The Correspondent: A Novel by Virginia Evans - 8

Alex Toole

c/o The Baltimore Sun

300 East Cromwell Street

Baltimore, MD 21230

September 7, 2012

To: Alex Toole

From: Sybil Stone Van Antwerp, subject of your most recent column, OFF THE RECORD

Dear Ms. Toole,

I’d like to start by saying this letter is a matter of personal contact, off the record—don’t even think about putting any of this in your column, bemoaning the already tired subject of who I am. I assure you, there is no audience for this.

Secondly, it seems unlikely that you “extended every resource” in order to contact me, because I’m here at my house where I have lived for many years and my address is a matter of public record. I do not list a phone number, and there is probably no record of my e-mail address, which indicates that is where you stopped.

Thirdly, and now getting to the point. You have made assumptions, and you’re clearly not the first, but as a journalist you ought to know better. The world is different than it was when I was a professional, so perhaps you, in your modern naïveté, cannot fathom what I am about to explain. When I went with Guy to the court, I did not “fall behind him as a lowly clerk.” What Guy and I shared professionally was something like perfect symbiosis. We worked in symmetry to each other. Our shared work was almost seamless. Don’t mistake what I’m saying; we could argue, knock down, drag out fights over a case, but neither of us offendable, both of us ultimately fixated on the law, without strings. We savored it, both of us in love with the practice of law (to a fault). Guy and I were equals within the context of our relationship to each other, and I don’t know of another woman my age who was afforded that opportunity professionally. In the seventies, when I was really starting out, it was women as secretaries, or if they climbed up from there, some limited scope of what men were doing, and with an ongoing through line of what is now termed sexual harassment at the very best. I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of my own judicial appointment back then, but I knew what Guy and I had would carry over. You want to know why I forwent prestige and money to become a “lowly clerk”? Because I was not in the practice of law as a means to wealth or fame. Clerking for Guy was not lowly in the least.

I’ll leave your closing questions alone—I feel no need to grapple with your youthful idealism. Additionally, you would not be the first person to speculate if my relationship with Guy extended beyond professional. I assure you it did not, and that is something you’ll have to accept on my good authority. While we made an exceptional pair in legal contexts, personally we didn’t mix. He was, speaking frankly, off the record , rather idiotic socially. He made terrible jokes. He flirted with tall, younger women. He had terrible taste in office furniture, music. He ate like an animal. Honestly, sometimes I couldn’t really tolerate him at all. He’s lucky he found Liz—that woman is as classic as they come.

There is no need for you to write me again, but I’ll close by suggesting you do be careful with your assumptions, Alex.

Regards,

Sybil Stone Van Antwerp