Chapter 39

“The Annex project is just the beginning. There’s a lot more we can do to bring good jobs into our county. I’d appreciate your vote.”

Cal handed the lady a campaign brochure. He was standing on the steps to the front door of her trailer; she was in the doorway propping the door open. Two children of kindergarten age—a boy on the left a girl on the right—stood at either side of her, half-hiding behind her as they peered at Cal.

“Hey! How about some ‘Tucker Buttons’ for the kids?” he asked the woman.

She was neither old nor young. She was wearing a fleece sweatshirt that didn’t hide the fact that she was carrying a few extra pounds. Cal estimated her age at about forty, but then reminded himself that it was after the dinner hour and her long day made her tired and look older than she really was. He readjusted his guess to thirty-four or five.

Cal heard the TV blasting away in the background. There was a single, rusted station wagon parked in the hardpan of the front yard that was about twelve years old. The woman paused from scanning Cal’s brochure and peeked over the top of it at him when he asked her about the buttons.

“Or I’ve got some stickers,” Cal said. “They don’t have any pins in them.”

“That would be better,” the mother said.

Cal gave a sheet of a dozen ‘Tucker Stickers’ to each child.

“Take the stickers and go inside,” the haggard mother told the kids.

In a flash they disappeared, the new stickers overcoming their curiosity about the stranger at their doorstep.

“We don’t get many of you folks here in the park lookin’ for votes,” she said to Cal.

“One reason is that not many who live in the parks are registered to vote,” Cal replied. “By the way, are you registered?”

The woman shook her head. Cal reached into his folder, drew out a form and handed it to her.

“Is there anyone else at this address who might need one?” he asked.

“No, their father doesn’t live with us.”

“Well, just fill in the form and drop it in a mailbox,” Cal said. “It won’t cost a thing and you’ll be registered as long as you’re living at this address. Do it by the twentieth and you can vote in this coming election.”

The woman took a quick look at the form.

“There’s nothing to it,” Cal said, “and I could really use your vote. In a way, you won’t be voting for me, you’ll be voting for yourself.”

The last comment made the woman open her eyes a bit wider.

“You wouldn’t mind having a chance at one of those new jobs at the Annex, would you?”

The woman thought for a few seconds and nodded.

“Okay, I’ll vote for you. At least you came down here in person and talked to us.”

Cal reached into his folder again.

“Here’s some more brochures and voter applications. When you’re talking to your friends, pass them out. And here’s a few more sheets of ‘Tucker Stickers’.”

Cal handed her the material.

“Well, I gotta get the kids in bed,” the woman said.

“It was nice talking to you ma’am. Please, don’t forget to vote.”

The woman stepped out of the doorway and shut the door. Cal was on his way back to the Mustang. He’d just completed his final stop of the night. He and Roxie worked out a time limit on door-to-door. A knock on the door past eight-thirty would have been thought to be intrusive. That had been Roxie’s idea, along with a number of other things.

Cal had been working the Appleton Oaks Trailer Park. Roxie was in the midst of round two over at Happy Hollow. Their strategy was that Roxie would do a preliminary campaign to generate interest and Cal would come through after Roxie had prepared the way for him.

The plan seemed to be working. When Cal arrived the residents already had heard his name. Roxie had done a good job and it was apparent to Cal that the people liked her. Roxie’s idea of the ‘Tucker Buttons’ had been brilliant. Cal added onto the thought of having stickers, too—and it hadn’t even dented the campaign budget.

Cal drove to the Happy Hollow Park where he and Roxie arranged to meet after their evening campaign hours expired. He drove along the narrow road to the center of the park where there was an office and a community room. Roxie was waiting for him in front of it. He stopped and she opened the passenger door. She piled her materials on the back seat and then got in the front.

“How did it go?” Cal asked.

“Fine,” Roxie answered. “The only problem is that people want me to stop and talk. That’s fine, except I can’t get the number of visits in that I planned.”

“Yes, but that’s good,” Cal said. “They’re interested.”

“I’m telling them that you’re coming through soon, so they should get their questions ready.”

“The pressure’s on,” Cal said, “but that’s my job. By the way, I don’t know what I’d do without those buttons and stickers. We might have to order some more.”

“Just a little brainstorm,” Roxie said.

Cal glanced over and then laughed.

“If you have any more ‘little brainstorms’ be sure not to keep them to yourself.”

They rode along, back toward the center of town.

“Want to go to the Dew Drop for a nightcap?” Cal asked.

Roxie shook her head.

“Not tonight. Let’s go to the Dairy Freeze, instead. They’re going to close down for the season soon. I haven’t been there since I took Aunt Flora there just before she passed away.”

It was almost nine by the time Cal pulled the Mustang into the parking lot of the Dairy Freeze. The sun was setting, taking whatever warmth remained of the day with it.

“It looks like they’re getting ready to close,” Roxie said. “Look, they’re mopping the floor already.”

“We better hurry up, then,” Cal replied, and bounded out of the car.

He stood in front of the ordering window and in a few seconds Roxie was standing alongside him. He was scanning the menu that was posted on a big sign on the front of the building.

“When Aunt Flora and I used to come here I would always get a hot-fudge sundae and Aunt Flora would have a butterscotch sundae,” Roxie said.

Cal shrugged his shoulders.

“Let’s do that, then; a hot-fudge for you and a butterscotch for me.”

Cal felt Roxie back away from him. He couldn’t understand why. He turned his head to look at her. She reminded him of a frightened cat with its back arched in defense.

“No, Cal, we can’t do that,” she said. “Please don’t make me do that.”

