The Inner Circle

48

"You feeling any better?” I ask Clementine.

“Yeah.”

“That doesn’t sound better. That sounds like a yeah.”

She sits with it a moment, staring into the mirror on her side of the car and eyeing the bright lights of the mob of cars behind us. Using the rearview, I do the same, making mental notes of who’s behind us: a blue Acura, a few SUVs, a disproportionate number of hybrids, and the usual rush-hour taxis. Nothing out of the ordinary. It doesn’t make me feel any better.

“Tot hates me,” Clementine says.

“Why would you say that?”

“Y’mean besides the long glares and accusatory stares-or maybe when I answered my phone and he basically said, Who’re you talking to? I hate you?”

“He’s just worried about me.”

“If he were worried, he’d be sitting in this car right now. He doesn’t like me. He doesn’t trust me.”

“Well, I trust you.”

As I tug the wheel into another right and follow the rush-hour traffic up Constitution Avenue, she doesn’t respond.

“What, now I don’t trust you?” I ask.

“Beecher, the fact you were there for me today-with Nico-I know how you feel. And I pray you know how I feel. In all these years… People aren’t nice to me the way you’re nice to me. But the only thing I don’t understand: How come you never told me what you saw in those call numbers-y’know, in the book?”

She’s talking about the invisible ink message:

Exitus

FEBRUARY 16

Acta

26 YEARS IS A LONG TIME TO KEEP A SECRET

Probat

WRITE BACK: NC 38.548.19 OR WU 773.427

“You know what those numbers mean, don’t you?” she asks. “You know what books they are.”

I shake my head.

“Beecher, you don’t have to tell me. Honestly, you don’t. But if I can help-”

“They’re not books,” I say.

Making a left and following the parade of cars as it edges toward I-395 and the signs for the 14th Street Bridge, I take another glance at the rearview. SUVs, hybrids, taxis-a few pushy drivers elbow their way in, but for the most part, everything’s in the same place.

“Beecher, I was there. The guy in Preservation said-”

“The Diamond doesn’t know what he-”

“Wait. What’s the diamond?”

“Daniel. In Preservation. That’s his nickname. The Diamond,” I tell her. “And while he’s clearly the expert on book construction and chemical reactions, he doesn’t know squat about library science-because if he did, he’d know that neither of those is a call number.”

She squints as if she’s trying to reread the numbers from memory.

“NC 38.548.19 or WU 773.427,” I repeat for her. “They look like library call numbers, right? But they’re both missing their cutters.” Reading her confusion, I explain, “In any call number, there’re two sets of letters. The NC is the first set-the N tells us it’s Art. All N books have to do with art. The C will tell you what kind of art-Renaissance, modern, et cetera. But before the last set of numbers-the 19-there’s always another letter-the cutter. It cuts down the subject, telling you the author or title or some other subdivision so you can find it. Without that second letter, it’s not a real call number.”

“Maybe they left out the second letters on purpose.”

“I thought so too. Then I saw the other listing: WU 773.427.”

“And the W stands for…?”

“That’s the problem. W doesn’t stand for anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Years ago, every library had their own individual system. But to make things more uniform, when the world switched over to the Library of Congress system, every letter was assigned to a different subject. Q stood for Science. K stood for Law. But three letters-W, X, and Y-they never got assigned to anything.”

“So if a book begins with an X-”

“Actually, Xs sometimes mean books that’re held behind the main desk, maybe because they’re racy or dirty-guess where X-rated comes from? But you get the picture. A book that starts WU… that’s just not a book at all.”

“Could it be something besides a book?”

“Ten bucks says that’s what Tot’s working on right now,” I explain as I check in the rearview. The towering Archives building is long gone. “I know under the filing system for Government Publications, W is for the old War Department. But WU-it doesn’t exist.”

“So it can’t be anything?”

“Anything can be anything. But whatever it is, it’s not in the regular system, which means it could be in an older library that doesn’t use the system, or a private one, or a-”

“What kind of private one? Like someone’s personal library?” she asks.

I rub my thumbs in tiny circles on the steering wheel, digesting the thought. Huh. With all the running around for Dustin Gyrich, I hadn’t thought about that.

“Y’think the President has his own private library at the White House?” she asks.

I stay silent.

“Beecher, y’hear what I said?”

I nod, but I’m quiet, my thumbs still making tiny circles.

“What’s wrong? Why’re you shutting down like that?” she asks. Before I can say anything, she knows the answer.

“You’re worried you can’t win this,” she adds.

