April 12, 2026
Progressive Friday Night — Supper in Natchez
“A town holding on—gracefully, stubbornly, rightfully so—to a past long gone.”
- By Dennis Easters
The reservation read: meet at Myrtle Terrace, 6 p.m., Friday, April 10th.
The tourists—myself included—arrived ten minutes early. Small talk filled the sidewalk in front of the house: Where are you from? The weather is glorious. We couldn’t ask for a better evening.
We were first greeted by a friendly black Lab who kept poking his head through the openings in the wrought-iron fence. Then, from the front veranda, a husky voice called out, “Y’all come on up.”
We made our way along the brick walkway, iron rails lining the path as the terraced garden rose neatly toward the house.
Once we had gathered on the veranda, one of our hosts stepped forward.
“Welcome, everyone. I’m Jim Johnson, one of the owners here at Myrtle Terrace. I’m not going to keep you long or give you a history lesson. I’ll be wandering around in case you have questions. Feel free to explore—nothing is off-limits. There are hors d’oeuvres in the dining room and cocktails out back. Make yourselves at home.”
And so we did. When Jim opened the front door, we stepped into the soft golden glow of the grand hallway. I imagined that it might have looked much the same for its first gathering in 1844. Myrtle Terrace was not the grandest house that I had visited in Natchez, but it had that feeling about it—the sense that crossing its threshold meant stepping into another world.
Everyone wandered through the house, lingering over the décor and sampling the food before eventually making their way into the back garden and toward the open bar: wine or mint juleps.
I waited.
Patiently.
For the crowd to finish their obligatory tour so I could take in each room alone. Room by room. One object at a time.
Perhaps I hadn’t stepped into another world after all—only one I had nearly forgotten.
She was in the family room just off the kitchen—the woman in white.
Tall, elegant, mid-sixties if she was a day, with a long pageboy and a dress so tightly fitted it looked less worn than applied. The heels were high enough to be called architecture. She placed her clutch on a side table with the ease of someone who felt entirely at home.
I nodded toward it. “Is that your bag?”
She turned. “Yes. Why?”
“I’d keep an eye on it, if I were you.”
A pause. Just long enough.
“Do I need to?” she asked, genuine surprise in both her voice and expression.
I gave a small shrug. “Better to be safe than sorry.”
That was part of what made the evening feel so curious. For all its warmth—and it was warm, genuinely so—there was something underneath it that felt almost ceremonial. Doors opened, drinks were poured, stories offered as if you belonged there. And yet the rooms were full of signals: money, breeding, ease so practiced it had become its own kind of performance.
Not insincere. Quite the opposite.
It was sincerity shaped by ritual—an old way of welcoming people, so natural to them and so unfamiliar to the modern world that even I, a boy from the South, had nearly forgotten what it looked like.
With a shrimp canapé in hand, I stepped into the back garden feeling entirely at home. I walked over to the bar and ordered a mint julep, then returned inside and entered the long central hallway that stretched from front to back.
At the far end, the open front door framed a woman in the late-afternoon light. The effect was almost angelic.
More presence than person at first—a perfectly coiffed bouffant lacquered into place, a powder-blue pantsuit tailored to the inch, oversized pearls catching the light. High heels, matching handbag clutched in her right hand. She didn’t enter the room so much as fill it.
Her husband followed—khaki linen suit, tortoiseshell spectacles. Lawyer type. Sharp. Educated. Mannered. “Evening, everyone,” he said, tipping his head in acknowledgment to those nearby.
Fifteen minutes late, but unmistakably the grande dame of local old money. A quiet parade of others—locals, monied, practiced—fell in behind her. Not fawning, but close.
“John came into the kitchen and said it’s time to go. I had just poured my five o’clock martini,” she said to another late arrival.
“The bar’s in the back,” the woman replied.
“Yes, I know. I’m going straight there. I know the house, Myrtle Terrace—fabulous. One of the nicest in Natchez.”
I watched her move—impeccable posture, shoulders back, tiger-striped hair, absolute certainty—as she made her way to the bar. Her scent lingered in the hallway long after she had gone.
