“OK, shoot.”
“I want to walk into the room downstairs a few minutes after seven. Hopefully, all the men will be there when we come in.”
“Yes.”
“I want to walk in on your arm.”
“Of course, my pleasure.”
“I would like you to introduce me to the group. Like our friend at the front desk, they will probably think I am your wife.”
“What do you want me to say? ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner?’”
“Something simple, ‘Gentlemen, this is Miss Jo Taylor Johnston.’”
“I can handle it. What then?”
“I believe I will know what to say after I see their response.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, that will be enough.”
“Do you want my odds on their response?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the Georgetown/Las Vegas line has you a 3-1 favorite to be a hit.”
“In case I’m not, I will probably retire gracefully from the field. If I do, don’t feel like you have to leave the room. I mean that,” she said with emphasis. “Agreed?”
Part of Renny wanted to say, “No, we are in this together,” but he knew it wouldn’t be true. Jo’s statement at the barbecue restaurant came back to him: “You need to do what you need to do.”
“Agreed.”
“Thanks. I’m going back to my room for a few minutes.” Jo held out her hand toward Renny, who took it in his. No shock treatment this time. She gave him a firm, appreciative squeeze. “I’ll meet you downstairs near the front desk.”
“I’ll be there.”
8
To be or not to be: that is the question.
HAMLET, ACT 3, SCENE 1
The old desk clerk glanced up when Renny came downstairs and sat in an armchair in the tiny lobby. “Your group is meeting in the private dining room on the left down the hall. It’s across from the main dining room.”
“Thanks, but I’m waiting for someone.”
“Of course,” the clerk said.
“Yes, here he comes now.” Renny smiled as Jo, the white-and-blue apparition, descended the stairway.
The clerk squinted harder than ever at Jo before continuing to rapidly shuffle a stack of papers on the counter before him.
“Are you ready?” Renny asked as he took Jo’s arm and started down the hall.
“Yes,” she replied in a quiet, confident voice.
Renny wished his mother could see him with Jo on his arm at that moment. He knew she would approve.
The door to the private dining room was closed. A solitary waiter stood guard outside. Renny and Jo stopped before him.
“May I help you?” he asked, opening a small black booklet hidden in his left hand.
“Yes, I’m Josiah Fletchall Jacobson, and this is Jo Taylor Johnston. We have invitations to join the group inside.”
“Yes, sir, I have your names here.” The waiter put a check beside their names on a page in his book.
“Has everyone else arrived?” Renny asked.
“Yes sir.”
The waiter opened the door to a magnificently decorated dining room illuminated by a large crystal chandelier. Walls paneled in solid cherry surrounded a long table covered with white linen, gold-rimmed plates, and cut-crystal goblets.
Renny and Jo stepped into the room. Eight men, clustered in three groups, stopped all conversation, turned as one, and stared in stunned silence. Someone blurted out with a gravelly voiced Southern accent, “A woman!”
Jo smiled. “Thank you.”
A short, slender man with a thin mustache and neatly groomed gray hair stepped forward from one of the groups.
“I’m Desmond LaRochette. This is a private party, and the doorman must have made a mistake.”
“No,” Renny responded as he shook LaRochette’s hand. “I’m Josiah Fletchall Jacobson”— and nodding toward Jo—“this is Jo Taylor Johnston. There is no mistake.”
The same voice echoed, “A woman!”
LaRochette took a step back and glanced toward the speaker. “We can see that, Gus.” LaRochette turned to Jo, bowed, and took her hand. “My pleasure, Ms. Johnston.”
Jo smiled again and said, “Thank you, Mr. LaRochette.” Then addressing the room, she continued, “Gentlemen, I am Taylor Johnston’s daughter and only child. I’m here in response to a bequest in my father’s will and by invitation received from Mr. LaRochette.”
The room responded in silence, all eyes turned toward LaRochette.
A voice piped up, “What’s the precedent on this, Harry?”
“I’m not sure,” another answered.
