The Moment Before

by Jason Makansi

  Holly ignored him. “I know that name.”

  “I don’t imagine there’s too many John Verandas in the world.”

  “Could you look up it up? Do you mind?”

  “Yes, I would mind. Google searches are like booze; shouldn’t have any before noon.”

  “I’d do it myself, but, well, techno-illiteracy gets in the way.”

  “By choice, you should add. You spurn devices connecting you to the human race by choice, not because you are poor, or can’t afford to get educated, but just to make a statement.”

  Holly folded up the paper and smacked him over the head with it. He shielded his head in mock fear. “I’m telling you, you’re a burden on society.”

  She raised her eyebrows and looked his wheelchair up and down. “I’m a burden on society?”

  “I am a decorated war hero, though. And that wasn’t a choice.”

  “It was a choice to load up on pharmaceuticals and attempt to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

  “Well, okay, how I chose to decorate myself was a little off the wall.”

  “You mean out the window.” Holly shook her head.

  “Whatever. At some point, Ms. Chicago, you are going to have to get with the program and join the modern era.”

  “Look him up. It’ll take you ten seconds. You could have done it already if your choice had been to refrain from being snarky.”

  Wheeling himself over to the computer, Penndel made sure Holly heard his heavy exhale as if he were being put out.

  “Spell it,” Penndel yelled behind him.

  “V-e-r-a-n-d-a.”

  Penndel looked up from the computer screen. Morning sunlight streamed in from the window at the southeast corner. “He’s a lawyer. Saluki, Illinois. Isn’t that right off of the interstate to nowhere? He’s running for the Illinois House of Representatives. The article says there were protests at one of his campaign stops yesterday.”

  “What could you protest in Saluki, unless he’s against farm subsidies?”

  “There’s a photo of an obese lady wearing a funny Sunday-go-to-meeting hat, holding up a sign, ‘Veranda loves Al Qaeda,’ you know, with one of those heart symbols instead of the word ‘love’.” Holly walked over to read over Penndel’s shoulder.

  “Looks like he once worked for a Senator, Timothy Wamsler, in the early 1980s, who suffered a bitter loss in 1986. Apparently, the Israeli lobby poured money into his challenger’s campaign war chest. Wamsler wrote a book about the experience, started some group called the Council for America’s Future.” Penndel pondered that one. “Now there’s a plain vanilla political name. It could be fascist or socialist, or anything in-between.”

  Holly smacked Penndel’s shoulder. “That’s the guy! Back when I was young, trying to track down my father. He was that senator’s aide I met in DC. He made an effort, I’ll give him that. He was a big guy, but seemed as gentle as a kitten, came across like he really cared, at least from what I remember.” And she remembered every bit of it. The drive with Dalton. The expectation of meeting the senator. Talking to Veranda. The ultimate disappointment. The letter Dalton had hidden. The call to the senator’s office, which she now realized, must have been soon after he lost reelection.

  Penndel kept his attention focused on the computer.

  “In a way, I owe him,” she said, to no one in particular.

  “Well, he’s been a small fish in a small pond ever since. He runs the Veranda Law Office, serves on the Saluki Town Council.”

  Penndel looked up to study Holly’s face. The sun’s warmth bore straight into his bones like gamma rays. Holly had been like a sister to him for several years. Better than a sibling, a companion, a true friend, a friend of the opposite sex, a friendship unspoiled by love or sex. Right then, the moment he’d feared—that she would one day leave—stared him in the face and marked the beginning of the end of that companionship. He could see the distance she gazed into.

  That afternoon, Holly filled the tank of her Mustang at a Quik Trip. She watched with alarm as the dial on the machine turned gallons of gasoline into dollars faster than she had ever remembered. The price of fuel was higher than in the past, but at least they didn’t have to wait in endless lines like when she was a teenager.

  She hadn’t bothered to write the address of Veranda’s campaign headquarters down, but figured it couldn’t be too hard to find, and in no time, she was crossing the Poplar Street Bridge away from St. Louis with the top down and a scarf tied around her hair. Autumn, her favorite season, continued to resemble summer, rather than portend winter. It would be a beautiful drive.

