A Southern Girl: A Novel

by John Warley

  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.”

  “That’s what you meant, and it may be what you said, but what you were thinking is that you’ve strayed into the office of a southern sheriff.”

  “I really don’t understand your attitude, Mr. Carter. I came here because I thought we might help you solve a problem.”

  “But your very first sentence contained the word ‘lawsuit.’” “Is that significant?”

  “It is indicative,” I reply.

  “Of … ?”

  “Of a mindset that thinks every problem ought to be litigated. Do you really think I’d sue my friends over this?”

  “If you’re talking about some kind of compromise or negotiation, it simply doesn’t work. The people excluding your daughter aren’t going to be fazed by logic or fairness.”

  “You seem to know them pretty well after … what, two months in Charleston?”<
br />
  She turns toward the window, her dark hair shifting on her shoulders and her profile sculpturesque against a far wall. “I’ve spent several days sightseeing. This is a lovely city.”

  “Thank you,” I say, softening against my will. Compliments to Charleston affect me like a sorbet, cleansing the palate of lingering aftertastes.

  She rises, crosses the room to an end table, and picks up a framed photo of Allie. “This must be your daughter.”

  “Yes.”

  “What a beautiful young woman. Her age?”

  “Seventeen; still needing her father’s consent to file a lawsuit, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Or her mother’s,” Natalie Berman counters.

  “That’s going to be tough to get. She’s dead.”

  “I’m truly sorry.”

  As she replaces the picture I sneak a look at my watch. It is past 6:30 and I am feeling the gravity of a ten hour day pulling me downward. “If you’re parked outside, I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “No need,” she says pleasantly.

  In the elevator, she hands me her card. “If you change your mind, call me,” she urges. “Perhaps there is something short of suing that will help.”

  “Maybe,” I say to be polite. “Enjoy your evening.”

  From the car I call Adelle. She has not eaten either and I agree to pick her up in thirty minutes.

  Mr. Quan’s restaurant is the Red Dragon. Its decor is stark, consisting of aluminum and Formica tables like those found in most kitchens in the 50s and 60s. The lighting is dim, to save utility costs. The walls, bare but for a few scattered Chinese characters, display brass plates, hung randomly and representing, I suppose, yin or yang or happiness or who knows what. There is piped-in music, the Asian equivalent of elevator junk featuring those high-pitched discordant strings. I don’t appreciate this music; to my western ear it all sounds like a recording of a cat being tortured. I eat here often for one compelling reason: the food is great and not expensive. Adelle and I are shown to my usual table near the back.

  Mr. Quan emerges from the kitchen, spots us, and hustles over with two menus. I have never been here when he was not, and I can only guess that the number of hours he works each week exceeds eighty.

  “Good evening,” he says in his competent English, smiling broadly. Although I am a perdurable customer and generous tipper, anyone off the street gets the same congenial greeting. He bows faintly from the waist to Adelle. “So nice to see you, Mrs. Roberts.” To me he says, “And may I say how wise you look these days.”

  I regard him suspiciously. “Wise sounds like a euphemism for old.” I see his brow knit and guess he is struggling with the language. “Euphemism; it means a less offensive way of saying what you really mean.”

  “Ah,” the owner says, mischief in his eyes, “then allow me to say how exceedingly wise you appear this evening.” Adelle laughs with him as I glare at both.

  “Adelle, is there still time to stop payment on the check for my party?” I insist that Mr. Quan join us. The room is in its familiar rhythm, with a steady drone of dinner crowd conversation muffling the cat torture. In the kitchen, the clang of dueling woks can be heard each time the double doors swing wide. Pert aromas of ginger and garlic and soy-based oils seduce us, an irresistible foreplay to the meal itself. Adelle compliments him on the food at the party as I nod agreement.

  “I am most pleased with the catering,” he says. “When I began, I thought it would be a small part of my enterprise, but it grows stronger each year.” He likes to refer to his business as an “enterprise” for the connotation of something grand and sprawling. When I helped renegotiate his lease three years before, his accountant provided his financial statements. From those, I concluded that not only was enterprise a fair characterization but that he could buy most people I represent.

  Mr. Quan has accumulated all he has since his arrival in 1977. One gold nugget, he swears, is all that remained after his grueling exodus from Vietnam. The boat on which he escaped was direly overloaded, and in addition to a constant threat of capsize it faced pirates, who boarded in three separate raids before the boat reached Malaysia. He will not say where he hid the nugget; only that he started with many and that, after the first raid, he secreted his last one in a “place not easily searched.” Upon arrival in Charleston, he borrowed $10,000 from a network of Vietnamese émigrés already settled here. He repaid it in six months. He lives over the Red Dragon, with no family and no close friends as far as I can tell. He refuses to discuss his life in Vietnam prior to becoming a boat-person, and I know little of his politics with the exception that at the mention of the word “communist,” his face contorts in a grimace of disdain, and watching him I sense the leap to hatred would be very short.

  He motions for a waitress and we order. The waitress is American, but all the cooks and waiters are Vietnamese. He inquires about Christopher, and at Adelle’s mention of sore ribs I can only smile inwardly.

