Herself Read online

  David asks me to bring him a set of clothes when I come by tomorrow. “I arrived in my swim trunks, and while I’m sure the media would love to film me leaving in them, I would prefer not to give them the freak show they’re craving.”

  But the circus is already in town, and it’s awfully hard to get the elephants out of the living room. The headline on the morning edition of the New York Post splashes IT TAKES A VILLAGE PEOPLE all over the front page, with a photo of David in the pool, bare-chested, caught mid-move in a posture that resembles the choreography of the seventies’ disco hit “YMCA.” The article on page 3 includes an interview with Bob Dobson, the Republican challenger for David’s congressional seat, saying, “Do I think he’s gay? It’s none of my business, of course, but as long as you asked me, I won’t avoid the question. I’m just wondering if he’s got something to hide; that’s what crossed my mind at first—what with this passionate kiss between him and the fitness instructor—and Kelly Adonis’s sexual orientation certainly isn’t a secret. So what sets me wondering is, whether Congressman Weyburn has something to hide, and if he’s hiding it, with all due respect, why is he too ashamed to come out, as they say, and admit it. After all, he’s built his reputation on integrity.”

  “With all due respect,” my ass. And “passionate kiss”? It was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for Christ’s sake! What an outrageous twisting of the facts! This is an obnoxious and slimy smear, and it boggles the mind that the press even printed such trash. Dobson had invented a can of worms and then opened it with a flourish in a public news forum. David may never want to leave St. Luke’s when he reads this.

  I try to dodge the camera crew waiting outside the hospital. They ask me about David’s condition and I reply simply that I know as much at this point as they do, which frustrates them, of course, but it happens to be the truth. Then they ask if David plans to have any comment on the Post headline and on Bob Dobson’s remarks in the accompanying article. “I think Eleanor Roosevelt put it best when she said ‘Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.’ Kelly Adonis was administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the congressman. Nothing more. He saved his life. It’s sad that Congressman Weyburn’s opponent feels the necessity to attack him when he’s recuperating from major surgery, and sadder still that you guys are giving his remarks any credence.”

  But if I have any hopes of putting the issue to rest with my brief recitation of the facts, I am sorely mistaken. The event had been framed and Bob Dobson was wasting no time in gilding that frame with toxic paint.

  David remains in the hospital for another day—another news cycle devoted to several replays of him singing the “isn’t it queer” lyric, snarky comments about whether the words about “losing my timing this late in my career” will prove to be prophetic, and increased appearances by Bob Dobson wondering aloud whether David Weyburn is a closeted gay, and if so, isn’t it time to take himself out of mothballs.

  “Maybe you should let me accompany you home,” I suggest to him, but he balks.

  “It’s bad enough they’ve invented a personal life for me; I don’t want them sniffing around the real one. We’ll put the fiction to bed and move on with the campaign. If we comment on it, they’ll print or air the comment and it’s just adding fuel to Dobson’s auto-da-fé. You know what I really want to do when I get home?” I shake my head. “I missed ‘The Glorious First,’ because I was under anesthesia.”

  “The first thing you plan to do after arriving home after heart surgery is setting fire to L’Orient in your bathtub?”

  “Yup.”

  “You’re a piece of work.” I chuckle. “Don’t forget to tuck up the shower curtain. Sometimes I think you Nelson Society members take things to the limit.”

  David’s favorite hobby is building model ships, something he’s been doing since he was about eleven years old. Over the years he’s built several very intricate replicas, and there are a handful of colleagues on Capitol Hill, including his mentors on both sides of the aisle, who have received these lavish, lovingly handcrafted gifts. His hero, and the one who tops David’s parlor game list of the ten people he’d most want to dine with, is Horatio Nelson. Every summer David builds an inexpensive replica of Napoleon’s 1798 flagship, L’Orient, and each year on August 1, he destroys it in his bathtub to commemorate Nelson’s victory in the Battle of the Nile. To date, no one has complained to the building’s super.

