Always

by Timmothy B. Mccann

  DAVIS 25

  STEINER 3

  BALDWIN 0

  “So far, the races that are hotly contested are in New York, where there is literally a three-way tie for her thirty-three electoral votes, the Peach State of Georgia, and there is a surprising race in a state that at one time looked like a slam dunk for Senator Davis, and that’s his home state of Florida. He did not campaign as much there in the last few weeks, and with the scandals swirling around the campaign, as well as torrential rains which are affecting voter turnout in south Florida, the state is a toss-up.”

  Fontainebleau Hotel

  Miami, Florida

  Suite 1717

  Leslie sat watching the TV, flipping back and forth between her favorite news reporter and a Delroy Lindo movie on Spectravision, and tried to ignore the knock at the door.

  Damn, I wish whoever the hell that is would leave, she thought as she blew a puff of smoke in the nonsmoking bedroom. The living room of her suite, which was previously full of staffers, had been cleared by her administrative assistant so Leslie could get a little well-deserved rest. Taking a sip of her diet cola, she swallowed a Paxil and reluctantly asked, “Who?”

  “It’s me, Vette, open up.”

  “Oh my God,” she said as she jumped off the bed to open the door to the suite. “Myles, how are you!” As the Secret Service agent moved aside, she wrapped her arms around her brother and asked, “What are you doing in town?”

  “Baby girl, I couldn’t let you go through all of this by yourself! I know I told you I couldn’t make it, but hell, Wall Street was there before me and it’ll last if I’m away a few days.” As they released their embrace and walked into the bedroom, Leslie held his hands and stood away from him.

  “Well, look at you. I like that jacket, and you lost those fifteen pounds, didn’t you?”

  “Yep, and I bought this jacket from this designer in Beverly Hills named Reggie Jenkins. You like?”

  “I love,” Leslie said with a smile.

  “Well, you’re not looking too bad yourself.”

  “Child, please. Don’t even try it. I look like crap and I know it. Who let you up here?”

  “Sally. She remembered me from that fund-raiser in mid-town and got me past security. I told her I wanted to surprise you.”

  “So where’s Vicki and the babies?”

  “Hell, the babies are seven and eight. Can you believe my little man turned seven on the seventh of last month? Time flies, doesn’t it? They’re riding around South Beach and they’ll come up tomorrow to meet the new first lady.”

  “God, don’t start with that,” Leslie said, returning to the bed. “Oh, I’m sorry, can I get you something to drink?”

  “Oh, no. Well, maybe a tomato juice, but you don’t have to get it. Just point me in the direction.”

  “Walk back there in the other bedroom, honey, and there’s an honor bar. Just get what you like and let the Democrats pay for it. And get something for Vicki and the babies too.”

  As he stood up, Myles removed his dark blue blazer and rolled up the sleeves of his starched white monogrammed shirt. As he walked down the hall, his voice echoed in the hallway. “So tell me, how does it feel?”

  “The truth?” Leslie replied, watching a Carlos Santana video. “The truth is, I have not eaten a bite in the past forty-eight hours. I know I need to eat something, but I just can’t hold anything down. I’m running on two hours sleep. My hair is falling out. Need I say more?”

  “You’re that nervous, huh?” he said from the bedroom as he popped the top of the can.

  “Nervous, scared, pissed off, ashamed, scared, betrayed, tired, and did I say scared?”

  “Yeah, you did, baby girl,” Myles said as he walked over to the curtains and looked out the window. “They call New Yorkers crazy. You know, there’s actually a guy in the building across from us wearing dark shades with his head hanging out the window? What’s up with that?”

  “Yeah, I saw him earlier. It’s probably some photographer for a tabloid trying to get an exclusive, so unless you want to be on the checkout stand next week as the mystery man in my suite, I’d close the curtains. Besides, the Secret Service was up here a few hours ago and was adamant about keeping the curtains shut.”

