Randy White - Shark River

I watched the girl sipping at her beer, combing bangs back with nervous fingers while she told me about Hal Harrington. She explained that, back when her father was still in his late twenties, he’d gotten a job with one of the early computer companies as an unskilled laborer. He’d done the grunt work, unloading boxes, muling bundles of electrical conduit and parts. In his spare time, though, he’d studied the whole field, the way it was headed, liked what he saw and began to invest right there on the ground floor. Not only that, he invented what Lindsey described as a “little doohickey,” a plastic sleeve that was a docking device for computer chips.

She told me, “Dad got the thing patented, and every computer company in the world uses it, so he was, like, a multimillionaire before he was twenty-five. Then, somehow, he got interested in politics, began to finance certain candidates, and ended up working in the basement of the White House for no salary. He moved me to D.C. with him. We had this really awesome suite at the Willard Hotel, and I attended this, like, really hotshit private school, Sidwell Friends, and hung out at 1600 Pennsylvania, when I could, which is how I got to be friends with all those presidents. Except for one of them, who was a creep, a genuine self-important dick, and his wife was even worse. This one time, we were in the state dining room, which is by the colored rooms, and my boyfriend-”

I interrupted. “Colored rooms?”

“Yeah, near the South Portico, the rooms are named after colors-Red, Green, Blue, Vermeil. It really is a cool place. Particularly if you are, like, totally into history, which my father is, so he made me study it, which could be a drag, but sometimes I actually enjoyed it. Anyway, we were at this boring-as-hell dinner, and my boyfriend went looking for the head. He opens a door by the colored rooms and catches the First Lady sneaking a cigarette. She, like, totally lost it, was screaming, swearing; almost had him arrested.

“Her famous brat younger sister was right there; witnessed the whole thing. And her famous neurotic poodle. Spend any time at all around the White House, and the first thing you learn is don’t judge anyone by their politics. As my father likes to say, ‘D.C. is the only place in the world that has assholes on both sides of the crack.’ ”

We were sitting at a white wicker table, drinks in hand, looking at a cusp of waning moon that was encircled by rainbow colors, the upper stratosphere showing ice crystals. She had her keys and cell phone before her on the glass top.

These days, it’s impossible for me to look at a frail moon without feeling wistful and a little lonely. It reminds me of a long-gone friend.

It was nearly 1:00 A.M. I’d been listening to her talk for an hour, but was relaxed and enjoying it. She was one of the troubled ones, a person driven by family demons, but still cognitive and aware, and she had a self-deprecating sense of humor that I liked. Remembering that Tomlinson had mentioned she’d had a substance abuse problem, I’d amended my offer of a beer, saying maybe she’d prefer water or a Coke? But no, beer was just what she needed, she said, and with a rueful laugh added, “I’m a crack addict, not an alcoholic.”

I said, “There’s a difference?”

“Oh yeah. No one’s ever tried to steal a vase out of the West Wing to trade for beer.”

I couldn’t get used to her voice. She looked twenty-two, twenty-three-I really can’t tell ages anymore-but she sounded sixteen or younger. It didn’t mesh with consistent patterns of articulate thought and her world-weariness. She had a way of sighing, of looking off into space, that suggested emotional scarring and a loss of resolve or of confidence that originated in the marrow.

What surprised me most about Lindsey Harrington, though, was this: I liked her. Liked her despite her age and mall-girl vocabulary.

Initially, she’d hoisted a couple of red flags by saying, “I noticed you the day you got here, the first day you showed up on the island. You and that sweet old hippie with the really kind eyes. But you’re the one who really caught my attention. It’s not just that you’re so big. Kind of wide and rangy and bearlike. It was, like, I don’t know, something about your face and those wire glasses. Like if I was going to choose an ideal professor? You’d be the model. Real bookish and safe, but with enough testosterone flowing through that body to make it interesting.”

Transparently ingratiating, I thought at first. Not just in speech, but in body language. Sitting there in the weak light, braless in her thin T-shirt, breasts swinging and showing cleavage when she leaned toward me to laugh or lift her glass, nothing else on but running shorts, looking into my eyes with her sad, rich-girl face, not caring what I saw.

When strangers who happen to be female are so obviously demonstrative, I’m quick to retreat.

But, no, that’s the way the girl was, apparently. She spoke spontaneously, no editing whatsoever. Had nothing to hide, so nothing to fear. Same with her appearance. The rainforest humidity had made her hair wild as a lion’s, ribbed and curled, but she’d done nothing to try and contain it.

At one point, she said, “At the White House, some of the staff would go fucking nuts when I refused to wear makeup or a bra, any of that crap. Lipstick’s the only thing I like because it comes in flavors. To this day, you mention my name to the basement drones and they’ll roll their eyes. It got so I felt like I wasn’t welcome anymore, so I stopped going. Then my dad got assigned to foreign service, and that’s the last time we lived together. That was six years ago, so I was…” She had to think about it. “Sixteen or seventeen.”

I asked, “Are you still close?”

She chuckled, toying with the cell phone. “We were never close. My father’s one of the world’s greatest men, but the only time he ever shows, like, real emotion or, you know, like, concern, it’s when I do something that he thinks is outrageous. The men I choose to sleep with, some of the causes I support, it drives him crazy. Know why I think it is, Doc?”

I said to her, “The reason you choose to do outrageous things? As of now, I’ve got a pretty good guess, but you tell me.”

“What I think it is? It’s, like, I’ve spent so much of my life having to associate with fucking fakes and political con artists that I’ve become, like, militantly natural. I want to live in a mountain cabin and grow my own tomatoes and curl up with my dogs by the fire. I want to walk around naked and take showers in the rain. If I never see another man wearing hair spray and a vote-for-me smile, it’ll be just fine with me.” She looked at me through the light for a moment before she added, “Know what my new motto is? Give me a man who prefers blow jobs to blow dryers. Catchy, huh?”

Another warning flag-and unexpected, despite the gradual and increasing hand and eye contact between the two of us. She was a patter and a toucher. I was surprised that I’d misjudged her intent.

I stood and said, “I think I’ll get another beer. You ready?”

Her eyes hadn’t wavered from mine. “Yeah. I’m ready. That was my point. But somehow I just offended you.”

“Nope. Just surprised. And thirsty.”

I came back with a Diet Coke but didn’t sit. I said to her, “I think it’s late, and it’s been a very tough day for both of us, so it’s time you headed home. Grab your stuff, and I’ll walk you back.”

She reached and took my right wrist in her hand, stopping me, swinging hair out of her face, eyes tilted upward, looking out from beneath pale eyebrows, “Mind if we spend the next couple of minutes talking like adults?”

I said, “That’s what we were doing until just a moment ago, Lindsey. I’m curious. I was enjoying the conversation. You’ve got a good brain; a quirky, funny sense of humor. Why’d you decide to make such an obvious pass? Is it some kind of test?”