Always

by Timmothy B. Mccann

  “It’s, ahh, tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow, Les? You’re just going to pull up stakes and go to Europe . . . tomorrow . . . knowing what our numbers look like?”

  “Well, I was thinking I could maybe press a few palms over there. There will be a lot of powerful women, and with Clayburn making noise out west, we could use the contributions. You know Penelope will pull out that Rolodex and make sure we get the optimum exposure while we’re there.”

  I listened closely to every word she said, and then asked, “So is Penelope going with you?”

  “No . . . unless you want Herbert to allocate the money for a last-minute ticket from the travel-expense fund. I just thought I would leave her here to stand in for me at a couple of events.”

  My heart pumped like a hot piston and I felt blood trickle through my veins like lava. Throughout our entire marriage I’d never suspected her of cheating on me, not even once. For the past twenty years, we had been running for the presidency as a team, and it was beginning to take its toll. I could not remember the last time she looked at me like she did when we were first married. I could not think of the last time I saw her come into a room and say, “Baby, you look so handsome.” When we were younger, she had once heard a saying that she wrote on a piece of paper and sent to me with a dozen white roses. It simply said, “Whatever you do to get it . . . you must do to keep it.” Now that was replaced with drives to the beach without moving the car, late nights in the office, and spontaneous trips to Europe.

  So she went to Italy. She got the campaign credit cards from Herbert, hopped on a plane headed to Rome, and the next time I saw her, she was being interviewed with Sheila Jackson Lee by Christiane Amanpour for CNN.

  At this point I felt betrayed. I’d had countless opportunities to have an affair and I had said no to them all, from Regina in my senior year of high school to Nancy Bolton, a Miss America finalist. I was often tempted, like when a noted Hollywood actress took her panties off under the table, wrapped them around her hotel key card, and put them in my pocket when I was in Los Angeles for the NAACP Image Awards, but I didn’t give in. I’ve always had a one-track mind. But I thought, as the report from Italy concluded, that made one of us.

  Walking over to my desk, I flipped open my personal organizer and punched in my code to access the private numbers. I didn’t have a lot of them, but the ones I had were good. Models, Olympic athletes, and a number of actresses. Then I saw a number I had tried to delete so many times before for fear I would have a moment just like this one. Unable to resist, I dialed and closed my eyes as she said, “Hello?”

  “Ahh, yes. This is . . . I would like to speak to, ahh, Cheryl? I think the last name is Kingsley?”

  “This is Cheryl Kingsley,” she replied as if she were preoccupied. “Who’s calling?”

  I brought my hand up to the receiver and cupped it. I knew I could still hang up, because even if she had Caller ID, it could not trace this particular line. I tried to think fast. Could I do it? Did I want to do it?

  “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  I had to do it. But was I ready to open this can of worms? And just like when I was a ten-year-old standing at the top of the thirty-foot tower over a pool, I closed my eyes tight, took a step, and felt myself fall. “Cheryl, it’s me. Henry.”

  I could hear the surprise in her silence, and then she said, “My God. Henry, is it really you?”

  Cheryl and I had a lot of catching up to do. I put her on hold and called Marcus and asked him to work on the speech I was drafting for a Democratic National Committee function, then took off my shoes and socks, which is something I never do in the office, and lay down on the couch. I was forty-six and yet Cheryl’s voice made me feel like I was fourteen. I explained the best I could why I had never called, but she didn’t buy it. She told me Darius had passed away and she had gotten remarried. I told her David died in the Oklahoma City bombing trying to save a child’s life and I told her about Leslie. No matter how upset or betrayed I felt, I knew I loved that woman because I could not even hold a conversation without her name coming into it. Cheryl and I packed thirty years of memories and guess-whats into a three-hour conversation.

  “My goodness,” she said. “Would you look at the time? I’ve got to go to work in an hour. I forgot to tell you, I got a promotion!, but it’s on the graveyard shift.”

  “Congratulations anyway. You know, Cheryl, it’s been nice to hear your voice.”

