How about some old books?
***
Gavin rolled over in his girlfriend’s bed. He drew in the first cool breaths of the aftermath, and he looked at the ceiling.
My God, how beautiful life was.
It was always good with Madeleine, but he had forgotten how good it was. Sex with Madeleine was so simple, pure, and satisfying. She was a necessity for him, like food and breathing. The low light of her lamp and the aroma of her perfume. The crisp sheets, the gentle music from another room. The sweet generosity of her tender body.
He had come there almost desperate. Like a starving man confronting a very wise and sympathetic gourmet cook. Just “Baby, don’t waste time, I am so starving, please, just some meat and potatoes,” and her warm, heartfelt response was, “Right away, just for you, good meat, fresh potatoes!” And then, fast and furious: delicious bacon-wrapped filet mignon and golden Yukon potatoes.
She was so sweet to him, and so completely in the moment. My God, it was good, that moment.
She was still caressing him, in her tender, lingering way. Her body heat against his own. She’d pulled him drowning from a jagged hole in broken ice, and blown her sweet breath into his lungs. Her kisses chased another world away, knocked it two thousand years gone. The taste of her lips, the aroma from the crease of her neck. The tremendous physical beauty of this comprehensive act had killed a thousand phantoms.
“Baby, there is no one like you.”
“We don’t see enough of each other,” Madeleine told him.
“That trip to Italy really took it out of me. I’m a mess... I travel too much.”
“You’re jet-lagged,” said Madeleine. “You sure were in the mood, though. That was nice. I liked that. It’s lovely when you’re here with me, but not quite all there yet. It’s like misty roses.”
Gavin said nothing. Madeleine really knew how to say things like that. It was like Madeleine lived in that place.
Madeleine slid out of bed, naked and tousled. Polished marble was less lovely than Madeleine’s pretty skin. The low light of the lamp gave her paleness pearly tones of ochre and purple. “Just take a nice little nap now,” Madeleine told him. “I am going to cook you a nice dinner now, just the things you like. You are going to eat every bite.”
“Life is so good right now,” said Gavin, “that I don’t even know what to say.”
She caressed her brow and left him. Gavin collapsed back into bed.
Gavin had an ugly, head-swirling dream. A sleepwalker’s dream. But, when he came out of it, he felt purged of something dark and bitter. He rooted in Madeleine’s closet, and pulled out some of his old clothes. A Princeton jersey and some cargo shorts.
He followed the enticing smell into Madeleine’s kitchen. She had whipped something up for him. Nothing less than fried liver and onions, sliced carrots and cauliflower.
That splendid food sat on his plate like a little tonal symphony in brown and white and orange. And a beer, too. Not some sissy Italian beer in a little glass. A big, dark, cold-sweaty, Elliot Bay microbrewed stout, in a big bottle. The kind of beer a man could never get anywhere else.
She had put this on the table for him with her own hands. She delighted in doing it for him. He devoured the food she had made. It vaporized under his knife and fork.
Madeleine looked up at him, surprised. She was still tenderly dismembering the brainlike lobes of her cauliflower. “You sure were hungry.”
Gavin thumped his empty beer on her little breakfast-nook table. “Yes, definitely.”
“Nothing too fancy.”
“Some things are better than fancy. What you need, just when you need it, that’s much better than fancy.”
“How about some peach pie?”
“No, that was pretty much perfect, and I...” Gavin toyed with the empty bottle. “You have peach pie?”
“I knew that you were coming,” she said, getting up.
Nothing to do but to sit down with a hot slice of peach pie. Gavin had an intense relationship with peach pie. He adored peach pie. He had loved it since he was four years old. His last meal before being executed would involve peach pie. Other people failed to understand this fact about him. Madeleine had hunted down every commercially available peach pie in the Seattle region, until she found the pie that he liked best. This pie was piping hot on his dessert plate. Here. Now. Madeleine was like that.
