Girls in White Dresses - JENNIFER CLOSE [62]
Dan worked in advertising, but his heart wasn’t in it. He sat around all day, writing catchy copy to accompany ads. “I want to do something that matters,” he always said. Shannon would nod in agreement. “I want a job I care about,” he would say, and Shannon would groan in sympathy. She thought it was just talk, just something people say to get through their day. But the more the young senator from Illinois showed up on TV, the more Dan talked about his discontent. He complained about his hours, his pay, his mindless duties. He slammed dresser drawers in the morning as he got ready for work, and drank a beer each night as he sulked in front of the news. And then one day he came home and announced that he was going to volunteer for the campaign.
“Do you have time to volunteer?” Shannon asked.
“The question is,” Dan answered, “how do I not make the time?”
Dan organized rallies and trained volunteers. He went door-to-door making sure people were registered to vote. He skipped three days of work to attend a volunteer training camp in Chicago.
“I asked you last week if we could go on vacation, and you said you couldn’t take any days off,” Shannon said.
“This isn’t vacation,” Dan said. “This is our country.”
He came home from the volunteer camp with a graduation certificate and newfound energy. “This is it,” he kept saying. “This is the time.”
“The time for what?” Shannon muttered.
“What?” Dan said.
“Nothing,” she said.
At night, all they talked about was the election. Dan analyzed every word that came out of every candidate’s mouth. He sat no more than two feet from the TV, so that he wouldn’t miss a thing. “Did you hear that?” he asked, pointing at a face on TV. “Did you hear the tone she used when she said his name? Unbelievable.”
Shannon learned how to knit and sat on the couch twisting yarn into rows as Dan muttered to himself. “How can you knit at a time like this?” he asked her once. He looked at her like her yarn was the reason his Candidate was down in the polls.
Dan pored over newspapers, websites, and right-wing blogs to see what the opposition was saying. When Shannon asked him if he wanted to go out to dinner, he just shook his head no. They ate takeout in front of the TV almost every night. More and more often, she found him asleep on the couch in the morning, his computer propped up next to him and CNN chattering in the background. He’d wake up and rub his eyes, then immediately focus on the latest news. “I can’t believe I missed this,” he’d say. He’d turn up the volume. “Shannon, can you move?” he’d ask. “I can’t see the TV.”
Dan applied for every job the campaign had. “How much does this one pay?” Shannon asked once.
“Does it matter?” Dan asked. “You don’t get this. I would do it for free.”
“It would be kind of hard to pay rent then, wouldn’t it?” Shannon asked.
Dan walked away from her and turned on the TV, to CNBC. Shannon followed him into the room, but he didn’t look at her. “I was kidding,” she said. “God, don’t be so sensitive.”
“This matters to me,” Dan said.
“I know,” she said. “It matters to me too.” Dan raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything more. Shannon sat down on the couch next to him and watched the wild-eyed political commentator scream. It was the blond man, the one who interrupted his guests and got on her nerves. “He spits when he gets excited,” she said. And then they watched the rest of the show in silence.
When Dan quit his job, Shannon was supportive. “It will be hard,” she said. “But if it’s important to you, it’s important to me.” She was pretty sure she meant what she said.
“I’ll be traveling a lot,” Dan said. “But it’s what I always wanted to do.”
“Of course,” Shannon said. She didn’t really know what she was agreeing to, but her answer made Dan happy.
Later, Shannon explained it to her friends. “It’s too good to pass up,” she said. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Well, you knew this about him when you met him,” Mary said. “I guess this doesn