Part 3 of 5
The Tip of the Tongue
000lvidal000: @xubaihan si sabes nada, bailas mucho
The café was empty, save for the girl at the counter with a boxy dark grey cap on her head and a red checked keffiyeh around her neck. She was reading Franny and Zooey, making notes in the tiny margins with a purple Uniball pen that she occasionally used to brush her short hair back behind her ears. I tried to imagine the commentary. Double-underlines for particularly poignant or relevant moments. Maybe a “yes,” also underlined, for a whole paragraph. The word “hmm” a few times. The rain beat down behind the glass that separated my table from Connecticut Avenue. It was Thanksgiving.
000lvidal000: @xubaihan lo que no has visto, que te importa? la futura, tiene demasiado importancia en nuestras vidas
The coffee was too hot when I picked it up, but by the time I remembered it, it was too cold, and this wasn’t the kind of place with a microwave. My head hurt. I turned back to the computer and its maps. No open-source trickery of Google or its denizens, even an overlay of known conservative organizations, could bring up any mention of an “Aumerle House.” I even swallowed the anti-stalker bile and searched the first name “Delia” on Facebook. Then MySpace. No matches. I wiped my face with my napkin, checking to make sure the girl at the counter hadn’t noticed.
000lvidal000: @xubaihan in epocas dificiles, tienes que buscar la proxima fiesta
It would be worthless to try and get back in touch with Reynard—he refused to answer his cell phone on principle and was probably back filing visa paperwork for the embassy anyway. The French were big on holidays, but not American holidays. I began to flip through the cryptic replies my Spanish follower had begun to send me after asking about Aumerle House, with Google Translate and a skeptical eye. Who was this character? No given name, no location. His photo was some sort of bag—clicking on the bigger image revealed it to be a silicon implant. Her photo, maybe? Did the gender even matter?
I sighed and punched in a reply. “@000lvidal0000: no luck. My only lead, a conservative, disappeared. What do I do?”
I hit refresh a few times before the absurdity of the situation hit me, then shut my Macbook in disgust. The girl at the counter looked over at me, then put her ear buds in with a sigh, twirling her Uniball around the cord. I started, left a buck on my saucer, and stuffed the computer back into my messenger bag. My BlackBerry buzzed. I fished it out.
000lvidal000: @xubaihan para tu secreto conservativo, busca un baile secreto - pero traiga tu ballspende
Now it was my turn to sigh, then to pull my Macbook back out. I shot the girl a glance, but she was lost with Salinger in the music of their choice. What was this…person talking about? For my conservative secret, look for a… secret dance? Some quick Googling got me “ballspende”—a dance card. It was bad enough that I was following up on this enigmatic bullshit—but now it was multi-lingual enigmatic bullshit.
A dance card. A conservative dance… I clicked on the map with the think tanks and sighed. Washington might be one of the more reliably liberal cities in the country, but it had enough policy wonks from any ideological stripe to choke an issue to death from any angle.
The Heritage Foundation popped out at me, probably because it was so close to the Capitol. I clicked through their site. My eyes widened.
Thanksgiving Ball & Mixer
Tea and Liberty Served
Special welcome to interns/stranded members without a Thanksgiving feast of their own!
Semi-formal attire requested.
I slapped my computer shut again and went for the door, then tripped over my power cord. The girl behind the counter shook her head but didn’t remove her ear buds as I yanked it from the wall and stalked out of the café, putting my hat on and opening up my umbrella against the rain. I hadn’t worn semi-formal attire since the urban planning formal ball in Foggy Bottom. It’d be interesting to see if I’d washed it since then.
-
The Heritage Foundation’s headquarters sat next to a grim pizza joint, across the street from a barber shop, and cattycorner from a high-class liquor store. I looked up at its concrete façade, its chiseled faux-Roman lettering faded by acid rain. A few pockmarked young pale men in black suits whisked past me and through the building’s double doors.
“Hayek didn’t go far enough,” one was saying, waving his hands animatedly. The other ran his hand back through his greased hair.
“You can only assume the free market will correct market ills, though,” he replied. “Too often on issues of morality there’s a need to yoke the people under us…”
This was the place, all right.
Inside the hall, men and women milled about two tables full of finger food. Occasionally people stole glimpses at my khakis and dress shirt, and I felt like I should have at least stolen one of my apartment-mate’s blazers, or something. As I reached down to snag a Vienna sausage on a toothpick, my eyes drifted across the table.
In a simple white dress with a black handbag was Delia, seemingly recovered from Reynard’s advances, chatting amiably with another girl about my age standing next to her. I froze, my breath caught in my throat. A number of thoughts flashed through my head—how did my Spanish follower know? Did Delia know I was here? Did she even remember me, after Reynard gave her the works?
“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed a voice from the front of the hall, “welcome to the Heritage Foundation’s annual mixer for the conservatively-minded! I know that’s what President Reagan called a ‘big tent,’ so I’d like to thank you all for taking the time out of your days to meet one another.”
I moved up behind a short man with his hair parted down the middle to get a better glimpse of the speaker. A rotund little man in a tuxedo that bulged around his middle as if he were a little planet clapped his hands above his head and waved the other partygoers towards him.
“Let’s begin the mixing portion of this evening!” he shouted. “We’ve matched your RSVPs such that everyone from different organizations can get to meet one another during the dances, so, get out those cards and get ready to move!”
