recall.
'Morning, uh…'
'Jolene… Jo.'
'Jolene. Sounds like a country song.'
She gave him a coy smile.
' 'Cause I'm a country girl.'
'Are you now?'
Bode caught Jim Bob rolling his eyes.
'That'll be all, Jo,' he said.
Jolene sashayed out in her tight pants and high heels. Jim Bob shook his head.
'You're a goddamn rooster in a hen house.'
He put the stack of papers on the desk then slid the top document across to Bode. He sat behind the desk and grabbed his signing pen.
'What's this?'
'You're appointing Joe Jack Munger to the UT Board of Regents.'
'Munger?'
'Oilman out in Midland, went to UT.'
'He know anything about education?'
'He knows how to write a big check to your reelection campaign. Two hundred grand.'
Bode signed the appointment, one of the few powers of the office. The University of Texas had always been run by the governor's cronies and contributors, more like a real-estate venture than a university. Jim Bob pushed another document across the desk.
'Proclamation.'
'Proclaiming what?'
'A day of prayer for rain.'
'Damn drought. How are we doing on those wildfires out west?'
'Out of control.'
'Half of Texas is burning, and Obama won't declare those counties disaster areas so those folks can get federal funds to rebuild. Blue state fucking hiccups, he sends in billions. Red state, he lets us die in a drought.'
'It's called politics.'
He signed the proclamation.
'Next document.'
Bode read the title: 'Deed?'
'The land deal. With Hoot Pickens.'
'You run this by the lawyers?'
Jim Bob nodded. 'It's legal. And profitable. Half a million bucks. We put it in your blind trust, gives us deniability.'
Bode signed the deed. Jim Bob gathered the papers then checked his watch and stood.
'Come on, we're late.'
'For what?'
'Elementary school.'
Bode groaned. 'Aw, damn, Jim Bob-not reading to kindergartners again? I hate that shit.'
Jim Bob offered a lame shrug.
'You made education a major part of your platform-faith, family, and schools.'
'Just because Lindsay wanted something to do. Why can't she read to them?'
'She was supposed to, but I had to send her down to the border-Delgado's in from Washington. They're trying to get the Mexicans in the colonias counted for the census.'
'Why?'
'So Texas can get more seats in Congress. We've got thirty-two seats now. If we can get all those Mexicans counted, we can pick up three or four more seats. And once I'm through redistricting the state, every one of those seats will be Republican.'
'No-why'd you send Lindsay down to the border? Why couldn't I go?'
'Because you don't speak Spanish. She does.'
THREE
' No teman el censo. '
'Yes, Mrs. Bonner,' Congressman Delgado said. ' 'Do not fear the census.' That is our message this day.'
Two hundred thirty-five miles south of the Governor's Mansion and two blocks north of the Rio Grande, the governor's wife stared out the tinted window of the black Suburban as their five-car caravan rolled around the San Agustin Plaza in downtown Laredo. She had flown in the night before and stayed at the La Posada Hotel on the plaza. She would fly back to Austin that afternoon. Up front, a state trooper drove, and her Texas Ranger bodyguard rode shotgun. She sat in the back seat with the congressman. His aftershave reminded Lindsay of her father when she was a little girl riding in his lap and pretending to steer the old Buick. Congressman Delgado pointed out the window at a white church with a tall clock tower.
'The San Agustin Cathedral,' he said. 'I was baptized there. And that is the old convent for the Ursuline Sisters, but the nuns are gone. And the Plaza Theatre, it is shuttered now, but I watched many cowboy movies there as a child. That was, of course, many years ago.' He chuckled. 'I was born in Laredo, but I am afraid I will die in Washington.'
Ernesto Delgado had first been elected to Congress in 1966. He was seventy-eight now and had no thought of retiring.
'The plaza seems…'
'Dead?'
She nodded.
'Yes, it is March and our streets should be crowded with college students on spring break, staying in hotels on this side of the river and partying on the other side. Gin fizzes at the Cadillac Bar and pretty girls in Boys' Town-Nuevo Laredo once boasted the cheapest drinks and the best prostitutes on the border. It is legal in Mexico, prostitution.'
A wistful expression crossed the congressman's creased face, as if he had experienced all that Nuevo Laredo had to offer in his younger days.
'Now the Cadillac Bar is closed, and Nuevo Laredo has only the drugs and violence to offer, so the DPS issues travel warnings. 'Avoid traveling to Mexico during spring break, and stay alive,' the one this year said. So the students, they go to Padre Island instead. And the streets of Laredo are empty.'
The streets were empty. The few pedestrians on the plaza walked slowly, as if they had no place to go. Palm trees and old Spanish-style structures lined the brick-paved plaza, a few elderly tourists snapped photos, and some of the businesses still seemed alive-Casa de Empeno, Casa Raul, Pepe's Sporting Goods, Fantasia Linda-albeit protected by burglar bars. Other storefronts sat boarded-up, left to decay in the dry air. Faded murals, a fenced-off movie theatre, a forgotten convent-the streets of Laredo were paved but not with gold. The town seemed tired and weary, like an old person who recalled an earlier time, when her life had meaning. When she was useful. Lindsay Bonner was only forty-four, but she often felt like that old person. Or this old town. Old. Useless. Unnecessary. She still had the energy, the drive, and the desire to be useful and necessary, but she had no place. No purpose. Her husband was the governor and her daughter a college student; her jobs as mother and wife were finished now. She was the governor's wife, but that was not the same as being a wife. It was a role she played; it was not her. So she volunteered around Austin, but she was always the governor's wife. She could not escape that identity. That prison. Those cameras. That was her role now, a pretty face that brought out the cameras.
A photo op.
