Read Online Dewey Defeats Truman by Thomas Mallon - Free Book Online
Authors: Thomas Mallon
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Jackson and his associates will be publishing their proposal in tomorrow’s
Argus
. It calls for …” Margaret Feller, lying on her bed but still fully dressed, turned the dial in search of music, but WGN was just talking and WWJ had already left the air. She shut off the radio and heard voices downstairs. Her parents had come home from the country club, which put an end to all the evening’s possibilities but one, the chance to do what she had already done twice this week: wait until they’d gone to bed and then sneak out of the house and down to Park Street to hide behind the hedges and look at Tim Herrick’s window.
No;
she
wouldn’t
. It was too terrible either way. If the light was on, she could barely keep from crying out to him, and if it was off she would agonize over his not being there, or agonize that he
was
there, asleep, and breathing softly in the dark without her. Three nights ago had been the worst: the light had beenon, but then he had risen, out of nowhere, naked, a god behind the curtain that shimmered like a cirrus cloud. With a movement of his arm, he’d hit the switch and the room had gone dark. But it wasn’t the room light he extinguished; it was her. She’d been left to walk home in darkness and torment.
Tonight she had been on the verge of telling Anne Macmurray about him, but had instead told the ridiculous lie that when the two of them looked up at the high school, she had been worried
Billy
might be inside the classroom along with Tim and Mr. Sherwood, and that he would find out she’d really been free this evening, after she’d told him something else. What an embarrassment. But was it possible Anne hadn’t even noticed? After all,
she
had been awfully eager to pump
her
about Peter Cox, that stuck-up new lawyer working for her father. Not that there was much to tell, since Margaret had met him only twice. No, he wasn’t exactly stuck-up; he was, what was that word she’d underlined in a book the other day? She couldn’t think of it, but she knew it fit him perfectly.
Insufferable
: that was it.
She’d had so little to tell Anne about Peter that she was afraid this older woman would lose interest in her, regret asking her to come to the Great Lakes. But then the minister with his tornado sign came in, to smile and joke with the waitress as he had his coffee and pie and hunted for something on the jukebox. It didn’t seem possible that anyone could change gears so quickly, go from World War III to Doris Day like that. She’d gone up and introduced herself and said she thought what he’d been doing tonight was interesting, and she’d told him the story of her father and the window shade.
Remembering that now filled her with tenderness forher dad. There was even a little left over for her mother. Thank goodness they were home, throwing ice into their glasses for a nightcap; now she couldn’t walk out the door and down to Park Street. Unless the Great Lakes’ coffee kept her awake past the point they came upstairs and turned in.
Seven blocks east, between Hickory and Oak, Horace Sinclair brought down his fist on the yellowing doily atop his dresser. He had just gotten out of his claw-footed tub, and was still dripping from underneath his robe, but he was too agitated to finish drying or pick up his comb. He should never have turned on the radio: “… the city to buy up the stretch of riverbank, now mostly private property, running between the Dewey birthplace on West Main and the governor’s childhood home on West Oliver. Mr. Jackson envisions a walkway he calls ‘Road to Prosperity,’ featuring permanent exhibits and structures that will illustrate both Dewey’s career and the history of Owosso. At the present time, some of the land, which runs north past Curwood Castle, makes up the backyards of homeowners on John Street. But Mr. Jackson’s group …” It was a wonder he hadn’t slipped on the little octagonal tiles in the bathroom. It was a wonder he wasn’t
Argus
. It calls for …” Margaret Feller, lying on her bed but still fully dressed, turned the dial in search of music, but WGN was just talking and WWJ had already left the air. She shut off the radio and heard voices downstairs. Her parents had come home from the country club, which put an end to all the evening’s possibilities but one, the chance to do what she had already done twice this week: wait until they’d gone to bed and then sneak out of the house and down to Park Street to hide behind the hedges and look at Tim Herrick’s window.
No;
she
wouldn’t
. It was too terrible either way. If the light was on, she could barely keep from crying out to him, and if it was off she would agonize over his not being there, or agonize that he
was
there, asleep, and breathing softly in the dark without her. Three nights ago had been the worst: the light had beenon, but then he had risen, out of nowhere, naked, a god behind the curtain that shimmered like a cirrus cloud. With a movement of his arm, he’d hit the switch and the room had gone dark. But it wasn’t the room light he extinguished; it was her. She’d been left to walk home in darkness and torment.
Tonight she had been on the verge of telling Anne Macmurray about him, but had instead told the ridiculous lie that when the two of them looked up at the high school, she had been worried
Billy
might be inside the classroom along with Tim and Mr. Sherwood, and that he would find out she’d really been free this evening, after she’d told him something else. What an embarrassment. But was it possible Anne hadn’t even noticed? After all,
she
had been awfully eager to pump
her
about Peter Cox, that stuck-up new lawyer working for her father. Not that there was much to tell, since Margaret had met him only twice. No, he wasn’t exactly stuck-up; he was, what was that word she’d underlined in a book the other day? She couldn’t think of it, but she knew it fit him perfectly.
Insufferable
: that was it.
She’d had so little to tell Anne about Peter that she was afraid this older woman would lose interest in her, regret asking her to come to the Great Lakes. But then the minister with his tornado sign came in, to smile and joke with the waitress as he had his coffee and pie and hunted for something on the jukebox. It didn’t seem possible that anyone could change gears so quickly, go from World War III to Doris Day like that. She’d gone up and introduced herself and said she thought what he’d been doing tonight was interesting, and she’d told him the story of her father and the window shade.
Remembering that now filled her with tenderness forher dad. There was even a little left over for her mother. Thank goodness they were home, throwing ice into their glasses for a nightcap; now she couldn’t walk out the door and down to Park Street. Unless the Great Lakes’ coffee kept her awake past the point they came upstairs and turned in.
Seven blocks east, between Hickory and Oak, Horace Sinclair brought down his fist on the yellowing doily atop his dresser. He had just gotten out of his claw-footed tub, and was still dripping from underneath his robe, but he was too agitated to finish drying or pick up his comb. He should never have turned on the radio: “… the city to buy up the stretch of riverbank, now mostly private property, running between the Dewey birthplace on West Main and the governor’s childhood home on West Oliver. Mr. Jackson envisions a walkway he calls ‘Road to Prosperity,’ featuring permanent exhibits and structures that will illustrate both Dewey’s career and the history of Owosso. At the present time, some of the land, which runs north past Curwood Castle, makes up the backyards of homeowners on John Street. But Mr. Jackson’s group …” It was a wonder he hadn’t slipped on the little octagonal tiles in the bathroom. It was a wonder he wasn’t
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