  “Well, I hear yours all the time,” she joked, and then the smile in her voice faded as she said, “You’re just not talking to me.”

  “Let’s do it,” I said as logic grabbed the words and tried to pull them back into my mouth. But it was too late. “Could you meet me here tomorrow night, about this time?” I felt confident nothing would happen since we would be here in the office, but I felt nervous because if she was half as beautiful as Herbert said she was three years ago, I was in trouble.

  “Ahh, sure, Henry,” she said. I could hear the uncertainty in her voice. In all honesty, I did not want to do anything else but see her. A large part of what was happening in my life at that moment was due to her. When the seed first formed, she watered and nurtured it. I think—in fact, I am positive—if she had discouraged me in those days, I would have decided to do something else with my life. She meant that much to me. So we agreed she would meet me at my Senate office, and as I hung up the phone, I noticed the only thing sweating more than my ear was my palms.

  I called Leslie, and since she was not there, I spoke to Ramona Edelin of the Urban Coalition for twenty minutes before Leslie arrived and retrieved the phone. We spoke again like candidate and campaign supervisor, and I then hung up and thought about Cheryl.

  The next day dragged, and as the time came for Cheryl to arrive, I went to my credenza and pulled out a fresh shirt. There was just something about a freshly starched shirt that made me feel revitalized. I like it so starched I had to make a fist to put my hand in the sleeve. As I looked at myself in the mirror while I knotted my tie, I realized I was excited about seeing this woman who had meant so much to me.

  About an hour before my staff left, my secretary buzzed me. “Senator Davis? There’s a Mrs. Allen to see you?”

  I thought, Who is Mrs. Allen? then I heard her voice in the background say, “Tell him Cheryl Kingsley.” As I asked my secretary to escort her back to me, I felt myself getting nervous. I was shocked by my anticipation. I had dined with kings and heads of state and played cards with the president of the United States of America in his underwear. But this nurse, who at one time held my heart by a string, had me shaking as if I were meeting her for the first time in Sears.

  And then the door opened.

  Even after talking for more than three hours the previous day, we had so much more to discuss. She caught me up on her life. How she got her degree, how she raised her daughter and three or four foster children, how she fell in love with a younger man, and how she often thought of me.

  Looking at me, Cheryl whispered, “I hate to just come out and say it like this . . . but God, you’re handsome in person.” Coming from her, the words melted in my heart as I responded in kind. She was the only person I could think of, outside of family, who loved me solely for me. The famous women who would leave me their numbers wanted me on their resume and to be able to say, “One night I did this or that with Senator Davis.” And that even included my wife. I knew Leslie loved me. But something always told me if I were the manager of the department store at Wal-Mart, she would not have fallen for me. I knew she loved me. But I thought she loved who I might become even more. I could not say that about this lady sitting in my office. I think if I managed that department, she would be giving me display ideas and supporting me all the way.

  After my staff left and the voice mail box was turned on, we took a break from talking and I walked to the closet, took out a liter of Sprite and a fifth of rum that was left from an office party, and got a few cups of ice from the refrigerator. I offered her
a drink and sat down at my desk to make a quick phone call.

  “Hello, Appie? This is Senator Davis. That bill on the floor regarding NASA entitlements? Bill number ninety-eight dash—” And that’s all I got out. Cheryl walked up behind me, kissed me on the forehead, and said, quietly, “Thank you for the drink.” The first thought to enter my mind before I hung up the phone was, Drink, my ass.

  Before I knew it, we were full-lock, body-to-body kissing. It wasn’t passionate, it was more like a two-backed beast in heat. Cheryl did not look good, she looked extraordinary, and her body was still so nice, so firm. Just the way I liked it. As I backed her against the wall, we kissed and logic suddenly kicked in. Something was wrong. I tried to ignore it as I reached down and pulled her leg around my waist, but I could not. I opened my eyes and released her arms from around my neck. This is not right, I thought as she stared back at me. And then I walked over to the window and closed the blinds. Pulling off my shirt and cutting off the light, I was about to finish something we’d started in her bedroom thirty years prior. I was about to make love to Cheryl Anne.