  David’s admiration for Nelson began when he was a child and his favorite uncle, Morris Weyburn, gave him a Young Adult version of the one-eyed, one-armed English admiral’s biography. Although the one-eyed, one-armed part came later, little David was impressed by master Nelson’s ability to overcome adversity (Nelson was a runty little guy, and young David suffered from acute asthma), bucking all expectations to the contrary to eventually command respect from every quarter. Even Nelson’s detractors never begrudged his remarkable leadership qualities (Nelson realized early on that one has to give respect to earn respect) and his uncanny abilities as a military strategist. David most admires Nelson’s principles of Mission Command, where every participant in an action knows precisely what his commander expects of him and is entrusted to execute his responsibilities with the commander’s full confidence in his skills. Everyone’s at the table when the assignments are made; everyone’s in the loop. Kind of like King Arthur. And David operates the same way. People always feel like they’re working with him, not for him, and yet none of us forgets he’s the boss. It does make for a rather vast swath of gray when it comes to my relationship with him, however. I’ve never entirely made my peace with his calling the lion’s share of the shots with regard to our personal life, something I’ve confessed to numerous times in my journal.

  “You’re welcome to come over later—with your briefcase, of course—and watch me blow up the ship,” David says. “We can celebrate with classic English fare; order fish and chips from that little pub—you know, the one that delivers—the Pot o’Gold, or what ever it’s called. What, Tess? What’s with the wrinkly nose?”

  Utterly bemused, I shake my head at him. “You’ve just had heart surgery, my love! Deep fried fish is Public Enemy Number One when it comes to your arteries. And even if the dish were on your diet from now on, fish and chips isn’t the kind of thing that survives a trip any longer than the fifteen-foot distance from the Pot o’Gold’s kitchen to your table. But I will happily hold the fire extinguisher while you extinguish Napoleon.”

  “Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Steak and kidney pie?”

  “Okay, now I know you’re putting me on.”

  “Does this heart thing mean I have to eat nothing but Salade Niçoise for the rest of my natural life? I’m a guy: I want real food!” David suddenly winces.

  I panic. “Are you in pain?”

  “Just the thought of suffering through that sound bite again and again. But I can’t ignore the news. It’s part of my job to stay informed.”

  He declines my offer to walk by his side as he’s wheeled out of the hospital, where the media are there to greet him, shoving a phalanx of microphones in his face. I’m with Dr. Gupta, following about eight feet behind. Someone has produced Kelly Adonis, who steps forward to wish David well. The men shake hands, as it would seem ungenerous not to do that at the very at least; after all, Kelly ostensibly saved David’s life. The news photographers snap away and someone shouts out, “Hug him!”

  David doesn’t.

  “Are you gay?” someone else shouts. “Are you denying it?”

  David plays deaf as the orderly helps him out of the wheelchair and into Freddy’s town car, there to whisk David home. Several reporters begin to follow the car like tin cans tied to a newlywed’s bumper.

  The Post’s late city edition on August 3 contains an article snidely headlined WEYBURN’S NEW HEART-THROB? once again running a photo of Kelly giving David mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, although the
article primarily refers to David’s release from the hospital with Dr. Gupta’s excellent prognosis for his full recovery from the angioplasty.

  I arrive at David’s apartment that evening with the most recent version of his speech on the unregulated sewage dumping by cruise ships. Following a roast chicken dinner—which he somehow found the energy to cook—only the most insane overachiever does this after heart surgery—and after destroying L’Orient in the bathtub, we curl up together on the couch and go over the text of the speech.

  “You smell good,” he murmurs, snaking his hand across my back. “You know what I forgot to ask Dr. Gupta—in confidence, of course?”

  I place the pages of the speech on the coffee table and snuggle beside him. “What did you forget, sweetheart?” I look into his dark, intelligent eyes as he traces a finger along one of my laugh lines. “God, you’re gorgeous.”

  “And here’s looking at you, kid. You’re not only the best damn speechwriter in the country, you’re also the prettiest.”

