Always

by Timmothy B. Mccann

And you know what the really sad part is, Henry? You wanna know the worst part of it all? You can’t win! They’ll never elect you president. White folk pumping your head up with all of that bullshit and you falling for it. How in the hell you gonna have a black president in a country where black folks can’t get jobs with companies because of their color? Where Texaco, for God’s sake, won’t promote Harvard grads? Where niggas are getting burned and decapitated for being in the wrong area of town by crackers right here in Florida? Fuck the polls! I don’t care what the damn polls say. White people just feel good saying they would vote for a black person. They’re too ashamed to say they would not vote for you, because they know you are the best qualified. But when that curtain closes, trust me, they gonna vote white. All you are doing is paving the way for some other nigger to make it because you . . . will never . . . win!” And then she screamed, “Get . . . away . . . from that . . . window!” Obviously K’ren had climbed up the tree and peeked in the bathroom window.

  I sat there with my head in my hands trying to maintain my balance after the body blow of words, and then I stood and headed outside to see if K’ren was all right. I could still hear Leslie ranting in the bathroom. I wanted to compose myself before I saw K’ren because I knew that she’d never heard or seen Leslie like this before. As I walked through the kitchen, I remembered we usually kept treats in the freezer, so I opened the deep freezer in the pantry and retrieved a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar. When I went outside, I saw my niece with a scared look on her face trying to draw hopscotch squares on the Italian marble patio tiles.

  I smiled at her and brought the ice cream treat from behind my back. Seeing it, she dropped the large, round, orange piece of chalk and walked toward me. I sat on the lawn chair, and as she took the snack from my hand I saw her eyes were red.

  “K’ren?” I said as softly as I could. “Auntie Leslie didn’t mean to say that. Okay? She’s just not feeling well.”

  K’ren shook her head and sat on my thigh as she removed the paper from the ice cream. I wanted to say more, but comforting children was never my strong suit. I didn’t even feel comfortable holding babies for photo ops. But then my thoughts went back to the love of my life sitting in a bathroom in our home.

  If she had only said that I was wasting my time, I could have brushed it off, but it hurt when she said she didn’t love me. So I sat there bouncing my heel with K’ren on my thigh. And then I saw a tear fall down her cheek as she bit into Mickey’s chocolate-covered ear and moved her head as if she was listening to unheard music.

  After about thirty minutes, K’ren was feeling better, so I left her playing with a dollhouse Herbert had dropped off previously and went back inside the house to continue my vigil for my wife.

  Walking up to the bathroom door, I hoped she would have unlocked it, but she hadn’t. I could hear her softly snoring inside the bathroom. Although I was still dressed in my suit pants, I allowed my suspenders to fall to my thighs and sat on the floor facing the door, deciding to wait her out as I replayed every word she’d said to me in search of the truth behind them. Was I obsessed with the presidency and did she really believe we had no chance of pulling this off? Was this home, the Senate, and what little wealth we’d accumulated our manifest destiny? But most important, I searched for the truth in the comment she made about the illusion of winning the presidency keeping us together. Was our marriage, our life, simply form over substance? Confused, I took off my shoes and socks, rolled the socks in a ball and placed them inside a shoe, massaged the ball of my foot, and determined not to leave until my wife was better.

  Unfortunately, due to the long day, I fell asleep. Eventually K’ren came in and woke me up with a kiss on the forehead. I smiled at her and she asked, “What’s to eat?”

  I went into the kitchen and looked for whatever Kadesha had left us for dinner. As I heated the meat loaf and mashed potatoes, I decided that I should wake Leslie, so I walked down the hall and stood face-to-face with the door before pulling back my fist to knock. Just as I did . . . the door opened.

  “Henry,” she said with a weary sigh, and held the basin to balance herself. She could not seem to find the words she searched for. Instead she looked at me. First just my lips and then my eyes, and still she seemed unable to find the words. Her body swayed slightly as she then folded her arms and opened her mouth to speak, but only air came out.

