A Southern Girl (53 page)

Charlotte Hines. Should I bother? Are there words in the lexicon capable of bringing her over? It is not so much humbling myself before Her Royal Ampleness that deters me. If I could count on her to simply expose her queenly behind long enough for me to grovel forward worm-like and plant the abject kiss of a miserable supplicant, I would not hesitate. But with Charlotte I will have to endure the lecture along with the refusal. She will unleash on me the furious brunt of her convoluted mind, pitching non sequiturs one upon another with the force of truth until I retreat out the door, my hands protectively shielding my head from pummel by the last hurled absurdity. On the other hand, Charlotte talks a lot, freely and often without discretion. Perhaps I will learn something that will help with another member.

Finally, old Doc Francis. Authentic grudges tend to be buried with the people who cling to them. By his St. Simeon vote, he visits the sins of the father on the son, but I have too often been the beneficiary of my father’s good name and reputation to resent this credit on a debit-studded ledger. I will not call on Doc Francis.

Leaning back in my chair, I examine my notes. I have four visits to make and not much time to make them. Surprise is a tactic well suited to my purpose. I will hit quickly before word circulates. Starting now. I review the list.

Jeanette Wilson works each afternoon in an upscale gift shop near the market. Within ten minutes of my leaving she will have spoken to any Board member who answers his phone. I will save her for last. Clarkson
Mills is also at work. I need to see him this evening. Charlotte Hines I am not up to today, leaving Sandy Charles.

I find her in her studio behind the Charles residence on Stoll’s Alley, a short walk from the office and not far from my home. Her husband Edgar, the architect, designed and had built this outbuilding to encourage her fledgling interest in art. That was five years ago, and she has since turned a hobby into a passion. She spots me from her window as I walk the flagstones leading from the house.

“Coleman! Up here,” she calls through the open window.

I mount the steps and she meets me at the landing. I greet her as I would at one of the many cocktail parties we all attend during the season.

“You’ll have to forgive the way this place looks; I keep the messiest studio this side of the Mississippi.”

“I would worry about an artist with a clean studio,” I say. Sandy loves being referred to as an artist, but the studio is clean by any standard.

She wipes her hands on her smock. Some drawings have been left on a chair and these must constitute the mess to which she refers. She moves them as she bids me to sit.

“I’ve been sitting all day. It feels good to stand.”

“Suit yourself,” she says, bubbling. “Soft drink? Coffee?”

“Not a thing.” I walk to the wall where several of her watercolors are displayed, examining them casually. I recognize Colonial Lake, and nanny-led children with balloons. “These are great,” I tell her, and I mean it within my paltry, some would say nonexistent judgment where art is the issue.

“My early period,” she says. “I’m in oils now. How about this one?” she says, pointing to her easel. “A work in progress but you get the idea.”

I do?

“Sure, its got … texture.” I must have hit a happy nerve because she appears pleased. Sandy is an unlikely artist in my qualified experience. They should be tormented and rangy, with ill-sized jeans and no makeup and leonine hair unbrushed for days except as they run paint-smudged hands with smoke-stained fingertips through it. Sandy is short, curvaceous, well-coifed, and manicured. The internal angst driving her seems on the surface confined to the selection of one European country in which to vacation this summer from among the dizzying number of candidates.

“Sandy, I’ll be right up front with you. I came here to talk about the St. Simeon. Before you say anything, let me assure you I will not ask you to violate the confidentiality agreement reached by the group. I’m interested in what might happen at the next meeting, not what happened at the last.”

Intrigue collects on her features and her hands undergo a rare relaxation. “Will there be another?”

“There could be.” I inform her of the Lafayette exemption and my efforts to pry information out of the orphanage in Korea. “Depending on what comes back, we may ask for a reconsideration.”

“And I for one hope you get it,” she says emphatically. “Do you know I didn’t sleep for days after that vote? I listened very carefully to the arguments on both sides—I can’t tell you what they were but you can guess—and I kept asking myself, ‘What is the right and fair thing to do?’ Allie is as sweet as any girl in this city and more talented than most. Was it fair to exclude her? I asked myself. Of course, as Board members we represent the entire Society. We have obligations that go beyond personalities. I … I was so torn I didn’t know what to do.”

“I’m not asking for a commitment, Sandy, but if I can demonstrate that at least one exception has been made and that Allie satisfies the rule, would you be inclined to support us?”

“Of course I would. It would only be fair, wouldn’t it? She’s no different from Lafayette as far as I’m concerned. And there’s no question of her foreign birth so she’s halfway there. Coleman, I haven’t laid eyes on Allie since that vote. Is she just ready to throw us all in the river? I wouldn’t blame her.”

“She understands the spot the Board’s on. Naturally, she’s disappointed.”

“Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t time to let go of the St. Simeon. I mean, this is the nineties.”

“Sandy, somebody probably made that same statement in the 1890’s, and for all we know in the 1790’s, but it’s still with us.”

“Charlotte and I have argued about this. Charlotte does not support changes.”

“Really?”

“I love her dearly but sometimes she can be a tad narrow-minded. Between you and me, and if you tell her I said it I’ll never speak to you
again, I don’t think Charlotte would support an exception, whether it was Lafayette or Jesus Christ. She’s just that way.”

“But you would? You’d agree if it were fair.”

“Certainly I would. Do you doubt it?”

Yes, Sandy, I think while walking back to the office, I doubt it, but don’t take it personally. Generic uncertainty beclouds your entire group. Reading you is difficult. I think you voted nay last time, but with conscience. Philosophical disagreement with Charlotte Hines, on the other hand, is cause for optimism. Perhaps you have more backbone than I suspect.