  For the better part of an hour, she re-played the summer she traveled with Dalton to DC after graduation. He’d made a great many sacrifices to help her those first few years after high school. Sometimes she felt guilty for up and leaving him with no word. She couldn’t live there after she realized, perhaps unfairly, all she was to him was a conquest. It had taken her months before she finally gave in to him. He’d woven her into his bullshit bit by bit.

  At first, being the naïve girl, she thought his help was purely platonic; utterly honorable. Then, he struck. Not with a vengeance, but with cunningly soft words and touches and embraces, until finally, she gave in. Wanted him to take her. So he did. Again and again. And it was good. Holly sucked in a deep breath remembering the pleasure. Then she just as quickly shook off the feeling. Stupid girl, she said to herself. Shortly thereafter, at least after he had fulfilled his own desires, he turned cold and indifferent. He’d even had the gall to bring another woman home once.

  But still she stayed.

  When she’d confronted him, hurt and crying, he was cold. “Well, we never did define our relationship, Cheryl.” As if they were supposed to fit under a category on the blackboard.

  Now Dalton was in the distant past and she was on her way to find John Veranda. How different would he look after twenty-five years? How different would she look to him? Would he recognize her? Remember their encounter? She doubted it. Once, she had pinned all of her hopes on him. He came across as someone who got things done. Maybe it was her impressionable youth. Maybe desperation.

  She slipped in a new CD and listened as the long, languid themes from Brahms First Symphony filled the air. Brahms always provided the soothing counterbalance from the inner sphere of her brain to her more impulsive outer sphere. At least Frank Dalton had guided her into the world of music beyond the classics. She wondered what kind of music Veranda liked.

  The Saluki town square was easy enough to find. She drove around it twice, following the one-way signs and parked in front of a glass window stenciled with John Harold Veranda, Esq, Attorney at Law. A campaign poster almost as tall as Holly blocked the radiator inside: Veranda, To Represent YOUR Interests in the State Assembly. She liked the concept. Simple. YOUR interests. You, the voter. Implying the other candidates represented other interests.

  She transferred her her pistol from the glove compartment to her purse, pushed open the car door, leaned against her Mustang, finished the diluted dregs of her iced coffee, and then lit a cigarette. Who was she kidding? She had no idea what she was going to do when she walked through the door a few steps away. He’d probably forgotten about her anyway. Probably had so many people come and go in the senator’s office, he was unlikely to remember a teen from twenty-five years ago, much less a missing Syrian man. He was probably married to one of those Washington socialites, too, who must be the first lady of Saluki now.

  She took the final drag off her cigarette and flicked it into the street. The store on the other side of the square—Briggs Home Furnishings—looked like it hadn’t been updated since the great depression. Kind of like her bar in Cairo. Only not quite as haggard. On her way through town, she had passed a few stately old homes in a moderate state of disrepair, and one apartment building where, judging from the landscaping, the landlord seemed to be making little effort on street appeal.

  She turned toward John Veranda’s office and stepp
ed over gum imprints mashed onto the sidewalk leading to the front door. As she opened the door, a railroad crossing sign clanged, followed by the pierce whistle of the train rumbling only a few blocks away. She felt the vibration beneath her feet.

  Holly walked into the office as if she’d done it every day. Posters plastered the walls. Fold-out party tables were set up with a few phones, leaflets, and pamphlets strewn on top of them. It certainly wasn’t the sumptuous office she remembered from so many years ago. Of course, there was no reason to imagine it, but somehow, she had been expecting mahogany, plush carpet, two-toned paint or, bold-tinted, patriotic wallpaper, maroon or forest green, separated by thick, painted chair rails.

  She met the eyes of a young man, a boy, standing towards the back of the office, where the lighting was dim. As he came forward, she realized he was a teenager.

  “Hi!” he said cheerfully. “Can I help you?”

  Holly thought at first about asking for Mr. Veranda, but changed her mind.

  “I’m here to volunteer for the campaign.”

