Pleasantville (10 page)

Axel takes the paper from Jay, unfolding it.

His lips move slightly as he reads the words.

“What is this?”

“We're tracking it down right now,” Neal says. He and Sam exchange a look. It's clear they knew about the flyer already, and their candidate did not.

“What is the Buffalo Bayou Development Project?” Jay asks.

“Nothing that anybody in Pleasantville ought to worry about,” Sam says.

Axel is still holding the flyer. “Where did this come from?”

“It's Acton or Wolcott,” Neal says; “it came out a few days before the general.”

“It's a dirty trick is what it is.” Sam pushes away the leftover bits of food, reaching into his pockets to light a cigarette. He's on his good leg mostly, his left hip swung out to the side, boot dug into the carpet. “You see they made it look local, like someone in
my
neighborhood has a problem with Axel, as if anyone in Pleasantville would put out anything like this without coming to me first,” he insists, coming dangerously close to saying, “without
asking
me first.” Through a helix of smoke, Sam studies Jay, doing the math in his head, how a flyer distributed to the residents of Pleasantville made it into Jay Porter's hands. “Who gave it to you?” he asks, even though he knows Jay better than that. He trusts Jay, that's always been clear. Hell, Jay wouldn't have signed his first client in Pleasantville without Sam saying it was okay, that Jay was the best out there,
especially for a case like theirs. But, early on, Sam discovered that being “mayor of Pleasantville” wouldn't grant him special access to Jay's process or progress, which he had on more than one occasion insinuated was his due. No, the case was Jay's, and his clients were entitled to his discretion, even now.

“Doesn't matter. The point is there are some folks out there worried about what this means, whether this is another threat to the neighborhood. There's a group out there talking about selling and getting out of Pleasantville before the next blow comes,” Jay says, pointing to the bayou development flyer. “The same ones pushing for a cheap settlement in the civil lawsuit, just to wrap it up quickly. So you can see why this would present a problem for me.” The mobile phone in his pocket rings. He checks the screen, but doesn't recognize the number. He lets it go to voice mail.

Axel shakes his head. “This isn't even a part of my platform. It's not in any of the campaign literature. How would anybody think to put this out there?”

“It's Wolcott,” Neal says. “This has Reese Parker's name written all over it. Mailers, that's her thing. When she ran Blanchard's campaign in Dallas, she was sending out letters all over the city, letters from black preachers hinting that Blanchard's unmarried opponent, Dale Ackerman, was living outside the laws of the Bible, taking care to point out his close friendship with one of his male aides. It was a week after the election before anyone realized nobody'd ever heard of a single name signed to those letters. The preachers, the church names, she just made it up whole cloth. Rove in Austin was so impressed, he hired her to work George W.'s race for the governor's seat. I would have thought she'd have hopped onto a national race by now, especially with rumors about Bush making a run for the White House. I don't know what she's doing fucking around with a mayor's race in Houston.” He plops down in a
nearby chair, seemingly exhausted by the force he's up against. “We've been negotiating a price for Acton's endorsement. We're working on a number. He's a greedy bastard, and an asshole, frankly. But I don't think he'd stoop to this.”

In Jay's pocket, the Motorola trills again.

“You planning something along the bayou?” he asks Axel directly.

“No, not at all.”

“They're using this to paint him as a fool.” Sam puffs on his cigarette. “The bayou project is a boondoggle, a money pit,” he says. “And everyone knows it.”

Russell Weingate nods. “The BBDP is just a commission, a few developers with deep pockets, that's all. Every election cycle, they court the candidates, write a few checks, make their pitch.” For decades, folks have been dreaming up ideas to build something grand along Buffalo Bayou, like the River Walk in San Antonio: restaurants, shops, and luxury hotels with views of the water, anything but the weeds and concrete that surround it now. “And every cycle the candidates nod and act interested, and then they cash those checks and nothing ever comes of it. No one can seriously think that just 'cause Axel met with the commission
one
time that he's serious about this thing. That commission's a dinosaur. They've been around for at least fifteen years.”