He had two servings of peach pie. He knew, as soon as he took the last bite, that the peach pie had cured him. That hot, flaky, gooey peach pie was a precious herbal remedy. His pain and sorrow and doubt had been blown out of his being. Just chased down and killed with that golden pie.
He could laugh at how bad he had felt, before. Never again. Really.
“Baby,” he said, “you and I need to take steps.”
Madeleine took off her rimless glasses. She aimed a warm, affectionate look at him. “What’s on your mind, handsome?”
“Well, I just had this big talk with my dad...”
“Your dad’s not being reasonable,” said Madeleine. “Your dad is a liberal moonbat.”
Gavin paused. He drew a breath. “You know what? I completely agree with that. My dad is not a well man. I mean, there were days when he would posture politically, but when it came to cutting a deal to make something happen, my dad could cut that deal. Not any more. Seriously, my dad is badly off. His prognosis is not good, he’s has this bad kidney thing, and he’s sick... He needs to do something else with what’s left of his life.”
“Something besides quarreling on Facebook with my dad.”
“Yeah,” said Gavin. “Totally.” It was great how Madeleine cut to the chase in these things. She had always been like that.
Gavin cleared his throat. “We need to make them stop fighting,” he said. “It’s like an Italian vendetta, and this is Seattle. We need to do some forward-looking things, here where we live, in our own town. We need to get on with real life.”
“We have to do that, baby,” nodded Madeleine.
“That’s great to hear,” said Gavin.
“The whole country’s gone off in the wrong direction,” said Madeleine. “We need our country back. We need leadership. We need to get back to the foundations of the real America. We need to get back to the bedrock of the American Constitution.”
“That’s interesting. What part of the Constitution?”
“All of it,” said Madeleine. “I mean, all Americans can agree about that. The Constitution is our American Constitution. We need to get back to the gold standard, we need to bear arms, and we need to audit the Federal Reserve before they can do any more damage. Also, we need to stop immigration. Right away. That immigration thing is crazy. Those people are all over our country now, millions of them, and they’re not even Americans.”
“I like historical documents,” said Gavin, “but if we go back to the original Constitution, you wouldn’t even be able to vote.”
“Americans don’t vote,” said Madeleine. “Because they’ve lost confidence in the system! We need a leader with integrity. We need someone who can live her values. We need someone who believes in faith, and family, and hard work, and who proves herself and suffers for her values. The real values. Of real people.”
Gavin said nothing.
“Did you read her book?” said Madeleine. “’Going Rogue’? It’s such a great book.”
“Sarah Palin,” said Gavin.
“Sarah’s from the Pacific Northwest, just like us,” said Madeleine. “She’s not some Beltway insider, or some crooked New York banker. Sarah’s a small-town girl, who took on the big boys and the liberal media establishment... And the people love Sarah Palin. The people love her, Gavin. I went to three of her rallies... The way people love her, it’s like a miracle.”
Gavin looked at his girlfriend’s flushed and impassioned face. It had never struck him until this moment, but Madeleine looked quite a lot like Sarah Palin. She had the same square jaw, bright eyes and alert, head-lifting perkiness. T
he same sturdy, moose-killing, snow-shoe and carbine body. She was a pretty woman, Sarah Palin.
“This is the Carla Bruni factor,” he said. “This is the Carla Effect.”
“What?”
“I’ve seen this before, I know this already. It’s happening here, exactly like it did in Europe. It’s the same tremendous fit of love for a pretty woman, who never belonged in politics in the first place. This is pure divine charisma. Wow, John McCain sure knows foreign affairs! He knows what Sarkozy did for the French right-wing, when Sarkozy pulled that amazing move with a beautiful woman... This is that same Carla Bruni phenomenon, but it has an American face now.”
“I don’t trust John McCain.”
“Nobody trusts Sarkozy, either. You’re in love with Sarah Palin. It’s fantastic.”
“I’m going to work for Sarah’s campaign,” said Madeleine. “You should join me. There’s a lot of good work to do. It’s a grass-roots rebellion to rebuild the real America. To take our country back.”
