“Nothing wrong with a little military precision.”
“Baloney. It’s not military; it’s what all those efficiency experts working for him learned in business school. ‘The governor will speak from 10:30 to 10:45.’ I hope he doesn’t start on Communism or inflation at 10:44.”
“It wouldn’t matter. We can deal with the big things quickly. It’s not like ‘the moon, the stars, and all the planets’ have fallen on us.” He mimicked Truman’s description of what taking over from FDR had felt like.
“Why don’t you imitate Dewey? They say he can strut sitting down.”
Before she knew it, and without letting go of the crepe paper, Peter was doing a dozen mazurka kicks, the polished shoes on his long curled-up legs kicking at her pile of paper flowers.
“Where on earth did you learn to do that?”
“At a party in London,” he answered, resuming a seated position and cutting off another foot of crepe paper. He nodded modestly to Mrs. Bruce, who had taken awestruck notice of the ten-second performance.
“And speaking of foreign parts,” Anne said, “where exactly have you been? I mean for a whole chunk of the past month. Carol guessed Palm Springs. Golfing with your father. Do you know Harold’s going to fire you at this rate?”
“No, he’s not. He’s going to keep me around for two more years until I win the House seat here and head for Washington. And I wasn’t in Palm Springs. I was in Reno.”
“Divorcing some successor to the secretary from Lansing? Boy, that didn’t last long.”
“No, I was with my mother. Seeing her through her divorce from my father.”
She stopped tufting to look at him. “You’re not joking.” Picking up the stapler, she added, “I’m truly surprised.”
“So was I. It all had to do with a picture in a drawer.”
“Explain.”
“I can’t.”
He really couldn’t. The look on his face told her he couldn’t stand to.
He saw that she was reading him. “It’s not a big deal. It’s surprising they lasted as long as they did. It was practically an arranged marriage; their fathers were two minor midwestern maharajahs who exchanged them thirty years ago.”
She didn’t know what to say. “Well, I guess even India is independent now.”
“And will be the worse off for it. They’re not a nation; they’re the idea of a nation. And don’t go giving me that Eleanor look.”
“What Eleanor look?”
“You know. The sorrowful bucktoothed pout.”
“I don’t have buck teeth.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“On Saturday, when you’re near the oxygen, I’ll recite the Four Freedoms along with Harry’s platform.”
All right, enough of this. “I hear you’re getting married. Pretty sudden, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” she said, keeping her eyes on the staple gun. “I would think you’d approve. You certainly can’t say it’s ‘arranged.’ ”
“Sure it is.”
“What?” She looked at him.
“He’s a wonderful fellow, I’m sure, but—”
“Stop right there.”
“But he’s an idea. At least to you he is. He’s like this place, where you’ve come to write your book. You went in search of something you didn’t know. You think embracing the unfamiliar is the test of imagination. You probably think it’s the test of love.”
“Look who’s talking! Everyone knows how you came here. You picked Owosso off a map at the state party headquarters!”
“It’s different. I come here, but then I leave. I go on adventuring. In fact, I’m the only person within a hundred yards of you who’s likely to fall on his face in the next ten years.”
“Peter, I’m going to vote for you on November second. And you’re going to wish me congratulations. Now.”
“Have I ever told you remind me of my great-uncle Waldo?”
AS SHE RUFFLED CREPE PAPER INTO SNOW FOR THE BOBSLED scene, Margaret kept up a more or less steady stream of conversation with her girlfriends. There was something soothing about the repetitive motions, “like making baskets in the state asylum,” she joked. Two floats away she could see Mary Ann Morton, the oldest of the girls who’d hid the German prisoner, the ringleader, really. She was helping to letter the University of Michigan sign on the college-days scene, while both of her children toddled from one construction to another. Her husband worked at Woodard’s, and Margaret supposed he was home tonight, falling asleep in front of the radio.
