Confederates Don't Wear Couture

by Stephanie Kate Strohm

  “The Civil War wasn’t a war?” Dev asked archly.

  “No … it was … That’s not what I … Were we even talking about the Civil War?”

  “Weren’t we?” he replied levelly.

  “I don’t know … I don’t know anymore. I’m just so confused.” I slumped against the side of the truck.

  “Oh, calm down, there’s no need to get all Team Edward/Team Jacob on me,” he said, as he smoothed imaginary wrinkles out of his perfectly pressed pants. “Garrett’s jealous, and Beau’s smitten, but neither of those things is your fault. Anyone who doesn’t fall immediately in love with you is a mad fool.” He kissed my forehead. “They can’t help themselves. So nothing to worry about—there’s nothing to be done.”

  “You’re a mad fool,” I said, hugging him. “But thanks.”

  “You givin’ out free hugs?” Cody shouted from across the parking lot. “’Cause I’m next in line.”

  “Hi, Cody.” I sighed as the remaining Boy Scouts marched into the parking lot and filed up next to Beau’s truck.

  “Don’t take that familiar tone with a lady, sir,” Randall ordered, as he attempted to wrangle Cody back into his perfectly straight line of Scouts. After the satanic sign appeared on Beau’s tent, another Scout had left. It was now only Randall, Cody, and one other brave soul. “We’re here to carry your belongings, ma’am.” Randall saluted before executing a formal bow.

  “Y’all can’t order me—I’m the Civilian Youth Coordinator. Emphasis on ‘Civilian,’” Cody replied churlishly, as the Boy Scouts gathered up our trunks and hatboxes.

  Randall rolled his eyes. “Well, fall out, men. And civilian.”

  “Excuse me, I’m coordinating these civilian youths,” Cody replied, and pulled me away from the truck. Randall picked up our largest trunk and, huffing and puffing, led the other Scout away. Cody lagged behind, still holding my arm like he was escorting me into a dinner party or something.

  “You there! Youths!” Dev called after them. “Make sure you pick a prime location!”

  “We will, sir!” answered a tiny boy under a stack of hatboxes. They marched down and disappeared behind the farmhouse, an old weather-beaten wooden building at the center of a green pasture ringed by a split-rail wooden fence. All around the house white tents sprung up like dandelions.

  “How do you reenact a surrender?” Dev fanned himself idly. “Is this gonna be even more boring than usual? Do we have to watch people sign papers?”

  “That’s part of it.” Cody shrugged. “Mos’ly it’s a demonstration of soldier stuff. Discussin’ and exhibitin’ uniforms and kits and gear and guns and stuff. We just camp out here, and people come an’ look at it. Sorta boring. Which is prob’ly why they got Corporal Boring to lead the gun demo this year. He’ll be real busy boring people to death all next weekend on the subject of revolvers and rifles—which gives you more time to spend with me.” He grinned.

  “Corporal Bor—Anderson,” I corrected myself, “has no bearing on the time I spend with you. Which remains now, as always, as little as possible.” I disentangled my arm. “Shall we, Dev?”

  Dev shooed Cody away with his fan and hurried to follow me around to the back of the farmhouse. “I like you all frosty and sassy!” He giggled as we took seats on a bench behind the house. “I knew this Southern belle thing would be good for you.”

  I batted my lashes and twirled my parasol. He laughed.

  “I wonder where Garrett is,” I mused. “I mean, it was weird that he didn’t want to ride with me, right? That he didn’t even ask or try to find me before he left?”

  “Libby, stop worrying.” Dev patted my knee jovially. “Everything will work out fine.”

  “You’re in a surprisingly good mood, given your Starbucks disappointment,” I remarked. “I was expecting an epic sulk. This is uncharacteristically mature.”

  “Please,” he cackled. “Weren’t you listening to Beau? There’s no such thing as a lost cause.”

  “Yes, there is. We’re kind of living it. The lost cause refers to a postwar mythologizing of the Confederacy as the last bastion of nobility and chivalry.”

  “Never you fear, Miss Kelting. Starbucks will rise again!” he vowed. “As God is my witness …” He raised his fists to the sky. “As God is my witness, they’re not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this, and when it’s all over, I’ll never be decaffeinated again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill. As God is my witness, I’ll never be decaffeinated again!”

