Joel said nothing about his visits to the key House staffer for the bill’s author, nothing about urging speed on the bill. Now, to Dick, he said, “Polish our armor.”
“The boss went for that? It’s the right thing to do, but he’s so freaked about reelection I can’t believe he’ll stick his neck out on something for nothing.”
“He’s not there yet,” said Joel. “But be ready.”
Mimi buzzed Joeclass="underline" “The boss wants you.
The Senator sat behind his desk. Looked up as Joel entered the private office.
“About last night.” The Senator shrugged. “We all have our needs.”
“Really.” Joel walked out.
The Senator’s eyes burned Joel’s neck through the door he shut behind him. At Mimi’s desk, Joel told her, “Call Joyce wherever she is. Get her back in town.”
“Home to her husband? Not likely.”
“Mrs. Senator loves her job as much as he loves his. Reelection on the horizon, gossip about his solo ways… Joyce knows we all gotta do what we all gotta do.”
The workday wall clock stretched Joel tighter with every sweep of its red second hand. He left the office for home as soon as he could. She showed up seven minutes early. Stood on his stoop holding a pizza box and a clunky cloth purse. Hair floating free, she wore no makeup or perfume, a hooded sweatshirt under a denim jacket, torn blue jeans on slim legs and black-and-white sneakers.
“This is nothing but me,” said Lena.
He pulled her inside.
Ninety minutes later, they ate cold pizza while sitting naked on his bed.
“Your arms,” she said. “How did an indoor guy get such a tan?”
He told her about Sudan, the refugee camp, the three-day “fact finding” trip that he blew up to a two-week tour in Hell that the State Department finally insisted he abandon. “The worst part was seeing the faces of real people fall away from the helicopter as it lifted me up. I saw their eyes. I saw them believe my promises.”
“You’re exactly who belongs in this town. Get out while you can.”
“What about you?”
“Where can I go? I started out letting guys be generous to a hot girl who didn’t want a slave-labor job or a soul-sucking career. Then one day you realize that you added it up all wrong and you’re stuck being your score.”
Joel cupped her wet face. “Who you are right now is all you need.”
She shook her head no “Remember Sudan? You’ve either got power or vultures get you. Plus, the shit I’ve done has to be worth it. Has to get me beyond it with enough nobody can touch me. Except you. The best I am is being who you want.”
Thursday night she only called to say she couldn’t see him.
Friday night her plans were to be not there, but he called her so many times that she relented. Said she’d see him around midnight.
Lena rang his doorbell at ten minutes into tomorrow. Stood on his doorstep looking like a magazine ad, all hair and lips and sheathed legs in a black dress that plunged between her teardrop breasts. Her eyes were broken windows.
She stalked upstairs to his bathroom and closed the door.
He sat on the bed. Listened to the shower run for twenty minutes. The hot water tank must be empty.
He found her huddled on the floor of the tub, naked, icy liquid bullets spraying down on her as she looked at him, sobbed, “Not enough soap in the whole damn world.”
He stepped into the shower and pulled her up, held her in that cold, cold rain.
By the next afternoon, smiles softened her jaggedness. They walked past Saturday shoppers who’d come from the Eastern Market food stands where J. Edgar Hoover sacked groceries as a boy. Joel tried to show her the secret grotto tucked into the Senate side of the Capitol grounds, but Homeland Security had kicked the terrorist alert level up to YELLOW. Even his Senate staff ID wasn’t enough to get her past SWAT-geared Capitol Hill cops swarming around America’s democracy factory.
“It’s okay.” She squeezed his hand. “Take me home.”
And he knew she meant to his house.
Sunday, she urged him to do one thing she’d never sold and they did.
Monday, he went to work.
“Getting down, Dick said, as he opened the Washington Post on Joel’s desk. “Here on A20, a full-page ad from United Tech salutes their planes with ‘American-built technology.’ Then on Page A24, a quarter-page ad where Z-Systems proudly announces their F-77A ‘simulator’ performed flight tests with ‘superlative success.’
“And,” continued Dick, “here’s an ‘According to government sources’ news story about a General Accountability Office ‘investigation’ into cost-overruns by Z-Systems on their flying tanker. Of course, no mention of which Congressman or Senator ordered GAO to kick Z-Systems’ butt or why the story got leaked.”
“Seen it before,” said Joel.
“Yeah,” said Dick. “Our boss ambushed me this morning at the coffee pot. Told me that he doesn’t care which company he votes for.”
Joel said: “Did he go off again on reelection?”
“Naw, but speaking of running that Sudan relief bill ain’t got no legs.”
“They’ll show up any day now. Trust me.”
“Always,” said Dick.
That night, as Joel’s kitchen echoed with laughter, Lena’s cell phone buzzed. She said, “Excuse me.” Walked as far away as she could. Came back in ten minutes. Said, “I’ve got to go.” Left him alone with his nightmares.
Tuesday evening she was sitting on his front stoop with a smile that lit her face.
Wednesday her restlessness woke him with the dawn. She wore only his tattered high school football jersey. Told him: “I can’t do this anymore.”
Joel felt his ceiling fly away.
“I can’t leave you,” said Lena. “I can’t go back and do what I do. And I won’t let my whole life until now add up to worse than nothing.”
“If it’s about money—”
“No! If it’s your money, then you’re just like all the rest. I can’t let you be that!”
“What about me? You say you protect yourself against psycho killers and getting… and I have to believe you. But you fuck other men and it’s like you let them rape you! Can’t you—”
“Start all over?” He heard the tremor in her voice. “Baby, I ain’t got the time. All I’ve done is like a long black cloud swelling up behind me. I’m running out of sky.”
He held her and she sobbed. The sun came up and she lay awake on his heart.
Victory at work that day meant he and Dick brokered a deal to give air polluters a six percent rollback of fines instead of the seventeen percent proposed by his Senator’s opponents. Joel linked a freelance cameraman he’d cajoled into filming the refugee camp to a network news producer who owed Joel. As he and Dick walked their boss to a Roll Call, the Senator told Joeclass="underline" “Nobody wants your Sudan relief bill. I can’t put my brand on a dead horse.” Joel pleaded: “You can make it work.” Senator Ness looked at Joel, shrugged.
Later, Dick told Joeclass="underline" “Least he left you with hope.”
“Hope isn’t enough on the Hill.”
“I know. Up here, the bottom line never changes: It’s what you can get done.” Dick added: “Still, working on the Hill is the right thing for guys like us to do. The last best place where we can get paid to fight the good fight.”
“Yeah,” said Joel, who’d preached that gospel to Dick once upon a time.
After work Joel found Lena on his couch, her hands wrapped around a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
“I got a phone call today,” she said. “From your Senator. Didn’t take it.”