LaRochette stepped in. “Enough. We can talk business later. Come, Mr. Jacobson and Ms. Johnston, I want you to meet everyone.” LaRochette took Jo’s hand in his and led her to an open space at the end of a long dining table. They stood in front of a painting of John C. Calhoun, the fiery pre–Civil War senator from South Carolina.
One by one they filed by, dutifully shaking Renny’s hand and calling him Josiah until he corrected them, then lingering longer with Jo who, after her initial speech, graciously deflected all questions with a simple, “I’ve told you what I know. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The deep-voiced Southerner proved to be Augustus Eicholtz. Renny thanked him for serving as deliveryman for the tape from his father.
“Your father was a great man. One of the best in the history of the List. I hope the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree,” Eicholtz said cryptically.
One hundred and forty years had disrupted any uniformity of generations. Renny estimated LaRochette, Eicholtz, and Harold “Harry” Smithfield as the oldest members, contemporaries of Renny’s father, all at or near seventy years of age. Next was a group of three who looked to be in their fifties, Michael Flournoy, Thomas Layne V, and Robert Roget. Then came Jerrod Weiss, a forty-year-old from Virginia, followed by Bartholomew “Bart” Maxwell, a lanky young man in his early thirties. Renny and Jo, the only representatives of Generation X, rounded out the group.
After all the anticipation, the men seemed boringly ordinary, no different from a corporate board gathered for its annual getaway or a planning retreat scheduled by the directors of a charitable foundation. Renny felt little different than he had when with his father and his business associates. In a few minutes, the initial hubbub about Jo died down. Everyone poured another round of drinks from a self-service bar in the corner and drifted back into small groups. Renny saw LaRochette and Smithfield huddled in a corner. Jo was momentarily alone, and Renny seized the opportunity to go over to her.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked.
“Too soon to tell.”
“They seem like bankers or lawyers, not mobsters,” he said, answering his own question.
“Is there any difference?” Jo said mischievously.
At that moment Bart Maxwell joined them. At least six foot four, he was the tallest man in the room. Stoop-shouldered and pale, he looked like a subterranean creature who rarely saw the light of day. “You made a big splash in our little p-p-puddle,” he said to Jo with a pronounced stutter. “I-I-I would say Mr. LaRochette and Mr. Smithfield are h-h-huddling in the corner trying to decide what to do about you.”
“What do you think?” Renny interjected.
Bart peered at Renny through glasses as thick as the bottom of the proverbial Coke bottle.
“I-I’m a real estate lawyer. Do you know about the rule of p-p-primogeniture?” he said, almost exploding out the last three syllables.
“Yes I do,” Renny interjected, “and I explained it to Jo.”
“Of course, the r-r-rule no longer exists, and someone is free to leave his estate in trust for his d-d-dog; n-n-no offense,” he added, giving Jo an embarrassed look and stooping even more. “I-I don’t think there should be any g-g-good reason not to let you participate. I’m about to get married, and if I d-d-don’t have a son, I would want my daughter to take my interest
in the List.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your willingness to tell me what you think is right,” Jo said, turning the sunshine of her countenance on his barren features. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Well, there is no stare decisus, or r-r-rule of law over the List. We mm-make our own law. It’s like having your own c-c-country. B-b-but you have my support,” he finished a little breathlessly.
“Thanks again.”
Bart turned and loped across the room.
“What an odd guy,” Renny remarked. “He must be the product of a seriously watered-down gene pool. Lucky he found someone to marry him.”
Jo cut her eyes toward Renny. “Don’t be cruel, Renny. He’s the only one thus far bold enough to say something supportive to me. There’s probably more to him than you think.”
“OK, OK. Let me get you a drink.”
“Straight tonic water on the rocks with a lime twist; no liquor, please.”
“A woman who knows what she wants,” Renny responded. He crossed the room to the bar, poured Jo’s tonic water, and fixed himself a Chevas Regal on the rocks. He wasn’t ready to climb on the wagon quite yet, especially not tonight.
