Angry Buddhist (9781609458867) (9 page)

Hard considers Mary Swain and Nadine, one so self-possessed, the other so desperate. Why had he misread Nadine? It would have been easy to resist her convenience store come on. But whom was he kidding? Hard isn't wired to resist the hormonal blandishments of anyone who looks like Nadine. Still, he would prefer to be having sex with Mary Swain. There's a woman he can respect—and that would be new for Hard, extramarital sex with someone he esteems. Mary Swain can do that, get people thinking in different ways. Clever and gorgeous, she probably could show him a thing or two naked. Hard is in awe of her ability to work that sex-kitten quality, American female politicians generally skewing in the schoolmarm direction. He wonders if he could massage that angle himself. He makes the baldness work for him, something not all white men can do. But he doesn't know if he can take his sex appeal as far as Mary Swain. Hard is going to spend the evening of the election watching the returns in her hotel suite. And it'll be the first time in forever he's in a hotel room not thinking about the mini-bar or porn-on-demand.

The canned laughter of a sitcom seeps in from the living room. Another evening at home with Vonda Jean, Nadine wan­dering God knows where. Hard needs a concrete plan. He needs to get divorced, and he needs to make sure Nadine doesn't cause problems. Takes a deep swig from the beer bottle and finishes the contents. Then he returns to the fridge and helps himself to another. Bane is mopping up his kibble. Hard realizes it isn't a good sign that he envies the dog. When you're envying your dog, he knows, something must have gone seriously wrong with your life. And where was Nadine? Maybe the coyotes will take care of the problem.

In the living room Hard sits in his brown naugahyde recliner and watches an hour of mind-numbing television with his wife. Figures its penance for the unwanted visitor. When he can take it no more, he grabs another beer from the refrigerator and heads for the back yard. Bane follows him out there and lies at his feet. Sitting beneath the stars, he takes out his phone and thumb-types the following message:

I meant what I said tonight. Keep it up and something bad will happen to you.

Then he hits Send. Nadine might be a little unbalanced, but he knows she isn't dense. He suspects she won't be contacting him again.

 

 

A
lthough Randall has owned this architectural showplace of a home for five years he has never danced in the living room; or any of the other rooms, for that matter. Tonight he stares into his daughter's eyes. Barefoot and impossibly bored, Brittany is wearing a tight tee shirt and loose sweats. Randall is dressed in a golf shirt, pressed blue slacks and wingtips.

“Don't step on my feet,” Brittany says.

Randall tells her he'll be careful. “You know your dad's in charge tomorrow, right?”

“What does that mean?”

“I'm the M.C. So it's kind of our party, you and me. I'd like you to have a good time, or at least fake it.” Randall trying with the girl. Smiles to let her know he's attempting to have fun.

He takes her hand and when he twirls her a little too quickly Brittany stumbles. She recovers and says, “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.”

Randall has no time for his daughter's Delphic pronouncements. He points the remote control at the stereo and presses a button. When the strains of bland pop kick in he takes Brittany's right hand in his left, places his other hand on her flat hip and proceeds to guide her clumsily around the room. Past the Eames chair, beneath the faux-Warhol lithograph of Randall, around the glass topped, teardrop table they glide. Randall moving lightly, heel to toe, heel to toe, the girl showing all the enthusiasm of a hostage. Maxon had told Randall to practice dancing with his daughter before the Purity Ball so they could get some video that might make the evening news. Failing that, it would look good on the campaign website. So Randall views this tripping of the light fantastic as campaign-related activity. Brittany is, in Randall's view, Kendra's project. When she was young and cute he took more of an interest, but the advent of adolescence has stripped her of what little charm she possessed and now his goal is to exist in some kind of uneasy truce. He enacts the role of doting father and hopes that his example will motivate the girl to act the role of loving daughter.

They are on their third self-conscious circumnavigation of the room when Kendra enters from the kitchen. Randall smiles at her, thinking she will be heartened to see this bit of family fun, however forced and uncomfortable it might actually be to the participants. He is surprised when his wife does not return his smile but instead informs him she would like to confer outside. Right now. Randall asks her where she's been.

“I had to get a new phone,” Kendra says. “Mine broke.”

As he follows his wife toward the backyard Randall looks over his shoulder and sees Brittany watching them with catscan eyes. He marvels at his daughter's ability to go from appearing bored to focusing with the intensity of a doctor preparing for surgery. The moment she sees her father has noticed her watching, she flits away.

