Instead, she asked Victor for another white wine.
A man came into the bar. He glanced around in confusion, taking in the barely audible television, Greg and Norman wolfing down appetizers, Linda staring into her wineglass.
“Are you still open?” he asked. “Is this a private party?”
Although the question was addressed to Victor, Linda answered. “It’s clearly not a party,” she said. “As for private, anyone is welcome, but do you really want to be a part of this group?”
“Did someone die?”
The man was in his twenties, Linda guessed, with the most amazing eyelashes. He has eyes like a giraffe, she thought. Linda liked giraffes.
“Just my hopes and dreams.” She meant to sound blithe, devil may care, but her mouth crumpled, ruining the effect. “We all worked on the Anderson campaign.”
“Well-” He cast around for something to say. “Well,” he repeated. “Good for you. You did something you believe in.”
“But we didn’t change anything,” she said. “We didn’t even matter.” While it would have been awful to be the spoiler, to be blamed for Carter’s loss, it was worse, she decided now, to have had no effect at all.
“You don’t topple giants the first time out, despite what Jack and the Beanstalk, or even David and his Goliath, would have you think. It takes years of work.”
His kindness felt patronizing, as kindness often can. Linda drew herself up haughtily. “Really? Have you climbed any beanstalks lately?”
“I’m a public defender,” he said. “Which is as close to being Sisyphus as any mortal might ever know.” A sweet smile. “Don’t be mad at me.”
“Who says I was?”
“I can’t seem to get on the right foot with you. Should I go out and come back in again?”
And with that, he walked out of the bar, then returned, hopping on one foot.
“I’m a unipod,” he said. “I’m here to audition for the role of Tarzan.”
“You stole that,” Greg said. “Dudley Moore and Peter Cook.”
But Linda had to laugh. Her father had tried such stunts when Bambi was stewing. No, not stewing, quite the opposite. Bambi had gotten cold when angry with Felix. Very cold and quiet and grim. They called her the Frigidaire when she was angry.
Linda did a swift, familiar calculation-should she sleep with this man tonight? She had slept with exactly four men since she lost her virginity at seventeen, and she liked to think of herself as progressive, the kind of woman who took what she wanted when she wanted it, although it was a lot trickier since she had moved home.
No, not tonight. It might not be love at first sight, but she was in for the long haul if he was, she knew that much. Her next campaign, only with a lot more potential. She wondered how he would feel when he found out she was a college senior, living at home. She wondered what he looked like naked.
“I’m Linda,” she said.
“Henry,” he said. “Henry Sutton.”
By three that morning, they were making out in her car. It was hard to say who pulled back that first night. Both would claim later that they were waiting for a more genteel first time. That opportunity presented itself two weeks later, when Bambi went to New York with Michelle, Lorraine, and Lorraine’s daughter, Sydney. It was designed to be a whole Eloise-at-the-Plaza experience for the two girls, although Michelle, at seven, considered herself too sophisticated for both Eloise and five-year-old Sydney. If Linda hadn’t been so anxious to have the house to herself, she might have used Michelle’s antipathy to dissuade Bambi from such an extravagance. Her mother was good, most of the time. But in New York, with Lorraine, she would buy clothes she couldn’t afford, try to keep pace with her old friend, who was privy to Bambi’s difficulties. Maybe that was why it was so important to Bambi to try to hold her own with Lorraine.
But, for once, Linda forgot about everyone else-her mother, Michelle, Rachel, John Anderson, all the sad men she had to prop up. She even forgot about the phantom sister who had passed through the Lord Baltimore Hotel and may or may not have been Julie Saxony. For one blissful Saturday evening, she thought only of herself and what she wanted, opening the door to long-lashed Henry Sutton, who actually brought her a bouquet of supermarket daisies. She was mindful, as the door swung open, of the story of her parents’ courtship, how they had married less than eleven months after her father had found his way to her mother’s door the day after meeting her. And Linda had long ago deduced that she had attended her parents’ marriage in utero, not the cause of the nuptials, but a happy by-product of a progressive courtship.
There are worse ways to begin, she thought, lying beneath Henry in her mother’s bed, the only double bed in the house, taking care to cheat her face to the left so she would not be staring into her father’s eyes in the framed photograph on the nightstand.
Yes, they were very large and brown. She knew that. She knew that. But the man with her-he was gentle, a dreamer and idealist, someone who would never agree that the game was rigged. He probably thought she was a dreamer, too, given the circumstances of their meeting, but even as Linda was abandoning herself in this moment, she was also giving in to the pragmatic person she was meant to be. She would have to take care of both of them, she thought, circling her legs around his waist. She had to take care of everyone. That was okay; she was used to it. She remembered walking up the front walk, after the fireworks at the club. Her mother knew before they crossed the threshold. How had she known? Bert had taken Bambi to the side at the club, but Bert was forever taking her mother to the side over the last few months, since the indictment, then the trial. Bambi had run up the walk, thrown open the door, run from room to room, calling his name. “Felix? Felix?” There was no note, no reason to believe he was gone, yet Linda slowly began to see the details that made the case-the small gap in the closet so packed with suits, a drawer in his valet, opened and emptied of his best cuff links. Michelle was upset by their mother’s tears and shouts, so Linda put her to bed, singing to her as the little one cried, “Tummy hurts, tummy hurts.” She had gorged herself on ice cream and cake at the club. Then Linda and Rachel came into this very room and sat on this very bed with their mother’s arms around them. “He better be alone,” their mother had said, mystifying them. “Will we ever see him again?” Rachel had asked. Linda knew they would not.
“What are you thinking about?” Henry asked, tracing her jawline with his finger.
“The last time I saw fireworks,” she said.
And he kissed her, believing himself complimented.
March 13, 2012
Whenever life took him outside the Beltway, Sandy felt as if he were escaping Earth’s orbit, breaking free of a particularly harsh gravity. As built up as the suburbs got, as bad as the rush-hour traffic was, a drive west on a bright March day lifted his spirits. Maybe he should go for more drives in the country. Did people still do that? Probably not. Most people spent too much time in their cars to consider driving fun, or recreational.