The Immigrant’s Daughter (14 page)

“Good. Then I don't have to introduce myself. And you're Barbara Lavette.”

“So it says on the door.”

“Except that you're younger and so much prettier. No, beautiful. You should not be called pretty.”

“Good heavens! Do you always come on like that?”

“Have I offended you?”

Barbara couldn't help smiling. “Flattery rarely offends anyone. Anyway, do pull up a chair and sit down. What brings you into the enemy camp, Mr. Holt?”

“The enemy.”

“Oh? Then you're on a scouting mission — or a spy mission?”

“We're both open up front, so let's call it a scouting mission. No, no — truth is I was dying of curiosity. All my life, I've come across odds and ends of Barbara Lavette. You can't live in San Francisco and be unaware of the Lavettes, and here's the lady who gave away a fortune, who was neck-deep in the longshore strike in the thirties, who covered World War Two for the
Chronicle
, who twisted the nose of the Un-American Committee and went to jail with a banner as white as Joan of Arc's —”

“Enough!” Barbara cried. “Any more of that, Mr. Holt, and you talk your way right out of my door. What on earth are you up to?”

“Too much?”

“Much too much. I do hope that you debate better than you flatter.”

“Well, that's just it,” he said, ingenuous and accepting defeat without argument. “You named it the enemy camp, and like some dumb kid, I'm trying to prove something.”

“What?”

“That I'm not the enemy, I guess. Hey, look, are you waiting for someone?”

“No.” It was twilight now; the store was becoming dark, and in the half light Alexander Holt was very attractive indeed. “No.” She felt a need to talk. His mawkishness — well, she had seen that in other men who didn't know where to put their feet when they spoke to a woman who was on their level, and this man was certainly trying to put an attractive woman and a congressperson together. Barbara had enough self-confidence to specify herself as an attractive woman, and now she went on to say that she was waiting for no one, only trying to get the bad taste of making a commercial out of her mouth. “I thought it might be a relief to sit here alone for a while without a crowd of loud-voiced and very clever young men and women.”

“I'm sure they're cleverer than my loud-voiced young men and women, but I do know what you mean. What about dinner?”

“What about dinner?”

“I mean,” he said, “do you have an evening filled with at-home groups or radio interviews or newspaper people or whatever?”

“Not tonight. No. I'm free tonight.” She could have added that it was the first free evening in three weeks, and she had made no plans because no one had invited her, because everyone knew that she was too busy now to do anything. She had also decided that it would be interesting, at least, to have dinner with Alexander Holt, and a relief to talk to someone close to her own age.

“Great. All I have is a session with a group of young computer wizards in Chesley. That's the south corner of the district, but I'm sure you know. It's no Silicon Valley yet, but it's getting there. I can push it into another night if I may use your phone?”

She pointed to the telephone and turned on her desklight. She liked the way he was dressed and the way he wore his casual clothes, but he was not dressed for dinner in any fashionable restaurant. She had no clear idea of where he lived, but something she had heard or read suggested Pacific Heights, and if that was the case, it was a long drive from the Forty-eighth C.D. She heard him make his arrangements with his office, and then he said to her, rather unexpectedly, “Can you tolerate Mexican food?”

“I like it.”

“I did ask you whether you would have dinner with me — or did I?”

“Sort of, yes.”

“And will you?”

“Yes.”

“No fear of consorting with the enemy?”

“No. Absolutely none. Of course, we're not enemies.”

“No? What then, Miss Lavette?”

“Two very lonely people, I think. According to the profile your committee put out, it's six years since your wife died. You have three children, one in school in Florida and two of them working in Massachusetts. Your wife was from Florida. Someone mentioned that you have no family here, but then you do have your work and the people who make up your staff — sixteen, I believe — and you dine at least twice a week at the Redwood Club.”

“Well, you have done your homework. What else?”

She locked the door of the store behind them, and they started across the shopping center. “Where are we going?”