She felt peaceful enough here, but Owosso—even this frilly, toy version of it—was no longer magical, not the way it had been behind the casket factory in July. Truth be told, there were lots of places just like Kansas, or home. Her life was fine. School went effortlessly; next marking period she could expect an A from even Mrs. Hopkins. On Friday nights she went out in a group, and on Saturdays she and Billy went to the movies, necking incrementally, though she kept the week-to-week differential barely perceptible. She certainly didn’t dislike it, but she had no trouble keeping herself in line. The other night she had even complimented her mother, who was now thirty yards away helping the Jaycees set up a First Aid van. Thanks to Mrs. Harold Feller the reception committee had already found all 150 beds needed for Saturday night’s stayovers. You couldn’t say she wasn’t resourceful.
Margaret waved to Anne Macmurray. How much less exotic she seemed these days, compared to the end of June. She, too, was now a part of home. There was a rumor she’d gotten engaged to Jack Riley.
Where was Billy? He ought to be back from the Buick showroom, where he’d gone to get approval for two last consignments of Flint-made Dewey pennants. He’d be paying three of their classmates to help sell them Saturday night; he’d already contracted out his Polaroid-camera job to a sophomore.
At last Margaret noticed him making his way through the whole busy open-air workshop, coming toward her, actually slapping a couple of backs and giving little pep talks as he went, like a factory foreman or Mr. Jackson.
“Boy, everybody’s here!” he cried. “How come you’re not over with the band?”
“He let us go if we had our parts down. It’s not like I haven’t been playing flute since I was ten.”
“Half the teachers are here tonight, even the ones who live outside town.” He looked around. “Have you seen Mr. Sherwood?”
She wished he wouldn’t bring this up. It showed a guilty conscience, which Margaret supposed wasn’t a bad thing for anyone to have, but the subject stirred memories of everything that had happened in August. “I doubt he’s here. I would have seen him talking to Anne.”
For a second Billy looked sad. “Well, you can’t expect everyone to show.” If only Frank Sherwood would get back into the swing of things, or get into it for the first time, Billy could make up for what he’d done. According to Dale Carnegie, three-quarters of the people you met were starving for sympathy. If Billy could just spend a half hour with Mr. Sherwood, asking him a lot of questions about himself, then accounts might be settled.
“Your father was looking for you,” said Margaret.
Billy glanced around. “He’s still trying to force a couple of college applications on me. It’s like he’s serving a subpoena.”
“Tell him you’ll go if he gets you a car.” They didn’t even have her father’s tonight. They’d be getting a ride back with her mother, but only as far as downtown, where a group from Christ Episcopal would be meeting in a corner of the Ross showroom to make plans for Dewey’s appearance at the ten o’clock service Sunday morning. It would be another mob scene, only twelve hours after the one before.
“Are you about ready?” It was Carol Feller calling to the two of them.
“I think so,” answered Margaret, who noticed that Anne Macmurray had joined her mother. Both of them were approaching the bobsled.
“Good,” said Carol. “That way Anne can come with us. She won’t have to call poor Jack and wake him up. Billy, did your f
ather find you?”
“Nope,” he said, and the three females laughed. Margaret thought that within another month he would give in and apply. It would make sense, of course, though it would put an end to the only unconventional part of Billy that existed.
As the car drove along Main Street, he asked Anne if she had been in a sorority at Ann Arbor. So far fraternities were the only aspect of the college idea to which he’d warmed up: they struck him as a good place to make connections, like the golf course, where you could do what the books called “client development.” He caddied a couple of times a month to learn the social rules of the game.
“Just the literary society,” said Anne. “You wouldn’t believe how unfashionable. About half of us have unwashed hair in the yearbook picture.”
From the back seat Margaret noticed that Anne’s own hair, freshly washed and glossy, was cut shorter, more like everyone else’s, than at the beginning of the summer.
Near the spot where the road crossed the river, Carol pointed northward toward Curwood Castle. “Have they started the renovations?”
“I don’t think so,” said Anne. “Leo Abner said the school board’s fallen behind on its part of the agreement, maybe with all the commotion about the Walk and the parade.”
