15   As soon as I was out of bed on Thursday I turned on my computer and printer, and made another copy – for Libby – of Rose’s summary. I now told myself, disingenuously perhaps, that I had ordered the investigation on Libby’s behalf rather than to satisfy my own curiosity. It didn’t matter, of course. I would not be billing Libby separately for expenses; they would be paid from my fee, which would, as I was quite certain by then, be quite substantial. But in view of my conversation with Andy, of his interest in reconnecting with Libby, and of what I now knew about him, the original purpose – digging up dirt on Saint Andrew, in Jerry’s words – had been superseded by something that I wasn’t sure of yet, but that I felt was of benefit to Libby, my client. I now recognized that Rose’s first characterization of Andy Stone’s saga as a movie – even before she knew its scope – was on the mark. It began to play itself before my eyes as I read the summary, with Andy playing himself, some generic blonde (because I pictured her as an Afrikaner blonde) as the hospital director’s adulterous wife, perhaps Chiwetel Ejiofor (from Dirty Pretty Things) as Dr. Thomas Muphongo, and for some reason someone who looked like Venus Williams as Vicky – perhaps because I don’t know any black African actresses, and most young Afro-American or Afro-British actresses don’t look very African, like Paul Stevens’ receptionist. Venus Williams does; she was on my mind because the previous week she had trounced her sister Serena in the US Open before losing to Kim Clijsters in the quarterfinals, and I had seen highlights of the matches on the television news. Now, as I was making myself breakfast, Vicky’s fate loomed large in my mind. I imagined an emaciated version of Venus Williams on her sickbed at the mission. Was she alive or dead? If alive, then Andy was married and therefore ineligible to become Peter Hart’s domestic partner. What about the City Hall marriage, then? Had this marriage been legally upheld, then Andy would be a bigamist. Had he, then, received some news of Vicky’s death before last February? Would it be possible to find the mission and contact it? Rose, in her summary, made a point of noting that Dr. Muphongo did not remember which order the mission belonged to. It was just the kind of thing that a Catholic – even a lapsed one like Rose – would think of. Perhaps she was already thinking of contacting the mission. I would certainly encourage her to do so. But the dénouement of the movie would be something that had not happened yet: a reunion – joyful and sad – between the two Thomases, Andy Stone and Dr. Muphongo. Rose did not say whether she had told Dr. Muphongo of Andy’s whereabouts. I surmised that I would learn about that later in the day, when Rose got back to town. I called Libby, and left her a voicemail message. “Hi, it’s your lawyer,” I said. “It’s very important that you come in to see me well before the press conference, maybe even later this morning. I have some information to tell you and show you that will blow your mind.” When I got to the office, wearing a suit and tie in preparation for the press conference, Libby’s reply was already in my voicemail. “Hi, it’s your client Libby. I can be there a little after one. If that’s okay then don’t bother calling me back.” I removed my tie, put it in a desk drawer, and unbuttoned my shirt at the neck. I heard the mail being delivered, and I went out to Diane’s desk to get mine. It included an envelope from Paul Stevens, CPA, that probably contained at least a preliminary appraisal of Peter Hart’s estate. That was just what it was. And the value of the estate was now estimated at about $17,500,000, which would be right around ten million after taxes, and my fee, if the case went through, would be a million. A million dollars! I remembered how, when I told my father – in my junior year at Berkeley – that I wanted to go to law school, he would rib me about wanting to become a rich lawyer. “No!” I would protest. “Not a rich lawyer, just a lawyer, any more than you’re a rich producer.” “That doesn’t mean that I didn’t want to be one,” he would reply. And, in reality, my father had done quite well. If it had not been for the expenses of my mother’s illness, the fact that the depression that set in when she died cut down his ability to work, and the (not unreasonable) settlements of his two divorces, he might have left me more of an inheritance than the two hundred thousand that I finally got. But now I was about to earn a million-dollar fee for – what was it? – two or three weeks’ work. I felt like celebrating. I took Jerry, Nina and Diane – Barbara was not in – out to lunch.   