His mother had told him it would take a miracle to get Mountain Brook to come downtown to the Sloss Furnaces on a Sunday. After all, she pointed out, the whole purpose of Mountain Brook was so the people who lived there would never have to go near places like Sloss Furnaces in their entire lives.
“This is different, Mother,” he had said.
“Just because they slap a National Historic Landmark plaque on something and call it a museum doesn’t make it different,” she had said. “It’s still just a blast furnace. You can’t tell me that people in Mountain Brook are going to dress in their best and come downtown for a party in a blast furnace. That will take a miracle.”
The weather had delivered his miracle in the form of one of those magical amalgams of all four seasons concentrated into one day, as sometimes happens in the Deep South. The sun was as bright and dazzling as the summer sun of June or July—it wasn’t the pale, weak sun of February. Yet the smell of wood smoke in the air was the very fragrance of winter at its best. The crispness of the temperature was that of fall, but the mild breeze that had been blowing all day was pure spring.
But the occasion itself was simply an Orange Bowl Gallery opening, not in the Orange Bowl at the Brook-Haven School, but at the Visitor’s Center of the Sloss Furnaces, because the works being displayed were photographs by Karen Ritchie and her grandfather Jared. It was a retrospective of his work as well as the best way to get a newspaper article and a Harvard acceptance out of hers. And what more appropriate venue than the one where many of the original Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs had been taken? Sloss Furnaces had been much in the news since its opening as a museum in September, and it all just seemed like the right thing in the right place at the right time, what with the weather providing that perfect combination of sunlight and cool air for touring a defunct blast furnace in a mink coat. Because of the climate, Mountain Brook ladies did not have enough occasions on which to wear their furs for a prolonged period, and he had just given them all a golden opportunity.
Only fifteen minutes in, and already the party was a huge success. Among the throng was the reporter from the Birmingham News, along with Lil Nolan, the society columnist. The photographer was expected any minute, and the art critic was supposed to show as well.
Here were Sally and Bebe threading their way importantly through the crowd with the extra trays of fried chicken he had ordered that morning as soon as he saw what a beautiful day it was going to be, and realized his turnout could exceed a hundred percent. Thank God for Brody’s! Sally giggled as she tried to pry the plastic covering off one of the trays.
“How did you get yours off?” she stage whispered to Bebe.
“I didn’t yet,” said Bebe, giggling in response and tugging at the remaining lip of the cover still attached to her tray.
“Here, let me,” said Norman, lunging toward the refreshment table like a big black bear whose huge paws easily ripped off both covers in no time.
The girls were in their element. Sally especially looked almost radiant. Had she lost weight? Norman looked around for the trash can.
“I’ll take that, Mr. Laney,” said Bebe.
“You girls are my guardian angels,” he said. “This is the first time I haven’t wanted to see everyone in the senior class graduate to bigger and better things. I don’t want to lose my angels.”
“Is there anything else?” Sally asked him.
There was something different about her hair today, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He gazed up and down the table.
“We’re going to run out of wine before the day is over,” he said.
Sally and Bebe exchanged glances. Bebe shrugged.
“Not much we can do about that,” she said.
How terribly true. Because the state of Alabama was still living in the dark ages of a barbaric era, it wasn’t possible to buy beer, wine or alcohol of any kind on Sundays anywhere in the state. He only noticed that Elizabeth Elder was standing beside him when she suddenly spoke.
“I’ve got a case of wine back at the house,” she said. “Should I turn around and go get it?”
“Brilliant,” he said. “Bebe will go get it. Give me your house key. You know where Mrs. Elder’s house is?” he said to Bebe, who nodded. “Where’s the wine?” he turned back to Elizabeth.
“Where you’d expect to find it,” she said to Bebe. “In the kitchen pantry. I’m happy to go myself, Norman.”
“No, no, don’t be ridiculous. I need you here. Bebe, hurry back. I need you here too.” He dispatched her with a nod. “Sally, you keep an eye on the table. If the food gets low, either you or Bebe just go to the nearest store and get whatever you can find. Sandwiches, fruit, cheese—anything. Keep your receipts and I’ll pay you back.”
She nodded happily from behind the table, where she seemed content to play hostess. It was definitely not the usual gallery party for his two gallery assistants. Sally was wearing an attractive A-line skirt of brown wool, cut on the bias. The thickness of the wool minimized her middle, and the long skirt danced right below her calves. Her ankles looked positively slim. Had she indeed lost weight? Or could it be that the rumors he’d heard were true, that she’d taken up with Jimmy Kuhn, and was happier than she’d ever been in her life?
“Now Elizabeth, darling. You must have one of Mother’s lemon squares. She said to make sure you had one before they were all gone.”
“Your mother’s not here herself?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “Did you really think I’d be able to convince her to come?” He lowered his voice. “She said nothing on this earth could entice her to come downtown even if I told her that the statue of Vulcan was going to fuck the Statue of Liberty. That’s more or less an exact quote. Now let’s go get us a lemon square.”
He had to shed his dear Elizabeth immediately. He thanked God she was here: her presence conferred gravitas on any occasion because she was not one of those people who went to just anything. And he owed everything to her; she was a brilliant political strategist. If he had been a black man running for governor of Alabama, he would have hired Elizabeth Elder to manage his campaign. Also, she insisted on excellent wine, and soon enough, they would be drinking it. All of it. But he had to get rid of her. If there was one thing she wasn’t good at, if there was one situation in which she found herself at a complete and total loss, it was parties. Elizabeth had no talent at all for making small talk with people whose IQ was far below hers. She was constitutionally unequipped for saying nothing at all with hearty enthusiasm while standing around eating and drinking dubious substances of dubious quality. For Elizabeth, food, drink and conversation were for the dinner table and intimate friends and family. The only way she knew how to negotiate an occasion full of people she didn’t know well and didn’t wish to know at all was to cling to him throughout the ordeal like the odd couple they were. If his mother had been there, Elizabeth would have clung to her, which no doubt explained her distress at his mother’s absence. But Elizabeth would have to do the best she could without him today. And here was one reason why.
