Southern Lady Code

by Helen Ellis

  For my forty-seventh birthday, my husband walked me to the Burberry store on East 57th Street. A saleswoman escorted us to the second floor and the first thing I noticed about the wall of trench coats was that none of them have metal buckles. They all had plastic or leather buckles (I still can’t figure out the material).

  I said, “It’s official: I’ve lost my mind.”

  My husband said, “No, you were right about the buckle. I didn’t know it at the time, but I bought you a coat from their cheaper line. The bright side is that it seems you traded up and someone else got the cheap coat.”

  I looked at myself in the mirror, wrapped in the other woman’s Burberry coat. Identical coats hung on display. I said, “I can’t trade this coat for the same coat.”

  “But you hate wearing it,” my husband said. “Just try some on.”

  The saleswoman, who’d been listening to our conversation as if she heard The Case of the Mistaken Trench Coat every day, sprang into action. She brought me three cuts of tan trench coats. I tried them on but felt like a fool.

  My husband said, “Maybe try a different color.”

  The saleswoman showed me the trenches in black.

  My husband said, “Any other color?”

  The saleswoman excused herself to the storeroom. She came back with a trench coat in a color that would never sell in Manhattan, so they didn’t keep it on the sales floor. On the Upper East Side, women wear black and tan. Except they call tan camel. And camel-colored anything is synonymous with chic. I’d wanted to be chic. I’d wanted to own a timeless fashion staple. The coat in the saleswoman’s hands was a bright paperclip.

  The trench was royal blue. It’s a color Mama wore when she went to law school at forty. It is very Delta Burke, circa Designing Women. I slipped it on and the royal blue turned my pale skin to porcelain. I blinked and my eyes were sapphires. I was in love, but I wouldn’t blend in.

  We bought it anyway. It cost $1,895.

  My husband said, “It’s an investment piece.”

  After seventeen years of marriage, my husband is fluent in Southern Lady Code. An “investment piece” is Southern Lady Code for costs more than a bedroom set, but you’ll wear it for decades. For me, it’s an insurance policy. I’ll never again take another woman’s coat by mistake.

  PEGGY SUE GOT

  MARIJUANA

  The first time I saw marijuana was in the movie 9 to 5. I was ten years old, and Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda had been done wrong by the boss and were commiserating with an old-fashioned ladies’ pot party. They shared a joint, savored leftovers, and hallucinated feminism. This looked—and still looks—like great fun to me. Would I like to lasso, hogtie, and roast a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot over a spit? All while wearing cowboy boots and fringed suede? Why, yes. Yes, I would.

  But I am not a lady who knows how to get pot. And I am not the kind of lady to whom pot is offered. I don’t look like a pothead. What does a pothead look like? Somewhere between a Jamaican glass-bottom boat driver and Susan Sarandon.

  I’ve been to Jamaica, I went to college in Boulder, Colorado, and I moved to New York City at twenty-two but was never offered pot because I looked so preppy you’d guess my tramp stamp was a monogram.

  In the early nineties, I worked at Talbots on the Upper East Side and had access to a bottomless pit of hair bow clips. A hair bow clip is a Southern lady’s tiara. It’s made of stiff ribbon, brightly colored, and is as fat as a titmouse. Back then the whole country was wearing them, and there was a theory that you could judge a woman’s IQ by where she fastened her hair bow clip: the higher the hair bow clip, the lower the IQ. I wore my hair bow clip at the nape of my neck. Still, if you saw me from behind, you’d think I’d been tagged with a tracking device.

  One night after work, my friend Patti and I raced home to watch TV. We ran out of the subway and barreled down the streets toward our apartment on East Twenty-Sixth. When we broke through a clump of Rastafarians, one called after me, “Watch it, Peggy Sue!”

  See, nobody offers pot to Peggy Sue.

  My friend Patti also looks like Peggy Sue. Peggy Sues used to wear poodle skirts and cardigans, and then we wore hair bow clips and cardigans, and now we wear Alex and Ani charm bangle bracelets and peasant blouses. Or cardigans. We travel in pairs or in packs and, no matter our age, look like we’re straight outta composition class. We’re gigglers. We look like good girls. And nobody thinks we want to get high.

