Chapter 43

Cal leaned closer to the mirror in his bedroom in the meager light of early morning as he struggled with the knot in his tie. He thought that the light in the hallway would be bright enough for him to attend to the uncooperative tie. He left the light in the bedroom turned off because Roxie was still sleeping and hadn’t yet shown any signs of waking.

It seemed that every time he tried to create a perfect knot for his tie, it fought back when the tie appeared to be on the verge of achieving it. It reminded him of his election campaign that was in its final hours. It was going just right until he tried to pull it all together at the end. One thing about tying a tie was that the whole process could start over again if things didn’t go just right. Election campaigns weren’t like that.

“I should have said re-election campaign,” he muttered under his breath. “I would have thought people would give me...”

“What ... what was that?” a voice came from the mound of blankets on the bed.

“Sorry, Roxie,” Cal said. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

The mound of blankets moved and Roxie sat up, rubbing her eyes.

“That’s okay. I woke up when you turned on the shower,” she said.

She reached over to the lamp on the bedside night table and turned it on.

“Is that better?” she asked.

Cal slipped the long end of the tie through the new loop he made and tightened the knot with great care. He slid the knot up all the way to the collar.

“It’s not perfect, but it will have to do,” he pronounced.

A windy gust beat on the window that was near the mirror. Cal already knew it was going to be cold all day—even for early November—having checked the weather report the night before. He looked out the window.

“No rain yet,” he said. “But it will be raining soon. The weather report last night said so.”

“If it’s going to rain, it just will,” Roxie said. “Nothing you do is going to change that.”

Cal looked out the window again, searching for even a droplet of brightness amid the grey sky coverlet.

“Yes, I suppose so,” he sighed.

He felt Roxie’s arm around his waist, tugging him away from the window. He stepped back from the window and turned around. Her arms encircled him as she kissed his face. It wasn’t a lovers’ kiss or even a good morning kiss. It wasn’t easy to define it. It seemed like a sort of consolation prize, but it felt nice, just the same.

“I know what you’re getting at, Cal,” she said. “You’re afraid that no one will show up and vote for you in this crummy weather.”

Her arms were still around him holding him in place, it seemed, until he gave the correct answer.

“Something like that,” he admitted.

It was an imperfect answer, just like the imperfect knot in his tie. He knew that Roxie knew it, too.

“Like I told you last night,” she said, “you’ve got to stop worrying about that. Everything is going to be fine.”

“I’m not so sure, Roxie.”

She kept her arms around his waist. She kissed him again.

“You’ll find out tonight when they count the votes,” she assured him. “And after that, we’ll have your victory speech and then we’ll have a big party. I can’t wait.”

“I don’t have a victory speech prepared,” he said

“Actually, I was kidding about the speech,” Roxie giggled, “but I was serious about the party.”

“Or drown our sorrows,” he added.

Roxie let go of him and stepped back a few steps.

“Oh, get off it, Cal. Are you just going to mope all day? This isn’t the time for that.”

“I only wish I could be as confident as you are” he said.

“I am confident, Cal. The people won’t let you down. You mean something to them. Like you told them over and over, they’re voting for themselves, too.”

“More like you told them,” Cal said. “I was just there on the sidelines.”

It was a nasty little comment, which he regretted as soon as the words escaped. He drew in a breath for a quick apology, but not quick enough.

“That’s not fair, Cal. It’s not fair, at all. And it’s not true, either.”

She turned and grabbed a bathrobe that was lying across the foot of the bed. She shoved her arms through the sleeves and tugged the cloth belt hard around her waist.

“I’m sorry, Roxie,” Cal said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it. I’m just tied in knots over this campaign.”

She paused for a second and then answered.

“It’s alright,” Roxie said in a soothing voice. “I know you feel a lot of pressure.”

“I really didn’t mean what I said,” he told her again.

“I think you did,” she answered. “You think that when someone helps you it’s a blot on your character, for some reason. You’re going to find out that...”

“I took help from George and Fred Sherman,” he countered.

“Yes you did,” she conceded, “but you can’t talk to them like you can to me, so you choked it down and saved it up for when we’re alone—or haven’t you noticed that?”

