A Southern Girl (34 page)

I must be imagining this estrangement. Lifelong relationships are not altered by a handful of people taking a vote on what, in the great scheme of things, can be counted a trivial matter by most. Even at the St. Simeon, a Ball is merely a ball. And yet, as I greet innocent old friends, untainted employees at Carter & Deas, and even waiters in restaurants who have never heard of the Society, I sense alienation, as though the Board’s decision embodied an ecumenical verdict by the city as a whole that I have failed a fundamental fidelity. By loyally asserting Allie’s claim to go, I have breached a living code of consideration owed to members of my circle: I put them on the spot. The case Sarah mentioned, that of adopted Peter Devereux, who looked so much like Kate, presented the Devereuxs with the same dilemma. In deciding not to request exemption, they surrendered to the communal abhorrence, strong in these genteel parts, against forcing embarrassing confrontations. As a devout St. Simeon, I am expected to know the rules of eligibility, and to challenge them, as I have done, is to spread across several dutiful backs the load I should, in their view, shoulder alone. No one has said that to me, but it echoes with a crystal chime of certainty.

Over the weekend following the vote I bump, literally, into Sandy Charles in the drugstore, the only Board member I have seen since my
rejection. Predictably awkward, Sandy makes overly gracious gestures, yielding more awkwardness as I try to shuttle between a pale nonchalance I do not feel and nods of polite understanding, summoned hurriedly to avert a confrontation beside foot hygiene aids.

“We all realize,” she says as I idly finger a talc, “how much this meant to Elizabeth.”

That comment offers insight into the social contract in this city. Having declined to take one for the team by foisting upon the Board members a decision they do not wish to make, I must now be inoculated against my own (forgivable) rashness by a face-saving attribution to Elizabeth, whom neither Sandy Charles nor any other member fears confronting in the pharmacy, at the theater, on the cocktail circuit, or at any of two dozen other flash points.

And, contradicting Sandy will be difficult. Allie’s attending the St. Simeon did mean a lot to Elizabeth. She viewed the Society as one of a handful, a generous handful, of Charleston heirlooms. The Nathaniel Russell House, Rainbow Row, and the old market were others. Not being a native of the city, she brought with her an outsider’s detached appreciation for that which makes Charleston unique. For her, indignation evoked by Allie’s exclusion from the St. Simeon would have been no less, but no more profound, had she been barred at the threshold of a venerable residence on the candlelight tour of historic homes. Her bench mark reckoning, that of, “My daughter will go
anywhere,
” sighted along an arcing emotional azimuth bent by maternal zeal, and that zeal overran and subsumed the identity of the particular barricade. It is fortunate for Sandy Charles that it is not Elizabeth to whom she makes her stuttering explanations in the drug store.

Which sounds, I must confess, as though I am less outraged than I should be. Why hasn’t the incipient anger felt in my bedroom on the night of the vote erupted into wrath? Why haven’t I heaved a can of Pedisooth at Sandy?

The answer is grounded in my nature. I am decidedly non-confrontational, odd for a lawyer but true for me. Had Sandy blown up my mailbox and arrogantly mailed me the debris, I would not go to war in the drugstore.

Also, I am only so surprised by the answer I got from the Board. The point Sarah made is not without validity; we knew the rules seventeen
years before when we adopted. To some members of the Society, my situation is analogous to another with which we are all familiar. A club to which a number of us belong has a long-standing rule requiring gentlemen to wear jackets and ties after 6:00
P.M.
in the main dining room. The penchant for golfers to arrive for dinner in their casual knits and spiked shoes after several soggy hours at the nineteenth hole brought about this rule many years before. A friend of mine, Lawrence Hess, brought as a frequent guest a cousin from France who, being quite European, habitually wore a turtleneck under his coat to dinner. The management politely explained the rule, which seemed to affront Lawrence on behalf of his cousin. He became indignant, causing a scene one evening at the reservations desk by insisting that Cousin Marcel wore imported cashmere turtlenecks, that they were quite acceptable among the bishops and barons with whom he mingled on the Continent, and that the club’s insistence on a tie was “provincial,” all of which the manager acknowledged while apologetically pointing out that the rule required a tie. I remember a conversation with Hess shortly thereafter in which I hinted with impatience that Hess was undermining the standards of the club. For all her empathy, I sense the same impatience in Sandy Charles.