I was back at the office at one. I called Paul Stevens to thank him for his work and to tell him that I would recommend him to my client for help with the estate, once it passed to her. He thanked me in return. Libby arrived at one-ten. “What time should we leave for the Randall?” she asked as she stepped through my office door. “Around twenty to two,” I said. “Here, read this.” I handed her the printout of Rose’s summary, which she held at arm’s length as she read it. She was wearing the same breathtakingly low-cut turquoise top as the first time that she came to see me. This time it was paired with a tight dark-red skirt. Her medium-heeled shoes were of the same color. She read slowly and carefully. Her faced showed the varying emotions that the text inspired in her. Finally she put the paper on the desk, looked at me, and, with a welled-up voice, said only “Wow!” “There’s more,” I said. “I spoke to Andy last night.” “You did? Where is he?” “He’s still in Louisiana, but he’s coming back in a few days. He wants to talk to you, very badly. Here’s his phone number.” I handed her a slip of paper with the number. “I want to talk to him, too.” She was still welled up. “When I spoke to him I didn’t have the information yet that you just read, and he didn’t volunteer any of it. When I asked some questions that I now know to be related to this, he was evasive.” I told her the gist of my conversation with Andy, fairly complete except for the part dealing with Barbara Kaminsky. “My God,” Libby said, smiling, “Andy is Andy. One of a kind. As unpredictable as they come. You can see why I fell for him.” “Absolutely,” I said. “And I could fall for him again,” she said dreamily. “It’s time to go,” I said. Libby suddenly came back to the present. “Let me drive,” she said. “I’m parked at a meter.” “Pretty soon a parking ticket won’t matter to you.” “Don’t count on it,” she said, and we both laughed as we walked out into the street. It was cloudy but surprisingly warm. When we got to Libby’s car I noticed that her jacket was on the backseat. When we got to the Randall Museum and stepped into the auditorium, most of the chairs were already taken. Several television cameras were set up and ready to go. As Libby and I walked to the front, I could sense the impact, almost like that of a small earthquake, that Libby’s physical presence had on those assembled, male and female. I overheard a few whispers of Wow! To my surprise, Libby pulled a nondescript pair of glasses from her purse and put them on. She had not needed them when reading the printout of Rose’s summary, though I now remembered how she had held the paper, and deduced that she was far-sighted. She then pulled out folded bundle of yellow-pad sheets, unfolded them and began to read her prepared statement as she held the paper about a foot from her face. “Ladies and gentlemen of the media, thank you for coming. I would like to introduce myself. My name is Elizabeth Perino Schlemmer, but please call me Libby. My mother’s name is Laura Perino, and those of you who are old enough may remember her from the society pages of the early seventies. My father’s name is Peter Hart. I’m here to announce that, with the help of my attorney, Gary Einhorn, I have filed a petition to be recognized as my father’s heir. “You may ask: why am I called Libby Schlemmer? Well, when Laura Perino was eighteen and living in Oregon, she met a young man named Victor Schlemmer, and they got married on impulse. In those days you were supposed to be married in order to do certain things.” There was laughter in the assembly. “Laura and Victor were together for only a few months, and then he vanished from her life. To get a divorce or an annulment would have cost money, which Laura didn’t have, and since she had no interest in getting married again, she didn’t bother. She pretty much forgot about Victor, except on those occasions when she had to give her marital status. The nineteen-seventy census counts her among the married, but separated.” There was more laughter. “When Laura finished college she moved to San Francisco. In nineteen-seventy-two she became intimately involved with Peter Hart.” She looked up from her text; the next sentence was improvised. “I have it on good authority” – she looked at me with a smile – “that she was the last woman that he had feelings for, of a romantic nature.” She went back to reading her text. “By the time she found out that she was pregnant with me, his orientation was already changing, though he didn’t come out for several years more. Given the situation, Laura decided not to burden him with being a father. The only other person who knew about it was her friend and roommate at the time, Sarah Davidson, who is now Sarah Scott and lives in Mill Valley. My mother told me who my biological father was as soon I was old enough to understand the biology” – yet more laughter, while she gave me a look that seemed to convey an apology for repeating the joke – “but I have also kept it private. “When Laura arrived at the hospital to give birth, she routinely gave her status as married and her husband’s name as Victor Schlemmer. That’s how I got his name. Soon afterwards she got an uncontested dissolution of the marriage and moved back to Oregon, but my name stayed as it was. In the suburb of Portland where we lived, it looked better if one was a divorcee with a child rather than an unmarried mother. “Ten years ago, when I finished college, I came to San Francisco for a visit, and I got a glimpse of Peter Hart, standing with a group of friends on the steps of the Opera House. He looked thinner than in the pictures that my mother had shown me – he was already ill, though I didn’t know about it – but he was still very handsome and charming, and I felt proud to be his daughter. “Two years ago I moved to San Francisco. I was shocked to learn that Peter Hart was terminally ill and that he was living with Andy Stone, whom I had known in college. I decided not intrude on their lives. “Let me cut to the chase. When Peter Hart died and it was announced that he had left behind a considerable estate, no will, no children and no legal spouse or domestic partner, so that his wealth would go to his super-rich relatives who had disowned him, I decided to make myself known. That’s when I approached Gary Einhorn to