A Southern Girl: A Novel

by John Warley

  “But from the day you walked into my office—”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “What! I didn’t think they let you do that in the ACLU. Couldn’t this jeopardize your pension?”

  “Very funny, and I’m trying to be serious. For the record, there is no pension.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Humor is my defense to shock. What made you reconsider?”

  “A combination of things. Mostly, it was watching you among all those people at the Cup. I can’t picture you without lots of friends and the litigation I recommended isn’t going to make you any.”

  “True, but keeping my friends doesn’t solve Allie’s problem with the St. Simeon.”

  “Also true. I haven’t changed my mind on her prospects. This Lafayette exemption strikes me as an impossibly narrow loophole.”

  “I’ve never viewed it as anything else,” I say. “Only slightly ahead of hopeless.”

  “But we need to improve the odds. Have you thought of seeing the Board one on one? You’re good at that. Collectively, they all ban together for the good of the organization as they see it. Individually, they may be more forthcoming. I’m not predicting that, you understand. I don’t know them. At least you’ll learn where you stand.”

  “It’s a good idea for the reason you mention, plus one more. If, by some miracle, the phone call to Korea produces something I can work with, I’ll still have to go back to this same group. By laying the groundwork with them separately, I’ll improve my chances when it comes to a vote. Hey, I like it. Think it will work?”

  “No. But I think you’ll feel better about what you’re doing for Allie. And, there’s the outside chance—”

  “I’ll start tomorrow morning. Time is short and if I don’t hear something soon from Korea I’m at a blank wall.”

  We order dessert and cordials, during which I try to assimilate her new religion, her spurning of her cherished scorched earth. I want to claim credit for this conversion, possibly as an egotistical redemption of my tarnished pride. But it smacks of vanity to take personally a smart lawyer’s adoption of a more flexible strategy. Yet, I find something compellingly personal in what she has said and I cannot escape the feeling she is looking out for me. I want to lean across the table and kiss her. The image of her breast, stuck to her soaked blouse, returns. I am falling toward her in a way I never thought possible. The lonely, skinny girl by the pool returns.

  I pay the check and suffer my last good-natured jabs at losing the Swilling bet.

  “My car is near the courthouse,” she says.

  “Mine’s around the corner. I’ll drive you.”

  We are idled, waiting for the engine to warm. She is staring straight ahead, her hands folded in her lap as I pretend to adjust the radio, stalling for time as I hold a frantic debate within.

  “Natalie, I’ve had a fabulous time this evening. I can’t remember enjoying myself more. And if I haven’t thanked you, really thanked you, for your interest in my daughter and me, I’m doing it now.”

  She turns her head, lovely in the glow of indirect light filtering through the windshield. “I know you appreciate it,” she says. “You were just frightened.”

  “I was? Of what?”

  “Me.”

  “Now why—”

  “Not so much of me personally but of what I represent. I’m a choice, a nasty, ugly alternative you don’t want to face. You know you should for Allie, but you can’t.”

  She is right, of course, decoding in ten seconds a mystery that has been puzzling me for weeks, the looming disquiet I have felt in her presence and the compulsive need to justify myself to someone I thought unreasonable. Her edge is hard, but her instincts unerring and her lips soft, I discover, as I lean over to kiss her. She does not react immediately, as though stunned. Then, I feel her lips part slightly and a hand come up to the back of my head. In that kiss, I confirm an intuition of my own. I want to grab her, pull her close, devour her, but I hold back. Am I still afraid of her? We disengage, each looking down in an awkward recognition that something unanticipated has sprung to life of its own volition.

  “I should follow you home,” I say. “Charleston isn’t all safe at this hour.”

  She nods, then directs me to her car, alone on the curb. She steers to an apartment complex in North Charleston, thoroughly ordinary and dotted with parking stickers from the navy and air force bases, pulling into a spot marked “414A.” I want to make sure she gets safely inside but as I idle nearby another car enters the lot, forcing me into a slot marked “Visitors.” She does not start for her door, but instead comes to the window on my side. I power it down and she leans in.