All I hear are Orlando’s words from that first moment we found the book in the SCIF. Name me one person ever who went up against a sitting President and walked away the same way they walked in. “I know we can’t win this. No one can win this. No one wins against a President.”

“That’s not true. As long as you have that book-and as long as he doesn’t know you have that book-you have him, Beecher. You can use that to-”

I start breathing hard. My thumb-circles get faster.

“You okay?” she asks.

I stay silent.

“Beecher, what’s wrong?”

Staring straight ahead, I motion outside. “Bridges. I don’t like bridges.”

She glances to her right as we’re halfway up the incline. But it’s not until the road peaks and we pass the glowing white columns along the back of the Jefferson Memorial that she spots the wide blackness of the Potomac River fanning out ahead of us. The 14th Street Bridge’s wide road doesn’t look like a bridge. But based on the shade of green that now matches my face with hers, she knows it feels like one.

“You’re kidding, right?” she laughs.

I don’t laugh back. “My father died on a bridge.”

“And my father tried to kill the President. Top that.”

“Please stop talking now. I’m trying not to throw up by visualizing that I’m back in colonial times writing letters with a dipped-ink pen.”

“That’s fine, but have you even seen what you’re missing? This view,” she adds, pointing out her window, “you can see the entire back of the Jefferson Memorial.”

“I’ve seen the view. We have the finest shots in the world in our photographic records. We have the early files from when the commission was first discussing it. We even have the original blueprints that-”

“Stop the car.”

“Pardon?”

“You heard. Stop the car. Trust me.”

“Clemmi, I’m not-”

She grips the handle and kicks the car door open. Blasts of cold air create a vacuum that sucks our hair, and a stray napkin on the floor, to the right. The tires of the car choom-choom-choom across the plates in the bridge’s roadbed.

I slam the brakes and an opera of horns finds quick harmony behind us. As I jerk the wheel and pull us along the shoulder of the bridge, the open door of the Mustang nearly scrapes against the concrete barrier.

“Are you mental!?” I shout as we buck to a stop. “This isn’t some eighth grade-!”

“Don’t do that.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t go to eighth grade… don’t talk about something old… don’t bring up old memories that have nothing to do with who we are now. This is all that matters! Today,” she says as the horns keep honking behind us.

“The cops are gonna be here in two seconds,” I say, keeping my head down and staring at my crotch to avoid looking over the bridge. “You can’t stop at national monuments.”

“Sure you can. We just did. Now look up and tell me what you see.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. Just try. I know you can.”

“Clemmi…”

“Try, Beecher. Just try.”

In the distance, I hear the sirens.

“Please,” she adds as if she’s pleading for my soul.

In no mood to face another set of law enforcement officers, and still hearing Orlando calling me Professor Indiana Jones, I raise my head and quickly glance to the right. It lasts a second. Maybe two. The wind’s made a wreck of Clementine’s hair, but over her shoulder I have a clear view of the bright white dome of the Jefferson Memorial. I pause, surprised to feel my heart quicken.

“How’s it look?” she asks.

“Truthfully? Kinda horrible,” I say, eyeing the curves of the marble stonework. “It’s just the back. You can’t see the good part with the statue.”

“But it’s real,” she says, looking over at the memorial. “And at least you saw it for yourself. Not in a book. Not in some old record. You saw it here-now-in the freezing cold, from the side of a bridge, in a way that no tourists ever experience it.”

My fists still clutch the steering wheel. I keep my head down, again refusing to look outside. But I am listening.

“That was the part I liked,” I say.

“You sound surprised.”

“I kinda am,” I admit as my heart begins to gallop. “I’d never seen it from this angle.”

Turning away from the Jefferson Memorial, Clementine glances my way-just a bit as she peers over her shoulder-and looks back at me. Our eyes lock. She won’t let herself smile-she’s still making her point. But I see the appreciation for the trust.

“She did dump me,” I blurt.

“Excuse me?”

“My fiancee. Iris. You asked before. She did dump me.”

“I figured,” she says. “It’s pretty obvious.”

“But it wasn’t for another guy.”

“For another girl?” Clementine asks.

“I wish. Then I would’ve at least had a good story.”

This is the part where she’s supposed to ask, What happened? But she doesn’t.

My head’s still down. My hands still clutch the wheel. As I relive the moment, she sees the pain I’m in.

“Beecher, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to say it. It really doesn’t matter.”

“She dumped me for the worst reason of all,” I say as the sirens continue to get closer. “For absolutely no reason at all.”