Harris enters the office within minutes of my return. He reports on a meeting with Carlton Middleton, our patron saint in the city attorney’s office.

“Cathcart refuses to die,” he says, puffing his cheeks in a gesture that signals something between bewilderment and disbelief. On the few occasions I have accompanied him on duck hunts, a missed shot caused the same reaction. “He lowered his fees; partners, associates, paralegals—they’re all willing to work for ten percent less. The city figures it can save between $150,000 and $200,000.”

“Can we match it?”

“Camilla’s running a spread sheet now. Let me see if it’s ready.” He springs up and out the door.

I like Joe Cathcart, along with most of the people in his firm. But I can’t shake the idea that the council’s deferral of the vote transfused hope into their expiring chances for the contract. Harris returns with a computer printout. For the next forty-five minutes, we sit together perusing numbers and assumptions. We can match Cathcart’s reduction, and Harris is on the phone to Middleton as I leave to visit Clarkson Mills.

He lives in a spacious house on Lenwood Boulevard, the house I saved. His wife Rosemary, a timid, apologetic woman despite a sturdy frame, answers the door. She leads me through the house, appointed top to bottom with stock in trade from Mills Brothers Furniture. His brother committed suicide years ago. Clarkson spies us as we step onto the patio.

“Come in the house!” he says when he sees me. This makes no sense in that we have just left the house and he is himself outside but the greeting is habitual. We shake hands as Rosemary excuses herself to “attend to supper.”

“You’re just in time, Lawyer Carter. See those wasp nests?” He points to the eaves under the second floor some twelve feet off the ground. “We barbecue out here in the summer and they pester us to death. I’m just about to send them up to that great barbecue in the sky.”

He is dressed in work clothes topped with an Atlanta Braves cap. At his feet, a plastic container of gasoline rests beside an aluminum extension pole for a paint roller. As I look on he attaches an old rag to the end of the pole by means of fine wire, a jury-rigged torch long enough to reach the nests.

“Should I alert to fire department?” I ask.

“Nope, but you can hold that pole steady while I pour the gas.” As I hold, he douses generous quantities from the two gallon container. Fumes engulf us. He fishes in his pocket for a lighter as I consider the odds of abetting the destruction of the house I once fought to preserve. He fires the rag and takes the pole from my hands, trusting it upward. “You allergic to bee stings?” he asks.

“I’m not fond of them,” I reply, backing away as homeless wasps angrily circle their charred domains.

Rosemary serves iced tea ten minutes later as we sit at the patio table. There is small talk of interest rates and the presidential race. I am about to broach my reason for coming when Clarkson says, “I feel mighty damn bad about your daughter. That’s a tough bunch. I wish I could have done more to help. I haven’t forgotten what you did for Rosemary and me during that awful time.”

I ask him whether he has heard of the Lafayette exemption. When he shakes his head I repeat the litany I went through with Sandy. He listens impassively.

“I couldn’t have told you about Lafayette,” he says, “but it stands to reason that there have been exceptions made. You know as sure as we’re sitting here that before the St. Simeon got to be such a hotsy-totsy big deal they must have let scores of non-members into the Ball. It’s just common sense. In fact, I made that very argument to the Board that night. I had no proof, but I felt I owed it to you to come up with something.”

I sip my tea, appraising him across the table. So he went to bat for me that night; a good news, bad news revelation. Loyalty still counts, and that is good. But my five-to-two theory is thrown into doubt. With his vote, I had three and Adelle’s hunch of wider support gains weight. Suspicions of
Margarite resurface before I banish them to concentrate on what Clarkson is saying.

“I spoke with a couple of the real hard-liners after the meeting broke up. I guess you heard we were there until after eleven. Anyway, these women refused to concede there had ever been exceptions made so I’m glad you’ve come up with the proof.”

“Do you think such proof could cause them to reevaluate their positions if it came up again?” I couple my question with an explanation of the letter to Korea.

He leans back with his hands clasped behind his head. “Hard to say. With a couple of them you’re flogging a dead horse. The others … ?”

Adelle’s theory takes a hit or Clarkson is being too casual with his plurals. If “a couple” is two, as it always is, and if by “others” he truly means more than one, then at least four people opposed me and Margarite’s report of the results stands unblemished. The line-up had to be: Margarite, Adelle, and Clarkson for; Doc Francis, Sandy, Charlotte, and Jeanette against.

“Clarkson, you referred to what I did for you and Rosemary. At the risk of sounding like I’m calling in a chit, I need your help.”

“Just name it.”

“The way I’ve got this thing figured, I’ll need one more vote if the committee reconsiders. If you could help on the inside with those others you mentioned, it might make the difference.”

“I’ll do it. You tell me what to say and I’ll say it.”

“I can’t until I hear from Korea. Frankly, I’m not optimistic there. But I just came from Sandy’s, and if I’m reading her correctly she’s had some second thoughts about this whole issue. If, and I stress if because I don’t know, she voted no last time, she might switch, given the chance.”

“Sounds plausible,” he says with I quick glance back to the blackened wasp nests. “Well, let me know.”

I return to the office buoyed by his promise. Unless a prisoner of self-deception, I have made strides today. How else to read Sandy’s disagreement with Charlotte over the future of the Society and her insistence on fairness? What other conclusion to reach in Clarkson’s advocacy before the vote and willingness to lobby fence-sitters?

Throughout the day, thoughts of Natalie have intruded into my most concentrating moments. While walking, my mind drifts in a fresh
nostalgia, enhanced by the springtime unfolding around me. The swiftness of our ascension from business associates, kindly put, to potential lovers confounds me. When I left her in the chill of her doorway, there was no talk of future but intense gratification in the moment.

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