women ready themselves as support troops, to celebrate the wins and to collect the fragments of loss to help put a member’s life back together. So, when Mom reports the hospital’s news about Laudie, she remains composed and dry-eyed.

  “Mother had another stroke,” she says neutrally, though she looks as though she’s made of dust.

  25.

  Prescriptions

  The kitchen is as cool as a vault. The wall clock ticks. The dishwasher hums. The second-floor hallway is warmer, quieter. Normally, sunlight pools onto an ivory hall rug speckled with pastel roses. As children, we would jump from flower to flower, pretending we were fairies while Laudie practiced her arabesques a few feet away at the barre. Now, there are scars on the wall where the barre was attached. With the curtains drawn and the wall sconces dimmed, the playful atmosphere has vanished.

  “Hello?” I knock tentatively on the bedroom door. No answer. I gingerly open the wide door and enter the tomblike stillness of Laudie’s room. Dust particles hover, unmoving, in the weak light that escapes the heavy draperies. The room smells of rubbing alcohol and ammonia.

  A bouquet of zinnias sits on her vanity; the blooms are doubled by the mirror—a trick my mother taught me, one that I’m sure Laudie taught her. A few flowers—those with cherry-red and marigold centers—are still perky. Most are dead.

  Laudie sleeps. Her body looks as though she’s fallen from the sky and landed in the mechanized hospital bed. She arrived home by ambulance this morning. Three days after the second stroke, the doctors agreed it’s best now to keep her home. Keep her comfortable. It’s time for hospice.

  Laudie’s hairline has retreated to the very crown of her head. Her temples sink into her skull, craters as big and round as eggs. Her skin is nearly translucent, like a jellyfish’s. Her movie-star lips have twisted into an involuntary snarl. My dear, sweet, beautiful grandmother. I’m so sorry.

  The antique wingback chair, the one she draped her evening dresses over while she did her her makeup for a night out, is next to her bed, ready to receive visitors. I take a seat; my foot knocks an empty bedpan. Seven prescription pill bottles and several tubes of ointment clutter the bedside table.

  “I’ll give you some time.”

  I jump at the sound of a woman’s voice. She emerges from a dim corner of the giant bedroom. She wears pink scrubs and white sneakers.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Shaniece.”

  “I’m Simons. I’m the granddaughter.”

  “Simons?” Laudie turns her head in my direction. After a moment her milky eyes, which had seemed drifty and unfocused, alight on me. “They wanted me,” she says, or at least I think that’s what she says.

  “Who? Who wanted you?” I lean close, turn my ear to her mouth.

  She emits a high wheezing noise and struggles to sit up. “The letter.”

  “The letter, Laudie? What letter?” I try to spin the Rubik’s Cube of clues my grandmother left for me. Who wanted her? What letter? A love letter . . . from John?

  Laudie tries to speak, her mouth opening and closing like that of a fish out of water. She kicks at her coverlet and arches her back. It just might kill her to say another word. If she dies now—because I’m pressing her to tell me something—how could my family ever forgive me?

  Shaniece comes to my side. “It’s okay, Mrs. Middleton. You just need to rest.” She lays a hand on my grandmother’s chest and slowly adds pressure. “Would you like to read to her? Seems to calm her down.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I’m going to run downstairs. Will you be okay?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  Shaniece studies me for a moment before gathering a couple of pill bottles from a metal table. As she leaves the dark room, a wink of daylight flashes inside, disappears. The door closes behind her with a soft click.

  I look for something to read. On Laudie’s nightstand, beneath a glass of water, is the Bible. The leather cover bends easily in my hands. Traces of burned coffee and sandalwood scent the air. I begin reading aloud at the bookmarked page—1 Timothy, chapter 2, verses 7 through 15.

  This is why I was chosen to be a teacher and a missionary. I am to teach faith and truth to the people who do not know God. I am not lying but telling the truth. I want men everywhere to pray. They should lift up holy hands as they pray. They should not be angry or argue.

  Laudie pedals her feet. Is that a good sign? I press on.

  Christian women should not be dressed in the kind of clothes and their hair should not be combed in a way that will make people look at them. They should not wear much gold or pearls or clothes that cost much money. Instead of these things, Christian women should be known for doing good things and li
ving good lives.