“Well, someone’s started on it,” said Carol. There was a single light shining inside one of the faux-Norman turrets.
ON THURSDAY NIGHT THE ROSS BUICK SHOWROOM REVERBERATED with applause for Lawrence Banner, head of the decorations committee. Everyone agreed that downtown was looking wonderful; with no rain in sight the bunting would still be fluffy on Saturday. The Dewey Club’s president clarified some elements of the program—Mayor Crawford would speak, but Senator Vandenberg would introduce Dewey, who would review the parade at Willman, not downtown. “Does everybody have that straight? Good. Then I’ll tell you the best news of the week. The latest polling figures give Governor Dewey a full eight-point lead nationwide.” Routine applause preceded a detailed rundown of the thirty-car chain that would follow Dewey to the field.
Anne looked at Peter and he looked back, with what she decided was the appropriate expression of apology. It was safe to go over to him, before everyone pulled out for the evening’s work at the sugar factory. In fact, it was only prudent that they speak, to keep that little conversation last night from being a big thing.
“Here,” he said, handing her a pamphlet for his opponent in the state-senate race. “You’re entitled to change your mind. You’ll see that Harvey P. Angell speaks your language.” The back page had highlights from the Democratic platform.
“Hmm,” she said. “It is a hard choice, isn’t it?”
“Or you could think of it this way. Voting for me will increase my margin and propel me out of town faster. If I only squeak through, they may not nominate me for Congress until ’52.”
She handed him back the pamphlet and took one of his own from the handkerchief pocket of his suit.
“Who are these people on the back of ‘Peter Cox: Leadership for the Fifties,’ by Peter Cox? The ones you’re standing with.”
“My substitute famiy. A fifth-grade teacher and two kindergarteners from a school in Corunna. People who don’t bother reading the caption will think they’re the wife and kiddies.”
She slipped it into her purse. “Have you got any brothers and sisters, Peter? I don’t think you’ve ever told me.”
“No.”
“A mixed blessing.”
“How so?”
“Well, the Macmurray boys have their moments, but most of the time they leave a lot to be desired. God, it’s so different with Jack’s family.” She wanted to tell him the story of the house, about Jack’s casual inheritance of it, but decided not to.
“So,” said Peter, indicating the bustle in the showroom with his outstretched arm. “Are you going to put all of this into your book?”
“If my book weren’t stopped dead already, it would stop in 1911. At least that’s the plan.”
“Let’s see,” he said, “1911. What was going on? Teddy Roosevelt starting to get disillusioned with Taft. Thinking he ought to have run for a third term after all. What else? Maybe—”
“There was a tornado here, Peter. It wrecked a whole patch of the town. You’d better bone up on your local history before you debate Harvey P. Angell again. Someone may catch you.”
FOUR HOURS LATER PETER WATCHED THE FIRST REAL WINDS of fall push the clouds over Horace Sinclair’s gabled house. It was after eleven, not a light was on, and the whole place had a Charles Addams feel, heightened by some harpsichord music from—where was it coming from? The wind spun the notes around him so trickily that, just inside Horace’s hedged property, he couldn’t tell. It had to be another house, but which? One all the way around the corner on Hickory?
In fact, the music was coming from Horace’s house, or more precisely, the garage that had never housed a car. A keener look from Peter revealed its door was open just a crack; music—and light—were leaking through. He approached, taking care not to be heard over the spangles of sound, which he now realized were more heavenly than creepy.
The old man, his back toward Peter, was lifting shovels from their holders in a rack, taking them up, one by one, and holding them over his head. He would then mime the movements of digging. Before Peter could decide whether Horace was testing their utility or practicing an eccentric form of calisthenics, his attention was diverted to the source of the melody, something between a music box and a Victrola. A brass plate with holes in it revolved on a turntable; the thing seemed to work on the same principle as a player piano. The machine moved quickly; its enchanting metallic waltz would be over in a minute.
