The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires(7)

The Old Village lay just across the Cooper River from downtown Charleston in the suburb of Mt. Pleasant, but while Charleston was formal and sophisticated, and Mt. Pleasant was its country cousin, the Old Village was a way of life. Or at least that was what the people who lived there believed. And Carter had worked long and hard so that they could finally afford not just a house but a way of life.

This way of life was a slice of live oaks and gracious homes lying between Coleman Boulevard and Charleston Harbor, where everyone still waved at cars when they went by and no one drove over twenty-five miles per hour.

It was where Carter taught Korey and Blue to crab off the dock, lowering raw chicken necks tied to long strings into the murky harbor water, and pulling up mean-eyed crabs they scooped up in nets. He took them shrimping at night, lit by the hissing white glare of their Coleman lantern. They went to oyster roasts and Sunday school, wedding receptions at Alhambra Hall and funerals at Stuhr’s. They went to the Pierates Cruze block party every Christmas, and danced the shag at Wild Dunes on New Year’s Eve. Korey and Blue went to Albemarle Academy on the other side of the harbor for school, and made friends, and had sleepovers, and Patricia drove car pool, and no one locked their doors, and everyone knew where you left your spare key when you went out of town, and you could go out all day and leave your windows open and the worst thing that might happen is you’d come home and find someone else’s cat sleeping on your kitchen counter. It was a good place to raise children. It was a wonderful place to be a family. It was quiet, and soft, and peaceful, and safe.

But sometimes Patricia wanted to be challenged. Sometimes she yearned to see what she was made of. Sometimes she remembered being a nurse before she married Carter and wondered if she could still reach into a wound and hold an artery closed with her fingers, or if she still had the courage to pull a fishhook out of a child’s eyelid. Sometimes she craved a little danger. And that was why she had book club.



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In the fall of ’91, Kitty’s beloved Minnesota Twins made it to the World Series and she got Horse to chain-saw the two pine trees in their front yard and lay out a scaled-down baseball diamond in white lime. She invited all the members of their not-quite-a-book-club over to play a game with their husbands.

“Y’all,” Slick said, at their last meeting before the game. “I need to unburden my conscience.”

“Jesus Christ,” Maryellen said, rolling her eyes. “Here it comes.”

“Don’t talk about who you don’t know,” Slick shot back. “Now, y’all, I don’t like asking people to sin—”

“If baseball’s a sin, I’m going to Hell,” Kitty said.

“My husband, he…well,” Slick said, ignoring Kitty. “Leland wouldn’t understand why we read such morbid books in our book club—”

“It’s not a book club,” Grace said.

“—and I didn’t want to worry him,” Slick forged on, “so I told him we were a Bible study group.”

No one said anything for a full fifteen seconds. Finally, Maryellen spoke. “You told your husband we’ve been reading the Bible?”

“It rewards a lifetime of study,” Slick said.

The silence stretched on as they looked at each other, incredulous, and then they all burst out laughing.

“I’m serious, y’all,” Slick said. “He won’t let me come anymore if he knows.”

They realized she was serious.

“Slick,” Kitty said, solemnly. “I promise, on Saturday, all of us will profess a sincere and deep enthusiasm for the word of God.”

And on Saturday, they all did.

The husbands bumbled together in Kitty’s front yard, shaking hands and making jokes, with their weekend stubble and their Clemson logos and their Polo shirts tucked into their stonewashed jean shorts. Kitty divided them into teams, splitting up the couples, but Patricia insisted Korey be allowed to play.

“All the other children are swimming off the dock,” Kitty said.

“She’d rather play baseball,” Patricia said.

“I’m not going to pitch underhanded just because she’s a child,” Kitty told her.

“She’ll be fine,” Patricia said.

Kitty had a strong swing and on the pitcher’s mound, she threw lethal fastballs. Korey watched her strike out Slick and Ed. Then she was up at bat.

“Mom,” she said. “What if I miss?”

“Then you tried your best,” Patricia told her.

“What if I break one of her windows?” Korey asked.

“Then I’ll buy you a frozen yogurt on the way home,” Patricia said.

But as Korey walked to home plate, a bolt of worry shot through Patricia. Korey held the bat uncomfortably and its tip wobbled in the air. Her legs looked too thin, her arms looked too weak. She was just a baby. Patricia got ready to comfort her and tell her she tried her best. Kitty gave Patricia an apologetic shrug, then drew her right arm back and sent a fastball screaming at Korey in a straight line.

There was a crack and the ball suddenly reversed direction, sailing in a high arc toward Kitty’s house, and then at the last moment it lifted, soaring over the roof, over the house, coming down somewhere deep in the woods. Everyone, even Korey, watched, frozen.