“No, I hadn’t notice that,” he said. “Maybe you’re right. I just can’t think that deep right now. But, I am sorry for what I said.”

“I know that you’re sorry, Cal. I believe you. As for the rest, we’ll drop it for now.”

Roxie was making up the bed and he took his suit jacket off the hangar and slipped it on.

“Everything is so unfair,” he said. “I’ve tried so hard to win this election, but I’m afraid I’m going to let everyone down. George Lambe, Fred Sherman, and especially you. Everyone put a lot of faith in me and...”

Roxie spun around.

“What do you want, Cal?” she shouted at him. “Do you want me to pat you on the head and say ‘there, there’ like you’re a little boy? I won’t do it. You’re a man and I’ll treat you like a man. If you want me to be your mommy, you can forget it.”

He had never seen her so angry at him, not even that day when he picked her up at the State Trooper barracks in northern Maine. He had expected that warm feeling he got when she wrapped herself around him like a favorite blanket.

He remembered a night not many weeks before at the Dairy Freeze. He cradled and soothed her—more like a big brother than a lover—as she dealt with the ghost of her aunt. He knew how to turn it on her.

He could be cruel when necessary, not afraid to bruise her. It would be a fitting quid pro quo that he felt welling up in his guts. The words rose through his stomach and were bursting through his throat. He could taste the revenge, bitter and vile. At the last moment he clamped him mouth shut.

“You’re right, Roxie,” he said as he cast his eyes down on the floor. “I’m just not myself. Can you bear with me a bit longer until this is over?”

He looked up and she was standing in front of him. She put her arms around him again and kissed him once more.

“I just want you to be the man I know you are,” she said and planted another small kiss on his open mouth.

He kissed her back.

“Thanks, Roxie,” he said. “I needed to hear that.”

“If that wasn’t how I feel, Cal,” she said, “I wouldn’t have spent last night in your bed.”

“Have you considered that you might be wrong about me?” he asked. “My knees feel like they’re made of Jell-O and something is doing jumping jacks in my stomach.”

“That’s only because this election means so much to you,” he heard her say. “But everything is going to turn out fine. You’ll see.”

“I wish I could get it over with right now,” he said.

He felt her take a deep breath and then sigh.

“Maybe you do, Cal. But if you were me you wouldn’t say that. I’ve never felt Jell-O in my knees because I’ve never been on the edge of something so important like you are right now. I might never be. So, don’t wish for things until you think those wishes over first.”

She sighed again and rested her head on his chest. He wondered how she could be so hard one moment and soft the next. He was a rowboat chained to a dock in a sudden storm. The fury of the winds and waves might toss him without mercy, but he couldn’t be set adrift. He wondered if that was knowledge or belief—or perhaps just a hope. It was something.

“I wish I could just stay here like this with you, Roxie,” he said. “But, I’ve got to...”

“I know,” she said.

She dropped her arms and stepped back.

“Millie said that I could leave my shift early after the dinner crowd thins out. I’ll have to go and vote before my shift starts at eleven. So, I’ll see you at the Dew Drop at about eight or so.”

“I’ve got to get going,” he answered. “I want to be the first in line at our polling station. Maybe the press will show up for a story. You never know. So, if I leave now, I’ll just make it.”

“Do you want me to make you something to eat first?” she asked.

“No thanks,” he said, “I’ll get something at the diner after I’m done at the polling station.”

Cal sat in his usual booth at the Blue Bird Diner. Business seemed a bit slow for eight o’clock on a Tuesday morning. Cal doubted the reason that it was Election Day. It was more likely the weather. It promised to be a nasty day and it was off to a fitting start.

Cal had shown up at the opening of his polling place. Except for the poll workers, he was the first to vote in his precinct. He was hoping that the remote van of the TV station might be on-hand to capture an interview for the morning news. But it was not to be. It was disappointing all around.

He looked around and saw Bonnie working the counter and Millie waiting on the tables and booths. It was too soon for Bonnie to show, but Cal noticed that she had put on a few pounds.

“Hi Cal,” Millie said. “We don’t see much of you in here these days.”