  But we do. We just don’t know how.

  I’m not a smoker. I’ve never been able to whistle and I’ve never been able to inhale. When I whistle, my breath is as quiet as a bunny poot; and when I suck a cigarette, I hack like a cat coughing up a hairball. And then coughing up another one. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, all I know is I’m not doing it right.

  And once you’ve had trouble doing something you thought you wanted to do, you quit wanting to do it. I’d like to be a lady who cliff dives and wanders lonely as a cloud that floats on high o’er vales and hills, but I ass-flopped from Rick’s Café in Negril and crash-landed in a hot air balloon. So, these things are not for me. They’re not in my wheelhouse. “Wheelhouse” is Southern Lady Code for comfort zone. A comfort zone is inside the box. And here’s what no one is telling you about living inside the box: it’s nice in here. There are Snuggies and Klondike bars.

  I’ve been successfully high one time, thanks to my friend Patti, who moved from Manhattan to Denver, where pot is now legal. Patti does not do pot, but she is my best friend and an excellent hostess. So at forty-four, I went to visit her.

  In broad daylight on Halloween, she drove me to a distillery that looked like a Starbucks. Two middle-aged ladies sat in a reception area wearing skinny headbands with alien antennas. They took our middle-aged lady drivers’ licenses and buzzed us through a door, where pot was laid out in every form: houseplants, fudge globs, sticky rice, and candy. No, I don’t think these are the proper terms for what I saw, but I’m Peggy Sue, not Procter & Gamble.

  I bought what looked like two Jolly Ranchers for under five dollars. I had one of them while Patti’s husband took their son trick-or-treating. Patti laid out a charcuterie for parents who brought their kids by her house. While she socialized, I manned the front door and gave out chocolate bars.

  Here’s what I remember about being high: every kid’s costume was freaking fantastic and I made love to a box of super seed crackers. I was relaxed and happy and very much in the moment. It was one of the best nights of my life.

  I didn’t have the nerve to smuggle home the other Jolly Rancher (which as far as I know is still in Patti’s panty drawer), but apparently it’s pretty easy for Peggy Sues. What you do is: put the pot candy in a bag of regular look-alike candy and put that bag in your carry-on luggage. If you have a kid, slip it in your kid’s carry-on luggage. No TSA agent will give a lady who looks like Patti or me a second look. Which makes me wonder why drug cartels don’t recruit bridge players, mall walkers, and that society of women who wear red hats and purple clothes. They should troll college drop-offs for moms. Empty nesters are up for adventure. And nobody pats down Peggy Sue.

  Which is why I have no fear of writing about my flirtation with pot. Nobody’s going to arrest me for flirting. And that’s all it was: flirting.

  My friends know I’m a flirt. And God bless them, after years of giving me jam jars and forty-five-dollar candles, two of them came up with an original hostess gift. At one party, I carried my first marijuana cigarette, tied with a ribbon, around all night in my apron pocket. I flashed it at guests like a nipple pastie but never smoked it because I can’t smoke. I sealed it in a sandwich bag, put it in my panty drawer, and tossed it a year later because, despite my best efforts, it had gone stale. I don’t know how to test marijuana cigarettes for freshness, but it was as brittle as a vanilla bean and I don’t think th
at’s good. I got a second joint as a gift and tried to smoke it in front of lawyer friends who’ve committed a good portion of their lives to sending drug dealers to prison. They were not pleased with me, but I thought of it as if I’d put a lampshade over my head. It’s all in good fun in the privacy of my own home. I’m not hurting anyone. Look everyone, Peggy Sue’s gone wild! And by wild, I mean she’s looking at you kinda funny.

  This year, my husband gave me a vape pen for Valentine’s Day. He ordered it through a friend like I order Girl Scout cookies. The pen came in three parts like a dollhouse pool cue. You screw them together and charge the pen in your laptop USB port. It’s supposed to be easier to inhale from than a rolled cigarette. It’s supposed to give you a better high because it’s juice, not leaves, and whatever makes you paranoid is strained out like pulp. Again, I have no idea what I am talking about. I might as well be explaining how my hair curlers get hot.

