Chapter 45 / Neighborly

“About last night . . ."

Andrew sat at Annie’s kitchen table, overlooking the deck and backyard. He had set Annie’s place across from him, with her cereal bowl and coffee in a capped mug.

“Did you sleep at all?” she asked, sitting down. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, but I’ve been thinking, it wouldn’t be in Bryan’s interest to give the chief a bad tip, just to get even with me for making his hair sticky. I think he’s smarter than that. Dumb as he seems.”

Annie sipped her coffee, listening.

“So it may mean that I’m getting close to the chief. With my research. And he’s trying to—warn me off, as it were.” 

He was pleased with this idea, Annie observed, excited even. It brought a tiny smile to his face, not enough to flash the gold tooth, but a visible smile. Delusional? He had got the story on the Neanderthal, during Kathleen’s campaign, and he had come through with dozens of stories before that.

“I can’t stop now,” he was saying, matter-of-factly, as if he were concluding a report to a board meeting. “I’m connecting Schuyler to New York and Albany, and also to Montreal and Cambridge. I’m getting corroboration, I’m getting facts. It’s probably more information than the witches want, but I’ll talk to them first. Then I’ve got other contacts, at other papers.”  

Annie let Chloe in from outdoors as she listened, and gave the dog breakfast, which Andrew had put into her dish on the counter, complete with her dog vitamins. Chloe’s water was fresh. 

Annie sat down again, and Andrew cupped her chin gently to make her meet his eyes. “The question is—are you still in on this?”

She kissed his fingertips, imbued with their scent of tobacco and apples, and held his hand. “I thought about it too,” she said, “while you were wandering around in the dark last night. 

“Here’s the way I feel. If he keys my car, I’ll have to suck it up. If he slashes my tires, I’ll report it to the police, even if it’s the police that did it. 

“If he poisons my dog, I’ll have to kill him.” 

Andrew nodded. “That’s fair.” 

 *                         *                     *                       *                     *                   *              *

“Logan, get up!”  

“Sorry!” Andrew sat up, from where he had fallen asleep, on the concrete lip of a truck bay. 

“Goddammit,” said Steve, “I can’t have this place littered with bodies like a—homeless camp.” 

“Girl dropped me off early, so she could get to work on time.” Andrew looked around him. “Lucky I didn’t get rolled.” 

Steve resisted a smile. “Is that your problem, Logan? That you can’t take anything seriously?” 

Andrew hopped to the ground, wincing at his chilled bones. “No, Steve. Not to be contradict-ory, boss—I have many problems, but that isn’t one of them.” 

“Don’t call me boss.” Steve unlocked the back door of the plant. At 60 degrees, indoors felt warm. 

Andrew stood just inside Steve’s office. “More important than my problems—were you going to bail us out last night?”

“—Depends on the charge . . . maybe.” 

“What did you think the charge was?”

“Are you interrogating me?”

The best undercover identity is closest to your real one. 

“One of my problems is curiosity. You thought something.”

“Drugs, of course. Or that your lady skimmed a stop sign.” 

“She didn’t. We’re clean. And because you were sitting there, they didn’t drop anything into the car.” 

In back of them, men were arriving. Glaron must have driven Billie and JR in Ginger Lincoln. They greeted the other guys, opened and closed locker doors; a toilet flushed.   

“No comment,” said Steve. 

“Did you tell him we worked for you?” 

“I did. And that Ms. Sullivan works for the newspaper. That’s what made the difference. Not apples.” 

The phone rang, and Steve waved Andrew away. Andrew left the door ajar and leaned against the wall, out of Steve’s sight, listening. Silent, JR joined him. 

“If you don’t come in today, don’t come in again,” said Steve, on the phone. “OK . . . ,” wearily. “Ten o’clock. No later.” He hung up, and Andrew and JR moved to the locker room. 

“What do you think?” asked Andrew, putting away his jacket and lunch. “Is that boy smarter than I thought?”

JR shook his head. “Chief’s after you.”

Andrew looked at JR, who met his gaze. “Why?”

“You tell me.” 

“Who says?”

JR nodded once. “It’s the word,” he said, and moved away. 

He would miss this place, thought Andrew, if they let him out of here alive. The basketball, the rumble of apples, their sweet smell, the humming with Glaron against the rumble of apples, snatches of Johnny Cash or gospel; last week they had remembered most of the words of “Deeper Well.” Work would go smoothly this morning, till ten o’clock, without the tangle of that boy.

“You got something on for Thanksgiving?” Glaron asked him now, as they took their positions on the line, where Glaron was trusted with the final sort and Andrew filled and carted boxes. 

Andrew smiled down at the apples, wanting to hug Glaron, operating in his parallel world, in which money was tight, drugs were sold on the corner and you remembered when Thanksgiving was. 

“Annie’s brother and sister-in-law,” he said. "Come on over, we’ll have plenty of food.” 

“No thanks, we’re ten so far. Just want to make sure everybody here has a place to go. “

“Neighborly of you.”

“More the merrier. Come by for dessert, all of you. We got four pies in the freezer. So far.” 

“Maybe we’ll do that. I’m just meeting the family, you know. The brother, his wife.” 

“Mm-hmm . . . nervous?”

“The brother should be like his sister, right? And his wife should be like him, who’s like his sister, right?”

“That’s the way it should work. Don’t always.”

“Thanks.” 

“Well, you know.” 

“I know.”

“We’ll get you over one night for barbecue,” said Glaron.

