I open the car door for her. She swings her legs out, stops and sits where she is. I lean on the car’s open door frame.
An old children’s story refrain pops into my head. “‘Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly.’”
She smiles. “Yes. But which of us is which?”
In the ten minutes between her phone call and her arrival, I thought over the risks we are about to undertake. Even if through some bizarre turn someone should actually find out about us, in the end it would not hurt Bobby’s race. It couldn’t. No one in the responsible press could touch the story. It would not be the candidate who is having the affair. So we are insulated from public knowledge. The automatic light on the garage door clicks off. I cannot think of any reason for us to stay out here longer.
I invite her inside and she follows me into the hall. Suddenly everything, even old familiar objects in my own house, seem vivid, brighter, their outlines sharpened and their shapes more complete. Every one of Laura’s movements and reactions, breaths, blinks of eye, fleeting expressions register in my consciousness. Her voice, soft and low, has an unaccustomed vibrato. She is nervous. I put my arms around her.
I bury my face in her neck and softly kiss her below her ear. She presses against me and, my face hidden in the fanning darkness of her hair, I remember her on the fold-out couch in the den in Evanston, our bodies lit by the flickering light of the television.
She insinuates herself knowingly against my hardness and whispers, “Mmm.”
There in my hallway we do not say anything. It is one thing to imagine a moment, another to experience it. It is denser, more complex, edgier, less specifically sexual, and more diffusely erotic. I notice she does not smell like vanilla anymore. More like freshly baked bread.
After a few moments, she shudders slightly, as if cold, and reaches up to clutch my hand. I ask her if she wants a drink or needs the bathroom. She shakes her head. I turn down the air-conditioning and help her with her jacket. Awkwardly, nervously, she turns her face up to kiss me, and I embrace her instead. Her long warm figure clings to me. My mind goes blank. A few moments later I can feel her weeping in small sobs.
“Why are you crying?”
“It f-feels so good to be held. By someone who means it.”
I pull away to look at her. Something sad haunting her eyes makes it clear, despite what she says, she does not feel so very good. I do not feel good myself. It is not the present but the images of the past that arouse me. “I mean it,” I say and hug her again. “But it’s not going to happen.”
“What?” she says.
“It. You and me.”
“No.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
The longing and dryness are still there, but this time at least I am going to let them pass from me. “Because in your heart of hearts, you don’t really want to.” Her trembling stops. I wait for her to protest, but she doesn’t. “And even if it did happen, it wouldn’t change anything. Not for me or for you.”
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t,” she says, sniffling and wiping at her cheek. Her body relaxes and she composes herself. She looks at me. “You’re relieved.”
“I don’t have a word for what I feel right now,” I say.
“I should go,” she says, her face flushing.
“No, don’t. Not yet.”
✳
We sit at the kitchen table. Among her other reactions, she is angry and humiliated. Angry at herself, at Bobby, at me. Humiliated that she could get so close to doing this at all. For all her conviction that it was better we did not end up in bed, she also, though somewhat wryly, still feels spurned, “unsuccessful even at seducing a former lover.” This tells me how undermined she has felt by Bobby’s absence. And I recognize that strange state where you can accurately analyze the source of your feelings (in my case, “I want to change the past”), even while your analysis doesn’t seem to change the feelings themselves a bit (“I want to fuck Laura”).
We drink coffee. She says she was stupid in the old days not to have married me. “You were a lot of things back then,” I say. “But stupid was not among them. I thought you were frightened.”
“Well, I was. I was afraid I’d grow up to be like my mother.” She doesn’t talk about her father anymore. He died some years ago of a cirrhotic liver at the age of fifty-nine. “I was scared to death of marriage. I thought marriage w-was death.”
“But you married Bobby.”
“You know that sense of distance he has. It gave me a feeling of stability. And of freedom. A chance to have a life nothing like my parents’. I knew that whatever else happened, he wasn’t going to come lurching sloppily into the house at any time of day or night, expecting me to clean up his messes. What I didn’t expect was that eventually I’d still come to feel left in outer space.”
“There’s Annie.”
She smiles. “There’s Annie. But she needs me less and less. And the way she wants me is getting to be more and more like a drunk’s.”
“Lurching sloppily into the house and expecting you to clean up the messes?”
She nods. “She adores her father, but she feels a lot of the same things I felt with my own. If being perfect didn’t make him better or get his attention, then why not behave badly? Once a month or so, she needs me to love her up. The rest of the time, my task is to serve. Which I try to do, within reason.” She draws in a long breath. “No, what I didn’t figure on was how lonely it can get being married to a workaholic.”
“He wasn’t that way between elections.”
“He was. Even as lieutenant governor. Nights, days, weekends. It’s a vacant job, too. Ceremonial. But he found ways to make it work for him. At first he used to say his hardest task was to find something to do. After a year or two, that wasn’t a problem anymore. Maybe it’s just being in public life. He devotes his energy and emotion to presenting himself, and when he gets home he just doesn’t have much left. We’d leave an evening in which he gave a wonderful speech and was charming and interesting and fun with all the strangers. Then we’d get in the car and he’d lapse into silence. Nothing. Less and less of him was present. Exactly at the time when more and more of me was. Is.”
