One Fine Day

by Erica Abbott

  * * *

  Caroline dressed carefully on Friday morning. The appointment with the Appelbaum Foundation attorneys was set for that afternoon, and she wanted to look the part of the serious, sensible representative of the Rocky Mountain Opera board. She tried on the camel-hair dress first, but it looked too casual. Her favorite blue silk dress was at the dry cleaners, and the only formal suit she had, a gray wool pinstripe, wasn’t right for May.

  Life had been so much easier when someone else was picking out her costumes for her.

  Finally, she decided on a twill A-line navy skirt and paisley silk blouse: professional but not too stuffy. The morning at the office passed slowly as she became aware of her increasing anxiety about the meeting. It was nerves about the outcome, she reassured herself—it had nothing to do with seeing Jill again.

  Just before she was supposed to leave for Bill Emerson’s office, Jill called her.

  “Hi,” Caroline said. “We’re still on for today, right? I wouldn’t want to have wasted all this nail-biting for nothing.”

  Jill said, “We’re still on. And you’ve never bitten your nails.”

  “It was a metaphor. Or was it a simile? I always get those two mixed up.”

  “Technically, it was neither. I’ll be happy to discuss rhetoric with you later, but I need to know if you’re willing for me to pick you up. Kim, my associate, is going with us, but needs to drive her own car because she’s leaving after the meeting. Parking is a nightmare, and there’s no reason for us to have three cars there.”

  “I would be very happy for you to pick me up,” Caroline said, trying not to sound as if she were talking about some other kind of encounter entirely. “I’ll come downstairs.”

  When Jill pulled her BMW to the curb, Caroline got in as quickly as she could to keep from blocking traffic. Jill wore what Caroline assumed was one of her power suits: charcoal gray, with a deep purple blouse that Caroline would have called eggplant but was probably described in some catalog as “aubergine.”

  Glancing over at her, Jill said, “You look nice. Very suitable for an attorney’s office.”

  Caroline smoothed her skirt over her knees. “I’d feel better in a silk kimono and very large black wig. Then I’d know my lines.”

  “You’ll be fine. I’m going to do some hardball negotiating and see if we can get what we need, so your job is to look appropriately haughty and agree with everything I say.”

  “Haughty is no problem, but agreeing with you? That might be a stretch.”

  Jill stopped at a traffic light and turned to look at her directly. “Caroline, I know we need to talk. Let’s get through this and then—maybe we can go out for a drink or something afterward. If you’re free.”

  “I’m free,” Caroline said softly, feeling her heartbeat speed up.

  The light changed, and Jill said, “We’ll be there in a minute.”

  The building containing the law firm of Wright & Emerson was appropriately imposing, a glass and steel skyscraper. They waited by the bank of elevators, and in the minute it took for a car to arrive, a group of men came up behind them. As the doors slid open, Jill and Caroline stepped to the back of the car as the men crowded in front of them.

  Caroline had to slide close to Jill to give everyone enough a room to get in. Jill called out, “Thirty-three, please,” and one of the men by the call buttons punched in their floor.

  The elevator rose slowly, and Caroline felt Jill’s presence begin to permeate her skin, stirring heat from deep within. The warmth began to concentrate between her legs, making her feel as if she were going to have to strip her clothes off to keep from spontaneously combusting. She leaned back against the rear wall, trying to regain control over her senses.

  Jill brushed the back of her hand with her fingertips and murmured, “Are you all right?”

  The touch fanned the flames already roaring through her. If she could have gotten to Jill at that moment she knew she would have thrown her arms around her, begging Jill to touch her. She tried to regulate her breathing, to cool down.

  Jill whispered again, “Are you okay?”

  Caroline managed a nod. “I’ll be fine,” she said quietly, and hoped it would be true.

  The crowd of men left on floor twenty-two, and Caroline moved away from Jill to the other corner of the car, feeling her temperature begin to return to normal as the space between them increased. Jill gave her a curious look and said, “You didn’t used to be claustrophobic. Or are you even more nervous about this meeting than I thought?”