At Carter & Deas, Harris comes into my office and flops down on the couch. Although himself a St. Simeon, Harris is unaware of the Board’s action. He has no court appearances today, so pinstripes are replaced by dark wool slacks, a gray herringbone jacket, and a tie resplendent with maroon ducks. In all our years together, he has maintained the unflappable amiability that makes him so easy to be around. He crosses his legs and looks at me soberly.

“Counselor,” he says, “I have just come from lunch with the city attorney, your friend and mine, Carlton Middleton III.”

“How was the food?” I ask dryly, knowing that despite his normally healthy appetite, Harris’s mind is on business.

“The city has revised its estimate of the legal fees it will have to fork out on the Performing Arts Center.”

“Oh, no,” I say.

“Upward.” An impish grin flashes. “It just makes me sick to think of all those tax dollars, yours and mine, flooding into the account of Carter & Deas once we’re awarded this contract.”

“What’s the revised figure?”

He raises his swollen fingers, adjusting his glasses leisurely for dramatic pause. “Three mil, up from two point five.”

“Why the increase?”

“Balking landowners with visions of retirement. The condemnation work is going to require some quick-takes that will keep us in court for months.”

“Did Carlton have a time frame?”

“He checked with the mayor’s office this morning. It’s on Council’s agenda for the February meeting.”

“Great. The votes are still there?”

“You betcha,” he says, nodding. “Only, Cathcart has not given up. He’s been wining and dining councilmen almost as much as I have.”

“With three million on the table, I can’t say I blame him. Plus, with only two firms in the running, he figures the odds are no worse than fifty-fifty.”

“Oh, but they are,” Harris assures. “We have something they don’t have.”

“Of course. We have a two vote margin on council and the backing of the city attorney from the moment he realized this project would swamp his staff.”

“Aside from those,” he says with a smirk, “we have me.”

I clear my throat. “Indeed we do.”

Harris rises with an energetic start, as though suddenly remembering an appointment. “Back to work. Getting rich is a full time job.” He lumbers out toward his corner office at the other end of the hall.

I spend the balance of the afternoon examining and reviewing a lawsuit to be filed for a wealthy apartment owner I have represented for years. The draft, prepared by one of our young associates, contains all the legal essentials but lacks a few “real world” touches which years of experience tell me might give us an advantage in settlement discussions. The work is tedious, and though I am well-paid for what I do, I have come to question the value added. Although the public hasn’t fully grasped this, lawsuits are essentially a waste of time and money. They polarize people who should be talking to each other, not to us. Much of my work is a vain exercise in pointing out to people who should know better where their real interests
lie. To fill that role, I need some knowledge of the law and a lot more of human nature. Human nature is incomparably more interesting, which I guess explains why I’m still at it. This cynicism has led me to formulate Carter’s first and last rule of litigation: among people of goodwill and honest intent, civil courts are rarely needed, and among others they are seldom worth the cost to all concerned.

It is after 6:00 when I finish. Dottie, my secretary, has shut down her PC and gone. At my desk, packing my briefcase, I look up in time to see a woman I do not know pause in the corridor, then turn toward Harris’s end of the building. As she walks away, my eyes go to a shapely derriere snugly bound in her tight skirt. I gawk admiringly as she peeks in Harris’s door, turns, then starts toward me. I fumble folders in my briefcase. Seconds later I am conscious of her standing just outside my door.

“I’m looking for Coleman Carter,” she says. She looks mid-thirties, quite pretty, with an ethnic darkness, possibly Italian, but her speech is northeastern, not far from Long Island in intonation. To a southerner, it is not a pleasing voice.

“I’m Coleman,” I offer. “Come in.”

She strides forward, proffers her hand, and shakes mine with a decided firmness. “Natalie Berman,” she says. “I’m with the ACLU. May I sit down?” She turns toward a client chair before I can respond.

“Please,” I say, indicating the chair she is now seated in, adjusting her finely tapered legs. I take the chair opposite. “How can I help you, Ms. Berman?”

