A Southern Girl: A Novel

by John Warley

  Harris nods several times as he listens, rolling his eyes as Leslie evidently runs through preliminaries. Then he stops. His head is quite still and his eyes are animated. “I see now,” he says, “why it was important for you to speak with him. Can I get back to you? … Half hour? … Thanks.”

  “Bad news?” I ask.

  He covers his face with his hands and mutters, “The worst. Leslie’s been doing her job, dammit. The word is out on the reason for tabling the contract at tonight’s hearing. She and Scott Edwards are working on this together now and she’s trying to reach you for comment.”

  “What a bite,” I say.

  “What an opportunity,” he counters. “Now’s a great time to clear the air. Call her back and tell her it’s all a big misunderstanding. If you’d rather, I’ll call and say it for you.”

  “I’m still not prepared to do that,” I say.

  “Well, perhaps you need to get prepared,” he says. “Coleman, they’re running another story tomorrow, this time reporting the fear in City Hall that you’re coming after them. This entire thing is getting ridiculous.”

  I pick up the lead crystal swan paperweight from the desk, palming it from one hand to the other and avoiding eye contact. He rises, walks briskly around his desk and shuts the door to his outer office. “Sit down, partner,” he commands.

  “You know,” he says, seating himself opposite me and waxing into a tone relaxed on its surface but undergirded with impatience, “you haven’t been yourself for some time now. Are you aware of that?”

  “Yeah,” I acknowledge, still holding the swan.

  “What is it, some mid-life thing?”

  “I’m stumped,” I admit. “Can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Have you thought about some counseling?”

  “Let’s just say I haven’t done anything about it.”

  Harris folds his arms across his chest. “You seemed okay after Elizabeth died. Sad, grief-stricken naturally, but okay. You know what I mean?”

  I nod absently, looking at the swan.

  “If you don’t want to talk about it I understand but—”

  I hold up my hand, palm out. “It’s not that. I appreciate your concern.”

  “I’m not the only one who’s noticed,” he says. “You need some time off?”

  “That might help,” I agree. “The workload here saved me in the months after Elizabeth, but it doesn’t seem to be working anymore. I’m not sleeping, and when I’m here I have an awful time concentrating.”

  “You’ve got a lot on you right now—”

  “I don’t think that’s it. If anything, it might be not having enough on me.” Harris looks confused, and with cause since I, the one talking, have no real idea of where this is going either. “I don’t really need the money,” I say. “The clients irritate me, frankly. It’s as though the end of the world is coming and they all want to get theirs before they go. No one wants to get sued but they think nothing of suing others. The divorces get me down; I stopped doing them because I got sick and tired of listening to people who, with a straight face and at two hundred dollars an hour, lay all the ills of mankind at the feet of their mates.”

  Harris whistles softly. “You do need some time away.”

  But I am off and running now, still thrashing around in the woods but moving, putting some distance between where I am and where I was. I charge on. “Josh is grown and off, Steven’s away, and Allie won’t be far behind. Then what? Prop my feet up on Church Street and wait for death?”

  Harris gazes with indulgent sobriety. Yet, in this instant, I cannot help wishing he was someone other than who he is. Our relationship is such that I can say to him, without fear of reproach, anything that comes to mind, no matter how disjointed. If my need is for a sympathetic ear, his is unfailingly reliable. But his dutiful attention stems from innate appreciation for the value of being a good listener rather than an intensity for what is being said. He is not a man who easily assimilates feelings or experiences beyond his own.

  After a pause, he says, “Maybe you just need to get laid.”

  Harris often prescribes this remedy for a variety of ills, but I know he has said it only to lighten the air. He is a model of marital fidelity. I think of Adelle’s bra coiled behind the couch, poised to strike, and a fresh blush kindles. It is odd that when I think of her, even Adelle naked, this blush now overrides every emotion which should compete with it. I tell myself that desire, longing, passion, hunger should rule my idle images of Adelle in bed, Adelle aggressive, Adelle in heat. Yet I resist. There is something missing. The bedroom of our relationship is new but the furniture is somehow worn and familiar. I have just realized, while talking with Harris, that the errant bra is the most exciting stimulus I have discovered with Adelle, and that cannot be normal.

