Always (34 page)

“Why are you so flustered this morning? Just call the campaign office and tell Mariah or Etta you'll be a few minutes late.”

“Because I gave them my word!” I snapped back, and then as I stood in front of the closet, I caught myself. I was all excited because of the chance I might get to see Henry. And here I was hoping he would see me wearing green and that I would take his breath away.
I'm pathetic
. But as soon as the thought crystalized in my mind, it faded as I found the cream-colored accessories to go with the outfit.

I put my comb, bobby pins, and brush in my purse with my compact and lipstick and slid my feet into my flats. When I turned around I was startled by Brandon standing behind me. “What are you doing?” I asked, walking around him to get my jewelry. “You almost scared me to—”

“What's up with you, Cheryl? We'd planned to spend this day together, and now you running around here like a chicken with its head cut off. And since when you dress like this to go volunteering?”

I ignored him.

“Is it because you might get to see Davis?”

I walked out of the room and down the hallway toward the garage door in the kitchen.

“Cheryl!” he yelled.

I spun around, and said, “What's my problem? What's
your
problem? For once I am doing something I enjoy, and you make a big deal out of it. You should grow up! And stop acting like an overgrown child. I told you I gave her my word, and I'm sorry, that means something to me. Now, if you must know, I am dressed up today because
USA Today
will be in the headquarters taking photos, and Mariah asked us to all look presentable. Satisfied?” I said with my hand on my hip. “Damn!”

Brandon stood speechless. And then he walked toward me with an apology in his eyes, but I just nodded my head
as if I were disgusted, picked up my pager, put my purse under my arm, and stormed through the door.

As I drove out of our subdivision, my breathing was labored. I was conflicted as to how I truly felt. Once I assumed that time and maturation would end the longing. Then I thought if I saw for myself just how much he cared for his wife, I could leave the thought of him behind. Now I was working in his campaign headquarters to bring a sense of closure to what we had had, to break the bond he held on me. But it seemed everything I did to free myself only drew me closer.

One of the
AM
talk radio stations changed its format after Henry announced his run for the presidency. They advertised as “The only station in America where you can get all Davis, nothing but Davis, twenty-four hours a Davis,” and my radio was set to pick up all the news. By this time Henry was holding off the other Democrats for the nomination. The only one who had a chance of defeating him was the senator from California, Chuck Clayburn. It seemed that Henry and Senator Clayburn were both on the same side of most issues, and the California senator could not point out any good reason why Democrats should nominate him to run in the general election. So he started to get personal in his campaign. When all else failed, he would talk about Henry's business ventures or the snafu Henry had made years earlier on
Meet the Press
. Once he went so low as to question why Leslie had made a major speech regarding Henry's foreign policy agenda. After he made that comment, his polling numbers moved up a little, and so he would mention Leslie in nearly every speech. The country never approved of Leslie in polls. She was intelligent, articulate, and unafraid to take positions that were less than popular. So as I was driving that day, I heard the reporter ask, “Senator Davis, are you offended that Senator Clayburn has begun to attack your wife in the last couple of weeks?”

“No,” Henry replied. “I am not offended. I think that when you run for public office, many people want to know
all the facts. But will I attack his wife? No, I will not. But you know”—and then I heard a smile in Henry's voice—“sometimes it seems as if Senator Clayburn has given up running for president and has decided to run for first lady.” I burst out laughing.

When I arrived at campaign headquarters, which was dubbed the “Southern War Room,” the activity was bustling. My favorite radio station was heard from the speakers in the ceiling, and everyone moved with a little extra vigor due to the big rally later that night. The Davis campaign had initially rented a vacant store, but as Henry's numbers improved, they welcomed more and more volunteers wanting to be a part of history, so they moved the campaign across town to a building that was four times larger. The walls were plastered with Davis/Gallagher posters and assorted bumper stickers. There were mayonnaise jars all around filled with sprinkles, because each time Henry scored a major point on the radio or other positive Davis news came over the air, the inside joke was “Can I get a sprinkle for that one?”

There were college kids all around with red, blue, and purple hair stuffing envelopes and making phone calls for donations. Some of the kids had been pierced in places I didn't realize could be pierced, and many of them wore red shirts with either “Henry's Kids” or “Leslie's Kids” on the back of them.

The Southern War Room manager was an overweight woman named Mariah who had long black hair and who I never, as long as I worked there, saw sit down. As soon as she walked through the door, she would kick her shoes into a corner and march around the room talking to the people in charge of each department. The lieutenant who ran our department was Etta, a twenty-something former Gonzaga coed who dropped out to help in the campaign.

I worked in the correspondence room. Our job was to go through all the mail and see if a donation was included. We would then return the letter with a picture of Henry and one of twenty form letters with Henry's signature rubber stamped at the bottom. What amazed me was the type of
letters he would get. Yes, there were a few which used the “N” word as if it were the only noun they knew, but most of the people seemed to adore him. So many hoped that he could in fact change the world. And there were letters that came with the most popular gift, which was teddy bears. They came from all over the world, in all shapes and colors. He also received his fair share of other little extras, such as panties. Some clean . . . others less then new. There were also a number of nude photos, and when Henry said he supported gays in the military, several au naturel male photos came in with notes attached. One of these read: “I have a completely open chamber, Mr. Senator. How about you?”

As I put my purse in an open cubicle, Etta ran in with a stack of papers and plopped them down on the oak conference table, which had everything from a TV and fax machine to a laptop and a cooler on top of it. Etta's close-cropped hair was dyed blond and she had a tattoo of her infant son on one C-cup breast. “Did you hear the news?”