  As I returned home that night, I looked at myself in the mirror, and for the first time, my reflection sickened me.

  We have a tradition in our marriage. Even though we do not have children, we exchange gifts on Mother’s and Father’s Day as if it were Christmas. I liked that idea so much that one year on my birthday I bought her a gift and gave it to her at my party. Ever since then we have also exchanged gifts on each other’s birthdays. As I stared at myself in the mirror, I noticed a lipstick stain right on the evergreen monogram Leslie had added to the. shirt she’d given to me on her fortieth birthday. I remembered her face as she told me it was hand stitched and the only design of its nature around. This one-of-a-kind design was now covered with the passion of another woman.

  I went into the laundry room, put some detergent on the spot, turned the cold water on, and dropped the shirt in the washing machine. My shirts were never washed in the machine, but I could not risk this one going to the laundry and the attendant telling Kadesha or Leslie the spot could not come out. So I stood there as the water filled the machine and the dank air of the tiny room and thought about the night Leslie and I had christened this very spot. How we had decided that that night we would give each other at least three orgasms. We’d had sex all over the house and then looked at each other when we heard the washing machine go into its spin cycle and read each other’s minds. Leslie got out of bed first and started running down the hallway like Flo-Jo. I was hot on her heels like Carl Lewis. I got on top of the machine, she mounted me, and we enjoyed our bronze, silver, and gold during the shake of the second rinse cycle. Now I was using this machine to destroy evidence of me having sex with another woman.

  I went into the guest bathroom shower, not wanting anything from the previous sexcapade to sully the domain of our bedroom. I turned the water up high, in part to cleanse my body, in part to cleanse my mind, and in part to punish myself. I had no hard evidence against my wife. Maybe she was doing something to surprise me as she did from time to time. Maybe she was just getting tired of the noose around her neck. I stood in the shower and cried. It’s funny. When I was in my twenties, I would not cry for anything. I could attend a funeral on a rainy Christmas Sunday morning and I wouldn’t drop a tear. But after I turned thirty-five, I would cry at the drop of a hat. I could be watching a telephone commercial and from nowhere, I’d begin crying because the mother of three girls had broken a meeting and taken them to the beach. It’s the strangest thing. But as I turned off the water and looked at my reddening upper body, I wept again. I mean, outright sobbed.

  It was 1:00 A.M. eastern standard time, which made it 7:00 A.M. in Rome. I waited about an hour because I knew her schedule when she traveled abroad. Usually she was up before dawn regardless of the time zone and she would go jogging before preparing for various meetings. I sat reading a book and then I called. And if the air conditioner had turned on at that very minute, the air from it would have been enough to knock me off the bed. The sleepy voice of a man answered her phone.

  Washington, D.C.

  November 8, 2000

  NBS News Studio

  2:45 A.M. EST

  “This is Franklin Dunlop, NBS studios, Washington, D.C. According to our exit polls, we virtually have a dead heat in the now all-important California race. The numbers are as follows: forty-one percent of the electoral vote for Davis, forty-one percent for Steiner, and eight percent for Tom Baldwin.

  DAVIS 229

  STEINER 233

  BALDWIN 126

  “After having a comfortable lead in California tonight or I should say this morning, Davis is locked into an all-out battle with Ronald Steiner. The Steiner numbers have gone through the roof and he is polling extremely well in his running mate’s city of San Francisco and in Orange County. We would like to swing first down to Miami and our friend Butch Harper, who is doing just an incredible job tonight. Butch, are you there?”

