“Oh yes,” he said fondly — they were over their coffee now; Margaret had taken out a cigarette, Druff two or three coca leaves which he slipped into his mouth like after-dinner mints—“she claims she hardly ever voted for me. She says she did it out of principle, but I tell her I regarded it as good luck. That’s true, I’d become almost superstitious about it, like a ball player who keeps using the same handkerchief to blow his nose in because the team’s been winning.
“Well, that’s not felicitous, but you know what I mean. Still, a wife shouldn’t vote for her own husband when he stands for office? Come on.
“I’ll tell you something though. I don’t care. I really don’t. Well, I’ve never been particularly ideological, and I had a pretty good winning record, election-year-wise. I don’t suppose I had to deliver my own wife’s vote, though it’s something my opponents picked up on. But, you know,” he said, “in the long run I think it actually helped me. Well, you can see where it would. It’s good for the image. What the hell, it humanized me — that I couldn’t even get my own wife to vote for me. I’d be willing to bet that in a close election — believe me, they’re never that close; this is pretty much, at least on the local level, a one-party town — something like that could actually make the difference. And Rose Helen’s pretty sharp. Now I think about it, I’m not entirely certain she didn’t do it on purpose. Of course, now I serve at the mayor’s pleasure, but I don’t really think it makes any difference. I mean what are we talking about? City Streets Commissioner? How much could she care? Rose Helen doesn’t even drive!”
“So what do you say,” Margaret Glorio said, “my place or yours?”
“I guess,” Druff had to admit, “mine’s pretty much out of the question.”
“I guess,” said the buyer. “I mean those are some heavy burdens you’ve got on you there, Commissioner. Rose Helen, your statecraft. And I only have this little studio apartment.”
“That’s because you’re out of town so much,” Druff said.
“Why yes,” she said, “it is.”
“That’s good,” he said earnestly. “It is. That helps us out. Oh, shit,” he said, “I’m not good at this. I’m like some dummy kid.”
“Well, you’re certainly not good at it,” she said. “What was that you put into your mouth? Coca leaves?”
“No, of course not.”
“Yes,” she said, “they were coca leaves.”
“No,” Druff said.
“Don’t try to swallow them, for heaven’s sake. You’ll gag and ruin your beautiful dinner.”
Druff, coughing helplessly, eyes watering, nose running, choking on all the acids of his contraband, was ruining his beautiful dinner, his ancient, comfortable marriage, his brilliant career. Margaret Glorio had come around the side of the table. She pressed a glass of water into his hands. Diners rose at their different tables, waiters came running from their various stations. “No CPR,” he managed, sputtered. “I’m fine, I’m fine now,” he said, fiercely waving them off. “A bone,” he explained, recovered, “a bone in the fruit soufflé. My fault. I should have seen it. I did see it. I thought it was a stem. It looked delicious. Well,” he said, “no harm done, praise God, thank you Jesus. All’s well that ends well.”
“Rue Glorio?” Margaret said when everybody had returned to their places. “Margaret Street? The Boulevard de Margaret Glorio is a bit grand, but it has a ring. What do you say, Commissioner? They’re your streets.”
“This would be about the blackmail then? A little to-do about the little to-do when I scarfed down what you apparently thought were coca leaves?”
“If I blackmail you,” Margaret said, “it won’t be over the coca leaves so much as the soufflé bones.”
It turned out to be her place after all. They were in bed now, over their brandy snifters, over Meg Glorio’s astonishing — to Druff astonishing, who’d never seen anything like it — clinging, red — silk? satin? — nightgown. (Anyway glowing, flushing anyway, some bright raddle of soft, luxurious, idealized skin, of flesh perfected beyond the condition of flesh, of flesh transcended, raised to some new plane — to Druff new — of tidy, sweet, unappurtenanced harmony — realized, hypostatic lovematter.) Just looking at her now he almost fainted. And the thought that they’d just made love near killed him. She had finished him, he was a goner, some polished-off shell of his former self. She would blackmail him? She wanted streets named after her? He would give her esplanades, parades, entire arrondissements! He’d been a politician more than thirty years. He’d call in his markers, see to it they changed the name of the city.
“Margaret Town,” the commissioner said. “Gloriville. Meg Glorio City.”
And wasn’t entirely kidding. At least a part of him serious, at least in his inclinations, in his good will serious. If not in his baggy boxer shorts. Oh, but they were mismatched (he’d be the first to admit it), he in his big boxers, she in her red silk or satin, flesh-transcended, lovematter nightgown.
And even if the actual lovemaking, though fine, and even several steps up from his usual performances, hadn’t been anywhere near the standard of your normal, average blockbuster, history-making, place- namer fucks, face it, it was plenty good enough and, for Druff, better than good enough, something which at fifty-eight, or even at forty-eight, or at thirty-eight even, he would never have expected to have happen to him again. (Or he might even name a street after that nightgown, he thought.)
“You know what would be okay in my book?” the commissioner said. Ms. Glorio ran a finger around the bottom of her glass and raised its sweet, bronzy dregs to her mouth as one might lick frosting from a pan. “Sleeping over tonight.”
“Oh, but wouldn’t Mrs. Druff worry? And the fuss and bother you’d be putting her to with all those cold, tired policemen.” He had spoken of Rose Helen’s conscientiousness, how she often greeted visitors with mugs of coffee in her hands. “Anyway,” she said, “you’d never get away with it.”
“I would,” he said. “I’m covered.” He was thinking of those race routes he was supposed to be covering with whatsisname and whatsisname. “I’m telling you, Ms. Glorio, I could have danced all night.”
“Well, your driver then. Didn’t you say he always picks you up in the morning?”
“Nuts!” Druff said. “I forgot about my driver. But don’t you have an alarm clock? I could set your alarm clock. Even if I can’t sleep over, then just sleeping with you, even if it’s only for an hour, would be okay in my book, too.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s awfully late.”
“Oh, I know,” he said. “It is. And I’m pooped. I am. But all I need is an hour. One hour, then I’m up, dressed, and out of here. I’m City Commissioner of Streets, I know where I can call a cab. I wouldn’t even have to use your telephone. No telltale, embarrassing taxis need ever show up at your door. Dick wouldn’t know a thing.”
To give you an idea how far gone he was. Not even nagging at him. Not even nagging at him all evening, though it had occurred to him. What Dick had told him in the limo — that the driver recognized her, that she was known to her son, known to Mikey, to Su’ad. None of it nagging at him or ruffling his feathers. Though he was as conscious of it as of her ash-blond hair, conscious of it as of that elemental red nightgown, the soft silk or satin lovestuff that might have passed for her skin. That’s how far gone. To give you an idea.