November Surprise (10 page)

Monty steps away and walks into the kitchen, taking the
fruitcake with him. I stand there, awkwardly, hoping guilt won’t show on my
face. Then Jack comes bounding in.

“Lucy!” he yells, and he picks me up in a ferocious hug.
“When did you get into town?”

“Last night.”

“I thought you weren’t getting here until tomorrow.”

Jack has put me down and released me. I run my hand
nervously through my hair, and notice that Monty has returned from the kitchen.

“She should come to dinner with us tomorrow night,” Monty
says.

Jack nods his head vigorously. “You should. Do you have
plans? Petra and I want to go to this new Thai place. It’s supposed to be
really authentic.”

I look past Jack, at Monty. He raises his eyebrows and
smiles.

“Sounds great,” I say.

The next night we all go for dinner. Our table is in a prime
spot, right by the fish-tank, which gurgles throughout our meal. The eggrolls
are excellent, and the conversation isn’t even a little awkward. Mostly we
discuss Y2K and our predictions for New Years Eve. But if I didn’t know better,
I’d think Jack was trying to set Monty and me up.

“You’re both political junkies,” he says. “I don’t know
anyone more obsessed with politics than the two of you.”

“It’s a sign of intelligence,” Monty replies. “And it’s
wonk, not political junkie. Junkie makes us sound like we need to go through
rehab, when actually, unlike some people, we care about the world and not just
ourselves.”

In response Jack dips his fingers into his water glass then
flicks them at Monty. Monty lets out a satisfied laugh, clearly proud of his
consistent ability to annoy his younger brother.

After dinner, Monty offers to walk me to my car. Petra was
cold, so she and Jack are already in the shelter of their Toyota Corolla.

We reach my little blue Volkswagen, and without prelude he
says, “Can I get your number?”

I’m momentarily speechless. “You want to call me?”

He laughs. “Don’t look so surprised. Yes, I’d like to call
you, unless you don’t want me to.”

“Umm…no, that’s fine.” I rub my mittened hands together for
warmth. “I just don’t understand the point, since we live thousands of miles
away from each other.”

He raises his eyebrows. “You can say no.”

“Yeah, but that would be rude.”

“Thanks. I’m flattered.” He’s wearing a wool sailor jacket,
and he reaches into one of his pockets. “There’s nothing I love more than
getting a girl’s number out politeness.” He takes out his cell phone, and
fingers poised, waits for me to recite my digits. After I’m done, he smiles and
says, “I might also get your email from Jack, if you’re okay with it. I think
you’d enjoy some of the articles I come across at the ACLU. I could send you
links.”

“Great,” I say. “Thank you.”

Monty leans in, gives me a chaste kiss on the cheek, and
says, “It’s not like I’m always having one night stands either, you know.” He
then turns around and walks away. I tell myself to get used to the sight of his
back, as he moves out of my reach.

Wanting an unobtainable man is dangerous, and I don’t want
to turn into a Monica Lewinsky type, convinced that a casual encounter is
actually significant, or analyzing what the meaning of the word "is" is.
But I see how it’s possible to lose your ideals when you’re with someone who
makes you lose your breath, simply by kissing you on the cheek.

I’m staring at the ceiling. His breathing is so close and I want
to turn away, but I can’t. I stretch out my legs and curl my toes instead of
rolling my head to the side, like I’m so tempted to do. The gesture provides
little relief because his fingers are still in my mouth and my jaw is aching
from being forced open for so long.

He speaks in a sigh. “You’re in trouble.”

My stomach sinks. Naomi, my boss, promised me he wasn’t the
type to use guilt, but this is like the third or fourth time he’s shaken his
head while examining my mouth.

“What were you thinking?” he asks.

Why do dentists ask you questions when it’s impossible to
answer back? It’s one of the many reasons I hate going to the dentist. But last
week I was eating a raw carrot and I heard something crack, and that something
was definitely not the carrot.

The next day Naomi and I were having lunch when she offered
me a slice of apple dipped in caramel.

“I’d better not,” I said. “Something’s up with one of my
back teeth.”

“Are you going to go see a dentist?” she asked.

“I know I should,” I said, “but…”

“Lucy!” she said, “If your tooth is hurting, you need to go
in. Otherwise it will only get worse."

So I confessed it had been years since I’d had my teeth
cleaned, and my fear had snowballed. Whatever dentist I end up seeing will
blame me for staying away too long.

And I don’t do well with blame.

“You should see Dr. Rudolf,” she said. “He’s great. So
funny. You’ll love him.”

It was time to bite the bullet, so to speak, especially
since I was having trouble biting anything else. I called Dr. Rudolf, and the
first time he could see me was today, Tuesday, November 7th at 5:30 PM.

Now I’m sitting here, dying to get out of this chair, if for
no other reason than that I could be home watching the news, and the election
returns.

“Suction,” he says for the umpteenth time, his voice
resigned and slightly annoyed.

He and his hygienist exchange looks, and she suctions out my
mouth. Was that an eye roll that passed between them? Does my mouth need to be
suctioned out more than average? Do I have a drooling problem?

He tinkers around in my mouth for a few moments more, and
then he presses the button on the side of my chair and raises me up.

We are now sitting eye to eye, and his face is full of bad
news.

“You are in trouble,” he says again.

I almost answer back in an adolescent tone, “You already
said that.” But shame is smoldering all the way from the bottom of my chest up
to my top molars, and I stay silent.

“You have three cavities, and two additional problem areas
where we will need to keep watch. That back tooth where you heard a crack will
most likely need a root canal. And your gums are in terrible shape.” He shakes
his head at me and I swallow hard.

“Okay…” I say. “So what do we do?”

“You will come back in a week,” he says. “I will need to do
fillings. Marta will schedule the appointment.”

With that he lifts up the chair arm and I am relieved to
climb out.

I get my appointment card from Marta, exit the coral-colored
office located next to PetSmart in the strip mall, and run to my car. It’s
close to 7:00, late for a dentist to be open, and I know I should be grateful
for him seeing me at all. As I rush through the parking lot, the wind slips its
icy hands through my thin jacket. I climb into my car and turn the ignition;
NPR is already on my radio.

I haven’t been on the road long when it’s announced that
Florida is going for Gore.

The pain in my jaw, the memory of Dr. Rudolf’s reproaches,
and the dread of facing him again in a week dissipates. Gore won Florida! Now
I’m confident it will be a great night.

I get home, turn on the television, heat up some polenta
with cheese and tomato sauce (soft food), and settle in on the couch.

But things don’t go the way they’re supposed to. Gore isn’t
declared the winner early in the evening the way Clinton was both four and
eight years ago. After I finish my polenta I sit up, legs crossed, biting my
nails and staring at Dan Rather, listening to him and his ridiculous similes. I
wish he’d keep his enjoyment of the evening’s events under the surface. But he
doesn’t. Instead he’s joyful and milking each moment for all it is worth.

"This race is shakier than cafeteria Jell-O," he
says with a smile jumping from his eyes.

Then later, "This race is tight like a too-small
bathing suit on a too-long ride home from the beach."

I am inclined to agree with him. My back and butt are aching
from sitting in the same position for close to two hours. I get up to stretch
and Dan comes back from a commercial break.

“Smelling salts for all Democrats please. Al Gore has his
back to the wall, shirt tails on fire with this race in Florida." In other
words, Florida has been retracted as a Gore win, and put back into the
“undecided” category.

“No!!!” I yell, to the walls, my ceiling, and into my
pillow. I stop when I start to worry that my neighbors can hear me.

How can this happen?

"Florida is the whole deal, the real deal, a big
deal."

“No shit, Dan!” I yell at the television, but Dan Rather
doesn’t seem phased by my lashing out. He continues to babble on, and (as he
might put it himself) he looks happier than a pig bathing in a vat of mud on a
sunny Sunday afternoon after he’s escaped the slaughter.

I turn the channel to NBC, where Tim Russert is using a
whiteboard to explain how many electoral college votes either Bush or Gore will
need to win, and how it will all break down.

But I know this already.

It’s approaching 11:00, and I have an early morning meeting
tomorrow. “I can go to bed,” I tell myself. “I’m not so obsessive that I have
to stay up all night. I can find out the results in the morning.”

