Neal Stephenson - Interface

She was in a nice, mixed-race neighborhood near Alexandria's eighteenth-century waterfront. If she went uphill she got into an aristocratic neighborhood of big houses, bordering on mansions. If she went downhill, toward the Potomac, she got to the proverbial other side of the tracks in just a few minutes. Straddling the boundary, on the tracks themselves, was the Braddock Metro station, from which she could ride into D.C. in about ten minutes. Braddock's modest parking lot was ringed by nice new yuppie condos, shops, and office buildings. Beyond that was a floodplain between the tracks and the river, filled with dingy town houses and projects, bounded by the outskirts of National Airport on the north and the swank cobblestones of Old Town on the south. Compared to the bad parts of D.C., it didn't deserve the description of ghetto; it was just a lower-middle-class neighborhood. It was something Eleanor could point to when her relatives in D.C. made catty remarks to the effect that she had sold out and fled to white suburbia.

She still hadn't gotten used to being respectable again. When she looked at real estate, she kept expecting people to glare at her suspiciously and say, "Have you ever been a bag lady?" But all she had to do was say that she was senate staff and all the doors were open to her: nice new apartments, charge accounts at Pentagon Plaza, auto loans. It astounded her when she was able to go into a Toyota dealership and drive out an hour later with a brand-new Camry.

Harmon, Jr., and Clarice stayed behind in Denver long enough to finish out the school year and then followed her out to Alexandria. In the fall they would go to T.C. Williams High School, just a mile or two up the street. In the meantime, over the summer, there was a lot for them to do. The nearby Metro station meant that they could get around town easily (which they liked) and safely (which Eleanor liked). And, after a bit of looking around, Eleanor found a nice extended-care facility (what used to be called a nursing home) where she could put Mother.

Mother had no idea, really, that she was back home, but as she looked out the windows of the car on her way in from the airport and smelled the air of the late Virginia spring, Eleanor imagined that, at some level, she knew where she was, and that she was glad to be back where she belonged, not out in the middle of Colorado sharing a room with some rancher's widow. Whether or not Mother knew what was going on, bringing her back here was good for Eleanor's heart, and made her feel that she was doing right by her mom.

When Eleanor showed up for her first day of work, a week before Memorial Day, she had no idea what she was doing; Senator Marshall still had not defined her responsibilities or even provided her with a job title. She was both excited and intensely curious. She walked to the Braddock Metro station at seven. Her neighbor­hood's sidewalks were filled with commuters headed for the Metro station. As Eleanor entered this stream of suit-and-tie-wearing, newspaper-reading professionals, carrying her very proper attache case, wearing her Reeboks, and holding on to her Washington Post, she felt like a spy testing out a new undercover identity.

From the raised platform of the Metro station she looked across the public housing toward National Airport, the 727s plunging in at forty-second intervals, and across the Potomac to D.C. The pleasant, scented spring air was still cool, and as she looked through the haze, she could see the monumental structures that were now part of her world. The Metro glided into the station, eerily clean and high-tech compared to The Ride. She boarded, found a place to stand where she could look out the window, and watched the progression through Crystal City, Pentagon City, Pentagon, and then out into daylight across the Potomac. She saw the National Cathedral drawing the light of the sun, peeked in at Thomas Jefferson, and got to L'Enfant Plaza, where she transferred to the Orange Line for two stops over to the Capitol. Since she was a few minutes early, she chose to be a tourist, and strolled through the Capitol on her way over to the Russell Senate Office Building.

She was greeted at the gate of the Russell Building by a handsome, very young-looking black man from Senate Security. "If you'll follow me, Mrs. Richmond, we'll get your credentials in order."

Eleanor was still new enough at this that she was surprised when people recognized her. "Thank you," she said. "I didn't expect someone to meet me at the door. I thought I'd be standing in lines all day."

"When Senator Marshall speaks, we move," the man said. "We're taught that all senators are equal, but we love Senator Marshall. He's not one of your blow-dry wonders, if you get my drift."

They took an elevator down two levels and entered an office where Eleanor was photographed, finger-printed, asked to sign her official signature, and then take the oath as an employee of the United States. A petite, perhaps sixty-year-old woman read the oath.

She proceeded into the next office and was given her holo­graphic badge, complete with innumerable codes implanted in the strips on the back of the badge. She wondered what she was going to do with a Top-Secret Alpha clearance.

"That's it," her guide said. "Now you have one very cranky senator waiting to put you to work."

The Russell was the oldest and most prestigious of the three senate office buildings. It had the aura of fine old wood, penetrated by decades of good tobacco smoke. It was the building of choice and Marshall had the office of choice, with a commanding view of the Capitol out one window and down the Mall and Constitution Avenue down the other. Entering the office, Eleanor was struck by the profusion of Native American art, mission decor, and numerous watercolors painted by Marshall before his arthritis had made it impossible for him to hold a brush. His secretary of thirty years, Patty McCormick, turned and said, "Hello darlin', welcome to the last frontier."

From around the corner, the familiar husky voice shouted, "Goddamn it Patty, don't scare her away. Come on in, Eleanor."

Eleanor edged into the Senator's office and found him working his way through a breakfast sent up from the cafeteria. "Have a seat," he said, waving at one of the heavy leather chairs.

"Good morning, Senator, how are you feeling?"

"Shitty, as usual, but that's nothing new. I'll be god-damned if I'll take pain medication. I haven't got an awful lot of brain cells left and I want them to work."

They made a little small talk about her move to Alexandria. Caleb seemed surprisingly unhurried, for a senator. Eleanor kept wondering when he was going to tell her why she'd been hired. Finally she came out and asked.

"Should we talk about what you want me to do?'

"Sure, why not. What do you want to do?"

"I don't know, I'm still slightly overwhelmed to be here."

"How'd you like to be my spokesperson?"

Eleanor couldn't help laughing. At first she chuckled politely because she assumed it was a joke. Then she laughed out loud in shock, realizing he was serious. "Senator, you are one crazy fool."

"You ever see one of those stupid old Westerns where the bad guys come riding into town and they just start shooting at everything? They shoot out all the windows, they shoot holes in the water barrels, they pick off people on the balconies. I always thought that looked like fun. Well, I'm out of here soon and I have a lot to say and I want to have somebody to say it who will make an impression, not one of these generic press mavens who keep massaging messages and doing sound bites. You and I, young lady, are going to shoot a few holes in this goddamn town before I end this ride."

As he talked, Marshall was unable to hide his extreme pain. He became so angry about the pain and so intense in his conversation that he accidentally knocked over his coffee, spilling the contents all over the top of the desk. "God-damned son of a bitch," he screamed.