Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits (Austen Takes the South)

by Mary Jane Hathaway

  “But she was beautiful to me. Funny, too. She mocked me to my face and I couldn’t help but laugh. Her impressions of our friends and family were dead on. She saw through all the lies and stories we spin around ourselves.”

  Tasha cleared her throat as if to speak but Ransom went on. “But she wasn’t cruel. When she recognized your weakness, she would do anything she could to ease your way, to protect you. You felt you could be yourself around her. She had this faith...” He paused for a moment, and then continued as if he’d changed what he’d been going to say. “ When she had faith in you, it made you feel like you could do anything.”

  Shelby let out a quiet breath and blinked back unexpected tears. She stared down at her dinner growing cold, pork chop congealing in its pale sauce.

  “You know, it’s not just the stone but where the ring comes from, that makes a difference. No one wants a plain black box. It has to be from Tiffany’s, or I wouldn’t even open it.”

  With that insipid proclamation, Tasha reclaimed the conversation.

  As she rattled on, Ransom stabbed another bite of tuna. His movements were quick and decisive, as if he had already finished his meal and was walking away from the conversation.

  Shelby’s mind whirled, and she felt as if the room was too loud, too warm.

  “Shelby, I don’t know how you can stand to live in this place year round. Memphis is a little too big, and Atlanta is just a nightmare, but this city has hardly any restaurants.” Tasha fiddled with the cranberries, dropping just a few into pile of spinach leaves.

  “Shelby comes from a truly tiny town,” Ransom said, and winked ever so slightly at her. Shelby’s face grew warm and she took a sip of water, hoping to cover her confusion.

  “Oh, so is this a ‘big city’ for you, then?” Carl smiled.

  “She probably feels like she escaped a slow death,” Tasha snorted. She turned to Shelby. “I think it’s wonderful you have Rebecca as your roommate. And the college is right to hire her. I think we should help those people out whenever possible.” Tasha took a tiny bite of raw spinach.

  A tableful of forks stopped in mid air. Shock kicked Shelby back in her chair. She stared at Tasha, trying to make sense of what she’d just heard.

  Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to the utmost to speak with composure...

  -Pride and Prejudice

  Chapter Twenty Four

  “Do you think Rebecca was hired because she’s African American?” Shelby asked, a bubble of fury rising in her throat.

  “Well, it’s true that they have to hire a certain number of women and minorities. What?” She stared around at the table. “It’s a fact. My sister told me all about how they have to do the hiring in her firm. In your department there probably aren’t that many women. But they have to hire a few, don’t you see?”

  “Oh, now I’m the mercy hire? So, if the department were full of women then I could feel a bit safer?” Shelby’s voice had risen and she leaned toward Tasha. Skinny, orange, and ignorant, too!

  “Now, I don’t know if that’s exactly what she was meaning to say. It might have gotten out before she realized quite how it sounded. “ Carl laid a soothing hand on Tasha’s arm. “Let’s just relax.”

  “I think she meant it exactly the way she said it, “ Ransom said. He lazily pushed his plate away Shelby could have sworn she saw a smile playing around his lips, but she was too angry to wonder why.

  It wasn’t so unusual for Shelby to find bigotry at the dinner table. She had a flash of her Uncle Warren, who moved to Oregon after his boss retired and he didn’t want to work under the new, African American, boss. He chose Oregon because he’d heard it was a relatively white state. But for someone so young, educated, and worst of all, marrying someone who was representing the South to the rest of the nation, it was more than she could stomach. She took a calming breath and tried to inject a note of common sense into the conversation.

  “So, if you’re a woman or a person of color, how do you know you’ve been hired for your skills?”

  “I suppose you can’t ever really know, can you? But see why marriage is so beautiful? You’re chosen for who you are, not because some hiring guy says he needs three of this and two of that,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder and smirking at Shelby.

  “Oh, now I hate to say this, but maybe marriage is the very last place you’re chosen for who you are. You yourself just said that you shouldn’t marry anyone with less than fifty thousand in savings.”

  “She has a point. When do we know we’ve been chosen, by our employers, or friends, or spouses, for who we are?” Ransom leaned forward, attention fixed on Shelby.

  “You and your philosophical conversations. I was only trying to say that I think everyone should be given a chance. That’s all,” Tasha said.

  “Except for anyone without fifty thousand in the bank? And maybe we don’t need your chances. Maybe we can do just fine without any extra help.” Shelby was shaking her head in disbelief. She could see Ransom laughing at her and glared back. “It’s not funny. This is why women and people of color have so much trouble getting ahead. Sure, departments need to make sure that it’s not an entirely male arena, but there are plenty of qualified candidates to choose from. They’re not scraping the barrel, pulling people off the street.”

  “So, you don’t think about a man’s profession or how wealthy he is before you go out with him?” Tasha fired back. “Or how about his education? Ever date a guy who never graduated from college?”

  “Only when I was still in college myself but when would I ever meet someone who didn’t have college degree? I’m a professor, all my time is spent in academia. And how would I find out, ask them? It’s sort of a personal question.”

