"We could do a lot worse. He supported Simpson in 1631, so he might appeal to some of the conservative-side-of-the-middle-of-the-road types who are skittish about Mike. He's pretty conservative himself. In fact, I was always surprised that he wasn't a Republican, up-time."
Ed chuckled. "Given his druthers, I'm sure he would have been. But Chad knew better to think that being a Republican would help him much in the middle of Bobby-Byrd-Land."
"How would it go over with the new majority in Grantville, though, having an up-timer succeed to a down-timer's seat?"
"Chad's good at schmoozing. And there's no really suitable down-timer in West Virginia County who's both available and willing to run. They're…"
"All still too busy making money. Recouping their war losses." Arnold put a word into the conversation. "Give it five years before one of them starts to eye Becky's seat. What about the House?"
"Don't know yet. I want to float a few possibilities past Mike while I'm here."
"UMWA people?" Claire asked.
Ed shook his head. "Actually, they're all down-timers I've been working with. I don't know if Mike has even met any of them. He sure hasn't worked with them, not closely at least. I was talking to Chad and Henry the other day. Henry said, 'You know, my grandpa used to have a saying. Sometimes I feel like I've been hung out on a line to dry and then plumb forgot. ' That's the way it is, this year. Even looking at it from the province-wide level, sometimes I feel like Grantville's been hung out on a line to dry and plumb forgot. All the Fourth of July Party bigwigs are in Magdeburg now, busy with Gustav, busy with national politics. International politics, when it comes to the Congress of Copenhagen. They don't even have time to think about the town long enough to give Henry and the others the okays that they need to move on.' "
Claire sighed. "Henry has a point, you know. As mayor. Before the Ring of Fire, our town was dying. Slower than the other little towns around Fairmont, but dying. All the ambitious kids leaving after high school-well, the way Duke did, and our kids. That's why they were left up-time. We came back when Duke retired. Then it came back to life after the Ring of Fire, and he got to oversee that. Now it's dying again. The ambitious people, a lot of them, moving out. Turning into a backwater. He's having to watch that happen, too. He's got to be hurting."
"He has a point about getting the okays. We talk a lot about politics from the bottom up. But the truth is, as far as the party is concerned, Mike and the UMWA have kept it pretty tightly buttoned up from the top down, when it comes to nominations and such. He just.. ." Arnold's voice trailed off.
Claire finished the sentence. "Wants to work with people he trusts. Can't blame him for that."
Things went on from there.
"And that's the last I've heard from Steve Salatto about the way things are falling out in Franconia."
Someone knocked on the door. Francisco Nasi glanced up, pushing his glasses back to their proper place on the bridge of his nose. "What is it?"
Samantha Burka poked her head into the room. "You and Mr. Piazza have to finish up now, Sir. The Gustav taking him to Amsterdam will be leaving in less than two hours."
Chapter 9
Grantville
"I'll get it."
Annalise jumped up from the dinner table and dashed for the front hall. "Hello. Yes, Mrs. Piazza? They're out! They're out of Basel? They're okay? Really all right? Not hurt or anything. You're sure? Just a minute."
She left the receiver on the telephone stand and ran back into the dining room. "They're out of Basel. Oma and Mrs. Simpson and the archduchess. They're okay. Absolutely okay. Henry, can you come to the phone?"
She turned right around and dashed again, so she could pick up the receiver again as fast as possible. She didn't want Mrs. Piazza to think that she'd hung up before Henry could get there. "Don't go away. He's coming right now. Thea had to get his cane for him."
Denise Beasley spread out the morning newspaper on the kitchen table in her father Buster's trailer. Her best friend Minnie Hugelmair read over her shoulder. "Isn't that a hoot? Mary Simpson and the archduchess getting into a plane with the new king in the Netherlands so Jesse Wood could fly them off to Amsterdam." The girl's very pretty face twisted into a half-scowl. "I've never flown. I bet I would have, by now, if the Ring of Fire hadn't happened. Maybe we still can, someday."
"Oh, sure," Minnie commented. "I can see it now. We get so famous that a plane lands out in your dad's storage lot to take us someplace exciting. Not likely. Just not. How about checking my algebra homework before we leave for school?"
The noise in the Thuringen Gardens was deafening. But on the evening of a day that most people had spent talking about this kind of news, Henry felt like he had to show up. Flying the flag, or something. The Gardens were a kind of symbol for Grantville by now, he supposed. If you really had something to celebrate, you celebrated it at the Gardens. Not to mention-this was where he'd met Ronnie, in the first place.
"Veronica's still with Horn's army, then?" Tony Adducci waved at Thecla to bring him another beer.
"She'll be on her way home by the end of the week, they tell me. Horn's sending her by boat as soon as he can arrange to get her on one with all the necessary safe-conducts and such for passing through the region held by Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. Down the Rhine and then up the Main."
Chad Jenkins nodded. "Bernhard's being cooperative, they say."
"Just hope that it lasts."
Joe Stull grinned. "So, Henry, are you going to climb into that ATV to make the tour of the towns in Buchenland before the snow flies?"
"Yep."
"We got a new message in from Fulda right before I left the office," Ed Piazza said.
"What?"
"They're suggesting that since Veronica will be landing at Frankfurt, you ought to extend the tour. Go on down the Kinzigtal and meet her there. There are bits and pieces of Buchenland County along the route until you get as far as Hanau."
Martin Wackernagel finished chewing a bite of pretzel. "Not a bad idea. It's a pretty trip. Not a very good road, but a really pretty trip, especially in the fall when the leaves are turning. I go that road all the time. The Reichsstrasse."
"What a hellish racket." Missy clamped her hands over her ears. "Maybe they should have waited and not had last month's parade until they got Mrs. Simpson and Mrs. Dreeson back. That would have made for a few more floats."
"It would have saved a lot of beer, too." Denise smirked. "Most of the guys are going to end up just as drunk tonight as they did after the parade. First they strut and then they swill. It's not as if any of them here had anything to do with what was going on in Basel, but to hear them talk, you'd think that the SoTF Reserves rode into the city with Don Fernando-the king in the Netherlands, whatever he's called at the moment-and raised the siege at the embassy."
"Maybe we should go home early. It's not as if there's anyone here we're interested in, and we're not close enough to Dad and Mayor Dreeson to overhear anything political." Missy turned around and tapped Pam Hardesty's shoulder. "Pam? Are you ready to go?" Then, "Pam? Is something wrong?"
Pam shook her head, eyes narrow. "No. Not really. I just spotted one of Velma's less pleasant old boyfriends, over there. Take a sighting past Wackernagel, then a little to the left and four tables toward the door. I don't want to walk past him. Is there enough room, anywhere, that we could get out one of the other doors?"
Minnie stood up, swiveling her head. "Not right now. We'd better wait a bit."
Missy frowned at Pam. "He didn't…?"
"He didn't. But not for lack of trying. Talk about a nasty, nasty, man. Fish bait."
Denise's nouns and adjectives were considerably more colorful than that, ending up with, "Maybe you'd better let Daddy give you some lessons in dirty fighting. You ought to see what Mom can do."