The man coming straight toward him had a camera around his neck and a PHOTOGRAPHER tag from the Birmingham News. Norman placed his plastic cup of wine down on the table, put on his biggest grin, and shook hands vigorously with Brad Staples, who wanted to know where he could find Karen Ritchie and her father. Without another word, Norman turned away from Elizabeth and Sally and led the photographer back through the crowd. Hands waved or grabbed at him as he went, but he was a man on a mission, and the man beside him made that mission clear.
With the camera trained on him, Warren Ritchie was as eagerly compliant as Norman had ever known him to be, and Karen was as compliant as ever while the photographer positioned them in front of the pair of photographs Norman had selected: one taken by Karen’s grandfather of a former worker from this very same Sloss Furnaces in the 1940s, and the other taken by Karen herself of this worker’s grandson, now employed at an auto repair shop in Ensley. Norman turned around to find the Vernon family—dressed for church—huddled obediently if uneasily where he had stationed them when they first arrived. He stopped himself just in time from beckoning them over with an impatient flick of his wrist. Instead he went to fetch them and led them back slowly as if on a royal progression. Whoever said that the best place to give a party was a room too small for the crowd was absolutely right. The Visitor’s Center at the Sloss Furnaces was nothing special and had just barely the amount of wall space needed for the pairings of photographs, just barely the amount of floor space for the number of people who were still showing up. Yet it was the bodies in proximity to one another that sparked a real party. It was clear this was the place to be on this Sunday afternoon in February.
Lee Vernon was not actually the biological grandson of one of the factory workers photographed by Jared Ritchie in his prize-winning series. But as Karen had discovered in her research, he was the son of the son of this man’s second wife, whose husband had adopted her children. The last name was the same, and that was enough. It was a stroke of pure luck, and Norman was a big believer in recognizing luck when it fell in your lap and using it for all it was worth. What good was a gift from the gods if you didn’t put it to good use? And why risk the wrath of the gods by rejecting their gift? So Lee Vernon stood stiffly next to Warren Ritchie on one side of the two photographs, while Mira and Karen stood more naturally together on the other side. The flashbulb from the big professional camera went off with a bang.
* * *
“Both have applied to Harvard and both stand a chance of becoming valedictorian of their senior high school class. This is a new day. A new day for Birmingham, for the state of Alabama. A new day for the South and the rest of our country. And I’m proud that the Brook-Haven School has played a part in bringing on this new day. I don’t know of another school in this state that was the capital of the Confederacy where a white girl of privilege vies to be valedictorian with a black girl whose ancestors were slaves, sharecroppers, and factory workers.”
The slaves part was true and the factory worker part was almost true. He had made up the sharecropper part, and hoped it might be true. As for Karen Ritchie, she was in fact, a daughter of privilege, even if her family were not exactly Southern aristocracy but “Yankee” liberals. Let the reporter look into all the nuances if he wanted to! That was his job. And he, Norman Laney, had done his job. Now he was going to enjoy the party.
He shook hands with the reporter and turned to go back for a glass of wine. Elizabeth Elder was right there at his elbow.
“Oh, Elizabeth!” he said. “There you are. Just the person I was looking for.” He lowered his voice. “The Vernons are over there in the corner.” He nodded in their direction. “They don’t know what to do with themselves and don’t look like they’re having a very good time. Take care of them for me, will you? Introduce them, get them some food, make them feel like they belong. I leave it up to you.” As soon as she glanced in the direction he’d indicated, he was gone without another word.
“Norman!” screeched a female voice he feared was Sally’s mother Jan.
Who was that coming toward him? Terrible bloated woman three dress sizes too large wearing big fat pearls that actually looked real. (The whole point of real pearls, someone needed to tell her, was to project simple, understated elegance.) Who was she?
“Jim Kuhn, Norman,” said her husband, thrusting his hand out in a business-like way. He was likewise dressed in a business suit, and his entire demeanor, from the soberness of his craggy, unsmiling face to the stiffness of his body, suggested a quarterly Monday morning meeting with the shareholders of AmSouth Bank, of which he was president. Either that, or a funeral. He seemed completely unaware of the party going on around him, the photographs on the wall, or the unique location in which he found himself. He also appeared to have run out of conversation after introducing himself, and was looking to Norman for further instructions.
Meanwhile his wife was prattling away. “The change in him is unbelievable. You cannot even begin to imagine. He’s like a totally different child. Jim and I are so grateful for everything you’ve done. You have transformed him. You have worked an absolute miracle. We have never seen anything like it. I never dreamed he had this in him and it’s all thanks to you—”
“Now, I did warn him,” said Norman, adopting his best assistant headmaster’s voice, “that if any of his grades ever dropped below a C, he was out of the play, no second chances.”
“Best thing anyone has ever done for him,” said Dixie Kuhn, seizing his hand and pulling him close as if for a tête-à-tête. “His grades have never been so good in his entire life.” He could smell the wine on her breath and wondered if what he’d heard was true: that she was as big a lush as she was a fool. “The first thing he does when he comes home from school is head straight to his room and finish his homework. I’ve never known him to be so motivated. I’m telling you—I don’t recognize my own son. The other day I was—”
“Now you are coming to see the play?” said Norman. “Both of you?”