“What’s it called?”
The old man wheeled around. “Damn near scared me to death!” His face blazed with guilt.
“You act as if it’s not your own garage.”
“It certainly isn’t yours!” Horace thundered.
“Come on, Colonel, what is that?”
“That’s my Reginaphone,” said Horace, putting down a shovel and recovering his breath. He invited Peter to come closer, to look at the patent number, from 1893. “It belonged to Mrs. Sinclair when she was a young woman.”
“Why isn’t it in the house?”
“She put it out here years ago. She preferred the radio.”
Peter sat down on the workbench. “Heard anything more from, what’s your friend’s name?”
“Wright George. He is not coming.” Horace spoke the last three syllables with disdainful emphasis, then regarded the lone pitchfork hanging with the shovels. He was one man, trying to figure out how to do the work of two. He turned back to Peter and asked, “Why aren’t you getting ready for this carnival?”
“I’ve already been down there tonight. It’s late, you know, Colonel.”
“I know.”
At the far end of the workbench Peter noticed a buckram box, which the last time he was here had been on the dining-room table.
“I’ll be surprised,” said Horace, “if any self-respecting railroad man agrees to bring the precious candidate to town Saturday night. Not after that incident wherever it was in Illinois, the town with that silly French name. DeTrop? Toot sweet?”
“Beaucoup,” corrected Peter. “As in merci beaucoup.”
“Mercy is in short supply. It’s never beaucoup.” Horace paused before barking: “Why do you never announce your purpose in coming here?”
Peter smiled. “I’ve come to talk about Sunday morning.”
“You mean the ten o’clock service.”
“That’s right. I always keep my part of a bargain. I know a reporter from the Sun-Times who’ll be there. I’ve arranged to have him ask Dewey a question about the Walk—in such a way he’ll almost have to discourage it.”
“I’ve given up on the Dewey Walk,” said Horace. “Given up on any chance it won’t be built.”
“Come on, Colonel. You’ve earned this last try. You went and talked to Mrs. Dewey, afte
r all. And it seems to have worked. The governor is coming.”
“Your Chicago friend can do whatever he likes. I’m proceeding as if Mr. Jackson’s Walk is going up.” He forced himself not to look at the shovels.
“Proceeding?” asked Peter.
“Resigning myself.”
“Colonel, why do people put things out in garages?” Peter touched a pair of crates beneath the Reginaphone. “I mean, if you want to get rid of things, why not throw them clear away?”
“You can’t get rid of the past, Mr. Cox. The past is not a matter of time. It’s a place. Somewhere just out of reach.”
“You sound like H. G. Wells.”
“No, I don’t, because I know no machine will take you to it. It’s right here, rearranged, hiding like the face drawn into a tree in one of those children’s puzzles. People who appreciate the past work harder to see it. They know it’s there. They can sometimes see the beard, or the eyes, or the nose. But never the whole thing.” He looked at the box. “The world is divided into two kinds of people, Mr. Cox. Those who, when they pass a house, wonder who lives there, and those who, when they pass it, wonder who used to live there. I belong to the second group, but no matter which anyone belongs to, he still runs out of time. I’ve run out of time.”
“So have I,” said Peter.
Horace snorted.
“Really, Colonel, I have. There are only two days left in my campaign, and I’m further behind than when I started.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not senile.” Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley. “Election Day is November second, and you’re exactly the sort of man we’ll be electing from now on.”
“Not that campaign, Colonel. Another one.”
“Ah,” said Horace, getting a general idea and sounding almost apologetic. For a moment, ten years dropped off him. “Who is she?” he asked, thinking it had to be somebody new.
“Anne Macmurray.”
All at once Horace could feel himself angrier than ever before at Peter Cox. He struggled to measure his tones. “She is a lovely girl. Very special. And it’s past time you gave up on her. She is going to marry Riley’s boy. I heard all about it from Mrs. Goldstone. Mr. Cox, he is good enough for her.”
Dewey Defeats Truman Page 23
