I held up the files. “There’s a copy of the lease in one of these?”
“There should be.”
“When is the defendant supposed to vacate the premises?”
“March thirty-first.”
This was less than two weeks away, and I said, “Oh, man. Should I try to negotiate with the landlord first or just file for a stay of execution?”
“Do some investigating, then tell me.” Harold smiled. “I know you enjoy a challenge.”
* * *
—
At noon on Saturday, I and the four other leaders of the Yale chapter of Law Students United for Change met at the student union to read and sign the final draft of an open letter—collaboratively written earlier in the week and typed that morning by me—to U.S. House Speaker Carl Albert. After much lobbying by antiwar activists, Albert was rumored to be on the brink of endorsing an amendment to lower the national voting age to eighteen. Meanwhile, that evening, I was planning to attend a potluck dinner hosted by Richard and Gwen Greenberger. Richard taught Constitutional Law as well as Political and Civil Rights, a seminar that had been my favorite class so far—perhaps not coincidentally, Richard was the only professor I called by his first name—and Gwen, who herself had graduated from Yale Law in ’63, ran the university-affiliated National Children’s Initiative, where I’d worked the previous summer. For the potluck, I’d offered to bring chocolate chip cookies, which was one of the few foods I could confidently make.
Between the letter signing and the potluck, I was meeting Bill at three. When I arrived at the café, he was waiting outside. He cocked his head to the right and said, “I have a better idea. I passed the art gallery on the way here. You interested in the Rothko exhibit?”
“The gallery isn’t open,” I said. Because of a labor dispute, several university buildings were currently closed.
“Exactly,” he said. “Want to see me work some Arkansas magic?”
I couldn’t help myself. I said, “Does it involve watermelons?”
He laughed. “I thought you might have been eavesdropping in the lounge.” This had been six months prior, and although I remembered the day, I was a little surprised he did. He added, “If you want to get specific, it’s the town of Hope, in the southwest part of the state, that grows the very best watermelons of all. I grew up mostly in Hot Springs, but Hope is where I was born. The soil there is nice and sandy because of the river, and we once sent a melon that was almost two hundred pounds to President Truman.”
“ ‘We’ as in your family?”
“ ‘We’ as in the town, though my uncle Carl, who was married to my grandmother’s sister Otie, was a watermelon-growing champ. To be honest, it’s not the really big watermelons that taste the best. The small ones are the sweetest.”
“I promise not to tell Truman that you shortchanged him,” I said. “And yes, I’m interested in the Rothko exhibit. As for Arkansas magic, I’m willing to temporarily suspend disbelief.”
“If that’s the best I can do, I’ll take it.” He then gave me a kind of once-over and I had the strange thought that he might be about to take my hand, but instead we were soon walking side by side, and I wondered if I’d imagined the strangeness. As we walked, I was conscious of his height and heft next to me; I had to crane my neck to meet his eye.
I said, “How are your classes?” In the days since we’d spoken in the library, I’d concluded that if the purpose of this meeting wasn’t to pick my brain about working at the clinic, it might be that he wanted advice about which courses to select in his second year.
“I can’t lie,” he said. “I’m a terrible procrastinator. I have a bad habit of taking on more projects than I ought to off campus, and I usually finish the reading about three minutes before class starts.” He winced before adding, “That’s assuming I come to class at all.”
“What are you doing the rest of the time?”
“I’m teaching criminal law at the University of New Haven, for one. It’s to make money, but it’s not a bad gig. The students are studying to be policemen, so I get an interesting window into their lives. I also do errands for a lawyer in town, delivering papers and whatnot. But the best job, until all of a sudden it wasn’t, was campaigning for Joe Duffey last fall.”
“Ah,” I said. “I’m sorry.” Duffey, a seminary professor who’d run for U.S. senator from Connecticut on an antiwar platform, had lost to a Republican named Lowell Weicker.
Bill shook his head. “Classic example of the right guy having the wrong message. Joe grew up blue-collar, but he couldn’t convince factory workers he understood them. Have you worked on any campaigns?”
I said, “I actually walked precincts for Duffey the Saturday before Election Day. And in college, I’d go to New Hampshire on the weekends to volunteer for McCarthy. But this might make you want to end our conversation right now. My first campaign experience was going door-to-door for Goldwater.”
“Oh, Hillary.” Bill’s expression was a mix of appalled and amused. “Say it ain’t so.”
“I started to see the light gradually. In ’68, I attended both the Republican and Democratic conventions.”
Bill squinted. “Is that legal? Or even possible, metaphysically speaking?”
“I’m a staunch Democrat now, and it’s because I carefully considered the alternatives. But honestly, I’d already switched sides and wouldn’t have attended the Republican convention except that the Wellesley intern program assigned me to work for the House Republican Conference that summer. I did meet Frank Sinatra at the convention, though.”
“Well, that’s something.” Bill hummed a few bars of “Strangers in the Night.” “What are your plans for after Yale?”
“It depends on the day.” I laughed a little. “I definitely want to work in Washington at some point. This summer, I’m clerking at a firm in California, and I can see how litigation would be exciting. But I’ve also been doing research for Gwen Greenberger at the National Children’s Initiative. Do you know the Greenbergers?” In addition to admiring Gwen and Richard professionally, I was fascinated by them personally. He was white and Jewish and from Georgia, and she was black and Baptist and from New York, and they were the parents of three-year-old twin boys. The Greenbergers’ life and home charmed me—their many bookshelves, the fact that he sometimes cooked the meals, the way they joked around and fought for justice and were both dazzlingly yet casually brilliant. It was all so different from the way my parents interacted.