Page 85 of Lady and the Hitman

It wasn’t everything I wanted to say.

But it was the closest I could come to sayinghelp.

Maybe it was a start.

16

The scent of lemon balm hit me before I even made it to the back porch.

It was mid-afternoon and oppressively hot—one of those heavy Charleston days when the air clings to your skin like wet cotton and every movement feels like a negotiation. My mom had the big ceiling fans spinning lazily on the screened-in porch, lemonade sweating in a glass pitcher on the table, and two of her friends perched in wicker chairs like birds of prey in floral linen.

Growing up on Johns Island, I’d learned early that the heat wasn’t the only thing that pressed in on you. Politics had a way of doing that, too—pressing, dividing, defining. My parents were proud, vocal progressives in a region that leaned hard in the opposite direction. They owned the local nursery, yes—but they also hosted fundraisers for Democratic candidates, volunteered at Planned Parenthood, and kept NPR playing on the back porch like it was gospel.

We were never ostracized—Charleston charm didn’t allow for that—but we were different.

The neighbors waved politely, but their kids went to private schools with honor codes that leaned toward the evangelical. I played with those kids. Had sleepovers in houses where we blessed every meal and said ma’am and sir like it was currency. I learned how to nod along when someone said marriage was between a man and a woman, how to laugh politely when someone called liberalism a disease. There were good people on both sides of the aisle—I still believed that. But my parents’ friends stuck close, like a school of fish navigating deeper water. They were louder, sharper, more open in their living rooms than they ever were at city council meetings.

By the time I left for Penn, I’d imagined I’d never come back. I was going to make my life in a city—maybe D.C., maybe New York. Somewhere that didn’t smell like pluff mud and magnolia. Somewhere I didn’t have to explain that yes, I was from the South, and no, I didn’t vote like it.

But then came grad school. Then came a teaching offer from the College of Charleston too good to pass up. Then came roots I didn’t expect to replant.

I told myself it was temporary.

It wasn’t.

Now, I lived twelve minutes from the house I grew up in, surrounded by the same oaks, the same moss-draped roads, the same genteel judgment dressed up in hospitality.

“Zara!” Mom called out as I rounded the corner, her voice honey-sweet and a little too loud. “You made it, honey!”

I pasted on a smile. “Told you I would.”

She stood to kiss my cheek, then pulled me into a half-hug before ushering me toward the open seat. “You remember Miss Tina and Miss Gloria, right?”

“Of course,” I said, nodding at the women, both of whom looked at me with the kind of expressions that said they’d been talking about me the moment before I arrived.

“How’s your column, dear?” Tina asked, sliding her sunglasses down her nose just enough to examine me over the frames. Her pearls gleamed like a threat.

“It’s … busy,” I said carefully, taking a seat. “This week especially.”

“Oh, we know,” Gloria said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “That article of yours is everywhere. My niece sent it to me the moment it went live, said it was making the rounds in her office.”

“That’s flattering,” I murmured, reaching for a glass of lemonade I didn’t particularly want.

“Course, we couldn’t help but notice what it was about,” Tina said, leaning forward like she was about to deliver a prayer request—or a dagger. “All this talk about that escort service—what’s it called again, Glor?”

“I think they’re calling it Alpha something,” Gloria supplied, her voice syrupy. “Alpha Men?”

“Alpha Mail,” I corrected before I could stop myself. “Like a pun.”

“Right,” Tina said with a smile sharp enough to draw blood. “Pun or not, it’s just plain scandalous. Don’t you think?”

I took a slow sip of lemonade. “I think what’s more scandalous is how quickly everyone assumes women are being duped instead of making deliberate choices.”

“Well, deliberate or not,” Gloria said, “I read they’rerecruiting here in Charleston. Imagine that. Right under our noses. Young women being flown off to who knows where to be”—she glanced toward my mother, voice dropping to a whisper—“used.”

My mother shifted beside me. “Now, I don’t know about all that,” she said, trying to sound neutral and failing spectacularly. “But I will say, I was surprised to see your byline on something so ... provocative.”

“It’s not new,” I said. “I’ve written about sex work and power dynamics for years.”