“Oh!” Dixie threw her head back and looked up at the ceiling. “Are we coming to see the play?! Honey—” she clutched even tighter on the hand she had seized. “We will be in the front row of every performance! We have heard about nothing but the play, the play, the play, for the past three weeks. He rehearses his lines at the dinner table, and you know what Norman?” She pulled him close again and said in her wine-soaked voice, “I think studying his lines has helped to teach him how to study for school!” She leaned back dramatically and pursed her lips as if to give him time and space to process this dazzling aperçu before she unfurled any others. She was one of those women who still frosted her hair, so her head was a crazy quilt of light and dark patches. It really was one of the most unfortunate hairstyles ever invented, and he was so glad most of his female friends had abandoned it years ago in favor of the much more sophisticated look created by foil highlights.
“I must admit,” said Norman, looking from husband to wife, “that Jimmy has shown me depths I didn’t know he had.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Dixie again, this time closing her eyes for emphasis as she thrust her head back and her face toward the ceiling. “That play is utterly beyond me; I don’t understand a word of it and half the time I think Jimmy’s got his lines all wrong because it all just sounds so absurd. Not to say—” she held up the plastic cup of wine in one hand while the other dug yet deeper, with fingernails this time, into his arm—“I don’t mean to say there’s anything wrong with the play. How would I know? I never did have a brain in my head. Anything the least bit intellectual just sounds like gibberish to me.”
Norman did not think this was the moment to launch into an explanation of theater of the absurd, or explain the fact that the dialogue was supposed to sound like gibberish. Or how it had suddenly struck him on the way to his office one day, that Jimmy Kuhn and his genuine aura of obtuse befuddlement would make for the perfect Rosencrantz.
“As long as you’re in the audience, that’s all I care about,” said Norman.
“Oh, we’ll be there!” she shrieked, looking at her husband, who nodded solemnly. In his own way, he was as big a fool as she. “Don’t you worry about that! I just wish there were something else we could do to help you, to thank you—”
“No, no, no,” said Norman. “It’s all taken care of.”
“That’s what Jimmy says. No sets to speak of, no real costumes …”
“I am sorry that we don’t yet have our new performing arts center. You’ll be watching this in the gym, and if ever there were a play that needed a real theater so we could stage it properly … but we do the best we can with what we have!” he concluded grandly. “Now you better excuse me so—”
“Oh, of course, of course!” shrilled Dixie. “We’ve cornered you way too long. We’re just so grateful for all you’ve done.”
Again her husband nodded solemnly and thrust out his arm for a businessman’s handshake. He had not uttered one word throughout the conversation but had remained rigid with the most formal posture, and nodded sagely from time to time as if his wife’s mindless chatter were of the greatest importance. He was Princeton and Harvard MBA, and supposedly brilliant. Norman knew nothing of this couple except through hearsay, as all of their five daughters had attended Mountain Brook High School. Jim was apparently a financial wizard and a social dunce, which Norman had just been able to corroborate for himself. The story was that he’d barely had so much as a date when the beautiful but stupid Dixie Thornton—who had never managed to graduate from Bama—caught his eye and agreed to go out with him, although he wasn’t at all good-looking and came from no family to speak of. On top of this, his future success was purely theoretical, based entirely on degrees from institutions celebrated in a different part of the country. Unfortunately, none of the children had inherited his brains, but it didn’t seem to matter so much because they were all daughters who had inherited their mother’s beauty. None showed any inclination to live anywhere but Mountain Brook, where a girl could achieve a very high standard of living based on her beauty alone. But equally unfortunate, the parents were both Catholic and also determined to have a son, with Jimmy as the result. He bore all the hallmarks of being the last gasp of conjugal energy, and was even dumber than his sisters, though he too had inherited his mother’s former looks.
“Oh, Norman! I almost forgot!” It was Dixie Kuhn grabbing his arm again while wine sloshed out of her plastic cup. “Please show me who Sally Lindgren is. I hear about her night and day.”
“She’s over there.” He nodded toward the refreshment table. “Come on; I’ll introduce you. If I don’t get a glass of wine right this minute I’m going to faint.”
So it was true: Jimmy Kuhn, one of the leads of the play, had taken up with Sally Lindgren, his stage manager. It might not be a bad match; he’d have to think about it later. But if Sally got into Middlebury and didn’t go, he’d kill her.
On the way over to Sally he was gratified to see many of the guests actually studying the photographs. He nodded at the Forneys, who seemed embarrassed to see him for some reason and moved on hurriedly to the next grouping of pictures. What was that about? A twinge of the fear and paranoia which were now chronic conditions flared within like a stab of pain. Were they the ones …? Was that it …? Had their son spoken up to tell them who he was? Had their son told them it was Mr. Laney who had helped him “discover” himself? He smiled bravely and waved as he caught the eye of the Daniels, who had brought Glenn.
Turning around, he was surprised and pleased to spy Virginia Cooley over by the wall. He would not have expected her to attend an occasion like this, which she could not attempt to dominate in her usual ways. What with the photographs on the one hand and the furnace on the other, there was no stage for her to occupy and too much else that commanded the attention she liked to monopolize at any social gathering. Nevertheless, here she was, and it meant he really had created the sensation of the year.
“Darling!” he cried out.
She ran over in equal delight, exclaiming over him as if she hadn’t seen him in months, when in fact they had been at a party together last night. After hugging him and air-kissing both cheeks, she took him by the hand and led him over to the wall.