  Caroline tried to laugh. “This is worse than waiting backstage for my first entrance,” she said lightly. But she wondered why Jill couldn’t feel it too, the heat between them.

  They exited on their floor, on the main entrance to Wright & Emerson. Jill gave the receptionist their names, and they were shown to a small conference room with an eastern view of downtown Denver. They were offered coffee or tea. Jill declined and Caroline settled for bottled water.

  A couple of minutes later, a young woman with brown hair tucked up in a chignon hurried in, carrying a briefcase.

  “Sorry,” she said to Jill. “Parking was awful, and I had to walk five blocks.”

  “You’re fine,” Jill said. “Caroline, this is my associate, Kim McGarrett. Kim, this is the artistic director of the RMO, Caroline Prince.”

  Kim put her briefcase on the table so that she could shake hands with Caroline. “It’s an honor,” she said a little breathlessly. “I’m not really an opera fan, but even I’ve heard of you.”

  Caroline gave her the star power smile and said, “I’m very happy to meet you, Kim. Jill said you’ve been a great help to her.”

  She saw Jill’s sideways glance. Jill hadn’t mentioned Kim, but it only seemed polite to be nice to Jill’s assistant.

  Kim opened her briefcase, and Caroline noticed for the first time that Jill wasn’t carrying anything except her purse. Kim got out a file folder and a laptop, turned the computer on, and nodded to Jill.

  “I’ve got everything, the memo and the extra copies of the cases for them.”

  Jill said, “Good,” then folded her hands serenely and waited.

  Caroline tried not to look at her watch, but sneaked a peek anyway. “Aren’t they late?” she said in a half-whisper. “It’s their office, shouldn’t they be on time?”

  Jill said calmly, “Perhaps Bill is waiting for his client. Or maybe being late is some gamesmanship. The best way to counter that kind of tactic is not to care.”

  Caroline watched Kim give Jill a look of undisguised admiration. She felt a tiny snarl of jealousy, then stepped on it ruthlessly. It was just professional appreciation, she told herself.

  It was seven and a half minutes later when the door opened and three people came in: a young man who opened the door, then stepped back for his elders to enter first, a tall, tan man with white hair, and the venerable Mrs. Appelbaum. The trio seated themselves across from Jill, Caroline, and Kim, and introductions were exchanged. The man with the deep tan was Bill Emerson and the younger man was his associate, Michael something-or-other.

  As the lawyers began their preliminary posturing, Caroline sat back and worked on casting decisions for the people around the conference table. Emerson would be a baritone, playing the main villain, like Scarpia in Tosca, perhaps. His associate would be Scarpia’s assistant, Spoletta, a tenor and a minor character. Mrs. Appelbaum would have to come from some other opera, a duchess or queen or something. Oh, she had it: the Countess in The Queen of Spades, by Tchaikovsky. Caroline could hear the quavering voice singing Laurette’s Aria in her mind. It almost made her laugh out loud.

  She herself was Cio-Cio San, Madama Butterfly, of course, the beautiful, trusting, and betrayed heroine. She could easily cast Kim as the mezzo-soprano Suzuki, Butterfly’s faithful maid servant.

  This left Jill, and Caroline studied her profile. The memory of the heated moments in the elevator were sharply present in her body still, and she couldn’t bring he
rself to cast Jill, even in her imagination, as Butterfly’s lover, the faithless Lieutenant Pinkerton.

  She suppressed a sigh. She needed a lesbian opera to cast Jill properly, with the heroines overcoming the usual operatic obstacles to live happily ever after. Patience and Sarah, perhaps? She really wanted a Marian Anderson contralto who would be perfect to sing Jill’s part. Though Anderson herself didn’t perform in opera, she’d sung many operatic arias in her concert and recital career, and she had a voice of unparalleled depth and beauty. Yes, she could hear Jill’s operatic alter ego singing a duet with Caroline’s soaring soprano.

  Then she remembered that she wasn’t an opera singer any longer. She was an artistic director, and she wasn’t paying enough attention to the discussion.