  “Easy there, Scarlett.” I stood to join him. “Let’s keep the lying, stealing, cheating, and killing to a minimum.”

  “Hopefully it won’t come to killing,” he mused. “But as for the rest …” Fire snapped in his eyes. “I have a plan.”

  “Oh, Dev, no,” I moaned. “Coming from you, those are the four scariest words in the English language.”

  “Wait here,” he ordered.

  “Dev—”

  “Wait!” he called, as he sprinted away, practically skipping down the pasture.

  I could hear the men in the field, singing “The Bonnie Blue Flag” as they set up camp. As they chorused on “Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights, hurrah!” I felt a twinge of guilt. It was so easy to forget here what the war had really been about, ensconced in this fantasy world of pretty dresses and charming soldiers. But Garrett was right. We were essentially glorifying the most inhumane institution in our nation’s history, and I worried that no one on the Confederate side really stopped to think about it. I mean, you could talk about Southern rights and states’ rights till the cows came home, but that wasn’t really what was going on here. It was a moral issue. A question not of states’ rights, but of human rights. Civil rights. And I was on the wrong side.

  Dev returned before I had really started to examine any of my feelings about this. He was holding a plaid bundle and carrying a pair of tall men’s brown riding boots in his other hand. He’d also removed his cravat, vest, and jacket, so now he was only wearing a blue collared shirt, unbuttoned to reveal a bit more chest hair than I’d care to see, and a pair of white linen pants. He looked more like a Banana Republic ad than a Civil War reenactor.

  “What is all this?” I asked as he set down the boots.

  “If we’re busting out of here, we need to go incognito,” he said, holding out the plaid bundle. “Put this on.”

  “Busting out—Incognito—What?” I babbled, as I took what turned out to be a shirt.

  “I need to get to that Starbucks, Libby. By whatever means necessary. And we can’t show up looking like we escaped from a Mathew Brady photo album. Hence”—he gestured to his outfit—“we’ll be incognito. No one will be able to trace us.”

  “How will we get there?” I asked skeptically.

  “Beau’s truck.” Dev’s eyes gleamed.

  “How—how?”

  “No one locks their car down here. He even leaves the keys in it.”

  “You mean we’re going to steal it?!” I squeaked.

  “Borrow!” he shouted joyously. “It’s not like he needs it! He’s not going anywhere, anyway. He won’t ever even know it was missing.”

  “Oh, Dev, I don’t know.” I shook my head. “This seems like a really bad idea …”

  “Libby. Please.” Tears filled his eyes. “You’re my best friend. If you love me, you’ll do this for me.”

  “I—I—Oh, all right.” I turned around. “Help me get out of this thing.”

  “Thank you, Libby, thank you!” he cried, as his fingers flew down the tiny row of buttons on the back of my dress. Sure, I knew it was wrong to steal Beau’s truck, but if your best friend won’t help you get your heart’s desire, then who will?

  Luckily there was no one around behind the farmhouse, so I was able to strip down and shimmy into the plaid shirt.

  “No pants?” I asked. “Why are there no pants?”

  “Look how long it is,” he answered, gesturing to the hem. “It’s a big shirt, and y
ou’re short enough that it looks like a dress. It’s longer than some of your dresses at home. And, here,” he said, as he pulled a long swath of fabric out of the boot and tied it around my waist. “Now it looks like a shirtdress from Urban Outfitters.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” He cocked his head, considering the dress. “Pretty cute, actually. Now put on these boots.”

  I unlaced my high-heeled boots and pulled on the plain brown ones he handed to me. “Are these men’s boots?” I asked quizzically. “They’re so small. I’m a seven and a half, and they fit perfectly.”

  Dev’s cheeks flamed. “It—it doesn’t mean anything!” he shouted. “That’s an urban legend!”

  “Wait a minute … these are your boots?” I asked incredulously. “How did I not know that you had such tiny feet?!”

  “Shut up, shut up!” he shrieked. “We’re leaving!”

  “Okay, okay. Sheesh.”

  Dev picked up my discarded clothes and hid them in a box containing a small stack of wood.

