“Yeah, well, practice, practice, practice.”
“Good luck, pal. Though I don’t think you’re going to need it.”
“Got any other advice?”
“Have a couple of counterpunches ready in case he tries to come on mean.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Like ‘Congressman, you seem to want a foreign policy as principle-less as your campaign tactics.’”
He laughs. “Can’t I just call him a son of a bitch?”
“Yes. But politely, and with a smile.”
On Saturday, I glance at my desk calendar, trying to judge how much practice time Bobby will be enjoying before the first debate. I see that in three days it will be the anniversary of Becky’s death. I know this, have known it, can feel it coming the way some people can smell snow in the air or feel a thunderstorm in their bones. But now, at this moment as I look at the number on the page, I know it differently, I suppose you might say predictably, in a concentrated aridness deep in the tissues of the throat.
I would like this time, if I can, to hold off and just let it resolve itself. At least I am going to try. Between my own legal work and the work I still need to do in finding the leaker, or leakers, lurking somewhere in Bobby’s campaign, I have plenty to occupy me. And I permit myself to wonder whether Cindy Tucker would be willing to see me outside the campaign. If I can find a way to have some company or even just the prospect of it, I might be able to make it past The Day.
I remind myself to consider the image of the ravaged figure in Dr. Tyler’s office waiting for his Antabuse. I feel sad, not scared, when I think of him.
It has been such a long time since I have attempted to have a “date” with someone, the prospect of even asking gives me a return of adolescent nervousness. I would like to talk to her, but not over that instrument of torture called the telephone. Well, I need to get more information about some of the campaign staff’s time sheets—their exact whereabouts when the schedule for the day is printed up and copied—so I will have the chance to see Cindy in person this afternoon. And then, unless my nerve fails, I will ask her out.
But she is not at the local campaign headquarters in the afternoon, nor up at the central headquarters in the capital. The deputy director tells me Cindy is at her home preparing for her son’s birthday party. Ever since we recognized the leaks, Cindy has brought all sensitive papers, including personnel files, home with her each day.
I stop by a toy store and, amid the huge and bewildering profusion of choices, buy a miniature castle with a silver knight and a friendly-looking ghost who glows in the dark. I bring it, gift-wrapped with Happy Birthday! paper and a stick-on ribbon, in my briefcase. When I pull up at Cindy’s house, there are already several cars parked outside. Playing in the yard at the side are her daughter and the birthday boy, both of whom are being pushed by a rather glum-looking man with a closely cropped beard, wearing shorts and an orange-and-green print shirt. Inside, Cindy is blowing up balloons and taping up streamers and overseeing food preparations. An assortment of friends and relatives, all adults, are helping her get ready.
After a moment’s exclamation of surprise and a friendly smile at seeing me, she hands me some balloons to blow up. She has a tiny bit of frosting at the corner of her mouth that I resist wiping off.
I apologize for dropping in unannounced, hand her the present for her son, and explain that I didn’t come to crash the party. I ask her if I couldn’t review the staff time sheets from the spring. Suddenly all business, she nods, excuses herself, and heads back toward a room down the hall. People ignore me, this man with a suit and a briefcase who is obviously not a partygoer, and I look out the kitchen window at Cindy’s children. The little boy is hugging the bearded man’s leg and the little girl is trying to tickle him. In between laughs, he still looks glum.
“That’s their father,” Cindy’s voice says next to me.
“I see.”
“He teaches psychology at the university. His girlfriend is late, and it makes him irritable.”
I look down at her and she suppresses a grin. “And she can’t be late enough as far as you’re concerned?”
“Actually, I sort of like her. But she’s fifteen years younger than he is and more, well, casual than he would like.”
“How long have they been together?”
“Since it began while we were still married, I don’t know if I’ll ever have the full answer to that question.” She says this in a musing tone, without apparent bitterness. “But a couple of years anyway, give or take a few months.”
“Ah. Well, if they stay together, perhaps he will have time to bring her up right.”