  “So what did you forget?” I ask him after a prolonged and extremely enjoyable kiss.

  “I forgot to ask her when I’ll be fit enough to make love. I mean, part of me most certainly is—as you can tell. But I want to be sure my heart’s into it, too.” He kisses me again.

  “So do I, honey. So do I.”

  Four

  “I think hitting the ‘bad neighbors’ angle is a good one,” Gus Trumbo says, juggling the pages of David’s speech and his cup of coffee, trying not to let it splash all over his clothes as Freddy navigates the potholes along Eleventh Avenue. He speed-reads the text aloud. “‘Do any of you know that cruise ships are exempt from the Clean Water Act, our nation’s water pollution control law? They’re getting a free pass when it comes to pollution emissions. Why? Because officially, they’re not U.S. “citizens” like all the other companies that operate in this country. Even though this multibillion-dollar industry does business with travelers from all over the United States and in American waters, they are permitted to register their vessels in places like Panama and Liberia in order to avoid paying any taxes. Imagine a municipality getting a free ride like that.’ I’m liking this, Tess. ‘Cruise ships cheerfully take your money when you visit one of their shops and purchase their goods and ser vices, but have zero accountability when it comes to disposing of your trash, whether it’s human waste, food garbage, or the chemicals used in dry cleaning and film developing, not to mention the detergents used in keeping the ship itself clean, from the kitchens to the decks to the swimming pools to the engines.’ Good stuff. Walks the fine line between substantive and wonk.”

  “Yeah,” I chuckle. “It’s a real tightrope sometimes.”

  “And the fact that Alaska, California, Washington, and Hawaii are on top of this, but we still have no cruise ship waste law plays well, too. This is a nice bit: ‘New York, which is home to one of the country’s largest cruise ship ports, and certainly the most populous in terms of density, is not even in the picture. Do we have to wait for an Exxon Valdez type of disaster before we do something to protect our waters, our marine life, and the residents of New York? We’ve been missing the boat here, people.’ Yeah, make them think a little.”

  “Gus, watch that elbow. That was my fifth rib.” I try to readjust my position in the cramped back seat. “I love the perspective that David brought to the three-mile limit. That was all his actually; I didn’t contribute that—just cleaned it up is all.”

  Gus shuffles the papers. “Where is that?”

  “It’s the black-water section.” David takes an icky-looking container from his jacket pocket.

  “You’re not planning to open that jar, are you?” I ask him.

  He gives me a withering look and recites from memory: “Now, let’s get back to this three-mile joke-of-a-regulation for dumping black-water. This stuff is pretty repellent, right? Totally toxic. The jar I’m holding up now is literally full of shit. If you got on the Seventh Avenue subway line, the ‘1’ train, at the 110th Street station and took it down to the 50th Street station, just a few blocks from where we stand, that’s three miles. And it would take you all of sixteen minutes to make the trip. Now let’s imagine that you’re a load of crap that’s been released into the Hudson River at the equivalent of 110th Street. It wouldn’t be terribly long before the current carried you down river and you were floating right past us.”

  Gus nods approvingly. “You’re right. Never underestimate the gross-out factor.”

  “Gross-out factor plus perspective that any New Yorker can relate to,” I add. “Let’s run through a quick Q&A. Congressman Weyburn,” I say, affecting a TV news reporter voice. “You’re lobbing a lot of missiles at the cruise ship industry for not being regulated, but in truth, they’re not the ones who make the rules. So, since they’re not beholden to the Clean Water Act, how do you suggest they become ‘good neighbors’?”

  “I’m glad you asked that question, Ms.—or is it Miss—Craig.”

  I shrug off a grin. “Just answer the question, David.”

