Some of my clients don’t like the fact that when I hire opposition researchers to comb the past of our opponent I also pay them to comb the past of my candidate. I also tell them if I ever learn that they were involved in a felony that has come to light I will in turn inform the police of it. So if they ever have anything to hide tell me upfront so we can deal with it. I have been fortunate thus far; most of the things they haven’t wanted to tell me about dealt with infidelity.
Robert was back. He started to talk but by the time he was seated a small group of well-wishers had gathered around our table and were telling him how much they were enjoying themselves tonight. He was good at the blarney. Not a hint of anger. The men shook his hand and the women kissed his left cheek. He smiled as if he’d gone to acting school to learn how.
All this time the machine man had been introducing other machine politicians. The applause had diminished considerably after the fourth or fifth one. People got tired of seeing the farm team. They wanted to see the star of the World Series and tonight that was Senator Robert Logan.
When his name was announced everybody stood. The applause was fulsome and lengthy. The senator took the stage. And just as he did so Elise came back. She sat down without a word and turned her attention to the stage where the senator was just beginning his speech. The gray eyes were dry now, though the rims looked wounded.
Having had a hand in writing the speech there were no surprises for me. I wished I was sitting at the back. Watching people was a lot more interesting than watching the stage. Elise was one chair away from me. When I saw her start to lean forward I wondered what she was going to do. Then I realized she was putting her hand out for me to take. I was glad to hold it for her. I’d known a few people, including men, who’d been thoroughly devastated by love affairs gone bad. One of the guys had tried to cut his wrists. I’d visited him twice a week on a psych ward for two months. Elise and I smiled at each other.
Robert got another standing O when he finished his speech. The band waited for everybody who wanted to rush to the stage to congratulate him on solving all our national problems in just under seventeen minutes. Then the lights went low over both the dance area and the bandstand and they broke into the ballad ‘Laura’, which they hyped up just a bit.
I watched Elise stare in the direction of Robert. Though he’d moved off the area where couples were already dancing he was still surrounded by well-wishers.
Elise said, ‘Would you dance with me, Dev?’
Caitlin said, ‘Every woman in the office has tried to get him to dance for years.’
I said, ‘Is your insurance paid up, Elise?’
She had a sad, shy smile. ‘Robert stands on my feet. You couldn’t be any worse than he is.’
I must have done all right because she didn’t scream and there was no sign of bleeding. I did the old box step I’d learned in Catholic school. A rather buxom nun had taught the boys before letting us loose on the girls.
I was several inches taller than she was so she had no trouble placing her head against my chest. She was so slight and fine-boned I had to be careful of hurting her in some way. She was the flower-like princess out of a boy’s tale of noble knights. And soon enough she did what I’d known she wanted to do. Talk.
‘I’m such a child sometimes.’
‘We all are, Elise.’
‘I can’t imagine you being childish.’
‘You can ask my ex-wife.’
‘How’s she doing, by the way?’
‘Just about two years out now and she’s doing fine. Knock wood.’ Just before my ex-wife’s breast cancer operation she’d asked me to fly to Boston to be at her bedside along with her new husband and my daughter. I was kind of wary of him at first, but he turned out to be a hell of a nice guy and we got along fine.
I gave Elise an update.
‘It’s so nice you can still be friends. I’m sorry you had to split up.’
‘I wasn’t a very good husband.’
‘You put yourself down a lot, have you ever noticed that?’
‘I’m just stating a fact, Elise. I was on the road so much it was inevitable.’
She put her head against me again and we danced for a while without talking. I was back in high school or college with a pretty girl in my arms. I liked the feeling. Then she leaned back and said, ‘I know he loves me.’
‘I know that, too.’
‘It’s just that I’m so damned suspicious. My therapist said that this may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m afraid I’ll lose him but my behavior is pushing him into leaving me.’
‘Talk to him.’
‘That’s all I do. Talk to him. Or talk past him, really. He’s heard it so often he doesn’t even listen anymore and I don’t really blame him.’
As the song came to its end we started walking back to our table. She had some of the same problems her husband did in navigating the ballroom. People kept rushing up to her and squeezing her hand and kissing her cheek and throwing bouquets of flattery at her. She didn’t handle it as well as Robert did but she tried; the smile never left her lips and the voice gushed appropriately in gratitude. Only the anxiety in the eyes revealed her discomfort.
‘That’s one of the things I’ve never liked,’ she said when we were alone again. ‘Being on public display.’ But as soon as she said, ‘Maddy’s here!’ she hurried on ahead of me to the table where her nineteen-year-old daughter sat talking to Caitlin.
Maddy Logan was the same fragile size as her mother and every bit as beautiful, but there was a robust quality to her movements that lent her a vitality her mother lacked. Her mother was the immortal image in the portrait; Maddy was the living version. In her wine-red dress with the red flower in her fine pale hair, she was all demure sexuality and amused dark eyes. She rushed up to embrace her mother and they stood hand-in-hand talking to Caitlin and me as I sat down next to her.
‘Maddy’s in a play at Northwestern,’ Elise said. ‘She wasn’t sure she could get away to be here.’
‘I have a very tiny part. Two lines. They didn’t miss me at all.’
Elise was downright bubbly. ‘No wonder you and Dev get along. Trying to give either of you a compliment is impossible.’
Maddy laughed. ‘I’ll take any compliment you want to give me.’
There are many worse fates than sitting at a table with three attractive women. The waiter came by, we all ordered drinks and Caitlin, Maddy and I talked about how well the night was going while Elise, of course, scouted the territory for sight of her husband. The brief joy she’d shown with Maddy was long gone; I could see the tension in her shoulders and jaw line. Terrible suspicions would be crackling through her mind like summer lightning illuminating her worst fears.
And you had to give the dark gods their sense of humor, because as a group of people retreated from the dance floor after another song ended, there stood the senator and a woman who looked oddly familiar to me. Then I recognized her. The mystery woman who’d stood at the back of the gym during the town hall meeting eleven days ago.
‘It’s her again, Caitlin.’ The desperation was back in Elise’s voice.
Maddy clutched her arm. ‘It’s all right, Mom. He’s just talking to her — whoever she is. That’s all.’