Ladies of the House

by Lauren Edmondson

  “Wallis wants to,” I said, thankful that Bo, to the best of my knowledge, was still without psychic powers. The Blake news I could handle. “But he isn’t being responsive.”

  Bo appeared to be looking for the right words. “I don’t get it,” he muttered.

  “I have a theory about Blake Darley,” I said. “I was up with your mother and Aunt Jane last night, by the way.”

  “Did they spill family secrets?” Bo asked, offering me his last slice of corn bread. “Judging from your expression, this isn’t about Cousin Marcus, who claims to cure cancer with homemade vitamins.”

  “Your mother has heard a rumor that Blake will run for his mother’s seat.” I split the corn bread in half so we could both enjoy it. “After she’s confirmed and sworn in.” It felt good to get this burden, at least, off my shoulders.

  Bo’s eyes widened. “I’ll send around a few texts,” he said. Like me, he seemed concerned for her. Unlike me, he was noticeably calm. “By the end of the day we might have some answers.”

  I agreed this was a good idea, then we were interrupted by a clinking of a knife against a glass. There was a short performance by the groom’s friends, a skit full of jokes not meant for outsiders, which we could barely hear, but that was universally regarded as hilarious. A toast, too, from the hosts, who were full of congratulations and wistfulness. Grandparents were applauded. Dessert—chocolate cake with yellow buttercream frosting—was passed. Soon enough, the tea light candles burned out, and guests began to leave.

  Bo and I regrouped with Wallis and discussed where to go next. The Judge and her future son-in-law announced they were leading a contingent to a bar uptown. Mr. Reed was taking a group back to their house for nightcaps and cigars. I thought surely Wallis would want to return to the comfort of bed and quiet. I certainly did. But instead we fell in with the good-time crowd, through the snare of Broad Street traffic to upper King, into a bar that was once a bank.

  “A tab has been opened,” Bo told us, once we were able to get past the bouncer and near the marble-topped bar. “Don’t ask by whom. Just order what you want.”

  Wallis went off to get us drinks, and Bo, too, was whisked away by an old friend to catch up. Alone, I shrugged off my light jacket, draped it over my arm. I took in the scene—the high-coffered ceiling, the wines by the glass chalked on a board behind the bar, the crowd decked out mostly in bright colors and Southern florals, and there, just a dozen feet straight ahead, was Blake Darley. I blinked again, daring my eyes to lie. But it was him, with a posse of similarly aged men, one of whom I recognized as Melinda Darley’s chief of staff, as portly and smug as in the graveyard last month. They must’ve felt my gaze, because both he and Blake turned their heads and caught my eye.

  I felt Wallis come up beside me. “He’s here,” she said, clutching my arm. Her hands were empty. I guess she hadn’t had a chance to order before spotting him. “Jesus, he’s here.”

  “I see that,” I said. Meaning, yes, I see him. And he saw me. And you, Wallis. But, still, there he stands, with his friends, having made no move to excuse himself. He didn’t even wave.

  “Then, come on.” She pulled me forward.

  “Wait, Wallis,” I said. Useless. Useless. Useless. She was already there, behind him, then beside him. The others in his group shuffled to make room. The music—bubblegum pop from my childhood—was terrible and unrelenting, and Wallis had to raise her voice to be heard. She said his name. Then she was forced to say it again.

  “Hi, guys,” he said, staring past us to a distant point. “How’s it going?”

  “Where have you been?” Wallis asked, still slightly tipsy, I realized, from the engagement-party champagne. “I’ve been here all weekend. Where have you been, Blake?”

  As he drank amber liquid from a tumbler, his hand shook, though it might have been my imagination. “Didn’t I text you, yesterday?”

  I felt a finger on my shoulder and turned, expecting Bo—I don’t know why—but the touch was soft, a woman. “Excuse me,” she said. A brunette. Maybe a dirty blonde. The light wasn’t great. “So sorry—can I just?” It was a demand, cloaked as a question, and I was scrunched aside. “Hello,” she said. To Blake, to the men, not to me, as she reclaimed her space.

