by Marge Piercy
It was better when they sat on a bench in the concourse in front of a shop selling Native American artifacts, watching people surge by in an endless procession. They had ice cream, then set out to find the location their contact had specified. Thousands of people were milling about, but the most interesting to her were those stuck in front of every slot machine grimly pushing in coins. Adrenaline hung in the air like sharp perfume. She was appalled and fascinated. “Do you understand gambling?” she asked him. “To me it’s like throwing money down the toilet.”
“It’s a rush, obviously. Look at the people. They pull a lever and it presses a button in their head. I don’t have that button, you don’t—but some folks would say we’re addicted to each other. That we have to have each other. That the pleasure we give each other is our weakness.”
“You don’t make me feel weak. You make me strong.”
“He told me where to meet him, but I’m not figuring it out yet. Let me see that map they gave you.” He frowned at it. She could feel anxiety coming off him in waves. “Okay, I think we’re on the wrong level. Let’s try going downstairs. Like it would be entirely stupid to come all this way and hang around and then miss him because we can’t find where he meant for us to be.”
They made their way to the high-limit slots and took up a position against one wall. She wondered if she would recognize this supposedly former assistant to her father. Blake had told her to say her name was Mary Jo. She had no idea where he’d plucked that name from, but she said it over to herself four or five times to get used to the sound. By ten after four, no one had approached them.
“We may have come all this way for nothing. Do you think he got scared?” She kept staring around them, hoping to find someone who looked likely.
“Could be. Or he’s not as punctual as you are. You’re the only person I know who says they will be ready in two minutes and means two minutes. Who says they will meet you at four, and is there at four exactly.”
“Rosemary couldn’t endure for us to be late. She runs on a tight schedule. I learned to have a precise sense of time. I can’t help it now. I’m trained.”
“I’m not that housebroken, and I don’t want to be.” He was forcing himself to look around as if idly. They were both wound tight.
“I think there’s nothing I hate so much as just waiting. Maybe Rosemary feels that way and so she makes us run by the second hand.” She remembered again that it was Karen who had put Blake in touch with this guy. “What do you talk about with Karen?”
“We’re both interested in some of the same political problems. I really like her. I trust her instincts.”
She knew she should be happy that someone in her family liked Blake, but she felt disregarded and jealous that they were communicating separately, making her unimportant. She knew she must not show that. “How does Karen know this guy? She was locked up for five years.”
“She’s in touch with people she knew when she was with Eve. People in Pennsylvania working to defeat King Richard. An old contact told her about him.”
It was partly tedious standing against the wall, leaning on him. Yet it was also fascinating to watch the people. She discovered she could stare at individuals, the woman with the bright orange sweater and thin yellowish white hair and oversize plastic earrings in the form of tropical fish; the man with a trim goatee, sweating heavily in his tweed jacket, his tie askew; the tiny bald man who kept figuring something on the calculator he tried to hide. She could stare freely because they looked only at their machines and did not feel her gaze. There was an intensity to them she almost envied. If she could study like that, she would have a 4 point average instead of a 3.6. She would no longer be a B plus type but A all the way. She imagined that she could do a striptease where she stood, and they would never break their concentration to look up.
It was four thirty. “How long should we wait?”
“Till five. Then we’ll get something to eat and take off. But we have to give him that long, because suppose he got stuck in traffic. Or had car trouble. Got lost.”
“An idiot could find this place. You can see it for miles.”
“Maybe he had to wait for a parking place. The lots are huge, but they’re full. Just relax. You liked the museum, right?”
It felt stupid leaning against the wall in a room full of people all intent, passionately involved. Time oozed by. She kept looking at her watch and finding that only a minute had passed. She began to hope the guy would not turn up and they could just clear out.
Finally, twenty minutes later, a man who had been sitting at a machine came toward them. “Are you interested in politics?”
“Very much so,” Blake said, and they shook hands.
“Sam? You’re just a kid.”
“I’m twenty-two. I look younger than I am.”
“Who’s she?”
“My girlfriend, Mary Jo. She’s studying journalism. She does power structure research.”
The guy was of middling height and weight with dark blond hair cut bristly short. His chin came almost to a point and his ears were like handles on a cookie jar. He wore a navy blazer with a striped blue and white shirt, khakis, tassel mocs. He was obviously uneasy, keeping his head and voice down. “I saved this stuff for two years. The bastard fired me.”
“How come?”
“I worked like a dog for him. Nothing was too hard or too dirty for me. I worked for him from before his second gubernatorial run. Well into the Senate race. Then I had a situation with an undercover cop in a john. It didn’t even hit the papers, it was so minor. But he fired me on the spot.”
“That’s terrible,” Blake said. “No gratitude.”
“Fuck gratitude. No severance pay, not even a letter of recommendation.”