make a case for me, and the case seems to have been made. “If you have any questions, please direct them to Gary or to me, depending on whether they are of a legal or a personal nature. Thank you.” At first no one seemed eager to ask any questions. I could hear murmurs and whispers in the hall. When I look toward the back, I saw that Margo was sitting there. I had not seen her when Libby and I first arrived, nor did I see her come in. I tried to meet her glance, but she was whispering with a man, whom I didn’t know, sitting beside her. “Mister Einhorn…” a woman reporter began. “Please call me Gary.” “Gary, wasn’t Peter Hart married to his… companion?” “Legally, no. A marriage ceremony was performed, but the California Supreme Court ruled that those marriages are void and of no legal effect. As you know, California allows domestic partnerships that for inheritance purposes are equivalent to marriage, though not when it comes to the federal estate tax, but Peter Hart and Andy Stone did not enter into such a partnership.” “But isn’t there a suit to have the marriage recognized as the equivalent of a partnership in this case?” a male reporter asked. “There was a plan to file such a suit, but I understand that it’s to be withdrawn, if it hasn’t been already.” I looked to the back again. Margo and the man with her were gone. “Libby,” another woman asked, “you say that you knew Andy Stone in college. How well did you know him?” “That’s a loaded question,” Libby said with a smile. “But I’ll give you a simple answer. He was my boyfriend.” The new wave of whispers made it clear that the revelation that Andy Stone, the gay icon, had had a girlfriend in college confounded the San Francisco media crowd. Apparently he had managed to keep his more recent heterosexual liaisons, like the one with Barbara Kaminsky, hidden from them. Libby was not done. “And please don’t ask me any more questions about Andy Stone,” she added. “Andy may or may not want this known,” I said, “but I would like to tell you that he’s been doing heroic rescue work with Hurricane Katrina victims in Louisiana.” There was more murmuring. “Gary,” a man asked, “what about Peter Hart’s blood relatives?” “Under California law,” I answered in the most formal manner I could muster, “if an intestate decedent leaves a child or children and no spouse or domestic partner, then the entire estate goes to the child or children. Siblings inherit only if there is neither child nor spouse. Peter’s siblings have been notified of our petition to have Libby recognized as Peter’s daughter. They may or may not contest it.” “Libby,” a third woman asked, “can you tell us more about yourself?” “Of course I can,” Libby said. “The question is, do I want to?” Laughter. “Okay. I’m single, I live in San Francisco, and I’m a psychotherapist. I work with teenagers. I like to talk about my work, but not under these circumstances. Okay?” Appreciative chuckles could be heard. Thirty seconds went by with no further questions. “I feel,” Libby said to the assembly, “that I’ve told you everything that needed to be told.” She turned to me. “How about you, Gary?” “I feel the same,” I said. “Thank you all for coming.” With no further ado, Libby and I walked out to the parking lot while the reporters, camera people and their helpers were packing up their gear. “That went pretty well,” Libby said while unlocking her car with the remote key. “Better than that,” I said as we got into our seats. “It was brilliant. In retrospect I feel that, as your attorney, I should have reviewed your statement before you gave it, but I wouldn’t have changed anything.” “I’m sorry.” We drove off. “I meant to have you read it, but I got so involved in the stuff about Andy that I forgot. My mind is still full of Andy. I can’t wait to call him.” We were silent for a while. Libby’s car stereo was playing some music that sounded like salsa, but the singing was definitely not in Spanish, nor in any language that I could identify. “What kind of music is that?” I asked. “It’s called Africando. It’s a mix of African and salsa. Do you like it?” “Yes.” “I’ll give you a CD. In fact, I have an extra one in the car with me. Open the glove compartment and pull it out.” I did as she told me, and found myself holding a CD of the Putamayo label, still shrink-wrapped, titled Afro-Latin Party. “It’s yours,” Libby said. “Thank you,” I said. The first thought that came into my mind was I wonder if Chris will like it. I felt pleased. We did not talk any more for the rest of the drive to my office, except for the good-byes when she dropped me off. It was about three o’clock, and I had a new client – another routine divorce case – coming in at four. I sat down at my desk and began to prepare the paperwork. The Afro-Latin sounds were still echoing in my ears. When I started making dinner – I felt like having pasta again – I put the CD on my stereo. Some of the singing was in Spanish, but most of it was in various African languages. The music had some influences of jazz and pop, but the rhythms were definitely Cuban, and I found myself dancing on the kitchen floor while the fusilli were cooking in the bubbling water. I wondered if Libby danced to this music or only listened to it; when she first told me about her predilection for World Music, she said nothing about dancing. Then I began to imagine Chris in my arms. But in my imagination, even as she had done in reality on the dance floor of Roccapulco, she twirled away from me and danced in her own space.