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Authors: Taylor M. Polites
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My reflection eyes me from the mirror, turning from side to side, assessing me, appreciating me. A fragile figure in black grenadine with a polonaise trimmed in low flounces over a black satin underskirt. Dozens of silk-covered buttons line the sleeves and the front of the basque up to my throat.
“You look like a real queen, Miss,” the woman with the accent says. She takes pins from her mouth and sticks them into her white apron near her breast.
“Thank you,” I say, and step down from the stool. They gather their cases and small, delicate scissors. They nod as they depart, taking the back stairs, leaving me alone with the girl. An awkward thing, a country girl with crooked teeth that make her “shh” through her sentences. I believe her name is Mary.
She approaches me with a veil, spreading it out across her arms to avoid catching the smooth, sheer cloth. I drape it over my small hat of shell-shaped black chip. The veil is exquisitely black, trimmed with a fringe of tiny jet beads that descend in shameless luxury almost to the hem of my skirt. The beads click against each other, a soft, comforting sound.
“I will keep all these for now, Mary. I’ll send the ones I don’t want back to Miss Graves tomorrow.” Mary makes a graceless curtsey and takes the back stairs, too. I am alone.
The voices in the hall and the noise of shuffling feet travel up the stairwell along with the thud of horses’ hooves in the dry, dusty street. There is a breath of air through the door to the sitting room that faces Greene Street. The windows are wide open. A chair sits near the window with a view onto the street and the lawn, and I move it back so as not to be seen. An old oak creates a shade for me, and I watch through its tortured branches as if they are a Spanish screen.
Carriages line Greene Street. Mr. Weems has Negro groomsmen taking horses and holding reins as the mourners arrive, flocking the sidewalk in blacks and grays and lavenders. The men gather on the lawn, old men whom I have known since childhood. They idle with their sons, now adults, all on their way to infirmity. The women pluck at their black skirts and wield black parasols against the sun. They do not bide their time outdoors but rush inside, hoping to escape the heat. The men kick at the turf and spit tobacco juice on the roots of the oak. They talk and laugh as if they are on the square at court day. They talk about cotton and the heat and the lack of rain. They talk about John Breckinridge, who died two weeks ago, but the news still seems fresh. He ran for president in 1860, one of the candidates who fractured the Democrats. He lost like the others and fought for the Confederacy, always insisting Kentucky would follow him. It didn’t, but they talk about him like he was a hero. They talk about Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and the adultery trial in Brooklyn, laughing at the Yankee scandal. They talk about Senator Spencer—Eli’s friend, an important friend—and the investigation into how he bought his Senate seat with bribes and threats and even begged President Grant for more troops in Alabama to help the Republicans win. They talk about a Negro man who was hanged from a bridge in Nashville after he was beaten. They say he attacked a white woman. They say his body is still hanging off that bridge God knows how many days later. Let that be a lesson to them, they say.
And always before the war. They say it again and again. Before the war. Before the war. It is our common currency. The only way we understand things. What do I know of before the war? I was barely more than a child. It seems that nothing really existed before the war, certainly nothing that I was aware of. I remember the house full of servants and Pa always writing something, scratching his pen against paper. Hill laughed all the time, pulling pranks. I remember going with Mama on her calls and Cicero, our old coachman who drove us. He ran off with the Yankees in ’64 and died of typhus
“You look like a real queen, Miss,” the woman with the accent says. She takes pins from her mouth and sticks them into her white apron near her breast.
“Thank you,” I say, and step down from the stool. They gather their cases and small, delicate scissors. They nod as they depart, taking the back stairs, leaving me alone with the girl. An awkward thing, a country girl with crooked teeth that make her “shh” through her sentences. I believe her name is Mary.
She approaches me with a veil, spreading it out across her arms to avoid catching the smooth, sheer cloth. I drape it over my small hat of shell-shaped black chip. The veil is exquisitely black, trimmed with a fringe of tiny jet beads that descend in shameless luxury almost to the hem of my skirt. The beads click against each other, a soft, comforting sound.
“I will keep all these for now, Mary. I’ll send the ones I don’t want back to Miss Graves tomorrow.” Mary makes a graceless curtsey and takes the back stairs, too. I am alone.
The voices in the hall and the noise of shuffling feet travel up the stairwell along with the thud of horses’ hooves in the dry, dusty street. There is a breath of air through the door to the sitting room that faces Greene Street. The windows are wide open. A chair sits near the window with a view onto the street and the lawn, and I move it back so as not to be seen. An old oak creates a shade for me, and I watch through its tortured branches as if they are a Spanish screen.
Carriages line Greene Street. Mr. Weems has Negro groomsmen taking horses and holding reins as the mourners arrive, flocking the sidewalk in blacks and grays and lavenders. The men gather on the lawn, old men whom I have known since childhood. They idle with their sons, now adults, all on their way to infirmity. The women pluck at their black skirts and wield black parasols against the sun. They do not bide their time outdoors but rush inside, hoping to escape the heat. The men kick at the turf and spit tobacco juice on the roots of the oak. They talk and laugh as if they are on the square at court day. They talk about cotton and the heat and the lack of rain. They talk about John Breckinridge, who died two weeks ago, but the news still seems fresh. He ran for president in 1860, one of the candidates who fractured the Democrats. He lost like the others and fought for the Confederacy, always insisting Kentucky would follow him. It didn’t, but they talk about him like he was a hero. They talk about Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and the adultery trial in Brooklyn, laughing at the Yankee scandal. They talk about Senator Spencer—Eli’s friend, an important friend—and the investigation into how he bought his Senate seat with bribes and threats and even begged President Grant for more troops in Alabama to help the Republicans win. They talk about a Negro man who was hanged from a bridge in Nashville after he was beaten. They say he attacked a white woman. They say his body is still hanging off that bridge God knows how many days later. Let that be a lesson to them, they say.
And always before the war. They say it again and again. Before the war. Before the war. It is our common currency. The only way we understand things. What do I know of before the war? I was barely more than a child. It seems that nothing really existed before the war, certainly nothing that I was aware of. I remember the house full of servants and Pa always writing something, scratching his pen against paper. Hill laughed all the time, pulling pranks. I remember going with Mama on her calls and Cicero, our old coachman who drove us. He ran off with the Yankees in ’64 and died of typhus
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