Always

by Timmothy B. Mccann

  Henry’s squared shoulders became round as he turned in embarrassment toward Penelope, unable to find the words.

  “Yeah, she told me all of that. And you know something, Henry? I seriously doubt she has ever told anyone the stuff she told me tonight. Not even her brother. When you’re in the public eye as much as you all are, it’s hard to trust anyone for fear it’ll one day be on the best-seller list. I could tell she had not said anything to anyone, because I could see the weight leave her as we spoke.”

  Henry walked over to the couch and sat beside Penelope.

  “Give me your phone,” he said softly. Penelope reached into her purse and handed him the cell. “Yeah, Herbert? Listen, the FBI agent who spoke to us earlier? I think he was the chief or whatever. I want to talk to him personally. Okay. Okay. Great. Do me a favor. Call me back on Penelope’s cell, okay? Thanks, man.” Henry leaned back into the cushions and resumed the conversation. “I never meant to hurt her. It just killed me that morning to hear that guy’s voice on the phone when I called her. I have never gotten over it.”

  “Henry, I have a question for you. Have you ever heard of splicing photos? Like they say the CIA did with the picture of Oswald holding the rifle? The Globe and the Enquirer have made a living by doing it. If there are pictures, trust me, they are not legit. You are the smartest man I have ever known, and I mean that. But can I give you a little unsolicited advice?” Penelope stared at his profile. “Ever since I have known you, hell, ever since Leslie has known you, you’ve had one passion. She’s a better woman than me because she has accepted that your dream is bigger and more important to you than this marriage. She realizes that’s first and everything else is a distant second. But don’t you think it gets cold living in your shadow and then getting treated like shit on top of it?” Penelope paused as the words settled. “Now, you know I love you and I always will. You are a special man. But you’ve got to trust her and you just can’t do her like you’ve been doing her.”

  Henry sat silent, absorbing the verbal bashing.

  “And on top of everything else, you told her about the time I blew you? What kinda shit is that? You don’t tell your wife a thing like that, Henry.”

  Henry looked at Penelope and whispered, “You told her, didn’t you?”

  “Hell yeah, I admitted to her what happened. I didn’t want to get caught telling her a lie on top of everything else that’s going on tonight.”

  Henry leaned his head back and said softly, “I never told her that anything happened between us, Penelope. I never said a word.” Penelope’s mouth fell open as Henry answered her cell phone.

  “Ahh, Henry?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know how to say this, but I asked several FBI agents for Agent Mills and Haggerty, and they said that Mills was killed three miles from here several hours ago. And they never heard of a Haggerty.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know. They all seem to have known Mills, so I don’t think we were wrong about the names.”

  “But they were in the room,. . . what, an hour or so ago?”

  “I know. I gave them Mills’s description, and no one here could place a man like that. I even told them Mills had sideburns, which I thought was a little unusual, and they said that was against regulations.”

  Rubbing his fingers through his hair and looking at Penelope’s blank expression, Henry said, “So who the fuck was in the room with us?”

  LESLIE

  If there is a year that I will never forget, that year would be 1998. I screwed up. I screwed up big time. I had an affair, and if I live to be a hundred, I will never forgive myself.

  A person will do anything from smoking crack to blowing up a plane if he or she can justify it. I knew I was wrong before he started. I knew I was wrong while he was doing it. And I cried myself to sleep after he finished.

  I stayed up half the night crying into the soaking wet sheets. Early the next morning I heard the phone ring, and for some reason, I was mummified. I couldn’t move. It was as if a bad movie were playing and I was both its star and watching from the front row. I felt dirty and used like a cheap whore, only I wasn’t getting paid. Instead I paid the price with my dignity and self-respect. But when I heard James say very sleepily, “Hello?” I immediately snapped out of the trance. I rolled over and snatched the phone from his hand and bobbled it on the receiver several times before I hung it up correctly.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “I, umm, I’m sorry, Leslie. I was asleep and forgot where I was. Besides, I don’t even think it was Henry. Sounded like some white guy. More than likely a wrong number,” he said, stretching. “Unless I’m not the only white chocolate in your life.”