I wandered upstairs, then back down, eventually settling onto the front veranda. My refuge. Watching. Taking it all in.
A horse-drawn carriage rolled past on the street below, the rhythmic clippity-clop of hooves rising toward the veranda.
Of course it did.
The weather was, in fact, glorious.
Behind me, a man regaled his audience:
“That’s how I paid my way through college—selling aluminum cans. Worked at the club. Realized those old boys only drank beer. Started collecting cans from the trash. Made a fortune… until the club caught on.”
Laughter.
“They banned me from the course unless I had clubs. So I kept collecting—club in hand.”
More laughter. Easy, shared.
Eventually, we were guided across the street for dinner at Stanton Hall.
A grand old mansion—white, imposing, Corinthian columns framing the double portico. The doors swung open.
“Welcome to Stanton Hall. Y’all come in.”
“Cocktails on the back veranda. Tables in the double parlor and central hall. Find a seat, make friends. Dinner will be served soon.”
The parlor tables were full—tourists. I drifted toward the long central hall. One empty table. Another with a single young couple.
“May I join you?”
“Absolutely.”
Another couple joined. Then, she appeared again—powder-blue pantsuit, tiger-striped hair.
“Are these seats taken?”
“No, ma’am.”
“We’ll need three. I’m Valerie. Introductions later when the rest of my party arrives.”
And just like that, Valerie took the reins.
For the next hour, Valerie Bergeron—straight out of the society pages—held court.
“John, meet our new friends. Everyone, this is my husband of fifty-some years, John.”
Stories, introductions, direction—it all moved through her effortlessly.
“Yes, we’ve been there… a few times,” she said when she learned I lived in Costa Rica.
“We were driving to Dominical—nighttime, no street lights, mountains, our brakes went out. I said to my brother-in-law, ‘I’m going to kill you, you son-of-a-bitch.’”
“We made it. The hotel we had reserved wasn’t finished yet. They sent us to Cristal Ballena—fabulous. It worked out.”
She turned.
“Dennis, meet Terrel—our eye doctor.”
“We’ve been introduced, at Jim’s house,” I said.
“Dennis lives in Costa Rica.”
“Yes,” Terrel added, “Valerie and I have mutual friends in Las Catalinas.”
“Oh yes,” Valerie said, “they were held up. Passports, cash—robbed. The help, I’m sure.”
I shrugged. “Best not to be too flashy.”
She nodded. “We do have a way of standing out.”
Later, as the evening thinned, I lingered.
“Come sit,” Valerie said, motioning to the chair next to hers. “Talk with me.”
And talk we did.
Stories flowed easily between us, as if we were old friends—which was strange, considering we’d met less than an hour before.
Then, a sudden shift of energy filled the room.
The woman in white missed her footing and tumbled awkwardly off the back stoop. A collective gasp rose, but no one moved with urgency. It was as if even concern had to pass through a layer of etiquette before it could become action.
Valerie glanced over, cocktail in hand.
“As long as nothing’s broken, she’ll be fine.”
The woman in white gathered herself, smoothed her dress, and carried on.
The evening did the same.
“We used to own Pleasant Hill,” Valerie continued. “Sold it a few years back. Getting too old, I told John.”
“We’d love to have you out to the new place. How long are you in town?”
I remember thinking: In what world do you invite a stranger to your home within an hour of meeting them? But, honestly, this is the old South of my childhood. The people back home would have done the same.
Perhaps I hadn’t stepped into another world after all—only one I had nearly forgotten.
From there, we moved on to The Big Muddy for dessert, coffee, cocktails, and jazz.
Amy Allen was belting out Me and Bobby McGee as we filed into the front parlor.
I slipped past the dessert line into the courtyard, poured a Pinot Grigio, and found the only empty chair. A colorful trio played—slightly rough around the edges in that muddy, bluesy Mississippi way, but undeniably good.
I found myself singing along—quietly, to myself, or so I thought.
A woman approached.
“I’ve been watching you—you have a beautiful voice.”
“Your cocktails are talking,” I said. “But I thank you the same.”
“I’m Margee.”
“Dennis.”
“What brings you to Natchez? The Pilgrimage?”