  Harris leans forward in his chair and places a meaty, comradely hand on my knee. His impatience is gone, replaced by a businessman’s determination to close the sale. “Coleman, we’ve got sixteen lawyers here depending on us. Losing this contract with the city wouldn’t be the end of Carter & Deas but getting it would mean a lot to what you and I have built here, not to mention what it will mean personally to the other partners and associates who count on us. You know damn good and well you’re not going to sue the St. Simeon. You’d be the last person in this city to sue your friends. We both know that as sure as we’re sitting here. Don’t we?”

  “Yeah, I guess we do.”

  “Then let’s call Leslie McKeller and tell her that. She’ll print it, the flap in City Hall will go away, and we’ll get the contract that all but has our name on it now. What do you say?”

  “You’re right. Do you have her number?”

  “Right here,” he says, withdrawing the message from his shirt pocket.

  I stand, walk to his phone and dial. Leslie comes on the line and I tell her that I have “absolutely” no intention, “now or in the future,” of suing the St. Simeon.

  “In other words, Mr. Carter, you are categorically ruling out legal action.”

  “Correct,” I say.

  “Very well. I’ll quote you.”

  As I hang up, Harris beams his approval. “Spoken by a true statesman,” he says. “I’m sure the newspaper is crestfallen that it won’t get to stir this pot any longer, but you couldn’t have made it any plainer.”

  Later that evening, I watch the evening news. The lead is the continuing crisis in the Soviet Union, followed by the Swilling trial. Roland Swilling is on direct examination by his attorneys and there is speculation the trial will last longer than the two weeks originally projected. Then, the council meeting. A camera pans the chamber and I get a fleeting glimpse of Harris seated in the second row. A rail-thin male reporter in a tailored suit and a L.A. haircut speculates on council’s decision to delay voting on the Arts Center contract.

  “The city attorney recommended tabling the matter until his office could assess a potential claim against the city by a local attorney whose daughter has been denied membership in the prestigious St. Simeon Society,” he reports. He does not use my name or Allie’s, perhaps on advice from the network’s attorneys. Clearly, Leslie has not shared my disclaimer with her rivals in the media.

  Oh well, I console myself. Tomorrow, the paper will quash this canard and the Carter family will step from the spotlight it never sought in the first place.

  26

  Leslie McKeller’s story is brief, accurate and buried on page six, befitting disavowals that puncture inflated stories trying to achieve altitude. With alarm, I find myself packing the paper in my briefcase, as if to remove it from Allie’s view.

  I study her at breakfast for signs that she is disappointed in me, as disappointed as I am with my token resistance to Harris’s blandishments. Perhaps he was right; no amount of time or thought would have produced a different result. Allie seems distant, occupied, so it is with some relief that I accept her invitation to accompany her to the Red Dragon for a summer job interview.

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nbsp; By the time we reach the restaurant, she is her old self again. Mr. Quan insists on feeding us, as he always does, then suggests we adjourn upstairs where we can talk privately. We climb the stairs behind the kitchen, its clangor of woks and dishes incessant.

  He unlocks the door and steps aside, ushering us in with a wave of his arm. We enter a living room singularly free of whatever mysticism I may have anticipated. A vinyl-covered couch is against the far wall. At each end of the couch are end tables of motel quality and on these rest large ceramic lamps with fading shades. There is a coffee table, some old issues of Newsweek mixed among magazines in Vietnamese. Against the left wall, facing the street, is an entertainment center with wooden nooks for a wide-screen TV, a large and obviously expensive sound system, racks of videos and CD’s and tapes, many of them classical. Two chairs of the recliner variety, cumbersome and covered with imitation leather, angle simultaneously toward the couch and TV. The rug is a short-pile shag in a 70’s earth tone. On the wall to our right are two bookcases separated by a doorway leading to the rest of the unit. Mr. Quan motions Allie to a recliner and I take the other as he seats himself on the couch.