  My husband’s friend told him, “It’s not your college marijuana. Take one hit. Just take one hit. If you start to freak out, wait twenty minutes and you’ll mellow.”

  My husband has no interest in pot but gets a kick out of the fact that I’m trying to introduce it into my life like vegetables and tennis. He pressed a little blue button on the vape pen until it lit up and then handed it to me. I took a drag, dove into a heart-shaped box of Russell Stover cream centers, and laughed for two minutes when he shouted an answer at Family Feud. No, I don’t remember what one hundred married men were surveyed about, but my husband answered: “The scrotum, Steve!”

  A friend, whom I’ll call Pseudonym Lily, said, “You didn’t do it right.”

  I said, “How do you know?”

  She said, “Bring it to my place. I’ve got the apartment to myself this weekend. I’ll invite Pseudonym Judy and we’ll show you how.”

  Pseudonym Lily and Pseudonym Judy were potheads in college. Pseudonym Lily smoked every day for four years. Pseudonym Judy’s boyfriend gave her a bong with a gas mask. Now they play mah-jongg and needlepoint. They look like Peggy Sues. But they are not Peggy Sues.

  Pseudonym Judy said, “You’re doing it wrong. You’re supposed to hold the blue circle down and inhale until the blue circle goes off.”

  I do this and the pen crackles. The mouthpiece warms up. The smoke is hot in my mouth and my lungs burn.

  “Hold it,” said Pseudonym Lily.

  “Hold it,” said Pseudonym Judy.

  “Now, blow it out slowly. It should come out in a straight line. If it comes out in a puff, you’re doing it wrong.”

  I blew out a straight line.

  “Nice!”

  “Good job!”

  And then I felt what it was supposed to feel like. My body melted. I felt faint, but I didn’t faint. I ate cheese. I ate cheese. I ate a baby carrot. We laughed. They talked and I tried to keep up. I didn’t speak. We laughed. Did I mention the cheese? It was a very 9 to 5 old-fashioned ladies’ pot party. And then four hours passed and it was time to go home.

  WHAT EVERY GIRL

  SHOULD LEARN FROM

  ABC’S THE BACHELOR

  No fairy tale begins: “Once upon a time, he blindfolded me in the back of a car.” No fantasy suite has another woman’s hair clogging the drains. A suitcase full of gowns doesn’t make you a princess. Be careful what you wish for, Cinderella’s house was infested with mice.

  If a man doesn’t kiss you, he doesn’t want to kiss you. If a man doesn’t kiss you on the mouth, he doesn’t find you attractive. A fist bump is not a kiss. An ass pat is not a kiss. Don’t trust a man who keeps your kisses a secret.

  When a man asks you to “Put your heart out there,” he means: take off your top and get in a Jacuzzi.

  When a man puts his heart out there, he leaves the bathroom door open.

  Classy women wear one-pieces. Smart women think on balconies. The clearer the ocean, the cloudier the mind. Indecision is a decision. Patience is a curling iron in 100 percent humidity. Throw blankets signify the good life. Ladies who seem like they never have a bad day occasionally have a very, very bad day. Sex is like a funny cat video: everyone thinks theirs is special, but we’ve all fallen off a couch.

  Don’t forgive a man who repeatedly hurts your feelings. Don’t choose a man by how you think he’ll treat your kids once you have kids. If a man won’t tell you where you’re going on a date, you’re camping. If a man calls his dog’s name before yours, well dang.

  Just because a man is the first to tell you he loves you doesn’t mean he loves you the most.

  Sometimes your second choice is the best choice.

  A good man is like a pair of bargain bin pricey panties: snatch him up first, and ignore tiny flaws later. You could do a lot worse than a poet who plays baseball and is in line to take over his dad’s chiropractor business. Forget helicopters and exotic locations. It’s easy to fall in love on a front porch under an American flag.

  THE GHOST EXPERIENCE

  It was a Friday night in Manhattan and I was home with two friends. There was watercress dip and a bottle of wine, an LED swing lamp, and five hundred puzzle pieces of a spooky owl in midflight. My friend Megan writes bestselling mystery novels. My friend Dani reads incessantly. Both women jigsaw. And puzzling women are open to anything. For example, Dani wore yoga pants to work a jigsaw puzzle. My idea of child’s pose is crouching over a box top. Megan wore a cardigan, which we Southern ladies consider active wear.

