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temperament ill-suited to serious work served as constant reminder of what Clayton saw as his most ill-fated blunder, marrying the impulsive, insubstantial Dulcie Marshall. Nor did Clay’s undisguised lack of interest in his father’s money help matters (though Clayton still continued to augment his already considerable fortune in hopes of influencing him). Money was his father’s chief asset, as charm was his mother’s, but Clay cared little about the rewards of either.
    The week after his fifteenth birthday, Clay met Charlene Watford, one of the richest girls in Tennessee and the daughter of one of his father’s discarded mistresses. Sensing the discomfort such a liaison would cause his father, Clay immediately set about convincing her to be his childhood sweetheart. By the time he realized Clayton was less distressed than complacent about the match, however, it was too late; the course of their affair was irrevocable. Unknown to Clay, so was the deterioration of his relationship with his mother.
    Charlene Watford was the Watfords’ crowning achievement, “no mean feat in a community with as many perfect teeth as it has millions,” the Lees’ housekeeper, Mona, had been quick to note. Charlene’s relationship with Clay was based on little beyond nascent parental dreams of fair-haired offspring, yet even with a generous dollop of teenage lust, the romance had no future, for Charlene had a major flaw: she took life in deadly earnest. When they weren’t making love in or out of doors, Clay tormented her with deadpan sarcasm, while Charlene analyzed the deeper meaning behind everything he said with a perplexed expression on her face. Clay had goaded Charlene Watford mercilessly, but she’d never caught on.
    As the years passed, Clay’s mother grew more distant, in tacit disapproval of his breach of loyalty. Dulcie Lee took his retreat into another woman’s arms as confirmation that her son had indeed betrayed her to side with his father as she had always feared he would. No longer did he have time to play for or to drink with her. Nor would she allow any resumption of past intimacy when they did find themselves alone together. Once he realized how drastic the situation had become, Clay devoted months to trying to repair the breach, yet she remained aloof, impervious to all his efforts to appease her.
    Inevitably, as both Clay and Charlene neared completion of their undergraduate degrees, the Watfords asked their daughter when she planned to marry “that damn boy.” Charlene suggested that as Clay was “weird” and “frivolous,” they might better turn their attention to waiting for pigs to fly. When Clay learned of this conversation, he called the Watford plantation. Mrs. Watford answered.
    â€œIs it true Charlene says we’re through?” Clay asked.
    After an uncharacteristic silence, Charlene’s mother confirmed that it was, adding that the entire family shared Charlene’s opinion of him.
    â€œI am sorry to hear that,” Clay said. “There’s not another girl in Memphis who likes to fuck as much as Charlene, and I had no idea my tireless efforts were leaving her unsatisfied.” He hung up before she had the chance to offer him any sympathy.
    When Clay returned full-time to the bosom of his family, he discovered that his father had mellowed toward him so considerably as to assume his son would join him at the legal helm of Lee, Barringham and Sparks. That he had no intention of doing so did nothing to thaw the chill of his mother’s now-permanent indifference. All his efforts could not restore his former place in her heart.
    Clay began toying with the notion of leaving home and going North, perhaps to New York City, where the preponderance of blacks, Puerto Ricans, and Jews would discomfit both his parents equally. “Child, you are crazy,” Mona said as he lay listening to Erroll Garner and dangling his