“Since Cynthia's reign,” Jay says, his tongue nearly tripping on a name he hasn't uttered in years. Cynthia Maddox, the former mayor of Houston, Texas, current booster for Axel Hathorne's historic run for office, and the woman Jay has long suspected of turning him over to the feds in '69, of being an undercover informant, one, or a girl in over her head, two, a believer who sold her soul to save her ass. It was a betrayal that gutted Jay's life, stole from him love and faith when he needed them most. “Isn't that where
she
ran into trouble her last years
in office?” he says. It was widely reported back then, in the pages of the
Post
and the
Houston Chronicle
, that she used taxpayer money to have the Army Corps of Engineers survey the land along the bayou for construction, and then nothing ever got built.

“That's not all Cynthia's fault,” Axel says.

“You can't put the whole oil bust on her,” Sam says. “Those early investors fled because the city's economy collapsed,
everything
dried up.”

“Only no one remembers it that way,” Russell says. “And now it looks like Wolcott and her attack dog Parker are trying to turn Cynthia's support of Axel into a liability for him, like he's pushing her old ideas.”

“This is just to scare people,” Neal says.

“Well, it's working,” Jay says.

His phone rings again. Irritated now, he snatches it out of his pocket. He flips open the mouthpiece, barking a less than cordial “Hello.”

It's a woman's voice. “I'm sorry to have to call you on your cell phone.”

“Who is this?”

“This is Ms. Hilliard, Mr. Porter.”

“Who?”

“From Lamar High School.”

“Is Ellie okay?”

“Oh, yes,” she says. “She's sitting right here in my office.”

Hilliard, he remembers. The school's principal. “That serious, huh?”

“I'm afraid so, Mr. Porter.”

He sighs. “I'll be right there.”

He flips his Motorola closed. “Gentlemen,” he says. He reaches for the flyer. “You need to clean this up before it gets any further out of your hands.” He folds the paper, tucks it back
into the inside pocket of his jacket. “If there's a message I can convey to my clients to put them at ease about the threat of any proposed development, I sure as hell wish you'd tell me.”

“There is no threat,” Sam says, openly bristling at the idea that anyone or anything would come between him and his beloved Pleasantville, his tiny fiefdom by the port. “I appreciate your concern for the community's feelings on this,” he says. “But anything more that needs to be said will come from me.”

A tiny worm of a frown inches across Axel's face. But he never says a word. Between the two of them, it's hard not to wonder whose political dream is being fulfilled, that of the son or the father. Had he been born in a different time, Samuel Hathorne might have made his own run for mayor of Houston, instead of settling for the office that was within his reach: “mayor” of Pleasantville, and city hall's ambassador to the colored community, delivering votes in exchange for working streetlights or a new middle school–what neighborhoods like River Oaks and Memorial took for granted as their due. Everything in Pleasantville had been fought for and protected by Sam Hathorne, who led with a strong, steady hand. In the parlance of his day, he was what black folks used to call the Head Nigger in Charge, a title that was high praise or a deep insult, depending on the speaker's tolerance for obsequiousness as a political tool. Sam knew the game better than anyone else, and he played his hand. “I'll take care of it,” he says.

The polished halls
of Lamar High School are empty when Jay arrives, somewhere in the middle of third period. He's spent surprisingly little time inside the school. In two years, Ellie hasn't yet found her way into any clubs, sports teams, or school plays, spending most of her time with Lori King. Besides a couple of parent-teacher conferences, he's mostly viewed his daughter's high school years from a distance. Bernie worked a few fund-raising events early last year, even chaperoning the freshman fall dance, which Ellie didn't attend. Jay was always working. He's never met the principal, Ms. Hilliard, and feels somewhat embarrassed by his surprise at seeing a woman nearly a decade younger than he is. Somewhere in his mind he must have been carrying an image of his own principal, Mr.
Cleveland Simms, at the colored high school in Lufkin, a thirty-minute bus ride from his boyhood home in Nigton. Debra Hilliard is in her late thirties, soft-spoken and no taller than her students. From behind her desk, she smiles at Jay. Ellie is sitting in the chair to his right. She looked at him once when he walked in and gave a small shrug.

