Till You Hear From Me: A Novel

by Pearl Cleage

  When I called her last week, she was struggling to keep on her two remaining staffers, so even if she had wanted to rehire me, there was no money to make it happen. I wasn’t in panic mode yet. I’ve always been careful not to pile up a lot of debt and I’d had a couple of interviews that seemed promising, but everybody was scrambling to meet existing payroll and they couldn’t commit right now. All I could do was wait and hope to pick up a little freelancing here and there to see me through.

  The other problem was, neither job was even remotely connected to the world I’d been moving around in for the last eighteen months or so and I wasn’t ready to give it all up and go back to trying to change the world by inches. I didn’t believe my political life was over because I had helped elect one amazing president. I knew there was more work I wanted to do and more work he needed me to do, even if I wasn’t going to be able to do it sitting at his right hand. Sure, my feelings were hurt. My ego was a little bruised, but I’m a big girl. I’ll get over it.

  This might not be a bad time to get out of town for a minute, all things considered. In D.C., the first question anybody asked, no matter where they saw you—restaurant, grocery store, health club—was Where are you working now? I tried to stick with a mysterious smile and that old line about being “between engagements,” but everybody knew I had worked my ass off in the campaign and it was no secret that I was hoping to get tapped for the White House. Realistically, I know that the inauguration was only two weeks ago and there are still spaces to be filled, but try explaining that to the person who’s just asked what you’ve been up to lately and it comes out sounding more desperate than devil-may-care. Any whiff of panic as the great jobs were picked off one by one was sure to be reported back to the community at large and would not improve my increasingly shaky place on the A-list. Making myself scarce for a few weeks might be the best move I could make.

  The Cinderella clock on the nightstand said it was only twelve o’clock. Services on first Sunday are always longer because of Communion, and this was the first Sunday in Black History Month, so it was safe to assume that the Rev probably wouldn’t be home until after one thirty, which left just enough time for a sweet little catnap. I kicked off my shoes and jumped in the bed like I used to when the Rev would listen to my prayers every night before he tucked me in, and even though he wasn’t there to hear me, old habits are hard to break. So I snuggled down under that pink chenille bedspread, closed my eyes, and spoke a few words I know as well as I know my own name:

  Now I lay me down to sleep,

  I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

  If I should die before I wake,

  I pray the Lord my soul to take.

  SIX

  The Race Card

  THE FIRST THING WES CLOCKED WHEN TONI TAPPED ON THE DOOR and ushered two men into his office was that they were both white. That gave Wes the answer to the one question he needed to ask, but couldn’t: How many African Americans did they have moving around at this level? If they already had a brother, Wes knew, he’d be here. Right-wing Republican white folks love to bring one of their own in-house brothers to meetings like this. Takes away any opportunity for the other black person to play the race card. That didn’t matter to Wes. He was holding all the cards he needed.

  Besides, to Wes’s mind, any additional African American presence just increased the risk of this unholy alliance becoming known to the black folks whose job it is to holler about such things, as well as to the Obama people who had eyes in the backs of their heads and a 110 percent approval rating in Black America. Wes had no interest in being identified by a guilt-ridden coconspirator, suddenly stricken with a bout of racial solidarity and desperate to be invited back to the big party in progress at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Being the only dark face in this particular room suited him just fine, thank you.

  Wes came around his desk quickly, hand outstretched, his smile of welcome untainted by even the slightest hint of obsequiousness. He exuded the same calm confidence that the new president seemed to exemplify so effortlessly, and just that quickly, Stan Bridges, who was meeting Wes for the first time, felt himself relax. Maybe everything Oscar had said about this guy was true, he thought. Stan sure hoped so.

  Oscar Thames (just like the river, he said whenever he introduced himself), had recruited Wes during the campaign and he greeted him now as a friend.

  “Good to see you, buddy!”

  “Welcome,” Wes said, as the two shook hands. “How was your flight?” He knew they had flown in from Houston on a private jet a few hours ago.

  “Not bad,” Oscar said. “Let me introduce you to Stan Bridges. Stan, Wes.”

  “Welcome,” Wes said again, shaking Stan’s hand firmly.

  That’s one point in this guy’s favor, Stan thought. He didn’t do that macho hand-crushing shit some of the black guys tried to pull. It always made him mad. If you’re such a big dick badass, he’d think, why don’t you run the world instead of standing here squeezing my hand like it means something.

  “Good to be here.”

  Stan and Oscar took seats on opposite ends of the couch, positioned to give visitors the best view of Wes’s little piece of the New York skyline. Wes took a chair that allowed him the best view of his visitors. Oscar looked about the same; tall, thin, unassuming. With his pasty skin, washed-out brown hair, perpetually wrinkled suit, and thick glasses, he could have been an absentminded professor. But looks can be deceiving. Oscar was anything but absentminded. At forty-two years old, he was well respected for finding creative ways to throw the opposition off its game. He was the one who concocted the story line about the big, black Obama supporter who mugged an innocent McCain/Palin voter at an ATM and carved the candidate’s initials in her cheek. Of course, it had been exposed as a cruel exploitation of an already troubled girl, but for at least one whole news cycle, the words “young white woman,” “black mugger,” and “Barack Obama” were being uttered in the same sentence, and that was always a plus.