“Tonight?”

“Naw . . .” Glaron’s front teeth flashed as he lifted his eyes from the apples, to make sure Andrew was joking. “Sauce takes days, and tonight there’s some other plan . . . sweet potato pie.”  

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Chapter 44 / Explorer II

Chief Miller nodded to his officers and then walked the line of perps, stopping at Annie first. 

“Nice dog,” he said quietly, with fake cheer. “Does he bite?”

That stupid question. “Yes,” said Annie. She tried to meet the chief’s eyes, but he kept his on Chloe. “If you reach for her, she will bite you.”

“And you, miss?” His eyes were still on Chloe and his voice just audible in the dark. “If I reach for you, will you bite?”

Name, rank and serial number.

“I asked you a question.” Now he raised his eyes to her face.

I will kill you, thought Andrew. 

“—You have no reason to touch me, Chief Miller. I have no answer for that question.”

“Hm!” 

The chief stopped in front of Andrew now, studying his face while Andrew compiled the chief’s genealogy and work history: dark skin, narrow nose / family in the South, New York City / wedding ring / plus larger ring, fake sapphire—

The chief had gone on to JR. Each made an effort to keep his face blank.  

“Where you staying?”  

“State Street.”

“Who’s there?”

“Cousin.”

“Going to be with us for long?”

Forever, you piss-ant. “Long as my job lasts.” 

And then Chief Miller walked back to the white Explorer and visited with Steve at the window. The chief listened with his right ear, his gaze on the perps and the cops, half-a-dozen people standing by the side of the road in flashing red light that in half an hour had never ended. The chief might have said “Hm!” again, but as far as Annie could see, he left Steve without speaking. 

“Go home,” he said, in the same quiet voice that covered them, without shouting, under the flashing red light. 

Andrew and JR immediately started putting things back into the car. 

“He has my driver’s license,” said Annie, nodding at the heaviest of the three cops. The licenses returned, the performance piece reversed, the cops danced back into their cars, and Annie was free to drive again, when all she wanted to do was wash everything—car, hair, Chloe’s bed, everything—in soap and hot water. 

“Well, shit,” sighed Andrew. 

“That’s it,” said JR from the back seat. “Black man in a nice car, they harass you.”

“Are you supposed to be somewhere tonight?” Andrew looked at Annie. 

“Lugubria.” Thirty minutes north of Schuyler. “In 45 minutes. Tina will kill me if I don’t go.” Now Annie was close to tears. 

“I’ll drive you.” Andrew put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. “You were great, you know.”

“You had some fine moments there,” said JR in a voice that grinned. “Kiss her for me.”

Andrew kissed Annie again, then wiped a tear from her cheek with his sleeve. “You have to go, but not because she’ll kill you. You have to be there. As usual.”

“And we’ll take Chloe too, right?” 

“Right. Chloe and I will wait for you.” 

**********************

“So what was going on there?” They had dropped off JR and were eating pizza slices in the car before Lugubria's town board meeting. With her blood sugar inching into a positive number, Annie felt a little better. She bit off a piece of the third slice and gave it to Chloe through the grid of her crate. Chloe snatched it and chewed furiously.

“Some cop saw you pass that old lady on a double yellow line last week.” 

“An-drewwww! First, no cop saw me. Second, I’m serious.”  

“The car and the people in it—what JR said. Or, they follow this car all the time. Or—I have to look into this one—some little turd gave them a false tip. I’ll ask Steve tomorrow.” 

Often these days Andrew’s answers raised more questions. The turd was probably someone at the plant. Annie went for Steve. 

“Why did the chief talk to Steve?”

“The chief may talk to Steve a lot about his staff. I just hope he would have bailed us out.”

******************

“Where’s Chloe!”

Lugubria’s meeting had finally ended, Andrew was reclined full out in the car's front seat, sound asleep, and Chloe’s crate was empty.

Chloe stuck her head out from underneath Andrew’s jacket and wriggled in ecstatic relief. They got out of the car and stretched simultaneously. 

“She was having an anxiety attack,” said Andrew. “Can we stay at your house tonight?” 

“Fine with me. Can I get a new car?”

“I went through that in my head. It would just give them something new to explore.”

Copyright © Debby Mayer 

Chapter 43 / Explorer I

“Watch the car,” said Andrew as he opened the door.

“I got the dog.” JR slid the crate behind him and put it onto the ground, Annie’s sweater, in the dry cleaner bag, still attached to it. 

“Thank you,” she said.

“Shut up!” snapped the cop. “No talking.”

Annie gazed at him, exactly her height, five-feet eight, and in the continual circling of the red roof light, beat after beat, she glimpsed sideburns that extended to the bottom of his ear, and youth, alone in his patrol car but not alone for long; two more cars pulled up in front of her car, their red lights circling, beat after beat, and then simultaneously, one cop stepped out of each car, pulling on his hat, turning back to them, again as if in a dance, and this the chorus. 

Only Chloe “talked,” in a soft whimper, as nervous, and as hungry, as any of them. 

Each cop assigned himself to one potential perp. Annie and Andrew showed a driver’s license. The cop shone his flashlight into their faces, to make absolutely sure the photo matched, and then took the license back to his car. JR gave Sideburns a piece of paper. 

“I don’t drive. Here’s my last pay stub. Last week. New York Harvest.”  

“Worthless.” Sideburns, a head shorter than JR, crumpled it. 

“Has my address on it. Last four numbers of my social.”

