The City Below (8 page)

Terry had himself braced for her reaction, but he knew so little.

"Really?"

"Yes."

Her face filled with delighted surprise. "You need me?"

"You can type, can't you?"

"A hundred words a minute. I won a prize last month."

Doyle's eyes took a light from hers. "If you come with me, you can win one next month—but for Kennedy. Will you?"

She seemed very young to him, despite her more formal clothes. She was so unlike the charging people he spent time with now, and sure enough, without a hint of the mortification he'd have felt saying such a thing, she answered, "Yes, I'd love to. But I have to call my mother."

She was great. She sat at a typing table in the corner, her fingers flying. Other girls took the letters as she finished them, fed her fresh sheets of bond, carbons arranged, and crossed out the names as she moved down the lists. She rarely hit the wrong key, but when she did, she erased as if by magic, leaving no perceptible mark.

Bright McKay had arrived after she set to work, and he, crossing back and forth for phone calls and for coffee, sent signals of approval toward Terry—winks, three-ring signs—as if Didi's accomplishment were his. Or was that his meaning?

Her work sparked that of others, and soon the Young Dems were bustling among the tables, pushing voter lists at one another, barking into telephones.

All the bustle made Didi pull into herself, the way she could in the middle of the vast typing-pool floor at Hancock She'd been shy when Terry had first made the introductions, but she'd tried to compensate by being funny. When they'd shown her to the typing table, she'd cracked, as girls did at work, "Now to knock off some hen tracks on my roll-top piano." But no one had laughed. A couple of girls eyeballed each other without even trying to keep her from seeing.

Terry encouraged her to take a break at one point, but she refused. She let the coffee he brought grow cold. He sensed her need to avoid having to make small talk with the other girls, to whom her presence had to be a rebuke. She resembled them hardly at all. With her garish costume jewelry, bangles on her jumping arms, and oversize earrings she looked more like the middle-aged housewives licking envelopes across the room than the girls in bobby sox and loafers. Terry wanted to see her getup as offbeat, but the truth was Didi seemed like an adolescent in her mother's clothes. In that company, he wanted to protect her.

It was almost ten when she finished. Except for the Young Dems' corner, the vast room was nearly deserted, and all but the hanging cone lights had been turned off. Their corner glowed, however, and the eight kids who remained gave a rousing cheer when Didi snapped the last letter out of the machine.

Ed Lake put the stack of pages in an accordion folder and hurried across the room, through the door that would take him upstairs.

Doyle saw Didi rubbing her neck. He stood behind her and put his hands on her shoulders and began to massage gently while the others congratulated her. Didi twisted in her chair to look up at Terry. The ripeness in her face made it clear that a sense of his pleasure was all Didi Mullen really wanted. The other kids saw it, and they fell silent to hear what Doyle would say—which of course made his saying anything impossible.

Didi excused herself to go to the ladies' room. Terry watched her go, unsure why he felt sad all of a sudden.

Ed Lake returned and reported that the gods above were well pleased. "And so am I," he said. "Thanks, gang. You're the best."

"Praise from Caesar," one of the girls snapped. Lake struck a self-mocking pose that made everyone laugh, and made them like him again too.

"Cow time!" Bright McKay cried, and a Tufts guy named Thatch countered "Chugalug!" Which meant the Grill Room of the Parker House. There were noises of agreement while they grabbed their coats and bags.

Lake said to Doyle, "Is Didi gone already?"

"She's in the head. I'll wait for her. I'll see if she'll come."

"Tell her dinner's on the candidate. I hope she'll ..." Lake hesitated.

"Sign on?"

"That's what I was going to say, but I guess she probably ..."

"Probably what, Ed?"

"Probably wouldn't." Lake stared at Doyle, hard. Doyle sensed his dislike, and realized Lake had just decided something, but it had more to do with him than with Didi.

"You could ask her," Doyle said.

"I don't think so, no. Young Dems is a little different. If she wants on, she could hook up with the church-supper ladies." Lake tossed his head toward the main part of the room. "They need a typist for those voter lists."

"That way,
if you
need one again, you can just raise your hand and snap your fingers."

