Authors: John M. Green
To Isabel, it vaguely sounded like two people talking… Ed and… was it a woman? Yes, it was, but with the breeze picking up, she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She
moved onto the second clip, also Ed, but with more voices. Her eye caught a few flashes of green from the dome-shaped phone console on Ed’s desk. He was talking on speaker, that was clear,
yet the call couldn’t be private or confidential since Ed was turning towards Davey to wave happily at the camera. He’d even signed:
Hey son, what’s up?
Isabel packed up her sketchpad, pencils and glass and brought them inside, then booted up her laptop to view her shots on the larger screen.
As she scrolled through them, first hers, and later Davey’s, she leant back and smiled at Davey’s snaps—of Isabel and George, her with Ed, the three of them together, and Ed in
his office. It was such a shame that she couldn’t bring him this trip but she would next time, she promised herself. Again.
With the video clips, she toyed with the sound as she enjoyed how Ed’s shoulders never slouched, not even in private. But when his hand started rubbing across his buzz cut, a gesture he
made when he was nervous or excited, she started wondering who was he talking to? Not that she cared. Or that’s what she pretended. Maybe it was just Davey?
Eventually, after trying various sound settings, she succeeded.
“
You still there?
” It
was
a woman… a familiar voice, but not one Isabel placed immediately.
“
Davey’s just come in… with his new camera,
” said Ed.
“
I should give him some lessons
,” laughed the woman. Niki Abbott? Was it Niki?
“
Not with what you’d teach him!
” Ed sniggered.
“
Funny man. I know he can’t hear, but shouldn’t
…”
Isabel watched Ed wave his fingers at Davey and poke his pinkie up his nose playfully before turning, but unlike Davey, she wasn’t amused, and her spine was stiffer than Ed’s.
“
I’ve got my back to him
,” said Ed. And to me, too, Isabel noted. “
Where were we?
” he asked.
The woman continued, “
You were saying it’s two hours till she leaves.
”
She? For Isabel, this was developing a very uncomfortable edge.
“
I’m getting wet just thinking about this.
”
Wisely, Isabel placed her glass on the coffee table.
“
No dirty talk.
”
“
Ed, he’s deaf!
”
I’m getting wet?
Niki.
Niki Abbott and Ed?
“
I don’t care
,” Ed said. “
Our other call’s
…”
The clip cut Ed short, and Isabel slumped back into the sofa, taking one of the cushions and holding it to her chest.
Eventually she stood, a little shakily, and faltered over to the fire, placing her hand against the mantel to steady herself and let the heat sear her face dry, chalking her cheeks with two
streaks of salt. She felt suffocated and wanted to rip open her throat to let in more air. She had to breathe… to do something.
The bastard… the fucking bastard. Wait till she got home. But that wouldn’t be till tomorrow afternoon when the chopper came for her, and she had no means of calling it to come
sooner. Damn this sanctuary shit, she screamed to herself.
She sat back in front of her laptop, staring at it like it was her enemy. The gossip… the snide innuendo. All through the campaign, she had dismissed the barbs, parking them beside malice
or just plain jealousy. But here it was front and centre. True.
An image of Spencer Prentice wagging his manicured finger invaded her thoughts. He had been right, she knew that now. In his own genteel way, he’d always seen Ed as a scheming bastard who
was using her. And what had she done? She’d laughed it off.
She wasn’t chuckling now.
The acid of the betrayal was etching dark lines under her eyes and the scar on her neck bleached against the flush of red drowning her. Every one of her senses heightened. Her skin burned. The
mustiness in the shack returned, but this time it stank so she couldn’t stand it.
Had Ed loved her at all? Ever…? She slammed her fist on the arm of the sofa because plainly she had no idea.
Breathe deeply, she told herself.
Bésame
… Fuck that song! Why did it have to enter her head right now?
Isabel played the video clip again. And again. With her hand trembling, she shook a few more drops of Tabasco into her drink and swirled it with her finger. She forced down a slug of the fiery
liquid and then rested the glass, though well away from the table’s edge. Both her hands rose to steeple just below her nose and she gritted her teeth. An observer might think she was
praying, and in a way she was.
