Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt and Other Things I Learned in Southern Belle Hell

by Crickett Rumley

  Brandi Lyn and I took seats in the front row of the balcony. We could see everything from there: the altar and podium, the organist playing the prelude, members of the congregation milling around on the floor below. I waved at Mizz Upton and Caroline, who waved back. Mizz Upton tersely nodded her head. The only thing we couldn’t see from where we sat were the pews underneath the balcony. But I figured if Luke Churchville was here, I’d most likely be able to spot him easily.

  And then what?

  Well, I didn’t have the least little idea of that. I didn’t have a five-year plan for this endeavor, let alone a five-minute plan. I was just curious, okay?

  Meanwhile, Brandi Lyn and I performed fashion espionage, examining the sea of heads and coifs down below us for hair, makeup, and clothing tips. Brandi Lyn sighed and shook her head.

  “But Jane, they all look so boring, don’t you think?”

  “Hey, I’m the one with the tattoo and the butt-hugging jeans. To me, everybody looks about as interesting as a five-year-old wearing Garanimals. I’m just saying that if we want to kick it Magnolia style, this is probably what Mizz Upton is expecting.”

  Brandi Lyn pondered that, which is when I noticed that—gasp!—the Churchvilles had arrived! They were down below, with Mr. Churchville leading his pack, followed by Mrs. Churchville, Lindsey (who was no longer a pesky little nine-year-old, but an achingly awkward pubescent teen), and little Betsy (who had grown into an adorable ten-year-old). I scanned the aisles behind them, but no Luke. Hmm. Where in the world could he be?

  Unfortunately, I had no more time to look. The organist launched into the processional, and the priest marched down the center aisle followed by the associate priest, the altar boys, and the choir. Brandi Lyn and I leapt to our feet along with the rest of the congregation. Together we limped through the very mysterious thing called the Episcopal Church service. I had forgotten how confusing they always were to me. The Episcopalians don’t print a bulletin the way we do at the Presbyterian Church, so it’s hard to know what is happening and when it’s happening and when to stand and when to sit. The most confusing thing of all is when to kneel. Presbyterians don’t kneel at all, and apparently they don’t at Brandi Lyn’s church, either, because we were both left sitting in the pew when everyone moved to the kneelers in front of them. We quickly rectified the situation, slipping onto our knees and bowing our heads. To my surprise, Brandi Lyn actually prayed along with the priest, throwing in her own amens after just about every sentence he uttered. I jabbed her in the ribs and shushed her.

  “What?” she mouthed.

  “Don’t say ‘amen’ unless the minister tells you to, or at the end of the prayer,” I whispered back. I glanced around to see if anybody had heard her… and almost choked on my own breath.

  He was here. Not ten feet away in a row two back from us, on the opposite aisle. He must have slipped in during the opening hymn. I could easily have thrown a prayer book at him. Easily.

  And y’all, all I can say is that time, good genes, and the soccer team or swim team or whatever it was had been more than generous to Mr. Luke C. He was more magnificent than even the most magnificent fantasy I had invented in my head. All blond curls, cupid-esque ringlets (where had those come from?), broad shoulders, lean muscled arms encased in a vineyard vines oxford.

  And I finally had the answer to the question that had plagued me since the moment I returned: how would I feel when I saw Luke Churchville again?

  Like I wanted to run all the way to China. That’s how. What had I done? Sneaking into his church on his turf was the worst idea ever! I was such an idiot! Had he seen me? Please, God, no. Maybe, if I just sat real, real still, then he wouldn’t see me during the rest of the service. Brandi Lyn and I would wait until everyone had left at the end, then we’d sneak out and I’d be safe, completely and totally safe. Yeah, that was a good plan….

  A plan that was completely and totally ruined five minutes later when the choir stood to sing a breathtaking rendition of “In Christ There Is No East or West.” Brandi Lyn became so overcome by the beauty of it all that she stood up and pulled out a lighter—a lighter! She flicked it on, raised it into the air, and waved it back and forth like people did at U2 concerts in the 90s, like you see in old video footage on YouTube. Kids stopped squirming and teenagers stopped writing notes to each other as every eye in the balcony swiveled in our direction… including LUKE CHURCHVILLE’S! The corners of his lips curled up as he watched her sway in time with the music, then his gaze traveled in my direction.