  The boy looked taken aback as if he hadn’t heard anyone say that before.

  “Well, uh,” he stammered, “great. I don’t know how to do that. You’re the first person to come in to volunteer. My name’s Chip.” He paused. “My dad’s the one running.” He stuck his arm out swiftly and suddenly, like he was stiff-arming a linebacker. But his grasp was weak, with the authority of a teenager, not a seasoned politician.

  “Holly Chicago. Nice to meet you,” she said, trying not to feel like she was looking up at a boy one-third her age.

  “So, my dad is out with a crew putting up signs.”

  “Can you call him? Tell him someone’s here from St. Louis to work on his campaign?”

  “Wow, St. Louis. Wow. Okay. That’s a good idea.”

  Holly made herself busy looking at posters more closely, out the window, at anything but the boy, trying to study him without him realizing it. He was tall like she remembered his father, but not as broad shouldered. He wasn’t a carbon copy of the man Holly recalled from DC, but did she really remember what John Veranda, senator’s aide, had looked like? The boy’s eyes were fixed on her as he punched buttons on the office phone.

  “Dad, uh, hi, there’s a lady here who wants to work on your campaign,” he said in a soft voice. “What do I tell her? Or what do I do?” A pause. “Shoot, Dad, I don’t know. She says she’s from St. Louis, but her name is Chicago.”

  Holly chuckled at the boy’s confusion.

  Chip hung up the phone. “Okay, my dad said he’s not far away. He’ll come by in a few minutes to meet you.”

  Holly took root at the window and turned to gaze at the surroundings.

  “Here, you can sit down if you want.” He started towards her with a fold-up chair in his hands.

  “Oh, don’t bother, I’ve been sitting for the last two hours.”

  She absorbed the view of the town square through the lettering. Thinking John Veranda would recognize her caused a mild panic attack. She was tempted to excuse herself, jump in the car, and head back west, never to be seen again in these parts.

  Fifteen minutes later, a man strode through the door, his shoulders seemingly as wide as the opening, wearing a baggy pair of old khaki shorts and a pale-yellow knit, short-sleeved shirt darkened with sweat under his armpits. Covering his head was an old Cardinals baseball cap with a faded insignia, beige with dark stains, as if his head had rusted through it. The man was still large, Holly thought, a large head on top of a much larger torso, supported by strong legs. He seemed a reasonable facsimile of the person she remembered, his flesh looser around his face, his belly no longer safely tucked away beneath his barrel of a chest.

  She didn’t know if his smile suggested a predilection to joviality or relief to be immersed in cooler air. He exuded the same friendly competence and confidence she remembered.

  “Well, hello there!” He greeted her as if a recollection of her from years ago was as far back in his mind as Pluto was from earth.

  As soon as he opened his mouth, Holly had second thoughts. He sounded like the kind of guy who left little oxygen in the room for anyone else, a glad hand. In fact, she felt insulted he displayed not even a hint of recognition. Was she that plain, like faded wallpaper?

  He strode up to where Holly had been patiently waiting, flipping through a few magazines, one about baseball, and a slick promotional brochure about Saluki. He reached out to shake her hand. Holly was disarmed by a grasp no stronger than his son’s, yet its warmth was that of a loaf of bread fresh from the oven. “John Veranda.”

  “Pleased to meet you, “she said, a little more certain about why she was here. “Holly Chicago. I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting your son.” She looked over at the boy. Veranda did, too.

  “He’s been a real trooper, taking time from his summer break to help me out. Right, Chip? C’mon over here.”

  He ruffled his hair and hit him playfully in the shoulder. “Well, let’s step into my office and we can talk. Would you like a soda or glass of water?” Veranda motioned to his son.

  “Water would be great, thank you.”

  When they were seated in an inner office behind glass walls, Holly spoke first. “Listen, I don’t want to make a big deal of this, but I read about your campaign this morning in the St. Louis paper. I know it’s weird to come and volunteer like this, but my vote counts, if that means anything. And, I am legally a resident of Illinois, if that’s important.”