Cindy laughs. “I think for their sake it had better be the other way around.” She hands me the time sheets. “Are you sure you can’t stay?”
Though I wish I were, I know I am not up to attending a children’s birthday party, not now at least. I shake my head. “No, thank you. Duty calls. Can you save me a piece of cake, though?’’
“Sure.”
I take a breath. “And could I come pick it up sometime this weekend?” She looks at me with sharp enough attention that I can see her pupils contract, then dilate. She says nothing long enough to make me feel I should explain. “Perhaps we could go to a movie or get a bite to eat. Cover some of the other food groups?”
She doesn’t smile. I can tell before she says anything that the answer is no. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” she says. I wait, hoping for some explanation, some extenuation, an indication that next week or the week after would be all right. She looks as if she would like to say something more, but she doesn’t know what, or how. She bites her lower lip and blinks.
I can feel my face flushing. “Well, save me the cake anyway.”
She nods. “We will.”
I return to my office to review the time sheets, trying to think of something else to keep myself distracted over the coming days. Bobby and Laura will be in the western part of the state. Brendan will be taking down his show. My sister is busy with her own life and my parents are far away. And Jeannie calls to tell me she isn’t feeling well. At all.
13
“How are you doing?” I ask. Dressed in a robe and nightgown, she is lying on the living room couch, a pillow behind her head and a blanket stuffed beneath her shoulders.
Jeannie’s mouth tightens impatiently and she gives me a tart look, one I have seen from her often. Put in words it is “How does it look like I’m doing?” She says, “Could you call Bruce’s office for me? Now.”
“Now?’’
She licks her pale lips. “He’s planning court action Tuesday.”
“Someone leaked it to you?” She nods.
“Tell him I’m going to be admitted to the hospital on Monday for extensive testing.”
“Are you?”
“I don’t know. Probably. Just call him. If I’m going to get served some lemons on this sickness shit, I want to make at least a little lemonade.” She tilts her head back and closes her eyes.
“I’ll take care of it.” She doesn’t open her eyes. I leave her to her rest.
“What’d she want?” Brendan asks at the door.
“Some legal stuff.”
Brendan slowly shakes his head. “Leave it to her to be worrying about that at a time like this.”
“What’s her neurologist say?”
“Says he’ll have to do a work-up once she stabilizes.”
I am able to get through to Erickson Bruce when he returns from his Saturday golf game. I explain to the special prosecutor that Jeannie is ill. He sounds concerned, and he asks how she is doing. After I report she’ll be out awhile, there is a pause, an awkward one. Finally, he says he is going to call me early next week to see how she is doing. And to talk about her case. He says nothing about court action on Tuesday.
I manage to wor
k though all of the next day’s daylight hours, in the pit of my stomach aware each minute what tomorrow is.
As darkness gathers outside my windows, I find I am too weary to work any longer. I turn on the television. The McLaughlin Group is snarling at one another. I surf the channels. Canned laughter of sitcoms, colorized old movies, news of gunfire at an abortion clinic, a quiz show, the hunting skills of hyenas. I am too dispirited to watch anything. I press off and watch the picture shrink to a single white dot of light and then turn black. My refrigerator hums. My throat and brain are dry as husks. I drink a glass of juice, and another. I try iced tea. It is too early for bed. And even if it were time for bed, there is still tomorrow, Monday, to wake up to.
On plane flights and at certain social gatherings, I am able to have one or two drinks—wine or beer or a rum-laced eggnog, a gin and tonic, or a scotch on the rocks—and that is it, I stop myself. It occurs to me that there is no reason I should not be able to stop myself now. I could have one drink, or two at the most, and stop. Call it a night. Go to bed and wake up and be ready to face August 22 another time. This seems like a very good plan. To seal it, I tell myself that if I have two drinks only, I will have a year, if not of happiness, then at least of satisfaction ahead. If not, no such good fortune will attend me.