  “Your father,” he says, looking at her, “tells me you have interest in working with my enterprise for the summer.”

  “Yes, sir,” acknowledges Allie formally. “I plan to live at home to save everything I can for college. If you can use me I would be thrilled to get the job.”

  He turns briefly and throws me a look of playful skepticism. “And are you quite sure you would be here to work or is it possible you have your eyes on the young men I employ.”

  Allie laughs with him. “I’m a hard worker. You can ask my dad.” She glances at me for support.

  “The boys hold no attraction for you?” he asks. “They will be veddy disappointed.” Mr. Quan’s English is almost flawless, but the word “very” he insists on mispronouncing the way Churchill insisted on torturing, to the satisfaction of millions, the word “Nazi.” Perhaps he does it as a subconscious reminder that English is his second tongue, but for whatever reason “very” one of only a few words and phrases marring his virtual mastery of our language.

  “I have a boyfriend,” she says with the trace of modesty.

  “Ah! The young man you were with on the night of your father’s party. A handsome boy.”

  “Thank you. Christopher’s very nice.”

  “And veddy lucky to have attracted such a young woman as yourself. Now, when are you able to begin work?”

  Allie looks at me pointedly. “It depends on whether Dad gives me the graduation present I want. I finish school on the seventh of June. I could start right away unless …”

  “Unless your father takes you to Korea,” Mr. Quan says. “He mentioned the possibility of such a trip.” He turns to me. “Any decision yet? It will be most difficult to deny a request from such an outstanding daughter.”

  “Tell me about it,” I say, stifling a grin. “No, no decision yet. I’ve had so many distractions lately I’ve had very little time to think about June.”

  Mr. Quan lifts his eyebrows. “The newspaper? Yes, I have read of your troubles with our city and with this society.” He takes a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and lights up, holding it palm-inward in the European style so that I picture him in a French cafe. “It is a reminder to me that as good as Charleston has been to me, it is not home.” Turning to Allie, he says, “My suggestion. Do not let this get you down, young lady. Our people, yours and mine, would do the same. Were your father there, rather than we here, they would exclude him also.”

  “But this is America,” she says. “We’re not content with many attitudes prevalent in Asia.”

  “You are correct,” he acknowledges. “Especially where women are concerned.” Turning back to me, he says, “Did you know that I catered the St. Simeon last year?”

  “Adelle mentioned that,” I say. “I haven’t attended for a while.”

  “They have contacted me again but in light of their position on your daughter I must decline.”

  “That’s very loyal of you,” I say. “But I’d hate to see you hurt your business over something you can’t control.”

  “My humble protest,” he says, blowing a curl of smoke upward. “My enterprise will do well without it. I read in the paper that your enterprise is affected as well.”

  “I think the worst is over,” I say.

  “Do not be discouraged by governments. They are of no consequence.”

  “Really?” I say, unable to contain my surprise that a man still a refugee from his native country would make such a statement. “They can make life hell if they aren’t stable. But I don’t guess I need to tell you that.”

  He watches me strangely, as though newly aware of my presence. “You refer to Vietnam?”

  “Of course,” I say, suddenly uncomfortable in that he never discusses it.

  “Life is hell no matter who is in charge,” he says. “The government in Saigon was corrupt, only slightly better than the group of cutthroats in Hanoi, and neither could change the nature of existence. There was suffering before, there is suffering now.”

  I cannot let this pass without protest. “But here in the United States, in Charleston, there is a freely elected government, and fundamental rights. Those make a difference.”

