She handed the newspaper to the Poplar delegate and he scowled at her. “Oh for God’s sake, girl. This is yesterday’s.”
Elizabeth’s eyes teared.
“Forget it,” he said.
Peg stood up. “Delegate Burns, is it in the public trust for the company not to pay taxes?”
“That is public trust,” Burns said. “And my grandfather, when he came to homestead—”
A Billings delegate interrupted him: “I’m a simple man, but I know this. We’ve got the Beartooth Mountains over there, highest in Montana, and I’ve been in them many times. We’ve got five mining companies that want to take those mountains, rip them wide open, and dig a pit five miles long and three miles wide. And once they’ve dug that pit and taken the soil out of there and polluted the river down below it, it’s not going to be there anymore. And we won’t be able to put it back.”
The amendment failed, 58 to 36.
The graduate student in a lime-green miniskirt shot up, her eyes blazing. “Mr. Chairman, I’d like to introduce a new amendment, guaranteeing Montanans’ right to a high-quality environment which is clean, healthful, and pleasant, for the protection and enjoyment of its people and the protection of its natural beauty and natural resources, including wildlife and vegetation.”
The Anaconda delegate shook his head. “Those words — healthful, high-quality, pleasant, and reasonable — are too metaphysical.”
“I’d like to point out that in the Bill of Rights, we have metaphysical terms such as liberty, freedom, and inalienable rights.” Her voice was as direct as a bullet. “But we have no trouble determining what they mean.”
The amendment was defeated, 51 to 43.
As Elizabeth walked from the Capitol down Montana Avenue, white clouds moved across the blue highway of sky and shadows pooled under the ash trees. She liked the momentum of moving downhill with the sun on her face and the snow-covered Sleeping Giant Mountain dozing on the horizon in front of her.
A pickup truck pulled up next to her. The driver leaned over and rolled down the passenger window. “Wanna ride?”
Patrick, wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses. Her breath caught in her throat as she stepped up into the cab.
At a drive-in, they ordered root beers and hamburgers from a carhop in a short skirt and ski parka, who skated with their orders back to the window, past heaps of sooty snow.
Patrick pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head and looked over at Elizabeth. His eyes were green flecked with brown.
The cab felt very close.
They talked. Patrick explained that he was a junior at Dawson County High School. He ran track, played trumpet, and had collected the autographs of almost all one hundred delegates. He had an older brother who was serving in an artillery unit in Vietnam. Then he leaned over and sang, badly: “Do you want to go to San Francisco?”
She almost laughed.
“I want to get out of here so bad,” he said, his eyes shining. “I need to see something besides goddamn cowboys. Rolling Stones. Cream. Jimi Hendrix. How ’bout you?”
“’Frisco for sure,” Elizabeth replied, though in truth that city’s flower-child scene scared her. “I want a yellow Karmann Ghia and a dog named Spud.” She paused, tilted her head, and looked at him. “And I want to have sex.”
He flushed and reared back. “You want to what?”
When she didn’t answer, he reached out for her.
She pressed herself against the door. “No! Not like that. This is a project.”
“What do you mean, a project?” He settled back behind the steering wheel.
“Eat your cheeseburger,” she said.
He studied Elizabeth, his hair falling across his face. “You’re an odd one.”
The two of them sat in a companionable silence, watching cars spin down the highway, drinking the sweet root beer and eating greasy hamburgers, watching a dog pick its way across the parking lot, nose down and looking for scraps.
As she crumpled up their hamburger wrappers, Patrick put his hand over hers and asked, “Are you serious?”
“About what?” she said, although she knew fully well what he was asking about.
He shook his head and started the pickup. Seeing her squinting in the light, he took off his sunglasses and handed them to her. “You can have these if you want.”
She took them, glimpsing her oblong reflection in the mirrored lenses, the way her face looked wide and egg-like, pink and contorted, all eyes and nose, and wavering.
During the afternoon break in the next day’s session, Elizabeth was getting a drink at the water fountain when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
“Follow me,” Patrick said.
They walked to the base of the rotunda. When Patrick was sure no one was looking, he grabbed her hand and led her to a small door. He opened it and led her inside. A sudden dusty quiet enveloped them.
They stood in a tiny closet where a narrow iron ladder rose up into the shadows.
“What are we doing?” Elizabeth was afraid a bat would fly out from somewhere and tangle itself in her hair.
Patrick began to climb the metal rungs. “Trust me.”
Elizabeth followed him, hand over hand, foot over foot. Her dress ballooned out and she worried that if someone opened the door they’d see her underwear.
As they climbed up into the shadows, shoes scraping iron, she stopped caring. In the cool, quiet shaft, Elizabeth thought she heard the flutter of birds. Finally, the curved underside of the rotunda appeared.
“Where are we?” Her voice sounded hollow.
“You’ll see.”
“It’s cold.”
When Patrick reached the top rung, he took a flashlight out of his pocket. He shined the circle of light on the wall. “Look.”
Above his head, on the narrow curved ceiling of the rotunda, were hundreds of signatures scrawled in marker, charcoal, and what looked like candle smoke. Some were large and loopy, some small and precise, some blurred, some feathery, others delicate as lace. The two of them clung there, sheltered by the names’ ghostly constellation.
Patrick climbed down over the top of her, pressing her into the iron ladder. She turned her head to him. They kissed. His lips were cool and soft.
Molly Stensrud, 1895. Joseph McKinsey, 1923. Hope Smith, 1911. Kilroy Was Here, 1941. Class of 1964 Rules.
That night, Patrick scaled the porch support to the balcony as Elizabeth waited in her room with the lights off.
She eased open the window, holding her breath at the scrape of wood against wood. “Hey, Romeo,” she whispered.
He crept under Elizabeth’s window, balanced himself on the clinker brick, and put his hands on the windowsill. Then he was inside. He seemed so tall in the cramped room.
Patrick looked at the rickety dresser and the iron bed. “So this is where you stay? What a dump.”
“It’s my dump,” Elizabeth said, irritated. “And keep your voice down. There’s someone next door.”
Patrick’s hands dangled at his sides like rope. His face was smudged. “What do we do now?”
“We kiss.”
He grabbed her waist. They sat on the bed and kissed. They lay on the bed and kissed. Each time they shifted position, the bed creaked. The walls and door were so thin they barely seemed to exist. In the hall, a door opened and footsteps shuffled down the threadbare carpet runner. Elizabeth and Patrick kissed as pipes groaned and water turned on and off.
Maybe she didn’t want to join the big chorus. She glimpsed the two of them in the speckled mirror over the dresser, tangled together on the lime-green bed: his brown hair, her red hair, his arms, her arms. She felt his smooth stomach and muscled shoulders and she felt her breasts swell and heard the women in her head saying, Chippie, slut, whore.