“What campaign? Sarah’s not campaigning! Sarah’s campaign is over, she lost the election! She even resigned her governorship! Sarah Palin doesn’t have any campaign. Sarah doesn’t want to be elected. All she does is run around writing her bestsellers and making people love her on TV!”
Madeleine laughed. “That’s what all the lefties say! You really have no idea! Boy, are you ever in for a surprise.”
“I admit it,” Gavin said. “I’m surprised.”
“We’re going to have to organize,” said Madeleine, “and take the whole country back. America, saving America from itself. City block by city block.”
“I see that your dad is pretty serious about this.”
“Gavin, it’s the right thing to do. It’s the only thing we can do. That new bridge the Mayor wants to shut down... My dad is totally committed to the property values on the far end of that transportation channel! My family’s not like your family... We didn’t do that ‘wealth management distributed investment’ thing, like you Tremaines did. Because we believed in Seattle, we were solid boosters for Seattle, and if the city does this crazy moonbat global-warming hoax... Then, the city will shrink! Not grow, shrink! They will kill all the cars, they will make us ride bicycles!”
“I think you’re right about that,” said Gavin, heavily.
“My family will go broke, Gavin. I mean we will really, truly go broke from that. We are not old-money people. We’re just American people. We’ll go rags to riches to rags in three generations. These crazy policies are going to destroy us. They’ll destroy the America we knew, and we’ll be in a socialist America that looks like Sweden. Or something.”
“Baby, America will never look like Sweden. Canada might, maybe. America, there’s no way. Mexico would look more like Sweden than America.”
“Gavin, why do you take Seattle’s money and put it in other countries? Italy, Gavin. Italy, why? Aren’t we good enough for you? You’re never here any more. You’re always somewhere else. You’ve changed.”
“I work in a global investment firm,” said Gavin. “The business opportunities are in other markets. Brazil’s growth rate is eight percent. That’s in black and white. Any accountant can see that.”
“Gavin, why do you look at those numbers? Why would you look at Brazil? What is wrong with us? You’re looking at Italy and Brazil!”
“There are times when I don’t like that any more than you,” Gavin said. “But, well, my family is in big trouble, too. We have this business deal in Brazil... More of a government deal, than a business deal... But, if I could pull that deal off, then my family would be okay. We’d be more than okay. We’d be pretty much where we were back when aerospace was booming in Seattle. It’ll be like my Dad’s good, old Space Age days.”
Madeleine blinked. “Are you going to do that?”
“Maybe. I’ve been working hard to do it. Traveling a lot. I just got back from doing it, and I’m much closer than I was. Really close now. It’s one of those deals that could close fast, if it closes at all.”
Madeleine’s face grew thoughtful. “Why don’t you tell me all about it? Maybe I could help.”
“Well, I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s classified. I mean, literally, it’s a classified defense deal. I have a security clearance. So, I can’t possibly tell you.”
“This is a secret aerospace military deal with the government of Brazil?”
“Look, don’t even say things like that, because that makes me think that I’ve said too much already. My dad has a security clearance, too, because he was a big wheel in Boeing once. So, I can’t divulge that information to you. That is illegal, unethical and immoral. So, I just can’t say the words. It’s never, ever something I would do.”
“It must be pretty easy,” said Madeleine, “to make a whole lot of money when you know secret things and don’t even have to compete in the free market.”
“That’s how the defense business always works,” said Gavin. “And no, it’s not easy at all. It’s just secret. It’s very secret, for good reasons, and I can’t say anything about it. All I can do is to try hard to get it done. As best I can.”
“My family is going down the tubes right now,” said Madeleine, “and your family is going to make a ton of money selling secret airplanes to the government of Brazil.”
“It’s my duty,” said Gavin. “It’s my heritage, it’s an old story. Maybe that story doesn’t sound good to you. Maybe it isn’t much good. But, there is one other thing. An important thing, for us.” Gavin drew a breath. “It’s time for you to leave your family, and join my family.”
“You’re proposing to me.”