“Hi, Millie. I’ve been eating at home more recently.”

Millie threw her head back and laughed.

“That’s because you got someone to cook for you,” she hooted.

Cal wondered why Millie thought that her observation was so funny, and why she considered it necessary to broadcast it to everyone in the diner. He decided to let it go; Millie was like that sometimes.

“This election has got me on edge,” he admitted to himself. “No use taking it out on everyone.”

“Don’t worry, Millie,” he said. “You’ve still got all my diner business.”

Millie set the coffee carafe down on the unused part of the table and stood in front of him with her pencil and pad ready.

“I’m just going to have coffee and whole wheat toast today, Millie. I know it’s not much to take up a booth, but I didn’t think you’d mind.”

Millie didn’t answer, but scribbled on her pad.

“You see,” he explained, “I’d just like to be alone with my thoughts this morning. You know, the election, and all.”

He knew that Millie hadn’t requested an explanation, but it was on the tip of his tongue, so he just let it go. Perhaps, he thought, Millie would back up Roxie’s opinion and assure him that there was nothing to worry about. Better yet, maybe she had heard things while she was waiting on tables.

Millie didn’t answer. She poured his coffee and about-faced and headed off toward the kitchen.

“I think that I’ve sunk to a new low,” he wondered as he waited for his order of toast, “hinting to Millie to gossip with me.”

It hadn’t been long ago, he thought, that he almost had figured out what would win the campaign and what it would take to wrest power away from the Jack Ross political machine.

“That’s the story of this whole campaign,” he thought to himself as he sat in the booth, one ‘almost’ after another.”

It had been an amazing and rapid skyrocket and then plunge of fortunes in the final weeks of the campaign. The meteoric ascent began at the tour de force City Council presentation and then reached its triumphant acme at the signing ceremony in the atrium of City Hall. He had rounded the Clubhouse Turn ahead by at least a length and widening his lead in the Stretch with every step.

Everything fell to pieces at the Finish Line. The images of him hugging the nude and sexy Patty Warren on the Powell Memorial Bridge ravaged him in the press and on TV. That had been in the small hours of Friday morning. It was Tuesday—Election Day.

People were still tittering or gasping over it, depending on their point of view. The whole Annex thing seemed to belong to another century. The old adage of ‘timing is everything’ was ringing loud and clear.

“I did it for all the right reasons,” an inner voice repeated Roxie’s words to him at the Dairy Freeze not many weeks before.

Roxie had said that to him. She always seemed to know these things. She also told him that his worrying and fretting was in vain because she was sure he would win. Cal was convinced that her unbroken string of sage prophecy would come to a bitter end when it mattered most.

“She probably knows what’s really going to happen. She’s holding back to make me feel better.”

Lost in his thoughts as he was, he hadn’t noticed Millie bringing him his breakfast of whole wheat toast.

“Wake up lover-boy!” she screeched over the din in the diner.

It was enough to pull Cal out of his daydreaming.

“I brought you a small orange juice—on the house,” Millie said.

She set it on the table next to his coffee cup.

“It’s on account of Election Day,” Millie explained.

“Thanks, Millie,” Cal mumbled. “You didn’t have to...

“Of course, I didn’t have to,” she said in s voice that made sure that Cal knew he wasn’t telling her anything.

“Is that my consolation prize?” Cal asked.

“Shame about the thing with that girl on the Powell Bridge,” she went on. “If it hadn’t been for that...”

“I’ll need more than orange juice to drown my sorrows,” Cal said.

“Aw, c’mon, Cal,” Millie laughed. “Don’t feel so bad. A lot of times folks forget about those little scandals just like that.”

She snapped her fingers.

“They haven’t so far,” Cal groaned.

“And sometimes it takes something like that to wake them up!”

“You never know,” he said. “I guess we’ll find out tonight.”

“Well, I want you to know that I’m going to vote for you as soon as my shift is over. I’m trying to get Stan to go with me, but so far, he won’t go. He keeps on insisting that Jack Ross dumped you for a reason and that’s good enough for him. But on the other hand, he can’t stand that Jennifer Davis lady so...”