“Yes, I’ve wanted to come here since I was a boy.”
“Welcome—we’re glad to have you.”
We swapped backgrounds and niceties.
She leaned in.
“We’re having a private event tomorrow evening at The Burn. Six o’clock. Then my place. You must come.”
I smiled. “You’ve twisted my arm. I’ll be there.”
“Do you know Terrel?”
“He gave me his card.”
“I’ll call him in the morning—tell him you’re our guest.”
One more song turned into two.
People rose slowly, applauded, and drifted toward the exits.
A perfect ending to a day that felt borrowed from another time and somehow right at home in Natchez.
A town holding on—gracefully, stubbornly, rightfully so—to a past long gone. The stories retold, the memories polished, the faded grandeur brought back to life, if only for a few weeks each spring.
Walking home, I felt a quiet giddiness.
Not because anything extraordinary had happened—
but because Natchez had lived up to exactly what I imagined it would be.
A relic of the Old South—torn, a little tattered—but still putting on the dog the only way it knows how.
And somehow, for a moment, it was all still alive.
“Yes…he will,” she murmured toward the ceiling again, as though answering a question I hadn’t heard.
Then she looked directly at me.
“The spirits say you’ll have everything you want in your life. It just won’t come as fast as you want it to come. But it will come. Patience—that’s the lesson they say you have to learn.”
A silence settled over the room.
Then Grace smiled faintly.
“It’s quiet on the other side. The spirits have stopped talking.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Well,” she added gently, “I hope that satisfies some of your curiosity.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Thank you for showing me what a reading means. When Mama said they were coming here for readings, I thought I understood, but I wasn’t quite sure.”
Then, with complete innocence, I added:
“I mean…I know you’re a librarian at the college.”
Grace laughed softly.
Then I remembered.
“Oh, and I had a piece of butterscotch. Thank you.”
As we walked back toward the living room, where Mama and Granny were waiting, I felt older somehow—as though I had crossed into a world I didn’t fully understand but knew was real to the adults around me.
I had always been curious, so before we reached the doorway, I asked one more question.
“But how do you do it? How do you read the cards? How do you hear the spirits? How do you know these things?”
Grace paused.
“Dennis,” she said softly, “I was born under a veil…en caul, as they used to say. It’s a gift from God. Only a few people have it.”
She shrugged gently.
“I can’t explain it. It just is. It always has been.”
Then, after a moment, she added:
“Since I was a little girl, I could see things—visions. I knew things but didn’t know why. Sometimes I could hear them too: people talking back to me, people I couldn’t see.”
She looked toward the crucifix hanging in her bedroom.
“Somehow the gift is like God. I can’t see Him either, but I know He’s there. I know He’s real. My gift is like that. I can’t explain it…but I know it’s real.”
We said our goodbyes a few minutes later, but just before we stepped out the front door, Grace looked down at me and said something I have never forgotten.
“Remember this, Dennis. You have the gift too. Your mother knows it. I know it. The spirits know it. You’ve just got to discover it, trust it.”
Then she smiled.
“Listen…and it will speak to you. They will speak to you.”
I was unusually quiet for the first part of the drive home. Then, somewhere along Highway 301, my eight-year-old mind finally found a way to make sense of Grace.
She reminded me of the little woman from Poltergeist.
I was still trying to understand what had happened.
I couldn’t fully articulate it then.
Truthfully, I’m not sure I can now.
But after all these years, I can still hear Grace’s voice as clearly as if I were sitting in the kitchen of her little bungalow in Zephyrhills:
“You have the gift too.”
Myrtle Terrace rises above its terraced garden in the late-afternoon light, its brick walkway leading toward the open front door where guests had begun to gather for Progressive Friday Night. Taken just before six o’clock, the photograph captures the threshold between an ordinary April evening and the gracious, half-forgotten world waiting inside.
Valerie Bergeron at a later Natchez Pilgrimage, standing amid crystal, silver, formal china, and the quiet grandeur of one of the city’s historic dining rooms. In her tailored purple suit, pearls, and unmistakable bouffant, she appears exactly as I remember her—poised, commanding, and entirely at home in the world she so effortlessly embodied.