  “My bad. As I was going to say,” he continued, reentering the bedroom and sitting beside his sister, “it’s gonna be all right. I promise you it’s gonna be fine.” Then Myles, who was just under six feet with a pudgy frame, squeezed closer to his petite sister and rested her head on his shoulder. He held her as he had so many times as a child, when they watched Chiller Thriller together, although she was two years older than he. And then he took another sip of his tomato juice and made himself comfortable by loosening his Windsor knot and taking off his Senegal loafers. “So what’s the deal, baby girl? You wanna tell me about it now?”

  Looking down and gazing at the floor, she whispered, “Yes. Yes, I want to tell you everything. But please do me one favor.”

  “Aw, sugar, anything. That’s what I’m here for. What is it?” he said, stretching his body and spreading his toes.

  Leslie turned toward her brother as her eyes darted back and forth, looking into each pupil. Then she replied in earnest, “Would you please put back on your shoes? Child, your feet still stank!”

  Myles laughed so hard he rolled off the bed, and Leslie fell back on the thick paisley comforter, holding her empty stomach to stop it from cramping while both howled as they had in years gone by.

  “See. You wrong. You are so wrong. I fly three thousand miles just to console you and you talking ‘bout my feet?”

  “You flew? Baby, the way your feet smell, I thought you walked here. I mean, honestly, I can’t deal with this election, not eating, and those hoofs. Either put on your shoes or we drop right out of the election tonight!”

  LESLIE

  Nineteen seventy-three? Whoa. Let me think a minute. Of course, ’73. That’s the year I first laid eyes on Henry. God, how could I ever forget that? This is how it happened.

  I attended school at University of Southern Cal. Although I wanted to attend school on the East Coast, Dad told me he would not pay for it, and I certainly wasn’t eligible for federal financial aid or anything, so I decided to go close to home.

  SC wasn’t that bad. I got to meet a lot of famous people, like Haywood Nelson. Remember him from What’s Happening? He and I were supposed to go out once, but that’s another story. He was a nice guy, though. I also used to watch, with all the other girls, O.J. and A.D., Anthony Davis, run around the track there during the off-season. Yes, they were both very fine and O.J. was very married, but that never stopped them from flirting.

  Anyway, back to the story. I wanted to go to Europe to study like a few of my white friends’ parents let them do every year. Well, my dad, who always squeezed a quarter until the eagle screamed, told me no. But he said there was a lot of this country I had never seen, so if I made straight A’s, he would let me see America any way I wanted to or go to any school in the country to study for the summer. Not exactly Europe, but if you knew my father, you would be very satisfied to get that. So I did the 4.0 and decided not to go to school that summer. I had a friend who wanted to visit a few schools on the East Coast to decide which one she would attend the following spring. Her list was Temple, Brown, the University of Rhode Island, and Florida State. Well, I was all for it when she said Temple, because that was just a hop, skip, and jump from New York City.

  At this time I was twenty years old and she was nineteen, and believe it or not, for some reason we decided to drive across country for this adventure.

  Two days later we arrived, checked into the hotel, showered, then she slept for about an hour before heading off to see the campus. I don’t know where she got all that energy. When she left, I went for a swim and I saw this guy who worked at the hotel watching me. He was pretty easy on the eyes, but I could not see myself dating a maintenance man. So I finished my swim and went back to the room and I
got this call from the really cute and sexy guy at the front desk. He was kinda stocky, but he wore this bush (which is what we called them before Afros), sorta like Haywood’s now that I think about it. I think he was a student at one of the universities in town. So this guy was making his supposed courtesy call. And I played along because he talked kinda cute. He had that Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia thing going in his voice, and it sounded sexy for some reason. It wasn’t hillbilly twangy sounding. Just made him sound sincere and earnest or something. Anyway, he finished his call and I got a book to read. I had been waiting to read John Updike’s Couples for some time, but I fell asleep after the first chapter.

  The next morning we went for breakfast and everyone in the restaurant knew we were not from out of state when my friend Veronica asked the waitress to show her a grit. When we returned, there was a single rose on my pillow. I thought, Now, I know this is the South and they are supposed to be hospitable, but this is a little too much. Veronica, who was a Valley girl before there was such a phrase, put her hands on her hips and said, “So, like . . . where is mine?” In ’73 Valley girls were just considered plain old stuck-up rich girls.