  “There’s no residency requirement to work on a campaign,” he said cheerfully, “just be aware there’s no reward, or glory, either. It’s all grunt work, putting up signs, canvassing door to door, well, when it’s closer to Election Day. And giving good phone.”

  Holly frowned, and he looked at his shoes like a little boy. She laughed. “Well, I don’t even own a cell phone, much less a landline.”

  “Fair enough.” He laughed and looked back up at her. “Oh, and if we win, there’ll be a really good party. If we lose, there’ll be a really good party.”

  “When do I start?”

  “Right now, if you want. You drove all this way. We’re putting signs up all over town.”

  “I’m game.”

  “But I’m curious, though, why? I mean, all the way from St. Louis? I don’t even know you.”

  “Well, I can’t answer that, but if you agree not to ask questions of me, I won’t ask questions about you.”

  “Well, okay, but that’s not a square deal. I’m an open book. Anything you want to know about me, you can find out on the Internet. Anything not there, call my opponent’s office and ask for opposition research.” He leaned back and chuckled. “Even in a podunk race like this, there’s oppo research, and they’ve got the goods on me.”

  “Anything I’d want to know about you isn’t available from anyone but you, believe me.”

  John looked bewildered. He glanced through the glass at Chip, and a family photograph sitting on a mantel at home flashed in his mind’s eye.

  “Well, as I said, I’m an open book. You can ask me anything.” He put his hands on the desk and stood. “Now, Holly Chicago, what do you say we do some grunt work?”

  At the end of the day, John asked everyone to meet at the newly opened Egyptian Grounds Coffee House. Since it was on the way to the Interstate, Holly agreed to stop in for an iced mocha to keep her company on the drive back to the city. John treated each of them to a beverage of their choice. He said he was bound and determined to make the establishment the crown jewel of Saluki cultural life, and implored everyone to frequent the place.

  “We’ve waited years to have a decent place to get a cup of modern coffee in this town, he told his group, so let’s keep it in business.”

  Moisture from the outside of her iced mocha created a film between their skin when they shook hands goodbye. As she looked at him, and saw the younger face of the man who tried to help her so many years ago, she unconsciously tugged slightly at his hand, inten
ding to give him a quick hug and instead ended up in an embrace she thought about for the entire drive home.

  Exhausted and grimy after an afternoon gripping a staple gun, Holly needed a hot bath like nobody’s business. Her hands hurt in surprising ways. Even gripping the steering wheel was painful.

  She thought about those diagrams from her home-study chemistry course, the ones showing the electrons orbiting the nucleus. Being in Veranda’s presence had set off her protons, the matter least likely to stray, to betray her, to break free, seek combination with others. They weren’t going anywhere, but they’d been served notice and now caused her to vibrate inside with anxiety.

  She approached a long incline as the highway passed above a rail line underneath. Momentarily, she’d be intersecting with the freight train she could see cutting through the landscape swiftly to her left. She could sense, without hearing, the rumble and screeches of the metal wheels against the tracks, sounds she’d heard many times as the trains made their way through St. Louis.

  Every car was a flatbed carrying combat tanks, as far as the eye could see, in both directions as she crossed the bridge over the tracks. It reminded her of footage from Soviet, Chinese, and Korean parades, a country’s military might on display.

  Her stomach roiled and she felt queasy. Her head throbbed. She wondered if she was coming down with the flu. Or was it anxiety?

  In the distance, she noticed a lone tree, the only thing taller than the stalks for several football field lengths in every direction. It was completely, utterly alone. Not a single leaf flapped in the gathering winds of the September evening. Its trunk and branches were stripped of bark, as if it had been struck by lightning, singed black by fire. She swallowed a sob. Alone. Just like her. She slowed down to pull the car over—to get control of herself. Then it struck her. That tree, alone, stripped of life, was a survivor. It still stood, despite everything. It’s not going anywhere, and neither am I. She pressed her foot to the accelerator and continued home.

  Before she’d even stepped out of the elevator, Penndel was yelling to her, “Come here! Come here! You have to see this!”