JR didn’t whine. He kept his speaking tone natural and showed no signs of bolting. Andrew breathed out in relief, wishing mightily that they had stayed on the main road. Here the street was darker, running alongside a sort of wooded DMZ where the high-schoolers smoked dope.  

On the other hand, the street was narrower here, and drivers slowed to pass them. Just as a cop ordered Annie to open the car trunk, Andrew saw Steve drive by in his white Explorer; he took in Steve’s surprised frown.  

Then Andrew attended to the car, his mind working overtime as to what they would do if the cops dropped drugs into the trunk, or the interior. Annie’s record was spotless, but his cover would be blown and who knew what JR did last week.

This cop, the tallest of the three, was being cool, not touching anything, ordering Annie to empty the trunk. She took the opportunity to pull Chloe’s crate out of the street, in back of the car next to Andrew, during the instant that Sideburns ordered her not to. Too late; she was now emptying the trunk, placing each item next to the crate. 

Annie kept car stuff—Windex, paper towels, Chloe’s extra leash and plastic bags—in a framed, standup bag, which she now removed. In a second stand-up bag she kept her portable file of Observers. 

The five men stood and watched for fifteen minutes as Annie removed things from the car, and then from the bags, and Chloe from her crate so that the tall cop could turn it upside down and shake it viciously; the dog bed fell onto the ground and Chloe’s yellow tennis ball rolled into the road. 

“Stand back!” Sideburns snapped. Andrew and JR moved back exactly one step and then, within minutes, inched up again, watching, as the cop shone a huge flashlight into and onto everything. 

In her fatigue Annie observed that the cops had been transformed into theater artists, in costume, and this event a performance piece, lit by three red strobe lights, in which you took every single thing out of the car, and then out of its container, and then out of your purse and your pockets; you named it and examined it, to try to ascertain what your story was.  

And during all of it, the emptying of the glove box, the sifting through the newspapers, half of which had her byline on the front page, Annie was aware that if she were separated from Andrew she would know he could take care of himself, but they would have to rip Chloe from her arms. With that she picked up the dog and held her, resting her chin on the smooth triangle of Chloe’s head.

Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew had been watching the traffic until he saw the white Explorer again, returning to cruise slowly by the scene and then, having turned yet again, parking in back of Sideburns’s car. 

One of the cops—they were all white, but otherwise the darkness, their hats, obscured a lot of detail—walked back to Steve and spoke with him briefly before returning. “Phone call,” he said. 

“Tell him to make it somewhere else,” said Sideburns, and at that moment another car—Car 1—pulled in neatly, between Sideburns and Steve.

Well, thought Andrew. This chief that everyone gossiped about. I haven’t finished my research, Chief, but once I do, I want to talk to you.

Well, thought Annie. This meant that half of Schuyler’s police force was assembled right here. Either Wendy will defend me to the death, or fire me. 

Shit, thought JR. Black man’s the police chief and it’s still a shithole, should put a spell on the whole damn town, but somebody already did.

Copyright (c) Debby Mayer

Chapter 42 / 21

A week after the election, on a surprisingly mild day, Andrew, Billie, and Clyde (“call me JR”), who was the tallest of the three, were playing their version of 21 at the basketball rim by the picnic tables in back of the apple-processing plant. 

Glaron sat at the table keeping score, with three piles of pennies in front of him. The two white boys—in their early twenties but still with soft, petulant faces—straddled the picnic bench across from Glaron, at once bored and jittery, casting occasional glances at the pennies. 

Two black men—friends of JR’s, hired for the month because Steve needed a full crew in November—leaned against the building in the sun, smoking, encouraging the players in low voices, tossing a penny on a pile for each basket.   

Against the sound of an 18-wheeler backing into the front of the plant with another load of apples, JR and Billie tied at 19. Andrew stepped out of the chalk-marked ring and went to the far end of the table, where he had left his bottle of Gatorade. He took a swig from it and immediately spit it out, spraying liquid in a half-circle around him. 

The basketball game stopped. “Piss in your drink?” asked JR. 

“Vodka.” In two steps Andrew stood over Bryan, who was trying to get up, one leg under the picnic table, and poured the Gatorade over the boy’s head. “Goddammit, Bryan, I told you not to be an asshole!”

“Don’t touch him,” Glaron said in a low, firm voice. 

Bryan and his sidekick were standing now. 

“Nothin’ wrong with your drink, you just want a fight—“ 

“You little turd. You think I would pick a fight with a shit like you?”

“Hold it,” said JR, next to Andrew now. “Not cool,” he said to Bryan. “The brother don’t drink. You don’t fool with that.” 

The other men gathered around, ready to separate the two before a punch landed. In front, the driver cut the truck engine. Steve opened the back door and stopped mid-word at what he saw. 

“What’s going on?” he said.

“Just a lunchtime discussion, chief,” said JR.

Steve took in Bryan’s wet hair, liquid dripping off his chin, and Andrew standing next to him. 

“Bryan, get in here.”

“I didn’t—“

“Come here! Logan, you too.” 

Andrew moved immediately toward the door, his mouth tight. 

“Thompson,” Steve said to Glaron, “check in the truck.” 

“Yes sir.” Glaron got up, scraping the pennies into his lunch bag with a cupped hand. 

Steve had created an office for himself in a windowless storage room, with one wooden table, two straight chairs, and three metal filing cabinets. It was as tidy as Steve himself, who, Andrew had observed to Annie, favored minimum-security style of denim and a buzz cut. 

