“Suit yourself.”
I left Jamie and walked through the woods out to the lawn. A scattering of stars lit up the sky over the bright windows of the great house. When I reached the patio, I peered inside, scanning the faces of the guests, holding cocktail tumblers or champagne flutes and little plates of canapés in hand or perched on knees. I spotted my mother at the center of a long couch, flanked by Mrs. Creigh and a man who looked to be about my mother’s age, a little thick around the middle, hair slicked back, with plump cheeks and thick eyebrows. My mother looked as if she was having a terrific time listening to this fellow, his fat face animated with the rare good luck of showing up to a holiday party and ending up next to a woman like her.
I heard the sound of laughter. I turned and saw Miss Whitten, smoking a cigarette, talking to Arch, of all people.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted.
The two of them turned with a start.
Miss Whitten exhaled a funnel of smoke and smiled. “We were just talking about you.”
She seemed very different, and not just because of the cigarette. Whenever I imagined Miss Whitten away from the classroom, I saw her in some austere room, seated in front of a canvas, brush in hand, eyes focused and intent—not hanging around at a holiday party in Belle Meade.
“What were you saying about me?” I asked.
“Arch caught me indulging in this dirty little habit of mine,” Miss Whitten said. “He told me you were around somewhere.”
“And here you are,” Arch said. “Where’s Jamie? You ditch him?”
“I thought I should check on my mother.”
“She seems okay,” Arch said, nodding toward the window.
“Who’s that guy she’s talking to?” I asked.
Miss Whitten smirked and took another drag on her cigarette.
“That,” she said, “is my date.”
“How are things back at the kids’ table, Charlie?” Arch asked.
“When I left,” I said, “Rhys Portis was making a pass at Vanessa, but other than that, everything’s fine, I guess.”
Arch chuckled.
“I better go rescue my girlfriend,” he said.
“You won’t tell on me, will you?” Miss Whitten said. “Dean Varnadoe would be appalled if he found out I’d been drinking and smoking with the boys at the board chair’s holiday party.”
“My lips are sealed,” Arch said. “Come on, Charlie, let’s go.”
“In a minute,” I said.
He paused for a beat, no doubt affronted that, for the first time, I wasn’t obeying his commands like a loyal terrier.
“Okay then,” Arch said.
He walked off into the dark yard.
“And you?” Miss Whitten said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She held up her still-smoldering cigarette.
“I won’t tell,” I said. “But it’s no big deal, you know. My mom smokes. So does my aunt.”
“Terrible habit. Good for concentration. Please don’t try it.”
She turned back toward the windows.
“Your mother’s very pretty,” she said. “I missed meeting her at parents’ night.”
“She had to work.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s a waitress. At Café Cabernet.”
Perhaps revealing my mother’s humble occupation would make Miss Whitten feel better about what we were looking at, I thought. She, at least, was a teacher, and an artist. My mother had only one thing going for her—never mind that it was the thing that mattered most to almost every man I’d ever known.
“I’ve never been there,” Miss Whitten said. “but I’ve heard . . . good things.”
“People call it Café Divorcée.”
“Who told you that?” she asked.
“Jamie Haltom.”
“How would he know?”
“You’d be surprised what Jamie knows.”
“I’m sure I would.”
She dropped her cigarette on the slate patio, stamped it out with the toe of her shoe, and nudged the butt into the ivy.
“Sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
I nodded toward my mother and Miss Whitten’s date. “I could go get her,” I said. “Tell her I’m not feeling good so she’ll have to leave.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said. “This was a fix-up. He can talk to anyone he wants.”
“Good,” I said. Miss Whitten deserved someone better, I thought. Despite my limited experience of polite society, I knew that abandoning one’s date to pursue another woman qualified as “ungentlemanly.”
“This is our first date, actually,” she said. “Dalton works for Mr. Haltom. Jim, I mean.”
The way she said the name sounded vaguely insulting.
“Does your mother socialize much with the Haltoms?” Miss Whitten asked.
“Nope. We’re from East Nashville. My mom ran away from home before she turned sixteen. Because she was knocked up with me.”
“Charlie,” she said.
“What?”
“You don’t have to— I don’t care, you know.”
I don’t know why I wanted Miss Whitten to know these truths, which I would never dream of mentioning to anyone else at Yeatman besides Arch.
“I’d better go back inside,” Miss Whitten said. “Thanks for keeping me company.”
“Any time,” I said.
I waited until she was gone, and watched to see if she entered the room and approached her date, but she did not. After a few minutes, Mr. Haltom appeared, and my mother and Mrs. Creigh stood up from the couch and followed him out of sight, leaving Miss Whitten’s companion on the couch with no one to talk to.
By the time I returned to the pool house, Arch had his arm around Vanessa, whispering something in her ear as she nodded and giggled.
“Where’s Jamie?” I asked.
As if answering a cue, Jamie appeared in the doorway. He rounded the corner of the couch and fell in a great heap of drunken flesh into the plush cushion next to Vanessa.
“I love you, sis,” he said.
Arch looked over at me. “How’d you let him get like this?”
I led Arch back to the ash tree and showed him the bottle of Jack Daniel’s. It looked empty but for a bit of spittle backwash.
“How much was in here when he started?” Arch asked.
“I don’t know. Half, maybe?”
“Idiot,” he said. “Well, we can’t let him go into the house. Come on.”
From the dining room, we saw my mother, this time outside the kitchen, standing between Mrs. Haltom and a woman I didn’t recognize.
“Why have you been hiding your lovely mother from us?” Mrs. Haltom cried.
“I didn’t know I was hiding her,” I said.
Mrs. Haltom laughed as if I’d said something clever.
The buffet was spread out on the dining room table and two sideboards. At the center sat a large stewpot full of steaming gumbo, surrounded by gold-rimmed china bowls. On one of the sideboards: platters heaped with turkey, slabs of beef tenderloin, and roasted vegetables. On the second sideboard: pies and cookies and tarts. These were the leftovers?