  “It’s been a great evening,” she says. “The best.” She kisses me and my mind is racing with images and possibilities and an unbearable need to be closer than this car permits. She breaks it off, then walks quickly toward her door, extracting her key as she nears it. She is turning it in the lock when I call her name.

  “Wait,” I say, breathing heavily as I leave my car. As I approach she studies me but not with curiosity and, I think, with no surprise. Her perception is spooky.

  “I need to tell you something. You were right about me being frightened. It’s a hard thing to admit but I admit it.”

  She is gazing up at me, her eyes wide and head tilted enchantingly to one side. The strength of my breathing grows until it seems the entire complex should be awakened. I enfold her in my arms and she responds. We press against each other in electric urgency. I lean away to ask, “Want to hear my theory?”

  “Your theory of what?” she murmurs, pulling me back and kissing me below the ear.

  “Of you.”

  She raises her eyes to mine. “Go ahead.”

  “I don’t think you came south to right wrongs. I think you came looking for something soft and forgiving.” The balance of my theory is smothered in her sublime embrace and kisses.

  “You realize the irony here,” she says.

  “Tell me,” I whisper.

  “Had I gotten my wish, and you had agreed to become my client, we couldn’t be doing this.”

  31

  I cannot be taller on the morning after my evening with Natalie, yet I feel so, alert and alive in ways I haven’t felt in what seems like forever. Her scent lingers in my facial stubble. I am brewing coffee when Allie enters the kitchen.

  “Did I hear whistling?” she wants to know.

  “I don’t know, did you?”

  “I thought I did,” she says, placing her books on the counter. “You’re up early …”

  “Some paperwork backed up at the office. Thought I’d get in before the phone starts ringing.”

  “For coming in so late.” She is eyeing me expectantly.

  “I … got tied up.”

  “That’s a good one,” she says skeptically. “I’ll remember that one—I got tied up. Want to tell mamma Allie about it?”

  “I do not wish to tell mamma Allie.”

  “That’s okay, Adelle will tell me.”

  “No! You’ll … embarrass her. Don’t say anything to Adelle.”

  “So, it’s Natalie. Geez Dad, is she old enough?”

  “Will you get out of here? Go to school.” Miss Open Book of the Orient also reads palms.

  “But I have half an hour,” she reminds me. “You’re the one leaving early.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I grab my coat from the back of my chair and start for the door. Her back is to me as she stands at the counter slicing a banana as a topping for yogurt. I return, and kiss her on top of her head. “I love you, sweetheart.” I stride for the door.

  “Dad,” she calls, still facing away. “It’s fine by me if it’s Natalie. Just so you know.”

  I stop, my hand on the door knob. “Some things are private.”

  “It is Natalie. Cool. Maybe I should invite her over. Popcorn, videos … maybe a sleep-over.”

  This is the reason I never play poker.

  I leave before she can
quiz me on exactly what Natalie and I did last night. With keys jangling I approach the car. For the second time in this young day, a fragrance distracts me. This time, wisteria. I will walk. The city is drawing back the curtain to unveil its spring line, and though the fashions here never change fundamentally, the nuances are worth savoring on foot. Azaleas are still a week or two away from peak but the dogwoods are in bloom and Bignonia abound. A pollen-laden mist coats cars and mailboxes, as if the neighborhood is being dusted for fingerprints. Allie’s razing on my way out is a good sign, well worth my temporary discomfort. It signals another tentative step back toward our old closeness, absent now long enough, I hope, to exact a price from her. Suddenly, I am glad to have said nothing to disabuse her of the notion I was with her ally Natalie. Then, just as suddenly, I wonder if last night could be linked to the St. Simeon. Have I, unwittingly, used Natalie as a bridge to Allie? No, I conclude instantly, and it feels right.

