For the record, the pie was excellent. I told you I made it myself. I didn't doubt you. You absolutely doubted me. I had questions, he said.
There's a difference. She laughed. And he went to referee the card game. And she dried the last dish and came and sat on the couch with Eleanor Carter, who moved over to make room without being asked, which was, in the language of Eleanor Carter, the loudest possible statement of acceptance. The months that followed were not without difficulty.
Nothing real ever is. There was a week in January when a story ran in a Charleston business publication about the Sinclair Carter professional relationship that implied in the careful language of business journalism that certain contracts had been awarded on the basis of personal connection rather than merit. Malcolm read it on his phone standing in a half-finished unit on the east side project and felt the cold specific anger of a man who had built everything he had with his own hands and was watching someone suggest otherwise in print. He called Vivien immediately. I saw it.
She said, "Before you say anything, I want you to know that I am going to respond publicly, clearly, and directly. Every contract Carter Construction has received from Sinclair Group has gone through the same vetting process as every other contractor we work with. The records are clean. The work speaks for itself. Viven, I am not going to let someone use our relationship to undermine your professional reputation.
That's not acceptable to me. I can handle my own reputation. I know you can. We're handling this one together. A pause.
Unless you'd rather I didn't. Tell me if that's the case and I'll stand down. He thought about it about what it meant to let someone stand next to him in a fight instead of in front of him or behind him. Next to him. Together, he said.
Together, she confirmed. The response Vivien issued was precise and thorough, backed by documentation, and delivered without drama. The story quietly stopped gaining traction. Two weeks later, a larger outlet ran a profile on Carter Construction's community impact work that Malcolm had never sought out and hadn't known was coming. He found out from Dorothy Green at the community center who called him on a Tuesday morning and said, "Malcolm, are you seeing this?"
In a voice that told him it was something good. It was a long, careful piece about the Riverside Project, the North Charleston work, the hurricane response, written by a journalist who had spent two weeks talking to residents, to his crew, to community leaders. Malcolm's name was attached to things he'd done that he'd never publicized. The piece was generous and specific and true. He didn't know until weeks later that Dorothy Green had been the one to contact the journalist.
He didn't know until months later that Dorothy Green had been nudged to do so by a phone call from Vivian Sinclair, who had not put her own name anywhere near the process. When he found out, he sat with it for a long time. Then he called her. "You called Dorothy," he said. A pause.
"Malcolm, you called Dorothy, who called the journalist who wrote the piece, and you didn't tell me. I didn't do it for recognition. I know why you did it, he said. That's not why I'm calling. She was quiet.