He must have meant he was gay and had tried to pick someone up. Dick and Rosemary went ballistic about gay people. Melissa realized she had seen him before: in Harrisburg, at the mansion. It was while she was at Miss Porter’s. She was home for Christmas vacation and he had come in with the secretary of transportation and the attorney general. She was sitting on the steps waiting for a friend. She had her ice skates with her, yes. Hank, the oldest man, who was now secretary of commerce, asked if she was going skating outside or inside, and she had thought for a moment he meant was she going skating in the mansion. She felt foolish then. He meant in a rink or on a pond. Yes, this man had been with them, had stood uneasily while Hank teased her about skating down the steps, stood shifting from foot to foot carrying a leather attaché case and wearing a blue muffler wound around his neck, a muffler he had not removed any more than he had taken off his coat. Impatient? Nervous? His ears had stood out just as they did now, like handles.
She glanced at him uneasily, waiting for him to recognize her, but his gaze was fixed on Blake. He did not remember her, or maybe she just looked too different. She liked the latter explanation. She wanted to believe she had blossomed out of that chubby awkward miserable child into someone far more attractive.
“I’ve held on to this stuff since I was thrown out. Just kept it in a safe-deposit box.”
“Now it’s time to give it to someone who can use it, don’t you think? It does no good sitting in a lockbox.”
The man slipped a fat envelope from inside his blazer, but he seemed reluctant to hand it over. She could feel the tension in Blake’s arm, his desire to grab the envelope and bolt before the man had time to change his mind. “What are you going to do with it?”
“We have contacts with investigative reporters on good newspapers. You let us worry about what to do with the information.” Again Blake extended his hand, waiting.
Slowly the man put the envelope into Blake’s hand, but he still did not let go. Melissa could feel her body clenching. Was he going to hand over whatever it was? Blake tried gently to pry the envelope loose. The man kept glancing around, looking in every direction including up, as if fearing surveillance. Finally the man released his grip and let Blake take the packet.
&
nbsp; “Now you’ve got it all. It’s yours.”
“We want to thank you for your help. You won’t regret it.” Blake nodded, trying to reassure him.
“I hope you’re right. I really hope so. Don’t contact me again.” Once again the man stared all around, turning in a tight circle. Then he spun on his heel and strode out of the room, dodging quickly among the aisles of machines. In a moment he was gone.
“What’s in it?” she asked, peering at the envelope. “Let’s see.” She made a gesture toward the envelope.
“Not here. Not now.” Blake stuck it inside his leather jacket. “Let’s mosey on out.” He looked carefully around. He was enjoying the cloak-and-dagger stuff. Well, let him enjoy it. She was curious about what the guy had made such a fuss about. Was he just a loser who wanted to feel important? Probably.
THEY WERE in his room at the dorm before Blake opened the envelope. She leaned forward to peer at the top page. “It’s just a bunch of dates and names and then a column of numbers.” She had expected something spectacular from all the secrecy and Mission Impossible atmosphere.
Blake was wheezing and feeling rotten. “It’s going to take…some research to…figure out what this is.” He put the papers down on his desk, next to his computer. “Tonight we can—start looking…for these names…on internet—see who they are. I hope…that guy isn’t nutcase…that really is dynamite…he was sitting on.” It took him a couple of minutes to get a sentence out.
“Baby, do you need to go to health services? This isn’t good.” Lists of numbers? Too boring to do any damage. But Blake would enjoy a treasure hunt on the internet. She took his boasts about her father as a kind of playing, like kids going on about their scores on hot video games. If Karen and Eve hadn’t been able to do it, Blake and Phil and she certainly weren’t about to. Still she felt a little queasy about that guy and his lists. She wished they could just forget the whole thing and have fun, go on trips without having to meet some shady guy to justify the time.
“I’ll be fine…if lie down. Waiting for my meds…kick in.”
“Then just be quiet. We can talk tomorrow. Should I stay with you?”
He shook his head no. “Better—don’t talk.” He kissed his hand to her and waved her out. She was exhausted anyhow. Trips on his bike were like exercise, really. She would tell Em all about the casino, leaving out the reason they went, of course. She would tell it like an adventure all over her floor. Guess what Blake and I did today! It would make a cool story. Ronnie would be jealous. Nobody else on the floor had ever gone to Foxwoods. She could even pretend they had gambled, lost some money playing the slots. That would sound like an adventure.
• CHAPTER TWENTY •
Melissa was walking back toward the dorm after her eleven o’clock political economy class. As she was crossing Andrus Field, skirting a Frisbee game, she saw Emily coming toward her. “Lissa, your mom called. She said it was urgent—an emergency. She sounded up the wall.”
“Is something wrong? Somebody hurt?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. You know she thinks I’m a ditz. She was pissed she couldn’t reach your cell phone. I don’t think she believed me when I tried to explain you can’t leave them on in class. She discounts everything I say.”
“You’re lucky. The less attention she pays you, the better.” She did not want to call her mother. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s have lunch first. I can take it better on a full stomach.”
After lunch, she sat on the library steps and called Rosemary. She could not imagine anything her mother would want to say to her that she would want to hear. It could only be bad news or trouble. She hoped not to get through or to have a conversation with Alison instead, but Alison put her mother on right away.