  I jerked my head forward fast in hopes that he hadn’t recognized me. I clutched at Brandi Lyn’s hand, desperately trying to make that lighter disappear. But instead I knocked it out of her hand and sent it plummeting into the congregation below!

  Crap! I closed my eyes. Brandi Lyn’s widened. Then we heard an angry yelp from below. That was it. I grabbed Brandi Lyn’s hand. “We’re outta here,” I whisper-screamed, and dragged her up the aisle. We bolted past the slew of staring faces, including Luke’s, and clambered down the stairs and out the front door.

  Brandi Lyn gawked at me in a breathless frenzy. “Jane, what in the world?! No one’s even been saved yet!”

  “That’s just it, Brandi Lyn. People don’t get saved in this church. Episcopalians are really… sedate with their services.”

  “Well, in my church, we like to make a joyful noise unto the Lord.”

  “Okay, that’s totally cool and I would love to see that sometime, but let’s get out of here before…”

  Before, say, an angry voice whispers, “Excuse me. You forgot something.”

  Oh, shoot. I prepared myself to face some mean, old church lady, furious that we had broken the well-established rules of conduct.

  I whirled around, already offering up apologies, “I’m sorry, ma’am, we just…” But instead of a rabid matriarch, there stood a willowy prepster of a boy, our age, in a pink jacket and a screaming-pink flamingo tie. He had one eyebrow raised, the lighter dangling from his fingers, and to my surprise, a big welcoming grin on his face. “I see you still know how to create a stir, don’t you, be-yotch?”

  “Teddy? Teddy Mac Trenton!” I burst out laughing and swept the richest boy in Bienville into my arms and hugged him hard.

  Chapter Nine

  There is a lot of old money in Old Bienville and there’s a lot of big money in Old Bienville. But no one has bigger or older money than the family of Teddy Mac Trenton. His mother was a Hawkes, Lacey Wilkes Hawkes, to be precise, and she came from a long line of Bienvillites, people she easily described as rumrunners and pirates who raped and pillaged their way into a fortune before civilizing themselves and settling down into the legal business of importing and exporting. Lacey Wilkes, for that was her full given name, was loaded. So loaded that she completely flouted local convention while at the same time serving as Bienville society’s unofficial tastemaker. She’d been through a string of husbands, at least five, to my recollection. She always professed absolute and eternal adoration for each one, at least until they started stealing money from her or cheating on her or visiting prostitutes that ended up singing like canaries to the local press. Teddy Mac was the result of marriage number two, to a real estate developer from Memphis who had returned home after the divorce due to irreconcilable differences. Lacey Wilkes always survived her heartache and devastation, primarily due to her extensive indulgence in retail therapy, her everlasting belief in love, and her devotion to young Teddy Mac, who she called her “Teddy Toy” and declared the only man worth trusting. In return, Teddy Mac adored his mother and served as her little houseboy. He fetched her cocktails, lit her cigarettes for her back when she smoked, and performed tap dances for her guests upon request.

  Lacey Wilkes was frequent fodder for the Old Bienville gossip mill. Everyone loved talking about the husbands who came from all over the place, about how poor Teddy Mac had to deal with that series of stepfathers, how Lacey Wilkes took off for weeks on end to Dallas or Paris or New York to
indulge in the retail therapy that was the only thing that could get her over her latest breakup. I can’t tell you how often I overheard the women of Old Bienville state that Lacey Wilkes was “ostentatious as a Texan” or “had the morals of a Yankee.” But Lacey Wilkes didn’t care what the ladies said, and they certainly kept their mouths shut whenever she donated a wing to the Bienville Infirmary or wrote a check to somebody’s pet charity. No, everybody in town knew what side the bread was buttered on: Lacey Wilkes’s.

  Teddy Mac and I had always gone to different schools, but our mothers were friends, so every once in a while I would end up at Hawkleigh for an afternoon playdate. Yes, the Hawkes’s family estate was so grand it had a name. Picture a Southern plantation house, a two-storied Greek Revival palace with wide verandahs upstairs and down, fronted by an alley of majestic oaks. You could almost see Miss Scarlett and her sisters on the front steps. The lawn was beautifully landscaped, and I loved to play hide-and-seek amongst the azaleas. But Teddy Mac always dragged me up to Lacey Wilkes’s closet which, unlike Mrs. Churchville’s orchid house, was wide open to kids. We played dress-up while our mothers sipped bourbon-spiked lemonade and gossiped on the verandah downstairs.