The three of them stood in a triangle around the desk, Steve behind it, Bryan near the far wall, Andrew leaning alongside the door. 

“Why is your head all wet, Bryan?” Steve asked, and Andrew heard some fatigue there, as if this kind of conversation wasn’t new.

“He poured his drink on me.” 

Steve sighed. “Logan, why did you pour your drink on Bryan?”

“He put vodka in it.” 

“I—”

“Shut up, Bryan. Logan, did you see him do it?” 

“—No.” 

“Why do you think he did it?”

“Ask the little turd—”

“I’m asking you.”

Now Andrew sighed. “Because he needles me. About the meds I take to keep me from decking him twice a day. About hanging with the black guys. Jesus, don’t get me started—because he doesn’t do the job, because he doesn’t get it, because he hasn’t hit bottom yet.” 

The other two stared, Bryan with his mouth half open. 

“The rest of us have hit bottom and are on the way up. Bryan’s still clueless.” 

“Thank you, Logan, we’re not at a meeting.” 

Andrew shrugged. “Saved my life.”

“Bryan, go back to work. And this afternoon, work.” 

“My head—”

“Leave it. Let it dry, nice and sticky.” 

Bryan left. Andrew remained, waiting for dismissal. 

“Logan, one more fight and you’re out.” 

“Yes sir.”

“Sit down.” 

Andrew and Steve both sat, across from each other.  

“You’ve got a nice lady.” 

Andrew nodded. “Keeps me straight.”

“I was going to ask you if you want to stay through the winter. Help me get this place cleaned up, organized.” 

“I’m here, Steve, I’m not going anywhere. Wish I were, but I’m not.”

“But you’re as crazy as the rest of them.” 

“The little shit thought I wouldn’t taste the vodka. I’ll wind up in the paddy wagon.”

“Watch your language.” 

“He your nephew?”

Steve paused. “He told you?”

“Everybody figures it.” 

“—My sister’s only kid. Other one got drunk, wrapped his car around a tree.” 

“I’m sorry,” said Andrew, meaning it, thinking, so that’s what this is about. 

“—Thank you. Nice manners, Logan. Always.” 

“Momma. We all have manners, Steve, they’re just buried in shit.” 

“Bryan doesn’t have any manners.” 

“Thompson does, and he’s not crazy, by the way. Billie’s pretty sane too.” 

“I can’t keep the whole crew on. Thompson’s not strong enough to come back another year . . . maybe you and Thompson. Maybe. Stay out of trouble. Now get back to work.” 

“Yes sir.” 

* * * * * *

“He say how long he’ll keep this place open?” 

Andrew and JR were leaning against Steve’s Ford Explorer in the dark, smoking, waiting for Annie to pick them up. They had done overtime, unloading the truck, and were the last to clock out. 

“—Not exactly,” said Andrew. “Did say that he couldn’t keep the whole crew on all winter.” 

“Well, this crew ain’t staying in that icebox all winter.” 

“You got enough weeks for unemployment?”

“There you go, asking me something to make me think. You’re too smart for this job.” 

“Girl helps,” said Andrew, wondering, again, if JR were under cover too. 

Why do you think that? Annie had asked. 

Just a certain lack . . . of . . . detail.

Annie arrived then, and in the second before they moved, she saw the two men—tall, long hair crushed under baseball caps, one white, one quick to tell you he was “high yellow”—leaning against the white Explorer, their legs crossed at the knee in the same direction, right leg over left, as if they might, in the next second, dance away. They wouldn’t dance, of course, they would get in the car, bringing with them the smell of cigarette smoke tinged with apples.

“Don’t say anything about today.” Andrew spoke to the road as he flicked his cigarette butt to the curb.

“Not me,” JR said to the asphalt at his feet. 

“A car with four doors,” he mused, sitting in back of Annie. Next to him, half of the back seat was folded down to make room for Chloe’s crate.

“Amazing, isn’t it,” said Annie. 

“Auction,” said Andrew. “Get you something if you want.” 

"Yeah, they auction bicycles?

“A bicycle you can find.”  

“Find me a bicycle in Florida next month. That’s the thing to do.”

“I just want to stop at the dry cleaner before they close,” said Annie, turning right, away from Schuyler toward the malls.

“You’re the driver,” said Andrew. “How are the Witches?”

“Witchy. There was a fight, outside a bar in the town of Cowpoke. So we reported the fight, and the location. Today Tina called Catherine and me into her office and chewed us out for twenty minutes about reporting the location. 

“We kept saying, but that’s where the fight was, right in their parking lot. She kept saying it was unfair to them, bad for their business.” 

“Well, yeah. So they called her. Advertisers?”

“No! Not even.” Annie set the hand brake and went into the dry cleaner.

“Your girl work for a witch?” 

“Two of them.” 

“—I could put a spell on them, you know,” said JR, who claimed New Orleans as home.  

“Go for it.” 

“Start it tonight.” 

“Don’t tell her.” 

“Can’t tell her.” 

Annie hooked the dry cleaning onto Chloe’s crate, then headed to Schuyler by the back way, with fewer stoplights. 

As soon as she crossed the city line, a large red light circled in back of her. Annie pulled over, expecting an emergency vehicle to pass, but a police car pulled up in back of her. 

“Shit! What did I do?”

“Fuck,” said Andrew. “You clean, JR?”

“I’m clean,” snapped JR, “you clean?”

Andrew nodded. “Don’t say anything about the paper,” he said to Annie.

