Southern Charm

by Tinsley Mortimer

  I raised an eyebrow. Was he suggesting that I fit the bill? I was out and about more than ever now, and the invitations—to product launches, trunk shows, store openings, charity cocktail parties—were definitely starting to increase, but I didn’t know if anyone would say that I was “high profile” just yet.

  “You’re on the verge of It Girldom,” Kevin said. He laughed. “Okay, so that’s not even a word, but you know what I mean. I could help take you to the next level. And you could help me sell some clothes.”

  “Gosh, Kevin,” I began. “I am so flattered. I mean, the only thing in the world that would make me hesitate for one second is . . .”

  Kevin waved a hand in the air.

  “Ruth? Let’s be honest, you’ve got to be miserable there.”

  I was silent. Of course I thought about quitting RVPR at least twice a day. I had regular breakdowns and my mother thought I was crazy for staying as long as I had. Tripp was acting as my on-call therapist and had already talked me off the ledge more than a dozen times. Lately, if I called him hysterically crying because Ruth had berated me in front of the entire office for answering her phone the wrong way or had sent me back to the salad place for the third time because the arugula wasn’t crisp enough, he just told me to quit. It was becoming pretty clear that maybe RVPR wasn’t the right fit for me.

  “Ruth can be very demanding,” I finally said.

  “We all know that’s an understatement.” Kevin smiled. “I guess my point is, a girl like you needs to be out and about in fabulous clothes, not sitting in a cubicle slaving away on a guest list. And this position would allow you to do that. In fact, that’s pretty much the job description.”

  “Going out and wearing your clothes?” I asked. I thought he must be joking.

  “Well, yes,” he said, his tone suddenly serious. “If you’re going to all of the best parties, wearing my dresses and being photographed by Richard Fitzsimmons, appearing in WWD and getting mentions in ‘Page Six,’ that kind of visibility is priceless for a small brand like mine.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I really don’t know what to say!”

  Of course I did know what to say, and it was Yes! How could I pass up such an opportunity? I genuinely liked Kevin. He clearly wanted to support me and see me grow in a way that Ruth never would. This “job” he spoke of sounded like more fun than work. The thing was, I’d only ever heard about one person quitting RVPR for another job and the word “blacklisted” was used several times when her name came up. Ruth was great at firing people, but she was not so great at letting them move on.

  “Just be honest with her,” Kevin said as we walked out of Morandi. “If there’s one thing Ruth understands, it’s ambition. You can’t exactly remain her assistant forever.”

  “True,” I said.

  “So do you accept?”

  “Of course!” I said. “Yes, I absolutely accept.”

  “Great,” he said. “We’ll discuss the details after the holidays.”

  “Absolutely, Kevin,” I said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

  He gave me a big hug and sent me on my way. Funny, regardless of Kevin’s assurances, I felt like I was about to walk the gangplank. Maybe I was being silly. After all, assistants weren’t so hard to come by, especially in the fashion PR business.

  When I arrived back at the office, I had my game face on.

  “Ruth’s been looking for you,” Spencer said.

  “It’s not even two o’clock yet,” I said.

  “Don’t shoot the messenger,” he replied.

  I didn’t have a good feeling at all. As I knocked softly on Ruth’s door, she screamed from inside for me to enter.

  “Spencer said you were looking for me?” I asked, peeking my head inside.

  She gestured toward the seat in front of her desk and I sat down.

  “Over the course of a few months,” she began, “I’ve watched you morph from a simple, wide-eyed girl from Charleston into a self-absorbed . . . how shall I put this . . . party girl. And your priorities have become very skewed, to put it lightly.”

  I scoffed. What was she talking about?

  “Ruth, I’m sorry, but I just don’t know where this is coming from,” I said. I felt my stomach flop and churn. Minutes before, I had been so confident and focused, ready to put my foot down, and now I felt like the tables were being turned. Could she possibly know that I was about to quit?

  “Face it, Minty,” she continued, “you’re not exactly dedicated to this job. You seem to be dedicated to attending charity events and cocktail parties though. And the whole doctor’s-appointment thing? Do you really think I bought that?”

