who Drew Barrymore is?” Both men had endearingly thick southern accents, though only one of them—Dale—was talking with his mouth full; he had torn into his salad with gusto. To Mr. Phillips, I said, “Thank you,” and then I turned toward Dale. “I do know who she is.”
“The liberal elite has lost touch with real American values,” Mr. Phillips said. ”We need someone to stand up to those activist judges pushing for the homosexual agenda. That lifestyle might cut it in the Northeast, but I’ll tell you what, it sure doesn’t fly down here.”
Mildly, I said, “I know Charlie likes to focus on what we as Americans have in common.”
“Did you see her in
?” Dale was asking.
I turned back. “I didn’t, but I’ve heard of it.”
“She’s the most pretty and talented actress there is,” Dale said, and his father, who’d been talking to the chairman’s wife on his other side, chuckled and said, “If I were a bettin’ man, I’d say we must be discussin’ Drew Barrymore.”
“I saw her when she was a little girl in
” I said. “Oh, and you know what, Dale—my daughter and I recently watched a movie she was in called
Have you seen that?”
It was Mr. Tasket who said, “Have we seen
? Only three times a week do we see
at our house. I’ve watched that little movie more times than I’ve watched the evenin’ news.”
“Mr. Coulson thinks Josie’s a student, but when he finds out she works for the newspaper, they can fall in love,” Dale said.
“I remember that part,” I said.
“Drew’s birthday is February twenty-second, 1975,” Dale said. “That means she’s twenty-five and seven months and three days, and she’s a Pisces, and I’m a Gemini, but I’m older than her because I’m forty.”
Dale’s father had faded again from the conversation, but on my right, Mr. Phillips said, “This election will be a real comeuppance for the Democrats. You mark my words, we’ll have payback after eight years of them running roughshod.”
“Charlie and I are as curious about what will happen as you are,” I said. To Dale, I said, “If you’re a Gemini, that must mean you were born in May or June.”
“I was born on June third, 1960. What are your hobbies?” Dale had a dab of salad dressing on the outer corner of his lips. “Mine are Nintendo, stamps, and the zoo.”
I couldn’t resist. I said, “It sounds like Drew Barrymore is a hobby of yours, too.”
Dale smiled slyly and said, “A girl can’t be a hobby!” Then he said, “When you come to our house, I’ll show you my Classic American Aircraft stamps. I have all of them, but the best is the Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing.”
“Mrs. Blackwell, are you and your husband in the area for long?” This came from a wife across the table, but Dale preempted my response by saying, “And the Thunderbolt is real cool, too.”
I said to the woman (I already couldn’t remember her name), “Unfortunately, we fly out tonight, and I’m sorry, because it would be fun to explore. I was just reading about the Bellingrath Gardens.”
“When you’re next here, you ought to go over to the Eastern Shore. We all have places there”—she gestured to the other couples at the table—“and it’s a wonderful place to relax, very quiet. Campaigning must be tiring.”
They were polite, all of them, and they also were clearly irritated that Dale was monopolizing my attention, and that his father and I were allowing it. And I was fully complicit—what could have been more delightful than to sit beside someone brimming with his own interests and enthusiasms, none of which was political, a person who neither knew nor cared who I was beyond the fact that I’d heard of Drew Barrymore and was willing to talk about her? No one else at the table could compete with Dale’s volubility, his lusty and fearless ingestion of the food on his plate, his ingenuous questions and announcements; I was enchanted. The others at the table soon gave up on me, and several times after I’d been left to conspire with Dale, I noticed his father glancing with amusement at us, and I wondered if he hadn’t brought his son as a sort of joke, an antidote to the stuffiness rampant at these fund- raisers. There was something fearless about Mr. Tasket, too; despite his earlier demurrals when Dale had sat by me, he seemed unapologetic about having brought his mentally disabled adult son to a fancy dinner.
When our entrees came, I wasn’t particularly hungry and ended up offering my sirloin to Dale, which he accepted with great pleasure. He said, “Are you sure?” He ate my dessert, too, a strawberry shortcake.
It was about ten minutes into Charlie’s speech when Dale patted my arm and said, “Miss Alice, do you like tic- tac-toe?” He was speaking in a normal volume, not whispering, and at our table and the tables near ours, people looked at him. Leon Tasket, appearing not particularly perturbed, leaned in from Dale’s other side and murmured something to his son. Dale’s expression became big-eyed and chastened, and he sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his substantial belly.
I reached into my purse and found a paper napkin and a blue ball-point pen. I drew a crosshatch, placed an X in the upper-right square, and nudged the napkin toward Dale. His face lit up, and when it seemed he might speak again, I brought my finger to my lips. Onstage, Charlie was saying, “As I travel around this great land of ours, I hear a consistent refrain:
