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.”