  “And how is Allie?” he asks. “After your party there was much discussion of her among my boys.” He cants his head toward the back, indicating the kitchen.

  “She’s fine,” I reply. “She mentioned the other day that she might apply here for a job this summer.”

  Adelle’s face grows quizzical. “Oh? I thought she had a job all lined up with a camp in New England.”

  “You mean the riding camp in Vermont she worked at last summer. They’ve invited her back but she isn’t sure she’ll go.”

  Mr. Quan says, “She is most welcome here. I would consider it a privilege to employ her.”

  “Great,” I say. “I’ll let her know. By the way, what do you hear about travel to the Far East these days?”

  He shifts in his chair before answering. “Two of my employees have been to Vietnam recently. They say things are opening up and that U.S. dollars go very far. They lived like royal princes for ten days.”

  “In Ho Chi Minh City?” I ask, thoughtlessly flaunting political correctness.

  “In Saigon,” Mr. Quan counters. “It will always be Saigon.” After an awkward pause, during which we momentarily avoid eye contact, he says, “Why do you ask?”

  “Allie wants me to take her to Korea. For graduation.”

  “And will you?”

  “Haven’t decided. We don’t know the language, Seoul, anything really.”

  “Yes, those are concerns,” he acknowledges, then as an afterthought says, “I have a brother there.”

  I whistle softly. “I had no idea.”

  “My only brother. He left Vietnam before me. In the refugee camp in Malaysia, he had a chance to go to Seoul. I waited for America. He also owns an enterprise.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “He visited me. Almost ten years ago.”

  Adelle, until then a passive listener, suddenly becomes animated. “I know,” she says, looking at me, “Mr. Quan should go with you.”

  I say, “That’s an idea.”

  He smiles wanly. “It is most thoughtful of you to suggest, but I am afraid that would be impossible. I have my enterprise, all these employees depending upon me.”

  “But everyone takes a vacation,” Adelle says.

  He bobs his head in seeming agreement but all his facial features are at odds with her suggestion. “No, Mrs. Roberts, for me a return to Asia could not be a vacation. I will never go back. And now, if you can excuse me, I will see what is holding up your dinners.”

  We watch him retreat through the swinging doors.

  “He certainly closed that discussion,” she says.

  “Politely but firmly.”

  “I wonder what it was like for him there,” she muses.

  “Who knows? With the war, the U.S. withdrawal, the communists taking over, it must have been ugly for unrepentant South Vietnamese, and Mr. Quan is clearly one of those.”

  Our soup arrives, followed by entrees. My sesame chicken in curry is delectable and Adelle reports her pork the same. I mention my
visit from Natalie Berman.

  “But how did she know of the vote? We all swore secrecy. That’s why I haven’t been able to discuss it with you, and it’s so frustrating because I want to and I know you’re curious.”

  “Someone called her, she wouldn’t say who.”

  “Male or female?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Adelle says, perplexed. “If you could have been a fly on the wall of that room; if you could have heard people who masquerade as your friends. It made me sick, that’s all I can say. I can just imagine that group of old fogies turning thumbs down on Christopher; I’d strangle them, particularly Jeanette Wilson, the bitch. Well, what now?”

  I look past her. “I wish I knew.”

  22

  Sarah, for all her geriatric vivacity, needs help with the yard. At least twice a year we dedicate a Saturday to her place on Sullivan’s. This morning, Allie and I stop at the college, pick up Steven, and the three of us, dressed in the oldest clothes we could find, are on the causeway headed east. We have not seen Steven since the weekend of my party so there is catching up to do.

  “Physics is going to kill me, that’s all there is to it,” he is saying from the passenger seat and I flash a look in the rear view mirror to warn Allie against gloating over her grades in science.

  “Boy, you and me both,” she says heavily. This is worse, I think disapprovingly. Condescension; how unseemly. “I panicked toward the end of last semester.” She lets us ponder this anomaly in silence before adding, “Yep, toward the end I was afraid I would have to buy a textbook.” Steven, stone-faced, fishes into the glove box, grabs a map, and flings it over his shoulder as she ducks, laughing gleefully.

  Watching these two spar is like watching heredity and environment go fifteen rounds for the title. Steven and Josh are both their father’s sons, a fact simultaneously pleasing and terrifying. When Josh was three, running around the yard chasing the neighbor’s dog, I noticed he ran on his heels. Instantly, I knew that run, and I accurately predicted he would be straining, as I did, for middling speed as an athlete, struggling to break twelve seconds in a hundred yard dash on his best day in sports. To a confirmed jock, the run of his teammates is as distinctive as a photograph, and on a football team with seventy guys dressed out but without numerals on their jerseys, I could have named all of them from fifty yards away by watching them run a few strides. Put Josh in my old uniform, slap No. 50 on his back, and you couldn’t get odds from my teammates that it wasn’t me lumbering along under those shoulder pads. The Carter forehead, the curl of his hair in humidity, the square chin, the green eyes all attest to a biological unity.