Voting was a careful process in New Hampshire. You stood in line as the ladies from the League of Women Voters checked names on the print-outs, then you waited for an open booth, then you pulled the big lever and the curtains closed behind you, and you pressed the little button by your candidate’s name, then you got a cookie and a cup of juice from the women who did juice and cookies. It was like giving blood and took about as long.
Peta, Jackie, and the woman from The Truth waited in the van with Leonard Nichols, who had calmed down a bit, and Mrs. Souza, who had brought her knitting bag and was working on a sock.
Peta called the campaign office. Tim said the C.E. pickup van had been reassigned to Rye when the Rye van went to Eatontown. The van for Eatontown had thrown a rod on 95, and the van from Portsmouth, dispatched to get the stranded voters, took them by mistake to Rye.
“But everything’s on track again,” said Tim, “except for Exeter.”
By then it was clear: the VP’s operation was a shambles.
Peta heard snoring. It was Mrs. Souza.
The senator’s van pulled up, unloaded, and pulled out again. The senator’s brisk and chipper volunteers made three trips while Peta and the others sat there waiting.
Leonard Nichols said, “Maybe we should send somebody in, tell them to hurry up.”
“They’re voting, not shopping,” Peta said. “You wait in line, you vote, you get a cookie and you leave. There’s no way to ‘hurry up.’”
The van was beginning to feel cramped.
Leonard Nichols said, “You promised me a ride to Willingboro.”
“No we didn’t,” Peta said. “We said the pickup van might possibly have time to go all the way to Willingboro, though it isn’t very likely when you think about it, Leonard, because Willingboro’s thirty freaking miles from here. Jesus, buddy, take a bus.”
“I missed the bus to vote,” Leonard Nichols said. “I can’t be late for this interview. I really need this job.”
“Want a fruit drink?” Peta asked.
“No, I want a job. I’m a skilled mechanic. I can break an engine out like nobody’s business. Don’t roll your eyes at me, you stuck-up bitch. I’m a piece of shit, I guess, until your Saab breaks down.”
Jackie said, “Enough of that. Leonard, I’m surprised at you.”
James Fagan came down the steps of the nature center. He said that Nadine Clanksy was almost finished. “I saw her with a cookie. Freilinghuysen’s going to be a little longer. I think he’s doing write-ins. He was going booth to booth, trying to borrow a pen.”
“Where’s Mr. Grosjean?”
“They’re looking for him now. They know he checked in, because his name is checked off. They’re peeking under the curtains, looking for his shoes, trying to figure out which booth he’s in.”
Nadine Clanksy came out next, followed by Arthur Freilinghuysen, who had cookies for the group.
Jackie said, “Have they found Mr. Grosjean?”
“They found his booth,” said Arthur Freilinghuysen “They’re calling for him, but he won’t come out. They’re asking if he needs medical attention, but he won’t respond. He’s just in there, humming to himself. They’re trying to locate a family member now.”
An ambulance pulled up. The EMTs ran the gurney up the steps into the nature center.
Jackie said, “They seem to have the situation well in hand. Let’s take these people home.”
They went south to Grassy Knoll, dropping Nadine at her cottage and the others at the cube. They started back for Portsmouth on the coast road. Leonard tagged along, still hoping for a ride to Willingboro.
18
There were three museum rooms at the Gateway-to-the-Wetlands Nature Center. The line to vote snaked through them from the street doors, past the pay phones and a giant diorama called The Marshes Before Man. Jens shuffled with the others, briefcase at his feet, taking the odd pull off a bottle of Glucola. Word was coming down the line that there had been a medical emergency in one of the booths, a stricken voter or a claustrophobe, and help was on the way, which was why the line was stalled. Two EMTs bustled from the street a few minutes later, their belts and O2 bottles riding on the bedding of their gurney, and after that the rumor stood confirmed.
Jens could see the women at the folding tables flipping through the multivolume voting rolls, A through E, F though L, M though XYZ. Voting was taking longer than Jens had expected. He was tempted to skip it, but he had already invested fifteen minutes in the line by then, and he was prepared to waste another fifteen minutes so that the first fifteen would not have been in vain.
The EMTs were standing by a curtained booth, trying to question the voter within. Jens saw a pair of Wallabees facing inward, away from the EMTs. All around, people gave their names, lined up for a booth, voted, had juice and cookies, or left right away. A priest joined the EMTs at the curtain and asked if he could help.
The line advanced. Jens gave his name to a woman who took names. The woman stamped his hand and he joined the nearest line. The priest and EMTs were standing at the center booth, talking to the Wallabees inside. The priest coaxed the old man out. Climbing on the gurney, the old man looked quite tired and relieved.
Food and drink were not allowed inside the booths, so Jens slipped the bottle of Glucola into the side pocket of his overcoat. He pulled the iron lever, closed the curtain with a clang. He stared at the options, the parties and the offices, the names in tiny type. He focused on his choice: the VP or the senator?
Peta had insisted that he vote (“Don’t bother coming home if you don’t vote,” she’d said, smiling, that morning), which was just another way in which they were different: Peta so rooted, so engaged, so strong for the VP (in poll code terms, a four); Jens undecided (poll code five). Jens had declared this status to the first pollster who had cold-called the condo in the spring. He had stuck to his position through a hundred calls and canvasses since then. It was easy in the spring to express no preference between candidates because there were no candidates back then. There were many candidates, mentioned, rumored, or projected, but none of them declared, senators, ex-senators, governors, single-issue mavericks with small, fervent followings, some of whom were also ex — unsuccessful candidates for president, drubbed in past New Hampshire primaries. Jens saw these men on the nightly news, winking, hinting, being coy, refusing to rule out. He also saw them (sometimes the next day) on the streets of Portsmouth, or shaking hands at Monsey’s Luncheonette, shirtless, tie loose, coat over the shoulder or held by an aide. Jens was prepared to shake the hand of any declared candidate, liberal, conservative, both parties. They shook his hand, sought his vote — it was honest and forthright. He wouldn’t shake the hands of any nondeclared candidates he happened to run across (he felt that a governor of Texas or a senator from Delaware ought to declare his reasons for hanging out at Monsey’s on a Saturday) — it was sneaky in a way, running undeclared. As the election neared and the field firmed up, pollsters called the house, pressing Jens: Would it change your opinion, sir, if you knew that the vice president was soft on the economy? Or: Would it make you any less undecided if I told you that the senator has voted to put a nuclear waste dump about four hundred feet from your house? This was called push polling, another sneaky tactic, campaign hirelings posing as true pollsters, spreading crummy information in their questions. Eventually Jens installed a voice-mail firewall to keep pollsters and fake pollsters at a distance, but this didn’t block the rest of the barrage, the canvas vans, the TV spots, the radio, the mailings, the flyers and lawn signs, the billboards and the bumper stickers in the corner of your eye a zillion times a day. Jens had clung to his non-opinion through summer, fall, the holidays, and he found it hard, standing in the booth, to cast his longdefended undecidedness aside. The VP or the senator? He finished the Glucola, gazing at the names.