  Megan asked, “Has either of you ever had a ghost experience?”

  Before Dani could answer no, I answered, “Who hasn’t?”

  Megan said, “I was in Chicago having drinks at a hotel bar. All of a sudden I got a chill and smelled bleach. I thought I was going to faint, and I didn’t want to do it in public, so I left the bar and went to my room.”

  “Of course you did,” said Dani, plucking out edge pieces like other women pluck red jelly beans out of a jar.

  I said, “The last time I fainted I did it on a bus. I peed a little.”

  Dani said, “My husband passed out in a men’s room last week. He gets overheated. They called an ambulance, and I walked into the emergency room shouting, ‘Where’s my husband? He’s totally fine!’ ”

  Megan said, “So I’m in my hotel room and I get the ice bucket. When I open the door to go get ice, there’s a man in front of my door. Just standing there. Right in front of my door. He’s tall and thin and old and pale and dressed like something out of the past. He’s wearing a hat. And he’s just standing there. Staring at me.”

  “Did you shut the door?” I ask.

  “No, I was somehow already out in the hallway with my door closed behind me. All I could think to do was ask him where the ice machine was.”

  “Of course you did,” said Dani. She plucked out an owl eye.

  Megan said, “He pointed down the hall in this weird slow-motion way.”

  “And you went?” I asked.

  “Of course she did,” said Dani, and plucked out a beak.

  “But that’s a closed environment,” I said. “A second location. Oprah says, Don’t let them take you to a second location. Did he follow you?”

  Dani finally looked up.

  “No,” said Megan. “When I got to the end of the hall, he was somehow at the other end. He’s at one end and I’m at the other. And that’s when I see that there’s no vending machine room. I’m standing in front of a glass door that leads to a gym. And I’m frozen, thinking: do I go in here? And he holds up his hand and makes a gesture, again real slow, moving his hand back and forth like an Egyptian, like slide your key in. And I do it because I’m so freaked out.”

  “Is anyone in the gym?” I ask.

  “No, it’s totally empty. So I just stand in there with all the treadmills, holding my empty ice bucket until a woman walks in to work out, sees me, and screams.”r />
  “Of course she does!” screamed Dani.

  “I know!” screamed Megan.

  I asked, “Which one was the ghost?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Dani. “The man was the ghost.”

  “Where I come from,” I said, “three things could be ghosts: the chill and the bleach smell, the man, and the woman. Just because a woman’s wearing mesh capris doesn’t mean she’s not a ghost. People die nowadays too, you know. All ghosts aren’t going be in tuxedos and nightgowns.”

  * * *

  ————

  The first ghost who visited me wore a black flared skirt, a black suit jacket, a tailored white blouse, and black one-inch heels. Mama says she remembers the shoes in particular.

  Mama says, “I was looking down on you while you were sleeping, and I saw the black shoes by the foot of your crib. I looked up and there was this woman. She was just standing there. Looking down at you, too. So I ran out and hollered, ‘There’s a woman in Helen Michelle’s room!’ Your father—never one to ask questions in a crisis—flew up the steps and found no one in the nursery. He checked the whole house and found no one.”

  In all the times I’ve heard this story, not once has the experience been attributed to postpartum depression, one too many whiskey sours, or sleep deprivation. Mama was not hallucinating. There was a ghost in my room.

  At first, Mama wished it was her mother, who’d died a few months earlier. Later, she admitted the ghost’s face was unrecognizable and that in all honesty she couldn’t imagine her mother wearing something so drab, so it could have been someone who died on the property. Then, for a while, she thought it was a nun. Mama’s side of the family is Catholic and has been in the South since 1738. Like some families have politicians, we’ve got nuns.

  We also have ghosts. There’s the story about Great-aunt Belle, whose perfume drifted through the house at her funeral reception. Our great-great-grandmother’s dog dug a grave the night her husband died at sea. Mama’s parents loved ghosts so much, on Halloween they’d throw on bedsheets and sit in the shrubbery to horrify trick-or-treaters.