Crisis Control

The district Brenda is hoping to represent is a Republican pimple on an otherwise unblemished Democratic nose. She is the magic cream that Wagman has found to eradicate the pimple.

But a threat has now arisen. The husband. Marriage is a rotten institution. It takes too much of people’s time. What if he’d been free to do whatever he damned pleased? He’d have been in congress long ago – at least Congress. He might have made it to the Senate. He had no dreams beyond that. The responsibility was too damn much. He wanted to enjoy his life. And he did. He had a rich wife.

Don’t forget that. He’s married to an heiress. It is more than just the house. He actually can do whatever he damn pleases, and he does. She doesn’t want him in politics, and here he is.

He has to do something about the husband. The scene he’d made after the party. Unbelievable. And for what? What was it all about? Phoenix told him he was pissed because he’d found his daughter drinking the pink punch with some newspaper guy in the guest room with the white couches. “Go look. There’s a pink stain on one of them. I couldn’t get it out. Mom’s going to be furious.”

No, no, folks, it’s okay. You have not misread anything, now or before. You know about this guy. His mother told you. He’s not just a liar. He’s a total fabricator. His utterances bear no resemblance to truth.

So Mitchell went to see, and sure enough, there was the stain, with signs that someone had tried hard to get rid of it.

Phoenix has tidied up his life. He got rid of the incriminating connection with Sheba, and got rid of the blame for having spilled his drink while wandering around earlier in the evening. He’s home free.

Mitchell wonders why it’s his fault that Jason has a wayward daughter. He’s also not too happy to hear she’d been plied with drink by a reporter. He’ll probably have to do damage control. Damage control comes to every campaign, but this was so early.

And not good, either, for the candidate, a teacher, to have an uncontrollable child. If Sheba’s shenanigans made it to the press, and they were damned lucky if they hadn’t already, her mother would lose respect. A reporter! He’d thought everyone had left.

It was time to take the high and mighty husband and father down a peg. He’d practically dragged Brenda out of the room! After cave-manning his daughter by the hair. The man was a brute. Maybe he shouldn’t inflict him on Nina.

But she’d made all kinds of excuses for him after he removed the daughter, and before he removed the wife, while the three of them waited for Jason to return. “Don’t worry, he’ll be all right, he’s just a little drunk… maybe he’s got a good reason... these things can be very hard on spouses; they often lose their minds during campaigns – nobody’s paying attention to them, the public is stealing what they thought was theirs...” On and on she talked, probably out of nervousness, till he came back and took his wife.

Said wife has now had her cell phone off and has been taking messages, for an entire day. Fortunately, he had anticipated that the party might be too much, and he hadn’t made any engagements for two days after, to give her time to recuperate. He hoped that’s what she was doing.

He’d been on the phone with Adele, Nat and Chauncey, hoping one of them had another way to make contact, but she wasn’t answering e-mail, there was a message from Zeke on the home phone saying nobody could take the call, and none of the three, yet, had decided to go to her house.

It was up to him. The two days would be over this evening, and tomorrow Brenda had four appearances in four towns.

He phones Nina, who is upstairs doing yoga in that white guest room where yesterday, she found and dissolved the misattributed stain.

“Nina, we’re going for a ride,” he says. “To see your boyfriend.”

“My boyfriend?”

“Come on, I know you like him. We’ve got to get him out of his funk. Get dressed. Look good.”

“Mitch, you old pimp. You love to sell the ladies. You missed your calling.”

“No, I didn’t,” he says. “Wear that green dress.”

“In the daytime?”

“Yes. We’ll say we’re on our way to a dinner party, just passing by, thought we’d drop in, we know how rough it is, etc. etc. And you, my dear, you give him something to hope for. I don’t care what it is.”

She unpretzeled from the lotus position, and went to the closet to fluff out the moss green dress that had no back, and practically no front. It was summer. She could get away with it.

The town the Shapiros live in is twenty minutes and a world away. An old town with old houses, tall hedges, and big trees. Mitchell has a well-programmed GPS. It took them there.

“This is very rude, not calling ahead,” Nina said as they approached. “At least give them warning.”

“I can’t. They’re not answering the phones.”

“They’ll be thrilled to see us,” she said. “I’m sure they’re looking for company.”

“Doesn’t matter. He could at this moment be talking her out of the whole deal. It’s happened before. Candidates withdraw. You never hear why. This is why.”

The man has an uncanny sense of people. At this very moment, Jason is bringing herbal tea to his wife, who is upstairs in bed with laryngitis and a malaise that barely lets her lift her hand.

He had come home early from work to tend to her, and her silence loosened his tongue. He poured out his love and remorse, begged her forgiveness, and promised that from now on he will fully support her. (Zeke, supposedly playing an approved video game, was disappointed to hear all this mushy stuff and went back to the game.) Brenda, sapped of all strength, whispered, in turn, that she wanted to quit the campaign. Jason scooped her up from the pillow and hugged her, told her he would make sure she would never regret it, and went down to get the tea.

He is on his way back up the stairs when the bell rings. Should he answer? His instinct is “no”. But they may have seen his shadow on the stairs. It feels almost criminal to hide. He takes two steps up. He can’t do it.

He goes back down, puts the tray on a table, and heads for the door. Through the opaque glass, he sees a big and a little shape. He opens it. It’s a bad dream. Mitchell Wagman and his crazy wife are not standing on his doorstep, all dressed up with grins on their faces. He is not welcoming them in.

But he is; he’s a worm. He crawls in the dirt. He sucks up. He’s intimidated by their well-being, by Nina’s naked skin, by Bill’s… no, it isn’t Bill. It just looks like him.

Bill’s been in the headlines again, for getting Gore’s journalists back from Korea. That does not mean Mitchell Wagman’s stock should go up. Yet it has. Partly because he’s wearing a suit very much like the one Clinton wore in the picture with Kim Jong-il. And because the real Bill looked like a corpse in the picture, so Jason is glad to see the corrective grin. He’s sure that photo is the price Clinton paid for the prisoners’ release. The two world leaders, dead serious, side by side, Clinton’s retinue giving equal prestige and protection to both. He wonders what kind of story went with the picture in the North Korean press.

But now is not the time. He has flung open the door and allowed them entry. “Oh, we’re not staying,” Mitchell says as he crosses the threshold. “We’re on our way to dinner. Haven’t been able to get you on the phone, so Nina thought we should stop in and see how you are.”

“You poor dears,” Nina says, giving him a chance to stare at her un-dress. “I’m sure you’ve been through hell. Please let me apologize for the crude misconduct that took place in my house. Corrupting the morals of a sweet child like Sheba!” She shook her head and put her hand on his arm. And kept it there, while Wagman talked.

“We’re going to win,” he says. “I want to assure you of that. We’re going to win because you and your wife have made the sacrifice. Everyone has a teacher in the family, and in an education campaign, they’ll all listen to that education expert, who will tell them to vote for Brenda. And then she’s going to save American education, my man, and that will save the world.”

He grips his hand, hard. Nina lets go of his arm. “Well,” he says, “Tell Brenda we’re sorry we missed her, but we only had a few minutes.”

Mitchell goes out the door first. Nina lingers long enough to say to him, “Remember that tantric yoga we were talking about? I’m a certified practitioner. If you want a lesson, give me a call.”

And you, folks, if you don’t know what tantric yoga is, I’d advise you to Google it, so you’ll know why a piece of Jason’s anatomy suddenly stood on end.