  We sneaked over to the parking lot, but nobody even noticed we were leaving. The parking lot was far enough away from the campsite that no one could see or hear what we were doing. Plus, they were all busy setting up.

  I clambered into the driver’s seat. Dev had failed his driver’s test four times before giving up, so it was up to me. The keys were waiting in the ignition.

  “Oh, why couldn’t he have been a cynical, suspicious Yankee who locked his truck,” I said, bemoaning my fate.

  “Just do it,” Dev urged me on, like a devil on my shoulder. “Too late to back out now. Just do it.”

  “I—I—”

  “DO IT!”

  The engine roared to life. Almost independently of my own volition, the truck backed out of the parking lot and sped down the pavement to freedom.

  “This is insane,” I muttered, and turned the wheel to the right.

  “Insanely awesome. Fine line between genius and madness,” Dev said, as he rolled down the window, sticking his nose out the window like a puppy.

  “I had really hoped to not commit a Class Three Felony this summer.” I checked for cops and sirens in the rearview mirror.

  “Relax, Thelma, and enjoy the ride.” Dev turned on the radio. Carrie Underwood sang out over the airwaves.

  “They died, Louise. They died. Thelma and Louise died.”

  “‘I don’t even know his last name,’” Dev sang along, completely off-key, pointedly ignoring me.

  I rolled my eyes. We headed on down the road, pulling into the strip mall parking lot as Dev warbled out his last “‘Oh no, what have I done?’”

  “‘Oh no, what have I done,’” I agreed, as I pulled neatly up to the curb, parking right in front of a rhododendron bush spreading over the ground beneath the big windows. I turned off the truck, and we hopped out.

  Dev was marching up to the front door, a man on a mission, but before he got there, I placed my hand on his arm and froze.

  “What?” Dev stopped and looked at me. “Oh my God, what?!”

  I couldn’t formulate a response. I was too busy staring, horror-struck, at what was going on inside the Starbucks.

  Garrett was sitting at a table near the window, across from a pale, pretty brunette girl. And worst of all, he was holding her hand.

  “What the what,” Dev whispered. “What the what?!”

  Garrett scooted his chair closer to her and touched her cheek, before bringing his hand down to hers, so now he was cradling her hands in his.

  “This isn’t happening,” I whispered. “This can’t be happening.”

  “Well, maybe it’s—Oh my,” Dev broke off abruptly, as Garrett leaned forward and took her in his arms.

  “Are they hugging or kissing?” I panicked. “Are they hugging or kissing?! I can’t tell!”

  “I can’t tell either—your boyfriend has a freakishly big head!” Dev panicked right back at me. “How did we not notice his head was so big?!”

  “He has a normal-size head. He just hasn’t gotten a haircut in a while, and it’s humid down here!”

  “You’re defending him? Now? Really? That hair is a crime in itself!”

  “RARF!”

  Garrett and the girl broke apart.

  “What the hell was that?” Dev whisper-screamed, as we dove into the bushes right beneath the Starbucks window. Before my head cleared the rhododendron, though, I got a glimpse of Garrett and the mystery lady turning their heads to the noise to look out the window.

  “RARF! RARF!”

  “Seriously, what the hell is that?” Dev whispered.

  “It sounds like it’s coming from the truck,” I whispered.

  Dev crawled on his belly like he was in the army, pulling himself along with his elbows as he cleared the bushes, slunk down over the curb, and crossed the asphalt on the side of the truck farthest from Garrett and the girl. Following in his wake, I crouched and scuttled along like a crab, until we were safely behind the truck.

  Slowly rising to our feet, we peered into the truck bed. A hundred pounds of dog looked back at us.

  “I forgot about that damn dog!” Dev smacked his hand against his forehead.

  “Willie’s been in there the whole time?” I asked incredulously. “Like even on the drive to Bennett?”

  “You know how much that beast sleeps,” Dev said derisively. “We could’ve driven up the Himalayas, and he wouldn’t have woken up. Remember when they made him a guard dog?”

  “True.”

  “RARF! RARF!” He barked happily and thumped his tail.

  “Shhh, Willie, shhh.” I held out my hand, and he slobbered happily over it. “Quiet, quiet, please … good boy … quiet.”