“You mean about Clayburn running for first lady? Yeah, that was—”

“Naw, naw, he made that comment yesterday. Henry's in town, and Mariah just told me he called and said he'll be dropping by since this will be the last weekend he will be in town for a couple of months.” She looked me up and down, and said, “Good thing you dressed. I wanted to go home and change, but Mariah is guarding the door, saying we have too much work to get done.”

Although I told Brandon I was only dressing for
USA Today
, in my heart I knew he would come by. We still had a way of communicating telepathically after all those years. Lieutenant Etta put her headphones back on as she pulled out a box of mail and gave it to me and a guy she dated named Frank.

I started to open letters and scan each one to see what kind of form letter to send. If they asked where he would be in the next few weeks, they got form letter five. If the writer was a bimbo who included a lock of hair, a nude photo, or a phone number, it was form letter twelve. A request for a position paper received a number one letter.
But then there were always some that fell outside of the norm.

One was from a kid who started by saying how he prayed for Henry each night and knew God would answer his prayers. I noticed that taped to the back of the letter was a rolled-up five-dollar bill. As I took the money off and put it with the checks we'd received, I continued to read.

The rest of the letter spoke of his hobbies and what he wanted to be if he survived. And that was when it hit home for me why it was so vitally important for this man to be elected president. So many people were hurting in so many ways, and I felt the country needed Henry to begin the process of healing. I looked for Etta and Frank, but neither of them was in the room, so I retrieved the five-dollar bill, retaped it to the letter, and put it in my purse. I would write a letter to him that night and have Etta rubber-stamp Henry's signature on it. And I decided that for the rest of the campaign I would try to block Henry out of the picture and focus my energies totally on the election of Senator Henry Louis Davis the Second.

“Turn to seven! Turn to channel seven!” yelled someone running down the corridor. You could almost hear the TVs in the offices turn simultaneously. As Frank ran in the room to turn on our television, we saw the well-tanned face of
Senator Clayburn. All I heard him say was, “After talking to my wife, friends, and staff, we feel the time is now to—” The next thing I knew, the office was having a massive confetti moment. It was rumored for weeks that his campaign had run out of money, but he was gaining momentum, so this move was unexpected.

As Etta and Frank hugged, I picked up the phone and called home.

“Hello?”

“Brandon, I just wanted to—”

“Yeah, I'm watching NBS now,” he said in a somber tone. “I can't believe he dropped out.”

“No, I'm not talking about that,” I said as I put the tip of my thumb in my ear so I could hear. “I just wanted to apologize for this morning. I'm only functioning on a couple of hours of sleep, but that's no excuse. Sorry.”

“Thanks, baby. Listen, if you like, I can bring you something to eat.”

“That's okay. Domino's and Pizza Hut handle that, and a couple of soul-food restaurants will be bringing some oxtails and yellow rice down later on. You know how I am about some soul food.”

“Umm. Well . . . I'm just sitting here doing nothing. Would you like me to—”

“One second,” I said, cutting him off before he could finish the sentence. Thinking fast, I said, loud enough for him to hear me, “I'll be right there, Mariah,” and then winked at Etta, who was still cradled in Frank's arms. “Baby, can I call you back later? I really gotta go!”

“Okay, but—”

“Thanks, love you, ‘bye!”

As I hung up the phone, I felt bad, but in the event Henry did come down to the office, dealing with Brandon's feelings was not something I could handle.

After I finished an early lunch at my desk, Mariah peeked her head into the office. “Cheryl? Your name Cheryl Allan, right?”

“Yes?”

“Are you going to be able to help us out on Monday?”

“I'll be on call, just like today, but more than likely I can help out. Why?”

“Would you mind picking up Jesse Jackson Jr. and Congressman Harold Ford from the airport?”

“Sure.”

“Great.” And then she wobbled down the hallway, barking orders to another volunteer. As she walked away I could not believe that a year ago I didn't even know who my congressman was. Now I was transporting some of the most powerful men in the country around in my car. As my pager went off, I heard someone say in another room, “Say, what time will he and Leslie be here?”

“About five,” Marcus, who never noticed me, said. “They're at his office now and will make a few stops before heading our way.”

As I picked up the phone to call the hospital, I looked at my watch. I had two hours before Henry's arrival.

“Front desk,” the husky voice of Brett Shuttlesworth blurted.

“Brett, I just got paged.”

“Need you to come in. Alice isn't feeling well.”

“So?” I said, trying to think of any way to stall or delay her. “Have you called—”

“Everybody, Cheryl. I've called everyone and I'm off in a half hour and I'm not pulling another double.”

I held the phone without saying anything when another cheer went up in the background.

“You down at the headquarters?”

“Yeah,” I said, hoping she would show some sympathy.

Then I heard her sigh. “Let me see if Tilton can come in. But I can't promise you anything.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I really appreciate this.”

As I hung up the phone I wanted to turn the pager off in the event Tilton could not fill in, but I returned it securely under the waistband of my skirt so I could feel the vibration and returned to opening the senator's mail.

Lieutenant Etta marched in and pulled up a chair to watch television. I turned around to see what was on and saw
Leslie's face. “Talk about a lucky woman,” I heard Etta say to no one in particular. “I've often wondered how it would be to have a man like that. Don't get me wrong, Frank's my sweetie but, I mean, the first time I heard him speak was on my campus,” she said, and narrowed her eyes as she reminisced. “I knew I had to do whatever it took to get him elected. My mom and dad had Kennedy. They had Bobby and Martin. But who have we had since? How many of them were true heroes? Nixon? Carter? Bush? We don't even remember them on a first-name basis. Now we got Henry. Unlike that narcissistic Stanton or chauvinist Governor Baldwin, Henry cares. Not like he's doing it because of personal gain or ego. His plans are so original and he seems to want to do this because he would like to leave the world a much better place than when he first encountered it.” And then she looked at me and said, “Don't you agree?”