Somehow I find the strength to turn the television off. I
brush my teeth and wash my face. I put on pajama pants and a t-shirt. I climb
into bed. Once again I’m staring at the ceiling.

Sleep comes, but slowly, and my dreams are a mixture of Dan
Rather, Dr. Rudolf, and Florida. Then my phone rings. I look at the clock
before I answer. It’s 3:45 in the morning.

I pick up the phone. “Hello?”

“Lucy!”

“Yeah…”

“Whassup!” A punchy male voice I don’t recognize is doing an
overdone imitation of that Budweiser commercial.

“Who is this?” I ask, not trying to hide my impatience.

“It’s Monty.”

“Monty?” The last time we spoke was nearly a year ago, at
Christmas. He asked for my phone number but never called. I suppose I didn’t
exactly encourage him when I was so skeptical about giving him my number in the
first place. Instead, we’ve exchanged a handful of emails, mostly political and
sent to multiple recipients.

“Did I wake you?” he murmurs.

“Um, sort of,” I say.

His voice is louder now, and it startles me. “Sort of?”

“I was only sort of asleep.” I state this as my mind is
racing in confusion. Why is he calling? Why is he calling
me
? Did something bad happen to Jack? Or is this about the
election? Or maybe he’s calling to say that he’s madly in love with me, and the
night’s events have made him realize how fragile life is and he can no longer
live without me, so he’ll move to Minneapolis, where he can surely still work
as a lawyer for the ACLU.

Somehow I’m able to silently recite these theories inside my
mind in the space of a second or two, because I’m done by the time he responds.

“So you weren’t watching! What’s with that? You are the last
person I thought would have gone to bed. As obsessive as you are!” He yells
this and I’m sleepy enough to be confused. Is he actually angry, or is that mock
indignation in his voice?

“Don’t yell at me,” I say.

“Sorry. I’m just worked up. You would be too, Lucy, if you’d
been watching. I really thought it was safe to call you, of all people. I was
sure you’d still be glued to the TV.”

“Monty… I went to bed a few hours ago because it looked like
things were going to be dragging on for a while, and Dan Rather and Tim Russert
were driving me crazy.”

I can actually hear him shake his head at me. “Well, you
missed the most historical few hours of news coverage we’re ever going to see
in our lifetime. What were you thinking?”

I sit up and rub my temple. I kick off my covers because now
I’m flushed and not at all chilly.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Well,” Monty heaves a sigh. “A couple of hours ago Bush was
declared the winner of Florida and Gore privately conceded the election to
Bush.”

My stomach sinks. “Oh no!”

“Wait! But then Florida was undeclared again, and Gore took
back his concession.”

“No way!” I jump out of bed and stumble in the dark towards
my living room, cordless phone in hand. In the dim light I locate my remote and
turn on the television. I plop back onto my couch.

“What channel do you have on?”

“CNN.”

I turn it to CNN, which is what I probably should have been
watching the whole time. Just a few commentators sitting at a desk, with
occasional cuts to Candy Crowley or John King on location.

“Lucy, what are we going to do?”

“Huh?”

“We can’t let Bush win. I could tell you stories of all
sorts of wrongdoings…” His voice tapers off, and I wait for him to finish the
thought.

“Monty, are you still there?”

“What? Yeah. Sorry. I just got distracted by Judy Woodruff.
She’s really kind of hot, in a sexy librarian way, you know?”

“I guess I never thought about it.”

“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t call you to talk about other
women.”

“Why did you call me?” I hold my breath for a minute, and
remind myself that cool people don’t care too much.

“I called you, Lucy, because we need to figure out a plan.
We can’t let Bush win.”

I bite my lip, which already feels dry and chapped. “Don’t
you think it might be out of our hands?”

“No. We could mobilize people. You talk to your friends;
I’ll talk to my friends. We’ll start a movement.”

“A movement?”

“A Democratic movement. Democracy will win.”

I’m still too sleepy to form a good response. “That makes no
sense.”

Monty grunts a little. “Nothing tonight makes any sense.
It’s almost 5:00 a.m. here, I haven’t slept, and I feel like the world has
become some bizarre alternate reality.”