He's made himself a promise not to get upset until he hears her side of the story, whatever this is about. Innocent until proven guilty, and all that. He's been in a hot seat before and believes his daughter deserves no less than what he got. This isn't a courtroom, of course; Ellie is certainly not up against the kinds of serious charges he was in 1970, when he was, hard to believe, only four years older than she is now. Still, he feels a strict allegiance to his kid. He has very nearly tired of the pity thrown on his family, every tough conversation couched in professed understanding of the Porters' difficult situation, the pain they must be in, all of it just a run-up to whatever criticism they were going to lob anyway.

Ms. Hilliard, as far as Jay is concerned, can skip the big speech.

“What'd she do?”

“I like Ellie,” she says.

“I do too.”

“She's smart, incredibly conscientious with her peers, and dedicated, I would have said a week ago, to her schoolwork.” She shoots a glance at Ellie. “And I know it's been a hell of a year for your family, excuse my language.”

“What did she
do
?”

“Okay, Mr. Porter,” she says drily. She's a black woman with shoulder-length hair, dangly silver earrings peeking from behind the strands. She's wearing a cotton button-down, rolled up at the sleeves, and blue slacks. She clasps her hands on the desktop. “I guess it's more what she
didn't
do.” She looks at
Ellie again, giving her a chance to come clean. Ellie, her black Starter jacket across her lap, fiddles with the zipper.

“I skipped class,” she says softly.

“Classes. She's skipped
classes
.”

“Elena?”

“I'm sorry, Dad.”

She has her head down, but Jay thinks he sees tears, actual tears, in her eyes. The skin on the back of her neck is flushed, her cheeks plum with shame. “Once last week, and two times this week,” Ms. Hilliard says. “The girls left the campus without permission. I'm afraid I'm going to have to put her on suspension. I'll be speaking with Lori King's mother as well.”

“You're going to punish her for missing school by having her miss more school?” Jay says, squirming a little in his chair, angry, but not sure with which one of them. Debra Hilliard smiles tightly. She opens a top drawer, pulling out a blue pad of suspension slips. She scribbles a few words across the top, sliding the paper across the desk for Jay to sign. “I think the hope is that this gives the two of you a chance to talk. And you, as her parent, to find out what's going on with Ellie.” Jay reaches across the desk and signs the principal's order. “It should be two days,” she says, “but we'll count today as a full one and leave it at that. She can come back on Tuesday.” She looks over at Ellie. “I'm rooting for you, Elena. It might not seem that way now, but I'm on your side.”

Jay stands. “You too, Mr. Porter,” the principal says.

“Let's go, Ellie.”

He grabs her backpack from the floor, nodding once to the principal before escorting his daughter into the hall and down the main stairs. Outside, in the parking lot, Jay, on an impulse, holds out the car keys for Ellie. She stares at them, her eyes still damp. “Really?” She looks at her dad, incredulous at first, then breaking into something resembling a smile. She's had
a learner's permit since she turned fifteen in September, and they'd made a deal to get on the road together at least once a week, which is not that easy with just the three of them in the house; Jay is not comfortable having Ben in the backseat while his sister learns to drive. But it's a few hours before Ben's out of school, and they might as well take the opportunity at hand. “Why not?” he says, letting her know he still trusts her, hoping she shows him the same in kind. He walks around to the passenger door, climbing into the Land Cruiser, and waits for her to get behind the wheel.

“You hungry?”

Ellie is busy adjusting the side mirrors, and doesn't answer. She's focused on getting the car started, so nervous that Jay has to remind her to put her foot on the brake. When the engine finally turns over, he tells her to pull out of the parking lot and make a right on Westheimer. Neither of them has had any lunch, and he offers to buy her a late breakfast at the 59 Diner, pancakes and eggs.

