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6. The Mayor’s Office and its Discontents. (#ulink_8b241f3c-0fb4-564c-90ea-f7032498cec9)
The speakerphone on Cora’s desk crackled.
—Mayor?
—What can I do for you, Adam?
—The Arboretum just called.
—Let me guess. The Crash bruised a blade of grass and molested a squirrel.
—More like trampled a rare species of terrestrial phalaenopsis. The botanists are screaming about irreplaceability.
—Adam?
—Yes, Mayor.
—'Terrestrial phalaenopsis'?
—That’s what they said.
—They couldn’t say ‘orchid', like normal folk?
—I guess they figured you’d know.
—On the basis of nothing.
—What should I tell them?
—That they shouldn’t have planted terrestrial phalaenopsi where one hundred rhinoceros could tread on them.
—Well, they are terrestrial phalaenopsis.
—And it is an equally terrestrial Crash. Surely there are paths The Crash doesn’t take. The botanists can plant their orchids there.
—I think all they want is a fence.
—In whose lifetime do they see that happening? The Arboretum’s been an open park for ninety years. That’s not going to change on my watch just because a bunch of botanists are crying over orchids.
—I like orchids.
—I have another call, Adam. Issue settled.
She released his line and pressed another flashing light.
—Yes?
—Deputy Mayor Latham on the line.
—Put him through. Max? Make me happy.
—Unlikely, I’m afraid.
—You can’t make the fundraiser.
—I can’t make the fundraiser.
—This is my thought, right this second: ‘Why do I even bother?’
—Talon is sick.
—Oh. Well, all right then. What’s wrong with her?
—Battery Pox.
—Poor thing. Started the shots?
—We’re driving home from the doctor’s office right now. She’ll be fine. She’s just throwing up all over everything.
—And a sitter is out of the question?
—Cora …
—All right, all right, all right, I’m civilized. I’ll just have to work myself up for a sparring match with Archie Banyon.
—He can’t be too upset if I have a sick daughter.
—He won’t be upset at you. He’ll be upset at me.
—You can handle Archie Banyon.
—I know I can handle Archie Banyon. Doesn’t mean I look forward to it. Where are you now?
—Driving down Eighth. Just about to cross Medford.
—Look out for The Crash. They’re around there somewhere.
—The Arboretum called, didn’t they?
—I don’t want to talk about it.
—Sorry about tonight.
—I don’t want to talk about it.
But she did.
—How can you expect to be elected if I do all your campaigning for you?
—You got elected four times. Why fix something that’s not broke?
—Don’t be cavalier. They’re not going to make you Mayor just because I tell them to.
—They might.
—Well, yes, they might, but still, Max—
—I’ll make it up to you.
—So you say. Are you even going to vote?
—Mercer Tunnel. Breaking up. Gotta go.
—Liar.
She cut him off and pressed a private speed dial.
—We’re flying solo tonight.
—Hi, sweetest. Max pulled out again?
—Yep.
—How does he expect to get your job if he never shows up to anything? Politics is nasty and brutish, but you at least have to play at it.
—Talon’s got Battery Pox. Apparently, she’s vomiting everywhere.
—How vivid. All right, whatever, we’ll pull in the dough for him once more.
—He says thanks.
—No, he doesn’t, but at least he means it.
As was his wont, Albert disconnected without saying goodbye. Cora dialed her secretary.
—Angie, get me Archie Banyon on the phone, please.
—Max canceled again, didn’t he?
—Just get Archie on the phone and let me out of my misery.
She clicked off and saw lines lighting up as Angie tracked down Archie Banyon. Cora steeled herself. He would let her off, but he wouldn’t do it without making her pay.
7. Father and Daughter. (#ulink_70eec85e-a82d-5a8c-8dd2-5fdf0859b66e)
Max Latham was trying to become Mayor of Hennington, but he wasn’t trying very hard. He still wasn’t sure if his heart was in it, which he often thought should have been proof enough that his heart most definitely was not in it. There was the sticky question of destiny, though. He had worked for Cora nearly thirteen years, since he was fresh out of law school, first as an intern with a brilliant mind for policy – if a little less so for politics – then as an advisor, then as Chief of Parks, until his current position as Deputy Mayor, the youngest person ever to have held such a post. Now, with Cora retiring after twenty adored years in office, everything had crystalized, just at this moment, for him to fulfill an awaiting slot in history, to step forward and seize the waiting gold ring, to set so many records atumble.
