by Erica Abbott
Jill laughed. “And now are you going to go off on Mel Tormé again?”
With equal solemnity, Caroline intoned, “Mel Tormé was the finest male popular singer of the twentieth century.”
“It’s Frank Sinatra, and you know it.”
“Spare me your deep and abiding ignorance of popular music.”
“Tony Bennett,” Jill continued the harassment.
“Mel freaking Tormé.”
Jill knew what would set her off. “Jerry Vale.”
Caroline screwed up her face comically and said, “You are insane, Allen.”
“And you are a snob, Ms. Prince.”
“You are really asking for it,” Caroline tried to sound threatening while laughing.
“Bring it,” Jill challenged her.
Caroline snatched a pillow from the sofa and hurled it at Jill’s head. Jill caught it easily, then threw it back, catching Caroline squarely in the face.
“What kind of guest hits her hostess with a pillow?” Caroline gasped.
“What kind of hostess starts a pillow fight? Besides, it is a throw pillow.”
Caroline groaned. “That’s terrible. Are you still playing softball? That was a nice toss.”
Jill shook her head. “Not at my advanced age. I did play on the Worthington & Steele team for years in a law-firm league, but finally gave it up when I sprained my ACL sliding into second base. Now I play golf. It’s infinitely more frustrating, but much safer.”
“Golf,” Caroline said thoughtfully. “Actually, I always thought that would be fun to learn. Golf courses are so beautiful.”
“They are beautiful, but believe me, there is nothing remotely fun about learning golf.”
Caroline picked up her coffee cup and said, “Would you teach me?”
Unbidden, the image of using her hands to teach Caroline the proper grip, wrapping her arms around Caroline to show her the fundamentals of the swing, caused a burst of heat low in Jill’s belly.
“I’m not nearly good enough to do that,” she managed. “But I’ll introduce you to my golf pro. She’s a terrific teacher. After a few lessons, we can go out to a course together and give it a try.”
“You have a female golf pro?”
“I do. She was a touring pro for a few years, but decided to give up the traveling and settle down with her partner.”
“She’s gay?”
“Yes. I like to support the local sisterhood when I can.”
But Walter’s “compliment” echoed like an accusation in the back of her mind.
Caroline drank coffee. “I understand about giving up traveling. Settling down in one place sounded very attractive.”
Jill leaned back, still trying to tamp down the surge of desire. “Weren’t you ever tempted before? Some special place that felt like home, or maybe a special person?”
Caroline set her cup down and said, “Aren’t you really asking me about my love life?”
“I suppose,” Jill admitted. “I came clean with you about my past, such as it is, before we had dinner.”
Over the low sound of Ella singing “I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You,” Caroline said, “I wasn’t celibate, Jill. There have been a few women. It was always brief, just during the run of a show usually, or during a vacation somewhere. A few weeks, at most, and I had to leave. I was always honest, and we almost always parted on good terms.”
“Almost always?” Jill knew she was using her lawyer voice, but couldn’t help it.
Caroline sighed, and Jill tried to read her. Was it wistfulness at a good memory or sadness over a bad one? “There was one relationship I thought might be something more,” she said quietly. “The concertmistress of the orchestra at the Palais Garnier, actually. I was doing Marguerite in Faust. She approached me after our first rehearsal with the orchestra. Her father was French but her mother was American, and she’d studied with Lewis Kaplan at Julliard. Anyway, we knew some of the same people in opera, and we became friends. And, after we became lovers, I began to think that we could be together.”
“You loved her,” Jill said, and was surprised at how much the words hurt.
With another sigh, Caroline said, “I did, I think. It’s hard to separate how I felt about Jeanne then with how it ended. She was smart and well-read. She spoke four languages and had traveled the world a lot, as had I, so we had a lot in common at that point in our lives.” Her expression softened, and she added, “She heard music everywhere, in everyday life. We could be sitting in a café, outside, and she could hear music in people’s voices, the traffic, the sounds from the kitchen. I did love that about her.
“Anyway, after the show was over, I took a couple of weeks and we went to Saint-Tropez. It was beautiful, and warm, and being with her was like a dream. I started to believe in love again, and perhaps I was just desperate to be in love once more, more than loving her. As I said, it’s hard for me to know now.”
“What happened?” Jill asked softly.
“We were staying at the Hôtel Byblos. Jeanne and I were leaving one morning, going to the beach, when a man approached us. The two of them proceeded to have a screaming fight in the lobby, to the great distress of the hotel staff. My French was a little taxed figuring out what was going on, but I finally got ‘ma femme.’” She shot Jill a look and translated, “My wife.”
“Jesus, Caroline. She was married?”
“Yes, and to use your frame of reference, I would have sworn a hundred affidavits that she was only interested in sex with women. Which goes to show you how much I knew about it.”
“That sounds about as bad a breakup as possible.”
“Bad enough. I went up upstairs and packed, with Jeanne screaming alternately at him for coming and me for leaving.”
“Did you ever see her again?”