  “This is not good,” Dev said flatly.

  “Not good at all,” I agreed. “We stole a truck and kidnapped a dog. I mean, Beau probably wouldn’t have noticed that the truck was gone, but if he thinks someone stole his dog, he’ll flip.”

  “He should be so lucky to have someone take this behemoth off his hands,” Dev muttered.

  Willie cocked his head and whined inquiringly at Dev.

  “Oh, just ignore the mean man,” I said, patting his muzzle reassuringly.

  “Shit!” Dev screamed. “They’re coming out!”

  With a burst of adrenaline known only to mothers whose babies are trapped under cars, Dev and I somehow managed to override our mutual lack of athletic ability and vault over the side of the truck, so we were lying flat in the pickup’s bed, hidden by that panel thing in the back and Willie’s enormous mass. I wove my fingers through Willie’s hair, willing him to keep quiet, as Dev tried to hide himself under the dog. Willie, overjoyed that Dev was finally attempting to snuggle, lay down on top of him, crushing him.

  “AAAAA!” Dev gasped. “I can’t breathe!”

  “Then you shouldn’t be talking! Save your oxygen!”

  I peeped up over the truck bed. Luckily, both Garrett and the girl had their backs to me.

  “Are they hugging or kissing?” Dev had managed to work his way out from under the dog to pop up next to me. “I still can’t tell! Curse that bigheaded fool!”

  “He—he has a normal-size head,” I said again, as they broke apart and got into their respective cars. She, however, was tiny like a fairy. Delicate. She looked a little like Kristen Stewart, from the Twilight movies.

  “You have two options,” Dev said sternly. “Follow him, or follow her.”

  “Dev, that’s crazy.” I shook my head. I had a sick, swooping feeling in my stomach, and the world wouldn’t stop spinning.

  “Of course you’re right—that’s crazy.” He smacked his head. “Follow her. No question. Text him to see what he’s doing.”

  “Dev, I’m not going to—”

  “Follow her,” he ordered.

  “Fine,” I said listlessly. I didn’t have the energy to fight. After making sure that Garrett couldn’t see us from his car, Dev practically dragged me out of the truck bed and deposited
me in the driver’s seat.

  “It’s the silver Kia,” he instructed, as I turned the car on. “She’s about to turn out of the strip mall parking lot. Go, go, go!”

  I went, went, went. My body remembered how to drive, even though my mind was a million miles away. She turned left out of the strip mall, and so did we.

  “Give me your cell phone,” Dev commanded when we stopped at a red light.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus, you are so lucky you have me.” He leaned over and reached down my bra.

  “Hey! Too close!” I shrieked.

  “Now you’re waking up,” he said, as he pulled out my cell phone. “Lucky for you, I am an expert at cheating assholes. Seeing one, being one, stalking one, blocking one … but blocking on Facebook is, like, step five, so don’t even think about that yet. This is only the first test. Text him to see where he says he was. Don’t worry, I’ll do it.” He held up the phone. “Hands on the wheel, Thelma.”

  “Don’t text anything dirty, Louise,” I warned.

  “Please,” he scoffed. “That’s Phase Three. We’re only on Phase One. How’s this,” he asked, typing rapidly. “‘Hey, where r u?’”

  “That’s fine.” I shrugged.

  The phone vibrated almost instantly.

  “‘At Starbucks,’” Dev read.

  “See!” I brightened. “See, he’s not lying! If he told the truth about that, it probably means there was nothing going on with that girl, right?”

  “‘Skyping my editor,’” Dev finished. My face fell. “Oh, poodle.” Dev turned to me sympathetically. “I’m so sorry.”

  “He—he didn’t—he didn’t even have his computer out,” I whispered. “So he definitely wasn’t Skyping anyone … That’s not … that’s not good that he lied, is it?”

  “Not good at all.” Dev shook his head. “Not good at all.”

  We turned down a road, passing a blue sign that read DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE.

  “Med school?” Dev said. “Huh.”

  The Kia pulled into a parking lot where a temporary sign saying DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE SUMMER AND DENTAL PROGRAM had been stuck in the ground. We pulled in and parked behind a large Duke van, hidden from the Kia.