Cal looked up to answer, but Millie was gone—off to wait on another table. He stared down at his toast with the orange juice on the side and wondered why he’d told himself that he had been that hungry.

“Don’t you want that orange juice? It’s not everyday that you’re gonna get one on the house.”

He looked up and saw that Millie was back, hovering over his table.

“I’m just saving it for last, Millie,” he said. “I don’t want my coffee to get cold. I do appreciate it.”

“That sounds better,” Millie replied. “You know, Cal, I owe you more than a free orange juice for getting Roxie straightened out.”

“Straightened out?” Cal asked.

“We’re lucky that she’s back,” she went on. “At first, I wasn’t sure she could get back in the groove, after the episode with Bubba, and all. I was afraid there’d be too many hard feelings between her and me.

I don’t know how much longer I can keep Bonnie on. She’s already missed a bunch of shifts with morning sickness. It won’t be no time until she won’t be able to do the job at all. Roxie on the other hand...”

“I don’t think you’ve got it quite right,” Cal said. “Roxie never needed straightening out. She just needed a chance to get some respect, that’s all. I never tried to change her—never would want to.”

“Maybe ... whatever...” Millie said. “All I know is that since she’s taken up with you she’s a whole lot more serious.”

“People get older; different things matter,” Cal said.

“Maybe you’re having an effect on her without realizing it,” Millie countered. “You’re so straight-laced, Cal, some of it just had to rub off on her.”

“If everyone thinks I’m so ‘straight-laced’, why are they still gossiping about me and Patty Warren?”

Millie thought for a few moments.

“Because, for a lot of people gossip is just too excitin’ to pass up,” Millie explained, “especially when the parties bein’ gossiped about don’t have their clothes on.”

Millie tried to stifle a laugh, but she couldn’t. Cal drew a breath.

“Anyway, I just knew all along that you and Roxie would end up together,” Millie said before Cal could answer. “I used to tell her that every day. I knew that Bonnie would end up with that brother of yours, too. When Roxie ran off with Bubba I thought I might have been wrong, but...”

“She ran off with Bubba because she was disappointed about the way you turned her down when she asked you about buying the diner,” Cal told her.

Millie stared at Cal with her mouth open.

“Well ... she ... she just caught me off-guard, that’s all. She shouldda waited till we weren’t busy. I thought it was just some passing thing.”

“She was serious. It was hard on her being rejected like she was when she was taking a chance by putting herself forward like that.”

“Stan and me—we’re not ready to retire yet,” Millie said. “Anyhow...”

“But you’ll want to retire someday, won’t you,” Cal replied. “It’s not always easy to find a buyer. And if something happens to you or Stan you might be forced into it without any time to find a buyer. You’d have to lock the door and walk away.”

Millie stared at Cal, one hand holding the coffee pot and the other over her chest. She let out a sigh.

“We just don’t have time to think about all that,” she said. “You know, Roxie might think she knows everything about the diner business, but there’s a lot she has no idea about.”

“You might think about selling Roxie a piece of the business and let her pay for it with her share of the profits. When the time comes for you and Stan to step away she would have some equity to show the bank. In the meantime you and Stan could show her the ropes. Of course, you’d have to open up your books if you and she get far enough down the road.”

“You’re saying that you know how to set this whole thing up?” Millie asked.

“I do,” Cal assured her. “I would be representing Roxie. You would need your own lawyer on your side and an accountant, too.”

Cal stayed silent as Millie thought for a few seconds.

“Let me run this by Stan. I’ll need to wait until he’s in the right frame of mind. So, tell Roxie not to bring it up too soon.”

“Maybe it would be better for you to bring it up to her,” Cal said. “Roxie might not feel right to bring it up again after being turned down the first time.”

Cal left the diner after paying his tab. As soon as he walked out the door he could see that the weather had taken a downward turn. It was too late to regret leaving his car in the lot and also having left his overcoat at home when he left the house. The short walk from the diner to his office was too familiar since he’d made it more times than he could count. The whole situation served to remind him how sour everything had turned in the past few days.