She opened her mouth, closed it. A week earlier, telling a cop, “I should know better! I work for the Observer!” had turned a speeding ticket into a warning. 

This cop was at the window. “Everybody out. With ID.” 

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Chapter 41 / Absentees

“I am pleased, and proud, and honored to have won this election!” Kathleen shouted to the fifty people packed into the one-room temporary Democratic HQ in Schuyler. 

“The vote is close! What does that mean, everybody?”

“Your! Vote! Matters!” they shouted back to her. 

Years later, Annie would be able to recall that night in an instant—the astonished joy as districts phoned in and Jaime filled in boxes on a huge grid with precise, undeniable numbers.   

“Yes!” said Kathleen. “Your. Vote. Matters. And, for those who voted on absentee ballots, your, vote, matters. My opponent has called for a recount, and in his place, I would too. Then absentee ballots will be counted. The results may change.

“But tonight, integrity won. Tonight, a candidate won who listens to the voters. A candidate won who takes a fresh look at the strengths and challenges of our region!”  

Another cheer went up, and Kathleen beamed, without a trace of the fear that had haunted her eyes for a week after the car incident on the parkway. She had been careful, riding always with someone else, but nothing more had happened—not even a weird phone call—and Kathleen had picked up her shoulders, meditated every morning and evening, and gone on.

“Does she have anxiety attacks?” Andrew had asked. 

“She’s always been the steadiest person I’ve ever known,” said Annie. 

Tonight Kathleen was also beautiful, her “TV haircut” sculpting her face, her alabaster skin flushed with the surprise—the truly amazing success—of an unofficial win by 132 votes. 

“Last night,” Kathleen was saying, “I realized that the campaign part of this autumn was over. I had done what I could do about that. So I sat down, and I documented my plans—”

Next to Annie, Andrew stiffened, and Kathleen 10 feet away, seemed to feel it—

“I wrote down, everything I plan to do—”

Andrew relaxed again.

“When I want to do it, and how.”

Annie would remember the presence of everyone. Absentees were in the distance. Here, they all touched—no, held one another. Up front, Kathleen was surrounded by her family; on her right, the little twin girls grinned, their arms around each other’s waists. They had been told to choose a dress for the evening, so Katrina looked like she was off to a dance, with a double skirt, while Katy might set out for a dinner party, in emerald velveteen. 

On Kathleen’s left, Conor, in his blue blazer, stood with his arm in Liam’s, and Doug, with his trimmed “TV beard” stretched his arm across the boys. Standing between Liam and Katrina, Kathleen sometimes touched their shoulders as she spoke. 

“I have so many to thank,” she said now, “starting with the Democratic committees of our four-county election district, who took me in and then took me out, to meet the voters. With their house parties and their road snacks, their bottled water and their gas money for the van, we, did, this.”

Another cheer. Annie and Jaime stood side by side, arms around each other, hip to hip, ribs to ribs. On Jaime’s right, George stretched his arm over them both. On Annie’s left, Andrew did the same, so that she was banked by the bodies of her two best friends, until the camera of the one local TV station that had showed up began to pan over the crowd. Annie and Jaime stood tall, ready to look unblinking into the round eye. Andrew squeezed Annie’s shoulder and slipped away. 

Glancing back after being filmed, Annie saw him standing with Glaron and Theresa, Billie and Tiaje, another black man she hadn’t met, maybe the one who liked to play basketball on their lunch break, and a shorter white guy—Steve, the boss, who had given $1,000 to Kathleen’s campaign. 

“He hates the Neanderthal,” Andrew had said as he carefully folded his voter registration form and the eight others he had extracted from his neighbors and coworkers, before he delivered them to the Board of Elections. 

Now the camera headed toward that group, to show that there actually were African Americans in this rural backwater, and they took an interest in this election. Annie turned back to Kathleen, knowing Andrew would absent himself again, moving around or slipping outdoors.

“. . . Now, let’s dance!” said Kathleen. “And if you’ll forgive my sounding like a candidate, God bless us, every one!”

The crowd cheered and clapped, whistled and yelled “woo-hoo!” George reached right to the boom box on the table, started Johnny Nash in “I can See Clearly Now,” and gathered Jaime and Annie for a three-way dance. 

Andrew returned, scooped Annie off her feet, and twirled her around, on camera. “He got us,” said Annie as they danced. 

“It’s OK. He got me outside, having a smoke, for my fifteen seconds of fame.”

In fact, the party went short because everyone wanted to watch the 11 o’clock news. There, Annie and Andrew danced, and Glaron made the audio cut, saying, “She listens to everybody,” as did Jaime: “Did we take a page from the Clinton bus tours? You bet we did! And it worked!”

By midnight in Andrew’s house, a few blocks from HQ, Annie and Chloe had fallen asleep, but Andrew couldn’t rest, getting up and coming back to bed, prowling around in the dark, trying not to wake her, always waking her. 

“She’ll lose it in absentees,” he muttered. “Nobody’s prayers are going to change that.”

Annie squeezed his hand, trying not to fully wake. She had to be at the newspaper at 8:30, and the Witches would ride hard herd on them today, for election results in the next day’s paper. 

“Should have got that story out earlier.” 

“Spokesperson,” murmured Annie, envious of Chloe, motionless in her crate. 

About three Andrew settled down, curling himself against her. “TV,” he said. “Radio.” 

At daylight he walked Chloe and returned with newspapers, coffee and hard rolls from the Pakistani bodega around the corner. He fed Chloe and made a day’s worth of peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, two for Annie, four for himself. 

