The Race (19 page)

That afternoon, after a late lunch, Lexie told him a story.

When she had first gone to the University of South Carolina, her uncle, then a state representative, had driven her to school. In the parking lot, he'd said, "You're at college now, Lexie, where none of us can look out for you. Things will happen to you just because you're my niece and your name is Hart. Some of it will be good. Some of it will be bad. But in the end they'll more or less even out." He paused, then finished with uncharacteristic gentleness: "But there are other things that will happen just because you're black. And these things will never even out.
That's
the reality you'll have to deal with."

Lexie had said nothing in reply. But on the day before Thanksgiving, when her uncle picked her up, she told him she understood.

Listening, Corey watched her gaze become distant. "The football team," she explained to him, "had a star running back, George Rodgers—a gifted black athlete who was a contender for the Heisman Trophy. Next to us in the parking lot where my uncle met me was a pickup truck with two bumper stickers. One was a Confederate flag; the second said 'Rodgers for Heisman.'

"My uncle was fixing to run for Congress. I pointed to the truck and said, 'Whoever owns that would never have a "Hart for Congress" sticker.'

"My uncle gave me this funny kind of smile. 'Why not, girl?'

"'At the homecoming game,' I explained, 'they introduced the first black homecoming queen we'd ever had. I was sitting near a bunch of white boys, most of them pretty drunk. When that girl was introduced, a lot of them sat there and booed. But when they introduced the football team and called George Rodgers's name, every one of them got to their feet, hollering and cheering.'

"My uncle went quiet. 'Yeah,' he said, 'It's okay for us to entertain them, but not to represent them. The real change won't come, if it ever does, until those boys die off.'"

Corey absorbed this for a time, wondering what message she intended to convey. "Earlier, I hope. If Cortland Lane had run, he might have been elected president."

Lexie looked into his face. "Corey," she said evenly, "I don't mean to make you a whipping boy for racism. But there's a reason we view this differently, one anyone else could see just by looking at us. And I think deep down you know it."

"What do you mean?"

She tilted her head. "Tell me this: why do you think we're hiding out?"

The question made him edgy. "To protect our privacy. To get the chance to be ourselves without explaining ourselves."

"True enough," she conceded. "And you know how little I want to live my life in public. But another reason is to protect your chance of becoming president."

"I don't accept that, Lexie."

"Don't you? I guarantee your advisers would, especially whoever does your polling." She put down her iced tea with exaggerated care. "If they knew you were with me, they'd be horrified."

"Yeah. Because you're an actress—"

"Don't be disingenuous, Corey—it doesn't suit you. They'd be horrified because I'm black." Her effort to speak dispassionately was palpable to Corey. "A lot of white folks—especially in your party—would know for sure you were a 'liberal,' with 'values' unlike theirs. There'd be whispers like 'Can you imagine a black First Lady and children of color in the White House?'"

"For Godsakes, Lexie, that's what America's going to look like."

She gave him a thin smile. "We're getting a little ahead of ourselves, I know—we haven't had the baby yet. But other people will go there without us. So save the pieties about the multicultural face of America for campaign speeches, where it's safer.

"Too many of your people wouldn't want me to represent their version of America, and that'd be on their minds even if it's not on ours." Her voice softened. "My people, too. Some might like you better; others would like me less. 'What's wrong with that girl?' they'd say. 'Isn't a black man good enough for her?'

"Then there's the media. To them, I'm not 'an actress'—I'm a '_black_ actress.' Why do you think I got bombarded with questions about Janet Jackson's exposed breast—because I'm an expert on wardrobe malfunctions, or maybe because I've got two breasts? Janet and I've got one obvious thing in common: we're both black." She shook her head emphatically. "So let's be real here. Put aside the actress thing, and you and I still can't be seen as people in a relationship. You're playing with fire to even be here."

Corey stood and walked to the edge of the porch. Hands on the railing, he gazed out at the waters of the bay, a gray-blue shadow in the light of late afternoon. He felt her touch his arm. "Sorry, baby," she said. "I
did
ask you to come."

"I was just thinking, that's all. There must be a restaurant here you like."

"Come on, Corey. What exactly are you trying to prove?"

