While waiting for Martha in Kudu Coffee’s courtyard, I spin my engagement ring around and around. It’s a diamond solitaire with a gold band. The stone is as big as a pea. When it catches the sunlight, pink and yellow sparks of light flicker up and down the nearby wall.
When Trip got down on one knee to propose, I almost reached down to scoop him up. Don’t do it! I’m not sure if this is what I want. But how could I say no? Here was this sweet boy, down on his knee, giving me a gift he had worked so hard to purchase. How could I end a relationship at the very moment he was asking to be with me forever? Who could look into such hopeful eyes and refuse?
“What up, Simian?” Martha scoots a metal chair over to a shady spot. Her ink-colored eyes match the black of her pupils, making her impossible to read. They’re the first thing I noticed about Martha in the girls’ bathroom. She’s unpredictable and not at all cautious. Or maybe she seems that way because her expression is inscrutable. I find her fascinating. She’s the freest person I’ve ever met.
She’s also gorgeous: a good three inches taller than I am, with strong shoulders, a healthy C cup, a flat stomach, and long legs. She wears her raven hair in a bob like a 1920s movie star. She’s almost perfect, except for her fingers and toes. Martha has comically large thumbs, and her toes are as plump as sausages. In the twelve years I have known her, I have never seen her in flip-flops. Even on a sticky day like today, she’s wearing boots.
“Please tell me I didn’t make out with that guy.”
She removes her lid to drink her coffee, taking her time. “No, you didn’t.”
I collapse in relief.
“But you certainly acted like you were gonna go home with him. He was even buying me drinks.”
“He texted me.”
“And . . . ?”
“We’re just talking.”
She pinches a hunk of my muffin. “Maybe this is the guy you need to bang to figure things out.”
Could I have an affair? And with that guy? “No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, you need to try something. Curiosity doesn’t kill every cat, Simian.”
Martha’s parents got divorced when she was in middle school; she’s pretty cynical about the institution of marriage—a view I’ve lately come to envy. She doesn’t feel the pressure to marry and have kids. She’s not looking for a birdie to build the nest. She has no ideas or prototypes for what a relationship should be.
Maybe it’s because of her cynicism that she chooses the kind of men who scare me. Her men are older and hairier, with leathery skin that has creased into folds around the neck, revealing pink streaks when they swivel their heads. They smell like a hangover and have a look in their eyes that isn’t always kind, is maybe even predatory.
It’s not just the men she chooses who are different. It’s also her approach to sex: Martha bangs and fucks. Those are the words she uses. I like to think I make love or, when it’s a bit more perfunctory, I have sex, but never fuck. And when she does, it’s on her terms. It often seems like a last-minute decision and usually happens sometime after 10:00 p.m. She’ll straighten her back, squint her eyes in a knowing way. She’ll switch from beer to martinis and play with the olives in a way only pretty girls can. Sure enough, some stranger finds an excuse to talk to her, and off they go.
I grew up differently. My parents are together and seem to love each other. It’s not a passionate love; the standard, sturdy Charleston marriages seem too formal for lust. The locals are traditional about their arrangements, and this traditionalism bodes well for just about all of Mom and Dad’s friends, and Weezy, too. So, when Trip proposed, everyone was excited. Our union fits neatly into a social construct that, apparently, keeps many people happy for decades. All I have to do is wear a floral dress, refrain from seconds, and maybe exile my zinnias to the far corner of our yard.
I wish I were more like Mom; she seems to have no need or desire that conflicts with Dad’s. Her name is Caroline Ann Jenrette Middleton Smythe; everyone calls her Carry Ann. She briefly taught elementary school, but when Weezy was born, she decided to stay home and never really left. She keeps busy with her tennis matches and volunteer work at St. Paul’s church.
This year, and on into the next, she’s the envy of all her friends. Weezy is due in the fall with a boy. Shortly after, Caroline will make her debut, which is a series of brunches, cocktail soirees, and white-tie balls at which Charleston families formally present their daughters to society. The parties start in the summer and ramp up during the holiday season, when the debutantes are home from their senior year of college. The following spring, I am to get married.
Like most couples, Mom and Dad have their routines. They venture out to Edisto—our home in the country—one weekend a month. When they’re in town on Saturdays, Dad golfs and Mom plays doubles. Every Sunday after church they stroll over to Battery Hall, where they have a standing 12:15 brunch reservation. Dad orders the shrimp and grits and a beer. Mom orders the quiche and a glass of chardonnay. That’s been their weekend for the twenty-six years I’ve known them. No fights. No drama. Their marital life is a gentle meander through time.
This template never bothered me before. In fact, the mildness of their relationship paved the way for my idyllic childhood: swims at Laudie’s, Wednesday night cotillion, my school days at Crescent Academy. Perhaps Mom sacrificed tiny bits of her freedom so that her children could lead such charmed lives. After all, is it so hard to slip on a Lilly Pulitzer dress and avoid second helpings of potatoes au gratin?
Martha shoots up from the table. “I have an idea. It’s brilliant, really.”
“What?” Martha’s ideas come suddenly and often have lasting consequences. When we were seniors, she got a tattoo on a lark. I went with her, gobsmacked as she selected a random picture off the wall. She chose a sparrow. How could she commit to something forever when she only just thought of it that moment? What did a sparrow mean to her, anyway? But I loved her for it—for making choices quickly. I couldn’t decide on almond or oat milk for my latte. Martha doesn’t hesitate. Her bold decisiveness landed her Bruno, too. She was smoking a cigarette outside Recovery Room—her favorite hole-in-the-wall—when a woman walking a foster dog strolled by. Now, he’s hers forever.
“A gift. I’m going to bring you a perfectly fuckable gift, and you’re going to love me for it.”
“I don’t want a vibrator.”
“It’s not a vibrator.” She beams, then leans forward to touch the tip of my nose with her pointer finger. “You’re going to love it.”