  Emerson was saying, “The performance of selected arias, even from operas, is not the performance of an opera itself. The provision in the deed clearly contemplates nothing less than a full production of an opera. Announcing this other show…” he hesitated and snapped his fingers at Michael What’s-his-name, who began to scramble for some piece of paper.

  Jill supplied coolly, “It’s called Hits You’ve Never Heard, and every aria in the program is from an opera.”

  “Nevertheless,” Emerson persisted, “the covenant in the deed provides that the property is to be used ‘solely for production of opera.’ Assorted arias are not ‘opera’ as contemplated by the deed.”

  Kim handed Jill a document before she even asked, and Jill offered it to Emerson. “This is our firm’s research memo on the legal issue presented by the deed,” she said. Her voice was smooth and cold as steel, and Caroline wondered if she really felt as calm as she sounded. She didn’t know this Jill very well, she realized. The young Jill had always been self-controlled, but Caroline had been able to read her moods. She was out of practice.

  Emerson flipped through the first couple of pages disdainfully, then stopped suddenly, his eyes on the page. Then he lifted an openly hostile gaze to Jill.

  “You’re not serious,” he said, his tone dripping with condescension.

  Caroline saw Mrs. Appelbaum’s frown.

  Jill spoke. “The provision in the deed vests the interest in the opera house property in the Foundation beyond a life in being plus twenty-one years. As a result, it clearly violates the common law rule against perpetuities, which is, as you know, in effect in Colorado.”

  Caroline had no idea what any of that meant, but she could see Emerson going a little pale under his tan, and the furrows on Mrs. Appelbaum’s face going deep enough to plant corn.

  “William, what is this about?” she asked in irritation. Oh, yes, definitely The Queen of Spades.

  Emerson held up his hand to silence her. “Ms. Allen, if this is an attempt to pressure my client into refusing to enforce the provision in the deed, it is a poor one indeed.”

  “Why is that?” Jill asked.

  “Because…because this rule has nothing to do with this case.”

  “Actually, it has everything to do with it. If the RMO is put in a position to litigate the provision in the deed, I assure you we will establish the fact that the provision is unenforceable.”

  They argued about it for a few more minutes, Emerson bullying and forceful, an ineffective blowtorch to Jill’s frozen lake. After a while Caroline wondered what the point of all of this was, for it seemed obvious that Jill wasn’t going to convince Emerson that she was right, any more than Emerson was going to make Jill back down. That speech about the rule Jill had given had clearly shaken him, but he wasn’t going to make any concessions, especially in front of Mrs. Appelbaum.

  Why had Jill insisted on the clients being here, anyway? If the attorneys were just going to argue, it looked as though they were going to court after all.

  Finally, Jill leaned back in her chair, her hands resting lightly on the arms. Caroline felt a change in the energy of the room, as when the audience went still just before the overture began.

  “You may be right,” Jill said, and Caroline saw Kim tense up beside her. “Perhaps the clause will apply to the show, and possibly a court might find the rule doesn’t apply. But I think you must concede that it is at least possible that a court would find that the provision is in violation of the rule against perpetuities, true?”

  “Anything is possible,” he blustered, “but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “But I don’t have to,” Jill said, and Emerson glared at her again. “You should glance at the Temple Buell case on the bottom of the second page of the memo.”

  He didn’t lift the page. “I’m hardly going to accept your interpretation of case law.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to. Here is a copy of the court’s opinion for your review.”

  Kim handed the pages to Jill, who passed it onto Emerson. He half-flung it at the startled Michael.

  “Maybe this would be a good time for a break,” Jill suggested calmly. “It would give you a chance to look at the case. We’ll wait here.”

  Emerson left angrily, without another word, leaving Michael to escort Mrs. Appelbaum and gather paperwork.

  After they had gone, Jill said softly, “Kim, would you mind closing the door?”

  Kim rose. “Actually, I need to use the ladies’ room. Is that okay?”

  Jill smiled. “Of course. See you in a minute.”

  Kim shut the door behind her and Caroline swiveled her chair toward Jill. “Is there any possible way you can explain to me what the hell is going on without my having to give up three years of my life to go to law school?”