  A note from Harris sits atop my messages. He is in trial this morning but needs to see me about the Arts Center “at your convenience.” Dictation consumes me until ten, when I place a call to Natalie, who is out. More dictation, an interview with a prospective summer intern, and a late-morning conference call keep me buried. Not until after lunch do I have a moment to reflect upon the strategy formulated over dinner the night before. I take a legal pad from the drawer and list the Board members.

  Though much has happened since that night in February when I went before the board to request the exemption, my estimate of the situation remains unaltered. I need two votes from among five people. Adelle is a given because of our relationship, one admittedly complicated by the swift turn of events last night and a subject I will have to address. But the crucial vote occurred before I ever laid eyes on Natalie and Adelle has been in my corner from the start.

  Margarite is another matter. Unable to confirm or disprove Adelle’s suspicions about her faithful reporting of the vote, I have done what I always do: assume the best. In truth, I cannot logically or profitably do otherwise. If her treachery reaches to the depths sounded by Adelle, then all is lost. Her research into loopholes was a shill, a sleight of hand, and the Lafayette exemption merely a straw man to cover petty crime while saving face. As president of the Society, her power extends to any reconsideration of the denial. She will strike again, murdering then what she wounded before. No, it makes no sense to condemn Margarite. Better to discount Adelle’s suspicions, freely admitted by Adelle to be no more than that.

  In pondering this matter of the vote I have rationalized the behavior Adelle mistook for betrayal. If the results were five to two against, Margarite’s announcement of the vote would have exposed the nays as surely as an open show of hands. Those around the table knew that Margarite and Adelle were with me; they would clearly constitute the two ayes, leaving all others in one camp. Sensing this, Margarite chose to conceal the results. Such a surmise absolves her, important to me not only because of her venerable devotion to Allie but also as a litmus of my powers to sort blarney from bullion. Try as I have to banish the optimistic cherubs on my shoulders, there they sit, as convinced as I that Margarite, Philip’s mother, did not and could not sabotage me.

  But cold analysis along these lines leads also to a less pleasant deduction. If Margarite remains unscarred, Clarkson Mills, my long-time client, is, a priori, among the lepers. Clarkson’s desertion would not carry the soul-searing sting inflicted by Margarite’s, but it is nevertheless distressing. I saved his business, his house, his future, and to be repaid in so many pieces of silver is beyond galling. His name will be high on my target list.

  Sandy Charles is promising. Away from Charlotte Hines, she seems the personification of good will, a cheerful, fun-loving embodiment of everyone’s favorite attributes. I know of but one tie between Sandy and Charlotte beyond those which connect all of us “South of Broad’s”: Charlotte is a heavy patron of the arts and Sandy is an aspiring painter, often submitting her work to juries in shows underwritten in whole or part by Charlotte. If I can spin Sandy free of Charlotte’s gravitational pull, I may capture her.

  Jeanette Wilson, forever in my thought entwined in kudzu, cannot pronounce the time of day without consulting five of her friends. Blatant and unabashed in her circumspection, she will commit to nothing one-on-one with the possible exception of sex on her dining room table. The experiment we call Jeanette should establish conclusively whether it is possible to sleep one’s way to the top in this town. Odds are against it. I will see her in a public place.

  Charlotte Hines. Should I bother? Are there words in the lexicon capable of bringing her over? It is not so much humbling myself before Her Royal Ampleness that deters me. If I could count on her to simply expose her queenly behind long enough for me to grovel forward worm-like and plant the abject kiss of a miserable supplicant, I would not hesitate. But with Charlotte I will have to endure the lecture along with the refusal. She will unleash on me the furious brunt of her convoluted mind, pitching non sequiturs one upon another with the force of truth until I retreat out the door, my hands protectively shielding my head from pummel by the last hurled absurdity. On the other hand, Charlotte talks a lot, freely and often without discretion. Perhaps I will learn something that will help with another member.

  Finally, old Doc Francis. Authentic grudges tend to be buried with the people who cling to them. By his St. Simeon vote, he visits the sins of the father on the son, but I have too often been the beneficiary of my father’s good name and reputation to resent this credit on a debit-studded ledger. I will not call on Doc Francis.

