Dewey Defeats Truman (40 page)

“We can’t,” said Tim. “I promised Mr. Sinclair. He dug him out of there so the Dewey Walk won’t get built on top of him.”

“Kid,” said Peter, looking at his watch. It was just twenty-five minutes since he’d talked to his old Yale friend in the candidate’s suite at the Roosevelt Hotel. “Trust me. There isn’t going to be any Dewey Walk.”

W
HEN
J
ANE
H
ERRICK
’
S TELEPHONE RANG THREE HOURS
later, the sound did not wake her up. She was already awake, because she had not yet been to bed. She was hardly the only person in Owosso up at 3
A.M.
, but she was probably the only one rereading the
Argus
’s October 28 edition, specifically its article on the end of the pheasant-hunting season. “Although final returns are not yet in, it was estimated that more than 500,000 legal birds were shot this year, about a 10 percent better take than last year.” Factoring in the article’s further piece of information that “less than 300,000 hunters stalked the woods compared to some 350,000 nimrods in 1947,” Jane began doing the math that would tell her, to the second decimal point, how many more birds would have died this year had Arnie’s gun been in his living hands instead of a corner of her garage.

“Hello?” she said matter-of-factly.

“Hello!” responded a voice she recognized, despite its being a bit more thick and distant, on the edge of slurring,
than what she was used to. “I came all this way and I’m still just two hundred feet away from Mrs. Dewey! Except they’re
vertical
feet.” Frank Sherwood, through his laughter, was trying to convey his location—a telephone booth off the main bar in the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, where, as everyone in Owosso, even Jane, knew, Annie Dewey now occupied a room of the governor’s fifteenth-floor suite.

Jane said nothing, and Frank’s words rolled on. “They say she’s gone to sleep. Things are pretty glum. We got over here around midnight and the ballroom was jammed, but the crowd’s down to a couple of hundred now, and nobody’s saying much. The bar’s still full, and I guess some of them haven’t given up. We think there’s even a secret service guy waiting around, just in case. The only guy drinking coffee.”

“Who are you with, Frank?”

“Some fellow I met at the theatre. I had standing room at a show called
Born Yesterday
,” he explained, looking, for confirmation, at the Lyceum Theatre playbill he still clutched in the hand also holding his drink. “I was going to try and see
Mister Roberts
, Henry Fonda’s in it, but I figured who needed three more hours of the Navy? So I walked over to this show I’d never heard of and saw the last act standing up.”

“And that’s where you met this friend?”

“Right!” said Frank. He was surprised at how sharp Jane seemed tonight. “He was standing right next to me, and we got to talking and decided to come over to the Roosevelt, where all the action was supposed to be. Except it’s getting deader by the minute.” He laughed again.

“You’re not staying there, are you?”

“No, I’ve got a room just a block from Penn Station. I
checked into it as soon as I got off the train. I’ve got it for the rest of the week.”

“Tell me about today. What else have you been doing since you got there?”

“I went to the planetarium. Pretty silly, huh? But it was the first thing I thought of. That was in the morning. Afterwards I walked up and down Fifth Avenue and clear across Fifty-seventh Street in both directions. I haven’t been to Macy’s, but I went into Lord & Taylor. You could fit Christian’s into the shoe department!” He’d already used that last line, a couple of hours ago on this guy from the theatre, but he liked the polished way it came out now, the little extra ring rehearsal had given it. All day long he’d been overhearing people talk that way.

“What’s the weather like?”

“Kind of nice. No rain, even though they predicted it. Just a lot of clouds. There aren’t any stars out, just the ones at the planetarium. I already know my telescope’s going to be useless here with all the light on the ground. But do you know what you
can
see?”

“What, Frank?”

“A giant beacon sweeping the south sky. I noticed it before I knew what it was. It’s coming from Times Square, from the newspaper tower. It means Truman’s ahead. If the arc shifts north, it means Dewey’s in front. When either of them has it won, it’ll lock into position, north or south.” For a sentimental split-second, a piece of him regretted that he wouldn’t be able to explain this scientific marvel tomorrow morning during third period. “What’s happening in Owosso?” he asked.

“Nothing’s happening in Owosso,” Jane replied.

Frank imagined she hadn’t been out of her house all day, not to vote or go to the cemetery or anything else. He also thought he might be sobering up. The distance between them was lengthening fast; Jane’s remoteness was making itself felt the way it always did after a while, even face-to-face. It was up to him to keep the conversation going, to say what he needed to before the sound between them died and the operator came on asking him to put in the rest of the change he’d gotten from the group at the bar. And he couldn’t keep his new friend waiting forever. By now there were so few people around he could hear the radio playing in the lobby. Just music; the station was taking a break from the returns. He couldn’t make out the song, but he wondered if it might somehow be “This Can’t Be Love.” He was too drunk to concentrate on the remote possibility, so for a moment he just closed his eyes and let himself feel something he’d never felt before, the sensation that he was the happiest person in the room.