  Oh God, I thought. Did she somehow know I had met Kevin for lunch? She was Ruthless Vine, after all.

  “I know you were at Morandi today,” she said. “And don’t even try to deny it or act surprised. You were there. With Kevin Park.”

  “I—I—” I stuttered. “Ruth, I don’t know what to say. He asked me to lunch and I wasn’t sure how you would react. I actually wanted to talk to you,” I continued. As the words came out, I was amazed that she was even allowing me to speak. “Kevin and I had a really good talk and—”

  “Save it,” she said. “You think I’m going to let you quit before I tell you you’re fired? Fat chance.” She picked up the phone and pressed one button. “Yes, as soon as possible. Thank you,” she said, hanging up the receiver.

  I looked around. What the hell was going on?

  Within thirty seconds, two large men were standing in Ruth’s doorway.

  It was like something out of a nightmare. Before I could even get out of my seat, they were “escorting” me toward my cubicle, where I was then ordered to empty the contents of my desk drawers into a cardboard box and exit the building as fast as humanly possible. Ruth stayed in her office the entire time. I think she may have even been on the phone laughing about something. It was all such a blur, all I can remember is Spencer staring at me, bug-eyed and drooling, like I had just been convicted of murder and was being carted off to Rikers Island.

  “Do you have everything you need, ma’am?” the man to my right said.

  Ma’am? Now I knew how Tabitha felt! I looked around my desk. No one else in the office seemed to be paying much attention to the spectacle. Even Spencer, at this point, was staring intently at his computer screen.

  “Yes, yes, I think so,” I replied. My voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere else, somewhere completely removed from my body.

  For several minutes, I stood on the corner of Prince and Broadway holding my cardboard box, literally staring into space, dumbfounded. As I glanced at my BlackBerry out of habit, it started vibrating: Tripp.

  “How was the meeting with Kevin?” he asked.

  Kevin, I thought. It seemed like two years ago.

  “It went really well,” I said, staring down West Broadway. “He offered me a job.”

  “Babe,” he said, “that’s great!”

  “And then Ruth fired me.” I exhaled. Saying those words felt like both a relief and a disappointment.

  He paused for a moment. “Well. Let’s be honest, that’s also great.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. He certainly put things in perspective.

  “Listen,” he continued, “they’re letting us out of work early. I thought we could meet up before dinner with your parents. Have you been to see the tree yet at Rockefeller Center?”

  I laughed again. I’d basically been sleeping at the office for the past month. I barely had time to breathe, let alone brave the crowds at Rockefeller Center. At the same time, I couldn’t believe it was the day before Christmas and I hadn’t seen the tree yet. When I was growing up, my mother always took me to see it during our yearly holiday shopping trip. Now I lived in New York and the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind!

  “No,” I said. “But I would love to.”

  Tripp told me to meet him ASAP on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Forty-Eighth Street. The streets downtown wer
e ridiculously crowded with last-minute holiday shoppers. After unsuccessfully trying to hail a cab for almost ten minutes, I gave up and hopped on the subway, something I’d never done before. I was kind of terrified.

  I must have looked pretty pathetic on that train holding my cardboard box, because some random guy came up to me and stuck a dollar in it. He smiled as he walked away, which I guess meant he was joking, but I didn’t find it funny.

  As I stepped out of the subway and onto Sixth Avenue and saw Tripp standing on the corner, I felt an immediate sense of relief. Yes, my life was moving fast and changing even faster, but Tripp was a reassuring constant. As flighty, noncommittal, and distant as Ryerson had been in the end, Tripp was the opposite: steadfast, determined, and focused. He wasn’t always totally supportive of my ambitions, but he made it clear that he wanted me in his life. And now he was taking me to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. It was the perfect ending to a roller-coaster day.

  “You all right?” he asked as I walked up and fell into his arms. He took the box for me and glanced inside. It contained nothing more than some pens, a tape dispenser, and a few celebrity weeklies. “Do you really need this stuff?”

  “Chuck it,” I said into his coat lapel.

  He stepped away and threw the box into the nearest trash can.

  “Better?”