"Don't spoil the moment, all right? I'm finally paying for a meal."

She kissed him on the cheek. "Okay," she said. "Now you've made your point, and I get to be the sane one here. Thank you, but no."

He turned, taking her face in his hands. "Just how seriously do you take me? As a person, I mean."

She looked into his eyes. "As a person? Pretty seriously, I'd say."

"Okay, then. I'm seriously tired of holing up here. I was looking at the guidebook this morning and saw a place called L'Orangerie."

Lexie gave him a somewhat crooked smile. "Never been there," she answered.

THEY ARRIVED EARLY, hoping to avoid gawkers, and secured a secluded table in the corner of a beach-side garden, from which they could see two sailboats slicing the water, a trawler trolling for fish, and a lone parasailor gliding in and out of view. Lexie smiled across at him. "This really
is
nuts, you know."

"Yup." He touched his Scotch on the rocks to her tall glass of iced tea. "Anyone ever mention that you look like a movie star?"

She rolled her eyes. "Is
that
the best you can do? Because it's completely lame."

They both felt oddly giddy, Corey realized. "You do notice," he told her, "that we're acting like two kids who just cut physics class to go to the beach."

Lexie reached across the table for his hand. "Yeah," she said softly. "I noticed."

They fell into easy conversation. When the middle-aged waiter came back, scrupulously attentive to Lexie, she spoke to him in flawless Spanish. Watching, Corey reflected that she must have acquired this fluency in Colombia, reminding him of all that had happened to her. Then she turned to him, and he dismissed the thought.

Lexie chose smoked salmon and sea bass; Corey, fresh scallops and shrimp Pernod, accompanied by a chilled half bottle of Mexican chardonnay. Smiling, Lexie said, "I'm driving, I guess."

"Sure. Why do you think I brought you?"

As the appetizers arrived, Corey noted that the tables nearby were beginning to fill. He decided to focus on how beautiful she was.

She raised her eyebrows. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because
I
get to—not some other guy. I like that quite a lot."

She studied him more seriously. "About that fictitious baby," she said after a time. "I know how fictitious your own life makes it. But in the long run, I want one, and my long run's getting shorter. Just so you know."

"Understood," Corey said. "As for me, no one wants their children raised by wolves."

A softness settled between them, faintly pensive. Lexie took his hand again. "I like looking at you, too."

A flash made Lexie blink. Starting, Corey glanced around them and saw a woman in a sundress stuff a camera in her purse. Seeing his expression, she mouthed, "Sorry" and backed into the shadows.

"Oh, well," Corey murmured.

Lexie's startled look had changed to resignation. After a moment, she said wryly, "You're still okay, Senator. The back of your head looks like anyone else's."

Their entrées arrived. They focused on the food to let the feeling of invasion gradually recede. By dessert, their equilibrium recovered, they were discussing Lexie's brief career as a high school javelin thrower. "All arm," she reminisced, "and no technique. One time I nearly speared the coach."

"Ouch," Corey said, and then noted a thin, thirtyish woman standing over their table, looking hesitant but carrying a pen and a scrap of paper.

"I'm so sorry," she told Lexie. "But I saw you here, and it's my only chance to say how much I love your movies."

Lexie mustered a gracious smile. "That's so nice. And you are ...?"

"Carole Walsh."

"Thank you, Carole—that means a lot. Would you like me to sign that for you?"

As Lexie wrote her name, the woman looked at Corey. "I'm sorry," she said. "Somehow I feel like I should know you."

Smiling, Corey shook his head. "It's just because I'm with
her
. Don't worry, it happens to me all the time."

Reassured, the woman thanked Lexie for her autograph and returned to her table with a visible glow.

Corey grinned. "_That's_ certainly humbling."

Lexie gave him an ambiguous smile. "Get used to it. Unless you get yourself elected president."

Five minutes later, they left, aware that others had begun to watch them.

THEY SAT ON the porch, Corey drinking brandy, Lexie with his sport coat draped over her shoulders. Quietly, she said, "I hope that woman didn't throw you off."

Corey shook his head. "I was thinking about something else."

"Politics?"

"Yes and no," he answered, and he knew that it was time to talk about Joe Fitts. "Actually, I was remembering a friend."

