“Mom had a party a couple of weeks ago. She taught me.”
“Oh? Who was at the party?”
“Painters, mostly. They talked real loud and dressed funny.” Toby twists his face, trying to be sullen, but obviously he’s in a talkative mood tonight. “I liked being bartender. The women said I was cute and made a big fuss, which was gross, but two of them asked me to fix the zippers on their dresses.”
“Yeah, Toby wanted to take their dresses off,” Deidre says, tossing shrimp into a pot of boiling water.
“I did not.” Toby walks off to make the drink.
Deidre asks, “Why don’t you have a party, Daddy?”
“I might, someday.”
“Can we come?”
“Sure.” He can’t imagine whom he’d invite.
“I want to be the bartender next time,” Deidre says. “I’ll help the men fix their ties.”
Adams adds lemon and celery to the shrimp and covers the pot. He walks into the den, where Toby is standing, staring disconsolately at the drink he has mixed.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know if I added enough soda.”
Adams takes the drink. “Toby, what is it?”
Toby jounces on the couch. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Try me.”
“All right.” He assumes an innocent expression. “I want to know why you and Mom stopped fucking.” “Toby …”
“I want to know why. Did you get tired of her?”
“Toby, we were getting along so well. Don’t spoil it, please.”
“I was watching these guys at Mom’s party. They bragged about their work and acted stupid in front of these stupid women, and I know what was going on, they all wanted to fuck each other, the men and the women too, moving around each other like Muhammad Ali or something, waiting for the best shot. Mom was doing it too. Acting stupid every time she talked to a stupid guy.”
Adams shrugs. “Men and women are attracted to one another for very good reasons,” he says.
“Like what?”
“Like what, well, haven’t you ever noticed a pretty girl at school and she smells good and she’s very nice, but for some reason you don’t get along with her? You don’t know why, but you’re just not interested in getting to know her? On the other hand, you meet a girl who’s not so pretty but you kind of like her — ”
“I don’t like anybody in my class,” Deidre says. “None of them know how to draw except me, and Mrs. Collins says we’re the most obnoxious kids she’s ever had.”
“Or like your friends,” Adams continues. “There are certain guys you like to hang around with — ”
“I’m talking about fucking,” Toby says.
“It’s no different.”
“What’s fucking?” Deidre asks.
“Honey, please.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s when a man and a woman get naked with each other,” Toby shouts. Deidre’s eyes grow big and she glances, frightened, at Adams, wondering if Toby’s in trouble, or if she’s in trouble, or if maybe Adams himself is in trouble.
“Women’ll fuck anybody,” Toby says.
“That’s not true. It’s especially not true of your mother.”
“She was acting so stupid.”
“That’s called flirting. People do it because it’s fun. It doesn’t always lead to making love. It’s like a game. Most of the time it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Sometimes it does.”
“Sometimes. But people make choices. And people like your mother and me … well, we make responsible choices.” He sips his drink. “Most of the time. Anyway, it’s natural for you to be confused about all this, but believe me, it’s not as crazy as you think. There were reasons your mother married me and not someone else.” He pauses. “Just as there were reasons the marriage ended when it did.” He hopes Toby won’t ask him for the reasons. “What do you know about making love?” he says.
“I know how it’s done.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Let me know when you do, all right?” Toby nods.
Deidre is still at sea. Adams scratches her head. “Put the sauce on the shrimp, all right?”
“Sam, I’d like you to meet the Honorable Frederick Palmer, congressman from the tenth district.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Adams says.
Palmer is wearing a red string tie.
Carter takes them to an Italian restaurant, where he and Palmer discuss a water control project. Adams does not follow the conversation closely; it’s clear he’s not meant to.
“I’m being purposely vague,” the congressman tells him, “because I don’t want to confuse the issue.”
Back in the office, Carter pulls Adams aside. “Palmer’s going to help us with our next project. What I’d like from you is a detailed map of the following region.” He hands Adams a set of coordinates. “Thursday, hmm? Oh, and Sam, Vox has the W-2 forms in his office. When you pick yours up, sign for it, all right? There’s been some hanky-panky with the records and we’re trying to be more accurate.”
“What kind of hanky-panky?” Adams asks.
Carter looks around. “Some cash is missing from the political action fund.”
“Mallow?”
Carter shakes his head. “There’s some other stuff, too. Just sign your name so we know you got your forms.”
The women’s shelter has moved to a permanent location, a gray two-story house wedged cozily among three giant cedars in one of the oldest neighborhoods in town. The grass is neatly mowed. Kids play tag between bashed-in-looking cars parked in the drive. A woman in a long skirt is sitting on the wooden porch in a rocker reading “The Cow Jumped Over the Moon” to a little girl nearly asleep on her lap.
“Hi. I’m Valerie.”
“Valerie. Pam nearly through?”
“I don’t know. I think they’re reading poems.”
Cicadas throb in the cedars. Lamplight falls through the lace curtains onto Valerie, who, Adams sees, is wearing a splint on her right arm.
He pokes his head in the door. A television, black-and-white, sound off, sits on a crumpled shower curtain in a corner of the living room. A circle of wooden chairs spotted with green paint. A chipped and dusty glass chandelier. On the walls (the same pale green as the spots on the chairs) Pamela’s Matisse-figures playfully chase one another all the way up to the ceiling. In the stairwell one of the cardboard figures has come partially untaped and appears to have placed its feet on the carpeted stairs.
A woman clears dirty dishes and coffee cups from a poorly varnished table. Pamela motions for him to come in and shut the door. Most of the women are young — some in their early teens — and with children. A few are cut and bruised, made up heavily to hide the marks, but the rest seem healthy, in good spirits. A little tired perhaps. Cynical jokes.
A thickset lady next to Pamela picks up a paperback book and reads Wallace Stevens’ “Anecdote of the Jar.”
Only three or four women are listening, and all agree they don’t understand that one.
“You’re right, let’s try another,” the lady says, and chooses Emily Dickinson:
“That’s pretty,” one woman says faintly, gazing out the window. Another turns up the sound on the television.
Pamela touches Adams’ arm. “They don’t need me anymore tonight. I’ll just be a minute.” She hugs several of the women (one flinches; “I’m sorry,” Pamela says, gingerly rubbing the woman’s ribs), straightens their hair, and accompanies Adams out the door. The little girl who was resting on Valerie’s lap now stands in the front yard while Valerie pulls off her shorts and lays them in the grass.