  Stan was about fifty, blond, and permanently ruddy from hours spent at the helm of his beloved sailboat, with watery blue eyes and a mouth that seemed disinclined to arrange itself in more than the most perfunctory smile. His clothes were expensive and tasteful, but he wore them without any hint of personal style. From his oxblood wing tips, to his three-striped tie and starched white shirt, he was the very model of an old-money, East Coast WASP. Oscar had told him Stan had a son with an undistinguished academic record applying to Exeter and implied that he might welcome a reference from a well-respected alum, which Wes most certainly was. Wes wondered if Stan, wrapped tightly in the last shreds of white privilege, would be able to humble himself enough to ask for it.

  “We appreciate your making time to see us on this Sunday morning,” Stan said, making an effort to smile.

  “Oscar and I are used to working irregular hours,” Wes said, watching approvingly as Toni took a seat behind him in a smaller chair. She was wearing a dark suit, a white silk blouse, and her pumps from the other night. Perfect. Oscar had specified no computers, so she would be making any notes on a yellow legal pad. Their eyes met briefly, but neither one tried to telegraph anything personal. Pussy was pussy. This was business.

  “Coffee?” Wes said, knowing Toni would already have asked.

  “I’m good,” Oscar said. “Stan?”

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” Stan said. “I’d prefer to get right to the business at hand, if that’s all right with everybody.”

  It was clearly a rhetorical question. Wes was there to listen and Oscar was there to facilitate. The ball was in Stan’s court. He was just being polite and they all knew it. Toni held her pen poised.

  “By all means,” Wes said, neither impressed nor intimidated. He had met a lot of white men like Stan. Rich, powerful, steadily projecting class and doing dirt. They were scrambling to figure out a place for themselves and their kind in an increasingly diverse America, and like all cornered animals, they were dangerous. Wes sat back, crossed his legs,
and waited.

  Stan leaned forward and frowned slightly. “It’s no secret that our last showing was a disaster. There’s no need to go over the whys and wherefores. That is yesterday’s news as far as I’m concerned, Wes. My focus is on the future, not the past.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, Stan,” Wes said. “How can I help you?”

  It was important at times like these to remind the Stans of the world who had asked who for assistance. Otherwise, they would start acting like they were doing you a favor when it was you who was saving their asses.

  Stan smiled his tight-lipped grimace. “I like a man who can get to the point.”

  Wes’s smile was wider, but no less insincere.

  “You come highly recommended,” Stan said, inclining his head slightly toward Oscar, who pushed his glasses up on his nose and nodded. “Your work with the Palin camp around positioning Sarah with a black female constituency based on the fact that she had that pregnant, unmarried daughter was brilliant. The fact that they couldn’t figure out how to use it more effectively is not your fault. None of us could have anticipated that level of sheer …”

  Stan stopped himself and Wes squashed the impulse to supply the word. Incompetence?

  “The point is you were thinking creatively and specifically and that’s what we’re going to need in Atlanta.”

  He turned toward Oscar. “Why don’t you give Wes the broad picture and then I’ll fill in the specifics.”

  Oscar ran a hand over his hair, which did nothing to tame it. “We identified four African American leaders who seem unaffected by the country’s current infatuation with all things Obama. Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright, Tavis Smiley, and Horace Dunbar.” Oscar ticked them off on his fingers like a hostess counting her dinner guests. “Jesse was not considered a good potential partner in our upcoming efforts because he can’t be counted on not to have a change of heart and switch sides at the last minute. Jeremiah Wright has so much light on him already, any attempt to involve him in something where discretion is required is immediately doomed, and Tavis Smiley is impossible to predict and therefore to control, which brings us to Reverend Dunbar. Well known, well respected, mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. He’s ripe for a change in party affiliation and I don’t have to tell you what a PR bonanza that would be for us. Not to mention access to the list of those hundred thousand new voters he put on the rolls in time for November fourth.”

  “Needless to say, those votes are overwhelmingly Democratic,” Stan said, like the word itself left a bad taste in his mouth. “And if I may speak frankly, neutralizing his efforts is going to be the cornerstone of our first Georgia initiative.”

  Now we’re getting to it, Wes thought. “Define ‘neutralize.’”

  Stan passed the question off to Oscar with a glance. “We want to purge the Georgia voter rolls of as many of those new Democratic voters as we can,” Oscar said carefully. “Since these churches all did their registration drives at the same time, we can easily isolate and remove them if we can get a crack at that list.”

  “Go on.”

  “We’ve got somebody on the inside of the elections office, but we need the membership lists from those churches. There are at least ten of them in the network, as best we can tell, but there doesn’t seem to be a master list anywhere.”

  Old-school, Wes thought. “How can I help?”

  Stan was pleased at Wes’s directness. This was going to work out just fine. He’d deliver the money they had picked up in Texas and be on a plane back to Boston by noon. Piece of cake.