THOUGH LEXIE SAID nothing, her stillness revealed how closely she was listening.

"You know what I still wonder about?" Corey finished softly. "Whether Joe was alive when they cut his head off."

When he said nothing more, Lexie spoke at last. "Wasn't there an autopsy?"

"They never returned his body. That much was a mercy—his family never knew. I concealed that fact, too."

"You were also tortured, Corey. Where does
that
fit into this story?"

"Nowhere. If they'd wanted anything from me, I'd have given it to them. All I wanted was to live. But all they wanted was to make me suffer, and one of them wouldn't let me die. So I wound up a senator instead." Corey drained his brandy. "A while back, when my media guy proposed putting Joe's picture in our campaign ads, I felt like I was dancing on his grave."

"Will you let them?"

"No."

Lexie drew her chair a little closer. "I'm sorry," she said after a time. "Sorry for Joe, sorry about how you feel. But that raises something I have to ask you. Is being with
me
a way of compensating for your guilt about Joe Fitts?"

Corey felt a surge of anger. "Get over yourself," he snapped. "For once. Just how fucked up do you think I am?" Then he stood up, his temper already cooling. He began speaking rapidly but clearly. "This much I'll give you—Joe made me think differently about race, and that affects my politics. But he did that by living, not dying.

"What Joe's
death
did was turn me into an illusion. There isn't a Kiwanis meeting in America where I won't be introduced as an 'American hero.'
That's
my edge over Marotta and Christy—only one of us was reckless and self-absorbed enough to cost a friend his life, and I'm riding it for all it's worth.
That's
the point of the story." He paused, his hands shoved in his pockets. "I'm not telling you all this because I need some black person to grant me absolution. I'm telling you because this is the ambiguous space I live in, and I wanted you to know.

"I said I didn't want you to hide, Lexie. I don't want to either." His voice went quiet. "This wasn't about race, but about us. I hope you can live with that."

Her chin gracefully resting on arched fingers, Lexie appraised him, so closely that he felt as though what became of them might depend on what she saw. At last she said, "So do you want to know what I think?"

"Yes."

"Cortland Lane was right—you made a split-second decision, and the consequences to you and your friend were different. The question is how you process that, and what you do with it in the world." Lexie paused. "The first part's hard—I understand that. But you wouldn't have done anything for anyone by turning your back on politics and the chance to become a senator. It's your appreciation of how you got there, and your desire to give it meaning, that makes you different from Marotta. And that quality is as real as the 'heroism' you're convinced is so phony. So," she finished, quoting him with the faintest smile, "I hope you can live with that."

Sitting down across from her, Corey puffed his cheeks and exhaled. After a time, he murmured, "Quite an evening, wasn't it?"

"It was," she said, and took his hand. "Let's go to bed."

THE NEXT DAY they resumed their routine.

Much was the same. Lexie ran; Corey floated in the pool. In the afternoon, when it was hottest outside, they made love in the shelter of their bedroom. After dinner, they watched an old movie, Lexie offering commentary as they nestled in an overstuffed couch. But what had happened between them, though unremarked, made the remaining two days feel richer, deeper.

Packing after their final breakfast, Corey felt the pulse of his normal life stirring, the anticipation of meetings, hearings, speeches, interviews, of time spent in airports, the quick and constant shifts of focus from one imperative to the next. But he sensed that he was leaving some part of him with Lexie. He could not remember having felt so much at peace.

He said this to her. Smiling up at him, she said, "Vacations wear off, you know. The rest is always with you."

He pondered this on the flight to Washington, still uncertain about where he wished "the rest" to take him. When he landed, reporters and photographers jammed the sidewalks. On the front page of a Rohr-owned tabloid one of them thrust out at him, Lexie was emerging from the pool as he handed her a glass of iced tea. His memory did not lie—her bikini had been stunning.

THERE WAS NO TIME FOR REFLECTION: COREY'S CHOICE WAS TO SAY something spontaneous or ignore the shouted questions, creating an indelible portrait of embarrassment. Heading toward his limousine, he paused in front of the nearest reporter with a microphone. "Ms. Hart and I have a relationship," he said with a smile. "Many single men and women aspire to that."