When he returned to Jo, Gus Eicholtz, having recovered from his shock at her gender, was telling Jo about her father. A barrel-chested old man with the build of a prizefighter, Eicholtz had the skill of a true Southern storyteller.
“Your father was a brilliant engineer. He could have designed the Golden Gate Bridge, but he never got the chance to show the extent of his talents.”
“Did you see him often?” Jo asked.
“Not really. He always kept to himself, but one time about twenty-five years ago, right after you were born, I guess, I persuaded him to meet me in Savannah and drive down to Key West. He saved my life on that trip. We decided to do some fishing in the Gulf and rented a boat for a couple of days. Your father navigated the boat like an old sea captain. It was a good thing, too, because we spent the night on the water and had to weather a severe storm. The boat was rocking and rolling all over the place. I came up from below deck, and while I was trying to walk along the edge of the deck, a big wave hit the side of the boat and pitched me right over the side into the water. Fortunately for me, your father was at the wheel holding the boat into the wind and saw me wash over the side. He grabbed a life preserver, tied the rope to the railing of the boat, and jumped over. I was flailing around in the water and didn’t know which end was up. The next thing I knew he had me under my arms and pulled me in like a big tuna. I thanked him, of course, but never got the chance to tell anyone else in his family what he had done. I tried to spend time with him off and on for years afterward, but he always put me off.”
Wanting to know more, Jo asked, “Why do you think he was so withdrawn from other people?”
The big man rubbed his chin. “I wondered the same thing myself. He had so much going for him, yet I know he was never happy. Why, look at you! What father wouldn’t want to see you every chance he could? Of course, we all thought you were a boy.”
Jo mimicked Eicholtz’s “A woman!”
Eicholtz grinned. “Your accent needs some refining.”
“Renny mentioned the same thing. But how do I start?” she asked.
Eicholtz thought a moment. “Lesson number one. When speaking, slowly move your jaw while keeping your tongue as relaxed as an old dog lying under the porch on a hot summer day. That way the words roll out on top of one another. You remember My Fair Lady?”
“Sure. The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain,” Jo said, trying to stretch out the vowels.
“Excellent.”
“That’s it?”
“No, no. Just the beginning, but with a willing pupil like yourself I could do a reversal of Professor Henry Higgins’s work with Eliza Doolittle. Before you knew it, y’all would be as comfortable to your lips as a pair of old moccasins on your feet.”
Turning toward Renny, she asked, “What do you say, Renny, should I try to learn a new language?”
“Absolutely. You know, the Southern dialect is close in enunciation to Elizabethan English. Shakespeare would feel more at home in Charleston than he would New York. My only disagreement with Mr. Eicholtz would be who should be your teacher.”
Before the debate could continue, LaRochette, standing at the head of the table, tapped an empty wine goblet with a silver spoon, and conversation ceased.
“If everyone would move to their seat, it is time for dinner. Ms. Johnston and Mr. Jacobson, it is our custom to sit in the same order our forefathers did when they first met in this room almost 140 years ago.”
Everyone but Renny and Jo quickly took position, standing behind a chair. LaRochette was at the head of the table, with Smithfield, Eicholtz, Layne, an empty chair, and Roget on his right. To his left was an empty chair, and he motioned for Jo to take the seat of the Johnston family. Jo stepped quickly to the table. Next to Jo was Flournoy, followed by an empty chair, then Weiss, Bart Maxwell, and another empty chair. LaRochette indicated Renny’s spot next to Weiss.
“The perpetually empty chair is for the family of Alexander Hammond, an original signer of the List, whose wife died in 1868 while giving birth to a son who also died. Hammond never remarried and died childless in 1884. Please be seated.”
Dinner came in courses, a “soup to nuts” affair orchestrated with precision at the long table by a trio of waiters. The entrée was a succulent cut of prime rib.
Michael Flournoy separated Renny from Jo, and the table conversation broke up into groups of three or four. Renny’s group included Jerrod Weiss and Thomas Layne. LaRochette and Michael Flournoy focused on Jo. Every so often Gus Eicholtz’s booming laugh echoed around the room.
