Huh? Although I knew Dave Emerson liked to flirt and talk trash to pretty women, I’d always assumed the marriage was basically strong. Certainly I’d never heard Rosemary express regret for giving up her own law career to further his while staying home to raise two high-achieving daughters. Of course, I don’t know as much about her personal life as I do her sister’s. Still…
I lifted an eyebrow at Chelsea Ann, who gave a don’t-askme-now shrug. Rosemary appeared not to have heard, so I filed it for future reference and let it go.
We weren’t the only ones who had arrived in town early and who had decided to gather there for dinner. As often happens at conventions and conferences, tables meant for four soon accommodated six, and other tables were pushed together until we had taken over the whole left front corner of the open porch. Like the Emersons, some judges were there with spouses to make it a family vacation. After table-hopping to speak to colleagues I hadn’t seen since the last conference, I came back to my original table and took an empty chair beside white-haired Fitz Fitzhume and Martha, his tall, angular, and opinionated wife, even though that left me with my back to the water.
A reedy young waiter with a weak chin arrived with the Fitzhumes’ drinks, took our orders, and agreed to bring me a margarita to replace the one I’d finished at another table.
“Kyle’s trying to break into television,” said Martha, a true people person who can’t help getting the life history of almost everyone she comes into contact with, from lawyers to janitors and certainly with the wait staff. “He got to be on-camera for a crowd scene in
“And when I was a little kid, I was in a courtroom scene on
“Then you’re from Wilmington?” I asked politely.
“Myrtle Beach actually, but my aunt lives here and she knew one of the crew members on the show, so that’s how I got on.”
I’m no judge—well, no judge of acting ability anyhow—but it seemed to me that his voice was too thin and just a little too arch for anything except the lightest of comedies. He was poised to tell me the rest of his brushes with the spotlight until Martha gently reminded him that his current role was waiter and that she, for one, was hungry.
“Nice kid, but too much fluff between the ears,” said Martha. “He may sleep with a director, but that’s about as far as he’s gonna get in show business.”
“Cynic,” I said.
“Not cynical, sugar. Just realistic. Now Hank over there”—she pointed to the young man who had shown us to this part of the porch—“he wants to go into hotel management and I’d say he has the chops for it.”
Indeed, he was in the act of seating a bearded man with two young children, a girl and a boy. He brought them crayons and a coloring sheet and was fitting one of the chairs with a booster seat for the little boy when Pete Jeffreys approached the table. The father half rose from his chair to shake hands and introduce his children, who shyly ducked their heads. The headwaiter stood by discreetly until the introductions were over, then handed the man a menu and signaled for a waitress.
“Now how you finding married life?” Judge Fitzhume asked me.
“Just fine,” I lied. “And don’t you and Martha have a fortieth anniversary coming up?”
“Forty-two,” he beamed. “And it seems like only four since I got her to the altar.”
Courtly, soft-spoken, and always polite even when disagreeing with drunken felons, Fitz had announced his retirement a few months earlier. Although he would probably continue to fill in as an emergency judge when needed, he and Martha planned to spend the next year traveling around the world to visit far-flung grandchildren. They were telling me their itinerary and had gotten themselves as far as Rome when Pete Jeffreys came up with Cynthia Blankenthorpe in tow.
I have called Pete Jeffreys one of the princes of the bench, but that impression was formed at the first fall conference he attended year before last where I watched him move confidently through the halls and meeting rooms with easy charm and instant camaraderie. He had skipped last summer’s conference and I had skipped the fall, so I hadn’t seen him interact with our colleagues in over a year. Now I noticed a distinct chill when he approached our table to introduce the new judge to Fitz, and I realized that Martha had drawn back stiffly in her chair and kept her strong fingers firmly around her drink, deliberately ignoring his outstretched hand.
Dear, ever-courteous Fitz assumed the hand was meant for him and, after a slight hesitation, shook it amiably enough.
“Bastard!” said Martha when Jeffreys and his protegee had moved on.
“Now, Martha,” he murmured.
“Not you, honey,” she assured him.
Before I could ask her to explain, the deep-fried soft-shelled crabs we’d both ordered arrived, crisp and succulent on beds of baby greens.
As far as I’m concerned, blue claws are the tastiest crustacean in the Atlantic. You can have my lobsters if you’ll give me all your blue crabs, especially when they’ve just molted, before their shells start to harden.
Fitz gave a sigh of pure pleasure as his own plate was set before him, and was moved to tell his favorite crab joke.
“This was back when the world was young and urgent messages went by Western Union rather than cell phones or emails,” he said, squeezing lemon juice over a plate of buttery linguini heaped high with lumps of back-fin meat. “A man sent his mother-in-law on a vacation at the coast to get her out of his hair. Two days later, he got a telegram from the hotel manager. ‘Regret to inform you your mother-inlaw washed ashore this evening covered in crabs. What shall I do?’ ”
Everyone within earshot of his voice sang out, “Ship the crabs and set ’er again!”
“Oh,” he said. “Y’all’ve heard it before?”
Martha patted his hand. “Every time you order crabs, sweetheart.”