“One extremely sad and uncomfortable meeting in a cab on the way to Charles de Gaulle Airport. Her attempts to explain that they had an open marriage were pretty inadequate, given how upset he was in Saint-Tropez. I still have no idea where he thought she was all those times when she was with me, but I didn’t really care enough to ask by then.”
“I’m so sorry,” was all Jill could think of to say.
“At the time, I was pretty torn up about it, but in the few years since I’ve come to appreciate what I got from the relationship.”
Jill was afraid of the answer but she asked anyway. “What was that?”
Caroline was silent, and they listened to Ella crooning “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.” Finally she said, “The realization that I needed love in my life. I’d been trying to do without it ever since we left each other, but I was never really happy. So I tried, very hard, to fall in love with someone else.”
“Would you still be together if it hadn’t been for the husband, do you think?”
Caroline leaned forward, just a little, and Jill caught a scent of her perfume. The sensory memory of smelling it on Caroline’s skin sent her heart pounding against her chest. “No,” Caroline said. “I would have awakened one morning, sometime, and realized that she wasn’t what I needed.”
Jill didn’t say anything. Caroline reached for her hand and Jill let her have it. Tracing the lines on her palm, Caroline said, “I need you, Jill. I’ve always needed you. I know we said we were just going to reconnect with each other as friends, but that’s not all I really want. And I think you want more than that, too.”
She lifted the hand to her mouth and softly kissed the skin on Jill’s palm. Jill felt the touch burn down her arm into her heart.
She’ll leave you again. Jill choked out, “I told you I didn’t love you anymore, Caroline.”
Caroline lifted her deep violet-blue eyes to Jill’s gaze. “That’s not true, is it?” she whispered.
The burning exploded inside of her, and Jill had her arms around Caroline and her mouth an inch from Caroline’s lips before she realized what she’d done. She hesitated and Caroline whispered into her, “For God’s sake, Jill. Kiss me.�
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Jill kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her jaw, brushing against Caroline and taking in the scent of her skin more deeply. Then she kissed Caroline’s lips and tasted her mouth, a flavor long absent but never forgotten.
She moved her lips to Caroline’s throat, to the spot behind her ear, but always returned to her mouth, drinking Caroline in, letting the taste fill her senses. Caroline leaned back at some point and pulled Jill on top of her, letting her feel the softness of Caroline under her as they kissed.
Then Caroline shifted her body, pressing the two of them more closely together, and Jill realized she was a moment from putting her hands under Caroline’s tunic, reaching for her breasts.
She’ll break your heart again. Jill tore herself away, half falling onto the floor between couch and coffee table.
Caroline sat up abruptly, and said, “Jill. Are you all right?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. Caroline, I can’t do this.”
Jill lifted herself up a little and sat on the coffee table, trying to put some kind of distance between her body and Caroline’s heat.
“Because you don’t love me,” Caroline said, her voice almost mocking.
“Caroline—” she said helplessly.
Caroline stood up and looked down at her. “Let me help you out here, Jill,” she said huskily. “You can go home now, if you need to, but I want you to think about this. I think you do love me, but you’re afraid. You’re afraid to love me, isn’t that it? You love me, but you don’t trust me.”
Really, Jill thought, why did I even bother to try to deceive her? She always saw right through me.“You’re right,” Jill said. “I don’t trust you. And I’m not going to be with someone I can’t trust.”
Caroline was breathing hard, Jill noticed, her eyes dark with arousal. It almost made Jill reach for her again. Caroline said nothing except, “I’ll let you see yourself out.”
Jill fled.
Chapter Ten
Jill was staring at her computer screen on Monday morning when she heard a voice from the doorway.
“Is now a good time, Ms. Allen?”
She looked up to see Kim McGarrett, a young attorney just finishing her second year in Real Property.
“Yes,” Jill answered. “Come in and sit down. It’ll be just a second.”
She finished her review of the document on her screen, then saved it and closed the program. Kim waited patiently. Associates always waited patiently on partners, Jill thought wryly.
“I read the research memo you sent on the RMO-Appelbaum case,” Jill began.
Kim tried to suppress her surprise unsuccessfully. “Did you? I just sent it last night.”
Jill gave her a half-smile. “You’re not the only person working on a Sunday evening,” she remarked. “I read the cases you cited, as well.”
Kim let her shock show. “All of them?” she blurted.
Jill nodded faintly. She’d welcomed the work. It had taken her a few hours to review Kim’s research, a few precious hours when she wasn’t thinking about Saturday night.
She knew she was supposed to be thinking about what Caroline said, analyzing why she didn’t trust Caroline and figuring out how to fix it, but the truth was that she couldn’t think about anything except Caroline’s mouth, Caroline’s body moving under her. Every time she relived the few moments they kissed on the couch, her body hummed with desire in a way she hadn’t felt since…
Since Caroline left.
Kim was looking at her curiously, so Jill continued, “I’d like to go over a couple of the cases with you. Let’s start with the Heflin case.”
Swallowing a little nervously, Kim answered, “In that case, the deed transferring the property contained a provision permitting the grantor to repurchase portions of the property in the future in order to permit them to access the reserved mineral rights.”
“And the provision was unlimited in time? That is, the grantor could repurchase the property at any time in the future?”