“Thank you,” said Annie, as he poured her coffee out of paper into ceramic, which she preferred. “Refocused?”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not! You’re wonderful.”

“Really?”

“Really. You changed Kathleen’s campaign from a romp—a ride in a VW bus—to something real.” 

“We still don’t have the numbers.”

“But she did tremendously well for an unknown candidate from a low-population part of the district. And we have the Neanderthal on our side, right? In a year, he’ll be divorced. He may not even run again. You said it first.” 

“You’re right. And I did. But the question is, do you love me?”

They were standing inches apart in his galley kitchen, Annie leaning along the refrigerator, Andrew against the counter where he had packaged up the sandwiches. In three minutes, they had to leave for work.

“No gotcha questions!” Annie put down her cup and reached up for his face. He encircled her with his arms. Inside they were both laughing, giddy, almost hysterical with fatigue and release. They’d got through this. Now something else was about to begin.

“Answer the question.”

“—Is it safe?”

“Not with another question!”

“—Maybe.”

“Arrgghh! I made you two sandwiches,” he said, indicating them without letting her go. 

“You did. And for that I love you.”

Two weeks later, after the candidates and their lawyers had watched the absentee ballot count, Kathleen lost the election by 196 votes, out of 96,509 votes cast.

“Hardly a mandate for him,” Annie told Kathleen in a quick phone conversation from work, and that became their slogan for the next year.  

Kathleen used the concept in her gracious-but-firm concession speech, filmed outside the kids’ school by all three TV stations: “I wish my opponent well, as he joins the State Senate for another term,” she said with a smile. “But I would point out that his mandate comes as much from our side as his.” 

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Chapter 40 / Kitchen Cabinet

The Times Union editorial board interviewed Kathleen on Tuesday. They sounded tough but fair, reported Jaime, who rehearsed Kathleen on Monday and chauffeured her to Albany on Tuesday “so you can be a proper candidate and review your notes and such while I drive.” 

After the Times Union, they negotiated parking in downtown Albany, delivering Kathleen with five minutes to spare to her appointment with the real estate developer. This encounter was deemed fair and miraculous. He agreed with Kathleen that she needed TV for a level playing field in the campaign. He would wire the maximum allowable donation to her campaign committee, which would cover a package of TV ads in the Albany area, which reached the entire district. For creation of the ad, he referred her to the “communications” agency that he used. 

The children returned home from school that Tuesday to find Kathleen and Jaime having a glass of red wine at three o’clock in the afternoon. They swarmed like puppies, sniffing the wine and screwing up their faces, even Conor forgetting his indoor voice, demanding, “What happened! What happened!” 

“I want to tell the whole thing once, when Dad gets home,” said Kathleen, putting out their apples and cheese. “But I’ll give you the best and the worst.” When they had washed their hands and sat down at the table, she said, “The best was that everybody I met treated me like I had something to say. The worst was driving around downtown Albany.”

“But if you’re a state senator, you work in Albany,” said Conor. 

“In Albany, and here, in our district. I’ll learn how to drive in Albany. And maybe we’ll get an apartment there, for when something exciting is happening.” 

“But we’ll still go to the same school,” said Katrina, who was eight. 

“Yes,” said Kathleen. “We’ll still go to the same school.”

Wednesday and Thursday were filled with soccer games, a parent night at school and working with the PR group via phone and fax to write a 30-second ad that Kathleen believed in. 

Friday Jaime met the kids’ school bus while Kathleen was in Albany taping the ads. Driving home in her Mommy Van, she had almost, she swore, been run off the parkway.

“No groceries tonight,” Annie told Andrew on the phone late Friday afternoon. I’ll pick you up for a meeting of Kathleen’s kitchen cabinet. She’s terrified.”

“Did she tell the police?”

“Yes, but she was scared and didn’t get the license number. They attribute it to some drunk, which is possible . . . if a drunk in a black sedan with tinted windows would carefully edge into you, no matter which lane you were in or what speed you were going.” 

*     *    *    *    *

“Stay off the parkway,” said Andrew. The six of them sat around Kathleen and Doug’s kitchen table, talking quietly. The children were by now bored with campaign meetings, waiting only for the next road trip in the yellow VW bus that sat in the driveway, festooned colorful, positive message posters.  

“I didn’t sign on for this!” hissed Kathleen.

“Yes you did!” snapped Andrew. “Sorry. But you’re running for state office here, not dogcatcher.” 

“I signed on for a clean race—issues only.” 

“And who brought up your solidarity trips to Cuscútlan, to Cuba? Your dirty-tricks opponent. Who dug out that you were once a nun, and Doug was a priest. Not to make you look thoughtful and values-oriented but to make you look unbalanced.” Andrew bit off the word: un-balanced. “Your filthy opponent.” 

“Andrew,” said Doug, Kathleen’s husband. He paused, in his deliberative way. “Don’t lecture Kathleen. Please.”

“I—” You could spend life thinking. Or doing. “I’m sorry,” Andrew said, meaning it, and then, more gently, “Try to have someone else in the car.”

“I have my children in the car! Will you let Annie be in the car?”

Annie had been gazing beyond the circle of light, envious of the children in the living room. Conor was reading while the younger ones watched a movie that Liam had set up for them on the TV. Two issues of the Observer had been published now, without reporting on el Neanderthal, but Harry, the ad salesman, who was close to the Witches and their husbands, said that the paper would endorse Kathleen, early, saying it was time for a change. 