  “First thing we need is a solid assessment of what we’re dealing with,” Stan said. “It could be a hundred thousand names, but it could be twenty-five thousand. Who really knows?”

  Oscar nodded. “As soon as we get the lists, we’ll compile a master list and shoot the whole thing over to our guy in elections. The ones we can purge on technicalities, we will. The ones we can’t, we’ll target with misinformation. You know, bogus changes in polling places, threats to put folks in jail for back child support—the usual.”

  He smiled at Wes. They both knew how to do this kind of work and they both knew the other one was good at it.

  “At the same time, we’ll begin setting up speaking engagements for Reverend Dunbar in front of audiences who will respond positively to criticism of the White House agenda. With this guy’s movement credentials, press coverage is a given.”

  Wes got up and walked over to the window. It was always good to appear to consider the full ramifications of the proposed trickery. He folded his arms and gazed down at the people in the street below; the very picture of a man in the midst of careful internal deliberations.

  “Can you help us out, Wes?” Oscar prompted him gently.

  Before he could answer, Stan spoke up quickly. “There is one more thing.”

  Wes turned back to the two men and smiled as if pleased to be released from his reverie.

  “There’s always one more thing,” he said.

  “We’ve got a bit of time pressure. Our guy down there in elections is retiring at the end of April. That gives us just three months to work with. Is it doable?”

  “Is there support for it at the appropriate level?”

  “Top priority down the line,” Stan said. “Whatever resources you need are already in place.”

  Wes walked back to his chair and sat down, aware that Stan’s watery eyes were following his every move closely. “I’ll need to go down and make an initial assessment before I can suggest an approach that makes sense,” he said.

  Stan nodded. “Of course.”

  “But I can practically guarantee that we can work within your timetable.”

  Stan’s face almost managed a real smile. “That’s good to hear, but what makes you so optimistic?”

  Wait for it, Wes thought. Make him wait for it.

  “Because, gentlemen,” he said, leaning back in his lovely leather chair. “Reverend Dunbar is my father’s best friend. I grew up in his church.”

  Oscar’s mouth dropped open with surprise and Stan’s face flushed ever redder with surprise or delight, Wes couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. At that moment, Wes was golden.

  “Well, then,” Stan said, reaching in his pocket for a thick white envelope and placing it on Wes’s desk without comment. “I don’t mean to rush things, but we’ve got a plane going to Atlanta at midnight, don’t we, Oscar?”

  Oscar nodded. “Twelve fifteen.”

  “Can you be on it?”

  Wes leaned over, picked up the envelope without comment, and slid it into the breast pocket of his dark blue suit. “Have your car pick me up here at ten thirty.”

  “Done.”

  Stan stood up then. “Oscar will continue to be our point man on this. If we need to talk, Oscar can set it up within twenty-four hours.”

  “He’s always got my numbers,” Wes said, turning to Toni. “Will you show our guests out, Miss Cassidy?”

  Toni stood up gracefully. “Of course. Gentlemen?”

  Oscar chuckled. “Bless you, young lady. I admire your boss’s security provisions, but we would never have found our way back to the parking deck alone.”

  Toni offered him her dimpled smile and followed him out the door. Stan and Wes were a few steps behind.

  “Two thousand and eight was tough,” Stan said. “I don’t intend to let anything like that happen again. I’m a man who likes to win.”

  “That makes us even,” Wes said. “I’m a man who hates to lose.”

  Stan slowed, stopped, looked at Wes, and blinked those watery eyes almost like he was on the verge of tears. Here we go, Wes thought.

  “Oscar tells me you’re an Exeter man.”

  “I’m an Exonian to my soul. Class of 1990.”

  “Did you have a positive experience there?”

  “Some of the best years of my life,” Wes said. “I hear your son is interested.”

  Stan shot another quick glance at Wes, trying to read his
tone. If he knew Junior was interested, did he also know the kid’s chances of being admitted on his own merit were slim and none?

  “Yes,” he said carefully, hating the position in which his over-indulged son had placed him. “We’ve done all the paperwork and sent in references from some of his favorite teachers …”

  Of whom I’m sure there are many, Wes thought.

  “I thought we were done with all that, then the admissions office told my wife it might strengthen his application if he had a reference from a distinguished alum.”

  This was Wes’s cue to offer to write the letter, make the call, put his reputation on the line for a kid he’d never met who was probably a spoiled little fuckup, but Wes couldn’t resist making Stan squirm just a little bit longer.

  “I’ve heard they do take those things into consideration.”

  Stan looked pained. “So it seems.”

  Wes knew he could prolong Stan’s uncomfortable moment simply by asking the next logical question: How are Junior’s grades? But what was the point? It was a done deal. He was going to write a glowing recommendation and then whether the kid got in or not, Stan would owe him a favor for putting in a good word on behalf of his idiot son. Both men knew the only thing more valuable than a favor well done was a secret well kept. This had the potential to be both.

  “I’d be happy to write a letter for your son if you think it would help,” Wes said, touching Stan’s shoulder lightly.