  “I’ll try. How are you holding up?”

  “The more Mrs. Appelbaum frowns, the more nervous I get. Do you really have something to work with, or are you running some kind of bluff?”

  “A little of both. Our legal position is solid, but so is theirs. This is more a matter of who blinks first. Or who is more willing to risk bad public opinion.”

  Caroline shook her head. “Sorry. I’m still confused.”

  “In a nutshell, if we went to court, they could win. Or we could. The rule I cited to him is so damned complicated, even courts can hardly ever figure it out.”

  “So you’re just trying to confuse them?”

  “No, I’m trying to scare them.”

  “You think they won’t sue us over the deed?”

  “I’m hoping not, at least not after he reads the Temple Buell case.”

  “And what does this magical case say that’s so scary?”

  Jill smiled, a wicked smile that made Caroline’s heart stutter. “It says that whether the clause in the deed is valid or not, we can sue the lawyers who drafted it for malpractice.”

  “What?” Caroline was astonished.

  The wolfish smile broadened. “In the Temple Buell case, a charitable foundation had to litigate whether or not a provision in a deed violated the rule against the perpetuities. The foundation won, but then they sued their lawyers, claiming that if the attorneys had done their job properly, they would never have had to go to court over the deed in the first place. The appeals court said that it was the law firm’s responsibility to prevent the litigation, and the appeals court let the suit against the law firm go forward. The firm settled out of court after that, I believe, for a lot of money.”

  Caroline took a minute to absorb what Jill was saying. “Wait. Who drafted the RMO deed in the first place?”

  Now the smile threatened to split Jill’s face. “Why, the esteemed law firm of Wright and Emerson, of course.”

  “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That’s why you wanted Mrs. Appelbaum here!”

  “See, you’re getting good at this strategy game. I wanted her to see that it was her own lawyers—or their grandfathers, I suppose—who screwed up. After reading the Temple Buell case, I’m hoping Emerson comes back in here with a much more reasonable attitude. Because if we settle this whole thing today, no one will ever know how badly his firm botched drafting the deed.”

  Caroline stared at Jill wordlessly.


  “What?” Jill said at last.

  “My God, you’re a genius. I mean, I always knew you were smart, but this is…amazing.”

  “I’m not a genius, Caroline. The law was already out there. I told Kim what to look for, and she found it.”

  “I’m not talking about the case. I’m talking about all of this. The meeting, the clients, the way you put the knife to Emerson. You’re brilliant.”

  “Be sure to tell that to the RMO board at your next meeting,” Jill said wryly.

  * * *

  When they had all reassembled, Caroline could see the changes in Emerson and Mrs. Appelbaum, and knew somehow that Jill had won. Emerson was still argumentative, but his heart had gone out of it, and Jill quietly, persistently made her point: Litigation would be bad for everyone.

  “Regardless of who wins, we’ll all lose,” Jill summarized at one point. “Bad publicity for the Foundation, some large legal bills for both the Foundation and the RMO, money that could be better spent on our original missions. Not to mention a year or two of uncertainty.”

  Mrs. Appelbaum snapped, “We should have the opera house back. All this legal mumbo-jumbo is nonsense.”

  “Mrs. Appelbaum,” Jill said patiently, “I’m sure your attorney has explained to you that legal rights are much more than technicalities and boilerplate. Instead of finger-pointing, let’s find a way we can all benefit from this situation.”

  “And what would that be?” she snapped at Jill, and Caroline watched Emerson flinch. He’d apparently lost control of his client.

  “We have a proposal to benefit the Foundation while permitting the RMO to retain the ownership of the opera house. We will propose to the Opera board changing the name of the opera house to the Jonah T. Appelbaum Opera House.”

  Mrs. Appelbaum narrowed her eyes. “You’re going to name the building after my grandfather?”

  “Yes. He donated the building to the RMO in the first place, and it seems entirely appropriate to name it after him. Don’t you agree, Ms. Prince?”

  Caroline remembered her lines without difficulty: agree with Jill. “Absolutely,” she answered enthusiastically. “I’m sure the board will think this is a splendid idea.”