  Women should be quiet when they learn. They should listen to what men have to say. I never let women teach men or be leaders over men. They should be quiet. Adam was made first, then Eve. Adam was not fooled by Satan; it was the woman who was fooled and sinned. But women will be saved through the giving of birth to children if they keep on in faith and live loving and holy lives.

  What the hell? What other ghastly rules are written about women in the Bible? I look at Laudie, who appears to be resting. But her hands are curled. I pull out my phone for a quick search.

  1 Corinthians 11:9: “For indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake.”

  Proverbs 12:4: “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him is like rottenness in his bones.”

  1 Corinthians 14:35: “If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.”

  Colossians 3:18: “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.”

  Jesus. What is this stuff? No wonder women are subjugated. Why is any of this misogyny okay to preach today?

  My poor mother. Is this what she hears every Sunday before brunch at Battery Hall? Has Trip wanted a Christian woman all this time? Is that why he wants me to dress modestly, eat moderately, have more self-control?

  In what ways have misogynist concepts like these molded Laudie? How could she have the confidence to try out for a ballet troupe when her lover, who very well could have been the father of her child, abandoned her in a time of need? No wonder she came home.

  From what I’ve observed, she was submissive to Tito exactly the way the Bible prescribes. And now here she is, on her deathbed—at the end of her story, whatever it is. She’s taking that story to the afterworld with her, so I’ll never truly know.

  Laudie stirs; her labored breathing grows louder. “Simons,” she says, though I only hear the second part of my name. She somehow steadies her breathing. She stretches her fingers. The milkiness of her eyes retreats like a tide, revealing a crystal blue. There’s strength behind her gaze, an energy incongruent with her decaying body. The next thing she says I hear as clear as a bell: “Be brave.” She tumbles back into sleep, into another world.

  “Laudie?” I start to cry. “What do you mean? Does this have anything to do with the letter? What do you want me to do?”

  She doesn’t hear. She’s drifted off to some liminal space between here and the afterlife.

  Light blasts into the room. Dust particles swirl around Shaniece, who is backlit. She carries a tray with little plastic cups and bottles. “Did you have a good visit?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. I think she’s trying to tell me something.”

  “Did you try reading to her?”

  “I did, but I think I just got her worked up.” I close the Bible. It shuts with a thud.

  Shaniece scans my grandmother. “Well, she looks relaxed now.” She points to a book at the foot of the bed. On the cover, a boy with a red cape flies on a broom. “Maybe next time, though, try Harry Potter.”

  26.

  Love Scandal

  School started. We run a two-minute package on back-to-school tips for families and tie that in with a story about a local charity that feeds hungry children on the weekends. I stack the show so that our sports reporter can kill time talking about football season. The whole Sonny Boykin story comes and goes, depending on whether more compelling news surfaces on any particular day. Since not much is happening around town, we’re digging up the dregs of that story; we know it can pay the bills. People love scandal.

  Meghan finds me at my desk. “Justin found some old photos of Ms. Ronan on Facebook. We’re running some of them at six.”

  “Any pictures of her with the judge?”

  “Yeah, at some law event. The rest are random party pics and a few of her at the beach.”

  I click on the shared office file labeled “Sexting Sonny Boykin.” In one shot, they’re at a cocktail party. She’s petite; standing next to Judge Boykin, she looks even smaller. She wears a maroon dress, black stilettoes. The judge is in a gray business suit. His arm is around her waist. They both smile.

  In another photo, she wears a bikini, her breasts sugarcoated with sand. She’s on Sullivan’s Island—I can tell from the lighthouse in the background. The last is a selfie taken in what looks like a restaurant bathroom. While they’re all normal photos for a twenty-three-year-old, when paired next to a pixelated dick pic, they suggest something seamy. “Do we really need these other photos?”

  “Well, Sonny’s accusing her of libel, and she won’t talk to us.”

  “Yeah, but I feel these photos suggest that she’s slutty or something, like she might not be totally believable.”

  “Well, Sonny could be innocent. Two sides to every story.”

  “What does Angela say?”

  “She took the day off to be with Cooper.”

  “Oh.”

  * * *

  Before my seven-o’clock show goes live, I sneak into an editing suite to tweak the lead story. South Carolina is a Bible Belt state; we know many of our viewers attend church, where versions of male power and female submission are preached and ratified every Sunday. Many of our viewers will be predisposed to doubt Ms. Ronan’s innocence just because she is a woman.

