Storm Track

A month earlier, Cyl DeGraffenried and I had been asked to participate in a “Women in Law” forum at Kirkland Prep, an all-female school on the southwest edge of Raleigh. Since Cyl’s apartment is on the way, we’d agreed that I’d pick her up early and we’d stop for supper somewhere first.

Cyl and I aren’t best friends but we’re working on it. Chronologically, she’s five years younger. Psychologically, she acts five years older. She thinks my moral standards are too flexible, I think hers are overly rigid. When we argue politics and religion, she accuses me of being a flaming liberal. I know she’s a social conservative. She’s better read and more intellectual than I am, but she also has a dry, self-deprecating wit that keeps me off balance. Most true conservatives can’t laugh at themselves—they’re too busy pointing a sour finger at the rest of us—so Cyl’s mordant sense of humor gives me hope that I’ll convert her yet.

I hadn’t seen her around the courthouse during the day, but that wasn’t unusual. She prosecutes cases all over the district, wherever Doug Woodall sends her, and I’d left a message on her voice mail that I’d be by her place around six.

Her apartment’s in one of the new suburban developments that have popped up like dandelions between Garner and Raleigh. A swimming pool and fitness center surrounded by interlocking two-story duplexes that look more like yuppie townhouses than boxy apartments. Attractive low-maintenance landscaping. Tall spindly sticks that will eventually grow into towering shade trees if the whole place isn’t first leveled for another mall.

It was still raining when I drove into the parking area in front of Cyl’s ground-floor unit. The wind had died, and rain fell straight down from the sodden gray skies with a steady, almost sullen persistence, as if prepared to go on all night long. We’d had so much in the last few weeks that the ground was saturated, the creeks and rivers were swollen and it didn’t seem possible that there was any more water left in the clouds.

I did the umbrella maneuver—the one where you crack the car door, cautiously stick the umbrella up into the air and try to get it completely open so you won’t get drenched when you step out of the car? I managed to save my blouse, but when I reached back inside the car for my purse, I tipped the umbrella and dumped a gallon of water on my skirt.

One thing about platform shoes though: they do help you walk through shallow puddles without getting your feet wet.

I splashed over to Cyl’s door and stood beneath its mini-portico to ring the bell.

No answer.

I rang again, then scanned the parking area as I waited. Yes, there was her car, two spaces over from mine. She was probably on the phone or in the shower.

This time I leaned on the button a full thirty seconds.

Nada.

The curtains were half open but I couldn’t see any movement or much else inside the dark interior. On such a dreary late afternoon, her lights should have been on. Was the power out? Maybe the doorbell didn’t work? I pounded on the wooden panel, then put my ear close to the door and mashed the doorbell again till I heard endless chimes echo around the rooms inside.

This wasn’t like Cyl at all. She’s not only punctual, she’s usually punctilious.

I darted back to my car and used my flip phone to dial her number. The answering machine kicked in after the first ring and I said, “Cyl? Are you there? Pick up!”

I finally decided that maybe I’d gotten our signals crossed and that she’d probably gone on ahead with someone else.

Instead of a leisurely gossipy supper, I hit the drive-through at Hardee’s and ate a chicken sandwich in my car while the rain drummed on the roof and the windows fogged over.

At Kirkland Prep, I joined Judge Frances Tripp, the appeals court judge who administered my oath of office when I was first appointed to the bench, and Lou Ferncliff, one of the highest-paid personal injury attorneys in Raleigh. But no Cyl. The facilitator was head of the social studies department and very p.c. In addition to enlightening the student body with our female insights into the field of law, we were also supposed to be a visual civics lesson: two white women and two African-Americans, colleagues in law and equals under the law.

Cyl DeGraffenried’s absence skewed the balance and made the facilitator very unhappy. I wasn’t happy either. This was so totally unlike Cyl that I was starting to worry.

Fortunately, Frances and Lou are troupers and had participated in panels like this so many times they could probably do it in their sleep. And I’ve never been shy about speaking up, so it was a lively discussion.

The students were bright enough to ask intelligent questions and we probably turned a half-dozen of them on to the law. (“Just what this country needs,” Lou laughed as the forum broke up around nine-thirty. “More lawyers.”)

* * *

I probably should have gone on home, but Cyl’s apartment was only a couple of miles out of my way and I knew I wouldn’t rest easy if I didn’t satisfy myself that she was okay.

Her car hadn’t been moved and this time I rang that damn bell for almost three solid minutes. Just when I was ready to give up and go call her grandmother, a light came on in the living room and a moment later, the door opened.

“Cyl?”

She looked like hell. Barefooted, wearing nothing but a long pink cotton T-shirt, her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, her face looked bloated, and she had a bad case of bed hair. She blinked at me as if disoriented.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, startled by her groggy appearance. “Are you sick?”

She shook her head dazedly. “Deborah? What time is it? Why are you here?”

“The forum,” I said. “Supper. Kirkland Prep. Did you forget?”

“Oh, Lordy, was that tonight? What day is it?”

I reached out and touched her forehead, but it was cool to my fingers, so she wasn’t running a fever.

“It’s Tuesday. When did you last eat?”

“Sunday? Sunday night?” Her shoulders slumped. “Sunday,” she moaned.

I propped my dripping umbrella against the wall beneath the skimpy portico and moved past her. “You need food.”

She made a gesture of protest but was too dispirited to do more than follow me into her kitchen and watch as I opened cabinets until I found a can of tomato soup.

I dumped it into a saucepan and while that heated, put some cheese on a slice of whole wheat bread and popped it into her toaster oven. “Are you on anything?”