The moment Dave saw Jenny he was lost. Her slender body wrapped in a turtleneck and jeans, her hair cut in a short brown bob, she struck him as stylish and unadorned, sophisticated and down to earth, all at once. He knew it was foolish -- he felt like a kid with a crush on his teacher, despite the similarity in ages -- but he was lost all the same. He perched in a folding chair in the second row of the rented gymnasium and trained his full attention on her as she spoke, hardly remembering why he was there.
He was there to attend the kickoff meeting of Not Out Here -- Win Arizona's Independence (NOH-WAI), "a grass-roots organization dedicated to blocking the development of SouthWestWorld." Its organizers were students from the University of Arizona who'd established a kind of base camp in town after hearing about real-estate sharks moving into Johnston, offering below-market buyouts to nervous landowners. Dave's father Roy had been one of those landowners, and Dave had the nagging feeling that he was somehow responsible. So when he saw flyers announcing that evening's event, he decided to check it out, and went straight over after clocking out at the 7-11 and pocketing his "Hi My Name Is Dave" badge. He was anxious to do something; he just didn't know that. And then Jenny came out and introduced herself and he knew the answer was, whatever she's doing.
There were only a handful of others in the audience, and so he had a clear shot afterwards. She'd hardly finished saying "I'll be here for a while if you have any questions" before he'd sprung from his seat, vaulted over the empty row of chairs in front of him, and appeared beside her.
"I thought you were great," he said, the words tumbling over each other to get out.
"Right. Well." She smiled politely but seemed a bit bewildered. "I'm really just here with information."
"Oh, yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. I was impressed. With your, uh, information." A detail, he told himself frantically, remember a detail. "Like the quality of the jobs to expect," he said.
"Well, just look at UAE's record. High profile, low wages, low benefits. Total McJobs."
"Tell me about it."
"You mean you've worked for them?"
"Uh, no," said Dave, suddenly embarrassed about where he worked (and wishing his badge weren't half sticking out of his pocket). "But I can imagine, from what you said. It was a good presentation."
"Thank you," she said, but she seemed troubled by something. "So, Dave, you're from around here . . . can you tell me where everyone went?"
He looked around the auditorium and noticed that the only person left was Sally Jacobs, who waved at him from a side table where she was gathering pamphlets. "They might have been a little leery of committing right away," he ventured. "I mean, what you were saying was right on, but it came across as a little confrontational."
"But that's the whole point," she said. "If we just rely on everybody coming out to do the right thing on election day, we're doomed. When you're fighting something that powerful, you have to get in their faces. The polite old electoral process doesn't always work by itself."
"I agree. But the way Johnston works -- oh, it would take a while," he said, thinking of how his father's relationship with his uncle Mike had been ruined, how the local newspaper and radio shows had degenerated into ranting, how he himself had gotten into vicious arguments with friends and even customers, a million reasons for mixed emotions about abandoning politeness. He didn't know how to begin to say this. But he couldn't just let her go. "Can I try to explain?" he asked. "Over dessert or something?"
Jenny paused to consider this, looked around the now-empty room, then smiled broadly, a beautiful smile. "Sure," she said. "I think I've got some time."
The only dessert option, considering the hour, was to buy something at a store and take it back to where she was staying, which was fine with him. Unfortunately, the only store open, considering the hour, was the 7-11. Fortunately, he thought of something else on the way over in her car. "The fact is, I work there," he said. "I'm taking some photography courses at the community college in Flagstaff, and the store gig helps pay the bills."
"Flagstaff, wow. That's some commute you've got every day."
"Well, I, uh, I arranged my schedule so I only go a couple of days a week. But my real goal is to transfer to UA, move down there." This last bit was true, anyway, but he was dying to change the subject. "How do you like it there?" he asked. "What do you study?"
"Environmental science. And it's just fine." She made a face. "Oh, my, answering out of order. I've got to work on those public speaking skills."
"But I'm not the public. I'm just me."
"That's good," she said, laughing. "I'm just me, too. Look, here we are."
They purchased their Macadamia Super Swirl without incident, dug in as he explained about the town's slump and his father's sellout, and finished it off as she explained about NOH-WAI: some students in her department had been following the story, decided to organize, and arranged to spend some time out of Tucson, which was, after all, 200 miles away. She came up ahead of the others, scouted out a cheap apartment near downtown, and hit the ground running. "We'll be four people in here by next week," she said. "But for now, I'm alone."