  I slowly pulled her close, secured my arms around her, and said, “Leslie, I love you. You scared me. But I know we can make it through this together.” She leaned closer to me and I rubbed her head. “I can truthfully tell you that tonight there is nothing in this world that you can say”—I pulled back and looked into her fire-red eyes—“there are no words you can come up with . . . to make me stop loving you.”

  My bride leaned on me like a two-day-old baby, and I knew I could never let her fall. After that episode we fell deeper in love than we had ever been.

  And then there was the trip to Europe.

  Washington, D.C.

  November 8, 2000

  NBS News Studio

  2:00 A.M. EST

  “This is Franklin Dunlop on one of the most unusual nights I have reported on or can even remember in recent years. The crowning moment of democracy when America elects her leader for the next four years has been marred with an assassination attempt on the life of its sitting vice president, Ronald Steiner. For more on the story, we swing back out to Chicago and our own Judy Finestein. Judith, what’s the latest?”

  “Well, Franklin, we can now confirm that the vice president was indeed shot in the melee on the roof of the Four Seasons Hotel. We can confirm that the shot, or shots, I should say, were not fatal and that he is being treated at Lake Shore Memorial Hospital as we speak.”

  “Judy, the assassin or assassins—what do we know about them?”

  “Well, according to our high-level FBI source, the FBI knew of a possible planned assassination attempt in Chicago hours ago, and they attempted to get the vice president and his family to a more secure setting. Why it was not leaked, and the story in Miami was, I cannot say. Unfortunately the ambush occurred as the vice president and his family were boarding Chopper Two on the roof of the hotel. We can now confirm two FBI casualties whose names are being held pending notification of next of kin. Also, Franklin, one of the alleged assassins, one Ulysses Ferguson, was shot and killed by a member of the Secret Service.”

  “My goodness, Judy. This is indeed an incredible story and it seems to grow more tragic with each report.”

  “Yes it is, Frank. They have asked the individuals inside the hotel who were here for the election celebration to leave immediately. They are attempting to seal off the area to conduct as much of an investigation as possible under the circumstances.”

  “We can now confirm that Steiner was shot. Were any members of his family or staff wounded during this devastating occurrence?”

  “None as far as we know, Frank, only the vice president. I was just informed that he is in critical condition at this time. We will update you on his condition as the news comes to us. Again, according to our sources familiar with the situation, Vice President Ronald Steiner is in critical condition at Lake Shore Memorial, and the severity of his wounds is still unknown.”

  “Well, there you have it, America. On the eve of what was expected to possibly be the election of the first African-American president or the first female VP, we have a vice president in critical condition and an election night thrown into chaos. With all of the unusual happenings, we still must elect the next man to lead our country.”

  DAVIS 195

  STEINER 220

  BALDWIN 126

  Fountainebleau Hotel

  Suite 1717

  Myles sat in front of the television, switching the coverage from Chicago. “Where’s Penelope?” he asked his sister.

  “She’s down in Henry’s room. They paged her for a meeting or something.”

  “So,” he asked as he tossed grapes into his mouth, “
do you guys know the Steiners?”

  “Yeah, we’ve known them since we came to town in eighty-four. Ron and Sandy were one of the few Republican couples we socialized with. This was before he became vice president, of course. When they were in the Senate, his daughter was dating this black guy who played for the Orioles, and rumor had it that Ron went ballistic. I don’t know what happened, but one thing led to another and they broke up. I don’t think Ron and Sandy are racist or anything, but if a photo of his daughter with a big-money, fast-living, nose-ring-wearing baseball player was taken, let’s just say it wouldn’t play well in Peoria.”

  “Umm. So Ron’s a pretty nice guy otherwise?”

  “Ronald? Yeah, he’s nice. As nice as you can be in politics, I guess. In fact, when Ron was in the Senate he pulled Henry aside and told him he’d heard some very positive things about him. That’s not something a senior Republican senator from the North says to a first-term Southern Democrat. Ron was the first person to mention to Henry that he might want to seriously consider running for the presidency one day. I’m sure he just never imagined the future would come so fast.”