“You must explain this to me!” she said emphatically. “I know there’s something important about this photograph I’m just not getting! I even feel like I’ve seen it somewhere before!” She gestured in front of her with both long, tapering arms and all ten tapering fingers outstretched extravagantly toward the picture. Today those remarkable arms were clad in skin-tight lavender silk with gold thread twinkling here and there. A dozen gold bracelets of various shapes and designs intermingled on each arm. The flashbulb that went off nearly blinded him and startled him so much that he almost stumbled on the photographer. Virginia appeared not to even notice this man’s presence, though it now explained to Norman her own presence at the party.
“Look!” she commanded him, extending her arms even further toward the photograph. “What is it I’m seeing here?”
The photographer positioned himself for further shots. This must be for the society page, thought Norman. He needed candids. Virginia understood this instinctively, her arms still gesturing toward the party’s central focus and supposed reason for being, her face in a perfect expression of stimulation, interest and curiosity.
No less a performer, Norman grasped his role immediately as the straight man who gazed with unbroken concentration at the actual art on the wall. It was art, there was no doubt about that, and Virginia Cooley was no fool, much as she frittered away her intelligence and talents like some people frittered away money. It was undoubtedly one of the best photos in the exhibit, and perhaps his own personal favorite: a black man with his wife and children sitting on the stoop of a house in the company “Quarters” where the factory workers lived. Another flashbulb, but still the photographer wasn’t through, as he remained crouching and experimenting with different angles of his camera.
“In a way you have seen this photograph before,” he told her. “It’s intentionally reminiscent of the photographs Walker Evans took a decade earlier of the sharecroppers who lived not a hundred miles from where we’re standing right now. One of those Walker Evans images is of a white family grouped on the front porch of their farm shack in a portrait much like the one of this black family in the photograph we see before us.”
The squatting photographer, the flash of his camera and the authoritativeness of Norman’s speech were drawing other guests toward the spot. Virginia now shifted her position, put her arm around Norman and gazed at his face with that rapt absorption sorority girls used on their dates in the 1950s. Another flash.
“Jared Ritchie set out to document the urban Southern counterpart to Walker Evans’ portrait of the rural, agricultural South,” continued Norman.
He could see Lil Nolan busily scribbling down the names of those standing around him as he spoke. Someone else was writing industriously in a notebook as well, but it wasn’t Clyde Barnaby, the art critic. Probably the hard news reporter Norman had spoken to earlier. Just as well, since Norman was improvising his lecture as he went along, and the art critic might recognize the errors and fabrications, whereas the news reporter probably wouldn’t.
“If you look at the Walker Evans photographs of sharecropper families, you’ll find amazing similarities to the faces we’re seeing here, though one set of families was white and this family was black. He’s attempting to erase the distinction between white and black and show the common ground, the common fate, of the working poor.” He nodded toward the wall. “You can see part of the porches of the houses on either side and realize how crammed the living conditions were in the Quarters, and the smokestacks in the distance indicate the urban landscape. In contrast, Agee’s sharecropper shacks were in isolated fields where there was often nothing but cotton for miles around. Nevertheless, these people share the same socioeconomic class, the same experience of poverty, though they have been taught by their culture to hate and fear one another. It’s a beautiful, powerful, necessary photograph.”
Hadn’t he read somewhere that jobs in the steel industry were coveted positions in the 1940s, and that factory workers then were actually fairly well paid? Oh, well. If it was true, hopefully the news reporter wouldn’t look into that little detail. He turned around to face his audience, and another flash went off. This time the photographer rose, stretched out his legs, adjusted his camera, and strolled away, causing most members of the group to do the same while murmuring in appreciation of Norman’s erudition. Virginia reached up to embrace him again and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.
“You are wonderful,” she said.
He was under no illusion that she referred to his impromptu lecture rather than his ability to get her name and picture on the society page of the newspaper.
“There is no way we are going to lose you. We’ll pay whatever you want and Tom Turbyfill is history. Just please don’t leave us.”
Before turning to go, she winked at him and waved gaily at Libba, who had already laid her hand on Norman’s arm and her claim on his attention.
“Who is that boy over there with Kevin and Alicia Forney?” She nodded in their direction.
“You mean their son?”
Libba’s eyes bulged wide and her lips formed a deliberate O. “I never would have recognized him,” she said. “So it’s true, then. I heard the rumors all during Christmas.”
He shrugged. “Well, darling,” he said. “Most people have to do something with somebody. As long as it doesn’t involve animals or minors, I couldn’t care less.”
She laughed wryly. “I doubt the boy’s parents will be so cavalier about it.”
“Of course they won’t be,” he snapped. “It’s always hard on the parents when a child doesn’t turn out to be what they wanted. That’s why the rest of us have no business making it any harder.”
Indeed, he knew, it was his business now to help these parents come to terms with what their son had turned out to be; just as it had been his business to help the son figure out who he was. This was not something he always got thanked for, and it was certainly something he never got paid for; nevertheless, it was his job, for as long as they would all let him have it—a high-risk tightrope walk no one else wanted to do—and he did it. After he recovered from today he’d have to call Alicia and make plans for lunch. Or rather, drinks and dinner. And more drinks. After catching a glimpse of their son, whom he hadn’t noticed earlier, he believed he understood now why the Forneys had avoided him earlier: they were embarrassed to be seen with their own child, who had a silver hoop dangling from one ear and his hair gelled into savage spikes sticking straight up on his head. It might or might not be an announcement of his sexual orientation, but it was certainly a gesture of defiance and rebellion which was making his parents extremely uncomfortable. Yet here they were in public with their son by their side. Still, it was clear they needed help, and what’s more, they deserved it. As soon as possible, Norman intended to give them all the help he could. This wasn’t going to be easy, like the time Kaye Beasley’s mother had telephoned tearfully to ask him what he knew about dykes.