Weiss, a stocky, dark-haired man with a thick neck and bushy eyebrows, ate hunched over his soup. The comptroller of a Virginia corporation that imported electrical equipment from Europe and Asia, he contributed little to the conversation beyond a few grunts.
On the other hand, Thomas Layne V, handsome and tall with a full head of carefully coifed gray hair, was the most aristocratic, suave, and overtly arrogant person at the table. If born in the seventeenth century, he would have made a perfect courtier during the reign of Louis XIV, but in today’s world he had to settle for a life of self-indulgence on Hilton Head Island south of Charleston. He entertained himself during dinner by perversely teasing Weiss, whom he described to Renny as a “bean counter.”
Weiss finally rose to the bait. “I’m a money counter, Layne. Maybe you should count more and spend less yourself.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Jerrod, but money is a means to an end, the means to acquire la joie de vivre, the joy of living, not the end in itself.”
Weiss shrugged and went back into his shell.
Layne turned toward Renny. “I’m sorry about your father. He was a very impressive man, respected greatly by everyone in this room.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m glad he has such an obviously well-prepared and successful son to follow after him.”
Renny nodded, wondering at Layne’s sincerity and motivation.
“Desmond tells me you live in Charlotte?” Layne said.
“Yes.”
“My sister and her husband, a CPA, live there.”
“Is he with a big firm?”
“No, he has a small group, Berit and something. His name is Jack Berit.”
“I’ve met him,” Renny said, remembering a short, gray-haired man who had provided an audit for an acquisition Heywood handled at the firm.
“You don’t say,” Layne said. “It is a small world.”
“Jack’s a bean counter like you, Jerrod. You’d get along great.”
Weiss didn’t look up from his plate.
“Aren’t you glad Renny has been able to join us?” Layne continued.
Weiss muttered, “Sure, sure, welcome aboard.”
Layne leaned across the table and asked in a low tone, “What about the young lady? Do
you think she should be on the ship?”
Weiss grunted with greater emphasis. “I know what I think.”
“What do you think?” Layne acted surprised that Weiss had a thought.
“I’ll keep it to myself,” Weiss growled, vigorously cutting his prime rib.
Giving up on Weiss, Layne returned to Renny. “Tell me, did you meet Ms. Johnston before this evening?”
“Yes, we arrived at the same time yesterday,” Renny answered, not wanting to tell about the chance encounter in Moncks Corner.
“Her presence makes this meeting different from the previous ones I’ve attended,” Layne said. “Very interesting indeed.”
Dinner was superb. Renny counted four bottles of Tignabello, a Tuscany port, that made the rounds and were emptied of their rich, red contents. Jo’s glass remained full, but by meal’s end the rest of the group, with the exception of Weiss, who obviously could hold his liquor very well, were becoming more and more mellow and fraternal. Bart Maxwell was visibly intoxicated, and his stutter, now combined with a slur, was twice as bad as before the meal. The dessert cart rolled back into the kitchen, and LaRochette tapped his glass again.
“Gentlemen,” he began, then smoothly added, “and lady. I would like to call to order the 247th meeting of the Covenant List of South Carolina, Limited.”
The room settled into silence. Renny took a sip of water and peeked around Flournoy at Jo. Catching his look out of the corner of her eye, she gave him a quick smile and turned back toward LaRochette.
LaRochette continued, “As you recall, we were all here together at our regular meeting last November. Now, due to the deaths of H. L. Jacobson and Taylor Johnston, we are required by the rules of the List to call a meeting of the members to install successors. On behalf of us all, I have expressed our condolences to Mr. Jacobson and Ms. Johnston on the deaths of their fathers. Let us have a moment of silence to honor their passing.”
Everyone bowed their heads. Renny closed his eyes and imagined his father sitting in the room the previous year. It was eerie sitting in the same spot at the table as his father, grandfather, and back through time.
LaRochette broke the silence. “As is our custom when uninitiated members are present, I would ask the historian of the List to give a summary of our background and purpose.”
The List Page 11