He swallowed the rest of his drink. “Jane, do you remember the envelope I gave you Monday afternoon?”

“Yes, I’ve got it right here.”

“Open it.”

Someone else would have asked, “Are you sure?” or “Right now?” but this was Jane he was talking to, and the next thing he heard was her slitting the flap. He waited, and saw in his mind’s eye exactly what she was seeing: the photograph that matched the one in his wallet, two young men in shirtsleeves, their arms draped over each other outside the Red Fox tavern.

A
T
9
A.M.
H
ARRY
T
RUMAN WAS TWO MILLION VOTES AHEAD
, with Illinois sitting on his side of the electoral college. Crossing the street to the Fellers’, Anne looked back at 421 West Oliver and wondered if Annie Dewey wouldn’t be less pained waiting out the end behind her own lace curtains than in New York City. There wasn’t a single person on the sidewalk, and Anne doubted there would have been even if the owner were home. Any remaining chance the house had of ever being declared a national monument now depended on Ohio.

“Do you remember my brother in Lansing?” asked Carol, handing her a cup of coffee. “He just called. He’s ready to lead an invasion force against Illinois.” Anne smiled absently.

“Where’s Jack?” asked Carol. “He ought to be over here toilet-papering our trees, or something like that.”

“He drove off to Flint a nervous wreck. He still thinks it’s too good to be true. And Harold?”

“Upstairs sleeping off Peter’s victory champagne. He has no idea of the rude awakening he’s in for. There were plenty of bad signs at midnight, but he went to bed sure that Harris Terry was just enjoying his turn as the prophet of doom.”

“Did Peter display any grace in victory?”

“I didn’t see him until an hour ago. He came by looking a trifle the worse for wear. He asked for two aspirin and a cup of coffee, and then he gave Margaret a ride to school. ‘Constituent service,’ he called it. She remembered she needed to be in early for rehearsal.”

“Can it really be over?” Anne asked. As yet she no more believed in the upset than Jack did.

Carol pointed to the radio, which was only murmuring. “It will be,” she said, “if ‘the Buckeye State’ declares it so. They keep trying to find new ways to refer to Ohio since it became the center of the universe. It’s gotten on my nerves so much I had to turn down the volume.”

“What are we all going to do? Here in town, I mean.”

“Die of embarrassment, I suppose. All of us but Al Jackson. He’ll be on to something else, bless his heart.”

Anne played with her teaspoon against the oilcloth.

“Why aren’t you looking happier?” Carol asked. “You’re the only Truman voter between here and Jack’s.”

“You’re not counting the colonel,” Anne replied. But she saw the point of Carol’s question. Why
wasn’t
she happier? Had she started rooting for Dewey? For the town’s sake? Was she that fond of the unbuilt Walk? In the last few hours, had the candidate’s preening, pint-sized perfection metamorphosed into an underdog’s lovable scruffiness? Or did she just somehow fear seeing what wasn’t supposed to happen, happen?

She snapped out of her perplexity. “Are you ready for the
local
news?”

“What’s that?” asked Carol.

“Mrs. Wagner had a call from Frank Sherwood this morning. He’s in New York.”

“No!”

“She gave no details, acted very privileged and mysterious, but she says he’s all right and—”

“Excuse me.” Carol went to answer the telephone.

“Margaret? What’s all that noise? Are they building sets?”

“No, Mother, that’s traffic.”

“Where are you?”

Carol could hear Margaret cupping her hand to get that information from whomever she was with, before she relayed the answer: “At a big intersection in Perry. Outside a diner. Now, Mother, you’ve got to listen carefully. I’m with
Tim
. He’s
alive
.”

Anne could see the knuckles of Carol’s hand, the one with the receiver, squeezing themselves white.

“He’s alive and well, Mother, but so skinny! It’s an amazing, terrible story, but he’s come back. To all of us. To me especially. And I need to be with him. We have to—”

“Don’t leave the line!” shouted Carol, handing off the phone to Anne. “Harold!” she cried, rushing up the stairs. “Harold! Wake up!”

“Margaret, it’s Anne. What’s going on?”

“It’s Tim. He’s back! And I need to be with him for a while. Anne, it’s a miracle! Tell them not to spoil it by worrying. I’ll explain everything later, but now—”

Amidst the dozen questions forming in her mind, Anne had the distinct impression that Margaret’s voice, coming through the wires, sounded more alive, closer and more fully present, than it had the last time she’d been face-to-face with the girl.

“Margaret, how did you get where you are? Who took you to Tim?”

“I drove out in Arnie’s Chevrolet. It started up like it had been driven the day before! The keys were in the ignition, just where Tim left them in August.”

“Does Mrs. Herrick know he’s all right?”

“She must have been fast asleep when I backed the car out of the garage. There wasn’t
time
to tell her, Anne. I had
to get here. And Tim needs to talk to me first. I’m the one he trusts. He can’t have her and the police and everybody else sweeping down on him yet. I just wanted to tell Mother and Father not to worry. We’ll—”