She allowed her rescuer to pull her to her feet. Shakily, she half-stumbled, half-lurched along beside her rescuer, leaning heavily on him or her. Screams and crying and coughing surrounded her, assaulting her ears and disorienting her more, if that was possible.
She felt far from normal, but the pain had subsided enough for her to croak some words and open her eyes. She tried to speak but the blurry face before her made shushing noises and handed her another bottle of water. She removed the lid of this one without a struggle and drank more. Her breathing was improving now, and she no longer felt like she wanted to die.
Slowly, through the haze of tears, a concerned face swam into view. He alternated between examining Melissa and looking up and down the street.
He turned back to her and took off the scarf he had wrapped around his face to lessen the effects of the gas. His eyes were swollen and tears covered his cheeks, but he seemed to have avoided the worst of the gas attack.
Melissa had never been gladder to see a friendly face.
Senator Tim Barns coughed twice and smiled at her.
Tim helped Melissa through his front door and took her straight to the kitchen sink. He took a clean dishcloth and ran it under water, then used it to wipe her eyes, returning the cloth to the water several times. She was still coughing, but had recovered sufficiently to breathe normally and speak to him in one word answers.
When she confirmed her eyesight was more or less restored, he guided her to the sofa and they sat down together.
“Thank you,” she said, for what must have been the hundredth time.
“Once again, it’s nothing. I saw you in the cloud of gas unable to get out, so I came in to get you.”
“You always bring a…” She coughed several times, holding the wet towel to her face for a moment before recovering. “Do you always bring a mask and bottles of water to a protest?”
Tim smiled. “It’s not my first rodeo. Every time there’s a BLM march I join it – even before I became a senator – and sometimes things can go south real quickly.”
“Well aren’t you Mr. Socially Responsible.”
“It’s important, right? I think it’s just as important for white guys like me to stand up and say, this isn’t okay. If people see a few white faces in the mix, they might think, well hey, this isn’t just black folks bitching again, there may be more to this. It’s sad to have to think that way but there it is.”
“How many marches you been on?”
Tim stood up and grabbed a bottle of red wine, a corkscrew and two glasses from a side table.
“I’ve lost count, to be honest.”
“Have there been that many?”
“Too many.” He opened the bottle and proffered it to her.
“I’m usually a white wine drinker, but I sure could use something. So yeah, why not?”
“I can get white if you like.”
“No, no, this is fine.”
“It’s what inspired me to get into politics,” Tim continued, pouring her drink. “I saw this same shit happening over and over, saw cops get off for shooting people, saw the effect it was having on communities in my own city, saw the mistrust of the police boiling over again and again… Something had to change.”
“So you’re going to change it all?”
“Ha, no.” He took a drink from his own glass. The fruity red helped soothe his own burning throat. “But if I can start a conversation at the right levels, it helps right? I got elected on police reform, prison reform and busting the school to prison pipeline.”
“The what now?”
“Police in schools disciplining kids, so they leave school with a record or possibly a jail sentence instead of a couple of detentions and a high school diploma.”
“That’s terrible!”
“Yeah and black kids are three times more likely than white kids to end up with a juvenile record. So anyway, I ran on those issues and they elected me. Yay!”
“So you’re using the plight of black Virginians to further your political career?”
Tim laughed. Melissa hung her head. “Sorry,” she said. “That came out pretty harsh.”
“It was very cynical, yeah. And you’re half right. This is what I want to do. I get a lot of satisfaction from it. I’m not gonna lie and say I’d dedicate my life to these causes if I wasn’t getting paid for it!”
They laughed together. Melissa took a sip of her drink. Her eyes were still a little teary and she sniffed now and then, but she seemed to have recovered quite well. She took in a lot more gas than Tim did, and he was still feeling the effects. It bothered him greatly: there was no need for the police to deploy the gas.
“I hope all those people got away,” Melissa said, her eyes downcast.
“What happened at the front, Melissa?”
She closed her eyes, clearly reliving the trauma and shuddering at the images flashing before her.
“The police forced us to turn off Franklin, then we went north and they marched out to block us again. I don’t know why, we were peaceful, at least where I was. And then these guys ran out past Wilson, past all of us.”
“What guys?”
“Oh shit! Wilson. I should call him and make sure he’s okay.” She pulled out her phone but Tim put a hand out to slow her down.
“Tell me about the guys?”
“I don’t know, maybe about a dozen of them. I didn’t see them before, but they ran at the police. They had masks and baseball bats and other weapons. That’s when everything went crazy.”
“Agitators,” said Tim.
“Huh?”
“Agitators. Sometimes they’re hired by someone with an agenda, or they’re troublemakers looking to find more trouble. Either way they’re not interested in protesting anything. They’re looking for violence. Any chance to cause mayhem, they’ll do it.”
“Someone hired them to start a fight?”
“More than possible.”
“Shit. Who?”
Tim had a damn good idea who. He wasn’t ready to talk about it just yet though. He waited a few minutes while she sent some text messages from her phone. He regarded her during that time. She was short, slim and very pretty. Her hair was naturally curly and her eyes were dark, deep pools. She was clearly smart, a little wiser than her years, and Tim was impressed by how she was keeping it together. After everything she’d been through in such a short space of time, she was remarkably calm and still caring for the wellbeing of others.
He missed having female company about the place. He wasn’t about to make a move on Melissa. She was attractive, certainly, but too young for him. Plus the press would have a field day if they started dating. He doubted she would be interested in a thirty-something senator from a different country anyway. Still it was nice to have her here. The house felt more complete than it had since Claire left him. He’d thrown himself into his work to such a degree that he hadn’t stopped to consider his own loneliness. Maybe he should take a breath, let the whole Granger thing slide and take some time to start dating again. He