"Give it a rest, Doyle. Anyway, tell her the offer stands. About dinner, I mean. Dinner's on us."

"Tell her yourself." Terry indicated Didi, who was coming toward them from the far side of the room. Her rich red hair was loose now, brushing her shoulders.

"No, you do it." Lake glanced at her as he put his coat on and moved away. "See you at the Grill."

By the time Didi reached Terry, Lake was gone. "Where'd everybody go?"

"The Parker House. It's sort of a tradition, if we're here this late. Everybody's hoping you'll come."
He
was, anyway. With her hair down she looked less prim, more like one of the debs, ready to go out. He caught a whiff of her perfume. It stirred him to think she'd just applied it. "In fact, the campaign wants to buy you dinner."

"Oh gosh, Terry, I don't think so."

"No, really, Didi. You saved the game tonight. That was really important, what you did."

"Terry ..." Unconsciously, she leaned toward him, a gawky posture. Her neck was so long. Her hair fell forward on her face. "I'm glad you asked me. I mean, I liked doing it."

"So come have a sandwich or something. Then I'll take you home."

"No, I'm sorry, but no."

But hadn't she just prettied herself up? Had she done it only for going home?

Terry realized she had just this moment changed her mind. Watching Ed Lake, that bastard, she must have grasped it that they were finished with her now, ready to send her back across—

Doyle did not have the language to describe the gulf that separated Didi from his new friends, the gulf on both sides of which his feet had been planted for weeks now. He'd been a big shot, a comer. But Didi knew him. He was a fumbling adolescent pretending to be a man.

"Well, let me take you home then."

"You don't have to, Terry."

"No, really. I'd like to."

"I have cab money. Ma makes me take a cab at night."

"Are you downtown that much at night?"

"Not really, but at work sometimes ..." She let her voice trail off. Downtown? What would he think when he saw what downtown was to her—the world in which she worked, and the world from which she fled?

He put his coat on, feeling slightly sick. "Well, anyway, I can walk you to a cab stand."

"Sure you can, big guy." Didi tried to defuse the glumness by bumping her hip into "Terry, a stab at Mae West, but it didn't come off.

They crossed the room, Terry leading the way between the tables and desks. He imagined reaching back to take her hand, but knew how out of the question that was. Instead, he reached up and slapped a light fixture, which began to sway behind them, playing its beam back and forth across the shadows.

On Tremont Street the air was cold and wet, blowing in from the harbor. The pavement glistened with the mist of a coming rain. The streetlamps wore halos.

There were no cabs at the stand in front of the Parker House. At the curb, a limousine sat with its engine running, a driver at the wheel. Two men in business suits were standing at the open rear door, talking. As Terry and Didi approached, he recognized Ken O'Donnell. He had the accordion folder pressed under his arm.

On an impulse, Terry did then take Didi's hand and go right up to the men.

"Mr. O'Donnell," he said brightly.

O'Donnell interrupted himself to look blankly at Doyle.

"I'm one of the Young Dems, sir. Terry Doyle, from BC." Terry Doyle, ace bell ringer, bade slapper, junior candidate. "I wanted you to meet the girl who dropped everything to type those letters for you." Terry indicated O'Donnell's folder. "Not one of our regular crew, an emergency volunteer." Terry brought her forward. "This is Deirdre Mullen."

O'Donnell could be imperious with his own people, but he understood that this was an outsider. "Hello, darling," he said warmly. "You did a great job tonight, and we appreciate it." He put his hand out When Didi took it, he turned her to his companion. "And say hello to Ted Kennedy."

The sound hung in the air.

Didi and Terry both turned slowly. Kennedy. He was looking at her, nodding. What occurred to Doyle to say was, You should see how she erases.

Kennedy was a big man with dramatic features, a head of wavy dark hair, a powerfully dimpled chin, eyebrows that nearly touched above his nose. Doyle had rung a few doorbells himself by now, and he knew about smiling, but it was impossible that the warmth on Kennedy's face was not genuine.

"How are you?" he asked, but with a rote inflection that contradicted the light in his face. He shook Didi's hand, then Terry's. "BC? You both go to BC?"

