The Ridge

Edgefield, South Carolina is known for two things: gypsies and peaches. If you’ve never driven through Murphy Village, you should. It’s a cultural experience that’s hard to come by in the United States, especially in the Bible Belt. The Irish Travelers who populate Murphy Village have specific architectural taste; there’s grandeur to the dwellings.

There’s grandeur to Edgefield peaches as well. Edgefield is the southernmost point of the peach ridge, making them the sweetest. I used to live across the river in Augusta, where I was born and raised, though that doesn’t make me from Augusta. The answer to one question alone determines whether or not you’re from Augusta: what was your grandmother’s maiden name?

I won’t go into details about the specific social coding embedded in that question; you either know these things or you don’t; it’s lived knowledge, not something you can pick up from a book, unless it’s one of the genealogical society’s publications.

By Augusta standards, I’m white trash. Ask me how much I care about this, living my best life in North Carolina, far away from the illustrious golf club that bought my house a few years ago. No, I never needed a debutante partner. I’m probably better for it, as the addition of money and status would most likely make me a far more insufferable asshole than I currently am.

I’ve frolicked on the fringes most of my life, even bedded more than my share of Augusta’s sons. I was the girl who’d hop in your limousine or climb aboard your boat to see where the day or night may lead. I was never the girl you could tie down or force into some expected role. I went to the good parties, drinking cheap keg beer in fields and the expensive liquor of out-of-town parents foolishly trusting their teenagers alone for the weekend in their mansions. I never cared much about the bullshit, just having fun. Anyway, these allegedly good bloodlines have produced some absolutely horrible people. I should know—I’ve seen them with their inhibitions shed.