Distraction

“What now, Oscar? What are they going to do now? What be-comes of the rest of us?”

“Hell, I don’t know!” Oscar shouted. “I just saw Huey doing it, that’s all. We were in a feud with Huey — you pushed me into the feud with Huey! The lab was broke, it was halfway in his pocket already, and he was just going to rack them up. They would just… be-come his creatures. I didn’t want them to be his creatures.”

“What’s the difference? If they’re still creatures.”

“The difference? Between me and Green Huey? Okay! At last a question I can answer! The difference between me and Huey is that whatever Huey does is always about Huey. It’s always about Huey first and foremost, and it’s always about the greater glory of Huey. But the things that I do will never, ever be about me. They aren’t allowed to be about me.”

“Because of the way you were born.”

“Alcott, it’s worse than that. I wasn’t even born at all.”

Lorena spoke up. “I think you two boys should stop all this. You’re going in circles. Why don’t we get something to eat?”

“I don’t mean to wound his feelings,” Bambakias said reason-ably. “I’m just looking at the structure critically, and I’m pointing out that there’s nothing holding it up.”

Lorena folded her arms. “Why pick on Oscar, for heaven’s sake? The President sent a newspaper-boat navy across the Atlantic, and there was nothing holding that up either. The War will be over in Washington soon. It can’t go on, it’s a stage show. Then the War will be over here too. They’ll just fold all this up, and we’ll find some other distraction. That’s the way life is now. Stop fussing about it.”

Bambakias paused thoughtfully. “You’re right, dear. I’m sorry. I was getting all worked up.”

“We’re supposed to be on vacation here. You should save some energy for the hearings. I want some chowder, Alcott. I want some etouffee.”

“She’s so good to me,” Bambakias told Oscar. Suddenly he smiled. “I haven’t gotten so worked up in ages! That really felt good.”

“Oscar always cheers you up,” Lorena told him. “He’s the best at that. You should be good to him.”

The Senator and his wife wanted Louisiana cuisine. That was a legiti-mate request. They took a fleet of limos, and the Senator’s large krewe, and their media coverage, and the Senator’s numerous body-guards, and the entire caravan drove to a famous restaurant in Lake Charles, Louisiana. They took a great deal of pleasure in this, because it was an excellent restaurant, and they were certain that Huey would quickly learn of their raid.

They ate well and tipped lavishly, and it would have been a lovely meal, except that the Senator was on his mood stabilizers, so he no longer drank. The Senator’s wife drank rather too much. They also brought along the new senatorial press secretary in the krewe; and the new press secretary was Clare Emerson.

Then the caravan returned ceremoniously to the hotel in Buna, and the bodyguards drew great, quiet sighs of relief. The Senator and his wife retired, and the bodyguards set up their night patrols, and the media krewe went out looking for trouble and action at some Moder-ator orgy under some enormous dewy tent. Oscar, who had ex-hausted himself avoiding Clare, found himself maneuvered into a situation where he and his former girlfriend had to have a sociable nightcap together. Just to show that there were no hard feelings. Though the feelings were extremely hard.

So Clare had a glass of hotel Chablis, and Oscar, who didn’t drink, had a club soda. They sat at a small wooden table while music played, and they were forced to talk privately.

“So, Clare. Tell me all about Holland. That must have been fas-cinating.”

“It was, at first.” She was so good-looking. He’d forgotten how beautiful she was. He’d even forgotten that he’d once made it a habit to court beautiful women. As a member of the Bambakias krewe and a press player in Washington, Clare was far better put-together than she had ever been as a newbie Boston political journo. Clare was still young. He’d forgotten what it meant to date young, beautiful, bril-liantly dressed women. He’d never gotten over her. He hadn’t given himself enough time. He’d just shelved the issue and sought out a distraction.

Her lips were still moving. He forced himself to pay attention to her words. She was saying something about finding her cultural roots as an Anglo. Europe was full of Yankee defectors and emigres, bitter, aging white men who clustered in beer cellars and moaned that their country was being run by a crazy redskin. Europe hadn’t been all romance for Clare. The part of Europe that was drowning fastest didn’t have much romance for anyone.

“Oh, but a war correspondent, though. That seems like such a career opportunity.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she said. “You enjoy tortur-ing me.”

“What?” He was shocked.

“Didn’t Lorena tell you all about my little Dutch misadven-tures?”

“Lorena doesn’t tell me about her krewe activities. I’m not in the Bambakias circle anymore. I scarcely have a krewe of my own, these days.”

She sipped at her wine. “Krewes are pitiful. They’re disgusting. People will do anything for a little security nowadays. Even sell them-selves into servitude. Any rich person can scare up their own loyal gang, just for the asking. It’s feudalism. But we’re so wrecked as a country that we can’t even make feudalism work.”

“I thought you liked Lorena. You always gave her such good spin.”

“Oh, I loved her as copy. But as my boss… well, what am I saying? Lorena’s great to me. She took me on when I was down, she made me a little player. She never outed me on the Dutch thing. I have a classy job in Washington, I have nice clothes and a car.”

“All right. I’ll bite. Tell me what happened in Holland.”

“I have bad habits,” Clare said, staring at the tablecloth. “I got this impression that I could sleep my way into good stories. Well, it worked great in Boston! But Den Haag is not Boston. The Dutch aren’t like Americans. They can still concentrate. And their backs are against the wall.” She twisted a lock of hair.

“I’m sorry to hear that you met with a setback. I hope you don’t think I’m angry with you because our affair ended badly.”

“You are angry with me, Oscar. You’re furious. You resent me and you hate me, but you’re just such a player that you would never, ever show that to me. You’d dump me if you had to, and you did dump me, but at least you couldn’t be bothered to crucify me. I made a real mistake, thinking that all politicians were like you.”

Oscar said nothing. She was going to spill it all very soon. More words wouldn’t make it come any faster.

“I got a hot lead on a scandal. I mean a major Cold War scandal, huge, big. All I had to do was wheedle it out of this Dutch sub-minister of something-or-other. And he was go

“Clare, why would I be judgmental about that? These things happen. It’s reality.”

“You know, we don’t understand that here in America. We don’t get it that we’re the eight-hundred-pound gorilla of climate politics. We’re so out of sync that we still measure in pounds and inches. We think it’s fu