“Not where I come from,” she says indignantly.
We get halfway down the path to the next house when the sprinkler system comes on, soaking us.
Amber is furious.
“And that’s illegal too,” she says. “Breaking the water rules.”
When we get to the door, they’re pretending not to be home and we have to brave the sprinklers down the path again. I offer her my jacket, but she says no.
No one’s home in the next house, either. Her hair is damp and clinging to her face. She looks increasingly miserable, increasingly beautiful.
“So where do you come from?” I ask.
“Knoxville,” she says after a pause.
“Where’s that?” I ask, not entirely ignorant.
“It’s in Tennessee,” she says.
“Cool,” I say, “it’s a cool place.”
“What do you, an Irishman, know about Tennessee?” she asks, finally breaking into a little smile.
“A lot,” I say.
“Like?”
“Well, you’ve got Elvis for a start,” I suggest.
“Memphis is totally the other end of the state,” she says. “Although we did go on a hellishly long school trip there, if you can believe it.”
“Did you go to Graceland?”
“Yeah, we did, it was so boring.”
“Did you see the toilet?”
“What toilet?”
“Where Elvis died.”
“Elvis died on the toilet?” she asks.
“See, now I know you’re an imposter, obviously you’re a Communist sleeper agent awaiting the rebirth of the Soviet Union. Every red-blooded American knows that Elvis died on the toilet,” I explain.
“Well, I didn’t,” she says, laughing.
“You should have, your cover’s blown. Every Brit knows that Evelyn Waugh and King George the Second died on the privy, we find that kind of thing funny.”
“I thought you were Irish,” she says.
“It’s complicated. Oh, and speaking of that, another Tennessean, Andrew Jackson, President Jackson, he’s big in Ireland because his parents came from, uh, Ulster.”
I was going to say Carrickfergus again, but realized just in time that this word is far too likely to remind her of Victoria.
“The Hermitage is miles from Knoxville as well,” she says, “and don’t say Nashville, either, because that’s miles away too.”
“What about Dollywood?” I say.
“How do you know about Dollywood?” she laughs, amazed again.
“Are you kidding, she’s huge in Ireland, country and western in general, huge, Patsy Cline is practically a saint.”
“Is that so?” she says, giving me a sideways glance.
“It is.”
We’re at another house. I’m annoyed, we were just beginning to have a great conversation. My next line was going to be to ask why she didn’t have any kind of a southern accent. We ring the bell. A black man answers the door. He’s elderly and is wearing a coat as if he’s on his way out.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Hi, I’m an environmental activist in your area tonight to raise consciousness about the plight of the ancient forests.”
“That a fact?”
“Yes, sir, it is. Is this an, uh, an issue that concerns you at all?”
“Trees?”
“Yes, the old growth forests, they’re being cut down at a—”
“Let me tell you what concerns me. They’re cutting food stamps, I can’t afford to feed my kids, I hardly see my kids. Hardly ever see them. I’ve been unemployed for six months and there ain’t no work.”
He stares at me, waiting for me to reply, but I can’t say anything. I look at Amber, she does her rap like a good ’un, closing back to the fifty-dollar memberships.
“I’ll take a leaflet,” he says politely.
I give him a couple of leaflets and say goodbye and we walk back down the path again.
“I can’t believe this,” Amber mutters under her breath.
Perhaps this is the first time she’s ever met people immune to her charms. And we’re both cold. She looks totally pissed off. Wet, lovely, and miserable, her ponytail being blown about in the wind. Her nipples erect under her sweatshirt.
“Sure you don’t want to get a coffee or something?” I ask, putting my hand on her elbow to prevent her walking. She looks at me and shakes her head.
“Charles would be upset if we stop now, a few more streets,” she says quietly.
“This is getting us nowhere,” I protest.
“I know,” she says.
“But look down at the next street. It doesn’t look at all inviting,” I say.
She looks where I’m pointing. Broken windows and screen doors, refuse and bits of furniture on the sidewalk and on the barren lawns.
“Come on, Amber, we’re done here, it’s nine-thirty, this has been a pretty disastrous night, we’ll go get something to eat and meet everyone else back at the van, hope they did better,” I say.
Amber is resigned and nods. A blond hair comes loose and falls on her face, she pushes it back violently, like a drill sergeant pushing a soldier back in formation.
“They won’t have done any better,” she says after a minute or two.
“Why not?”
“Well, uh, do you ever go to the theater?”
“Not really.”
“I love the theater, never get to go. Don’t you love it?”
“I might love it, I just haven’t experienced it,” I say.
“Well, anyway, did you ever hear of a play called Glengarry Glen Ross?”
“No, never heard of it,” I tell her.
“It’s about these real estate men and they cold-call people, but they’re all after the Glengarry leads, people who actually want to buy real estate. Well, we normally go to neighborhoods which are on the GOP list, people who have contributed to Republican causes before, like the Glengarry leads, people who are interested, so that’s why we’ve been doing quite well, but Robert thought tonight we could just try a random neighborhood in the suburbs to see how we do. See how it works out.”
“Yeah, worked out great,” I say.
She looks at me. Laughs.
“What was that you said about something warm to drink?”
Five minutes later we’re at a strip mall. Most of the stores are closed, but there is a pizza place that’s still open. We go in, order a slice each and coffee. There are only a few customers, so we’ve no trouble getting a table.
“So Tennessee,” I say.
“Yup,” she says, biting into her pizza with obvious relish.
“What happened to your accent?”
“I moved to New Jersey when I was ten, my dad worked for a power company.”
“What? So really you’re a Jersey girl?” I say, surprised.
“Well, I don’t know about that, I was born in Tennessee,” she says a bit defensively.
“I get it, you’re one of those people ashamed of Jersey, so you say you’re from Tennessee?”
“I’m not ashamed, I just feel more like a southern girl, at heart,” she says with that infectious grin.
“Yeah?” I say, gently mocking her.
“No, look, I lived in the south for eleven years, barely six or seven in Jersey before I went to college in Boston,” she says.
“You met Charles at Harvard?”
“Yes, how did you know that?” she says.
“I just guessed. You mentioned that he went there too, when Robert talked about ROTC.”
“You’re quick,” she says.
“No, not at all,” I say.
“I met him there. He was teaching a class on economics, it was very boring. I was a science major, you know, but I thought I’d try something different.”
“He was a professor?”
“No, don’t be silly. He was a graduate student. You never get a professor, ever. You’ll see, you’ll get taught by PhDs at Red Rocks.”
“Oh, yeah, I think someone said something about that. Term doesn’t start for a few weeks yet. Uh, so you loved his class and you married him?”