If elected, and as there was no present credible competition and as he was riding on Cora’s enormous popularity, getting elected seemed almost foregone, he would be Hennington’s first Rumour Mayor, quite a coup when Rumours were still, if you believed the census takers, a minority in the city. He would also be the youngest Mayor ever in the Recent Histories, beating the record by the two years he was younger than the previous recordholder, Cora, on her first election. Max had yet to even breach forty. More esoterically, Max would also be Hennington’s first unmarried Mayor, the mother of his daughter having drowned before plans for their wedding could be finished. All these impressive footnotes that would be for ever attached to his name.
And yet.
He looked in his rearview mirror for a glimpse of Talon, piqued in the back seat.
—How’re you feeling, sweetheart?
—My head weighs a hundred pounds.
—We’re almost home. Let me know if you need to throw up again.
—Okay.
Talon at ten was the spitting image of her father, high cheekbones, dark wavy hair, skin on the lighter side of the usual Rumour tan. But she had her mother’s chin cleft, a mark that could still spark fresh pain in him when he saw it, even all these years later. Max slowed his car to watch The Crash, still so magnificent after uncountable sightings, wander across to a side street. He idled to a stop as the last animals lumbered through the intersection. The Rhinoherd shuffled along with them twenty paces behind.
—Look, honey. The Crash.
—I can’t sit up, Daddy.
—Of course, sweetie, I’m sorry. We’re almost home.
Was not being sure if you wanted to run for Mayor a good sign that you shouldn’t run for Mayor or a good sign that you had enough self-doubt and introspection that you were in fact a perfect candidate for Mayor?
—Daddy?
—Yes, sweetie?
The sounds of coughing. Max turned around and stroked the back of Talon’s head while she retched into the bag the doctor had given her.
—Just take your time, honey. It hurts less if you relax.
He felt sweat dampening her hair as he stroked it.
—Take all the time you need to, sweetheart. We’ve got all the time in the world.
8. Mathematica. (#ulink_fd0e83a9-989a-5a1c-9103-0b85cd4a30e6)
Jacqueline Strell sat in her office and bathed in numbers. They flooded her desk in wave after wave, pages of numbers blocked in charts, scraps of numbers scribbled in pencil, computer analyses of numbers bracketed and cross-referenced to other rivers of numbers filed away in the cabinets behind her, numbers on cards, numbers on machine readouts, numbers on computer screens, numbers on the desk itself put there when, in a flurry of activity, Jacki chose not to flip over a page but continued onto the hard wood. Even her fingernails sported numbers, whimsically painted there this morning when she was in a whimsical mood. The time was rapidly approaching when she would need more whimsy. Oh, yes.
Her office nestled in the back half of the Hennington Hills Golf Course and Resort Administration Building. She loved it. Spacious table tops flung out from her desk in wings towards her office door, room enough to keep the flood of numbers churning and churning in their never-ending whirlpool. Cabinets lined the three walls behind her and to her right and left, streams and cauldrons of bubbling, stirring, steaming numbers. She had fourteen different clocks decorating her walls, all set to the same time but all with different number fonts.
This was the reason Jacki was an accountant: she, alone among everyone else she had ever known, understood infinity. This understanding was innate. No epiphany, no trumpet blast of the everlasting had ever filled her brainpan. The eternal had always whiled away its time in her gray matter. She had been intimate with the infinite from the time she could even speak such words. The human mind was not supposed to be able to truly grasp the never-ending, but she could close her eyes and set her mind running off into forever, tripping lightly away on a line with no beginning and no end.
This was the reason Jacki understood infinity: she understood numbers. Infinity, aside from its unfathomable physical existence, could only and would only ever be expressed in numbers. Jacki looked scornfully on the small-minded ‘appreciation’ of the layman towards an infinite set. ‘Really, really big, then even bigger'. They didn’t see it. Jacki saw it. More, she felt it, smelled it, could almost touch it. Numbers adding and adding and adding and adding exponential upon exponential upon exponential and then all those numbers were still as nothing because infinity remained, brightly spilling itself infinitely forward.
Jacki leaned back in her chair and sighed. She was tall, generously boned, with loopy brown hair that matched the gawky, unconfined sprawl of her body. She rubbed her hand across her high forehead, inside which was an increasingly throbbing ache. Yes indeedy, it was time for whimsy again, most definitely. She opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a vial and syringe. With practiced movements, she filled the hypodermic, tapped it for bubbles, raised the hem of her skirt, and injected her thigh with 50ccs of the purest Forum you could get anywhere in Hennington.
Because there were three more things about Jacki:
1) Besides being an accountant with a comprehension of infinity, she was totally, utterly, wholly, paralytically and absolutely addicted to Forum.