Listening to her, I wonder how Bobby could ignore her enough to bring her to this pass. Of course, as I know, when you’re lucky, you sometimes take things for granted.
“You know,” I say, “until recently you two conveyed the image of being very solid, even to someone who watched you pretty closely. Despite your arguing.”
She is silent for a moment. “Or because of it.” She looks at me and says, “All my life I’ve felt like someone trying to glide like a swan, elegant and serene, across the surface. To help others. To do my best. What no one sees, though, is that underneath the water I’m p-pedaling furiously just to keep from sinking.”
“I’ve always thought Bobby and the kids were what kept you afloat.”
“I think they were. Are. But it’s as if the container has cracked and the water is leaking out.” She takes a swallow of coffee. “My psychiatrist friend—you remember Karen Gillian—she claims his monomania is defensive, a s-style of approach to something he wants. Not a rejection of me.”
“Sounds right to me.”
“Well, that’s not what it feels like from here.”
“Have you talked to Karen about all of this?”
“Only after you dropped by the hospital. She asked. I told her I was getting very attracted to you, and things were getting bad enough with Bobby that I was thinking about acting on it.”
“What did she say to that?”
“She reminded me about children of alcoholics. How they are often perfectionists like me. Who fantasize if they are perfect, their parents will stop drinking, and when they don’t, they want to behave badly.”
I think about this for a while. We look a
t each other, and I can tell we are having the same thought. It’s not too late. The bedroom is only a room away.
“She also wanted to know about the post-traumatic stress and survivor guilt, and so on.”
I am suddenly confused. “For Bobby.”
Laura looks up and her eyes widen. “No. About you.”
I still do not follow her. “Me?”
“You. One of the reasons Bobby and I wanted you at the press conference about post-traumatic stress disorder was to have you listen to Dr. Novick.” She studies my face. “Wait a second. You didn’t catch on, did you? Oh, God. I told Bobby we should talk to you. He insisted you would know about all this and be able to deal with it yourself. And that you’d be insulted if we tried to meddle.”
I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.
Laura, Bobby, and Karen Gillian all recognized it. Not me. I wonder if part of survivor’s guilt is an inability to recognize what you feel. I think of a list of things the newspapers mentioned in the articles on Novick: emotional numbing, alcohol abuse, inability to sustain intimate relationships, nightmares. The shoe fit only too well.
“You know,” she says, putting her hand on my wrist. “I have to say this. No one has ever thought you were in any way responsible for what happened to Becky.”
I remove my hand. “Oh, but I was. If I’d been there, it wouldn’t have happened. Period.”
“If those boys hadn’t been drunk, it wouldn’t have happened. If Becky hadn’t gone back in the water after you told her not to, it wouldn’t have happened. You can’t control everything. Blame them if you have to blame someone.”
“I made a mistake.”
“People make mistakes. Everyone.”
“Not everyone makes fatal mistakes.”
“You know, you could have been there and it would have happened anyway. Let it go, Ben. Punishing yourself won’t bring her back. Let it go.”
My eyes sting, my throat tightens. “It’s not that simple.”
Laura’s beeper goes off.
She calls her office. She has to go to the emergency room, stat.
After she leaves, I kick off my shoes, climb onto the bed, and fall promptly into a dead sleep. Hours later, still groggy, when I plug my phone back in, it rings before I have a chance to leave the room.
“It’s me,” Laura says.
“Hello, Laura,” I say.
“Did you have a good sleep?”
“I think so. It was a heavy one.”
“I’m glad I came over,” she says.
“Me, too,” I say.
“Good,” she says, with some affection. “Have to go. Talk to you later.”
By evening, I sink back into my own work. The past and future recede to tiny points and the present surrounds like floodwater.
Jeremy Taylor’s article about Wheatley’s campaign tactics comes out, and for ten days the congressman is put on the defensive. Finally, Clive Sanford is forced to take a leave of absence from the campaign, a slap on the wrist done purely for public consumption. And, though this helps Wheatley stop the furor, he also promptly agrees to two debates: one on foreign policy to be held late next month, and the other on domestic policy to be held a week before the election. This is not at all what Wheatley wanted; he was hoping to get away with one debate held as far from Election Day as possible. But for the first time Bobby has drawn even in one or two of the polls. Wheatley doesn’t feel he has much choice anymore.
Favorites do not like debates, even if, like Wheatley, they have sonorous voices and are fluent speakers. Debates give the underdog too much free publicity. Now that Wheatley can’t avoid them, he tries to minimize them.
Wheatley and Gerry Dolan try to get a third-party candidate included, calling it a question of fairness and democratic principle. Bobby says—in a statement to a press conference that makes all the television news shows for a day and a half—that he refuses to debate with someone whose nomination convention took place in booth six of the Ground Round: it’s him and Wheatley, or it’s nothing. The congressman caves within forty-eight hours.