Apparently Cammie did not know exactly what these were, but her daughter Kaye had just “hatefully” flung the announcement in her mother’s face that she was a DYKE in such a way that Cammie knew it was a very bad thing. Cammie had begun sobbing after reproducing for Norman’s benefit the exact way in which Kaye had “hatefully” spit the word DYKE in her mother’s face.
“Oh, she’ll get over it,” Norman had been able to assure Cammie right away. “But here’s what you have to do,” he said. “First of all: Don’t tell a soul. And I mean: not a soul. Not even Neil. Are you with me? NOT ONE SOUL.”
Sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. Not tell Neil? Not even Neil? It must be Serious. It must be Very Serious. Cammie knew that now. She had known it at the time, although she had been hoping Norman would tell her it was all nothing. Unfortunately it was as bad as she feared—possibly even worse—so she had to do exactly as he said if she wanted this to go away.
“Most of all,” Norman said, “Do Not Bring This Subject Up again with Kaye. EVER. Do you hear me? Say nothing. Not one word. And try your best just to Stay Out of Her Way. LEAVE HER ALONE. If you do exactly as I tell you, my guess is you’ll never hear another word about dykes.”
Norman had been right, as he knew he would be, because two weeks earlier, Gayle Naughton had shown him certain portions from Kaye’s creative writing journal containing explicit descriptions of sexual encounters—heterosexual encounters—in which a certain part of the male anatomy had been described in graphic—and poetic—detail. Whatever else this writing was, it was not the work of a dyke. That much he knew, so he had been able to make the Beasley problem go away. With the Forneys, it was different. It was up to him to convince them that their problem was not a problem. This would be the work of a lifetime.
Meanwhile, he narrowed his eyes at Libba as if to telegraph a reminder about her own son, who once had hair past his shoulders and followed a guru around India for two years. Just because her son had finally cut his hair, gone to law school and become a husband, father and tax attorney did not entitle her to forget there was a time when she’d rather he didn’t come home for Christmas with his ponytail and flip flops for all the world to see. One of the many reasons he loved her: he could talk tough to her and she took it well, perhaps even took it to heart. She was one of the smartest women of his acquaintance. And her fur coat was his favorite: the mink mainly on the inside, where it kept her warm, and only along the seams of the exterior, which consisted of a leather that looked like raw animal hide. Gorgeous.
She acknowledged his point by changing the subject. “Tom Turbyfill isn’t here, I see.”
“Considering that he tried to shut down my Orange Bowl Gallery two years ago, I wouldn’t expect him to be. Don’t you want some wine?”
He knew she didn’t. Libba and Milton were naturally wine snobs who drank only the best and never out of plastic cups. But he wanted some wine, and moved toward the table. She didn’t bother to reply but went with him.
“What could he possibly have against your Orange Bowl Gallery?”
“Oh, something about a non-profit institution needing to avoid even the appearance of engaging in for-profit activity.”
Libba rolled her eyes while Norman grabbed the nearest bottle and poured to the brim of his fat little plastic cup. He turned back around. “I don’t think Tom could believe I was running the gallery for the pure purpose of promoting art, artists and the Brook-Haven School. He was convinced I was lining my pockets. How else could I account for my luxury automobile and my gracious home?” He treated himself to a large slurp of wine. “Sure you don’t want any? This is from Elizabeth Elder’s own private stash.”
“No, thanks,” she shook her head curtly.
“I had to show him the books, the bank account statements, everything. Naturally I like to have a surplus to fund the next show. That doesn’t mean I’m making a profit, or using it for my own personal gain. And today, of course”—he gestured around the room with his plastic cup—“today will wipe me out totally. And that’s with Warren paying for all the prints. Of course, it might not matter if I’m gone next year.”
“What in the world does that man think he’s up to?”
“Oh, who knows?” said Norman, waving his hand carelessly as if he’d never given the matter much thought. “Tom is really the worst sort of barbarian: he doesn’t care about anything beyond his own advancement. I don’t think he gives a good God-damn about either the school or the town where it’s located.”
“But he didn’t realize that the one thing guaranteed to rile the Board would be to try to snuff you out.”
“Well,” he said as judiciously as he could fake, “the school is up for reaccreditation next year, and SACS is becoming more and more strict in their regulations about credentials …”
“Oh, please,” she said. “Do you think that’s the real reason he advised you to take the other job?”
Norman shrugged and pretended to be most intrigued by the assortment of cheeses Bebe Bannon was hastily unwrapping and placing on the table. A quarter wheel of Brie, a thick wedge of Parmiggiano-Reggianno, a slab of some kind of blue, either Stilton or Gorgonzola. Good girl! he thought. No cheese cubes from you!
“Save your receipts!” he called over to her. “I’ll pay you back.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Laney,” she said cheerfully, enjoying her role to the hilt as she always did, even when only a dozen guests showed up for the gallery opening. She would never present him with any receipts, and he would of course “forget” to ask again, instead accepting her expenditures as one of the many ways his well-to-do students and their parents contributed to the functioning of their special school.
“What’s that, darling?” he turned back to Libba.
“Apparently Adelaide confronted him directly, and he said he’d elaborate more fully at the meeting of the Board in the spring.”
“Thank you, darling,” he said, as Bebe handed him a plate containing a generous selection of all three cheeses on Carr’s Table Wafer crackers—his favorite—as she well knew.
“I wish Milton were still on the Board; I’d know more then,” sighed Libba, eyeing his plate of cheese.
He held it out. “Take some,” he urged with his mouth full. He knew she wouldn’t. She never ate between meals and had the trim figure of a young woman to show for it.