I go to the cupboard and take out the scotch and lift it to the light, finding one or two drinks gone from it. I pour a modest serving over a few cubes, admire the amber color for a while. And then, experimentally, I take a sip. It tastes sharp and a little bitter at the back of the tongue, and it burns all the way down to my stomach. Despite the heat of the alcohol and of the summer evening, I give a small shiver. Otherwise, no problems. I sip the drink for a while, small sips, too, and the bitterness, sharpness, and burn all disappear. The second drink goes down before I know it, smooth as syrup, and so really is like a first drink, not medicinal at all. So another seems permissible. The glass is spacious enough to accommodate a generous portion and another cube or two in the bargain. I sip at it carefully at first so it doesn’t overflow the top. After all, no matter how I count it, it is to be my last drink of the evening. I finish it and think, if you want to have a chance for satisfaction this year, you must stop. That is the deal. That is the bargain. But do I want to be satisfied? Why should I be? And what right have I to be satisfied? All this insistence on the self and its petty entitlements. Want, have, deserve, get. Ugly.
By the time my front doorbell rings, I am surprised to see that most of the bottle is gone. I wonder who could possibly be at my door—pious folks eager to give me a copy of the latest Watchtower?—but no, it is too late for them to be out. I listen to the bell ring again and do not get up. They will go away. They must. I am busy. Busy. A nice buzzing word, busy.
They do not. There is a determined rapping on my window, and I see a face peering through the glass. It is…Annie? Annie. It is.
I rise to my feet after two false starts and make my way to the door. Annie. How sweet she is to drop by. Though it seems a bit late for her, too. I look at my watch and cannot make out the time.
I pull the door open, holding onto the helpful unswaying handle.
“Well, hello, Pie,” I say. “What a nice surprise.” These words seem to take me twice as long to say as I expect. But they seem especially heartfelt and sincere. Even if on the palate just behind the teeth surprise is a buzzing word, too.
Her face comes into focus. It is tight, white, grim.
“What?”
Her hand, which is on her chest, rises. Her voice is soft and raspy. “Can’t breathe right. Asthma.”
“Come in. Sit. Would water…?”
She walks stiffly past me and drops into a chair. “Was at Sally’s. Had an argument.” Her eyes brim. “Walked out. Nobody’s home to pick me up.”
Asthma. Did I know about her asthma? Yes. But it was mild. Came and went. Never even seen her take a treatment.
“Do you have pills or something?”
She shakes her head. “Inhaler.” She pulls one from her pocket and shakes it. “Empty.” She looks very pale. Her breathing is noisy.
“Don’t talk. Save your breath.”
What to do? What to do.
“Have an inhaler at home?” I ask. She nods. “Key to the house?” She nods again. I congratulate myself on my asking the right questions. Save her breath. I finish what’s in my glass. I will drive her home.
“Let’s go,” I say, jingling my car keys. Pleasant sound.
We go to the garage. Annie slumps on the seat, finds it the wrong position. Sits up. Stares fixedly ahead. Her eyes widen each time she tries to inhale. I start the car, turn on the headlights, see I have left the door from the garage to the house wide open. Why would I do that? Something’s wrong. I put both hands on the steering wheel. Nothing stays steady. I am drunk. Should not drive. Must not drive.
I turn off the engine.
Pie looks at me, her face frightened. I can hear her breathe, or try to.
“Don’t worry,” I say, beginning to be frightened, too. What to do. Call an ambulance. Ambulance. I shake my head back and forth, back and forth. No, no, no. Ambulances are for little girls who are going to die. No ambulance. Not for Pie, never for Pie. Not Pie, goddammit! NO!
I start to get out of the car, trying to will myself sober. What to do?
“Stay there,” I say. “I’m going to get help.” Help.
She grabs my arm and squeezes hard. “Don’t. Leave. Me.” Rasping, eyes big. I can see white all around her brown iris.
