print story

Election Day - Part Two

By Porter Shreve

Soon Bailey's wife, Ann, joined us. The tallest, thinnest woman in the room, she had straight blonde hair dark at the roots and wore a tight fitting pink top under her blue blazer. The cross around her neck hovered incongruously over her surprising cleavage. "I can hardly believe how many years it's been," she said. "And these are your children? How wonderful." She shook my hand as I imagined a praying mantis might, with the ends of her long fingers.

"I understand you're starting a school. Isn't that something," she said to my mother, acknowledging the hippies and Quinn with a passing smile that ended with a trace of suspicion. "Here, let me introduce you to some friends."
She walked us into the preppy gyre that Bailey had earlier abandoned, and we met a mortgage broker, a few lawyers and lobbyists. We knew a couple of them already; they were the parents of Dawn, our second student. Linc went on about Dawn's innate musical talent, though in truth she'd been struggling with "House of the Rising Sun," and had skipped several lessons complaining that her fingers hurt.

Her father said, "If she keeps this up, we're going to have to build her a studio out back. She's always banging on that guitar and spinning her Janey Mitchell records."

"Joni Mitchell," his wife corrected him. She sported a wealthy bohemian look, with her gauzy cotton tunic and Navajo jewelry. "So who's in charge?" she asked, and my father stepped forward. "We have another daughter, Brie," she said, rolling her eyes. "You want to talk about a handful? She broke records for demerits at Pilgrim Hill and now she's at Woodrow Wilson, the public school. We don't like the influences there. I think we might be giving you a call." She glanced at her husband, who looked away. "Brie is tough to keep an eye on, let me tell you. She's -- how best to put this? -- adventurous."

"Well, we're all about adventure." Tino stroked his Zapata mustache then with his rolling Mick Jagger walk headed off with the other hippies to watch the election coverage. Bailey followed in their wake, to point the way -- or to keep an eye on them. Meanwhile, the adults talked about upcoming vacations. One was going to Breckenridge, another to Bermuda; and Ann said her family was going to Ireland for Christmas and later, over the kids' spring break, to Kenya on their second safari. As she was talking about their last trip, her daughter Cleo walked by and Ann pulled her into the conversation.

I'd been flirting with Cleo since summer and always went to the Adams Morgan basketball courts on Saturdays at noon when I knew she'd be there. She was a deadeye lefty from around the free throw arc and had the most graceful swan's neck follow-through. I still got tongue-tied trying to make small talk with her and too often fell back on my storehouse of presidential trivia. Did you know that Thomas Jefferson had a mockingbird named Dick that he used to feed from his lips at state dinners? But Cleo put up with my bumbling and said she liked hanging out with me because I was "more real" than the rest of her friends, whatever that meant. And she said I had great hair. Earlier in the day, getting ready for the party, I'd dabbed some of my father's English Leather on my neck and blow-dried and brushed my hair until the wings fluffed out and the ends nearly touched my shoulders.

"I was just telling everyone about Kenya," her mother said. "We're going to have a great time, aren't we?"

Cleo narrowed her eyes and gave no answer.

Ann turned to Quinn. "Have you ever been to Africa?" Quinn was helping himself to a canapé of some kind of cheese and relish. "You must want to go," Ann said. "Isn't that the fashion these days? Everyone celebrating their heritage and wearing the traditional clothes?"

"Mom--" Cleo exclaimed. But Quinn answered as if the question were perfectly reasonable. "I do want to go to Kenya someday, but not overland in jeeps and tents. I'd like to run a zeppelin safari company, where we can follow herds of elephants across the savanna and watch lions sun themselves on rocks and hyenas pace and carry on. My zeppelin would be incredibly maneuverable; we could park it on a tree, stop for the night and sleep out there above the animals."

Quinn continued talking about zeppelins and flying machines, and when he took a breath my father seized the opportunity to introduce him as one of the bright students at Our House whose interests we were fostering. Quinn seemed to be disarming the crowd when Cleo grabbed my elbow and steered me to an empty corner by the hallway. She wore gray gabardine pants and a white bell shirt, loose at the waist, a silver-banded watch and meticulously applied burgundy nail polish. I was used to seeing her in shorts and a tank top: Our Lady of Perpetual Help, #13. Faced with someone suddenly transformed into an adult, I grew anxious.

"Can you believe my mother?" she said. "She's so ignorant."

"I'm sure she meant no harm."

"Look around at what I have to deal with." Cleo gestured toward a crowd of people spilling out of the TV room -- strident men in loud shirts talking over each other, stiff-backed women refilling lipstick-clouded glasses of wine. A voice I recognized as Harry Reasoner's floated from the television into the hallway. The nation is split between West and South this year, he was saying. We're waiting on Ohio and the Midwestern states to see who will be the 39th president.

"Can you tell what network they're watching?" Cleo asked.

"Sounds like ABC," I said.

"That's right. And you know why? Because ABC stands for 'Anyone But Carter.'" Cleo smiled, and my heart leapt.