Southern Charm (2 page)

Chapter 5: It's All in the Details

Chapter 6: Never Let Them See You Sweat

Chapter 7: Kill Them with Kindness

Chapter 8: Practice Grace under Pressure

Chapter 9: Never Keep a Lady Waiting

Chapter 10: Better to Be Overdressed Than Underdressed

Chapter 11: Sticks and Stones Can Break Your Bones

Chapter 12: Gossip Is an Unladylike Endeavor

Chapter 13: Mother Knows Best?

Chapter 14: You Catch More Flies with Honey Than Vinegar

Chapter 15: Put On a Brave Face

Chapter 16: Boys Will Be Boys

Chapter 17: If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade

Chapter 18: Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer

Chapter 19: If It Walks Like a Duck, It's Probably a Duck

Chapter 20: Pick Your Battles and Fight Them

Chapter 21: Never Forget Where You Came From

Chapter 22: Make an Entrance

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Sometimes You Just Have to Go for Broke

O
ne of my first memories involves two of my favorite places: the Plaza Hotel and New York City.

I was eight years old. My mother, Scarlett Macon Davenport, a proud Southern belle from her Aqua Net–lacquered bob down to her perfectly polished Chanel ballet flats, decided it was about time she and I got out of Charleston, South Carolina, and had ourselves a “girls' trip.” Apparently, there was no better place in the world to do “girly” things—shopping, giggling, being all-around glamorous and frivolous—than the island of Manhattan.

She tracked me down in the sunroom of our family home, Magnolia Gate, a grand, Georgian-style estate just outside of Charleston. It was a bona fide plantation with red brick and white pillars and a mile-long driveway lined with, yes, magnolia trees. It had been handed down in my father's family for five generations.

When I wasn't playing tennis, I spent my afternoons in my mother's sunroom poring over her latest copies of
Vogue, Harper's Bazaar
,
and
Elle
. I would carefully cut out the most beautiful photos and paste them onto large sheets of poster board, creating collages of inspiration like my mother did for her interior design clients.

“I've bought us two tickets to New York City, Minty,” my mother said.

She stood over me with her hands on her hips. Although she rarely left home without putting on a dress, she was partial to cashmere turtlenecks and slacks when she was hanging around the house. That day her outfit was entirely white—“winter white,” as she called it—except for her monogrammed velvet slippers, which were black with white lettering. She had her cat-eye glasses on, the ones that made her look smart and authoritative, like a chic librarian.

“We'll visit Santa Claus,” she continued. “We'll go shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue. We'll stay at the Plaza, of course.”

I was sprawled out on the floor barefoot, wearing a pink plaid jumper and wool tights. I had pink satin ribbons woven through my French-braided hair. I always had ribbons to match my outfit, which meant I always had pink ribbons. Up until that point, I hadn't been paying much attention to what my mother was saying. I was too caught up in one of my latest creations, a colorful mishmash pulled from the pages of an old
Mademoiselle
. Flat on the poster board, Lauren Hutton stared up at me from an Ultima II perfume ad, smiling. Next to her, I'd laid out a photo of Grace Jones, the fierce, exotic yang to Lauren's all-American yin. I was in the midst of cutting up a Brooke Shields Calvin Klein ad when I heard the words “the” and “Plaza.” I put down my scissors.

“The Plaza
Hotel
?”

“Yes, Minty.”

“The
real
Plaza?”

“As opposed to the fake one?” my mother replied.

“The Plaza.” I stood up. “Where Eloise lives?”

A tiny hint of a smile spread across my mother's face.

“Where else would we stay, Minty?”

My grandmother gave me my first Eloise book when I was born and I have been obsessed ever since. In fact, they are the only books I
have ever
truly
enjoyed reading to this day and I still leaf through their pages once a week.

At eight years old, Eloise had already made an indelible impact on my young life. I aspired to dress in a jumper like Eloise, to speak on the telephone like Eloise, to order room service like Eloise. I wanted to
be
Eloise, or at the very least make her my friend. But most of all, I wanted to live like Eloise.

Through my tiny, fictional idol, I had come to the conclusion that not only was the Plaza the most incredible, glamorous, over-the-top, wonderful, delightful place in the world to be, it was the
only
place to be.

And it just so happened to be in New York City.

I considered my options for about thirty seconds, during which my mother rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest rather dramatically.

“Mary Randolph Mercer Davenport. Today?”

Mary Randolph was my grandmother's name. Mary was my “official” first name, but I'd been called “Minty” since before I can remember. No one can ever recall the specifics, but it has something to do with the fact that I'd loved candy as a child, especially the red-and-white swirly “starlight” mints.

“All right, Mommy,” I finally said. “Let's go to New York.”

A rosy flush spread over my mother's cheeks. She looked like a little girl about to open a present.

“You're going to just love it, Minty,” she said, her voice taking on the hushed and sacred tone of our priest at church. “New York City is a magical place.”

“Eloise lives there,” I said.

“Yes,” my mother replied. “Yes, she does.”