“Melissa, are you still seeing that boy? The Ackerman boy?”
What point was there in denying Blake? “Yeah, Mother, I see him. So what? He’s not responsible for his father’s courtroom activities.”
“We’ve learned more about him, information that is relevant to our family and to your own safety. Si Ackerman isn’t his father—”
“I know all that, Mother. He’s adopted. He doesn’t know who his mother or his father were.”
“Yes, he does. It’s a poorly kept secret. His father was a murderer.”
“A murderer? I don’t believe you. He doesn’t know who his father is, I’m telling you. What does it matter?”
“He knows who his father was—a cop killer. Your father prosecuted him. Toussaint Parker. He was executed soon after your father became governor. You must remember the execution? There was an enormous fuss in the media and picketers outside the mansion, chaos that night.”
“I remember.” She could see the candles bobbing. “What makes you think that man was Blake’s father?”
“His son was called Blake. After his mother died in a drug-induced car wreck, the Ackermans adopted the boy. Ackerman was Parker’s lawyer and caused us no end of nuisance, taking a hopeless case up through appeal after appeal. It cost the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania millions to finally mete out justice to him and avenge the death of that policeman. The officer had three children and now you’re dating his killer’s son? If you have any sense of loyalty to the family and any sense of self-preservation, you will never speak with him again. I’m demanding this.”
“He can’t be the same boy. He can’t be! He would have told me.”
“He’s probably ashamed of who he is. He’s been lying to you, obviously, and to everyone else. I can’t imagine a good college would have let him in otherwise. The Ackermans have colluded with him to conceal his identity.”
“Where did you get your information? Why do you believe this story?”
“We had your father’s speechwriter Eric look into it—he’s a whiz at research. It wasn’t difficult to find out who this boy really is—and there is no doubt, Melissa. The adoption wasn’t a secret. The boy was seven. He knows who he is, and now you do. End this ridiculous flirtation at once, for your own good and for ours. He could prove dangerous.”
Melissa found herself weeping. “I can’t talk.”
“It’s meaningless to cry about it. I’m considering taking you out of school and bringing you back here. It might be safer for all of us. You must see that he has only been pursuing you to hurt us in some way. I’m sorry if it upsets you, but I tried to warn you that this association was undesirable—in the extreme.”
“I can’t talk any longer.” Melissa broke the connection and shut off her phone. She was stunned, as if an electric current blasted through her mind. She had believed in Blake absolutely, that he loved her, that he was truthful with her. He was lying to her. Why? To get revenge on her father? Blake did not love her. He was using her and she had been a complete fool. She stumbled back to her dormitory shamelessly weeping. In her room, Emily came and put her arms around her. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
When Melissa could speak, she told Emily.
“Maybe he really doesn’t know whose son he is,” Emily offered tentatively.
“He was seven. I remember lots of things from when I was seven. Don’t you?”
“People suppress trauma, Lissa. Maybe he managed to repress the trial and everything. It has to be really traumatic to have your father accused of murder, arrested, carted off and tried and finally put to death, the whole thing all over the papers and TV. Maybe he doesn’t want to know whose son he is. Maybe it was all just too awful and he never wants to think about it for the rest of his life.”
“I don’t believe that. He wants to bring my father down. He wants me to help him. That’s why he’s with me, that’s the only reason.”
“Lissa, I don’t believe that. He’s crazy about you. I see the way he looks at you. He’s made you feel good about your body for the first time in your life.”
“Maybe he was lying. It doesn’t mean anything to him.”
“You have to confront him. You can’t just believe Rosemary and give up on him. You have to let him explai
n. You have to talk with him. Then if you want to break up with him, do it. If he’s just using you, say bye-bye and walk out that door. But find out for yourself.”
Melissa slid out of Emily’s arms and flung herself on her bed. She wept and wept. Emily went off to class. Melissa cut hers. She lay there unable to move and, after half an hour of weeping, scarcely able to breathe. Emily was right. She had to confront Blake. But she did not want to see him. She felt hideously betrayed. She had loved him totally, and he had lied to her. Lied from the beginning. Lied all the way through their relationship. She had thought they had this perfect intimacy, and it was all made up. Of course no one could love her the way she had dreamed of being loved, and the belief that Blake did had been illusion and wishful thinking. She had simply willed herself to be blind, she had wanted to be fooled into submission to his plans. Her anger at her parents had played into her willingness to believe. He had manipulated her beautifully. He had seen her weakness and used it. She had allowed him to play her. He was a liar and a manipulator, but she was the one who had made his schemes work. He had made his plans when he heard her read that ridiculous essay about her parents.
Finally she got up and sent him a brief e-mail. “I have to talk with you. I’ll be over at seven thirty. This is very, very important.” She did not sign Love. Would he guess something was wrong? What did it matter? It was over, the lie of their relationship, the farce of their great love.