  “Jane, Jane, Jane, kudos on the most dramatic Magnolia Maid Pageant ever!” Thirty minutes later we had repaired to the Dixie Cup Diner out on Grand Boulevard for giant breakfasts of sausage, biscuits, and milk gravy.

  “Oh, you were at the Magnolia Maid Pageant?” Brandi Lyn had what can only be described as a mystified expression on her face. She had worn it ever since we ran into him.

  Teddy Mac clutched Brandi Lyn’s arm. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world! Of course, it’s usually a done deal which girls are gonna get selected. The same old boring same olds, but this year, I tell you! Mother and I nearly fainted ourselves, we were so surprised! Look, I got the best picture of you catching Brandi Lyn on my iPhone!” He brandished an action photo of Brandi Lyn, legs sprawling, me all mouth wide open as I struggled to keep her from falling.

  Brandi Lyn went red as the checkered tablecloth.

  “Charming, Teddy Mac. Charming,” I said.

  “Anyway”—he dug into another sausage biscuit—“I hear Ashley LaFleur is fit to be tied.”

  “Hell, yeah. She’s conniving all sorts of ways to toss us out of there and sneak Katherine and Courtney on.”

  “They are such sheep. Don’t have an original idea in their heads. Just follow her around doing whatever she tells them. Being all judgmental.” He turned to Brandi Lyn and fluffed at her big hair. “You, girlfriend, I love this look you have going on. Amy Winehouse, with a dash of Dixie, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Well, thank you, but…” Brandi Lyn looked pained. We exchanged glances.

  “Uh-oh. Did I just step in conversational do-do?”

  “Teddy Mac, we have a problem.” I explained our entire situation about being on Magnolia Maid probation and about how we needed to shape up if we were going to get off it and fit in according to Martha Ellen Upton’s specifications.

  Teddy Mac howled with laughter. “Oh my lands, I know just what you girls need! Southern belle drag!”

  “No, not drag.” Brandi Lyn raised her eyebrows in horror. “It’s not an act. We need to be fine ladies of the South.”

  “Oh, honey, everything’s an act. All the world’s a stage, don’t you know?” His arms swished out so far that he nearly hit Brandi Lyn in the face. She jumped back fast, spilling coffee all over the place. “And I am just the one to help you with this.”

  Teddy Mac called for the check and skedaddled off to the little boys’ room, giving Brandi Lyn the chance to turn to me with great concern as she wiped up her coffee. “Jane, your friend, is he, um, well…”

  “What, Brandi Lyn?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut tight. “Do you think he’s homosexual?”

  “Well, I haven’t seen him in six years and we haven’t exactly been Facebooking, but I would hazard a guess and say the answer’s hell yes with sugar on top. Want to ask him?”

  “No, no, no! Jane, that would be so rude!” Brandi Lyn sighed. “It’s just I’ve never met a homosexual before.”

  “Seriously. Never?”

  “Lord’s truth. Have you?”

  “Yes. I mean, definitely in boarding school there were a couple of people who were out of the closet and a few who, well, we had our suspicions.”

  “Really?! Well, how should I act? I’m just not sure what to do.”

  “You do what you normally do. Be yourself. Be Brandi Lyn.”

  And Teddy Mac was back. “Okay, dumpling babies, let’s get to work.”

  I raised an eyebrow at Brandi Lyn. “Are you in, Brandi Lyn?”

  She pasted a nervous smile on her face. “I’m ever so excited.”

  When we were little, Teddy Mac and I played dress-up in his mother’s walk-in closet, which at that point was the size of a small bedroom. But the space that Teddy Mac led us into, after a tour of Hawkleigh that left Brandi Lyn wide-eyed in shock (she kept saying, “You live here? This isn’t a museum?”), was not a closet. It was big as a house. “Mama had a whole new wing built onto the back of the house about three years ago,” Teddy Mac explained. “We just didn’t have enough room for what we need.”

  “Damn, Teddy Mac, Carrie Bradshaw would give up half her Manolos for this thing.” I paced the east wall, studying the collection of evening gowns and fur coats.

  “My whole house could fit in here!” exclaimed Brandi Lyn.

  “Isn’t it obscene? We just love it!”

  At that moment, a voice trilled up from downstairs. “Teddy? Teddy Toy?”

  “Up in the wardrobe, Mother!”

