Sons of Fortune

“What do you mean by that?” asked Nat sharply.

“You’re simply not in his class. In or out of bed.” She paused.

Nat was about to respond but decided it wasn’t worth it. He left without saying another word. Later that night he lay awake, realizing that Rebecca, like so many other things, was part of his past life.

One of Nat’s more surprising discoveries on returning to the university was how many students pressed him to run against Elliot for the president of the student senate. But Nat made it clear that he had no interest in fighting an election while he still needed to make up for the time he’d lost.

When he returned home at the end of his sophomore year, Nat told his father that he was just as pleased that his cross-country time was now down to under an hour as to discover he was placed in the top six on the class list.

During the summer, Nat and Tom traveled to Europe. Nat found that one of the many advantages of a captain’s salary was that it allowed him to accompany his closest friend without ever feeling he couldn’t afford to pay his way.

Their first stop was London, where they watched the guards march down Whitehall. Nat was left in no doubt that they would have been a formidable force in Vietnam. In Paris, they strolled along the Champs Elysées and regretted having to turn to a ph

rase book every time they saw a beautiful woman. They then traveled on to Rome, where in tiny back-street cafes they discovered for the first time how pasta really should taste, and swore they would never eat at McDonald’s again.

But it wasn’t until they reached Venice that Nat fell in love, and overnight became promiscuous, his taste ranging from nudes to virgins. It began with a one-day stand—Da Vinci, followed by Bellini, and then Luini. Such was the intensity of these affairs that Tom agreed they should spend a few more days in Italy and even add Florence to their itinerary. New lovers were quickly picked up on every street corner—Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Canaletto, Tintoretto. Almost anyone with an o at the end of their name qualified to join Nat’s harem.

Professor Karl Abrahams stood in front of his desk for the fifth lecture of the term and stared up at the semicircle of tiered seats that rose above him.

He began his lecture, not a book, not a file, not even a note in front of him, as he took them through the landmark case of Carter v. Amalgamated Steel.

“Mr. Carter,” began the professor, “lost an arm in an industrial accident in 1923, and was sacked without receiving a cent in compensation. He was unable to seek further employment, as no other steel company would consider offering work to a one-armed man, and when he was turned down for a job as doorman at a local hotel, he realized that he would never work again. There wasn’t an Industry Compensation Act until 1927, so Mr. Carter decided to take the rare and almost unheard-of step at that time of suing his employers. He wasn’t able to afford a lawyer—that hasn’t changed over the years—however, a young law student who felt that Mr. Carter had not received fair recompense volunteered to represent him in court. He won the case and Carter was awarded one hundred dollars in compensation—not a large amount for such a grievance, you might well feel. However, together these two men were responsible for bringing about a change in the law. Let us hope that one of you might at some time in the future cause the law to be changed when faced with such an injustice. Subtext, the young lawyer’s name was Theo Rampleiri. He only narrowly avoided being thrown out of law school for spending too much time on the Carter case. Later, much later, he was appointed to the Supreme Court.”

The professor frowned. “Last year General Motors paid a Mr. Cameron five million dollars for the loss of a leg. This was despite the fact that CM was able to prove that it was Mr. Cameron’s negligence that was the cause of the injury.” Abrahams took them through the case slowly, before adding, “The law so often is, as Mr. Charles Dickens would have us believe, an ass, and perhaps more importantly, indiscriminately imperfect. I have no brief for counsel who look only for a way around the law, especially when they know exactly what the Senate and Congress intended in the first place. There will be those among you who forget these words within days of joining some illustrious firm, whose only interest is to win at all cost. But there will be others, perhaps not so many, who will remember Lincoln’s dictum, ‘let justice be done.’” Fletcher looked up from his notes and stared down at his mentor. “By the time we next meet, I expect you to have researched the five cases that followed Carter versus Amalgamated Steel, through to Demetri versus Demetri, all of which resulted in changes in the law. You may work in pairs, but not consult any other pair. I hope I make myself clear.” The clock struck eleven. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.”

Fletcher and Jimmy shared the workload as they trawled through case after case, and by the end of the week, they had found three that were relevant. Joanna pulled from the recesses of her memory a fourth that had been heard in Ohio when she was a child. She refused to give them any more clues.

“What does love, honor and obey mean?” demanded Jimmy.

“I never agreed to obey you, freshman,” was all she said, “and by the way, if Elizabeth wakes up during the night, it’s your turn to change her diaper.”

“Sumner versus Sumner,” Jimmy told her triumphantly as he slipped into bed just after midnight.

“Not bad, freshman, but you still have to find the fifth by ten o’clock on Monday if you’re hoping to get a smile out of Professor Abrahams.”

“I think we’d have to do a whole lot more than that to move the lips on that block of granite,” said Jimmy.

As Nat climbed the hill, he spotted her running ahead of him. Nat assumed he would pass her on the downward slope. He checked his watch as he reached the halfway mark. Seventeen minutes and nine seconds. Nat felt confident that he would break his personal best, and be back on the team for the first meet of the season.

He felt full of energy as he surged over the brow of the hill and then he swore out loud. The stupid woman had taken the wrong path. She had to be a freshman. He began to shout at her back, but she didn’t respond. He cursed again, changed direction and chased after her. As he came bounding down the slope, she suddenly turned and looked startled.

“You’re going the wrong way,” shouted Nat, ready to turn and quickly retrace his steps, but even at twenty yards he wanted to take a closer look. He jogged quickly up to her, and kept running on the spot.

“Thank you,” she said, “it’s only my second time on the course, and I couldn’t remember which path to take at the top of the hill.”

Nat smiled. “You have to take the smaller path; the wider one leads you into the woods.”

“Thank you,” she repeated, and began running back up the hill without another word.

He chased after her, and once he had caught up jogged by her side until they reached the top. He waved goodbye once he was certain she had returned to the straight and narrow. “See you later,” he said, but if she replied, Nat didn’t hear her.

Nat checked his watch as he crossed the finishing line. Forty-three minutes, fifty-one seconds. He cursed again, wondering how much time he’d lost redirecting the wrong-path woman. He didn’t mind. He began to cool down, and took longer over his stretching exercises than he normally would have done, as he waited for the young woman to return.

Suddenly she appeared at the top of the hill, running down toward the finishing line. “You made it,” Nat said with a smile as he jogged over to join her. She didn’t return his smile. “I’m Nat Cartwright,” he said.

“I know who you are,” she replied curtly.

“Have we met before?”