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| Charleston, South Carolina, circa 1910. "King Street lights at night." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company |
She felt a little shy walking in the door with him. She was in his town now, his crowd eagerly waiting to get a look at her, size her up in the 3.5 seconds it would take them to form their opinion of her and either give him their nods of approval or looks of doubt. She knew this was how it always happened. It didn't matter that he was 12 years older and his friends were all her age. She knew they would examine her from head to toe and that their opinions of her would carry weight with him.
At 29 she was young, but old enough to know how these things worked. She had dated enough men to understand the unspoken system between them. So far, every place they had gone together, in Atlanta, Charlotte, even New England, he couldn't have seemed more proud of her. His brother adored her, his female friends in Atlanta were impressed he was able to snag her, they turned heads together in the clubs they frequented in Charlotte. But in Charleston with his crowd of closest guy friends, she knew her reputation, even her position in his life was on the line. She knew these guys had the power to make or break their relationship no matter how good she was to him, no matter how beautiful he thought she was. The simple truth was that their opinions carried more weight even, than his own happiness did. It didn't matter how much he cared for her. In the end, what mattered most to him was what his friends thought about him. If they took one look at her and decided he could do better, he would have to try to do better. End of story.
The guys were already there, a captive audience, well lubricated with shots of Jager under their belts and tall domestic beers half-drunk, sweating on the table in front of them. A few of them smelled of marijuana. One was smoking a cigar, a cloud of smoke hovering around him. He wore his professorial beard and heavy plastic-rimmed glasses like a disguise. She wondered if he'd ever had a date in his life.
The situation almost angered her. This table full of young men, so inexperienced in the ways of the world sitting in judgment of her as if they knew what real life was. What did they know about coming home to an empty house every night? What did they know of the monotony of life being shattered by a smile that waited behind the door of home at the end of every day? Why did they care who gave him that comfort in his life, and when their time came, when they found their own comforting pair of arms to go home to, would his opinion really matter to them?
The couple seemed to walk forever, the long table looming before her, strange faces with tilted heads and forced smiles welcoming them near.
"This, gentlemen, is the lovely Rebecca," he said in his most sophisticated and rehearsed anchor-man voice as they approached. Immediately, the herd of men scrambled to its feet. Murmurs of "Pleased to meet you", "great to finally put a face with the name", "lovely to make your acquaintance" erupted all around her. She nervously smiled and offered her hand to the two gentlemen closest to her. Noticing the clammy hands and furtive grasp of both her new acquaintances, her nerves settled a little. Andrew pulled out her chair and she sat confidently while the man with a rum and Coke on her other side started stabbing furiously at the lime in his drink with a cocktail straw.
"What will you have to drink, love?" Andrew asked her.
She felt as if they were in a play together, making up their lines as they went along, playing two characters that existed only to heap coals of envy on their audience. It sickened her a little that she couldn't just be herself but she knew it was important to him to impress these guys, so she played along.
"Well, I think I'll have a whisky sour." She answered, cringing at the thought of sipping on the sugary cocktail instead of bolting a shot of tequila, like her gut told her to do.
"Whiskey sour it is then!" He said with a flourish, and then disappeared to the bar to fetch their drinks.
The fellow with the cigar stared at her over his glasses for a second, flashing a condescending smile at her before asking, "So Rebecca, what is it that you do?"
The dreaded question. She knew it would come eventually, but she hated answering it all the same. Once she told them her career path, the questions would start. They would expect her to psychoanalyze them, the conversation would be steered towards mental illness or Alzheimer's disease. She would end up telling anecdotes about her work in a nursing home. They would ask about her grades, why did she choose that major, wasn't it hard to go to school and be a mother? The evening would deteriorate into the discussion of her every-day humdrum life.
"I'm a highly trained assassin for the Southern Mafia." She answered without cracking a smile. Everyone at the table laughed nervously. They were in Charleston SC, but it turned out that not one of their dinner acquaintances was Southern. They were all from places like New York, Boston, New Jersey, Michigan or Minnesota. It never occurred to her they might actually believe in such a thing as the Southern Mafia.
Andrew made his way back to the table through the crowded restaurant, using the back of her flaming red-head as a reference point. She stood out, he told her, even in a dimly lit room full of hot blondes dressed to kill in their fetching Saturday night black dresses, shoulders bared, makeup perfectly applied. He noticed all of those blondes though, and made note of the ones who noticed him back. He felt high with excitement as he forced his way through clusters of tall perfumed women holding glasses of wine and laughing with their heads tossed back, eyes scanning the room to see if any men were watching them.
"Tell us more about the Southern Mafia," one of the younger men insisted as Andrew took his seat.
He flashed her an amused smile and shook his head.
"Dear, have you been telling people your secrets again?" He asked.
"I've told them no details." She quipped, "You know I don't want to have to kill anyone tonight!"
Again the gentlemen laughed, a bit amused, a bit bewildered. She was unconventional, she knew that much, but she couldn't quite decipher what they made of her yet.
