Of all his purposeful choreography that evening, it was the stealing of the beers, and no one challenging him—though he seemed almost to invite it—that she found so appealing. Because how could a person simply do that, take what he wanted and what wasn’t his? It was near beautiful in its riskiness, as though this was an entirely different way to live and operate. She was excited by her sudden, illogical attraction to him and the way he was looking at her. No one would approve of what she might do with him or how she might slip into this other world, if only briefly. Already she felt the summer stretching too thin, her pose of independence and the prospect of graduate school losing a little more of its charm.
“I’m not sure how good a party this is,” she’d told him. “There are probably better ones we could find.”
He seemed surprised that she said anything more to him, and Francine saw that when it came to maneuvering through the uncertain corridors of the female heart, he was not nearly so sure of himself. She felt her own particular power slice through the air.
Below Francine, Lewis worked on his single topiary, a bear with stumpy, outstretched arms that looked to be begging for quarters. The blades of his shears sent cooling slivers of sound through the open window.
Dee leaned into the room. “There’s a call,” Francine’s assistant said. “About booking an event.” This wasn’t Francine’s department, and she gave the girl a look to show that she’d been in the middle of something very important. “It’s about the Mayor,” Dee added. “I thought you’d want this one.”
I’ve been caught, Francine thought—but at what? And she hadn’t been asked for by name, had she? “Yes, how can I help you?” she said officiously into the phone.
Friends of the Mayor, that infamous cabal, wanted to book the Hunt-Paring House for a private party.
“I thought maybe you were calling me to be a character witness.” Francine laughed nervously, tipping too far back in her chair. “How original of me,” she said when she’d righted herself. “Everyone must say that.”
The woman on the other end was chilly. “I wouldn’t know, I really don’t have anything to do with that sort of thing.”
It was pointless to explain that she’d been joking, when really she hadn’t been entirely. And the woman hadn’t questioned who Francine was to even know the Mayor enough to be a character witness, because everyone claimed to know the man, whether they thought he was a crook or not. Even Sanford recently referred to the time he’d personally met Dag.
“I’m surprised the Mayor’s in the mood to celebrate right now,” Francine said. She’d seen it that morning on the television again; the Mayor shrinking like an old lady, disgrace beginning to collect at his ankles like slipping stockings. She couldn’t imagine that her fellow citizens would be too happy to look up the hill and see him dancing it up and smashing around in the flowerbeds.
“Before we go any further, I should tell you that during our busy season we require a 100% non-refundable deposit,” Francine lied. “In other words, this policy applies to everyone.”
“You understand I’m calling from Friends of the Mayor.”
“I understand perfectly, and I’m sure the Mayor appreciates a democratic policy when he sees one. But tell me this: Why here?” She glanced at the porcelain rooster again, understanding finally at that moment its strange and strong appeal to her; the animal’s essential ugliness had been made to look proud. “After all, it doesn’t seem like his kind of place.”
“The Mayor’s always liked the house,” the woman told her. “He’s very interested in antiques and art, you know. It’s one of his hobbies.”
The Mayor’s only hobby was politics and arm-twisting, and as far as Francine knew, he had never set foot in the Hunt-Paring House. Probably because there were no Bonicello’s. The real answer to her question, Francine supposed, was much simpler; nowhere else would have him.
When the woman put her on hold, she thought about the time her sublet apartment had been broken into a month after she and the Mayor had started sleeping together. The police had told her it was junkies because it had all the earmarks of a smash and grab job. She’d been in the shower when it happened. Though she didn’t have much worth stealing besides her radio and her electric typewriter, the break-in left her edgy and doubtful about staying. The Mayor had been calming, chummy with the cops. He stayed with her when she didn’t want to stay alone, he brought over another typewriter and radio and she didn’t ask him where they’d come from. At night, he made calls and parted the curtains to look outside. While she felt safer for it, she also knew that such protectiveness was frightening in its own way—because what did it say about what might happen without it? As she watched him one night surveying the dark street, Francine understood what she and Dag weren’t to each other and never would be; they were too different for that to ever change. But most surprisingly, the same understanding had also felt like longing—to be known when it appeared impossible.
It would have been simple to lie then and say to the Mayor’s organizer, the Panikolopolos-Chu wedding is on that evening you want, or the golden anniversary party of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Crestman is booked for the following week. Sorry, all full, she’d explain, and never have to see Dag in her world. Shut him out like she’d begun to shut off the television every morning, despite Sanford’s protests. But oddly, it was that longing, unearthed after so many years as something still beating that kept her from turning the Mayor away.
She knew she’d have to inform the board and assuage the last Hunt-Paring who was hotly anti-Mayor and wouldn’t want him fouling the family home. You may not like him, she’d explain with a degree of level-headedness that had always garnered respect—and to Sanford as well, though here she might have to look away—but the man hasn’t been found guilty of anything yet, and isn’t this still America, after all?
“If anyone tries to solicit a bribe from you, I’ll cut their dick off,” the Mayor had allegedly said. This was according to the latest reports from the trial she heard on Lewis’s radio which he carried around with him as he pruned his way through the verdant grounds.
The Mayor would have said tits had he been threatening a woman. One night, Dag had taken her to Doubles, a popular waterfront restaurant wedged between the shipyards. The sign on the door said, “No Muscle Shirts Allowed.” On a hot August night the parking lot was bright with tail lights and cigarettes and mobbed with people waiting to get in. Dag worked the crowd—now here were his people—like an elected official. He had a way in which his right hand would simply flip out, like a turning signal, to shake someone else’s hand while still moving ahead. Francine knew she was out of place in her white pants and simple sandals, her hair pulled back. The Mayor wore a long-sleeved shirt and blue blazer, as though he’d come out of an important meeting and was on his way to another after dinner with his girl, when really, they’d just come from fucking in her overheated bedroom. He slipped the maitre d’ some money and something whispered, and they were shown to a table by the window.
“All those people were here before us,” she’d said, “and we just waltzed in front of them. And no one said anything.” The cool power of what Dag had done left her both admiring and slightly ashamed. “I mean, is that fair?”
“Oh, I see. You want to get back in line,” Dag said, a palm flat on the table. “I thought you were hungry, but if you’d rather wait for a couple of hours, fine.”
It was breezy by the window, and the waitress smiled patiently. Dag nodded and then ordered what he always had—two chops, a second scotch. He made a face when she ordered bluefish. They’d had plenty of sex, and he always clung to her at the height of it, revealing himself to be terrified of those seconds out of control, but what did they really know about each other, including their tastes? During dinner, they discovered