Girls In White Dresses (19 page)

Shannon went to Boston and followed Dan around to three different events in one day. She shook hands with the Candidate and nearly blacked out from excitement. She listened to him give the same speech over and over and she cried every time. He talked about the hardships people have to face, and he talked about wanting a better world for his children, and Shannon clapped and cried.

Shannon shouted that she was “fired up and ready to go” in seven different states. She passed out buttons and helped set up chairs. And sometimes, when she went to bed at night, she heard rally cries in her head, soft and far away. They sounded so real that she was sure there were people gathered outside her apartment, huddled together, chanting the Candidate’s name as she tried to fall asleep.

Dan returned to New York for an event and Shannon recruited all of her friends to come. They waited in line at Washington Square Park for three hours, getting crushed by the crowd. “Dan will be so happy that you came,” Shannon told them.

“Where is he?” Lauren asked.

“Up there.” Shannon pointed to the stage. Dan darted by.

“That’s fun that you got to see him last night,” Isabella said.

“Oh, well, I actually didn’t,” Shannon said. “He ended up working all night. He slept here.”

“In the park?” Mary asked. “Gross.”

“Tonight, maybe?” Isabella asked.

Shannon shook her head. “He’s off to Pennsylvania,” she said. The girls were quiet for a minute.

“Well,” Lauren said. “It will be over soon, right?” Shannon started to agree, but the music came on and they all turned to the stage, and clapped and cheered.

As the primaries got closer, Dan traveled so much that Shannon didn’t even have time to go see him. He’d be in a city for twenty hours and then on his way to the next one. Even phone calls became rare. Sometimes, though, she caught a glimpse of his head on the border of the TV, running from side to side in a gymnasium after the Candidate finished a speech. She watched for him closely, waiting for his blond head to flash on the screen. “There he is,” she’d cry, although no one was there to hear her. And then as soon as she spotted him, he’d run off the other side, gone from her sight.

When the Candidate won Iowa, Dan called from the campaign center. He sounded muffled and far away. Shannon could hear screaming in the background and Dan had to yell to be heard. His voice was thick, as though he’d been crying or was just about to start.

When Dan did come home, he was exhausted and wrinkled. Sometimes, he’d been up for days. His hair stood up in clumps and his eyes were bloodshot. He’d come into the apartment, shower, and head straight for bed.

Shannon talked to him while he slept. She told him about her job while his eyes stayed closed. “Mmm-hmm,” he’d murmur sometimes.

Dan wore two BlackBerrys, strapped to either side of his belt. “You look like a nerd,” Shannon always told him. He didn’t care. Once when Dan was home and lying in bed, Shanon saw a red mark on his hip. “What’s that?” she asked. She touched it lightly.

“It’s from the BlackBerry, I think,” Dan said.

“You have a scar from your BlackBerry vibrating against you?” Shannon asked.

“I guess so,” Dan said.

“And that doesn’t strike you as strange? As not right?”

“Not really,” Dan said. He rolled over and turned out his bedside light.

“You’ve been branded,” Shannon said. But Dan was already asleep.

Every time Dan got ready to leave again, they fought.

“When will you be home?” Shannon would ask.

“You know I don’t know that,” he’d say.

“Do you even miss me?” she’d ask.

“Shannon,” he’d say. “Don’t start this now. You know I miss you. Don’t fight with me right before I leave.”

Sometimes she let it drop, but sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes she’d poke and whine until they fought. It felt good to scream at him, to scream at someone. Once she asked him, “Let’s say that you got to have dinner with one person and you had to choose: me or the Candidate. And you hadn’t seen me in a month. Who would you pick?”

“You, of course,” he said. He came over and kissed her good-bye. It was a lie. She knew deep inside that she was his second choice. Always. He’d fallen for someone new. And infatuation was winning.

Once after he left, the dog jumped onto the bed, lifted his leg, and peed. Shannon didn’t even yell at him. “I understand,” she said to the dog as she stripped the sheets. “It’s a shitty situation.”

As months went by, Shannon forgot what it was like to live with Dan. Some nights she convinced herself that he was gone for good. If he did leave, she decided, she would take his TV.

Her friends were worried about her. They took her to brunch and brought over wine. “How are you doing?” they asked.