  I glared at James so hard I know his pale skin must have burned. He looked back at me and touched my bare arm in a consoling gesture. When his soft, damp, clammy fingers came into contact with my skin, it felt like he was actually touching raw nerves, I jumped so hard. “Listen,” I said to him sternly, covering my breast with the sheet, “you have three minutes to get out of here!” Then I walked around the bed with the sheet draped around me and stood by the phone. I’d already planned that I would answer it on the fifth or sixth ring and give Henry an I’ve-been-taking-medication-that-knocked-me-out-and-this-is-the-first-time-the-phone-has-rung-all-morning voice.

  So I stood there with the sheet gathered around me like an Egyptian princess, my arms folded, and my hands balled in tight fists while James stole glances at me as he dressed. As he walked out of the room, I didn’t respond to his, “Have a nice morning.” I simply eyed the phone, praying it would ring. It didn’t.

  I took a shower and thought about how I could have allowed myself to get into this situation. I have never had a one-night stand in my life. Not even in college. And now, at forty-six, I was letting some white man grope all over me? Had the self-hatred in my father’s eyes manifested itself within me, or was James simply an aberration?

  When our eyes met the night before, I knew what he wanted. After I had dinner with Alexis Herman and a few mutual friends, I walked alone through scenic Via Vènto, wishing I could share it with the old Teddy, and then returned to the reception being given by the U.S. Embassy.

  I was slightly tired but put on my best Senator Wife face, and after I had a couple of drinks to relax myself, James’s suggestive looks did not seem so repulsive. But more than the effect of the alcohol, this man looked at me like I was beautiful, as if I were a goddess. In all honesty, it was good to feel wanted again. To feel attractive and desired. Henry and I’d had some shaky points in our marriage and that didn’t help this situation. I always try to remember the saying “You get what you give,” so I always tried to make Henry feel handsome and intelligent and desired. But it was never returned.

  I’ve read books on relationships and I have even listened to the gurus on late-night television espouse their theories on love, loss, and happiness. But I have never heard one talk about how love actually changes. Not that it is better or worse, but it changes the longer you know someone. Henry and I were going through those changes. We had not really made love in almost a year and a half. We’d had quickies so he could relax and go to sleep after staying up half the night dialing for campaign donations or something, but I wanted more. I desired more. I needed romance even after twenty-five years with the man. I wanted him to look at me like he did at that hotel when we were kids and tell me I’m beautiful. When I was nineteen and twenty, I’d hear it all the time. But I could have given less than a damn then because I was hearing it from everyone. That was not the case before I went to Europe.

  How did James get in my suite? If you’ve ever been to Europe or traveled abroad, you know that after a while you start aching for America. For many people it’s a few weeks, for others, a few days; with me, it’s a few hours. The first thing I want to know whenever we check into a hotel is if NBS International is in the room and if they had an American menu. While I am not
a fan of Europe, I had to get away from Henry for a while. I needed space so the destination was irrelevant. I was used to his schedule. I knew how to handle him when he sometimes came home a little short-tempered or when it seemed the last person he wanted to see was me. But recently the entire act had gotten a little old and I needed a break for a few days.

  In the lobby of the hotel there was a video desk with a great English selection. James asked if I had a VCR in my suite. I told him yes, and when I did, I noticed his eyes brighten. This was no Desiree Washington situation, because I knew what was going on. After a few drinks, I was a more-than-willing participant, as long as I controlled when and how it would occur.

  We talked a bit, then went up to my room to watch an old Richard Gere movie called Breathless. James was not nearly as smooth as Richard, but I thought it made everything just that much more enjoyable. He sat on one end of the sofa and I sat on the other with my legs resting between us. I wondered what Teddy was doing. I’d tried to call him several times, but he had his cellular off, which was something I could never remember happening before. I felt James gazing at me while I ate popcorn, but I refused to look at him. All the while I made sure I showed more tongue than I should have as I scooped in the white puffs of corn. I could see him out of the corner of my eye smiling. He had grown a bushy mustache and had the most unusual smile. I could see why he used to duck his head before showing it.