 

Kendra stands in the backyard, her face lit by the gauzy light emanating from the swimming pool. Expensive reproductions of vintage 1950s steel and vinyl patio furniture are arrayed on the flagstone deck. The barely discernible silhouette of the dark San Jacinto Mountains looms like a reproach in the western distance. She briefly considers informing him of their daughter's “sexting” incident in the hope that this will reduce the impact of the Nadine fiasco, but she had given Brittany her word she wouldn't say anything. So she gathers her courage and launches into an account of the ill-considered fling, the trip to Mexico and the story of the matching tattoos before concluding with an aria of apologies.

How would Randall process all of this? What would he do? Should she expect a flash of anger, a wild-eyed lashing out, or a heartfelt mea culpa about how his behavior must have led her to this and could she ever forgive him? Whatever she was anticipating, it was not the sight now in front of her: Randall seated on a chaise longue with his head in his hands, muttering no, no, dang it, no.

The reflection of the pool lights play delicately on his exposed neck while Kendra's mind drifts back to their honeymoon cabin on the California coast, the surf pounding the rocks below, Randall holding her in his arms and promising he would always take care of her. Looking at him doubled over, she is not so sure he will be able to deliver.

Emitting a low moan, Randall lifts his head and stares out over the desert, as if an answer lies somewhere in the parched darkness. The election is close and might be decided by just a few votes, the votes of people who will be put off by Kendra being at the center of a particularly lubricious scandal.

“You got matching tattoos?” he says, as if repeating the simple fact would somehow allow his bruised psyche to gain purchase long enough to halt its plunge into the abyss.

“I told you I was sorry.”

“When you think about what's going on right now? I don't know that sorry cuts it.”

“You want to talk about that chambermaid in Arizona, Randall? Because I'll talk about her if you want.” Randall does not respond to this. What would be the point? The moral high ground has no empty parking spaces. For all of his serial pulping of marital vows it had never occurred to him that his wife could do the same, much less with a woman, and the shock to his system is profound. His mouth is dry, his stomach rising. The backyard surroundings are familiar yet everything looks slightly different as if animated by a heretofore-undetectable vibration. Randall is seized by a desire to make the movement cease, to return his world to a state of rest. And he can avoid the sense of betrayal by dealing with logistics.

“Are you gay?”

“Not that it matters, but no.”

“It matters if we're going stay married.”

“Do you want to?” A challenge.

Randall considers this a moment before responding, “Heck, yeah. Of course I want to stay married. Look, I've made mistakes and all. And I can't even say I don't deserve this. I probably do. But dang it, a
lesbian
affair?”

“Maybe part of me was trying to get back at you.”

He thinks about this a moment. It is a sentiment that is impossible to disagree with. Although he has no interest in using this as an opportunity to end his marriage, he's justifiably concerned that the condition of his marriage could have a deleterious effect on his career. Who wants to be known as the Congressman whose wife became a lesbian, even temporarily? Let him try to explain that to his colleagues on the Homeland Security Committee. “Your timing, darlin, is impeccable.”

“Does it at least help that it was over a year ago?”

“You think anyone ever forgot Chappaquiddick?”

“Ted Kennedy kept getting re-elected.”

“That was Massachusetts!”

Kendra considers Randall's point. The Kennedys are a dynasty well known and beloved, sufferers of tragedies great and small. Sympathy could be called upon in the case of Teddy, the car and the bridge. In the unforgiving Mojave, there is no reserve of good will upon which Randall can draw.

“I was thinking about leaving,” she says. “If you want to know the truth.”

Randall looks up, genuinely surprised. The wages of his behavior are not something he has ever bothered to calculate. So prevalent is his approach to marriage in the political class, he has assumed discretion would deliver him from divorce. It isn't like he has ever fallen in love with anyone else. He loves Kendra. As much as he can love anyone. At least he believes he does.

“You were thinking about leaving?”

She nods her head, exasperated that he could be so obtuse as to not consider this possibility. “Randall, your life's a permanent campaign. Your daughter barely knows you. You keep this up and what's going to be left?”