“But you’ve got everybody on the Board in your camp, except possibly that Bible banshee’s husband. Can’t think of his name.”
“Bradley?”
“That’s it. Don Bradley. Who knows what he thinks? And who cares? The Board belongs to you, and that’s what counts.”
“Well, darling, perhaps it’s time for me to move on. Make more money, work fewer hours. And I don’t exactly relish the prospect of remaining in a job where the boss wants me out.”
“But he isn’t the boss. The Board is. And they’ll be demonstrating that in two months. Luckily for everybody his contract is up this year. So you just sit tight, hold your breath, and don’t do anything impulsive.” She looked at her watch. “Now where is Milton?”
When Libba was done she was done, and often didn’t bother with goodbye, just like him. He turned around first to get another chunk of that Brie, and was surprised to feel her hand again on his arm.
“Oh, and congratulations, Norman,” she said.
“It is rather a success, isn’t it?” he agreed, while slicing imperfectly into the cheese with a white plastic knife.
She pulled closer to him and whispered in his ear. “That too,” she said. “But what I meant was: it’s the first time I’ve ever seen white people and black people together at a party. Black people who weren’t pouring drinks and serving food, that is.” She raised her eyebrows meaningfully when he turned to look at her.
He only nodded, his mouth too full.
“Leave it to you to pull that off,” she said. “Now I’ve got to run. Tennis at four,” she explained, and she was gone.
His eyes scanned the crowd until he found the Vernons, the only black people in the room except for the ones in the photographs on the wall. They appeared no more comfortable or glad to be there than they had earlier, but at least Elizabeth Elder was looking after them. At the moment she was introducing them to Craig and Melinda Daniels, who couldn’t have been a more perfect couple—social worker and civil rights attorney—to take the Vernons off Elizabeth’s hands and give her a breather. He hoped they understood their social obligations.
New faces were still arriving and many others were reappearing after touring the furnace. Apparently the official guided tour took a full hour, and Liza Sloss had offered to make sure a guide was available, though normally the museum wasn’t open on Sundays. But that would have taken the focus away from the exhibit, and as long as the guests were free to wander through the site on their own, that would serve his purposes. Fortunately Liza had stepped in and made the arrangements free of cost after that woman of low IQ and even less imagination in charge of “museum events” had told him that under no circumstances could he host a party in the Visitor’s Center, hang pictures on the wall, serve alcohol of any kind, and most definitely not on a Sunday or without paying the usual “event fee” for using the space. Luckily for him Liza Sloss was a graduate of the Brook-Haven School.
Catching sight of Adelaide Whitmire lowering her head like a bull charging in his direction, he crammed the remainder of the cheese in his mouth, downed his last swallow of wine, dusted the crumbs off his hands and prepared for the encounter. The formidable head of hair coming at him was the perfect appurtenance for the battering ram of Adelaide Whitmire’s personality. Although she went to the same beauty parlor as all her friends to get her hair “fixed” into the usual carapace worn by most women in Mountain Brook of a certain age, somehow the hair of these other women appeared fluffy, with spongelike breaches revealing an inner airness. It was clear there was nothing inside but a total vacancy underneath the artfully engineered soufflé which deflated more and more as the days passed between hair appointments. But Adelaide’s hair seemed molded from a solid piece of brass, as if it were a true force to contend with. It was hard to remember that her hair was just as insubstantial and air-built as all the other hairdos, especially because her face was physiologically incapable of producing a smile. The deep lines around her mouth formed only a frown that could deepen or lengthen, but never disappear. Fortunately he had remembered to get the proofs back to the printer on Friday.
“Hey, darlin’,” he said.
“Norman, I must ask you,” she began, ignoring his greeting. “What is Valerie doing with that young man from the school?”
“What young man?” His obviously genuine bewilderment softened her somewhat.
But she said, “You know very well who I’m talking about. The one you brought to the movie premiere.”
“Oh,” he said, with equally genuine enlightenment. “You mean Mark Ellis. I thought at first you were referring to a student.”
“Don’t be absurd,” she said impatiently, waving her hand imperiously. “I ask you again: What is she doing with him?”
“Well, I don’t know. I didn’t know she was doing anything with him.”
“See for yourself.” Adelaide jerked her thumb to indicate the wall on the other side of the room behind her. “They’re right over there.”
As Norman stepped sideways to get a better view, Adelaide turned to follow his gaze. Valerie was at the moment studying one of the photographs in solitary intensity, while several photographs away, Mark Ellis was listening dutifully as Warren Ritchie held forth. Warren had stationed himself at the entrance of the Visitor’s Center to greet all incoming guests, the better to intercept them and secure his best chance for social interaction. No one who could help it talked to Warren of their own free will.
“Doesn’t look to me like Valerie’s got anything to do with Mark Ellis,” said Norman, turning back around and deciding that he needed a refill of his wine.
“I saw them arrive together!” said Adelaide accusingly.
“Well, maybe they got here at the same time,” suggested Norman reasonably. “It doesn’t mean they came together.”
“I’m telling you, Norman,” she shook her finger at him. “That young man has no business with Valerie.”
“Darling, don’t tell me. What have I got to do with it?”
“You’re the one who suggested I invite him to that dinner party for James.”
“I did?”
“You remember,” she insisted. “I had to put the leaf in the table because of that silly girl James brought with him—that I knew nothing about—and then I needed another man to balance the numbers. You told me to invite this young man. I didn’t know what else to do—I couldn’t insult any of my friends by asking them at the last minute, and you refused to come.”
