I can hear the Senator arguing with fishermen about the two-hundred-mile limit. Tonight, I entered through the kitchen, flashing my party badge. None of the long-haired cooks even looked my way. I could have carried a bomb in here, but I’m just the volunteer who’ll chauffeur him to his flight after the speech.
“You must stop those Russians from cleaning out our waters,” the fishermen demand. The Senator smiles. His skin, covered by a scarcely detectable layer of pancake makeup, shines; his smug expression is framed by perfect greying sideburns.
“I’d like to help you fellows, but funds for sending the Coast Guard after foreign trawlers are scarce at the present time. Try to understand.”
My eyes engage briefly with the Senator’s as he passes me, but he shows no sign of recognition. Behind a screen formed by palm plants, I watch him take the chair of honor under the Rotarian’s banner. Tiny-assed waiters strut as they serve him baked-stuffed shrimp. I wonder if he notices the tall, black one with the smooth, fine body who brushes his arm as he fills his plate; the Senator can be touched. Then, the Great Lion of the Rotarians, the Grand Dragon of the Knights of Pythias, the Marshall of the VFW, the Chair of the Women’s Business League, and finally, Father Marcos each say a few words addressed to the Senator, their guest of honor.
“He sure is handsome,” a wide woman, whose pink and orange stripes ripple over valleys and hills of flesh, whispers to me. “Why not just scoop him up and take him home with you?” She giggles. “His wife’s not here tonight.” Silently, I nod in agreement, but she knows nothing of me and my mission.
Years ago, after an office softball game, the Senator praised my catching. “Lots of brothers,” I explained. “If girls could have played Little League back then, I’d have been a star,” I joked. The Senator laughed and sipped his beer. I believed in his work—milk for poor babies, health care for all, a guaranteed national income. I spent hours volunteering for him and his causes.
“Do you need a ride?” he asked me that day long ago after the office picnic.
I refused, though I was tempted, despite his notorious womanizing—why not make him my own fringe benefit? His family story moved me—his little girl’s heart trouble, his wife’s cancer. I’d cared for my own mother between hospital sieges, praying that she wouldn’t end up on the psychiatric ward again, drugged and shocked. When she died, I was only twelve. Late into the night, my father would talk to me. Over and over again, in his lubricated sing-song voice, he’d repeat how lonely he was. When he rested next to me in my narrow bed, I made myself lie still and hold my breath so he wouldn’t fall apart, like Mother had.
Though I refused your ride that night, Senator, we talked, squatting on the lawn until the sun set and your aides called you away. Later, I thought of you. I imagined you unbuttoning your shirt; I pictured your wide chest and greying tufts of hair as you opened your slacks and let them drop by the bed. In my mind, I saw your white shorts fall as I stroked myself—my fantasies so much safer than you would be, Senator.
You began your speech with a joke, a religious one designed for this audience.
“There was a horse taught to gallop when he heard ‘Thank God’ and stop when he heard ‘Amen.’ A new driver who didn’t know that horse passed a treacherous hill, came to the edge of a cliff, and shouted: ‘Thank God!’” The Knights, the Lions, and their ladies laughed, while the waiters serving blueberry pie teased each other, shaking their hips.
I remember a cliff, a bridge ending at the sea, and a party held to celebrate a hard campaign. We swam, we drank—all of us together. You told me my backstroke was as good as my catching arm. By my third scotch, I was giggling as couples disappeared, becoming sounds behind closed doors. When you reached for my knee, I wanted you. I followed you to your car. As you backed down the road, headed for some quiet, hidden place, you stroked my thigh. I ignored the dark night as my hand moved slowly over your thigh. I felt you swell as you drove—flooded with my power over you. I leaned down, unzipped, and dropped my head in your lap. You warmed my mouth in the chilly darkness as the bridge came to an end, but you were unable to stop. Your car slid so easily into the sea, and though I tried holding on to you, you floated beyond my reach. Do you remember that night, my tongue as you drove?
Now you speak of immigration, how you helped change laws so people of Mediterranean descent could be in this very room. That’s the way it’s supposed to be in this nation, you tell them. My own Italian family worked in the granite quarries—my father, a stonecutter from the old country. My brothers tore through our motherless house, discarding catcher’s mitts and tennis shoes, leaving stained jockstraps and foul socks for me to launder. I played their game, running until we collapsed together on our parents’ bed. Under the Virgin staring from the wall, they pulled down my panties and felt my nipples to see if they’d grown. They rubbed themselves against me like puppies, and it wasn’t bad—not until Jimmy, the big one, forced me to put my mouth on him.
“They’ll send you to the convent if you tell,” he said, so I kept quiet. Though Dad’s lungs are coated with granite dust, he still works. One brother’s in the army, another’s a drunk. They were so proud when I went to work in Washington. To them, I was a celebrity. They miss me.
“The President abuses his power. We could be countering the terrorists with food instead of guns,” the Senator says. Father Marcos leads the applause. You tell them what a long day you’ve had. The Rotary Club in the morning, high school kids at noon, housewives for tea. Now, at the furthest reach of your district, you’ve traveled as far as you could; any further and you’d be in the sea. I wonder if you return to that island beach, if you still summer there, off the coast.
A questioner challenges him. “An old lady here froze to death because the power company turned her off when she couldn’t pay. What’s your opinion of that, Senator?”
“I wouldn’t be very popular if I favored cutting old ladies’ heat off, would I now?” you quip. Once more, you repeat, “No, I’m not a candidate for president.”
You wave goodbye while the Rotarians, the Knights, the Lions, and their ladies rise and sing “God Bless America”; even the waiters join in.
“My car is waiting, Senator.”
You follow me, past photographers, past a one-man band pulling his accordion and blowing his harmonica for squat, waltzing couples who stare as you make your way out.
“How much time before the flight?” you ask.
“Less than an hour,” I say.
“Could you drive around a bit? It’s been a long day, and I’d like to get away from the crowds.”
Like Odysseus, he’d taken no precautions against me. I drive through roads bordered by dunes. Sand mounds dotted with scrubby pines stretch for miles on this landscape, as stark and uninhabited as the moon.
“We’re lucky to have this area declared a National Seashore. Now it won’t be spoiled by developers.”
“I love this place,” I say.
“Did you grow up near here?”
“No, in the mountains, but you could say that I’ve undergone a sea change.”
He likes my cleverness.
“You’re very lovely.” His hand reaches out.
I inspect his palms, but he bears no distinguishing marks; he seems as ordinary and vulnerable as anyone. Yet his magic is spun from our collective dreams; his power grows as lives are lost to bombs, assassinations, accidents. I stop the car where the land juts into the sea, and together we walk the beach. The tide is out; no lights dangle in the sky. We trudge through sand to the smooth shore, and together we watch the surf curl. Then we embrace as we did that memorable night by the sea.
“You seem familiar. Could I have known you before? Have you ever worked in Washington?”
He can’t see my smile. “Long ago, I did.”
You want to know more, Senator, but the wind makes me shiver as the fog tucks itself around us, so we head back to the car. Though your arm encircles me, I am in the driver’s seat.
“I’ll have to be careful,” I say. “It’s easy to get lost on a night like this.”
“Do we still have time?”
“Less than half an hour,” I say. I head away from the Coast Guard parking lot. He strokes my thigh, and his fingers reach between my legs.
“Why not stop for a few minutes?” he pleads.
“I can’t, you’ll miss your flight.”
His hands are under my silk, but I drive on. He probes, his fingers traveling deeper, making me squirm like a fish beached on vinyl. My thighs part, my foot presses hard on the accelerator as I arch backward. There is no way we can stop now.