“Okay, I’ll take the hot fudge and you take the hot fudge. It’s all the same to me,” Cal replied.

“No, no—just no”, she answered, and her voice was shaking.

Cal knew that something had struck a nerve inside her, but he was at a loss beyond that. He wondered if they should get back in the car and just drive away, but that didn’t seem like the right ting to do. He decided to try an end run.

“Okay, how about strawberry sundaes?” he asked.

She moved back next to him, where she had been standing. She nodded and moved a bit closer.

“Two strawberry sundaes, please,” Cal said to the girl in the ordering window.

“I ... I’m sorry, Cal,” Roxie stammered, “I didn’t mean to...”

“You know, Roxie, I haven’t been to the Dairy Freeze in ... in ... I can’t actually remember the last time I was here.”

He looked at her and she was about to answer, but the attendant brought the sundaes. Cal paid for them and handed one to Roxie and kept one for himself.

“Better get some extra napkins,” Roxie said.

She reached past him and pulled a half dozen paper napkins from a holder and then turned and hurried back to the car. She was already in the passenger’s seat when Cal got in the driver’s side.

He dipped the spoon into the white frozen custard and strawberry sauce. It was a new, sweet taste. He had been to the Dairy Freeze before of course, but not in many years. The taste of it had nearly left his memory.

“When I was a kid,” he said to Roxie between spoonfuls, “we never got sundaes. We always got cones. We used to come here after Little League games and the coach...”

“Cal, I’m so sorry,” Roxie said. “I made a terrible fool of myself.”

“Fool, Roxie? Why would you say you made a fool of yourself?”

“There was just a feeling that came over me,” she said. “I didn’t feel it coming on—it was just there all of a sudden. It was just that at that moment I knew that if we got those hot-fudge and butterscotch sundaes something terrible was going to happen right then and there.”

“You don’t owe me any explanation,” Cal said. “It’s just frozen custard. What kind of sauce you want on your ice cream doesn’t really matter.”

But he could, even in the near darkness, see that she was staring at him and her eyes were opened wide. Her jaw was jutting forward and locked in place. She was panting for breath. Cal set his dish of custard in the cup holder in the console.

“Why did you want to come here if the place upsets you?” he asked.

“I saw my Aunt Flora in a dream the other night,” Roxie said. “She was wandering in a room with no light, bumping into things she couldn’t see. There was a lamp, but she refused to turn it on. She kept saying ‘I’ve lost it; I can’t find it’.

I asked her, ‘What are you looking for, Auntie?’ She answered that she was looking for lilac water for her hair. Then she reached out her hand and grabbed mine to pull me into the room to help her find it. But I tore myself away. I wouldn’t go in; I was so afraid.”

Roxie stopped speaking, but kept on breathing hard, searching for breath and who knew what else.

“Maybe you miss your aunt more than you realize,” Cal said.

“It was like she was coming back again to try to pull me into that dark room,” Roxie said. “I knew I shouldn’t be there, but something inside me pulled me to that place.”

Cal watched her panting slow as she slumped down in her seat. The wide eyes had half closed. She lifted her hands and buried her face in them. She began speaking. Her hands muffled the tone, but Cal listened to the words.

“I can’t stand being afraid, Cal. I don’t even know what I’m afraid of—just being pulled into that dark room, I guess. Or, maybe it’s being outside that room and not knowing where else to go. Maybe I’ll find out that I belong there, after-all”

She lowered her hands and looked at him.

“Does that make sense, Cal?” she asked.

He reached his hand out, touched her on the side of the face with his palm.

“I didn’t know, Roxie. I had no idea that these things were bothering you,” was all that he could think of saying.

He knew that his answer was far less than what she deserved from him. As he was trying to think of a way to fill the void, and contemplated the softness of her cheek as his palm rested on it, he felt a tear moisten his fingers.

“Cal, I told you that there are a lot of things about me that you don’t know,” she said.

The sun had finished setting and the lights in the Dairy Freeze had been turned off. There was no light. She was a voice in the darkness and the touch of his hand on the flesh of her face. He felt her hand grasp his and fasten it to her cheek.

“Roxie,” he said, “dreams are just recordings from the past. They don’t foretell the future. That’s up to us to figure out without the help of dreams.”

He felt her head move in a nod.

“I would never have thought you’d be afraid of anything,” he said to her. “But that wasn’t a reasonable thing to think. Fear comes to everyone. The difference between people is how they handle it.”

“I thought I could handle it, Cal,” she said. “Sometimes I can, and then other times...”

“You can handle it, Roxie,” Cal answered.

“What are you afraid of, Cal?” she whispered.

He knew the answer right away, but he tried to keep silent. What he would say seemed so trivial in the moment—that it might seem to diminish what she’d told him. Yet he knew it was the truthful answer.

“I’m afraid of being a failure, afraid of losing. I think about it all the time.”

“Are you afraid of losing the election?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“You don’t have to be afraid, Cal. You’re going to win, and even if you don’t you’ll know that you gave it your best and all for the right reasons.”

“They are the right reasons, Roxie. I just don’t know...”

“And what will you do after you win?” she asked.

Cal was quick to answer.

“I’d like to create a new industrial park on the land adjoining the Annex property. It’s been vacant for years and the new road improvement and Midco as an anchor will make it possible.”

“That’s a pretty big thing,” she said.

“It could turn the economics of Appleton County completely around.”

“So, you’ve got to win,” Roxie said, “for all the people who live here.”

“I’m trying my best, but...”

“You see, it’s different for me,” Roxie said. “I don’t really count for much. I’m afraid that when I die people will just remember me as a side show who knew only how to howl at the moon.”