With her reading glasses parked at the end of her nose, the black cord attached to the glasses dangling across her face, and her pocketbook clutched in front of her like a battle shield, Adelaide projected the appearance not of someone rehashing the petty annoyances of last month’s dinner party, but of Margaret Thatcher discussing important matters of state.
“Well, darling, since you didn’t invite me until the last minute, I already had a prior engagement for that evening.” (Dinner at home in front of the television with his mother.) “Ellis was passing by my door as I was on the phone with you, and the idea just popped into my head.”
“I’m going to hold you accountable if anything unpleasant comes of this,” she warned.
“Are you telling me that Valerie and Ellis hit it off at the party?”
The frown on her face deepened. “Well, actually, he spent most of his time talking with James.”
“Oh really? About what?”
“How should I know? Something about a literary agent or editor or something like that. I don’t pay attention to James’s nonsense. I do my family duty by him and that’s it.”
“Well it doesn’t sound to me like there’s anything going on between Valerie and Ellis, at any rate.”
“There better not be. That would be most inappropriate. He’s a highly unsuitable young man.”
“Of course, Valerie is over thirty,” he said musingly, twirling his cup and staring into the middle distance, where he could see Ellis and Valerie standing together in front of one of the photographs. “She does need to settle down with someone sometime soon.”
Silently Adelaide absorbed this blow with the stoic, dignified fortitude she mustered whenever her abject failure as a mother was pointed out to her.
“You got the proofs to the printer,” she stated flatly.
“I got the proofs to the printer,” he confirmed.
“And I’m going to need you again next month for the book club.”
“I just did the book club last month!”
“The March speaker cancelled,” she muttered. “That new guy from UAB. I knew he wouldn’t work out. You’ll have to do it.”
“If I’m in town,” he said. “You know I’m headed to New York with the Albrittons.”
“You’ll be in town,” she said, and then turned on her heels and left. Fortunately her view of Valerie and Ellis, obviously together, was blocked by the crowd.
Trying to disappear quickly in case Adelaide charged back in his direction, Norman turned around so abruptly and forcefully that he bumped into the man next to him and caused him to spill his wine.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Norman, as the man mopped the back of his hand with a napkin.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Larry Plumlee, holding out that hand and smiling amiably. “I was wondering what I was going to do to get your attention with everyone else clamoring for it.”
“I never dreamed this would draw such a crowd,” said Norman, who had sent out twice the normal number of invitations and told everyone he came across about the event.
“You really have done something significant here, Norman,” said Dr. Plumlee, his eyes sweeping the room, surveying the well-heeled crowd, the prize-winning photographs, the smokestacks of the furnace visible through the windows.
Norman shrugged as if it had all been effortless. “The photographer’s granddaughter is one of my seniors. I expect she’ll be among several of our students headed to Harvard next year.”
Larry Plumlee nodded. “Wonderful idea,” he said. “To pair her work with his, follow up on the descendants of the factory workers. Your brainchild, I imagine?”
“Well …” Norman hedged.
Dr. Plumlee lowered his voice. “The contract went in the mail on Friday,” he said. “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see that the—ah—compensation being offered is a bit more than we discussed.”
Norman nodded.
“We have ample room in our new building for you to continue your gallery. I hope you’ll do so. We—”
“Norman?” a voice broke in. “Quite a coup here. Dirk Pendarvis,” said the newcomer, offering his hand to Larry Plumlee.
“Dr. Plumlee is the chair of the English Department at Shelby State,” explained Norman.
“Ah,” said Dirk. “I’ve heard good things about you and your department.”
“Dirk is the chair of the Board of the Brook-Haven School,” said Norman.
“I’m a great admirer of your school,” said Dr. Plumlee. “It’s a tremendous asset to the community.”
Dirk nodded in accepting the compliment. “We couldn’t do it without this man here,” he said, clapping Norman on the back.
“Norman can single-handedly raise the consciousness of an entire community just by lifting his little finger,” agreed Dr. Plumlee.
Norman could feel the genuine glow of admiration radiating from both of these intelligent, worldly, decent men, and wondered what their opinion of him would be if they knew the dirt on him. Whatever it was. There was plenty of it: unsavory, unpleasant, unethical, sinful, possibly illegal or criminal, and just plain wrong. He had done it all. This moment right here was the climax of his day’s triumph, and yet he was utterly unable to enjoy it. Why did there always have to be a pebble in his shoe?
“Well, Norman,” said Dr. Plumlee, edging away from the table. “Good to see you. And nice to meet you,” he inclined his head toward Dirk Pendarvis. “I need to pay my respects to these photographs.”
“Thank you for coming,” Norman called after him.
Norman and Dirk stood in a meaningful silence until Larry Plumlee was out of earshot.
“There must have been three dozen urgent messages waiting for me when I got back from Italy,” said Dirk. “All about you leaving Brook-Haven.”
“All from Adelaide Whitmire.”
Dirk shouted with unrestrained laughter. “Two dozen at least from Adelaide,” he concurred. “The gist I gathered is that Tom Turbyfill got wind of your offer from Shelby State, and for reasons known only to himself, urged you to take the position.”
“That’s about it.”
“How did he find out?”
Norman shrugged. “How did you find out? How does everybody find out everything about everybody else in this town?”
Dirk chuckled. “Got a point there,” he said. “Have you actually received the formal contract yet?”
“Went in the mail on Friday, apparently.”
Dirk scratched his chin thoughtfully and perched his lanky body on the edge of the table, now littered with abandoned plates, napkins and plastic cups.
“Any idea why Turbyfill would want you to take the job?”
“No, but you know as well as I do: I don’t have any education degrees, and technically I’m not qualified to be the assistant headmaster.”
