Southern Charm

by Tinsley Mortimer

  “Oh, stop it,” I said. “I’m not that thin.”

  “Don’t tell me to stop it,” she said, waving a finger in my direction. “Gonna have to stand in the same place twice to get a shadow if you don’t start eating something.”

  “Minty looks just fine, Anna Mae,” Mother chimed in. “She’s practically Rubenesque compared to most of the girls up north.”

  “Ruben-whatever. A Reuben sandwich is what you need.”

  That was a refreshing point of view. I hadn’t even thought about eating a sandwich in months.

  “Minty, sweetheart, why don’t you get situated upstairs,” Mother said, changing the subject. “I laid out a few things I thought you might like—just a few dresses I found on sale on King Street. You know, something might work for tonight.”

  Thank God, I thought. I’d packed so quickly, I wasn’t sure I’d brought anything appropriate for dinner at the club. The Charleston Country Club was a coat-and-tie kind of place for dinner. I would have looked completely ridiculous if I’d shown up to my grandfather’s party in anything other than, well, something my mother might pick out for me. It was also nice to know I had something brand-new to put on. I hugged and thanked my mother and gave Anna Mae a quick squeeze as well.

  “Take your time, dear. We’ll head over around six.”

  My bedroom was exactly as I’d left it: girly and frilly. Lining my bookshelves were copies of The Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High books; framed photos of me and my sister as kids; one of me with two of my best friends, Ginger and Mallory; and countless tennis trophies.

  The dresses Scarlett had picked out were typical Scarlett dresses: A-line with a nipped waist in bright colors. I went with a polka-dot Michael Kors, which was very simple and classic—perfect for this crowd. It felt nice to let go of all of the trendiness of New York for a few days.

  “Minty, Jesus, what are you doing here?” Darby was standing in my doorway, her right hand on her hip.

  She had on a striped Splendid T-shirt and cut-off jean shorts that showed off her spring break tan. I was jealous!

  She stormed into my room, slammed the door, and plopped down on my bed.

  “Mom wouldn’t tell me a thing,” she said. “Are y’all calling the wedding off?”

  “Seems like,” I said.

  “Holy shit,” Darby growled. “Did he cheat on you?”

  I gulped, holding back tears.

  “Awww, Mints, come on,” she said. “Do you have proof?”

  I shook my head. “Well. Sort of. It’s more . . . a feeling. I overheard something and, well, it’s a lot of things that have built up over the last year.”

  “I hear ya,” she said, sitting down next to me on the bed. “Listen, whatever’s going on, I want you to know you deserve only the best.”

  “There was a girl in London,” I blurted.

  Strangely enough, Darby barely batted an eyelash.

  “You’re not surprised?”

  “Oh, Minty, not really,” she said. “Boys like Tripp, they do what they want.”

  “I’m such an idiot,” I said.

  “No.” She put her arm around me. “We’ve all been there. When you guys reconnected, I hoped maybe he’d finally grown up, but I guess that isn’t the case.”

  “That is definitely not the case,” I said.

  She was right. Tripp had always had a dishonest side, a sense of entitlement, as if he not only expected to get away with everything, he felt he deserved to get away with everything. But it was strange. I never thought that Darby would have picked up on that so easily.

  “What’s happening with the wedding?” she asked.

  “Oh God,” I said, holding back a lump in my throat. “I can’t go there just yet.”

  “I bet Mom’s holding out for a reconciliation.” Darby laughed. “Whatever happens with that, you shouldn’t worry. Parties get canceled all of the time.”

  She was trying so hard to make me feel better, which of course made me start to cry.

  “Darbs, I really appreciate it,” I said, gulping. A few tears streamed down my cheeks. “Honestly, the wedding is the least of my problems. I guess I’m just . . . so . . . disappointed. I expected more. I hoped for more.”

  “Don’t we all,” Darby said. “Listen. I don’t know about you but I could use a drink. And Mom said the new bartender at the club looks like Cary Grant.” She paused. “You know, Cary Grant like sixty years ago.”

  I giggled.