The conversation soon steered towards other, more testosterone driven topics and she welcomed the brief reprieve from scrutiny. The man on her left ordered another rum and Coke and proceeded to murder another lime. The bearded professor philosophized about everything from golf to fishing. A few other men started their own muffled conversations about business or sports. Andrew sat with his hand on her knee, as if to say, "This is mine," while he laughed over-zealously at blonde jokes, tossed out indiscriminately throughout the meal.
Finally, between the entree and dessert, she excused herself to the ladies' room. As she stood to leave the herd again scrambled to its clumsy drunken feet. The sound of chairs scooting across the concrete floor made heads turn from nearby tables as she pivoted carefully and gave her best performance, walking from the table towards the refuge of the bar.
She chose a spot on the side, where she was out of sight from the prying eyes of her boyfriend's entourage. She knew they were talking about her, giving him their opinions thus far, probably making sexually inappropriate comments and asking prying questions to which they were not entitled answers.
The bartender seemed to understand her predicament. "You look like you need a special kind of drink tonight." He said with a wink.
"Just a shot of Patron, please." She responded with an eye roll.
"Coming right up!"
"Put it on his bill," she said, nodding towards the table where Andrew sat in his grey suit and tie, gesticulating wildly with his hands as he entertained his audience.
The bartender glanced over at Andrew, then back at her with a long sigh as he shook his head and poured her drink. As he slid her the shot glass filled with liquid relief, he leaned close. "Don't fall for that guy." He said.
"Thanks," she said. "But you're a little late." She downed the tequila, looking the bartender straight in the eye and then kept her word, dropping by the powder room to shake off her restless irritability before heading back to the game.
Back at her seat, she was surprised to find another shot of tequila waiting for her. "What's this?" she asked as she settled into her chair.
"Seems you have a fan." Andrew replied. He was a little miffed, if not proud that in front of his buddies, another man had sent her a drink.
"Well, aren't you going to drink it?" He asked.
"Of course! But shouldn't we order a round for everyone?"
"Great idea, love. Let's all have a shot!" He exclaimed.
They waited in almost complete silence as their server hurried off to the bar. She could feel the bartender's gaze at her back, wanted to turn around and acknowledge him, but thought better of it.
Eventually, shot glasses in hand, the gentlemen turned their attention to her.
"What shall we drink to?" she asked with a big grin.
"To true love," said the Professor.
"Yes, to true love," Andrew agreed.
"To true love then!" She said, raising her glass to them all.
Everyone except the man to her left belted down the tequila, some of them furiously sucking on limes to chase down the alcohol. She wondered what it said of her, that she could handle tequila better than some of these men.
The evening stretched on. Drinks kept coming. The more she drank the more Southern she became, her falsely refined speech gradually relaxing into drawling sentences as she challenged the Professor's philosophies and recounted stories of growing up in the hills of the Upstate.
"My mama shot a dawg one time." She announced. The table drew quiet as she told the story of her mother, a woman with more than a touch of insanity, who one night, aimed a shotgun in the air to scare off a howling dog and accidentally shot him instead. The men laughed with red faces and wanted to know if she ever wrote any of this stuff down. Story after story, they listened, mesmerized by their drunkenness and her Southern prose.
She never even noticed when Andrew left the table.
The Professor eventually stood, tottering on his feet and announced that he had better get home. He had a big day coming up he said, and with that the rest of the party started to disperse. One by one, they gave her limp-armed hugs and sweaty hand-shakes as they made their way from the table until at last, she was left there with just the citruscidal guy to her left. She looked to her right, acknowledging Andrew's absence, and then back at her neighbor with a shrug.
He gave her a crooked grin, as if to apologize for something that was in no way his fault and asked her if she'd like him to walk her outside to find her date. "Sure." She said, feeling embarrassed that her man had apparently ditched her in the middle of her first dinner with his friends.
The man to her left pulled out her chair and she took his arm as they walked to the exit. She was trying not to show it but she was looking for Andrew in the shadows, sure she would see him canoodling with some blonde in a corner. He was no where to be found though, not even when they reached the fresh air outside on King Street.
They both looked around, but not seeing a sign of Andrew anywhere, joined hands and walked away from the noisy entrance. In the quiet air of the dark Charleston street, they could hear one another speak without raising their voices.
"It really is nice to meet you." he said.
"Thanks. Nice to meet you too."
"Should I walk you home?"
"I don't have a home here." She answered as a matter of fact.
"My home then?" He asked.
"Okay," she answered, and she handed him her shoes, preferring the pain of her bare feet on the warm, broken sidewalk to the pain of walking all the way to Montagu St. in heels.
"It really turned out to be a nice evening." He said, as they made their way East towards the smell of the ocean. A stiff breeze from the harbor cooled their faces.
"I'm Stephen, by the way." He said, slipping his arm around her shoulders.
"Hi Stephen." She replied. "Do you think they liked me?"
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