“No,” I say. “I won’t leave you. Just to make a phone call and be right back.” Call who? The police? They will call an ambulance. Hospital, too. No fucking ambulances. Call a cab. Yes, yes. But that is so slow. She looks at me, nods trustingly. I go inside, get the phone book but cannot think what word to look up, in white pages or yellow. Hurry, hurry. Cab, drivers, taxi. I begin to shake and tears run down my face. Hurry.
I get a number but twice cannot seem to press the phone buttons I mean to, scream, press again. Headlights flash through the window behind me. A car in my driveway! Cannot make it out. I stumble outside. Cindy Tucker has come to drop off a piece of birthday cake on my front step. Sees my garage door up, the headlights of my car on.
I wipe the tears from my face, the snot from my nose and lip. “Annie’s having an asthma attack. I can’t drive. Can you take her to the hospital?”
“Where is she?”
I point in the garage. I hand her the keys. “Take my car.”
Swiftly, she drives her car onto the grass, gets in my car, pulls up the seat. I get in back and tell Pie that help has come, she’ll be all right. She nods, relaxes.
By the time we get to the hospital, Annie requests that we go to her house instead. All she needs is her inhaler and she’ll be fine. Her color is better and she is breathing noiselessly. Cindy asks her three times if she is absolutely sure. Annie says absolutely sure. Looking at the lighted boxes high up in the building, I wonder in which room someone is gravely ill.
We leave the hospital parking lot and drive the few blocks to Annie’s house. Annie and Cindy go in. I try to make myself get out, but I am spent, exhausted, and still drunk. Sometime later, how long I don’t know, Cindy comes out.
“Is Annie okay?”
“Much better. But she and her inhaler are going to spend the night at my house. She’ll be out in a minute.”
There is a silence. A bubble of nausea rises in my throat. I close my eyes, swallow it down. “I…I’m sorry about all this.”
Cindy looks at me for a brief moment, her eyes showing acknowledgment of my state. “Annie tells me you weren’t expecting visitors.”
“No.” I don’t know what to say. I have a tremendous urge to smash something. “I’ve read that people can die of asthma attacks.”
“Yes. But not often and not easily. They die in traffic accident
s far more often. You did the right thing, thank God.”
She politely didn’t say “drunk-driving accidents.”
She and Annie drop me off at my house, parking my car back in the garage and taking Cindy’s back home. She says she will call Bobby and Laura out in the western part of the state in the morning and tell them about Annie’s episode.
Annie apologizes to me. I tell her she has absolutely nothing to feel sorry for.
But I do. I should have been able to help her. For months now I have wanted to be like my old self, and the frightening fact is I almost succeeded.
After Cindy and Annie pull away, as I walk in the house I bang my knee on the kitchen door. I turn and kick it, hard. It swings open, caroms against the wall inside, and swings back. I hit it with my fist as hard as I can. It is a hollow core door; the wood splinters and my fist sinks into the wood. I hit it again.
Erickson Bruce calls me on Tuesday morning, one day after a long, sad, but drink-less Monday. He says he is under pressure to do something about Jeannie’s case, and he is going to do it as soon as she stabilizes. He is going to bring suit in civil court for recovery of funds on behalf of the state.
What he doesn’t say, but what is clear, is that there will be no criminal suit. For bad news, this is pretty good. For good news, however, it’s also pretty bad.
Politically this will be very damaging to Bobby. From underneath the dome of a clanging headache, I ask Erickson Bruce if an out-of-court settlement is possible.
“Possible,” he says. And then he names a figure that wipes out everything Jeannie made in the transaction and any interest she has made since, plus a penalty. This seems steep and, since the state would have had to pay that money to someone in any case, also punitive. I tell him this, thick-tongued and thick-wittedly. I say I will discuss his settlement proposal with Jeannie and get back to him. I know very well she will settle at any price rather than compromise her brother’s election campaign. Still, the suit raises a question I have not thought to look into. How much of Jeannie’s own money from savings went to pay for the land in the first place? At the very least I can suggest she ought not to lose that sum.
Sounding the Waters Page 24