  “I’m going to do a quick change,” she continued. “Then why don’t we head over a bit early? Anna Mae will drop us off. It will give us some time to prepare before the onslaught of the entire extended Davenport family. Sound good?”

  “That’s perfect,” I said.

  My great-grandparents were among the first members of the majestic, sprawling Charleston Country Club when it opened in 1925. When Darby and I walked in around five thirty, they were just finishing setting up the dining room for dinner. Of course, over the years some of the staff had come and gone, but the core people had been there for decades.

  “Hello, Misses Davenport,” Frank, the maître d’, said as we walked past him and made our way over to the bar. “You’ll be joining us for dinner at seven with the rest?” He glanced at his book. “I know your mother is planning a really special evening for Gharland Senior.”

  “Yeah,” Darby said, rolling her eyes, “which is why we’re getting a little extra time in at the bar.”

  Frank laughed.

  “Berkeley will take care of you, I’m sure,” he said, motioning over to the handsome young bartender. As we got closer, I realized my mother wasn’t kidding—Cary Grant was an understatement.

  I could see the wheels in Darby’s head turning. While I was a relationship kind of person, Darby enjoyed the hunt, the chase. As a result, she also tired of people pretty quickly. Sometimes I wondered if she had the right idea. I got wrapped up so easily that by the age of twenty-three, I’d really only had two serious relationships, Ryerson and Tripp. Maybe this was my time to let out a little of my Darby side, if I even had one.

  “Berkeley, honey,” Darby said, leaning over the bar. “Allow us to introduce ourselves. I’m Darby and this is my sister, Minty. I think you’ve already met our mother, Scarlett? She said y’all had a nice conversation last weekend.”

  Berkeley laughed. “Sure thing,” he said. “Scarlett and I go way back.”

  “Super,” Darby said. “Then I’ll have a Tom Collins and my sister here will have a . . .”

  “Champagne, please,” I said.

  “Champagne,” Darby repeated, “because she lives in New York now, so she’s fancy.”

  “New York, eh?” Berkeley asked. “What brings you back to Charleston?”

  I groaned. “A lot of things.”

  “Well, either way, welcome back,” he said, smiling. “Let me know if there’s anything we can do to convince you to stay.”

  “Yes, please do let us know,” a male voice chimed in.

  I turned around and there he was. Ryerson Bigelow. I gasped. Is that why he’d been contacting me? Because he’d finished up living on a boat in the Adriatic Sea or whatever the hell he was doing the last I’d heard? I immediately wanted to ask him if he’d “found himself” yet but I held my tongue.

  “Jesus, Ryerson, you scared the living daylights out of me,” I said.

  He sidled up next to me, all six foot four of him, towering over me in a pale blue linen shirt, khaki pants, and a navy blazer. His looks had matured in the last couple of years. He was still lean and lanky, but his shoulders had filled out and his skin was a bit weathered now, sun-beaten. And there were those sparkling green eyes, the slightly crooked nose he’d broken twice when he was on the wrestling team in high school. His light brown hair was a little sun-kissed and unruly and he had a few days of beard growth. It was the kind of messy look my mother would describe as “boy needs a haircut and a shave.” Anyone in their right mind would have called him handsome.

 
; “Likewise, Minty,” he replied.

  I narrowed my eyes. “What are you doing home?”

  “What are you doing home?”

  Darby exchanged an amused look with Berkeley.

  “Ugh, enough, Ryerson.” I took a sip of my champagne. “This is the last thing I need right now.”

  “Oh really?” he asked, leaning over and resting his hand on the bar. He had a silly grin on his face. He was enjoying seeing me taken so off guard.

  “Really,” I said. “Literally and figuratively.”

  “Learning some big words up north I see,” he said.

  Berkeley narrowed his eyes at Ryerson like he’d witnessed this act before.

  “So, Ryerson,” Darby chimed in, “we’ve all been dying to know: have you found yourself yet? Because you’re standing right here, in case you’re still looking.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand to keep from laughing. Thank God for Darby.