A
week later, I stood next to my mother as she helped our longtime driver, Claude, pack up the car with her vintage Louis Vuitton luggage collection. By the looks of it, we were leaving Charleston for good, but many of the trunks were empty and would come back filled
with Christmas presents for my younger sister, Darby, and me as well as the latest designer creations for my mother's spring wardrobe.

I slid into the back of the car, clutching a small Lanvin purse my mother had let me borrow for the weekend. I had filled it with Blow Pops and two sheets of sparkly stickers shaped like high heels and handbags.

“Well, good afternoon, Miss Minty,” Claude said from the driver's seat, looking at me through the rearview mirror.

Claude was almost like a grandfather to me. He had weathered, sun-beaten skin so soft it felt like vintage velvet. It was the color of a sun-ripened peach, warm and ruddy. His lips were always curled up in a broad, white smile, but his eyes were solemn and thoughtful.

I liked Claude for many reasons, most of all because he always kept starlight mints in his pocket for me. If we were all driving together and my mother happened to be otherwise engaged, which she often was, Claude would extend his arm toward the backseat and present a mint to me in his open palm—a tiny secret between the two of us. I loved the mints so much that my mother often caught me sucking away at several at once, tiny rivulets of red running down the sides of my mouth.

“So, New York City, eh, Miss Minty?”

“Yes, Claude,” I said in a very authoritative tone. I crossed my legs at my ankles, a mannerism that had been drilled into me since I was old enough to sit up on my own.

“What are you going to do there?”

“Eat candy,” I replied. “And Mommy will shop.”

Claude laughed.

From my perch in the backseat, the front of our house was obscured, but I could hear my mother's high-pitched Southern drawl making its way down the walkway. “And I will not have that child eating Froot Loops for dinner, Gharland. You hear me, now?

“Darby, honey,” she said, addressing my younger sister. “You'll come next time. You'll have a nice time with Daddy.”

Darby was six at the time and a bit too young to really understand what she would be missing, but she was putting up a fit anyway. I peered around the side of Claude's seat until I could make out my father, who was holding a squirming Darby.

“Next year, Darby,” my mother cooed.

“We'll go to the movies, honey,” my father chimed in.

My father was always an impossibly handsome man and still is today. He has deep-set eyes with a strong jawline and thick, dark hair that curls up a bit at the ends. Now it's nearly white, but back then it was the color of molasses, so intensely brown it almost appeared black. He's nearly six foot four with broad shoulders and the rounded stomach of a thrice-daily bourbon drinker. My mother always said, “He fills out a suit nicely,” and he does.

My parents met at my mother's debutante ball in Savannah, Georgia, where she grew up. Their first introduction was far from romantic. As the escort of an infinitely less beguiling young lady (my mother loves telling this story, and with each telling the young lady becomes less and less beguiling) named Hayley Beaufort, my father was reluctant to attend the ball at all. So, he had spent the two hours from Charleston to Savannah shooting bourbon in the backseat of his friend's father's Mercedes and arrived on the scene in a state of inebriation so severe that he had to be carried into the men's room and doused with several rounds of water.

When he appeared in the ballroom over an hour later, he was slapped in the face by Hayley, given a stern talking-to by Hayley's father, and sent to sit at their table alone to atone for his sins.

My father had already established quite the name for himself as a notorious charmer and “finagler” (this is a word my mother still uses to describe him) who had made a sport of bedding young debutantes around Charleston and Savannah. He was known to feign undying love for a few weeks' time, taking the young ladies home to meet his parents, writing them intricate letters and sending flowers, jewelry, and clothing as tokens of his appreciation, and then flat dropping them when his interest inevitably waned.

He had recently done just this to one of my mother's closest and dearest friends, and my mother was not about to let a chance to reprimand him slip out of her fingers.

From the dance floor, she watched out of the corner of her eye as my father sat there, dumbfounded, his hair still wet from his dousing in the bathroom, his cheek still stinging. When the waltz ended, she walked right over and gave him a piece of her mind.

When she finished her tirade, he looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. “My God you're beautiful,” he said. “What is your name?”

U
ntil that moment, when Darby wailed and screamed and punched my father with tiny fists, I had never seen him in anything less than perfect control. But that day he looked terrified, as if my mother and I were abandoning him to Satan's spawn.

“Newark!” Darby was screaming over and over. The correct pronunciation of “New York” eluded her, and she had resorted to shrieking the name of a far less desirable city in New Jersey. “
Newaaaark!
”

Claude caught my eye in the rearview mirror and we burst into a fit of laughter.

“Good Lord in the heavens above.” My mother's slim frame appeared in the seat next to me. She had on large, black sunglasses. On her lap, she placed one of her signature quilted Chanel purses and folded her hands over it with such grace and care you might have thought it was a living, breathing entity.

“Let's get the hell out of here, Claude,” she said.

Just as we were about to start backing up, my mother rolled down the window and allowed my father to stick his head in. This was a little ritual of his—a final word before the departure. He bent over with his left arm behind him.

“Y'all behave yourselves, all right?” he said, his blue eyes sparkling.