“That’s right. And the Supreme Court held that violated the common law rule against perpetuities.”
Jill fixed her with a serene look. “Do you understand the rule?”
Kim looked startled. She said, “The rule states that an interest in real property must vest, if at all, within the time of a life in being plus twenty-one years.”
Jill said, “I know you can recite the rule. I asked you if you actually understood it.”
Kim blinked. “If the interest vests later, if the interest is too remote in time…” She faltered.
“Let’s try this,” Jill interrupted her gently. “What’s the purpose of the rule?”
“I don’t really know, I guess,” she admitted.
“The rule against perpetuities is not just to trip up law- school students in property class, or help the bar examiners flunk applicants,” Jill said humorously, and she saw Kim relax a little. “It’s simply to keep property from being difficult to transfer because of unreasonable restrictions—in this case, restrictions that might apply too far in the future. Does that help?”
Kim exhaled slowly and nodded.
“Did the court find the rule to apply in the Heflin case?” Jill went back to an easy question.
“Yes,” Kim answered confidently. “The option was found to have violated the rule, and so that provision was invalid.”
“I know you read all the case law,” Jill said. “Is the clause in the Rocky Mountain Opera deed valid or in violation of the rule, in your opinion?”
Kim blinked again, several times.
Jill went on, “Your memo discussed the case law in Colorado very extensively, but you didn’t reach a conclusion about our problem.”
“I didn’t think that was my job, I guess,” Kim said.
“You’re a lawyer, too, Kim. You can form an opinion. Whether I share your conclusion or not isn’t the point. It won’t be long before clients will be asking you questions like this, and you need to feel secure giving them an answer.”
She watched in satisfaction as Kim straightened her narrow shoulders slightly and said, “I understand. There is a charitable association exception to the rule…”
They discussed it, as thoroughly as possible, for another forty minutes. Finally Jill sat back. “Let’s assume for a moment that the provision in the RMO deed is invalid. It’s at least arguably so. What course of action would you recommend?”
Kim thought a minute. “We could bring a declaratory judgment action to have the court declare that provision of the deed invalid.”
“We could,” Jill agreed. “But that would make the RMO the plaintiff in the case. And what effect would that have?”
“We would have the burden of proving the provision is invalid.”
“That would be true even if we were the defendant, wouldn’t it? If we assert that the reversion is in violation of the rule, we’ll have the burden of proving that, right?”
“Yes. I guess so.”
“Think about it from another perspective. Not a strictly legal one, but think, instead, about the relationships.”
Kim looked deeply puzzled.
Jill explained, “To an outsider, if we sue, it looks as if the Opera, the recipient of the extremely generous gift years ago from the Appelbaums, is suddenly suing their benefactors over what most people would see as a technicality.”
“Oh,” Kim said. “I didn’t think about it like that.”
“While, on the other hand, if the Appelbaum Foundation sues the RMO in an attempt to enforce the reversion, then the Opera becomes the defendant, the public relations equivalent of the victim, if you will. Do you see? The Foundation will have the burden of proof to show that the provision is valid, and could be seen as the big, bad rich folks trying to take away what might be characterized as an almost public facility.”
“Wow,” Kim said. “I’ve never thought about stuff like this. Does this mean we always want to try to be the defendant in a suit?”
“Not at all. There are times when
being the plaintiff has some distinct advantages. And sometimes you just have no choice. To get what your client needs, you have to take the initiative and file the complaint. The point is, when you do have a choice, you have to think about the consequences of either course of action. And of course you always have to consider what will happen if there’s no lawsuit at all. A number of issues can be resolved before anyone sues.”
Jill could see the wheels turning in Kim’s mind. She sent her off to perform follow up research on a couple of points, then she sat back and turned on her music, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa this time. She couldn’t listen to Caroline sing anymore and still expect to think clearly.
She went over the Kim’s memo again, and later read the follow-up email Kim sent. By lunchtime, she was convinced she had worked out a strategy that might work.
It was time for her to make some telephone calls.
* * *
Caroline’s personal assistant said, “You’re not required to give me presents, Ms. Prince. But let me just add that the more chocolate I get, the harder I work. Especially when I can start the week like this.”
Caroline laughed and pushed the small box of Godiva chocolates she’d just placed on Arthur’s desk a little closer to him. “It’s less an incentive than a thank you.”
“For what?”
“Everything,” she said, and to her dismay, she found her eyes tearing up. Arthur saw it at once and hustled her into her office and onto the sofa.
“I’m all right.” She tried simultaneously to reassure him and to stop crying.
Arthur retrieved a handful of tissues from the box on his desk and gave her a cup of water. Then he sat down next to her and gave her knee a comforting pat.
“Tell Uncle Arthur all about it,” he said.
She tried to smile. “Uncle Arthur,” she repeated. “Wasn’t he a character on Bewitched?”
Arthur preened a little and said, “Paul Lynde. A card-carrying friend of Dorothy, I might add.”
“As was Darrin Number Two, I believe,” Caroline added.
“What a nice, tall drink of water that one was,” Arthur grinned. He gave her a curious look. “I must admit I’m surprised by your familiarity with popular culture.”