  Ryerson stiffened. “Always a pleasure, Darby.” He turned to me. “I guess you can’t ignore me anymore seeing as I’m standing right in front of you and all.”

  I rolled my eyes. “What was I supposed to say?”

  He looked down at the floor. “It’s okay. I admit it, I didn’t give you much to work with. And I know we didn’t exactly end things on the best of terms.”

  I nodded and we locked eyes. “That’s true.”

  “So anyway,” Darby said in a louder-than-necessary voice, “loving the therapy session and all but last I checked we were here to have a drink and unwind before the Davenport crazy train descends.” She took a deep breath. “Am I right, Minty?”

  She was right. If Ryerson and I were going to have this conversation, it wasn’t going to be in the middle of the Charleston Country Club with Berkeley the bartender looking on. I brushed a strand of hair out of my face and Ryerson zeroed in on my bare ring finger. Before I could hide my hand behind my back and change the subject, he’d grabbed it and was inspecting my ring finger.

  “The last I heard you were married,” he said, letting go of my hand. “Or getting married? Or something.”

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  “I’ll say that again,” Darby said, winking at Berkeley. “Really, Minty, Mother is on her way over here this very second. We really should go.”

  Ryerson stifled a grin and cleared his throat.

  “Well, then, Minty Davenport, it’s good to see you. Maybe you’ll tell me that story sometime.”

  I looked down at my drink and gulped. I had mixed feelings about seeing Ryerson. He was a good guy—he was no cheater, that’s for sure. And deep down I knew he had a good heart. Ryerson “meant well,” even if he didn’t always make the right choices. But it was always touch-and-go with him. I was constantly wavering between wanting to kiss him and wanting to wring his neck. He could be charming and sweet one moment and completely distant and emotionally unavailable the next. There was also the fact that I wasn’t in the best frame of mind. Tripp had drained me of my desire to give people the benefit of the doubt. And even though Ryerson was back from his globe-trotting, we were still going in totally different directions. My life was in New York now, and Ryerson was a simple southern boy. He hated New York.

  “Minty.” Darby stared at me, annoyed. She and Ryerson had always butted heads for some reason, and let’s just say her opinion of him hadn’t exactly improved since he broke my heart.

  As I was turning to say good-bye to Ryerson, I saw my mother walk in out of the corner of my eye. She was followed by my father, my grandparents Gharland and Cookie Davenport, and, finally, Darby’s godmother, Farleigh Carter, one of the most gossipy, vicious women in all of Charleston. She was going to have a field day with the Tripp situation.

  “Anyway, Ryerson, it was good to see you,” I said, scrambling to get the words out. My mother had spotted me across the room and was starting to make her way toward us. Knowing her, she would either give Ryerson a piece of her mind and make a scene or try to play matchmaker and get us back together. “I’ll, um, Darby and I really should be getting to dinner.” I jumped off my stool and grabbed a surprised Darby by the arm.

  Ryerson and I locked eyes. Why were we locking eyes? The last thing I needed in that moment was to be locking eyes with Ryerson Bigelow.

  “You’re just going to run off like that?” he said under his breath.

  I clenched my jaw. “You did.”

  Ryerson took a sip of his beer. He clearly hadn’t expected that kind of retort from me. But I was different now.

  He opened his mouth to say something and then changed his mind.

  “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  I stared at him. “I doubt that,” I said. “I’m headed back to New York, like, tomorrow.” This was a tiny lie. “Good-bye, Ryerson.”

  Darby grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. Mother had stopped halfway across the room to say hi to someone. She looked up as Darby and I walked toward her and wrapped up her conversation. I was pretty sure she hadn’t recognized Ryerson. His back was facing the room, so if she had seen Darby and me talking to him she probably just figured he was a random guy hitting on us. We made our way over to the table, where everyone was already seated.

  “Minty, darlin’!” my grandfather exclaimed.

  He may have been turning seventy-five, but he had the energy and spirit of someone thirty years younger.

  “Happy birthday, Grandpa,” I said.