  Tasha shrugged, unconvinced.

  Shelby continued. “Anyway, it’s true that what a person chooses as a profession might say something about their ambition, but it might not. I also have an undergraduate degree in art and some days I wish I had chosen that path instead. I could spend my days painting in a sunny room, instead of trolling through dead ends. But I wouldn’t have a steady income.”

  “ I think it’s more acceptable for a woman to choose a profession that doesn’t provide much salary,” Carl said.

  “Really? If a man is committed to building up his financial situation, wouldn’t he be careful of attaching himself to a woman who doesn’t have much earning potential?” Shelby questioned him. Ransom made some sort of sound into his hand, it could have been a chuckle or a grumble.

  “No. Because women are much more likely to stay home when the kids come along, I don’t think they receive the same scrutiny men do.” He held his hands out, palms up. “I’m just saying. Don’t bite my head off.”

  Shelby took a breath. “All right, so men don’t give as much weight to a woman’s career because she might stay home at some point in their family life. Now, don’t you think that this, coming from a man discussing potential life partners, is one of the reasons women have a hard time getting ahead in the workplace? If you dismissed her career ambitions so easily, what do you think her bosses are doing?”

  Carl looked around, appealing for help from the others, but Tasha wore a blank expression, as if she was watching a tennis match from too far down the court.

  Ransom cleared his throat. “So, back to marriage, maybe women’s bank statements should be held to the same scrutiny that men’s are? We should institute a new rule, that women must also buy a man some object, to prove her worth. Of course it would be marketed as a token of love, just like the engagement ring.” Ransom’s face was solemn, but his drawl was heavy with irony. His mouth twitched up at one corner.

  “Fine idea! I vote for a flat screen television. Or maybe season tickets to the guy’s favorite football team.” Carl chuckled and slapped his leg.

  “That wasn’t my point but it’s not a bad idea. What I was trying to say was that to constantly carry the burden of proof, to prepare to defend your
existence in your field, to know that people see you as a temporary worker who will leave the moment the babies start arriving- that’s incredibly detrimental to a woman’s ability to achieve any sort of scholarship, let alone be admitted to the top tier universities for research.”

  Tasha tutted and poked at her spinach, spearing a cranberry on one tine of her fork and examining it. “I think if women stopped complaining so much about inequality and just dug in, it would be a lot better for everybody.”

  Feeling as if her eyes were going to pop from frustration, Shelby gritted her teeth and stared into her plate. Ransom was shaking with laughter. Slapping your dinner partner is very bad manners, wasn’t it? She struggled to organize her scattered thoughts but fury simmered inside. “Is that why you never had children, Shelby? Were you worried about having a career and kids, too?” asked Tasha.

  Shelby laid her fork on her plate and stared, the bass beat of the techno music matched the angry pulse in her head. “Why I never had children? I’m not dead, I’m not even past thirty.”

  “Well, there’s no need to be so angry about it,” Tasha sniffed, rearranging her spinach leaves. “There are plenty of other options for people in your situation. Like adoption. I have a very good friend who adopted the sweetest little girl. She’s got blond hair and everything. There are white babies out there, you know. They just cost more.”

  Shelby felt like dropping her head on the table in despair. It didn’t help that Ransom seemed to find the conversation highly amusing. “I never said...”

  “But why do you think having a baby is so bad? What if you get married and your husband wants one and you don’t?” Tasha looked down her pert nose, gleefully triumphant.

  Shelby shook her head in defeat. Carl nervously tried to pass her the bread but she waved the basket away. “First of all, I love babies. Because I don’t have one doesn’t mean I don’t like them. Secondly, the conversation about whether or not to have children would come up somewhere in the dating process. It would ludicrous to be married and suddenly realize you’d never talked about it.”

  “Well, sure, people talk about it but they may not really mean it. You know, dating is when you don’t want to look high maintenance.” Tasha watched a middle aged woman totter by their table, a tiny handbag on her arm.

  “High maintenance? Is that what you call being honest? And will you stop laughing!” Shelby said furiously, whirling on Ransom.

  He held up his hands in surrender, his face was creased in mirth. He took deep breaths, his shoulders shaking, and said, “Sorry. Don’t mind me. I’m just enjoying the free exchange of ideas.”

  “Yes, please let’s stop arguing. It’s giving me a head ache,” Tasha said, rubbing her temples and pouting.

  Shelby had the irrational urge to keep arguing until Tasha agreed with her. But that was futile and she knew it. “Absolutely right. Let’s get back to weddings. You said something about wedding portraits being more intimate, less formal?” Shelby studiously avoided Ransom’s eyes and reached for her glass. If she could get out of this restaurant without causing Tasha any physical harm, she’d be proud of herself. She wasn’t perfect and she needed to let Tasha be who she was. She took several calming breaths and then a sip of ice cold water. She said a quick prayer for patience and tried to focus on what she was saying.

  “...and then just few weeks ago a good friend of mine surprised her husband with a small album of wedding photos that were a bit risque. You know the usual bridal photos they take before the wedding, where the bride is wandering in a pretty field or by a pond at sunset? Well, these were just like that, but the dress was slipped down, not really showing anything, but only because her hands were placed here and here,” Tasha said, demonstrating, hands placed on her chest.