“Yes. Yes, I am. I want you to marry me, Madeleine. I think that we should get married. Give up these other things you are doing, and come be with me. Come and be my wife. Please. I am asking you, formally. I am asking you for your hand. I should have brought you a beautiful ring for your hand, but there’s no time for that, sorry. It’s very important. Say yes.”
“No.”
“Say yes, Madeleine, come on.”
“We’ve discussed this before. You know what our situation is supposed to be, before we ever get married.”
“We’re not going to call the social pages in the Seattle newspapers. There barely are any newspapers left now. Forget our fairy-tale Swedish Methodist church wedding with the crowd of our thousand best friends. We don’t have the money, or the time, to do that kind of thing any more. We need to... go to battle stations and get married. Because we’re both in trouble.”
“Gavin, I don’t want to be in your family. I don’t like your family. They’re not getting any better, they’re getting worse. I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life in your haunted castle in Capitol Hill, full of gay, punk Gothic weirdos? I’d go crazy living with them! I like you, Gavin. I never liked your family.” Madeleine sighed. “And they don’t like me much, either.”
“My dad would get over that part. No man ever hates his grandkids. To tell the truth, I think my own mom and dad had a very similar story. It wasn’t easy that the Tremaine son-and-heir picked up some hippie drop-out chick to be his wife, but, you know, they didn’t give up, they made a go of their marriage! And here I am, I’m their son! That’s life! It’s just like John McCain said about Sarah Palin’s grandson! ‘Life happens.’ Life does! That was the best thing that John McCain ever said.”
“John McCain and his advisers betrayed and exploited Sarah Palin. You don’t know about that, but it’s all detailed in her book. I can lend that book to you. I underlined all the best parts.”
“Madeleine... please don’t do this to me. Please. Don’t abandon me. You don’t know what I’ll turn into... If I don’t have you to steady me out. To keep me happy. I’ve been happy with you. Really. We get along great. I don’t think we’ve ever had one really bad day.”
“We don’t fight,” said Madeleine.
“No. We don’t fight.”
&nb
sp; “You’re such a sweet guy,” said Madeleine. “Very courtly. You’ve always remembered my birthday, and our first-date-iversary. All my friends envy me, about you. I don’t regret anything about you. We never had any problems.”
“Don’t, Madeleine.”
“I don’t have the time to get married,” said Madeleine. “I’m going to Wasilla.”
“You’re going to Carla Bruni’s home town? You actually know Carla Bruni? Already? Personally?”
“Her name is Sarah Palin,” said Madeleine, rolling her eyes. “And, of course, I know Sarah personally. My family were fund-raisers during the McCain campaign. We were Red Ribbon Pioneers.”
“Does Sarah Palin know that you’re broke now?”
“Now that,” said Madeleine, “was a very crude, tacky thing to say. Sarah Palin is a blue-collar, working class woman. Sarah doesn’t spend her whole life hanging out with Princeton-educated, limousine-liberals. Of course, I’ve met Sarah. It’s amazing how much Sarah has changed with the times, and grown as a national leader. Someday, Sarah Palin’s troops are going to run this country, just like Barry Goldwater’s did. Not because of money. Because of their passion.”
“I begged you to marry me, and you turned me down,” mourned Gavin.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said ‘no.’ You said ‘no’, directly. Admit it, you did.”
“I changed my mind. It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. If you love me — you will follow me. Gavin, you know so much about the Internet, and Sarah’s big on Facebook and Twitter! You can come and help out with Sarah’s campaign, and when our country’s on an even keel again... When I can see the real America when I look at the streets... then I’ll marry you. I’ll be happy to marry you.”
“You’re asking me to marry Sarah Palin? You are. What a strange and terrible fantasy.”
“Ha ha ha! You could dream, boy! Sarah’s already married, and he’s one heck of a guy! He’s funny, he’s charming, with a big sense of humor... He looks and talks like Clark Gable!”
Chapter Eighteen: Shadows of Flames
Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance) Page 25