  “It’s a sick world we live in. Steiner’s people paid to have those protesters interrupt your rally and tried to embarrass Henry publicly, yet you don’t seem to be angry with him.”

  “You can’t hold grudges. Hell, we always hear about Republican dirty tricks. I can’t swear that the Democratic party has not done the same thing to them.” Leslie rubbed her eyebrow slowly. “This is a blood sport. It’s just like basketball or football. You give it a hundred and ten percent for the entire game and when the whistle blows, it’s over. When the election is done you kiss, do lunch, and cosponsor a bill or something. If you can’t think like that in D.C, you won’t make it there very long. I just pray . . . he lives.”

  LESLIE

  In 1995 I received a phone call in the month of July I will never forget. I remember it was July because it was a few weeks before our anniversary and three months after my change. You know, into old ladydom. I was watching a movie in the middle of the day, which is something I rarely do, even on the weekends. It was my favorite movie of all time, Sleepless in Seattle, and as always, I was crying a little bit toward the end. But this time it was not because of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan meeting and holding hands. It was because of me and Teddy. Let me explain. All my adult life I wanted to have a baby, and even after the doctor said we had no chance of that happening, I held out hope that one day we would. I always thought it would happen on Valentine’s night or one of our birthdays or even our anniversary. I know it was a fruitless dream, but I allowed myself to fantasize every now and then. Now this was the first time that it was not even a remote possibility.

  I also cried because I missed Teddy. People think that when you live your lives apart this much, you grow accustomed to not having the person you love around. I never got used to it. I turned to alcohol after the change and one day said a lot of things to him I should never have said. I didn’t really believe any of them, but even after being together as many years as we had, I guess I wanted reassurance that the man cared. I knew he loved me, but I didn’t know if he genuinely cared. After my rantings and ravings, he spent more time with me for a week or so, but soon he had to go back to D.C. In the middle of my crying jag the phone rang. It was my Henry bear.

  “Hey, hon, how are you?”

  “Fine now,” I said, and dried my puffy eyes with the back of my hand. “Are you still in Virginia?”

  “No, actually I’ll be home in a couple of hours. We couldn’t land in Miami so I’m just outside of Lauderdale.”

  I sat up straight. “Really?”

  “Yeah, but I guess I should tell you that I have a meeting with a couple of other senators at Camp David in a few weeks.”

  “So?” I asked. By this time he was meeting with the president several times a year for one reason or another, so why was he telling me this?

  “Well, it’s on the seventeenth. The seventeenth of next month.”

  My heart sank because that was our anniversary and I could not leave town to be with him because of my own obligations. Up until this point, we had never spent an anniversary apart. Our bedroom, which I would not even allow South Florida Homes to photograph, had nothing but pictures of us together. There were, of course, our wedding pictures and a picture of us taken in Holland when Henry and several other congressmen were invited to a visit by the prime minister of the country. There was also one taken by Kadesha of Henry and me covered in feathers having a pillow fight. We had a lot of fun that night, but those moments came less and less often. As a couple we did not have many rituals, but we held true to one. On our anniversary we would take the phone off the hook and spend the entire day in our bedroom by ourselves with a bowl of fruit, Teddy’s favorite snack food of granola, and a bottle of sparkling wine. That was as elaborate as it got and we loved it. We never allowed a television in the bedroom. For us that was a place for other kinds of entertainment, and we felt if a married couple needed a TV in there, then they had problems. Unfortunately, I would spend this anniversary alone here, on the couch, with only the television.

  “Leslie? Are you there?”

  “Huh? Yeah, I’m here.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. You know if it was anything short of the president, I’d cancel, but I can’t.”

  “Teddy, I understand,” I replied, and I really did. But it did not make the pill any easier to swallow. “What time will you be home?”