As he turned a corner a gust of cold wind hit him in the face and he could feel a mist of raindrops pelt his skin. They stung, as though they had sharp points. Cal turned up the collar of his suit jacket, as though it might do any good to keep him dry or warm.

“I’ve just got to walk fast and get inside before this rain starts coming down any harder.”

It was only the first week of November but it was almost cold enough to turn the rain into snow, or perhaps, little pellets of ice. It made Cal think to himself that Appleton always got the worst of everything. It mattered little whether it was weather or business or politicians.

He had hoped to change all that and came so very close to doing it, too. It was all undone by a dirty trick on the Powell Bridge in the small hours of last Friday morning. Such was politics, he was reminded.

In a few short weeks another Thanksgiving would roll by and then the Christmas season. He had hoped to make the annual holiday decorations a bit brighter. Sure, the Annex deal was a reality and he knew he should have felt good about that. But his impending loss would mean that Jack Ross would move in and get control of that project and use it to line his greedy pockets.

Or, so he told himself and as he finished the private analysis he looked up and found himself at the door of the building that housed his office. He opened it and walked up the stairs.

“When am I going to get an elevator installed in this place?” he asked himself as he trudged up the last few steps.

Delores was at her desk when he walked into the office.

“Harry Collins wants to see you. He’s waiting in the inner office,” she announced before he could say ‘hello’ to her.

“I thought we didn’t schedule anything today on account of the election?”

“He doesn’t have an appointment. He says it’s important,” Delores answered. “And, by the way, you’re a mess. Didn’t you wear an overcoat?”

Cal didn’t answer. He did a cursory brushing off of his suit jacket and formed his fingers into a comb and did a quick touch up. He noticed Delores shaking her head, but he didn’t answer that, either.

“Hello, Harry,” Cal said as he shuffled into the office. “What’s up?”

Cal really did know ‘what was up’, but since it ‘was up’ because Harry had gone against the advice that Cal had given him, he decided to make Harry spell it out—a sort of slap on the hand.

“Look what I got served with yesterday!” he wailed and brandished a folded document wrapped in the customary blue court wrapper.

“Looks like a writ from the court,” Cal said. “What does it say?”

Harry handed the document to Cal.

“They reversed the eviction of the tenant on Bedlow St.,” Harry proclaimed.

Cal scanned the writ, making sure that there was nothing other than the usual language.

“The tenant is seven months pregnant, Harry. I told you when you started this that a judge will never toss out a single woman in that condition.”

“I know, Cal. I admit it. You told me, but I was burned up and...”

“And not only that, Harry, the judge won’t force her out with a newborn, either. She’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Harry scratched his head.

“What are you goin’ to do, Cal? I gotta get some money outta the place. I’ve got expenses...”

Cal ground his teeth together and choked down a comment that he had on the tip of his tongue.

“The real question is what are you going to do, Harry? I suggest that you follow my advice this time. We’ll ask the court to have the Welfare Department pay you direct from her monthly welfare check. That’s what we should have done four weeks ago when this all began.”

“I know,” Harry complained, “but they’ll only give me fifty cents on the dollar. I just thought that the eviction would...”

“You’re getting zero cents on the dollar now, Harry,” Cal interrupted. “You could have started receiving your fifty cents right about now, instead of waiting another two months before you see a dime.”

“Two months!” Harry wailed.

“That’s right. It will be almost a month by the time we get on the court docket and the judge issues the writ. Then you have to wait until the welfare payment cycle rolls around again. On top of that, you’re paying me to do this for you while she’s getting Legal Aid to represent her for free.”

“It’s not fair,” Harry mumbled, shaking his head.

“You could have gotten a bit more if you had done this instead of going through with the eviction,” Cal said. “If you had convinced her to do it on a voluntary basis she might have agreed to more because there would have been the possibility of eviction hanging over her head. Now that she’s lawyered up, there’s no possibility of that.”

Harry stood up and began putting on his jacket.

“I’m just trying to run a legit business,” he said. “You would think that would count for something.”

“Harry,” Cal said, “in the economic world there are providers and takers. You and I are providers and in the State’s eyes, that just makes us a source to be tapped.”