  “What is this I hear about some Yankee breaking your heart? You know, sometimes life makes decisions for you. And I think your life is saying it’s about time you come back and settle down with a nice southern boy.”

  Wow, I thought to myself. Talk about ripping off the Band-Aid. I guess my mother had brought them up to speed on the state of my engagement.

  “Never did trust those du Ponts, sweetheart,” Farleigh Carter said.

  Farleigh had a house in Palm Beach on the same street as Tripp’s family. On one hand, she’d always wished they’d give her the time of day. On the other hand, she had no problem voicing her opinion that the du Ponts were “hypocritical” and “stuck-up” and “not actually as wealthy as they would have you believe.” Farleigh had a whole list of complaints about most people, in fact.

  “I must say, people up north don’t know how to conduct themselves in a discreet manner. If you’re going to philander, honey, don’t get caught! Not to mention all of that gossipy stuff they’ve been saying about you all over the Internets. Just disgraceful, really.”

  I took a deep breath. For all I knew, she was one of the people making those terrible comments on Social Roster. She had a lot of time on her hands and an unhealthy obsession with other people’s business. She’d made comments to my mother on several occasions that I was “shaming” the family up in New York, “running around town” and drawing attention to myself. She wasn’t the only person in Charleston, of course, who shared that opinion, but she was certainly the most vocal. I was sure she was thoroughly enjoying the fact that Tripp and I were over.

  I made eye contact with Scarlett, who shook her head and winked at me in an attempt to brush off the attack.

  Darby turned to me and rolled her eyes.

  “So you’ll be coming back to us, then, dear?” Farleigh turned her attention back to me.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Coming back to us. You’ll be moving back to Charleston, I imagine? It’s the civilized thing to do.”

  As if fragile little ol’ me couldn’t handle the big bad city.

  “Actually, I’m just planning on staying here for a few days, Farleigh, and it’s wonderful,” I said. “But New York is my home now.”

  The entire table grew quiet, even Darby, who cocked her head to the left, scrunched up her face, and took a huge gulp of her Tom Collins. Why was that so surprising? I was tired of people treating my time in New York like it was a flight of fancy. I finished off my champagne and ordered another.

  “I think Farleigh here is just saying, baby,
” my father interjected, reaching across the table and patting my arm, “you might want to think about your options in light of everything that’s going on.” His tone was soothing, borderline patronizing. “You just might want to think about . . . what do you really have keeping you there now?”

  All right, that was it. Now I was mad.

  In the meantime, my mother had started up a side conversation with the waiter about the dinner specials. When she was finished and the waiter walked away, she turned back to the table and rested her eyes on me.

  “Well, that’s said and done,” she said, letting out a big sigh. Another one of her famous segues, I thought. “Shall we move on and have a little toast to Gharland Senior’s seventy-fifth birthday? No use in getting ourselves in a tizzy over a little canceled wedding, now. After all, there are other grooms in the sea.”

  We all raised our glasses.

  “To everything your mother just said,” my father said.

  “To everything Scarlett just said,” we repeated.

  The evening carried on rather civilly from that point on. By the time we got around to dessert, my grandfather was singing Johnny Cash songs and my father was adding a bit of percussion with his fork and knife. As my father signed the tab, Darby and I looked at each other and decided to make our exit.

  “Mints and I are going to walk home,” Darby announced. “Get some fresh air, you know.”

  “Is that what they’re calling cigarettes these days, Darby?” my mother asked.

  Darby scowled.

  We each gave Grandfather and Gram a hug and said our good-byes to the rest of the table. Scarlett looked peeved, as if we were up to no good, when the reality was we really were just walking home.

  “Want to head over to the gazebo?” Darby asked. “It’s en route. We can cut through the seventeenth hole.”

  “Sure,” I said, pulling my cardigan tighter around my body. I’d forgotten how the temperature dipped at night in the springtime. Funny, though, in New York I’d probably have been wearing a full-length coat, gloves, and a hat. As we were making our way onto the green, I got an e-mail from Kevin. He said he’d “gotten wind” of the “scene at Cipriani” and wanted to see if I was all right.