  “You remind me veddy tactfully that I have been free to build my enterprise here, without the oppression I encountered there.”

  “I don’t know what you encountered there,” I say, pausing to let him tell me. He stares at me blankly and says nothing. “But the quality of your life here has to beat anything you experienced in all that turmoil.”

  “Only in one respect,” he says, “and perhaps not the one you mean. Here I have money, I have security in my enterprise, but these are minor benefits.”

  “Minor?”

  “You are surprised, and I must sound to you ungrateful for this country. I am not. It has given me what I need most; the freedom to live correctly, to speak and act and think correctly. That is all that is important in life. It is why I must protest your daughter’s exclusion from this society. In my country, my other country, it is called the way.”

  I am on the verge of asking him, “The way to what?” when there is a sharp rap on the door we entered earlier. Pham, Mr. Quan’s manager, pokes his head inside. They exchange rapid Vietnamese, after which Mr. Quan rises.

  “I asked to be notified if a particular supplier arrived. He is downstairs and I must see him. I will be only a few minutes.” He walks unhurriedly to the door and closes it softly behind him.

  “The conversation turned a little strange,” Allie suggests and I agree.

  “Don’t forget,” I say, “to discuss money with him. He hasn’t said what he’ll pay you.”

  “I’ll mention it when he comes back,” she says, leaving her chair and walking around the room restlessly. She inspects the music and observes that his taste is certainly varied. The videos are American classics, musicals and comedies mostly, plus a few Vietnamese videos of indecipherable subject matter. Next, she approaches the bookshelves and as she browses I pick up a dated issue of Newsweek and scan it casually.

  “Dad, come in here,” she says. She has gone through the doorway between the shelves and is calling from the adjoining room. “Look,” she says as I enter.

  She is pointing to an altar, layered with white linen and adorned with thin candles in a multiplicity of sizes. It is quite large and takes up half the wall. In its center is a jade Buddha statue approximately eight inches high, raised above the level of the table on a small wooden stand. Directly below hangs a scroll on which is depicted a spoke wheel. Small bowls, ceramic and charred on the bottoms, possibly for incense, flank the scroll. Spread among the candles are several delicate flowers made of glass. My eyes are drawn to a low table, off to one side of the altar and also decorated with candles. On it are fifteen or twenty framed photographs of Vietnamese of all ages. Some are posed, others are casual shots
of groups at a picnic or at a shore, a few are the individual snapshots school children bring home. The quality of photographs vary, so that it appears this collection has been accumulated over a span of years. Near the center of the arrangement is an eight-by-ten of a wedding couple. As I study it in the dim light of the room—there are no lights on and no candles are lit—the groom in the picture looks out at me. Allie, drawn by my intensity, studies it also.

  “It’s him,” she says. “It’s Mr. Quan.”

  “He can’t have been much older than you.”

  “Do you suppose this is his family?” she asks.

  “I’ve never heard him mention one. Only a brother, who lives in Seoul, by the way. I’ve been meaning to mention that.”

  “His wife is very beautiful,” she observes.

  I am looking over the remaining photographs when I hear footsteps on the stairs. Turning to leave, I stop involuntarily. On the back wall hangs an enormous Vietnamese flag, three red stripes against a yellow background, the standard of the now extinct Republic of South Vietnam. We return to the living room and seat ourselves as Mr. Quan enters.

  “Suppliers can be difficult,” he says. Then winking, adds, “Owners can likewise be stubborn.”

  As he and Allie renew discussion of her summer employment I debate whether to ask him about what I’ve seen in the other room. I am curious as to why, having just told me that one government is as good as another, he so brazenly and defiantly displays the old flag. I want to ask about those photographs and his bride, where they were married, if any of those pictured are his children. Most of all, what happened to them? But we strayed into that room without invitation, and my sense of decorum bests my curiosity. After he and Allie agree that she will start “as soon as possible” after graduation for minimum wage plus tips, we depart.