“Do what’s necessary to get some money flowing,” Harry said in a low voice. “By the way, good luck in the election. I’m goin’ to vote for you right now. I hope you win.”

Cal took a deep breath. He wondered if he might have taken it easier on Harry.

“Thanks, Harry,” he said and extended his hand.

Harry shook Cal’s hand for a couple of seconds.

“Don’t mention it, Cal,” he said. “Unfortunately, my wife refuses to vote for you. She’s convinced that there was something between you and that girl who tried to commit suicide on the Powell Bridge the other night. So I guess me and the missus will cancel each other out.”

“But otherwise she would have voted for me,” Cal pointed out. “So, that means that it’s a loss of a vote.”

“I suppose it is,” Harry said. ‘“But, I can’t convince her.”

Harry turned to leave. Cal accompanied him to the reception area and then watched him make his way down the stairs.

“You were a bit hard on Harry,” Delores said.

“I suppose so,” Cal admitted, “but he had it coming. I advised him the right way to go about it from the start. He insisted on the eviction and that was a big mistake. This way, he’ll know better next time.”

“I think he already had that figured out,” Delores sighed. “Harry’s one of your best clients. He’s been with you since you began your practice.”

Cal stuck his hands in his pockets and scuffed his shoes on the carpet.

“Well, why should I be the only one having a bad day?”

He saw Delores shaking her head and he knew that a piece of her mind was on its way.

“I know that you’re disappointed about the way the election campaign turned out,” she said. “But, you’ve never been the kind to take your troubles out on others. Harry should have taken your advice—no doubt about that. But I’ve seen other clients do worse and you held back.”

Delores finished telling him what she thought and then folded her hands on her desk and sat without moving. Cal was pacing back and forth in front of her desk.

“I thought of Harry’s tenant and saw my future after I’m voted out of office,” he said at last. “I’ll be chasing his deadbeat tenants or scheming to get someone out of their DUI ticket. Maybe an occasional will or a real estate closing thrown in for excitement once in a while.

I thought that I was fit for important things—that really matter. I was almost there until that night on the Powell Bridge. Now, I’m facing reality. It’s not easy to get used to.”

“I knew all along that’s what’s bothering you,” Delores answered. “But you have to think about your clients. All those things that are little jobs to you are big things to them. They don’t deal them every day, like you do.”

“I know, I know,” Cal sighed and threw his hands in the air as if that would vent the frustration.

“Your clients come to you because they know that you’ll do a first-class job for them and you won’t let them down. That should be important to you.”

“When you’re right, you’re right,” Cal told her. “I just need some time to get used to it.”

Delores nodded and opened a file folder and began to sort the documents in it.

“I knew you’d say that sooner or later,” she said. “You’ll always be ‘steady Cal’. And, don’t worry. Something will come your way. One door closes, another opens.”

Cal poured himself a coffee and began walking to his office. Delores was typing away.

“I suppose so,” he said, “but I haven’t gotten over the feeling of the first door slamming in my face.”

Cal skipped lunch and stayed in his office for the rest of the day. His stomach was growling, but he wasn’t sure if it was telling him that he was hungry or nervous from thinking about the election. Or, maybe he was drinking too much coffee.

“Don’t you want me to bring back something for you?” Delores had asked as she put on her coat to go to lunch. “You’ve got to eat something.”

Cal declined and Delores was shaking her head again. But she said nothing else and disappeared down the stairs.

Cal knew she was right again.

“It won’t be the first time I ever skipped lunch,” he told himself and dove back into the client folder he was working in.

He had placed a call to George Lambe not long before the lunch hour. George agreed with Cal’s outlook about the voting and they agreed that getting together before they gathered at the Dew Drop to hear the tallies would be a waste of time. Their brief conversation kept playing through Cal’s mind.

“George has already given up,” he thought. “He can read the writing on the wall even better than I can.”

It wasn’t the words that had been spoken, but the tone of them and that Cal had been surprised when George turned down a mid-election day conference to speculate on the results.

The rain—or perhaps it was little frozen pellets—was tapping on his office window pane. It made him wish that he’d asked Roxie to bring his overcoat to him at the office before she left his house to work her shift at the diner.