Annie returned her attention to the adults and said, “I’ll drive you in my car whenever I can. Whenever the Witches let me out.”

“I’ll be in the car,” said Andrew. 

“I’ll be in the car,” said Jaime. “I’ll get the damned plate number.” 

“You won’t be in the car,” said George, Jaime’s husband. 

“Yes I will!” said Jaime “And we’ll stay off the parkway. There’s always another way to get somewhere.”

*    *    *    *

“Andrew—we haven’t bitten off more than we can chew here, have we?” They wouldn’t really try to kill her, would they?

“No,” he said immediately, and she reflected on that, too, that he always replied quickly, as if he knew the answer, even if, like now, he shook his head, as if to convince himself. “They want to scare her. Bastards.” Again biting off a b-word. He tossed his cigarette out the car window. “Get her to withdraw from the race, thirty days to go.”   

“You’re muttering.” Annie was driving Andrew back to Schuyler; then she’d go home. They both had to be at work at eight the next morning. 

In his head, Andrew saw her car, leaving the little city, its outskirts, the next rural town . . .  “It is scary.” Andrew paused. “While I was in the city yesterday, someone got into my house.”

“What?!”

“They didn’t take anything. Not my thrift-shop TV or microwave. I don’t keep cash there, and I had my laptop with me. I’d suspect someone in my neighborhood just checking the place out, but somebody shat in the toilet and didn’t flush it. I see that as a warning.” 

“Yuck. At least it was in the toilet.” 

“Exactly. But I want to keep the laptop at your house for a while, OK? And tonight, drop me at the top of the hill. I’ll walk home from there. Check things out. Protect my little castle.” 

“—OK.” Her car wouldn’t be seen near his house.” I’ll call you when I get home.” 

“OK. If I don’t answer, it just means I’m walking around.”

“And you’ll call me when you get home.” 

“Yes.” 

“Did you tell the police?”

“No. Nothing taken, no forced entry. Someone small got in the bathroom window and let the others in. Then they walked out the front door. At least they closed it. 

“I could hear the police telling me that I forgot to flush the toilet and lock the door. But I didn’t, and I didn’t leave the bureau drawers open and check all the pockets of my pants and leave them on the floor, or drink half a gallon of orange juice and toss the container on the floor.” 

“Kids?”

“Might be. Or someone who wants me to think it was kids.”

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Chapter 39 / The Devil

On a blustery Thursday in early October, Andrew rode his bicycle from his house in Schuyler to Annie's house, at dawn. In New York City Warren was dealing with his father's need for surgery and had cancelled his patients that day. In Hudson County, Andrew's research on Kathleen's opponent for state senate had panned out. He needed the car to pitch the story, beginning with the newspaper in the home city of el hombre de Neanderthal, as Annie and Jaime referred to him. There Andrew had found a curious managing editor and an ambitious young reporter. 

“If my tires get slashed, Andrew . . . you’re in the doghouse.”

"You love this." Andrew made a point of stopping at the one stop sign between Annie's house and the newspaper office, just to reassure her, even though there wasn't a car to be seen. 

"I do, because el Neanderthal is such a  . . . Neanderthal. But now I'm wishing we had told Kathleen."

"No point in it. If the papers are too timid to take it . . . no story." 

She hugged him tightly before getting out of the car. "Good luck."

"We've got it," he said, hugging her back. 

She looked at him. "Luck?"

"The story, girl. With any luck."

"You've had such a grin, plotting this man's downfall."

"He was rude to you. Just last year. Let's get to work."

They kissed again, and Annie went into the office. She wrote three news stories from the town board meeting she had covered the night before and edited more press releases than she could count. 

All the while in her mind's eye she followed Andrw up to the southern Adirondacks and back own to Albany in this, the second of his plans. Study of the drug scene in Schuyler was ongoing; the election, thirty days away, was immediate. So Annie prayed silently, frankly: if it be your will Lord, let this happen. Kathleen is the better candidate. 

At 4:30, right on schedule, she saw Andrew's head above the room divider, as he spoke to Ginny, the receptionist. Annie waved to them as Ginny escorted Andrew, with his laptop in its shoulder case, upstairs to the balcony above the newsroom, to the office of the Witches—Tina the editor and Wendy the publisher. 

At 5 o’clock, they were still in a closed-door session. Ginny, Catherine, two ad guys and the production chief sat with Annie, speculating, casting occasional glances heavenward toward the Witches. 

At 5:20 Andrew came out of the Witches’ office, walking the long flight of stairs from the balcony, his eyes down, with a sense of fatigue that made him look older than usual, fatigue that disappeared the instant he saw Annie, Catherine and one ad guy still waiting for him. Immediately, Andrew twinkled; wordless, they filed outdoors and sat at the picnic table in the front yard, out of sight of the Witches.  

“Gonna take us down, huh,” said Harry, the paper’s top ad salesman.

“Apparently,” said Andrew. 

“What! What!” said Catherine.

“Read the Post Intelligencer on Sunday.”

"You did it!" Annie kept her voice down—you could never tell where the Witches were—and leapt up to kiss Andrew. He pulled her onto his lap, his arms tight around her.

"We did it," he said.

"Did what!" said Catherine. "The PI is a hundred miles away."

“The Times Union may pick it up on Tuesday. After they do their own research. Only 50 miles away.”

“Road trip Sunday,” Harry said thoughtfully, almost to himself. 

