Adrian McKinty - Hidden River

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Hi, I’m an environmental activist in your area tonight to raise consciousness about the plight of the ancient forests.”

“That a fact?”

“Yes, sir, it is. Is this an, uh, an issue that concerns you at all?”

“Trees?”

“Yes, the old growth forests, they’re being cut down at a—”

“Let me tell you what concerns me. They’re cutting food stamps, I can’t afford to feed my kids, I hardly see my kids. Hardly ever see them. I’ve been unemployed for six months and there ain’t no work.”

He stares at me, waiting for me to reply, but I can’t say anything. I look at Amber, she does her rap like a good ’un, closing back to the fifty-dollar memberships.

“I’ll take a leaflet,” he says politely.

I give him a couple of leaflets and say goodbye and we walk back down the path again.

“I can’t believe this,” Amber mutters under her breath.

Perhaps this is the first time she’s ever met people immune to her charms. And we’re both cold. She looks totally pissed off. Wet, lovely, and miserable, her ponytail being blown about in the wind. Her nipples erect under her sweatshirt.

“Sure you don’t want to get a coffee or something?” I ask, putting my hand on her elbow to prevent her walking. She looks at me and shakes her head.

“Charles would be upset if we stop now, a few more streets,” she says quietly.

“This is getting us nowhere,” I protest.

“I know,” she says.

“But look down at the next street. It doesn’t look at all inviting,” I say.

She looks where I’m pointing. Broken windows and screen doors, refuse and bits of furniture on the sidewalk and on the barren lawns.

“Come on, Amber, we’re done here, it’s nine-thirty, this has been a pretty disastrous night, we’ll go get something to eat and meet everyone else back at the van, hope they did better,” I say.

Amber is resigned and nods. A blond hair comes loose and falls on her face, she pushes it back violently, like a drill sergeant pushing a soldier back in formation.

“They won’t have done any better,” she says after a minute or two.

“Why not?”

“Well, uh, do you ever go to the theater?”

“Not really.”

“I love the theater, never get to go. Don’t you love it?”

“I might love it, I just haven’t experienced it,” I say.

“Well, anyway, did you ever hear of a play called Glengarry Glen Ross ?”

“No, never heard of it,” I tell her.

“It’s about these real estate men and they cold-call people, but they’re all after the Glengarry leads, people who actually want to buy real estate. Well, we normally go to neighborhoods which are on the GOP list, people who have contributed to Republican causes before, like the Glengarry leads, people who are interested, so that’s why we’ve been doing quite well, but Robert thought tonight we could just try a random neighborhood in the suburbs to see how we do. See how it works out.”

“Yeah, worked out great,” I say.

She looks at me. Laughs.

“What was that you said about something warm to drink?”

Five minutes later we’re at a strip mall. Most of the stores are closed, but there is a pizza place that’s still open. We go in, order a slice each and coffee. There are only a few customers, so we’ve no trouble getting a table.

“So Tennessee,” I say.

“Yup,” she says, biting into her pizza with obvious relish.

“What happened to your accent?”

“I moved to New Jersey when I was ten, my dad worked for a power company.”

“What? So really you’re a Jersey girl?” I say, surprised.

“Well, I don’t know about that, I was born in Tennessee,” she says a bit defensively.

“I get it, you’re one of those people ashamed of Jersey, so you say you’re from Tennessee?”

“I’m not ashamed, I just feel more like a southern girl, at heart,” she says with that infectious grin.

“Yeah?” I say, gently mocking her.

“No, look, I lived in the south for eleven years, barely six or seven in Jersey before I went to college in Boston,” she says.

“You met Charles at Harvard?”

“Yes, how did you know that?” she says.

“I just guessed. You mentioned that he went there too, when Robert talked about ROTC.”

“You’re quick,” she says.

“No, not at all,” I say.

“I met him there. He was teaching a class on economics, it was very boring. I was a science major, you know, but I thought I’d try something different.”

“He was a professor?”

“No, don’t be silly. He was a graduate student. You never get a professor, ever. You’ll see, you’ll get taught by PhDs at Red Rocks.”

“Oh, yeah, I think someone said something about that. Term doesn’t start for a few weeks yet. Uh, so you loved his class and you married him?”

“Do you want to hear the whole boring story?” she says, completely distracted by her pizza, which is dripping melted cheese everywhere. She dabs her mouth with a lead violinist’s fingers. Again, that feeling about her. Those vulnerable eyes. And those toned arms, like the skin of an F16.

“I do want to hear the whole story, you seem like a terrific couple,” I say.

“Thank you. Well, ok, Charles got his PhD, left Harvard, we hadn’t gone out then at all, in fact, I don’t think he liked me. He gave me a C, which screwed my GPA. He went on to Yale Law School. Then he moved back to Colorado. Went to work at the law firm. He’s from here, you know. Anyway, he and Robert set up CAW and worked very hard to get it off the ground, everyone thinks their dad does everything, but they hardly see him. It was all their own work.”

“So I believe,” I say.

“It was. Anyway, it was the most bizarre coincidence, I left college and I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life and I did a few things in marketing and in PR but nothing really exciting and my mom went, uh, had been in the hospital, she had an accident, and it was a very bad time and I was skiing at Vail and who should I run into but Charles, who remembers me from that class. And I tell him he ruined my GPA and he laughs and he tells me what he’s doing, he’s just set up this organization and it’s really struggling and he says I should come work for him, and I do and it’s then that we fall in love and get married. Just like that. And CAW becomes this big success and everything works out.”

She finishes her speech as she finishes her slice. Telling it all has completely transformed her mood. She’s said it like it’s some Horatio Alger story of rags to riches rather than what it is, bored kids of a millionaire, fucking around with other people’s money so they can slime their way into Congress. And once again I wonder how much she knows. Everything? Does she support Charles, even if it means murder?

“But someone told me you don’t work at CAW anymore. And yet here you are out on the coal face?” I say.

“Yes, after we got married Charles decided it wasn’t a good idea for two married people to be in the same working environment, so I quit and we hired a brilliant girl, from your part of the world, actually; but now with the move to Denver we need all the help we can get, so I’ve had to chip in.”

“You’ve got an Irish girl working for you? I never saw her around the office,” I say, sounding excited and surprised.

“Actually, we’ve had a bit of bad luck with that really. We had two terrible things happen in the last few weeks. No one’s mentioned it to you?”

“No.”

“No. I suppose that’s for the best. It was just terrible, right when we were moving from Boulder to Denver. Awful.”

“Ok, you have to tell me what happened, you can’t leave it like that,” I say.