Cindy Tucker, Scott Bayer, and I negotiate all the debate arrangements, and with Clive gone, we clean Wheatley’s clock. Having the debate on domestic policy come at the end of October just before the election was the last thing Wheatley wanted. Too much uncertainty. But we make him swallow it, as well as a 6:30 p.m. Tuesday slot, a period before the prime-time programs snatch off most viewers, to be carried live on cable, all PBS stations, and at least one commercial station in every broadcast area.
To my surprise, no one hounds Bobby about drug use, though occasionally the reporter from the religious weekly tries to get him to talk about how many times he smoked marijuana and “whether he got addicted.”
Allan Bernstein is silent. Erickson R. Bruce is silent. His estimate of “weeks” for a court date is turning into months. The closer we get to November, though, the greater his leverage to force a guilty plea so we can avoid a trial.
The leaking of Bobby’s campaign schedule as fast as it has been planned lessens, but only after Cindy Tucker begins to treat the schedule like a state secret. I try to explore the source of the leak and get nowhere. Since I put absolutely no one above suspicion, I quietly explore Laura’s and Jimmy’s and even Annie’s access to campaign information, and find that they cannot be the source—the kids are elsewhere too often and Laura at work too much to have had access to campaign planning even if they tried. I begin to search through the personnel and secretaries on both Cindy’s and Scott Bayer’s staff who might have had access to the schedule, but it is a long and delicate process, and so far I have come up empty.
Kurt has a fund-raiser in California for which Bobby flies out. It garners over $270,000 in one night.
Bobby calls me at my office when he gets back.
“Hey,” he says. “Where you been?”
“I’ve been here.”
“Gotta minute?”
“Fire away.”
“First. Where’s your bill for your trip to the coasts?”
“I forgot.”
“I could just estimate, but it’d be better all around if we had some billing hours from you. For the files.”
“You’re the client. If it will make you feel better, I’ll bill you for this phone call.”
“Second,” he says, ignoring my suggestion, “Kurt wants to send out a couple of Hollywood stars to join me in the last weeks of the campaign. What do you think?”
Because our state has one of the earliest primaries in the nation, every four years presidential candidates from both parties all but take up residence. That has made some of our citizens pretty blasé about even major political figures. Movie stars are another matter, however. “Who is he talking about?”
“He says someone of Newman or Redford’s candlepower.”
“Scott’s all for it,” I say.
“Scott’s all for it,” he confirms.
“And you?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“If it’s Newman or Redford themselves, fine. Anybody else only if you are way behind in the polls and the crowds are small and they’ve stopped covering your stops on the evening news.”
“Yeah, I think so, too. But why do you think so?”
“Because Scott’s very smart, but he doesn’t appreciate one thing. This is the Midwest. People will be just as gaga as anywhere else over a star appearance, and they may even be flattered to think that Richard Gere or Warren Beatty is interested in the affairs of our little state. But later on they’ll wonder if you aren’t getting too impressed with yourself, consorting with stars. And they’ll vote for the guy they were going to vote for in the first place in any case. The stars can help raise money and they can help fire up your workers, but that’s about it.”
“Yep,” he says
.
“There’s one other reason not to import talent. You’re a good-looking guy. Right now the voters think you’re the star. There’s no advantage I can think of in reminding folks there are even better-looking guys out there, and then proving it by putting you side by side up on the same podium. Unless you’re losing. Then you can bring in Madonna and Michael Jackson and the Moscow Circus and hope for the best.”
He laughs. “Actually, Scott agrees in part. He doesn’t want any women movie stars. He says Laura should always be the prettiest woman on the platform. Things are going better, by the way.”
“What things?” I ask.
“Things with Laura. She’s in a much more cheerful mood. And she’s agreed to talk it all out when the election’s over.”
“That’s good,” I say. “Damned good.”
“That’s really all,” he says. “Just wanted to check in, see how you’re doin’.”
“That’s mighty kind. I hear you’re already getting ready for the first debate.”
“We’ll be starting the briefings and rehearsals next week.”
“What’s Scott’s advice?”
“Be relaxed, firm, and good-humored.”
“That’s good advice for when you’re not debating.”
“Well, given that the first debate won’t be until next month, it’s about the same thing. His media advisers already have a million pieces of advice. What to wear, what to do with my hands, how to pitch my voice, when to look at the camera and when to look at Wheatley, what color backdrop for the set, and how far the podiums should be from each other.” I laugh. “That’s not all. They’ve got taglines, jokes, rhetorical questions, and anecdotes. Oh, and their latest advice is for me to wear my suitcoat buttoned once in the middle and keep my right hand in the outside pocket, elbow bent. Neo-John Kennedy.”
“What’d you say?”
“What else? I told ’em, ‘I’m no Jack Kennedy.’”
“That’s relaxed, firm, and good-humored of you.”
Sounding the Waters Page 23