“At the other end of the plaza, under the big Dalton bookstore, there's a Mexican restaurant call Don Demos. The name sort of enticed me. The food is simple and good, and the college kids drive miles to eat here. I'm afraid I'm not dressed for anything more posh. You don't mind?”

“Not at all.”

“And you're through with my dossier?”

“Through with what's printed. You don't want me to recite your voting record?”

“My word, do you know it by heart?”

“Just about.”

“Two very lonely people. Is that what you said? My own case I can understand. I was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, only child, which narrows the family. Nothing left now but my kids, and they're far away. And Miss Lavette, associates are associates, no more, no less. On the other hand, San Francisco and the Bay Area are your nest, your place of nurturing. Did you know that I was on the committee that renamed that short street that turns off Pacific Avenue and used to be called Fritz Street and now is Lavette Place? And aren't you connected through family with one of the big wineries in the Napa Valley? Gateway or something?”

“Higate.”

“Yes, the best Cabernet Sauvignon in California, and also the red mountain wine with their own native label. Good wine. My word, if I had that kind of backup —”

“You still go to bed alone and wake up alone, and when you pick up a smooth stranger, like the one I'm with, and decide to have dinner with him, no one worries about where you are and whether something might happen to you.”

“I picked you up.”

“Oh? Yes, of course.”

“I knew Boyd Kimmelman,” Holt said. “As a matter of fact, at the end of World War Two, I took my discharge in California and went to school and passed the bar here. I worked in Benchly's old firm one summer, and I met Boyd there. He helped me along.”

What a small, strange world, Barbara thought, remembering the Boyd who had entered her life at the beginning, the stocky, cocky young lawyer, with his bristling thatch of sandy hair and his bright blue eyes and his eagerness to grasp whatever piece of life presented itself. The world evoked by Alexander Holt's words glowed with memories of sunshine and excitement and hope. What had happened? What had happened to everything?

No answer to that. One dealt with simpler things. Holt knew the owner of the restaurant, a short, mustached Mexican, Don Demos. Smiling and bowing, he selected their table. “For the congressman and his lovely companion.”

“Who is a contender for my job on the Democratic ticket, this same lovely companion.”

“No!” It came out as a sigh of wonder without disapproval. Don Demos did not engage in disapproval.

“Good evening,” Barbara said in Spanish. “What a very pleasant place. Do you vote, Don Demos?”

“Absolutely. I am not an illegal and I am not a green card holder. I am a citizen, married, three kids, and sole owner of this restaurant — for which I paid with blood and tears.”

Holt listened, open-mouthed.

“Then of course you vote.”

“Of course.”

“Republican?”

“Señora, this is most embarrassing.”

Smiling sweetly, Barbara said, “He can't follow when we speak this rapidly. I want you to vote for me. I need your vote. He doesn't.”

“Señora.” Then in English, “A bottle of wine, on the house. Please?” He paused, glancing worriedly at Holt. “Your choice?”

Holt was still struggling with what had just happened. “Higate Cabernet,” Barbara said soothingly. “And it must not be a gift, please understand.”

As Don Demos turned away, Holt finally burst out, “You were telling him not to vote for me. You were telling him to vote for you.”

“Asking,” Barbara said gently.

“I'll be damned.”

Barbara smiled. “Do you know,” she said, “you must call me Barbara, and I will call you Alex. We are going to be much too close for the next few weeks to address each other formally.”

“Where did you learn to speak Spanish like that?”

“Just around. You pick it up. They say if you love Spanish, it will speak for itself. Oh, I studied a bit at Miss Leonard's Classes and at Sarah Lawrence College; and at Higate where they make the wine you admire so, they speak as much Spanish as they do English. Everyone speaks Spanish there.”

“You won't be offended, Barbara, if I say that you are remarkably possessed of slender, invisible knives.”

“It's a bit nasty, but others have said as much. Shall we be friends?”