Dirk remained thoughtfully stroking his chin while Norman signaled to Sally, who frowned in embarrassment and dashed over to clear the mess Dirk was almost sitting on. Events seemed to be unfolding as Elizabeth Elder had predicted when she devised his strategy. Last month Turbyfill had sent the receptionist, Elaine, to summon him to his office.
“Tell him if he wants to talk he’ll have to come to me instead,” Norman had growled. They were beyond mere suspension of the rules of engagement; it was guerilla warfare now. Next thing he knew, Turbyfill was tapping on his door and gliding smoothly into his office.
“I have received several calls from several of our Board members,” he began pleasantly in his automaton’s voice. “They have heard the news that you are considering a position elsewhere, and believe I am to blame. I think the time has come for you to make an official announcement. Otherwise, you are putting the school in an awkward position.”
“It’s not the school that’s in an awkward position; it’s you,” said Norman, shifting the piles of paper on his desk without even glancing at the headmaster. “And you put yourself there. What did you think was going to happen? You can’t expect to be the iceberg that goes up against the Titanic without some shock to your own system. And this time—” he looked over at the headmaster for the first time and leaned into his face—“the Titanic is not going down. It’s the iceberg that’s going to crack.”
“Am I to understand that you would prefer me to explain to the Board why your contract here should not be renewed?”
“What I would prefer,” snapped Norman, “is to get on with my job while you get on with yours. If you have any concerns about my performance, I’ll be happy to address them at any time. But I have no intention of leaving this school.”
Turbyfill had shaken his head. “I think you will regret this, Norman. If I go public with the Board in the spring, no school anywhere will hire you. The Board will not have a choice but to let you go, and your new job will be over before it begins.”
“So you’ve said. But if what you have on me is so alarming, why wait till the spring to tell the Board? Why not tell them now?”
“I do not like dropping bombshells in the middle of the school year. And contrary to what you may believe, I do not wish to destroy your career or your reputation.”
“I’ll just have to take my chances with the Board in the spring.”
Turbyfill had bowed his head ceremoniously and said, “That is your choice,” before leaving the room.
Meanwhile, Tom Turbyfill was still in his “awkward position.” Everyone believed that Norman had been sought after by Shelby State, which was actually true, and that Tom Turbyfill had then urged him to accept the position, which wasn’t actually wrong. But Norman was beginning to feel like Anaïs Nin, who told so many lies she needed a little black book to remind her of what she had told to what person at what time. And Anaïs Nin was not a good thing to feel like.
Dirk waited for Sally to leave and looked around before speaking. “No one was crazy about Turbyfill when we hired him,” he said. “We thought he was competent enough, and harmless. Have you ever had a conflict with him?”
“Oh, he’s tried to rein me in, of course. Even tried to derail the college tour this year. Said I had to get twenty-five students, make it pay for itself completely, or it would be cancelled. I just ignored him and went right on about my business like I always do. Like I did when he tried to shut down the Orange Bowl Gallery two years ago.”
“The college tour?” said Dirk, puzzled. “We’re making a name for ourselves with the college tour. It’s become part of the school’s signature.”
“And this,” said Norman, sweeping his arm widely to indicate the room. “This is the Orange Bowl Gallery. You can’t tell me this doesn’t advance the reputation of the school. If I’m not mistaken, we’ll get credit for this in three different parts of the Birmingham News.”
“They’ve been here?”
“A photographer, a reporter, and Lil Nolan. The art critic hasn’t shown yet, but he may come later. He might not necessarily want to attend the opening.”
Dirk rose and patted Norman on the arm. “Just hold on,” he said. “The headmaster’s contract is up for renewal this year, and the Board will have a chance to revisit his suitability for the Brook-Haven School. If he doesn’t want you as his colleague, that can be easily solved, though not necessarily in the way he envisions.”
“Don’t forget to come see your son play the lead in the spring play,” said Norman.
“Oh, yes,” said Dirk vaguely. “Luke mentioned something about that. I’ll be there.”
He eased off, clearly bothered by something, probably the same thing that Norman was bothered by: the fear that Tom Turbyfill had the goods on Norman Laney.
The crowd was beginning to thin, and Warren Ritchie was enthusiastically shaking the hands of all departing guests like a politician thanking his supporters. Warren appeared so pleased he seemed ready to explode with bursting pride. “Full as a tick,” Norman’s mother would have said. In a way, Warren was a kind of tick, feeding on the lifeblood of others. To look at him, anyone would have thought the day’s event had showcased Warren, instead of his father and daughter, and no one would have guessed that his wife had died unexpectedly a mere six months ago. Warren himself clearly thought that everyone had come to pay homage to him. The idea that all these people might have come for any other reason—to promote the school, to support Norman Laney, to view the photographs, to tour Sloss Furnaces, to be written up by the society columnist—none of these possibilities had even crossed Warren’s mind. He thought Mountain Brook society was embracing him at last. He had done everything he could to gain acceptance, and must have believed it had finally paid off. The poor s.o.b. didn’t realize there was nothing he could ever do to gain full acceptance in a town as close-minded as Birmingham, where all non-Southerners were Yankees, and all Yankees were Jews, and no Jews would ever be truly accepted. Today Warren thought he was being celebrated; he was merely being tolerated. To Norman’s dismay, Warren went so far as to put his arm around him in an excess of gratitude for having orchestrated this triumphant moment. Karen was nowhere to be seen, of course. Typically of the girl, she had effaced herself completely.
At least it was over; he could go home and put his feet up. He had not sat down for the last four hours.
The next thing he knew, a camera crew from Channel 6 News was wheeling its equipment into the room.