  “Much better,” I said.

  We stood in Rockefeller Plaza amidst throngs of people holding up digital cameras, posing in front of the tree or just taking it all in with their families. As crowded as it was, there was a collective goodwill in the air, a spirit of generosity. People came from across the world to see the almost-one-hundred-foot-tall tree. And it’s definitely worth experiencing in person. Seeing those thousands of tiny lights up close . . . there’s nothing else like it. Tripp held my hand and all I could think was: I’ve never been happier.

  I remembered the first time I visited the tree with my mother. It was our second trip to New York and she’d just taken me to get a pair of red patent leather Mary Janes. She took a picture of me in front of the tree wearing the new shoes. That photo is still in our house today, framed in the living room. I was caught up in this memory when I heard a woman next to me gasp.

  “Oh my God!” she said.

  I glanced over and realized she was pointing frantically in my direction. I wondered if I had a spider on me and started to swat at my coat reflexively. Then I realized what she was pointing at. Tripp had kneeled down in front of me and was holding a little red box. As I glanced down, he opened it to reveal a gigantic sparkling Cartier engagement ring.

  “Holy shit,” I said, covering my mouth. “Tripp!”

  “Minty Randolph Mercer Davenport—” he began.

  I stared at him.

  “I’ve thought about this moment since we were fifteen.”

  Oh my God. I cupped my hand over my mouth.

  “It took me seven years to find you again. I just don’t see any point in waiting another minute.”

  It was one of the most beautiful rings I’ve ever seen—emerald cut, flawless, platinum band. I actually had to turn away when I looked directly at the ring because one of its facets caught the light and nearly blinded me it was so dazzling. And then it hit me: Tripp was proposing. He was actually proposing marriage to me after three months of dating, in the middle of Rockefeller Center, no less. Part of me thought, This is ludicrous, but the rest of me felt like it was the most normal thing in the world. And that is when I knew what my answer would be.

  “Yes!” I nearly screamed. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  He looked up at me, bewildered but smiling. A small crowd had gathered around us. Someone started clapping.

  “I haven’t asked you the question yet,” he said.

  “Go on and ask it!” a random male voice chimed in. Everyone laughed.

  “Will you marry me?”

  I almost screamed. “Oh my God, Tripp, absolutely, yes!”

  He slipped the ring on my finger and I felt completely different. I’d officially finished the transformation from Minty Davenport of Charleston, South Carolina, to Minty du Pont of Manhattan. The ring was like a seal of approval stamped with a 10021 zip code.

  Someone took our picture and before I knew it Tripp was ushering me into his town car. Zeke had somehow managed to pull up at exactly the right time.

  “Your parents are waiting uptown,” Tripp said, taking my hand. We zoomed up Sixth Avenue to the Upper East Side.

  Better to Be Overdressed Than Underdressed

  When Tripp and I walked into my apartment, my entire family—Scarlett, Gharland, and Darby—was waiting with expectant looks on their faces, each one of them decked out in a perfectly coordinated holiday outfit. I noticed immediately that Darby had on the coolest knee-high Isabel Marant boots that I’d been drooling over for months. She always had a knack for looking sexy without being over-the-top.

  The entire living room was decorated to perfection, right down to the fresh spruce garland lining the fireplace and Christmas tree lit up in the corner. I gasped, overwhelmed. Scarlett must have been working on all of those finishing touches while I was at work.

  “Hi,” I said sheepishly, walking into the living room.

  Everyone stared back at me blankly.

  “Well,” Mother began, breaking the silence. “I’m going to grab us each a drink. And when I come back let’s have a look at that diamond! Even though I’ve seen it already, of course.” She winked and disappeared into the kitchen.

  I glanced at Darby and my father, who just smiled and shrugged.

  “Y’all knew?!”

  My father frowned. “You think Tripp would have asked for your hand in marriage without checking with me first?”

  Of course, I thought. Wow. I just couldn’t believe he’d been planning this and I had no clue.

  “Daddy, it’s so good to see you,” I said, running over to him. In the excitement of the moment I’d completely forgotten to even greet him. We hadn’t seen each other in months!