I let out a long string of curses in my head, but quickly cut myself off as I looked down to the hors d’oeuvres. The man in front of me—more of a boy, judging by the way he shifted his weight anxiously from foot to foot—had left his dance card with a corner wedged under a cheese platter. As he shifted again, I took a deep breath and yanked it out, then walked slowly to the other side of the room, as if getting ready. The rotund man mastering the ceremonies let out a laugh that echoed across the floor as others milled alongside me.
“Now, find your first partner and get ready,” he said. “This will be quick, I promise.”
I couldn’t imagine what music a conservative think tank would play to coordinate an organized dance. Memories of my parents blasting the classical music station in their convenience store at all hours haunted me. I couldn’t waltz. I could barely keep time. I’d be outed in an instant. I opened the dance card.
JACOB HIRCINE: project for the new american century
First dance: DELIA RICHARDS, heritage foundation
I blinked and shook my head. I could’ve made a killing at the Connecticut casinos my aunt and uncle went out to during this break with this kind of luck. I scanned the crowd for her white dress, but saw only a young man with his hair parted neatly down the middle pushing angrily through others. His face was a mask of anger and frustration, to the point where his horn-rimmed glasses seemed almost to be steaming and his double chin undulating under the pressure.
As I turned, Delia touched my shoulder.
“Jacob Hircine, I presume?” she said. “Or was it ‘Byron?’ Something tells me you’re not a Project for the New American Century kind of guy.
My heart leapt into my throat. ”Uh,” I said, twisting uncomfortably. “It’s ‘Byron,’ and if you want to know more, you’d better take this dance, uh, unless you’d rather have the real Jacob Hircine speed-dating you.”
I jerked my head over my shoulder. The young man with his hair parted was accosting another guest, demanding he show his dance card. The words were indistinct, but I could make out his high-pitched, nasal whine.
“GO!” shouted the planetoid of a man acting as master of ceremonies. A latter-day Britney Spears song burst from the speakers. Men and women laughed around us and began to dance leisurely to the beat, talking all the while. I stood in disbelief.
“I would’ve expected something… a little more conservative,” I shouted over the music, leaning in towards Delia. She began to dance.
“Not a conservative either? Can’t say I’m surprised, given your friend, ‘Byron.’”
I let out a bark of a laugh, but kept my face serious. “Yeah, uh, sorry about him.”
Delia kept the same bemused expression on her face. “And so you came out here just by chance?”
I shook my head in what I hoped looked like time to the spare beat. The real Jacob Hircine began interrogating another couple, closer to us than to the food table, now. “I wasn’t date-hunting, or, uh, nothing like that, no,” I stuttered. “But they mentioned you were… conservatively minded, and I thought maybe someone else here would know what Aumerle House was.”
Delia’s expression shifted to a concerned glare. “Keep your voice down,” she hissed. “Probably less than you’d think. And why do you want to know, any way? What reason should I give for trusting you?”
I winced. “Look, I bought you that drink last night, but I asked for change, it wasn’t like I was trying to bribe you. You came up to me.”
“Because I didn’t know anyone else except a few of us knew about it. I’m fairly low on the totem pole, it’s weird to have someone else my age snooping around. What if you were a Democratic congressman’s operative? What if you were, heaven forbid, a libertarian?”
I was about to laugh, but glanced to my right as I moved to the music. The real Jacob Hircine was now pestering the couple next to us. “Are you Delia Richards?” he whined. “I have this dance with her, you see, but I can’t find my card.” Delia followed my gaze, then winced.
“Hey, listen,” I said, moving in a step closer. “I’ll write down my number. I’m just doing research for my brother. He works on little things. You can meet me any time early tomorrow, and if you don’t believe me, don’t believe me. Just please believe this: you’re the only lead I have right now and I just want to help him out.” I began scratching my phone’s number onto the other half of Jacob Hircine’s dance card, then tore it in half and handed it to Delia.
“Tomorrow,” I said, “it’s gotta reach my brother before Friday ends on the West Coast. You can show up with a whole cadre of young conservatives, I don’t care, just… y’know, give me a break, here. I just want to help.”
After a moment, Delia took the card and put it in her purse. “Fine,” she said, “but I get to do whatever, blindfold you to take you to the house, not take you to the house, whatever.” For the first time, she seemed to blossom into a genuine smile. “Just promise me you’ll be a better dancer than—”
“Excuse me,” whimpered Jacob Hircine to me. “Is this girl Delia Richards? Because—”
In a burst that mixed emotion and inspiration, I tore up the second half of the dance card. “Viva Ron Paul!” I snapped, just loudly enough for Jacob Hircine to hear, then threw the pieces in his face. Jacob Hircine was so stunned that it took him a few seconds to even flinch, and a few more to gather his wits and move towards the rotund gentlemen in order to escort me out.
Delia smiled at me. “Libertarians,” she said. “No shame.”
“Not one,” I replied. “Just being a jerk. That I’m good at. Tomorrow, okay? I’ll play by all your rules. Just let me see the place, please?”
“We’ll see.”
By the time Jacob Hircine reached the master of ceremonies, the first song had ended and I was on the path back towards Union Station, my brows furrowed somewhere between puzzlement and hopefulness.
Part 4 Saturday evening.
November 28, 2009, 2:03am Comments