  “I don’t know,” I said, still puzzled, and then it occurred to me why slick at the counter was smiling so much when we returned from breakfast. I didn’t tell her anything as I sat down to inhale the flower’s scent and noticed he’d squirted a little cologne on it. Although the smell mixed with the aroma of the rose, it was sensual. The cologne was airy and I couldn’t place it. It was an intensely masculine smell with not a hint of sweetness to it, which I have always hated on men. As I enjoyed the fragrance, Ms. Veronica watched, and if my memory serves me correctly, steam was actually coming from the back of her neck and ears.

  “Aha, yes, front desk? . . . Aha, yes, can you, like, help me? . . . Aha, we just, like, returned to our room? . . . Yes, 213? . . . Yes, and, aha, we only received, like, one fla’war?”

  Now, I know I should have stopped her. I know I should have told her I had a good idea who had left this, but I think you can see why I did not. She had her hand on her narrow hips and was moving that index finger in a tight circle as if they were speaking face-to-face. Although her dad was a physician, when she wanted it, the Inglewood in her would come out in a flash.

  “Aha, like, excuse me? . . . So, like, how did this fla’war get in here? . . . Aha, excuse me, Jed.” And then she looked at me, and said, “I got Jed Clampett on the phone, you wanna talk to him? Listen, Jethro, stop wrestling with Elly May and answer my question. If we would have, like, brought it here, wouldn’t I, like, know it, dahhh?” Click. “Well, that basically crosses Florida State off my list. I don’t think I could live in a state for four years that’s this, like, illiterate?”

  I was cramping from, like, holding in the laughter.

  The next day we went to Panama City to check out the world-famous Florida beaches, and when we came back, once again there was a single red rose. So now I had to tell Veronica who I thought was doing it, and she was not as mad as I thought she would be. Still mad because she had not gotten one, but not as mad.

  “So we’re only going to be here one more day, silly Billy. Why don’t you go talk to him?”

  “Talk to him? What would I say?”

  “Anything short of ‘Let me blow you’ is fair game. I do it all the time,” she said, painting her toenails pink and green.

  “What would you say?”

  “Well, first you have to make sure it was him, and then say something like, ‘I wanted to personally thank you for the fla’wars. It was very sweet. You are very sweet. Where I am from, guys are not usually that sweet. I bet you taste sweet.’ And then say, ‘Can I blow you?’”

  Veronica ducked as I threw a pillow at her head while laughing.

  At about a quarter to five I nervously headed toward the front desk, because I suspected he would leave about the same time he left the day before, at five o’clock. So I’m walking along, practicing what I am going to say, when this guy passes me. It was the maintenance guy from the day before. The one thing I immediately noticed was how crisply his uniform was starched this time. For some reason, and I didn’t know why, I stopped and turned around. He was still walking, but damn, he made khaki come to life.

  So I stood there for a moment and it occurred to me why I stopped. It was the cologne he was wearing. He was wearing the same cologne the guy at the front desk had squirted on the flowers. He continued to walk, and I did something I had never done before. I said, “Excuse me, sir?” As he stopped and slowly turned toward me, I said, “I’m just curious, what cologne are you wearing?”

  “Do you like it?” he asked with a smile.

  My blood stopped. I remember my knees shaking and feeling weak. I cannot remember what I said when I saw those dimples. The next thing I know, he was walking toward me. I looked back at the front desk with a part of me hoping the guy had not left yet and a part of me praying he had.

  The maintenance man said low and sexy, “It’s called High North. Do you like it?” What was I going to say? He continued, “I usually put on a few squirts in the morning and it lasts all day.” Then he smiled and walked away.

  I didn’t like light-skinned brothers. My mom was fair complexioned and my dad was the bluest of blacks, and even though I am considered dark by most people, I like my coffee straight, but I was smitten by this brother.