  Shelby inhaled the next sip of ice water in surprise and started to cough. Ransom reached over, patting her on the back several times between the shoulder blades. His hands were warm and steady. Her heart pounded, not completely from inhaling water, and quickly waved him away, still struggling to breathe.

  “They- they were nude bridal shots?” she choked out.

  “Of course not! That would be sleazy. These were very classy, very nicely done. I especially liked the one where she was looking over her shoulder, and there was a well-placed -“

  “You saw the photos?” Carl’s eyebrows had risen to his hairline.

  “She shared them with me because she thought I might like to incorporate them into my own plans,” Tasha said defensively. “As I said, they’re very classy.”

  Shelby burst out laughing at Ransom’s expression. He looked faintly scornful, but not as horrified as a man should be when he finds out his fiancee is planning to pose without her wedding dress. Who were these crazy people and why was she having dinner with them? She was at such a loss, she was having trouble finding words.

  “Maybe... maybe that would turn out really nice. But you may want to make sure the negatives are part of the package. Or the digital equivalent. I could see some crazy photographer storing piles of naked bride photos for his own collection,” Carl said.

  “Oh, what would they want with someone else’s pictures? No, I think it’s a wonderful idea and such a sweet gesture to her husband. I haven’t heard how he liked them yet.” Tasha flipped her hair over her shoulder again and smiled.

  Shelby was so relieved to see their waiter approaching that she quickly laid her silverware across her plate.

  He asked if they would like to see the desert menu but they shook their heads.

  “I guess not. It seems as if we’re ready to return to the real world, sadly.” With that Ransom looked directly at Shelby and smiled, a slow warm smile. The noise of the restaurant seemed to recede and Shelby fought to stay focused. He looked completely different when he was not scowling. His eyes seemed so much bluer, with specks of gold in the centers.

  The waiter returned quickly with Ransom’s card and the receipt. Carl said, “Well, shall we go?” He scooted Tasha’s chair back as she struggled out from under the table cloth. Shelby followed silently behind them, aware of Ransom’s quiet presence at the end of their strange little troupe.

  Outside the restaurant Shelby breathed in the cool air, closing her eyes for just a second.

  “I smell spring, almost,” Carl said.

  “I smell rain.” Shelby scanned the dark sky but the street lights made it impossible to tell if there were any clouds.

  “We’ll give you a ride home. Come on.” Ransom started, Tasha beside him, in the direction of the parking lot.

  “No, no thank you. I don’t live that far away, just a few blocks.” Shelby pointed in the other direction, behind her.

  “You can’t walk home in the dark. It’s late, it’s not safe, “ he called.

  Shelby stood stubbornly on the sidewalk. Her Southern genes were refusing to let her turn around and walk the other direction. As if to seal her fate, large drops began to fall, spattering the sidewalk.

  Ransom glanced over his shoulder and waved her on, smiling. Carl was politely waiting, unwilling to leave her alone in front of the restaurant. Shelby sighed, shrugged, and fell into step next to him as they trudged after Ransom and Tasha.

  A white SUV beeped and flashed its lights as they drew nearer to the parking lot. Shelby felt a flash of heat spread over her face as she remembered the night of the ice storm. And the woman calling his cell at midnight must have been Tasha.

  “Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not.”

  -Pride and Prejudice

  Chapter Twenty Five

  “You’d better sit up front. Tasha and I are headed over to Angeline’s to meet some friends for drinks. Ransom’s got an early class, so he’s gonna be a good boy and head home.” Carl said, deftly maneuvering himself between the two women and effectively herding Tasha to the back seat. Shelby was certain she saw a flash of resentment on the young woman’s pretty features and groaned inwardly.

  Sliding into th
e leather seat, Shelby was thankful for the darkness. She was painfully aware of how close Ransom was. He remained as silent as a prisoner of war while Tasha rattled on in the back, unwilling to be both out of sight and out of mind.

  As they pulled up outside Angeline’s, Carl slid out, saying, “It was real nice to meet you, Shelby. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again. Later, Ransom.” Tasha was already half way to the open door, the live music spilling out onto the sidewalk.

  Ransom turned back into traffic. “You’ll have to give me directions.”

  “You’ll want to turn right on McClellan Avenue. It’s about five blocks down, Winter Street.” Shelby felt the hum of the engine through the seat and wondered what kind of music he had in his CD player. As if he’d read her mind, he switched on the radio, and hip hop music blared from the speakers. Shelby felt like her eyes were going to bug out of her head as the heavy bass filled the confined space.

  “Sorry, let me just- Geez.” Ransom struggled to get the stereo under control and focus on the red light coming up.

  Shelby reached over and lowered the volume until the windows stopped vibrating. “That’s a nice stereo system.” Even if he did listen to junk.

  “Sorry again. Carl borrowed my car earlier and he must have been exploring the music options.” Ransom shook his head and chose another station. A simple melody wound softly from the speakers near their feet.