“But not the Hudson Observer on Monday?” he asked Andrew.

“They said they’d think about it overnight.” 

“Not the Observer on Monday,” said Harry, nodding. “Hubbies’ll nix it, and Monday I’ll still have a job, with somebody to sell ads to. Sorry, guy—” he held out his hand.

Andrew shook it. “Maybe I’ll bum a ride with you Sunday.”  

“Sounds like a plan. Here are my numbers.” In one fluid move Harry swept a business card out of his pocket. 

“You on this weekend?” Andrew asked Catherine. 

She nodded, her eyes big.

“Then you’re the one to write it.” 

“You have to background me! Come over for dinner, both of you, in an hour. Cookies and water. Jim’ll want to hear this too.”

“But that’s it,” said Andrew, ”just the four of us.” 

“We’ll go to Barrington, get takeout barbecue,” said Annie. 

“Great idea,” said Catherine, “but I’ll do it. Feed the source.”

*     *    *    *    *

An hour later the four of them sat at another picnic table, smaller, indoors, off Catherine and Jim’s kitchen. They had inhaled the only takeout barbecue in the region, pulled pork and ribs, coleslaw and sweet potato, as they hashed out the marital problems of Kathleen’s opponent. 

“But she never brought charges,” said Catherine, referring to opponent’s wife. “At the Observer, we don’t run domestic abuse unless someone is transported to the hospital.” 

“OK, that’s her problem,” said Andrew. “The public problem is the lack of public record. Six times in three years—over the course of two of his two-year terms—the police were called to his home. And each time the police file looks like this . . . Closed.” 

“People have rocky marriages,” said Jim, who was divorced. 

“They do, but that doesn’t always bring the police.” 

“She reaches out,” said Annie. “Then she withdraws. Half-a-dozen times. At least.” 

“You write the feature on patterns of domestic abuse,” said Andrew. “For Monday’s paper, the question is what does this mean for public policy. That’s what I was pitching to the witches, not if ‘it bleeds it leads,’ though there’s probably that, too.” 

“Policies on . . .” Catherine was adding to her notes on a legal pad “. . . domestic abuse . . . child support . . . Family Court . . . police issues . . . what else?”

*           *         *              *             *

“What did you do?” Kathleen asked Andrew on Sunday. “The managing editor of the Times Union called me, to schedule an interview with the editorial board.”

Annie had seen Andrew grin, but never like this. “Gimme your hand, girl!” he said to Kathleen. He picked up her limp hand and slapped it. “They’re taking you seriously!” 

“What did you do?” Kathleen repeated, almost pleading.

“I did research. Here’s the start of the results.” Andrew put a copy of the Post Intelligencer on the table. “We’re lucky—slow news day, banner headline.” 

Kathleen took up the paper, looking more horrified than happy. 

“Can I read it too, Mom?” said Conor, 12, her oldest. 

“Sure. Here, let’s sit.” Another picnic table, this one on the deck, overlooking the swimming pool below. Kathleen shook out the broadsheet to its full size. She and Conor read.

“Andrew, will you play softball with us,” asked Liam, 10.

“Yes. But let me talk to your mother first.” 

Liam sighed and sat against Andrew’s leg.    

“Liam, there are plenty of chairs,” said Kathleen, turning to the story’s jump inside.  

“It’s all right,” said Andrew, “I’m just warm-blooded furniture.” 

Conor giggled, his eyes glued to the newspaper. Liam looked perplexed. 

“Are human beings warm-blooded or cold-blooded?” Andrew asked him. 

“Oh, right,” said Liam. “Warm-blooded.”

“And I’m just some ole piece of furniture, right?”

“Right! And you’re my coach. And I can’t get rusty in the off season.”

“Hang on. What do you think?” Andrew asked Kathleen.

“—I feel slimy.” Both boys stared at her. 

“No reason. You didn’t do anything. He did everything. And now this race is yours, now you direct the conversation. 

“But you still have to work for it.” Andrew moved Liam to his other leg so he could lean over and tap a photo in the newspaper. 

“See this guy?” Conor stared at the headshot of a real-estate developer in Albany who had commented for the story. Kathleen didn’t take her eyes off Andrew. “Pitch him for TV money. His comment has no substance, but he’s thinking. 

“And it’s very sweet of you to go door to door, to want every person in the district to interview you, but it’s a big district. You need TV.”

“Are you the devil?” Kathleen asked him. 

Conor raised his eyes to Andrew, while Liam stared at his mother. 

“No need for the devil,” said Andrew. “It was there. There for the taking. 

“Call this guy tomorrow. Tell him you’ll be in Albany this week, talking to the TU editorial board, and you want to meet with him afterward.”

“I have to be home when the kids get in from school.” 

“Then schedule it while they’re in school.” 

“I can do it, Mom, I can take care of everybody,” said Conor.

“And I can be here by 3:30, if Conor needs help,” said Andrew. “C’mon Liam, we have time for catch.” 

Liam didn’t move, frozen on Andrew’s knee, watching his mother, terrified of the devil. 

“C’mon, Liam,” said Conor, standing up, “we’ll both throw to you. You can’t get rusty.” 

“Are you OK Mom?” asked Liam. 

“Yes,” said Kathleen, looking into his sapphire eyes and lying. Of her four children, the two biological boys, the two adopted girls, she swore she had no favorites. But she did adore this one. 

“Turn on the outside lights,” she said “so I can watch you.”

Copyright © Debby Mayer