“That’s nice. I’m glad he’s big enough to admit it.” My face has a smile, but Harris can always see deeper. When we came here, Harris believed in the issues; I believed in a person. It’s the latter that’s more dangerous.
Harris sits on the corner of my desk, and I follow his gaze to the TV, which, as always, is locked on C-SPAN. As long as the House is in session, the pages are still on call. And from the looks of it — with Wyoming Congresswoman Thelma Lewis gripping the podium and blathering away — we’ve got some time. Mountain standard time, to be precise. Right now, it’s 5:30 in Casper, Wyoming — prime news hour — which is why Lewis waited until late in the day to make her big speech, and why Members from New Mexico, North Dakota, and Utah are all in line behind her. Why fall in the woods if no one’s there to hear?
“Democracy demographics,” I mutter.
“If they were smart, they’d wait another half hour,” Harris points out. “That’s when the local news numbers really kick in and-”
Before he can finish, there’s a knock on my door.
“Matthew Mercer?” a female page with brown bangs asks as she approaches with an envelope.
Harris and I share a fast glance. This is it.
She hands me the envelope, and I struggle to play it cool.
“Wait… aren’t you Harris?” she blurts.
He doesn’t flinch. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”
“At orientation… you gave that speech.”
I roll my eyes, not surprised. Every year, Harris is one of four staffers asked to speak at the orientation for the pages. To most, it’s a suck job. Not to Harris. The other three speakers drone on about the value of government. Harris gives them the locker room speech from
“That was really amazing what you said,” she adds.
“I meant every word,” Harris tells her. And he did.
I can’t take my eyes off the envelope. “Harris, we should really…”
“I’m sorry,” the page says. She can’t take her eyes off him. And not because of the speech. Harris’s square shoulders… his dimpled chin… even his strong black eyebrows — he’s always had a classic look — like someone you see in an old black-and-white photograph from the 1930s, but who somehow still looks good today. All you have to add are the deep green eyes… He’s never had to work it.
“Listen, you… you have a great one,” the page adds, still staring as she leaves.
“You, too,” Harris says.
“Can you shut the door behind you?” I call out.
The door slams with a bang, and Harris yanks the envelope from my hands. If we were in college, I’d tackle him and grab it back. Not anymore. Today, the games are bigger.
Harris slides his finger along the flap and casually flips it open. I don’t know how he keeps his composure. My blond hair is already damp with sweat; his black locks are dry as hay.
Searching for calm, I turn toward the Grand Canyon photo on the wall. The first time my parents took me there, I was fifteen years old — and already six feet tall. Staring down from the south rim of the canyon was the first time in my life I felt small. I feel the same way next to Harris.
“What’s it say?” I demand.
He peeks inside and stays totally silent. If the bet’s been raised, there’ll be a new receipt inside. If we’re top dog, our old slip of paper is the only thing we’ll find. I try to read his face. I don’t have a prayer. He’s been in politics too long. The crease in his forehead doesn’t twitch. His eyes barely blink.
“I don’t believe it,” he finally says. He pulls out the taxi receipt and cups it in the palm of his hand.
“What?” I ask. “Did he raise it? He raised it, didn’t he? We’re dead…”
“Actually,” Harris begins, looking up to face me and slowly raising an excited eyebrow, “I’d say we’re very much alive.” In his hand he flashes the taxi receipt like a police badge. It’s my handwriting. Our old bet. For six thousand dollars.
I laugh out loud the moment I see it.
“It’s payday, Matthew. Now, you ready to name that tune…?”
5
“Morning, Roxanne,” I call out as I enter the office the following day. “We all set?”
“Just like you asked,” she replies without looking up.
Crossing into the back room, I find Dinah, Connor, and Roy in their usual positions at their desks, already lost in paperwork and Conference notes. This time of year, that’s all we do — build the twenty-one-billion-dollar
“They’re waiting for you in the hearing room,” Dinah points out.
“Thanks,” I say as I snatch my notebooks from my desk and head for the oversized beige door that leads next door.
It’s one thing to bet on the fact that I can sneak this item past the Senate folks and into the bill. It’s entirely another to make it happen.
“Nice to be on time,” Trish scolds as I enter the room.
I’m the last of the four horsemen to arrive. It’s intentional. Let ’ em think I ’m not anxious about the agenda. As usual, Ezra’s on my side of the oval table; Trish and Georgia, our Senate counterparts, are on the other. On the right-hand wall, there’s a black-and-white Ansel Adams photograph of Yosemite National Park. The photo shows the clear glass surface of the Merced River dominated by the snow-covered mountain peak of Half Dome overhead. Some people need coffee; I need the outdoors. Like the Grand Canyon picture in my office, the image brings instant calm.
“So, anything new?” Trish asks, wondering what I’ve got up my sleeve.
“Nope,” I reply, wondering the same about her. We both know the pre-Conference tango. Every day, there’s a new project that one of our bosses “forgot” to put in the bill. Last week, I gave her three hundred thousand dollars for manatee protection in Florida; she returned the favor by giving me four hundred thousand to fund a University of Michigan study of toxic mold. As a result, the Senator from Florida and the Congressman from Michigan now have something to brag about during the elections. Around here, the projects are known as “immaculate conceptions.” Political favors that — poof — appear right out of thin air.
I’ve got a mental list of every project — including the gold mine — that I need to squeeze in by the time pre-Conference is done. Trish has the same. Neither of us wants to show our hand first. So for two hours, we stick to the script.
“FDR’s presidential library,” Trish begins. “Senate gave it six million. You gave it four million.”
“Compromise at five mil?” I ask.
“Done.”
“Over to Philadelphia,” I say. “What about the new walkways for Independence Hall? We gave it nine hundred thousand; the Senate, for some reason, zeroed it out.”
“That was just to teach Senator Didio to keep his mouth shut. He took a crack at my boss in
“Do you have any idea how vindictive and childish that is?”
“Not half as vindictive as what they do in Transpo. When one of the Senators from North Carolina pissed off that subcommittee Chairman, they cut Amtrak’s funding so the trains wouldn’t stop in Greensboro.”
I shake my head. Gotta love appropriators. “So you’ll give full funding to the Liberty Bell?”
“Of course,” Trish says. “Let freedom ring.”
By noon, Trish is looking at her watch, ready for lunch. If she’s got a project in her pants, she’s playing it extra cool — which is why, for the first time today, I start wondering if I should put mine out there first.
“Meet back here at one?” she asks. I nod and slam my three-ring binder shut. “By the way,” she adds as I head back to my office, “there’s one other thing I almost forgot…”