  Leaning back in my chair, I examine my notes. I have four visits to make and not much time to make them. Surprise is a tactic well suited to my purpose. I will hit quickly before word circulates. Starting now. I review the list.

  Jeanette Wilson works each afternoon in an upscale gift shop near the market. Within ten minutes of my leaving she will have spoken to any Board member who answers his phone. I will save her for last. Clarkson Mills is also at work. I need to see him this evening. Charlotte Hines I am not up to today, leaving Sandy Charles.

  I find her in her studio behind the Charles residence on Stoll’s Alley, a short walk from the office and not far from my home. Her husband Edgar, the architect, designed and had built this outbuilding to encourage her fledgling interest in art. That was five years ago, and she has since turned a hobby into a passion. She spots me from her window as I walk the flagstones leading from the house.

  “Coleman! Up here,” she calls through the open window.

  I mount the steps and she meets me at the landing. I greet her as I would at one of the many cocktail parties we all attend during the season.

  “You’ll have to forgive the way this place looks; I keep the messiest studio this side of the Mississippi.”

  “I would worry about an artist with a clean studio,” I say. Sandy loves being referred to as an artist, but the studio is clean by any standard.

  She wipes her hands on her smock. Some drawings have been left on a chair and these must constitute the mess to which she refers. She moves them as she bids me to sit.

  “I’ve been sitting all day. It feels good to stand.”

  “Suit yourself,” she says, bubbling. “Soft drink? Coffee?”

  “Not a thing.” I walk to the wall where several of her watercolors are displayed, examining them casually. I recognize Colonial Lake, and nanny-led children with balloons. “These are great,” I tell her, and I mean it within my paltry, some would say nonexistent judgment where art is the issue.

  “My early period,” she says. “I’m in oils now. How about this one?” she says, pointing to her easel. “A work in progress but you get the idea.”

  I do?

  “Sure, its got … texture.” I must have hit a happy nerve because she appears pleased. Sandy is an unlikely artist in my qualified experience. They should be tormented and rangy, with ill-sized jeans and no makeup and leonine hair unbrushed for days except as they run p
aint-smudged hands with smoke-stained fingertips through it. Sandy is short, curvaceous, well-coifed, and manicured. The internal angst driving her seems on the surface confined to the selection of one European country in which to vacation this summer from among the dizzying number of candidates.

  “Sandy, I’ll be right up front with you. I came here to talk about the St. Simeon. Before you say anything, let me assure you I will not ask you to violate the confidentiality agreement reached by the group. I’m interested in what might happen at the next meeting, not what happened at the last.”

  Intrigue collects on her features and her hands undergo a rare relaxation. “Will there be another?”

  “There could be.” I inform her of the Lafayette exemption and my efforts to pry information out of the orphanage in Korea. “Depending on what comes back, we may ask for a reconsideration.”

  “And I for one hope you get it,” she says emphatically. “Do you know I didn’t sleep for days after that vote? I listened very carefully to the arguments on both sides—I can’t tell you what they were but you can guess—and I kept asking myself, ‘What is the right and fair thing to do?’ Allie is as sweet as any girl in this city and more talented than most. Was it fair to exclude her? I asked myself. Of course, as Board members we represent the entire Society. We have obligations that go beyond personalities. I … I was so torn I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I’m not asking for a commitment, Sandy, but if I can demonstrate that at least one exception has been made and that Allie satisfies the rule, would you be inclined to support us?”

  “Of course I would. It would only be fair, wouldn’t it? She’s no different from Lafayette as far as I’m concerned. And there’s no question of her foreign birth so she’s halfway there. Coleman, I haven’t laid eyes on Allie since that vote. Is she just ready to throw us all in the river? I wouldn’t blame her.”

  “She understands the spot the Board’s on. Naturally, she’s disappointed.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t time to let go of the St. Simeon. I mean, this is the nineties.”