"Yeah, that's rough," said Dave, suddenly nervous, jumping way ahead in his mind. Down, boy, he told himself. Talk to her. "I mean, it feels like I'm living alone half the time, my dad's off in his own little world." He shook his head. "I mean, it's not like he didn't make his own choices, right?"
"Well, yes and no. It sounds like the choices he made were limited by circumstances." Dave felt this word -- circumstances -- pointing directly at him, and cast his eyes down at the table. Jenny took this as sorrow, not guilt, and reached out to put her hand on his arm. "Just like anyone," she said gently. "Just like you."
Dave felt her touch on his arm, felt its warmth spread throughout him; for a moment, shocked by the recognition that something might happen, he couldn't respond. Then, before he could think his way into inaction, he took her hand in his, leaned across the table to kiss her, and brushed the fingers of his other hand across her cheeks, through her hair, around her neck. There was a moment's hesitation, as if she weren't sure, and then she returned the kiss and wrapped her arms around him and rose from her seat to get closer. It had begun; it was real, as unreal as it seemed; and, in fact, the only words Dave remembered hearing in the blur of kisses and touches between kitchen and bedroom were I don't believe this.
He rose at daybreak, too excited to sleep, and sat up in bed watching as shadows gave way to shapes. The rising sun was poking its way through the blinds on the far side of the room, throwing bands of light across the bed and over Jenny. He sat up on the edge of the mattress and watched her, half asleep, turning to shade her face, breathing slowly and evenly, pale little slices of her floating and moving in unison in the light. If I could freeze this moment, he marveled. But of course he couldn't, and the sunbeam crept its way down to the floor, and in time she awoke and sat up facing him. She clutched the sheet to her chest, covering her breasts the way actors do to please TV censors, suddenly shy.
"Oh, Dave," she said, her voice dry, "I'm sorry. This was a mistake."
Dave felt himself begin to flush, as unsure of himself as he'd been a few weeks ago in Vegas, or just yesterday for that matter, as if the previous night hadn't happened. "It didn't feel like a mistake to me," he said, but it came out more like a question: What is happening?
"But it's not you. Oh, I am sorry."
"Well, what is it, then?" he pleaded. "Sorry about what?"
She took a deep breath, pushed her bangs out of her face. "Remember I said I'll be sharing this apartment soon? The next guy will be here by tomorrow. Maybe tonight."
"So?" Dave scooted back on the bed and put his hand on her shoulder. "I want to help, remember? I'd like to meet these people."
"No, you don't understand." She slipped away from his touch. "This guy, Brad, he's uh -- well, he's sort of my boyfriend."
Dave slumped back at this, momentarily stunned, then felt something boiling over in him. "Sort of," he snapped. "So where exactly does he sleep?"
"Dave, it's not as simple as -- "
"It's not as simple as having a boyfriend, apparently. Jesus Christ."
"But it's not. I mean, we've been having troubles. If I were certain of my feelings, I could never just -- "
"Do what you did."
"I know. But things just happened so fast . . . it could have been the other way around. I don't know much about you either."
"Well," he said, looking around for his clothes, "here's one thing: I'm not really a student, I was just embarrassed to tell you that my lousy job is all I have. I'm sorry. But the rest is true."
"Dave -- "
"And here's another: I did not cheat on anyone last night." He dressed in about thirty seconds and grabbed the handful of papers he'd brought in.
"Dave," she called, "where are you going?"
He looked at his watch and let out a sigh. "I am going to work," he said, remembering about that morning shift.
All through the long walk back to the store he replayed the previous 12 hours in his mind, racing back and forth from that first sight of her, to the moment when the night turned on a kiss, to the even more exquisite moment that morning, Jenny caught in the light, that he wanted to make last forever . . . gone, dashed apart, as if it had never happened. But of course it had: the sheaf of papers in his hand and the walk itself was testimony to that. By the time he got to work he'd decided to take the pamphlets and petitions home and burn them, one at a time; throwing them away wouldn't take care of the way he felt. Then, as the day wore on, he thought of going home to face Roy, halfway into another six-pack and an afternoon of soaps, and he knew he couldn't walk away emptyhanded -- if not for Roy's sake then for his own. There was still one thing that could cure the way he felt, and at the very least there was work to be done. So when his shift ended, he took his bundle and hiked back over the same route, back to the apartment, and waited till she opened the door, her eyes wide with surprise.
"So," he said, just a little nervous, "where do we start?"