  “Well, I’m in the car with Penelope and Marcus now. Maybe around nine?”

  “Kadesha is cooking veal tonight. She asked me to ask you what you would like for dinner tomorrow.”

  “Ahh, that’s the other reason I’m calling. I need to go on the road for a couple of weeks. A few congressmen would now like me to campaign for them. I hate to give you such short notice.”

  “Teddy,” I said as the tears began to swell, “I understand. We gotta strike while the . . .” And then I could not finish the sentence. Normally I am not that emotional, but “the change” had changed me more then I was willing to admit.

  About a half hour later, Teddy called again. I had just finished the movie and was looking over a list of campaign contributors we should add to this year’s Christmas card list, which had grown to over ten thousand people, when the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Hon, I just have to ask you one question.”

  “Hey, babe, I’m so glad it’s you. Listen,” I said, laying down the list, shaking loose my hair, and removing my glasses. “I’m so sorry about the way I reacted earlier today. I don’t know what came over me. I was watching that damn Sleepless in—”

  “Honey, I hate to cut you off, but I’m still in the car and need to ask you another quick question.”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s your favorite scent?”

  Now, I’m thinking, How sweet. He’s buying me some perfume before he leaves. Not romantic to ask me, but very sweet just the same. “I wear Moon Dust of Paris.”

  “I know that, Les. I mean what’s your favorite scent.”

  “You mean . . . like smells? Like wild cherry or lemon or something?”

  “Yeah. What’s your favorite?”

  “Well, ahh, I guess jasmine. Why?”

  “Thanks. ’Bye,” he said, and hung up. Now, why did he want to know that? I guessed he was having my car detailed or something and wanted to tell the guy what to spray in it. And then the phone rang again.

  “Hello?”

  “Sorry, I hung up before saying I love you.”

  I smiled into the phone as the words sank in. “Thank you, baby. What I was going to say before is—”

  “Nipples of Venus, right?”

  “Nipples . . . of Venus? What are you talking about?”

  “Your favorite candy. Nipples of Venus . . . right?”

  “Uhh, yeah.” Although I thought I knew what he was up to, the way he was doing it had me perplexed.

 
“Okay, I love you. ’Bye.”

  I stood there thinking how special he could be at times. About thirty minutes later Teddy called again and asked, “Boxers or briefs?”

  I didn’t even try to say more than, “Briefs, ’bye.”

  I walked around our house like a hooker in a convent. I didn’t know what to expect or how to dress, but I knew I should take a bath in his favorite scent, which was peach hyacinth. It always drove him wild.

  As I was sitting in the tub, I tried to figure out why he was asking me questions I was sure he knew the answers to. If he wanted to give me one of those open-your-eyes dates, I didn’t know how he could get into the house and set it up discreetly. But if that was his plan, once again, why call me? This was not making any sense, and I loved every minute of it.

  As I dried off, I looked at my body in the mirror and was proud of what I saw. I run five to seven miles a day and I always eat very healthily. Initially it was for Henry the politician because I didn’t want him to have some fat woman wobbling behind him. And then I did it for Teddy my husband because I didn’t want all those young campaign aides and groupies to get his attention when he was on the road and I was down here in Miami. But now I do it for me. I do it because of the way it makes me feel, and I discovered the more I love myself, the more I love him and the more he seems to love me.

  I hate to admit it, but after going through menopause, I was always horny as I don’t know what. All he had to do was act like he was undressing and my nipples would start to itch they’d get so hard. I just could not get enough of the man. Older women had told me after the change, they didn’t want anything to do with a man. Please! I wanted to say, Send him over here.

  I went to my closet to find something to put on. I couldn’t wear a negligee because this was his night and it might interfere with what he had planned. I couldn’t wear regular clothes like shorts and stuff because when it happened I wanted him to have quick and easy access. So I went to his drawer and got one of his thin red and purple fraternity T-shirts and put it on with nothing under it. Now I was ready for whatever the senator had in store.