  As he walked away, I wanted to scream “Come back” or something, but I had no idea what to say next. And then I thought of what Veronica would say. “Can I blow you?” No, not that. Then he turned, and said, “Ya know, this stuff also smells great on roses.”

  And that was the day I met my husband. It was May 15, 1973, at about ten to five. I was twenty years old, and I will never forget that day as long as I live.

  Washington, D.C.

  NBS News Studio

  9:40 P.M. EST

  “Okay, America, let’s assess where we are at this point. I’m told NBS News will be able to make a call in six to eight races within the half hour. Unlike before, I think we will have a few surprises. Right now, Senator Henry L. Davis the Second of Florida has taken a commanding lead in the race and has sixty-four electoral votes. That’s sixty-four for the junior senator from Florida. Thus far Vice President Ronald Steiner has only carried two states, for a total of twelve votes. And as we reported earlier, Governor Tom has yet to hit pay dirt, although he was running neck and neck with Steiner in Connecticut and Davis in Kentucky. Now for the latest on the Steiner campaign we will take you back out to the City of the Big Shoulders, Chicago, Illinois, and Judy Finestein. Judy, are you there?”

  “Yes, Franklin, I’m here along with this very optimistic crowd of supporters. Although the numbers are not looking promising at this point, it has not deterred the spirits of the supporters. There has been singing and dancing to the sounds of a couple of local bands, and the mood is generally one of excitement. I have with me the Steiner Illinois campaign chairman, Peter Delahouse of Kankakee, Illinois. I hope I am pronouncing that correctly, Peter. Peter—”

  “Judy! This is Franklin Dunlop in Washington. Would you please stand by because we are prepared to make calls in several key states.

  “America, these are the up-to-the-minute results. We are projecting that Vice President Ronald Steiner will win in the following states: Vermont, New Hampshire, Nebraska, and North Dakota. NBS News is also projecting that Governor Tom Baldwin will carry the following states: Oklahoma, the Peach State of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. And I just got word that we are projecting a victory for Tom Baldwin in the state of Tennessee. The state of Louisiana was picked up, we are now told, by Senator Henry Davis. So if you are keeping score at home, with 280 electoral votes needed to win, this is what it looks like.”

  DAVIS 73

  STEINER 27

  BALDWIN 48

  “There is more to come after these messages.”

  Carol City, Florida

  The Allen Residence

  Wi
th every passing car, Cheryl’s head turned away from the television screen. If he were like most guys, she could have located him very easily. He would be at a friend’s house or watching the level of beer go down in an uptilted mug at a bar. But Brandon was not like most guys. He worked the midnight-to-ten shift for the Dade County Sheriff’s Department as a patrolman, which he had done since graduating from the academy several years earlier. He’d been the top cadet in his class and had a bright future with the force. As she sat, she thought about how decent and kind he had been to her since day one. How he had never asked for anything but her love. How he had handled so easily their twelve-year age disparity and how she should never have told him that deep inside, she was still in love with Henry.

  When the phone rang, she hoped it would be Brandon, but was sure it was her mother.

  “Hello, Mommy?”

  “Hey, sweetheart, how you doing? I bet you scared to death in all this lightning, huh?”

  Closing her eyes as she flinched with every white flash across the ominous skies, Cheryl whispered, “No, Brandon’s here tonight.” With him out in the weather and her not knowing what would happen in the election for some time, she was not in the mood to explain to her mother why he’d left.

  “Well, that’s good. Did he take off to watch the election results with you?”

  “Yeah. He worked hard down at the campaign headquarters making phone calls last week, and his commander told him he could have the night off.”

  “Henry’s gonna win, you know. I had a dream last night about him, running water and those white doves. You know what that means. I saw him on TV dancing with that pretty wife of his too.”

  Lying back on her pillows while staring into the lightbulb above until she saw blue spots, Cheryl said, “Yeah, Mommy, I know what the doves mean.”

  “I always did like him. He was such a nice boy. He never called too late or anything and was always so mannerly, unlike that mannish behind Darius. Did you ever tell Henry I wanted a new pair of shoes to replace the ones his big ole feet messed up that day in my closest?”