Ellie nods, her hands gripped at “ten and two” on the steering wheel.

“You're doing fine,” Jay says. He leans forward, checking the side-view mirror. A pickup truck pulls up close to them, almost kissing the Land Cruiser's bumper. Ellie hardly notices, stopping short at a yellow light. Jay braces himself against the dash. “What's going on, El?” he says. “Why'd you skip school?”

“It was just a few times.”

“That's not really going to help you.”

When the light changes to green, the car behind them honks twice.

Ellie jerks the car forward, laying hard on the gas. “I don't know what to say, Dad. It was wrong. I knew you'd think it was wrong. I messed up, and I'm sorry.” She tries to turn to say this directly to him. But he tells her to keep her eyes on the road.

“Why were you crying back there?”

“It's embarrassing,” she says. “All that talk about being on my side.” She rolls her eyes, and for whatever reason, this makes Jay smile. “So where'd you go?” he says, pointing for her to make a right turn on Shepherd. “You guys taking off from school. Hope it was something good,” he says. “This was Lori's idea?” He looks at his daughter behind the wheel. She's biting her lip, silent.

“Okay,” he says, leaving it for now. “You're out for the rest of the day, and you're grounded until next weekend. We can talk about the rest when you're ready.” He squirms in the passenger seat, unused to the view from this side of the car. He's screwing this up, he's sure of it, sending the wrong message, that he's weak and uncertain. But he just can't work up the outrage right now.

“She asked me to go with her,” Ellie says finally.

Jay turns to his daughter, surprised to hear her speak. “Lori?”

Ellie nods.

“Go where?”

“To the clinic, the place on Main, by the Astrodome,” she says, speaking of the old football stadium, which has sat empty since the Oilers left for Nashville. The neighborhood has dulled since then, which isn't saying much. The Astrodome had been the crown jewel of an area of town otherwise filled with pawnshops and
taquerías
and one aging, midrange hotel. Jay can't understand why Lori would go all the way the hell out there to see a doctor.

“She's sick?”

“Dad,” she says, exasperated by his dimness. “She's pregnant.”

“Lori?” She might as well have told him the girl had joined the circus.

Lori is only fifteen.
Fifteen.
Just a few months older than
Ellie. He turns to look at his daughter, seeing a body closer to its first bike ride than motherhood. He doesn't even know if she's kissed a boy. He feels a sudden panic at the thought of her behind the wheel, a child steering two steel tons.

“But you can't tell her mom.”

“Elena, I can't promise something like that.”

“You can't, Dad,” she says, taking her eyes off the road, swerving a little into the next lane. He reaches for the wheel. “I swore I wouldn't tell. I wouldn't have told you at all except I promised Mom.” Her voice catches on the last word.

“What?”

“I promised Mom I would never lie to you,” she says. “She said it wouldn't be fair, that you were going to have a hard enough time as it is, but it's not fair to me either.” This, Jay soon discovers, is where the tears are coming from. Ellie wipes at them with the back of her hand. They're still a few blocks from the diner, but Jay tells her to pull over. She yanks the wheel and turns the car into the parking lot of a Kwik Kopy. Jay pulls up the hand brake. He reaches for his daughter, who is shaking now. She collapses in an awkward heap across the armrest. Jay holds her up. He can feel the dampness of her tears on his neck.

“I got you,” he says.
I got you.