  And then it happened. He didn’t say a word.

  I’d forgotten how it felt for a man to ask if it’s okay to kiss you with only his eyes and then bring his lips just inches away from yours and guess if you liked it hard or soft. I’d forgotten how that pause felt when you looked into each other’s eyes before allowing your bodies to melt. I’d forgotten how it felt to kiss someone and worry if you were pleasing them before allowing yourself to relax and enjoy it for what it was worth. I rediscovered all of those feelings in Italy, and for those moments, I was taken out of my body. I was taken to a place where I was desired and appreciated, where I was not used as a sedative to sleep better, and where I was beautiful, once again. During the act I even heard him saying, “Oh my God! I can’t believe I’m making love to Leslie Davis!” It was as if I was his fantasy come true.

  I was drying myself from the shower I took after James left when the phone rang. I forgot my plan, dove onto the bed, and bounced so high I just missed hitting my head on the nightstand as I grabbed the phone. “Hello.”

  “Good morning,” he said softly. “You seem out of breath.”

  “Good morning . . . baby. No, I just ran to catch the phone. How are you?”

  “Fine. You know, I tried to call you this morning, about fifteen minutes ago, actually.”

  I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth as I said, “Ahh, you did?”

  “Yeah, some guy answered the phone. I hung up because I hate getting wrong numbers first thing in the morning. I would have called you back, but Ed called me on the other line. So what’s on the agenda for today? Are you going to get your running in?”

  When he said those words, I almost cried. I’d been so scared I had gotten caught, but he was not wise to me. What was weird was that when I was home, I know he was suspicious of me, but I wasn’t doing a thing, although I sometimes led him to believe I was just so I could get a little more attention. But here I am, half a world away, with the scent of a man still in the damp hotel sheets, the used protection on the carpet, and he was asking me if I planned to jog? Was this a way for him to imply that I was getting old? That I was getting fat?

  I told him what was going on, and before he hung up he said, as always, “I love you.” But this time when he said the words it felt like a cold ice pick had been thrust between my shoulder blades. “I love you too, Teddy,” I said. “I love you too.”

  Henry is sometimes selfish. I can think of no one with a bigger ego than he has. Deep inside the man could make Don King blush with humility. Henry can also be bull-headed, egotistical, and proud, but I loved him more than I loved myself. And I knew there was nothing I could ever do, or say, to forgive myself for what I had just done.

  Sacramento, California

  November 8, 2000

  NBS News Studio

  2:50 A.M. EST

  “Good Morning, Franklin, and good morning, America. This is Monica Chan reporting from the statehouse in California. As reported earlier, NBS News has made projections in forty-nine states including Alaska and Hawaii, but as of this moment the race here is simply too close to call.

  “Presently, Vice President Steiner has opened up a two percent lead, but it’s much too close for either candidate to feel comfortable. If you’re curious about the chants behind me, we’re reporting from the Steiner campaign headquarters, and this crowd of well over three thousand people are chanting, I stand, you stand, we all stand for Steiner.’ That has been the battle cry throughout the campaign, but has taken on an added dimension this morning. This is Monica Chan sending it back to Washington, D.C.”

  “Thank you, Monica, for that report. It has been a long night, America. Now we bring you yet another tragic story. A federal agent named Earl Mills was gunned down earlier this evening. His body was discovered in Miami within the past hour. We’ve received few other details as of this moment. I can—Wait a minute, wait a minute. I am being told now . . . that Leslie Davis . . . is missing. That’s right. The wife of Senator Davis has just been reported missing. Oh my God.”

  Carol City, Florida

  The Allen Residence

  Cheryl sat on the edge of her bed saying a prayer for both Henry and Leslie when she heard a knock at her front door.