  He wrapped me in his arms and picked me up off the ground so that my feet, platform booties and all, were left dangling over the carpet. I inhaled his familiar scent: cigars and bourbon. He placed me back on the ground and twirled me around, just like he did when I was a little girl.

  There was a prolonged silence, which was typically my mother’s cue to make a grand entrance. I looked over my shoulder and, like clockwork, the kitchen door opened. I was sure she’d been standing on the other side for the last five minutes waiting for our conversation to die down; her timing was too perfect.

  She was carrying a tray of vodka sodas and two bourbons. She distributed each drink to its rightful owner and we each took a seat in the living room.

  “Did I miss anything?” she asked. “Y’all haven’t started planning the wedding without me, have you?”

  “No, Mother,” Darby said, rolling her eyes. She turned to me and whispered, “Congratulations, Tripp’s a stud.”

  I poked her in the ribs.

  “BTW,” she continued, “I think I got fat. Mom barely gave me a hug.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. It was a running joke between my sister and me that the skinnier we were, the bigger the hug. She was being ridiculous though—she looked exactly the same.

  “Darby,” Tripp said. “I haven’t seen you since you were, what, maybe thirteen?”

  He went in for a hug.

  She made eye contact with me over his shoulder and I almost burst out laughing, her expression was so priceless.

  “Shall we toast to Minty and Tripp?” Mother said, raising her glass in the air. We followed suit. My father pointed his glass of bourbon in Tripp’s direction.

  “Just keep in mind,” he began, “I had my eye on you back when you were a seventeen-year-old smart-ass and I’ve got my eye on you now.”

  Everyone laughed nervously.

  “To Minty and Tripp,” he finally said.

  I couldn’t believe it; Tripp and I were engaged. />
  Over dinner that evening, my mother suggested we set the wedding date for the second weekend in June. June! That gave us about five months to plan, and five months in wedding time is equal to about three minutes.

  Since my eighteenth birthday, Scarlett had booked the Charleston church and country club for the second weekend in June each year. Of course, she had been canceling (and rescheduling) steadily for the last several years, but she happened to be close friends with both our priest and the manager of the club, so they paid no mind. Of course, there were about a million other things to do. There was the engagement party, which Tripp said his parents, Phillip and Bebe, had already offered to host. Let’s be honest, the very concept of anyone else sticking their nose into my mother’s wedding-of-the-century extravaganza turned her alabaster skin a deep shade of crimson and warranted some alone time in the powder room, but when she emerged, she seemed gracious and accepting.

  “I’m sure Phillip and Bebe will do a lovely job,” she said over a dessert of chocolate mousse. “Perhaps Bebe and I could meet for some coffee in the next week or so to discuss?”

  “Mother,” I said.

  Tripp raised an eyebrow and smiled.

  “Fine.” She patted her lips gingerly with her napkin and placed it back in her lap. “I will leave the engagement party up to the du Ponts.”

  Which was a blessing in disguise, because if my mother were going to pull off the wedding she’d always envisioned, there was a lot to accomplish in a short period of time. Such as booking a roster of names that read like the Who’s Who of weddings, including the famed Peter Duchin band for music; the photographer Denis Reggie, who captured JFK Jr.’s wedding to Carolyn Bessette; a show-stopping cake by Sylvia Weinstock; calligrapher Bernard Maisner to place the finishing touches on the save-the-dates, invitations, escort cards, and place cards; and Glorious Food for the catering. Oh! And there was the dress, of course.

  Within days of Tripp’s proposal, I was receiving regular e-mail updates from my mother about the status of anything and everything, right down to the glassware, napkins, and chair covers. It was enough to put even a bridezilla over the edge, and I was teetering. It’s not that I wasn’t genuinely interested in making my wedding the most magical night of my life, but I was also overwhelmed. The wallpaper glue in my apartment was probably still drying and already I had to start thinking about the reality of finding a new place with Tripp. I was about to start my new job with Kevin Park. It was a lot to take in, but at the end of the day, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I was marrying the man of my dreams. So what if it wasn’t the most convenient timing? Is there even such a thing?