I remember puking into the ninth hole with Benjamin Pendleton’s hand tangled in my bra strap. I probably puked on him, too. Served him right. He never asked if I was okay, if I needed any help. He simply yanked his hand out from under my shirt and said, “Whoooa.”
I never told Mom I’d been with Benjamin Pendleton all those years ago, but the memory instantly resurfaces the second she re-introduces me to his parents. I have to hear the rundown of how good ol’ Benji is doing, married with one daughter and another bundle of joy on the way.
“He’s making a killing in finance.” His mother beams. “We should all get together for dinner. Benji was always so fond of you, Erin,” she says. “Frankly, I’m surprised you two never dated—but that’s ancient history now, I suppose. Tell us: Is there anyone special in your life?”
Yes, I want to say. As a matter of fact, there is. He should materialize any minute now.
“Erin just started working at the McMartin Agency today,” Mom interjects, slyly steering the conversation away from my lack of a certain special someone. I refuse to receive her telepathic broadcast commanding me to lock down a marriage proposal this instant. Which descendent of whatever dead Confederate general will I be pawned off to this evening, I wonder?
“Care for anything to drink, ma’am?” a boy-bartender asks. I assume he’s a caddy at the country club. In another life, we might’ve made out on the golf course during a midnight rendezvous. I get lost in his face, flushed with acne. The constellation of pimples is mesmerizing.
“Water, please?” My throat is always so dry now. No amount of hydration seems to help.
He nods. “Do you want—”
to get haunted
“—ma’am?”
“What the fuck did you just say?”
Bartender Boy stares back with his deer-in-the-headlight eyes. “…Ice?”
“Oh! Erin, darling,” Mom beckons. “Come say hello to Mr. and Mrs. Blankenship!”
And just like that, I’m spirited away to the other side of the room. I try to be polite but these people are all empty to me, sheets hanging on a clothesline, nothing but suburban phantoms cycling through the same dull conversations they have every week. Nothing changes.
I count ten guests. An intimate gathering, Mom called it. Everyone congregates in the parlor. I pick up stray strands of conversation, unsure who’s even talking to me anymore.
“It’s absolutely atrocious what they’ve done to the monuments,” one woman says with a sigh.
“Just gone to waste,” another Daughter of the Confederacy replies. “Every last statue…And for what? Just so a bunch of protestors can have their way?”
“All lives matter. You don’t see anyone spray-painting Arthur Ashe, do you?”
A string quartet plays an innocuous concerto in the background, but all I hear are horsehair bows shrieking over catgut strings, sending their high-frequency tremors through the air. I have to force the sounds out of my head just to keep my balance.
“Easy does it, dear.” Mom holds me by the arm, like I’m too drunk to stand on my own. It’s a subtle gesture but it’s not lost on me. She guides me exactly where she wants to go, gripping my forearm tightly so I can’t escape, her nails digging into my flesh.
I notice the window next to Dad’s bookshelf. The glass has gone gray, an eye cloudy with cataracts. The other windows seem fine, but this one’s fogged completely over.
“Are you doing some work on the house?” I hear myself ask.
“Pardon?” Mom has no idea what I’m talking about.
“The window. Did it break, or…?”
“What’s come over you?” Mom asks in a hushed tone. “You’re not acting like yourself.”
“I told you, I’m not…not feeling well.”
She examines my face. “Your eyes—your pupils are dilated. Erin!”
“What?”
“Are you on something? Look at me.”
“Mom—”
“Look at me.” Her voice, even at a low decibel, carries enough tonnage to let me know she’s displeased as she studies one eye, then the next. “You came to your father’s party high?”
Not high, Mom.
Haunted.
“What on earth were you thinking? Haven’t we given you everything you ever wanted? Do you have a care in the world that we haven’t taken care of? What more could you need?”
“Mom, I’m not—”
“Just don’t let your father know. You could at least show a little respect for your family.”
I could mention plenty of prescription pills that passed through her hands over the years, how she self-medicated her way through my entire childhood. She drifted throughout this house, day after day, zonked out of her skull. I’d hear the rattle of gelcaps in the morning, then later in the afternoon, and then again at night. I want to ask her in front of all her guests if she’s haunted—truly haunted. I want to ask if she believes in ghosts, but before I can say a word—
I wake at the dinner table.
The laughter filling the room picks up; hyenas cackling over their carrion. I have no recollection of leaving the living room. I’m sitting next to a man I don’t know—or don’t remember. “If you’d like, I could see if there are any openings at our downtown office.”
He doesn’t seem to notice I’ve drifted. I close my eyes in hopes of focusing on the words but I can’t catch any of them.
“I would be happy to put in a good word.” The side of his leg presses against mine underneath the table. “Your father is such a dear friend.”
I nod. Smile. Someone leans over my shoulder and I let out a shout. My place setting rattles, drawing everyone’s attention my way. A hand deposits a bowl of soup on the table before me. I hadn’t noticed the worker bees drifting around the dining room. Mom’s really gone all out, hiring an entire waitstaff so she can sit back and bask. She laughs breathlessly from across the table, saying to everyone, “And here I thought it was just my cooking that made Erin scream.”
This gets the appropriate chortle from the rest of her guests and away we all go, drifting back to our droll conversations. “It’s our legacy I worry over,” I hear Mom say to her neighbor, who thoughtfully nods along. “How else will our grandchildren know about their heritage? We can’t erase our history simply because it makes some folks feel uncomfortable.”
The color of my soup sends my stomach roiling. It’s an off-green cream with dollops of white floating along the surface—chilled phlegm. Something undigested wants to rise up my throat and claw its way out of my mouth. I force myself to swallow it back down.
Clink clink.
I bring my fingers to my temples to knead out the sound of cutlery on crystal.
Clink clink.
“Can I get everyone’s attention?” Mom continues to tap a spoon against her wineglass. “If I may, I’d like to say a few words about the man of the hour…”
The waitstaff take their cue to halt and line up along the back wall, almost as if they aim to disappear into the woodwork. Their expressions are blank, offering no emotion.
“As most of you know, Bill has been grousing over this occasion for months now.”
Polite laughter rises from the guests. So true, they all seem to say. It’s all a performance. Everybody knows their part and how they’re supposed to act, having done this ritual time and time again over the decades.
“I wasn’t about to let the big six-oh slip by without marking the occasion,” Mom titters, her eyes locking onto Dad, practically beaming at him. Dad gives a polite smile back. He endures these soirees for her sake. All of this—the whole godawful party—it’s just for her.
I look at the waitstaff, curious over what they might think of all this. But their resting expressions show they know better than to let on about what’s really going on in their minds. If Amara was working this catering gig, I’d motion to her to sneak out back so we could get—
haunted