“Someone mentioned that you described me as being slightly to the right of Genghis Khan.”

“Oh, no. No indeed. When Reagan was governor, I did put that into a piece I wrote for the
Nation
, but about you, oh, no, never.”

Don Demos appeared and opened the Cabernet Sauvignon, and took their order for red snapper, Vera Cruz style, with a side order of refried beans, and Holt poured the wine and offered a toast:

“May the best man—”

“Not quite,” Barbara interrupted.

“Amended. May the best person win!”

“That I'll drink to.”

Holt drank and then regarded her thoughtfully. “You are nothing like what I imagined you would be. I did meet you once before, but I am sure you've forgotten completely. Somewhere around twenty years ago, at a party given for you in Beverly Hills.”

“I remember the party,” Barbara said. It was the place and time that she had met Carson Devron, something she was not likely to forget.

“You don't remember me, of course. I was there with my wife. She was an actress then, had a bit part in a film. They were making one of your books into a film, as I recall, and there must have been a hundred people packed into the place —” His voice trailed off. “Too many crossed paths to be proper enemies. Politics is not nice. I wish there were some other way to run things, but there isn't, you know. But of course you believe in sanctity of purpose.”

“No, I don't. I think, Alex, that it's time you took a good look at me. What you see across the table from you is a woman to whom most of the things have happened that could happen to anyone. So don't spare your punches. I will give what I receive.”

“Hear, hear.”

“And now that we understand each other, let's eat.”

“I'm with you there.”

“And incidentally, before we set politics aside, I would like to pick a date for a debate — say, in one of the larger high school auditoriums.”

“A what?” Holt asked incredulously.

“Debate.”

“You mean you're asking me to debate the issues with you?”

“Exactly.”

He leaned back, clasped his hands and nodded at her. “My dear Barbara, I may not be the brightest fellow in the world, but neither am I an idiot. No debate — no way, ever.”

“But why?”

“Why? You know, there must have been a period of great innocence in your life. But now it's simply a ploy. Can you picture the two of us on a platform? I'm sure you can — the saintly crusader and the slick politician. Come on, my dear.”

He walked with her to her car after they ate, shook hands warmly and said, “I enjoyed this evening beyond words.”

Barbara nodded. “It's been fun.”

“And now, each back to his corner and come out slugging.”

“As you say, sir.”

Barbara felt youthful and heady as she drove home, telling herself with some wonder, I've had a date; I've actually had a date. And it was a very nice date, as she contemplated it: two civilized adults, each with a sense of humor, opponents in a political contest, but sensible enough to realize that it was just that, a political contest.

Would I see him again? she asked herself. I wonder. She had to admit that it would be pleasant. He was a nice man, low key and a good listener, as few men were.

Freddie had worked out a plan for door-to-door canvassing. He had made inquiries and had learned what he expected to learn, that no one had ever canvassed the Forty-eighth. There had been no need to. Aside from Barbara's run of six years before, the Republicans had never been even modestly threatened, and when Alexander Holt replaced the incumbent, the Republicans had no fear of being seriously threatened again. Freddie knew that he could round up at least two dozen couples, but before he sent them off on their mission, he felt that he ought to go out himself and get a sense of the process. He asked Carla to join him.

“Why? Why me?” Carla wanted to know.

“Two reasons. First, your Spanish is better than mine. Secondly, I like a man and a woman combination. A man alone tends to alarm people who come to the door. A woman alone makes me nervous. She could go into the wrong house — you know what I mean. So we put the couples together.”

“You and me?”

“It's a good combination.”

“Where's May Ling today?”

“She has the baby and other things,” Freddie said, a note of annoyance in his voice. “What gives with you, Carla? Do I bother you?”

“These days everything bothers me. All right. Let's start.”

“I'll take my car. We'll do five houses at the cliffs, five in the tracts, five in the barrio. Then we'll move out of Chesley into Valley City — if we're still capable of walking at all.”