Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson [211]
“Friend of the president! We’re his friends, Charlie.”
“Us and twenty thousand other people.”
“Yes but no, we’re in the God-damned White House.”
“I guess we are. Jesus. Well, Phil will be great. If anyone can stay human in that job, he can.”
“Oh sure, sure. He’ll be human, he’ll be all too human.”
“He’ll be more than human.”
“That’s right! So get your ass down here and party!”
“Maybe I will.”
Charlie let him get back to it. The house suddenly seemed quiet. Joe was still playing cheerfully on the couch next to Anna. She got up, grinning now, and started to clean up. Frank got up to help her.
“This should help all your projects big time,” Charlie said to him. “Phil is really into them.”
“That’s good. We’ll need it.”
“He’ll probably appoint Diane Chang to a second term at NSF.”
“Huhn,” Frank said, looking over at him. “Really?”
“Yeah, I think so. I’ve heard that discussed. He likes what she’s been doing, of course. How could you not?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Frank picked up a plate, looking distracted.
They finished cleaning up. “I guess I’ll be off,” Frank said. “Thanks for having me over.”
THE DRIVE BACK TO KHEMBALI HOUSE took a long time. Frank chose to drive down Wisconsin and cross the Potomac on the Key Bridge, the shortest route by far, but it was a mistake; the streets were packed with people, literally packed, so that cars had to inch along, nudging their way forward through a mass of celebrating humanity. The District of Columbia had voted nine to one for Democratic candidates for many years, and now a good proportion of the ninety percent were in the streets partying, and cars be damned. Frank had seen this once long before, when he had happened to visit an old girlfriend in D.C. on the Fourth of July, and they had gone down to the Mall to see the Beach Boys. The crowd that day was estimated at seven hundred thousand, and when the concert and fireworks were over everyone had left at once. The Metro being overwhelmed, Frank and his friend had walked up 17th and then Connecticut to her place near Dupont Circle, and the entire way they had strolled with the rest of the crowd right down the middle of the street, forcing the helpless cars among them to creep at a pedestrian pace.
This was just like that—a sudden Carnavale, bursting onto Wisconsin. It had the feel of that day in the cold snap when everyone had gone out on the frozen Potomac. The city surprised by joy.
Frank watched through the windows of his van, feeling detached. No doubt it was good news—parts of him knew it was very good news—but he could not feel it. He was still too disturbed by what had happened with Caroline and her husband.
Inching forward, he gave Edgardo a call.
When Edgardo picked up, Frank’s ear was blasted by the sound of one of Astor Piazzolla’s wild tangos, the bandoneon leading the charge with such scrunching dissonances that Frank’s phone howled. “LET ME TURN IT DOWN” he heard as he held the phone at arm’s length.
“Sure.”
“Okay I’m back! Who is it?”
“It’s Frank.”
“Ah, Frank! How are you!”
“I’m okay. So, what happened?”
Edgardo laughed. “Didn’t you hear?” he said. “Phil Chase won the election!”
Behind his voice the tango kept charging along, and the shifting static in the phone led Frank to think that he might be dancing around his apartment.
“I know that, but how?”
“We will certainly be talking about how this happened for a long time, Frank, and I’m sure it will keep us entertained on our runs. But I predict right now that no one will ever be able to say exactly why this election came out the way it did.” He laughed again, seemingly at the way he could use such innocuous pundit clichés to convey exactly what he meant: not now. Of course. And maybe never. “Meanwhile just enjoy yourself, Frank. Celebrate.”
In the background the tango band twirled on. Frank pushed End on his phone; he could tell Edgardo about the new set of disks later. Best not to use phones anymore, as Edgardo had reminded him. He shook his head: his leap-before-you-look strategy was not capable of noticing all the