There had to be an innocent explanation… Maybe, she hoped, the second clip would give one.
She licked her finger and for several seconds it lingered, poised over the ‘play’ button but not quite ready. Pressing it could only lead to two outcomes, one good, the other
unbearable.
She gulped another hit of her drink.
Bésame
…
Bésame mucho
… That damn song, and her drunken mother… she couldn’t shake the tune out of her
mind. Maybe if she walked around?
As she gazed out of the window, the deepening colours left her cold, reminding her she actually used to hate that old shirt of George’s and how Annette got upset whenever he wore it. She
shivered a little, and turned back to the fire to see the untended flames were dying. Like her marriage. She bent over to pick up the poker but her gut wrenched and her throat gagged and, suddenly,
she threw up uncontrollably into the fireplace.
The fire sputtered… the embers dimmed to black-red… but as the steaming stinking liquid evaporated, they flared up more fiercely than before and the flames erupted afresh.
Isabel wiped her mouth against the back of her hand and turned back to the computer, and the remaining clip.
She pressed ‘play’.
I
SABEL NEEDED TO get down to Manifold, and it had to be tonight. Every hour mattered. Even tomorrow morning would be too late.
Why on earth had she come here with no phone… no fucking anything? She kicked herself. How ridiculous. How reckless.
With her head in her hands, she took deep breaths and calmed down a little, thinking it through. In daylight, even through snow, she knew that four hours at the most would get her to the town.
That’s how long it had taken her last year. But at night? Six hours? Eight? She had no way of knowing. It was 5 PM already and she no longer cared how awe-inspiring the sunset might be, just
that it might eke itself out a bit longer so she could trek as far as she could before dark. After that…
She had no time to lose.
Quickly, she prepared her backpack. Even though the trip wouldn’t last more than a few hours, doing most of it in pitch dark would have its challenges. She snapped open the lid of the
emergency box and saw the yellow EPIRB on top, the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. She mulled over triggering an immediate distress signal for Search and Rescue. But with time so
critical—with every second counting—she was certain she’d get herself to Manifold faster than hanging around up here wondering, but not knowing, if someone had picked up the
signal while that… while Ed… and Niki…
The two Secret Service agents who had packed the emergency box for her were also keen mountaineers and had made the trek to the town themselves, plotting every mound and creek, almost every tree
and burrow, and had printed and laminated the whole thing onto the mountain map sitting below the EPIRB. Even more thoughtfully, they’d uploaded a digital version of it onto her combination
GPS satellite tracker/EPIRB. The device was working—she checked—and she stuffed it into her front parka pocket, together with a compass, just in case. Into various pockets and zips in
her backpack, she slotted signal flares and matches, a whistle, a foil space blanket, a sleeping bag, a fluoro-orange plastic undersheet, chemical hand warmers, a collapsible hand shovel, a first
aid kit, a miner’s lamp to strap on her forehead over her pull-on cap, a waterproof flashlight, a coil of rope, a roll of duct tape, a penknife and spare batteries.
Isabel wasn’t taking anything for granted, the way she’d done with Ed. She also shoved in an extra pair of mittens, hat, and even a second windbreaker—it didn’t look
remotely like it could rain, but if she slipped into a creek she could freeze to death without a change of top clothes. The pack was already bulging, and that was before cramming in food and
water.
By the time she’d finished, she’d also scoffed down a full mug of the hearty pumpkin soup she’d been simmering to avoid having to carry too much, but even so she threw in a
couple of ring-pull cans of tuna and spaghetti, and some Mars bars. Accidents easily happened in the wild, everyone knew that.
As she hoisted the pack on her back, it wrenched her backwards a step or two. She steadied herself, deciding she’d have to rethink the contents. She shucked the bag off onto the floor and
wolfed down more soup while she pulled out what she thought she could risk leaving behind.
Winter, she knew, was prime time for dehydration. The colder it got, the harder the body needed to work to maintain its temperature and the extra energy demands called for water to fuel them,
and plenty of it. So damn the added load, she decided, and stuffed two extra bottles inside even though they were in glass, not plastic.