Randall lifts his head from his hands, straightens his back. What she said is true, there is no doubt. Since being elected to Congress he has flown home for the weekend every two weeks and his time in the desert is devoted to fundraising. Brittany has become entirely Kendra's responsibility, the family little more than a photo op for his campaign literature. But Randall is ambitious and this is the price. He talks to his colleagues in Washington and he knows his choices are not exceptional. Contemporary American politics fetishizes the family while decimating it. This is how things are. As marriages go, theirs isn't worse than a lot of others. Kendra has been a superb political spouse. He doesn't want to leave her and he doesn't want her to leave him. But the lesbian disclosure is troubling. He is not the sort of male who finds it titillating. Did she have to so utterly un-man him? Has his behavior been deserving of such abasement? Unfortunately, it is done. He has no choice but to take his medicine.

“Well, if you had to fool around, I'm glad it was with a woman,” he lies. He can't even envision her with another man. Right now Randall is amazed he can even produce a coherent sentence. Kendra places a comforting hand on his shoulder and he puts his hand on hers. They remain silent for a few moments.

She says: “So should we just pay her?”

Rising from the chaise longue, Randall walks toward the pool and stands at the edge. A light breeze causes a barely discernible ripple. He peers to the bottom willing the answer to bubble up and burst through the surface. “I thought she didn't ask for money.”

“She didn't. At least not directly.”

“Then paying her now? That's irresponsible and we're not going to do it.” The energy that seemed to have drained out as he processed Kendra's information slowly surges back. The internal math has been done, the sums rendered. Randall says things others have said thousands of times before, but he says them with a sense of ownership, as if he had been the one to think of them. He's quiet for another few moments but Kendra thinks they will be all right. A desert hawk wheels overhead, its wings backlit by the rising crescent moon. “What do you think she's going to do, best guess?”

“Can't say.”

“I'll take care of it.”

He has regained his footing and is calculating how this obstacle can best be dealt with in a mode that will address the short-term needs and minimize the long-term ramifications.

“I figured you'd know what to do.”

“Mind if I ask you a personal question?” He takes her silence for assent. “All the bull we've gone through, we still love each other, right?”

Her relief at the manner in which Randall is now handling the remarkably inconvenient revelation is overwhelming. Despite this, Kendra starts to laugh.

“I'm sorry,” she says, regaining control.

“You think it's funny?”

“If this is love . . . I don't know, maybe it is.” Her hands are on her hips and she is shaking her head in bewilderment. “Do we love each other?”

“Do we?”

“I'm not sure that's relevant right now.”

And a deep place in her is touched by the softness of his voice when he says, “I know what you mean.”

“Do you want to stay married?”

“Kendy, we're good together,” he says, taking her hand in his.

Kendy
, she thinks.
Kendy!
He hasn't called her that in a decade. The plangent tone and the disquietude of his manner tell her how deeply he is unnerved by the situation. She was in no way certain he would react like this. Kendra Kerry Duke knows she stands at the most critical juncture in her married life. Were she to tell him now is the time for their union to end her timing could not be more auspicious. The campaign will soon be over and they will be able to separate quietly. She will be able to move on to the next phase, get an apartment, perhaps resume her singing career. She could remarry if she wants. There will certainly be a willing suitor eager to have the still-youthful ex-wife of Randall Duke on his arm. So she knows what she says now will resonate for years to come. And what she says is:

“I think we're good together, too.”

When they walk back in the house it is with the tacit agreement that they will do whatever they must, no regrets.

 

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10.30 – 11:49
P.M.

While you Blogheads have been sleeping the Machiavelli has been rooting around the foul rag and bone shop of Mary Swain's past. What do we really know about this woman? Did she even graduate from college? She served drinks on her husband's jet while he was still married to his first wife, that much we know. That she says she goes to church a lot, we know that, too. Mary Swain says she loves Jesus the way most of us say pass the salt. But Jesus loves mankind, does he not? And that includes gay people. Did Mary Swain tune that part of the universal love message out? Whatever you might say about Randall Duke, his wife Kendra is a friend to you gays out there. A gay birdie whispered in my ear that her appearance at the Palm Springs Charity Drag Ball last year had people saying she looked like a female impersonator, which was meant as a compliment, I think. So while her husband is a little wishy-washy in the area of gay rights, his wife is a friend of the Friends of Dorothy. As for the Stewardess, although she claims to have gay friends, she has said she thinks homosexuality is a choice. Think of this on Election Day, my Desert Queens! The American Hero, or the Closet Canadian?