“Good, good,” Shannon always said. What was she supposed to say? That Dan would rather campaign in Texas than spend time with her? That she’d been abandoned? That the Candidate had stolen her boyfriend? It was easier to just say, “I’m doing great.”

“You’re such a good sport,” they’d say.

Shannon drank the wine and agreed. “Yep, that’s me.” It was better, she thought, than the truth.

At the end of August, Dan got four days off from the campaign. Shannon thought they’d have all sorts of time together, but when he was in the apartment, all he did was e-mail with his campaign friends. He was constantly looking at his BlackBerry. They went to dinner, and Dan remained hunched over, his fingers clicking away. Sometimes he’d laugh at a response he got, or nod in agreement.

“Don’t your fingers hurt?” Shannon asked him. He looked up, surprised.

“No,” he said. “They’re fine.”

“Do you think you could put that away for twenty minutes while we eat, so that I could actually talk to you while we’re in the same city for once?”

He whistled. “Whoa, Shannon. Calm down.” He put his BlackBerry down next to his plate and held up his hands in a fake surrender. “It’s away,” he said. “Okay?”

“No,” she said, holding out her hand. “Away, away. Give it to me. I’ll keep it in my purse.”

“Shannon, come on. Don’t overreact.”

She kept her hand out. “I’m not overreacting. You’re not even e-mailing about work stuff, are you? You just miss your little campaign friends.”

Dan handed over the BlackBerry, but looked at Shannon with narrowed eyes. “You’ve really got to figure out how to deal with your issues,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s totally the problem.”

The last night Dan was home, he wanted to go on a double date with his campaign friend Charlotte and her boyfriend, Chet. “Why?” Shannon kept asking. “Why do we have to go out with them?”

“I want you to meet her,” Dan said. “I think you’ll really hit it off.”

“I kind of doubt it,” she said.

“Come on,” Dan said, and finally she agreed.

On the way downtown, Dan told Shannon that Charlotte and Chet were having some problems. “Chet’s not thrilled that Charlotte’s traveling so much,” he said. “He’s not taking the campaign too well.”

“Who is?” she asked.

“Shannon.”

“What?”

He just shook his head.

They went to a tiny Mexican place in the West Village that served mango margaritas that tasted like candy. Dan and Shannon got there first, and stood at the bar drinking their margaritas. “Oh,” Dan said, “there they are!” He waved his hand up in the air and a tall blonde waved back.

Charlotte was almost six feet tall and very thin. She was the kind of person you don’t think is that pretty at first, but upon closer examination, you realize that she’s gorgeous. Her angular nose was striking and her long limbs were graceful. She could have been a model. When Shannon stood next to her, her head came right up to her boobs.

“Shannon, hi!” she said, and she surprised Shannon with a hug. Shannon’s face smooshed into Charlotte’s chest and she could barely breathe. Finally she let Shannon go, but still held on to her shoulders. “It is so nice to finally meet you.”

Shannon finished her margarita and shook the empty glass at Dan. “I’m ready for another one.”

They waited a long time for a table and got two more rounds of margaritas. Chet and Shannon drank while Charlotte and Dan talked about the people they worked with.

“And Kelly,” Charlotte said, rolling her eyes. “Can you believe the way she sets up the events? I mean, putting the chairs in a semicircle? Where does she think she is?”

Dan doubled over with laughter and Chet and Shannon looked at each other. Shannon licked the salt off her glass. “Semicircles, huh?” she asked. “Crazy.” Dan stopped laughing and tilted his head at her. She smiled back.

By the time they sat down, Shannon could feel mango margaritas sloshing around in her stomach. The waiter put a basket of chips on the table and everyone grabbed for them. Charlotte took a handful and shoved them in her mouth. Then she started waving her hands around like,
Wait, don’t talk! I’ve got a story to tell!
Chet looked at her from the sides of his eyes, and Shannon wondered if he hated his girlfriend too. Charlotte swallowed her chips and wiped the grease off her lips. She took a sip of her drink and smiled.

“I forgot to tell you guys,” she said. “Last night, I had the most graphic, realistic, and extremely satisfying sex dream about the Candidate.”

“Well, it looks like we know who the next Monica Lewinsky will be,” Shannon said. She laughed and no one else did. Dan looked at her with his mouth open. “What?” she asked. “She can talk about the next president of the United States giving her an orgasm and I can’t make a Lewinsky joke?”