  “You said that things were busy,” Wallis went on, interrogating Blake. “But this?” She held both her hands out, palms up. “This doesn’t seem so busy.”

  Melinda Darley’s chief of staff dropped his chin to his chest and chuckled. If I didn’t despise him before, I did now. Sweat dampened the back of my dress.

  I studied Blake. He did not seem tired, he did not look like one tossed and turned by the waves of seasonal politics. His shirt was pressed. He wore a snappy belt, embroidered with mallards. He was clean-shaven.

  Wallis scooped his unoccupied hand into hers. He stared at their intertwined fingers, started to speak, then stopped, composed himself, and began again. “Do you know Drew Porter?” He removed his hand from my sister’s and gestured to the man across from him. “Drew is my mom’s chief of staff. And this is Chris over here.” Blake cleared his throat. “Daisy, have you met Chris? He’s field director for my mom’s Low Country office. Keeping things locked up down here. Am I right, Chris? He used to work for Goode, when he was still in office. You might’ve met on the Hill then. No? But we can’t forget about Katie here. She’s head of philanthropy for our family foundation. Do you know Katie?”

  “I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Katie,” I managed. She looked at me like this was my fault—not knowing her.

  “Didn’t you get any of my texts today?” Wallis sounded wild, desperate. “Seriously, what is going on? We were supposed to see each other. You promised me we’d talk. You promised that you’d make these past weeks up to me!”

  Blake gave her no reply. He finished his drink and placed it carefully on a high-top table behind him, then motioned to his friends, who did the same. Finally, to us, he said, “We’re going to head out. But it was great running into you both.”

  “Wait,” Wallis said. “Wait.” She slapped a hand square on his chest, seized a fold of his shirt’s fabric. “Just wait, okay?”

  “Wallis,” I said, fearing any second I would be forced to physically drag her off him.

  “Daisy,” Wallis pleaded. She was pale and shaking. “Daisy, help me. He can’t just leave.”

  “He has to go, Wallis,” I said, my voice ringing in my ears.

  “Daisy,” she cried again, as Blake stood frozen in her grasp. “He promised me. He made a promise.” The eyes of those standing nearby turned to us. We were becoming a spectacle. Across from me, I saw a bystander draw out a phone.

  “Blake,” I said firmly. The coward’s face was flushed, his eyes darting. “Just go.”

  It seemed that was the permission he needed. Tugging himself free of my sister, he slipped away, following the rest of his group as they cleared a path through the center of the room.

  Bo came to my side just a moment before Wallis collapsed into me. Had he seen all that? I strained to hold her weight and felt a seam rip, somewhere under my armpit. Bo supported her left side, I her right.

  “Where do we take her?” I asked. There was more attention now, from his family, the groom-to-be. “We’re okay,” I chanted. “We’re okay. We’re okay.”

  Awkwardly, gently, Bo helped me maneuver Wallis through the crowd to a vacant bar stool. Collette Reed appeared. “What’s wrong here?” she asked.

  “She’s heartbroken,” explained Bo, uncharacteristically frayed.

  Wallis’s face was white and her shoulders heaved. She gripped the seat of the bar stool, and I worried she might wobble off it. “Why did you tell him to go, Daisy? Why did you tell him to go?” she cried. “You have to go after him. Go, get him.”

  “He’s gone, sweetie.” She turned away from me and fell heavily against Bo’s shoulder. He held her, whisp
ered what sounded like her name.

  “Bless this child’s heart,” the Judge said.

  “Let’s get Wallis some water,” said Bo.

  “You better not.” The Judge’s mouth was as straight as a ruler. “You’re doing her no good keeping her here in front of all these eyes. How much have you had to drink?” she asked me. When I replied that it had been very little, she nodded and handed me her car keys. “It’s the white Lexus parked just two blocks up on the far side of the street. I’ll take a taxi or hitch a ride.”

  I babbled my thanks even as my insides were being shredded like tissue paper. Bo was already helping Wallis off her stool. Somehow, we made it out of the bar and on to the street. Wallis’s gait suggested physical pain, and she clung to Bo and me as we passed Saturday night revelers. Some were more sure-footed than others, and at one point a young man in a backward cap knocked into Bo and didn’t apologize. But we pushed on, determined to carry the weight of Wallis and her misery.