  “Yes, I am, Franklin. In spite of the latest numbers, the number of individuals here has been steadily increasing. When I spoke to you before, Franklin, the crowd here was swelling. At this moment it is literally standing room only as several live bands have taken the stage. There is an aura of victory hovering over this room tonight. The faces are expectant, apprehensive, nervously tense, yet jubilant as one of their own is one state away from making history. The balloons are out and will be released, I am told, as soon as the numbers from California are in, and both the candidate and his running mate are waiting in the wings for the moment which will go down in the annuls of time. Unlike in most elections, Frank, few members of the press have been allowed on the candidate’s floor. The Democrats have rented out two floors in the hotel. The seventeenth floor is where a private party for the inner circle of campaign officials and their families is, and the floor we are on is open to the public. There has been little if any party mingling. What I mean by that is, individuals with the blue credentials like I am showing you are restricted to this floor, and this floor only. The red credentials, which I am unable to show you, for obvious reasons, are for the inner circle and their guests only. Tonight the FBI has been very strict about keeping the reds on their floor and blues on ours. This we are told is merely a standard security measure and has nothing to do with the rumored assassination attempt on the Democratic nominee.”

  “Interesting stuff there, Butch. Keep us posted. Now we take you to Chicago and Judy Finestein.”

  “Thanks, Frank. As you know, we are now reporting outside the Four Seasons Hotel. We are told there are a number of individuals wishing to congregate in a nearby park for what they expect to be a victorious celebration. A number of clergymen started a prayer vigil for the vice president, and we noticed a group of Young Republicans holding up his picture and ironically singing the old Lennon hit “Give Peace a Chance.” There is a lot going on emotionally here, Frank. We’re awaiting the latest news on Steiner, we’re now looking at the morbid possibility of us electing our first female president, and we’re watching closely the results from California. It has been an emotional night, to say the least, for all parties involved.”

  “Thank you, Judy, for that report. Now, America, when you return, we here at NBS will be in a position to project a winner in several states and possibly even in California. Whatever you do, don’t touch that dial, for tonight one way or another you will see history being made.”

  Fountainebleau Hotel

  Suite 1717

  “Henry! Where you going!” Herbert shouted to his younger brother. “What’s going on?”

  Henry pushed aside the agent in front of him with a firm thrust and rushed out the door, followed by Penelope and several other staffers. As he ran in a zigzag pattern down the hallway like a running back through the crowd, Henry’s mind raced, trying to think of a logical place where Leslie could be. As he headed toward Suite 1717, the wide-eyed agent in front of the door looked at the crowd approaching him as he
spoke into the transmitter on his wrist.

  Henry charged past him and into the room, calling Leslie’s name, as if there were a possibility whoever searched previously had somehow overlooked her. “Leslie,” he yelled as he trotted into the empty master suite, finding it empty. Then Henry noticed her purse and cell phone beside the bed and froze in his steps.

  “What the fuck you mean you never saw them leave? How could anyone get out of this room without you seeing them?” Penelope asked the redheaded, freckle-faced agent.

  “Well, ma’am, there were a lot of people in the room at one time. Maybe as many as fifty or sixty. I tried to identify each one, but after a while—”

  “Penelope, would you come in here?” Henry yelled as he looked into the hallway and noticed a growing crowd with microphones around his wife’s press secretary. Penelope walked into the suite, and Henry closed the door so just the two of them stood in the foyer. “Penelope?”

  “Yes.”

  “Her purse. It’s in the room. Her cell is in there too.”

  “Oh shit,” Penelope replied, walking toward the couch and sitting on the arm. “That damn girl ain’t going nowhere without her purse or that cell.” Penelope pulled her curly hair back from her face with her glasses, removed her clip-on earrings, and as she massaged her earlobe, said, “Henry, what the fuck’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have a clue.”

  Penelope slid down onto the couch with her elbows planted on her knees and her palms pressed firmly into her eye sockets.

  “Penelope? When was the last time you spoke to—”

  Looking up, she said, “Henry, when was the last time you fucking spoke to her? I’m sorry to be so crass, but enough is enough.”

  Drawing a shallow breath and not looking in her direction, he asked, “She told you?”

  “That you all have not really talked for two or three days? That you accused her of sleeping with Wolinski? That you believe the photos exist? That you hung up the phone every time she called your ass tonight? Which one, Henry? Which one you referring to?”