Charlotte looked down in pretend embarrassment. “Oh my
God,
” Shannon said. “You brought it up. With your boyfriend sitting right there.” Shannon meant to point at Chet, but he was closer than she thought and she ended up poking him on the cheek. He jumped in surprise. Shannon got the feeling he hadn’t been listening to anything they’d been saying.

They finished their enchiladas quietly, with pleasant, bland conversation. On the way home, Dan reprimanded Shannon. “I can’t believe you said that,” he told her. “Charlotte was pretty upset.”

“Oh, was she?” Shannon asked. “Do you think that Chet and I were upset that we went to dinner with our significant others that we never see and all they talked about was the random people they work with on the campaign? People that we don’t know and have never met. It was so boring. And it was rude.” Shannon’s eyes started to tear up and she sniffled. Dan let his shoulders drop.

“I’m sorry, Shannon,” he said. She shrugged and he grabbed her arm until she looked at him. “I mean it. I know this is hard for you and I really appreciate your support. You know that, right? You know how much that means to me.” Shannon shrugged again and let him hug her.

“We shouldn’t have gone to dinner with them,” she said. “That’s not fair. You’re leaving tomorrow.”

“You’re right,” Dan agreed. “It should have just been us. Charlotte suggested it and I didn’t know what else to do. She’s having a hard time with Chet. I’m not sure they’re going to work it out. I feel really bad for them.”

“Yeah,” Shannon said. “How sad for them.”

Shannon dreamt of the Candidate. She dreamt that they ran into each other at the grocery store and laughed about buying the same pasta sauce. “You like Ragú too?” Shannon said to him, and they laughed and clutched arms. She dreamt that he came over for dinner and she told him how he was making her life so hard. He smiled. He shook her hand. He talked about
hope
and
belief
and
getting fired up!
Shannon awoke from these dreams feeling exhausted and confused, until she noticed that she’d left the TV on
CNN
. They were showing a tape of the Candidate at some campaign stop. He was smiling and frowning, laughing and tilting his head to show concern. Shannon looked at him closely while he talked and gestured. Did he know? Did he know that he had stolen her boyfriend? Did he know that he was ruining her whole life plan? Did he know that he was making her miserable?

He finished the speech and a Stevie Wonder song came blaring out of the speakers. He clapped his hands toward the audience, gave a serious look, and then smiled and went to shake hands. He swayed his shoulders and hips to the song. She decided that the answer was no. He didn’t know any of it.

Everyone asked about Dan; people at work, friends, family, even the neighbors wanted to know what he was up to. “How’s he doing?” they would ask. “How’s the feeling on the campaign? Do we have this one wrapped up?”

Shannon knew they were all nervous. They were scared that they’d wind up with an old man and a crazy-booted gun lover in the White House. “It’s going great,” she would tell them. “Everyone’s feeling positive.”

“But what about this Muslim rumor?” they would insist. “Do you think we can shake this? What about the flag pin?” they asked. Shannon looked at their wrinkled eyebrows and tried to reassure them, but she barely had anything left.

As the election went on, the rumors got nasty. People tried to paint the Candidate as anti-American, finding incriminating old footage of a reverend he knew, and playing it on what seemed like a twenty-four-hour loop. When this news broke, Shannon didn’t talk to Dan for a week. He was jumping from event to event, trying to make people forget they’d ever heard the words “God damn America.”

When Dan finally did call, it was in the middle of the night and Shannon wasn’t sure if she was dreaming.

“I just wanted to say hi,” he said. He didn’t sound like he knew she’d almost put out an Amber Alert on him.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Just tired. I keep thinking they can’t do it again. They can’t steal another election from us.”

“That’s good,” Shannon said. She was still half caught in sleep.

“They can’t take this away,” he said. “The Candidate deserves this. We need him. The country needs him.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Shannon said. “They can’t take it away,” she repeated.

“That’s right,” he said. “And if they do, we’re moving to Canada.”

One evening in early fall, Shannon walked the dog up Broadway with her friend Lauren. The air was starting to turn and the wind made Shannon shiver just a little. The two of them were deciding where to get a drink, and Shannon was trying to hurry the dog along, pulling him past hydrants he wanted to sniff, when a smiling boy with a clipboard stepped in front of them. “Excuse me,” he said. “Do you have a minute for the Democratic candidate?”