  “Ms. Craig, the cost of updating the waste systems on board these giant floating cities is approximately two million dollars per vessel. A drop in the bucket, so to speak, when you consider that this is about the same sum as one-third of the incidental expenses spent by passengers on a single week-long cruise on a five-thousand-passenger ship. A few years ago, a cruise ship carrying five thousand passengers could pull in $7,875,000 in a week in onboard expenses alone; this figure doesn’t even take into account the price the tourists have paid to the cruise line for their passage. Heck, the cruise industry’s annual advertising costs are over half a billion dollars. They can easily afford to fix the problem and become good citizens and good neighbors, but it’s more than evident that they need powerful, take-no-prisoners legislation to compel them to comply.”

  “Have any of these cruise ship companies ever been caught in the act in New York waters, Congressman?”

  “Excellent question, Mr. Trumbo. Yes, they have, as a matter of fact. According to the Department of Justice, way back in 1994 and 1995, the ship Song of America was fined three million dollars on two felony counts for false statements related to the presentation to the Coast Guard of a materially false Oil Record Book, and on two felony violations of the Clean Water Act for the discharge of pollutants, among them photo-and dry-cleaning waste, into the coastal waters, including the Port of New York.” He reaches across my chest for Gus’s cup of coffee. “Give me a sip of that.”

  “It’s got Nutrasweet in it.”

  David makes a face and settles back, javaless, against the seat. “You know what pisses me off? Well, there are a number of things, but I’m referring to illegal cruise ship dumping. What pisses me off is that H.R. 1636—the ‘Clean Cruise Ship Act of 2005’—was introduced on the floor of the House of Representatives back on April 14 of that year, and has been tied up in committee ever since. It was cosponsored by a number of west coast legislators and one congressman from Virginia. I am ashamed to say that there wasn’t a single northeast representative among the bill’s sponsors. I should have been among them and it’s time to make amends. 1636 does call for tighter restrictions on cruise ship companies, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. In fact it doesn’t even look that good on paper because there are so many loopholes in the bill. I would have insisted on toughing up the legislation. Reading it is a bit like peering through a slice of Swiss cheese. A rather thick slice, of course, since we’re talking about Congress; the bill is dozens of pages long.”

  The town car pulls into the parking area by the pier. “Out and at ’em,” Freddy announces. “And take your coffee cups and muffin wrappers with you. I had to fire the busboy.”

  “You gotta love Freddy,” Gus mutters, peeling himself out of the automobile. “I always feel like I need a good massage after being all scrunched up with you guys.”

  “You always feel like you need a good massage,” I quip. I notice that the podium and all the trappin
gs for David’s speech are in place, just as Gus has requested. “Hey, don’t you just love it when everything you asked for is actually all set up when you arrive? How rare is that?”

  After a last minute huddle, we’re good to go. “Knock ’em dead!” I tell David, and he approaches the podium to the staccato rhythm of clicking camera shutters. I all but bite my lip in anticipation; I can’t wait for their reaction to his opening line.

  “We’re going to talk about a lot of shit today, folks.”

  Damn, I love press conferences! I grin as the reporters at Pier 90 look momentarily stunned. Their realization that the very first sentence of David’s speech will need to be bleeped results in a mass deer-in-the-headlights reaction.

  “I knew that would get your attention,” David continues brightly.

  Suspended behind David, a big DON’T TRASH NY banner catches the breeze.

  “I’m here today to announce that when Congress reconvenes next month, I plan to introduce the Cruise Ship Accountability and Culpability Act. For those of you who are fond of acronyms, yes, it’s the CACA bill.” He hits the point about cruise ships being beyond the reach of the law and adds, “An average-sized cruise ship housing three thousand passengers and crew members generates seven tons of solid waste every day, much of which is being dumped untreated into our waters. CACA will set up much tougher standards and regulations to protect our waters and our wildlife. Each year, millions of animals become trapped in cruise ship debris or become poisoned by it. Not only that, in order to maintain safe operating conditions, ships discharge ballast water back into the ocean, which means that water taken on in one geographical region is usually eliminated in another. The result is that very often serious diseases, red tides, parasites, and non-U.S. species of marine animals, are carried into our waters from ballast waters. Non-native species are the nation’s number two cause of biodiversity loss, costing the American economy $137 billion every year.”