Movement by Valerie Miner Read Free Book Online Page A

bottle bobbing against a buoy in the night sea.
    â€œHe’s doing a fine job, I hear,” she says to fill the void.
    You know by this that she is a much nicer person than you, more considerate. But you’re annoyed by her political naïveté. Doesn’t she know about the cutbacks in social services?
    â€œOh, yes, that’s very interesting,” she says.
    Interesting, shit lady, you think. It’s crucial. The Governor is a practicing fundamentalist American. Taking money from social services and giving tax concessions to businesses like IBM. Why is she working for IBM? Just because she’s blind, does that make it OK? Don’t patronize her. Argue. You know you should argue, but you are too tired to find anything that will make sense.
    You tell her, “yes, it’s interesting.”
    The crew cuts have left and it’s only twenty minutes to Olympia. Just enough time to make it to the hotel bar before it closes at 1:00 a.m. Just enough time to order a gin and tonic, take it up to your room and phone the Greyhound in Seattle to see if they’ve found your tape recorder at the fucking ticket counter. Thirty more minutes of conversation. Only seven years in this business and already you’ve run dry. To think that you chose this job because you liked talking to people.
    â€œThanks for the chat,” she says sincerely. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just rest a while.” She leans back on the headrest, her eyes wide open to the darkness.
    â€œYes,” you say. “Sure.”
    Maybe you’ll make it a double martini. The Governor’s secretary better not cut the interview short. You pray, like you haven’t prayed for anything in ages, that you make it to the hotel bar before 1:00 a.m.

IV
    The Right Hand on the
Day of Judgment
    â€œWhat do you think of the piece from Zaragoza?” Susan asked. “Will you give me the OK? Can we count on Tony to keep his mouth shut?”
    Harry shook his head, “I’ve been trying to decide just that, all morning.”
    Susan could never tell which was misshapen—Harry or his old gabardine suits. A proper Charlie Chaplin, he was, with manila envelopes and foolscap carbon sheets hanging out of his cracked brown leather briefcase. No, more like James Stewart playing the absent-minded diplomat, bumbling through social banalities, but driven by political commitment. He hadn’t bothered to comb the grey wisps over his baldness this morning. She didn’t know exactly how old Harry was. Somewhere in his late fifties, if he had fought in Spain.
    â€œRemember Tony’s antics in Uruguay,” said Susan, “flaunting his press card. He was lucky to escape intact. We may be spending a lot of money for him to holiday in prison.”
    â€œYes, yes,” nodded Harry. “We probably should call him home now.”
    She played with the coffee bean beads hanging to the waist of her black pullover. The bean beads—being cheap, a tribute to the Brazilian Liberation Fund and still stylish—were among her more successful compromises to fashion. She concentrated on Harry’s careful words.
    â€œOn the other hand,” he watched her closely, “you have to take certain risks, like we did a couple of years ago with the coverage of Prague.”
    She released the beads and picked up her fountain pen.
    Harry continued, “I supposed that’s what journalistic courage is all about. To hell with it. Tell Tony to go ahead. I’ll trust my instincts. By the way, thanks a lot for finishing up the layouts. You’re my right hand. Don’t know what I would do without you.”
    Susan packed the solicitor’s letters and her notes on South African sports in the frayed blue folder marked “Mockup.” She listened to a muffled slam from the small front room. The office was gulping another person. It had felt stuffy lately, cramped. She never believed those gas fires were