For one furious moment, he actually hates his wife for putting this on Ellie, hates her, in fact, for every day that's passed since she went out like a light one warm November afternoon, not even a word to him when he left the room for five minutes, just long enough to show Ben, again, how to switch the TV signal to VCR. Those last few days at home, Jay had sent Eddie Mae to Blockbuster with a hundred dollars, told her to bring back anything PG and under, just lots of it, something a nine-year-old boy could watch while his mother died in the next room, all those long hours in the house while they waited, times neither Ben nor Bernie could stand another good-bye.
“No more,” she told Jay. Ben watched movies, and Evelyn, god bless her, kept the food coming. That last morning, Bernie asked for a cheese sandwich, of all things, and a cup of tea, and then she slept for hours. It must have been close to five when Jay stepped out of their bedroom. The sun was setting, he remembers. The nurse, the only one in the room, said Bernie spoke only once. “It's okay,” she said, just before she went.

They have
a quiet dinner at home, the three of them, spaghetti for Ben, chicken and dirty rice for Jay and Ellie. Ben, who likes to sit at the table with his legs crossed under him in the chair, talks football, making guesses about the playoffs, still two months away; much to his father's chagrin, Ben favors the Cowboys. But what can you do? Jay thinks. Nobody sticks around for nothing anymore, and a boy's got to have a team to pull for. Ellie jumps the second the phone rings, two seconds after taking her last bite. “Can I, Dad?” she says.

He nods, letting her go.

It's technically Ben's night with the dishes, but Jay offers him a hand, and the two of them knock it out in no time, and then Jay pretends to watch
Family Matters
with his son. Really, he's thinking of his daughter, and whatever is going on behind her closed bedroom door. He thinks of Mrs. King, likewise locked out of the details of her daughter's life. If it were him, he'd want to know. It ought to be criminal, actually, for one parent to keep something like this from another.

At about a quarter to nine, the doorbell rings.

It's Lonnie at the door, a surprise.

She comes into the house carrying a cardboard box. “I caught up with that reporter, Bartolomo,” she says. “Wasn't much there, either because he doesn't have it or he still somehow thinks I'm playing for the other side. One paper, I reminded him. There
are no more sides.” She holds out the box, which is strangely damp on the bottom. Jay takes it from her hands. She's wearing a Mizzou sweatshirt and black jeans. She smells like nicotine and root beer, a bittersweet scent that suits her. “But I thought we might want to look at some of my old notes from the first two girls.” And then, as if it's just now occurred to her that she hasn't laid eyes on him in nearly a year, hasn't been inside his house in as long, she goes in for an awkward pat on Jay's back. “Where are the kids?”

Jay nods toward the den, a wide room with exposed ceiling beams, just past the formal living room and the kitchen. He follows Lonnie, the sagging cardboard box pressed against his chest, setting it down beside the leather sectional, where Ben is lying, flat on his stomach. “Lonnie!” he says when he sees her. She opens her arms as he jumps toward them. There used to be a time–after the Cole story broke, Lonnie getting her byline on the front page of her old employer, the
Houston Chronicle
–when she spent a great deal of time with Jay's family, coming over to dinner at least a couple of times a month. Ben grew up around her, in fact. She left the
Chronicle
in '92, met a girl she liked and bought a little house in the Heights, and waited for her star to rise at the
Post
, careful to keep her private life private this time, convinced it had caused her problems at the
Chronicle
. And then from out of nowhere the shit all fell apart. First the
Post
went, then the girl, then the house. The losses hit Lonnie hard, and depression made her scarce. And then Bernie got sick, and they kind of lost the thread of their unlikely friendship. Jay and the kids, they haven't seen her in months. She gives the little one a hug, asks him how his gin rummy game is going. She taught him to play when he was six. Jay offers her a beer, leftovers from the fridge. She shakes her head, peeling off her sweatshirt and reaching into her back pocket for a pack of Parliaments. “Not in the house,” he says. She nods, remembering,
and slides the sweatshirt right back on. “Let's take this party outside then,” she says. She hefts the cardboard box against her hip, heading for the patio. Jay opens the sliding glass door for her. “Where's El?” she says, as they settle on opposite sides of a wrought-iron table, the weight of the cardboard box listing it to one side. The house is a one-story ranch, more wide than deep. The rest of the lot is all yard, a cool, green expanse stretching a quarter of an acre to a wooden fence.