  Not on my watch. I pull the video of the story, which will run beneath the anchor speaking live, from the shared office files and drag it into the desktop trash. I scan through my show’s video-editing files and load the original back into the editing software. With a quick click and drag, I remove the solo images of Ms. Ronan at the beach and in a bathroom. I leave the photo of Judge Boykin and Ms. Ronan together in the package, stretching its time on screen to nearly twelve seconds. Normally, an image stays up for three seconds, five tops, so anyone who knows video editing would see this as sloppy, but I don’t care. Ms. Ronan could be lying, but why would any woman want her personal life pried open like an oyster at a Lowcounty roast?

  For good measure, I add a story about Wildcat Acres, the proposed six-thousand-home development on a floodplain. The latest is that the city’s planning director moved forward with the infill proposal approved by DHEC.

  The lead developer is a Charleston local, the son of the owner of the Coast Company. I recognize both men as members of Battery Hall. But who is the planning director? My search pulls up the image of a handsome blond man in his fifties with his hair brushed back into a sort of modest pompadour. Charles Boone. That could certainly be the name of a local, but I don’t recognize him. And if he were a member of Battery Hall, he certainly wouldn’t advertise it on his bio. Whoever he is, he should know that the lead cause of flooding in that area will be the fill dirt. Will the federal government bailout these new homebuyers, too? What a mess.

  While I’m at it, I toss in the plight of Gadsden Creek, a tiny finger of water reaching into the peninsula off the city’s west edge. Developers plan to fill this wetland and are getting the city to use tax dollars to help them do it. The last time I pitched this story idea, Angela said that maybe ten people care about a shallow tidal creek next to a poor Black community; the story would waste airtime. News is still a business—I get it. But this one time won’t hurt.

  27.

  The Kicker

  Weezy rolls to a stop beneath the crepe myrtle just outside of my apartment. She drives just like my mother, with her body hunched over the steering wheel, her elbows bent like wings.

  Weezy insisted I accompany her to a prenatal checkup. She said I needed to get out of the house, to do something other than work or visit Laudie.

  I’ve learned that as long as I’m too busy to think, I don’t feel absolutely terrible about taking my grandmother to the ballet. My shirts now hang in color-coordinated sections. The mantel cherubs shine after a Q-tip-crazed scrubbing session. All questionable condiments lurking in the recesses of my fridge now lie discarded in the bottom
of my trash can. So when Weezy phoned to tell me she was picking me up, whether I liked it or not, I told her I’d be ready in five.

  Slow and steady, Weezy eases on the gas. She juts out her chin, peering over the dashboard, methodically searching for moving objects, left to right, like reading a book. I twist around to say hi to Francie. She gives me a cheeky smile and returns to eating Cheerios, one by one. Just as we turn the corner, my eye catches a strangely familiar silhouette. Trip?

  If he were in town, he surely would have called. At least as a friend. I hope we’re still friends. What are we? Maybe we should have had our conversation sooner. As I stare into the side-view mirror, he slips from the frame. I unbuckle to swivel completely—my knees on the seat, hands on the headrest—and catch sight of his profile as he disappears behind a house on the corner. Definitely Trip.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” The radio plays another Michael Jackson song. I change the station.

  “Aw. Why’d you do that?”

  I’ve enjoyed MJ’s songs but never considered myself a fan. Weezy, on the other hand, had a poster of him in her bedroom. “I’m sorry. I’ve hit my limit.” Yesterday was August 29, Michael Jackson’s birthday. A production assistant played Thriller on his phone during commercial breaks. Jasmine wanted to close out the last news broadcast of the day by waving a sequined glove. I said no, absolutely not. Didn’t she see the documentary?

  Weezy checks her blind spot and pulls off down a side road. We roll past one anonymous development after another. Finally her Volvo bumbles into a gravel parking lot. She taps on her window, indicating a small brick building squatting beneath some pines. “It’s right there. Doesn’t it look much more user-friendly than a hospital?”

  I didn’t have any expectations as to what a birthing center is supposed to look like, so I guess it does seem, at the least, less intimidating than a hospital. Just one story and modest in size, it was probably someone’s ranch home in a former incarnation. Baby-blue shutters frame the windows. The front door is pink. Lavender vincas, probably tended by one of the midwives, grow along the walkway.