Terry's heart sank, but before he could protect her, Didi let out a loud laugh. "Oh, no, Mr. Kennedy. Not me. I'm too smart to go to college!"

Kennedy stared at her for a moment, then he laughed too. "So was I," he said. "
Much
too smart." He winked. "But not as smart as you, because I went anyway and hated it." He roared, a great, loud, infectious bark of a laugh that echoed off the walls of the buildings above them.

Terry loved Didi for having put it that way, and for having so surely touched something in Kennedy.

O'Donnell said to her, "But you're on the team now, right? We need you, Deirdre."

Didi glanced at Terry, who nodded.

"Yes, sir. I guess I am."

"That's great." He squeezed her forearm.

And Kennedy said, "My brother appreciates what you're doing for him." He looked right into Doyle's eyes.

This Kennedy was less than a decade older than Doyle, the baby of the clan, the playboy who'd recently married a blond dish and who drove a convertible. Yet Terry felt as if the man had just blessed him. He veered from the thought, its association with priests. "We're working for your brother, but for the country too."

"That's true. What's your name again?"

"Terry Doyle."

"And Deirdre Mullen," O'Donnell put in, demonstrating his skill—his first service to the family—at catching and keeping names.

"Well, thanks, Terry," Ted said. "And thanks, Deirdre."

"'Didi,' actually, Mr. Kennedy."

Kennedy laughed again. "Then 'Teddy,' actually." And he leaned over quickly and kissed Didi's cheek.

A moment later, Kennedy and O'Donnell were gone.

Terry faced Didi. A soft rain had begun to fäll, but neither had noticed.

Terry said, "Gosh, now you can't wash your face again."

Didi, too moved to joke, stared at the darkness into which Kennedy's car had disappeared.

"You're on the team, Didi. Handpicked by the head coach."

She looked at him. "So I guess I better eat with you, huh?"

"Yep." He took her elbow, and they walked to the Parker House entrance.

"Wait a minute, Terry. Who's going to be there?"

"The kids you met already, or if you didn't meet them, the ones you saw."

"Are they friends of yours?"

"Not really ... Well, one is. Bright McKay."

"Which one is he?"

"He's another BC guy."

"Does he know ... ?" She glanced toward the street, then let her eyes settle on Terry's. "You told me something last spring that I didn't forget."

"What?"

"That you weren't so sure about the priesthood anymore, and then, the next thing I hear, you're going to BC instead of the seminary. I mean, I was amazed, Terry, that somebody I knew would actually do something about his life."

"Talking to you that day helped me make up my mind."

"Not that I would have known that."

"I would have told you, but—"

"But your mother told my mother that you're still going in the sem, only later, after a couple of years at BC. That's what you said you might do. So you're still going to be a priest"

"I wouldn't, I mean ..." He felt humiliated that she should have glimpsed his confusion, and cowardice. There was no question of his having told his mother the truth, but had he told it to himself? He'd thought his new fever for politics would have released him from the curse of the priesthood, but in some ways it was worse. Doyle's deepest wish was to be like John Kennedy, but how was that remotely possible for a boy like him? A new image of the priesthood was half formed in his mind, one that had less to do with the parish biddies of Charlestown—it appalled him to think of the mothers discussing his vocation—or even with the brilliant Jesuits, than with the as yet ill-defined joining of the moral and political purposes he associated with Senator Kennedy. Something special: he was called to something special, he just did not know what. Christ, couldn't they leave him alone? Couldn't she? Didi was giving him the feeling he always had at home, and he hated it.

"I'm just trying to get things straight about you, Terry. That's all."

"What things?"

"Why you came to get me today."

"Because we needed you."

"That's it?"

"Yes," he said coldly, "that's it."

"Okay, Charlie." She pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby of the hotel. When he followed, she kept going, but said over her shoulder, "Where is this joint?"

"Straight ahead."

She began to walk like Charlie Chaplin, twirling a make-believe cane, her head jerking, her feet pointed to the side with each step. The bitch.

The Young Dems had pushed into the usual crescent-shaped booth at the far side of the bar. The Grill Room was crowded, but there were a pair of empty chairs nearby, and Ed Lake pulled them up.

"I'm glad you came," he said.