  She stood up and walked down the hallway, trying to plan what she would say to him. Cheryl peeped through the eyehole, just to make sure, and then she opened the door. Soaked to the bone, Brandon stared at her with a pained look in his eyes.

  Cheryl moved aside as he walked through the doorway, leaving muddy tracks on the ivory carpet. As she closed the door, the carpet was the least of her concerns.

  Brandon did a military about-face, twisted his lips, held up his head, looked at his wife, and said, “I’ve thought and thought about it, and, Cheryl . . . It’s over. I want a divorce.”

  CHERYL

  It was a fall night in ’99 and I was sitting in the car outside my house. I saw Brandon come to the curtain, look out, and then close it. And I remember asking myself, Why can’t I let him go?

  That particular day started at nine o’clock sharp for me. I’d worked double shifts two days in a row and it was a Saturday. The only Saturday I would be off for the next two months. I returned home after four in the morning, and when the alarm clock rang five hours later, I heard Brandon swat the off button with his hand.

  Raising up from the bed, I asked, “What are you doing?”

  “The clock,” he said, still half asleep since he’d worked the midnight shift as well. “You must have set it by mistake.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head and then sitting on the side of the bed. I slid my feet into my slippers, walked into the bathroom, and closed the door.

  As I washed my face, I heard him ask, “Where you going?” I did not answer. “Cheryl Anne?”

  I hated when he called me that, and hoped he’d go back to sleep. As I brushed my teeth, I heard him get out of bed and come to the door.

  “Honey? You’re off today. I was thinking that maybe we could—”

  “I can’t. I promised Etta I would come down to headquarters to help them plan for the rally tonight.”

  “Aren’t you on call?”

  “I’ll carry my pager,” I said, walking past him to the closet.

  “But I thought you wanted to go to the movies or something today.”

  “Some other time.” I rolled up my panty hose, put my foot in, and did not notice the run until I got them rolled all the way up my hips. “Dammit!” I said as I glanced at the clock, pulled down the hose, and tossed them into a corner of the room beside the wastepaper basket.

>   Watching me scurry around the room with more vigor than I ever had before going to work, late or not, Brandon sat on the bed. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m gonna be late, and I hate being late.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since . . . Never mind,” I said, retrieving another pair of hose and this time sliding my hand in to inspect them before going to the trouble of putting them on.

  Brandon walked back around to his side of the bed, pulled back the covers, and lay between the sheets as he watched me rush around the room looking for the right blouse to wear with a green plaid skirt I’d taken from my closet.

  “I can’t find anything in this place,” I said, taking his underwear out of my drawer and tossing them on the floor. “Have you seen my new blouse I bought a couple of weeks ago? I can’t find it anywhere!” He said nothing. I noticed the blouse under a bundle of clothes and remembered it was dirty. “Damn!” I then tossed the skirt onto the chair, went back to the closet, and took out an ivy sweater shrug and halter with a matching wool A-line skirt and low-heeled ivy sling-backs. All the time I was thinking, I hope this is still his favorite color.

  “Why are you so flustered this morning? Just call the campaign office and tell Mariah or Etta you’ll be a few minutes late.”

  “Because I gave them my word!” I snapped back, and then as I stood in front of the closet, I caught myself. I was all excited because of the chance I might get to see Henry. And here I was hoping he would see me wearing green and that I would take his breath away. I’m pathetic. But as soon as the thought crystalized in my mind, it faded as I found the cream-colored accessories to go with the outfit.

  I put my comb, bobby pins, and brush in my purse with my compact and lipstick and slid my feet into my flats. When I turned around I was startled by Brandon standing behind me. “What are you doing?” I asked, walking around him to get my jewelry. “You almost scared me to—”

  “What’s up with you, Cheryl? We’d planned to spend this day together, and now you running around here like a chicken with its head cut off. And since when you dress like this to go volunteering?”