“I’m here to talk about a lawsuit,” she says.

Her tone surpasses businesslike to a level of formality which strikes me as stilted. I mentally review my current stable of clients in an attempt to pinpoint which one would likely have run afoul of the ACLU. “I’m not aware of your suit,” I admit. “Who is my offending client?”

“There is no suit,” she says. “Not yet. I came to talk to you about filing one. For your daughter.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“My organization is doing a lot of work in the area of private discrimination. I understand your daughter has been denied access to an annual affair given by something called the St. Simeon Society, a social club. We’d like to persuade her, and you as her father, to fight an indefensible prejudice against adopted Asians.”

She is intently earnest, leaning forward slightly with her hands folded in her lap. Her eyes flash and her nostrils flare faintly as she speaks. Her sincerity is so severe I have to stifle a laugh.

“Ms. Berman,” I say gently, fingering the arm of my chair in order to avoid her painfully riveting eye contact, “may I ask where you got your information?”

“That’s privileged.”

“I see,” I reply, still suppressing the bubble of laughter that has formed in my throat.

“You’re familiar with the ACLU, of course,” she wants to know and I nod condescendingly, not quite convinced she has asked that question. She appears not to notice. Her eyes are brown, but not the warm brown I associate with feminine softness. These eyes are hard, as though galvanized with a metallic veneer reflecting light. Her mouth is finely formed, her lips thin and set.

“Have you heard any good jokes lately, Ms. Berman?”

“What has that got to do with anything?” she demands.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I reply, exaggerating my native drawl. “It just seems to me we’ve hardly met and already we’ve jumped into this very serious discussion about my daughter’s constitutional rights and I don’t know the first thing about you except what I’d find on a business card.”

For the first time, a semblance of a smile encroaches upon her lips, which part enough to reveal desert-white teeth perfectly aligned. “I forget I’m in the South,” she admits in a tone as close to apologetic as I can imagine her mustering. “Sometimes I come on a bit strong.”

“Really?” I ask. Sarcasm is my visceral response to irritation, and her presence, broaching this subject, is beginning to wear on me.

“Let’s back up,” she says. “My name is Natalie Berman. I finished Columbia Law magna cum laude. I moved to Charleston two months ago from New York as a coordinator for the ACLU. Most of my time is spent identifying cases I think will have the most dramatic impact on civil rights. On Monday I got a call about your daughter and I came here to talk to you about it. If you agree to become a plaintiff, I’ll either represent you or, if you prefer, find another local attorney to handle the litigation.”

“That’s all very interesting, Ms. Berman, but I don’t believe there is going to be any litigation. You see, my ancestor was a charter member of
the St. Simeon, my father was its president, I’ve been in it all my life and my friends belong almost without exception.”

“But you’ve said nothing about your daughter.”

This takes me momentarily off my pace. “I don’t want to be short with you, nor appear ungrateful for the interest you’ve shown, but my daughter and any other element of my family’s business are private. If we feel the need to call the ACLU, we’ll call.” This conversation is straying perilously close to the confrontations I dislike.

Her eyes resume their flashing. “Mr. Carter, you don’t like my organization, do you?”

I shrug, knowing before I reply that baiting her is going to prove irresistible. “What’s not to like? Someone needs to fight to keep kids from praying in school. Somebody’s got to take action when prison wardens cut off cable TV to throat-slitting criminals, assuming, of course, those throat-slitters don’t walk out the courtroom free men because one of your lawyers has convinced the judge that the arresting officer failed to recite the Declaration of Independence in the squad car. Gosh, where would we be without you folks?”

She returns my gelid stare as we sit appraising each other, two icicles point to point. “Typical,” she says evenly.

“Ah, yes,” I say, flourishing my hands upward as though my prayers for rain have been answered, “here is confirmation of the southern archetype, the pone-eating, cracker-barreled, scorched-necked bigot you anticipated in the car on the way over. You know, with some advanced notice I could have scheduled a lynching.”

Her face flushes, but she holds her ground. “What I meant was, your reaction is a typical one among those not fully acquainted with our work.”