  The car, at last, materialized. Wallis sank into the back seat and immediately lay down.

  Bo directed me home; other than that, we didn’t speak. The gate to the Reed driveway was open when we arrived. In the house, lights, music; the rocking chairs on the lower level piazza were occupied. I’d barely put the car in Park and Wallis was up and out, headed for the front door.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Bo, dazed. “I’m so sorry for what just happened.”

  Bo rolled down his window, and I turned off the engine. Outside was the kind of soggy, fecund air loved by bugs; it smelled of early summer, of perfume and brine, and of what Bo had called earlier that day pluff mud. Bo passed his phone back and forth between his hands, quiet.

  “This weekend,” I said. In the house, the music stopped, and a new song came on, a popular one, apparently, as indicated by the cheers of the guests. “This was supposed to be about your family. It became about Blake Darley, and about Wallis. I suspected something like this would happen. I’m sorry, Bo.”

  “You can’t control Wallis, or whom she falls in love with. But I can’t help—” He paused. “Seeing Blake tonight, with all those other dudes, his bros, brought back some not so great feelings about how boys like that treated me. Continue to treat me. Wallis is...” He exhaled. “I can’t believe she’d love a man like that. But also, I know exactly why she’d love a guy like that.”

  “He wasn’t that way, initially,” I said. “Or at least he just hid it well.”

  “We fall in love with the wrong people all the time.”

  Yes, I agreed silently, thinking of my love for a man who didn’t love me back.

  I became conscious of just how much I didn’t want to get out of the car. I wasn’t usually fond of conversations in vehicles—too enclosed, too difficult to find the right point to end it and open the door, never an opportunity to say, simply, okay, then, talk to you later. But here, in this car, I wanted to loop time around my finger to keep it from going anywhere. To leave would be to reckon with what had happened in the bar, and back, to when my sister had fallen in love with a Darley who claimed, just as my father had, to be honest, to be a different kind of man. And even further, to the impromptu party my father had thrown when I got my college acceptance letter—had he known, then, when we were eating cake with our hands, dancing in the kitchen, how he would be paying for it? Had I, in some unknown, entitled way, pressured him into this choice?

  “What are you going to do?” Bo asked, straightening.

  “I’ll make sure to go to your mother tomorrow and beg forgiveness,” I said, watching a firefly float past my window. “She can do with me what she will.”

  “Cleaning up your wreckage on the way to becoming a better woman.”

  “Following along,” I said, “in the grand tradition of being a white feminist in this great country.”

  “Preach,” he said with a chuckle.

  I leaned my head against the back of the seat. “And I’m going to take Wallis home earlier.”

  “What do you mean? Switch flights?” He groaned. “Daisy, you don’t have to. That’s burning money.”

  “I do. And it’s just money.” And I would have my income back soon. I had to.

  “You know,” Bo said, “when I asked you what you were going to do, I meant right now. About Wallis.”

  “What if I go up there and she tells me she’s still in love with him?” This possibility made me even more reluctant to leave the car.

  Bo nodded. “One of my old friends texted me when we were at the bar. He said that my mother was right. Blake Darley is beginning to tell people that he’s running. Apparently he got the approval a few days ago.”

  “The balls on this guy,” I said, shaking my head. “Confirmation hearings for his mother haven’t even been scheduled yet. Now I’ll have to tell Wallis before it’s fully public.” Though maybe it would make her feel better, to know why he left. To know the truth about who he was.

  Bo’s eyes, and mine, flicked toward the house and up to the illuminated window of our guest room. “What did she mean in the bar when she was talking about how Blake promised her? What did he promise her?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Here’s what I want to know,” Bo began. He placed his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “I want to know if he asked her to ride with him. I want to know—did he even ask if she’d give up your family name? Did he even ask if she’d delete all her old tweets and burn the bumper stickers? Did he even offer her a ring in exchange for her vote?”