  Lacey Wilkes Hawkes swooped in on a cloud of angel-blonde hair and White Shoulders perfume. Seriously, she looked otherworldly. Well-preserved. “Now, Teddy Toy, you disappeared from church and I do not appreciate that. Do you know I looked for you a whole ten minutes! And then I had to leave. You know these shoes were killing me.”

  “Beauty equals pain, Mother. You knew the new Louboutins weren’t broken in yet.”

  “But they’re so pretty. Evil, pretty things.” Lacey Wilkes sank into a wing chair to take off the evil things. That’s when she noticed me and started screaming like a banshee.

  “Mother, what in the world?” Teddy Mac rushed to her side.

  “Cecilia?”

  “No, Mother, Miss Cecilia died years ago. This is her daughter, Jane.”

  “Oh, of course. So tragic, Cecilia leaving this earth so young. But she was still beautiful, at least she had that.” Lacey Wilkes composed herself as I walked over to put out my hand. “Hi, Mrs.…” I trailed off.

  She jumped up and hugged me. “Oh, honey. I’m back to Hawkes. What with all the getting married and getting unmarried, I could never remember how to sign a check, what a disaster. So I just went back to my maiden name. Much easier that way. Teddy Toy, fetch Mother some champagne. My nerves, I’m so unsettled since Skip and I hit the rocks.”

  Teddy made his way over to a closet within the bazillion-square-foot closet, revealing a fully stocked bar, including a mini-fridge filled with every alcoholic beverage known to man (or woman, in this case). He poured his sweet mother a glass of bubbly.

  She swigged it down fast. “I swear I thought I had laid eyes upon Cecilia’s ghost. Such a tragedy, her declining the way she did. I did love her so. Anyway, Teddy Toy and I were just delighted that you were selected to the Magnolia Court. And who is this?” She beamed at Brandi Lyn, who stammered out her name. “Land sakes! The girl who fainted!”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid so.”

  “Darlin’, don’t be afraid. You got everybody talking.”

  “I know. I looked such the fool.”

  “Honey, please. The year Cecilia and I were Magnolia Maids, I fainted a good dozen times, I’m sure. But that was the anorexia. I’ve recovered, as you can tell.” She gestured at her by no means fat, but by no means anorexic, figure. “I couldn’t take any more
stitches in my head. I even broke my nose once! But that turned out fine. Got a brand-new one in Houston and my first husband to boot! Teddy Toy, what was his name?”

  “Dennis.”

  “Oh yes. Gosh, he was adorable.” She giggled. “If a bit of a man-whore. Anyway, it’s so delightful to see you girls in my closet.” Lacey Wilkes’s expression suddenly turned to horror.

  “What’s wrong? Are you feeling faint again?” Brandi Lyn looked terrified.

  “No. I am the rudest thing in the world, and that is not okay! Forgetting to offer you a drink. Y’all want champagne? A little mimosa? We have orange juice up here, don’t we, Teddy?”

  Brandi Lyn gaped at her response and I had to laugh out loud. My mother had always called Lacey Wilkes a tornado of whimsy in heels, and she certainly was that. She was what is called Down South “a character.” It was hard to keep up with her tangents and the hands constantly clutching at her throat or at someone else’s arm to make a point. I had to take a mimosa just to chill out from watching her in action. Brandi Lyn declined on account of she doesn’t drink, but she would take a Coke, diet of course. Then Teddy Mac got down to the business of explaining what we were doing up there in Lacey Wilkes’s wardrobe.

  Lacey Wilkes howled at the idea of turning us into proper young ladies. “Although, darlings, I’ll tell you, not a soul in Bienville thinks I’m proper. I’m just too rich for them to pick at. But I am not surprised to hear Martha Ellen Upton is gunning for you, Jane. Not one bit.”

  “I take it you’ve heard about my boarding school experiences.”

  “Oh no, not that. It’s that she hated your mother. Simply could not stand her.”

  My eyes widened. “What?! Someone actually hated Cecilia?”

  “Why, yes, honey, she beat Martha Ellen out for queen.”

  I laughed. “Well, that explains a lot.”

  “Martha Ellen got it in her head that because her daddy was in the chamber that she was a shoo-in for queen. But that girl was just as sour then as she is now, and not one Maid voted for her. Not one. It was Cecilia, and it was U-nanimous, you can be sure about that.”