D
AISY WAS NO longer at Daisy’s Bar & Grill but Brad kept everything else at Andy Goodman’s after-work hangout the same: the Millers
on tap, the long-necked Buds, and the kettle-cooked peanuts in the unsanitary bowls that customers slid along the bar to each other with a traditional mountain holler.
Andy was already three drinks down, and he asked Brad to pull him a fourth.
Through the bar mirror, Andy saw the mayor’s daughter swing open the door, and he straightened his back and tucked in his grey work shirt. He knew she didn’t like beer; she was a
white wine drinker, a stuck-up toffee-nose if he was really honest with himself, but what the heck. While she wasn’t as hot as a McDonald’s apple pie, she still had legs… and
after a few wines her personality might not be that unbearable. He hoped so.
“Did you hear?” she said across the bar, sloughing off her coat and slinging it at the rack near the door. “Taylor? Did you hear about Taylor?” Her gloves flopped onto
the counter almost knocking over Andy’s beer. “A glass of white…”
“… wine,” nodded Brad. He’d snatched for the bottle the moment she pushed the door open and set the glass in front of her, giving Andy a wink. Lucky for him she
didn’t notice.
“Taylor who? Taylor what?” Andy asked, his eyes taking in her new jeans. Tight in all the right places.
“Like, hello-o!
Mitchell
Taylor…
Vice-President
Taylor. Brad, switch on the TV,” she said, without a breath, “Taylor’s dead. Can you believe it?
Radio says he collapsed… died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Shh! There!” She pointed at the screen and took a gulp of her wine.
Andy sipped his beer. He was laconic when he wanted to be, and he didn’t really give a shit about politicians. Continually dealing with the moans from Isabel Diaz’s people about
putting in access to the shack was enough for him. So what if some politician was dead, what did he care? There were only more of them lining up to suck the public trough dry.
According to the replay time clock on the TV screen, it happened twenty minutes ago. In an echo of President George W. Bush reading
My Pet Goat
at Emma E. Booker Elementary School on
9/11, Taylor was cross-legged on a rug at Columbus Elementary sweet-talking some kids at an after-school Book Week readathon. With a
Dr Seuss
book in his lap, he simply keeled over.
Secret Service agents appeared out of nowhere, guns unholstered and scaring the bejesus out of the screaming kids even more than having a weird old guy collapsing in front of them did. While
other agents swept the area for an assassin, one knelt beside Taylor to perform the classic airways, breathing and pulse-checks. The agent’s eyes were dark and his eyebrows heavy when he
whispered into his cuff. He nodded a few times as he took instructions though his earpiece and, one second after he crooked his finger, three others crammed around the body with him and, cradling
the Vice-President between them, whisked him out to the waiting car past the distraught children and stunned reporters.
“
We’re crossing now to St Anthony’s Hospital, and Dr Alison
Martin
…
“…
Vice-President Taylor suffered a massive heart attack but died before reaching hospital. Despite all efforts, we were not able to resuscitate him
.”
“Well, cheers to Dr Seuss,” said Andy chinking his beer heartlessly against his bar buddy’s wineglass. “What’s the difference between a politician and a
trampoline?” he asked, and immediately answered, “You’d take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline.”
She didn’t return his laugh or cheesy smile, just eyed him as she would a smear of dog shit on her shoe.
“So,” said Brad, not quite changing the awkward subject, “how is your dad, the Mayor?”
Without a word, she swivelled off her stool, grabbed her coat and left.
P
RESIDENT ROBERT J. FOSTER wrapped his arm around Chancellor Kurt Schneider’s shoulders. Thanks to the late nights and deep secrets they
shared when they were Harvard Law roommates, America’s relations with the Federal Republic of Germany were thawing. On their way to pre-dinner cocktails in the Blue Room, they were chatting
and laughing like the old buddies they were, the only remaining chill being in the air as they bustled along the colonnade from outside the Oval Office alongside the Rose Garden.
This was Schneider’s first visit during either man’s term. He couldn’t make the Inauguration, but came as soon as he could and the main topic of their talks was a free-trade
agreement.