  “He knew her well enough. He knew that if he asked for any of those things, she’d refuse.”

  “Did you see her tonight?” Bo murmured, his eyes fluttering open. “I’m not so sure you’re right.”

  * * *

  Wallis lay on the bed, choking with sobs. She didn’t tell me to go away, so I stretched my body next to hers, my cheek on her hair. We spent a long time this way. I knew the world was full of traitorous, cruel people, but I suppose the disappointment that came with trusting one still hurt. So I cried, too.

  My tears stopped, after a while, but Wallis’s continued. Eventually, she pulled me closer, and I hugged her back. My arm numbed and my shoulder cramped, and when her breathing slowed, I thought she might’ve fallen asleep. But she soon turned her face into the pillow and wailed again. I was familiar with this pain; there was nothing to do but let it be spent.

  After a half hour of this cycle, she was able to speak. “Who was that person in the bar?” she asked, her voice cracking. “I didn’t know him. That couldn’t have been Blake. Was it? Was it really?”

  “Yes,” I said, wanting her to feel angry instead of sad. “It was every inch Blake Darley.”

  But this only caused a new batch of tears to pour onto the pillow sham. Once she had collected herself, and some tissues from the box on the nightstand, she continued. “He said that once his mother’s campaign was over that we could talk. He said now that she was looking at cabinet, there wouldn’t be a campaign to run. He said...” Her eyelids drooped. “He’d asked me to wait for him. I can show you the emails, Daisy. I’m not making this up.”

  “I believe you,” I said softly, stroking her hair.

  “He said he still thought about me all the time. That he hadn’t gotten over me, not even close. He used the word love.”

  “I think,” I said, knowing now was the time, “that I can explain why he went from saying all of that to how he acted in the bar.” I shifted up and rested my head on my hand. “I just found out maybe an hour ago. There had been rumors, but I didn’t want to tell you until we knew for sure.” I took a breath. “When Melinda Darley is confirmed, Blake will run for her open seat.”

  Wallis scoffed, and drew her arms to her chest. “Not possible,” she said.

  I summarized for her what Bo had learned, and from whom. She went very still. “I’m so sorry, Wallis,” I said.
/>
  She did not speak again, even when I informed her that I would move our flight earlier. She left the bed to put on her pajamas and run water over her face, moving with a calmness born of desperation. When she asked me for a sleeping pill, I obliged.

  Our room that night was full of echoes. Wallis’s plaintive cry: You promised me! It chased me, from side to side, from ear to ear, no matter how I tossed and turned. It took long, too long, for the sleeping pill to find me. Echoing in my last thoughts, before I succumbed, was the sound of a ruptured promise. To Wallis, perhaps it had seemed, there in the bar, like the earth’s crust was cracking, its plates grinding apart. For me, the sound had been quieter, the subtle tear of thread, the fracture exposing the unflattering flesh beneath the seam.

  * * *

  The alarm on my phone woke me. The light through the curtains was gray; the room was overly warm. I sat up, searching for Wallis, feeling the remnants of nighttime sweat on the back of my neck and between my breasts. She was sitting at the rolltop desk, typing intently on her phone.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, feeling the utter pointlessness of such a question.

  “No,” Wallis answered. “What time is our flight?” I told her I’d have to call the airline. “You do that,” she said. “I have to go talk to Bo.”

  “He might not be awake yet,” I said.

  “He is,” Wallis said. “I’ve been texting him. I have to thank him for last night, and apologize.”

  “That’s good of you,” I said, rubbing my eyes, trying to ready myself to face the day, which meant dealing with what happened—all of what happened—yesterday.

  “It’s required,” Wallis said. “Although I don’t know how I’m going to look him in the eye.”

  “We also should prostrate ourselves before Collette Reed,” I said, stretching my arms above my head.

  “Add it to the list,” she said. “Wallis Richardson’s Tour of Apology. Let’s make T-shirts.” She tore off her pajamas and threw them toward her suitcase. When she missed, I thought she might start screaming. Instead: “You never have to do this, Daisy. You never make an ass of yourself in public.”