“Beecher…”

I clench my teeth to keep it all in. “I mean, if she fell in love with someone else, or I did something wrong, or I let her down in some unforgivable way… That, I’d understand, right? But instead, she said… it wasn’t anything. Not a single thing. It was just me. I was nice. I was kind. We just… she didn’t see the connection anymore.” I look up at Clementine, whose mouth is slightly open. “I think she just thought I was boring. And the cruelest part is, when someone says something mean about you, you know when they’re right.”

Watching me from the passenger seat, Clementine barely moves.

“Can I tell you something?” she finally offers. “Iris sounds like a real shitwad.”

I laugh, almost choking on the joy it brings.

“And can I tell you something else, Beecher? I don’t think you’re in love with the past. I think you’re scared of the future.”

I lift my head, turning toward her in the seat next to me. When we were leaving St. Elizabeths, Clementine said that the hardest part of seeing Nico was that so much of her life suddenly made sense. And I know I’m overstating it, and being melodramatic, and rebounding something fierce just because we raised the specter of Iris-but ever since Clementine returned to my life… life doesn’t make complete sense. But it definitely makes more sense than it used to.

I turn toward the passenger seat and lean in toward Clementine. She freezes. But she doesn’t pull away. I lean even closer, moving slowly, my fingers brushing her cheek and touching the wisps of her short black hair. As my lips part against hers, I’m overcome by her taste, a mix of caramel and a pinch of peach from her lip gloss.

There are great kissers in this world.

I’m not one of them.

I’m not sure Clementine is one of them. But she’s damn near close.

“You got better since Battle of the Bands,” she whispers as she takes a quick breath.

“You remember that?”

“C’mon, Beecher… how could I forget my first kiss?” she asks, the last few syllables vibrating off my lips.

Within seconds, I’m no longer leaning toward her. She’s leaning toward me.

I’m overwhelmed by her scent… by the way her short black hair skates against my cheek… by the way her hand tumbles down my chest and slides so close to everything I’m feeling in my pants.

Behind us, a flood of red lights pummels the back window. I barely heard the siren from the police car, which is now two cars behind us, trying to get us moving.

Taking a breath, I slowly pull away.

“Feeling any better?” she asks.

“Definitely better. Though also pretty terrified that we’re still on this bridge.”

She offers a quick laugh. But as she settles back in her seat, she knots her eyebrows, offering a brand-new look-a sad silent confession that I’ve never seen before. Like yet another new door has opened-I’m starting to realize she’s got dozens of them-and I finally get to see what’s inside. “We’re all terrified,” she says as we race ahead and leave the bridge behind. “That’s how you know you’re alive, Beecher. Welcome to the present.”

“Please make next… left turn,” the female GPS voice announces through my cell phone over an hour later. “Destination is… straight ahead… on the left.”

“Clemmi, we’re here,” I call out as I hit the brakes at the red light, waiting to turn onto her narrow block. As I’ve done at every stop since the moment we left the highway, I check the rearview. No one in sight.

When we first arrived in the small city of Winchester, Virginia, a huge brick residence hall and an overabundance of kids with backpacks told me we were in a college town. But as with any college town, there’s the good part of the college town, and the bad part of the college town. The closer we weaved toward Clementine’s block, those students gave way to boarded-up row houses, far too many abandoned factories, and even a pawn shop. Let’s be clear: The good part of town never gets the pawn shop.

“Clemmi, we’re… I think we’re here,” I add as I turn onto the long dark block that’s lined with a set of beat-up skinny row houses. Half the streetlights are busted. At the very last second, I also notice a taxi, its dim lights turning onto the block that we just left.

Two years ago, the Archives hosted a brown bag lunch for an author who was presenting a book about the effects of fear and its role in history. He said that when you go down a dark alley and you feel that tingling across the back of your neck, that’s not just a bad feeling, that’s a biological gift from God-the Gift of Fear, he called it. He said when you ignore that gift-when you go down the dark alley and say, Y’know, I’m sure it’ll be okay-that’s when you find real pain.

Next to me, while I’m still replaying our kiss, Clementine is fast asleep in the passenger seat, exhausted from the long ride as her chin rests on her clavicle. It’s late enough and quiet enough that when I listen closely, I can hear the rise and fall of her breathing. But as I squint to read house numbers and pass one home with a door off its hinges, and another with a spray-painted sign across the front that reads PVC pipes only, no copper inside, all I hear right now is God’s biological gift telling me this is not where I want to be.

Behind us, a car turns onto the block, then changes its mind and disappears.

“Destination,” the GPS voice announces. “You have arrived.”

Leaning forward, I double-check the house numbers: 355. This is it.

With a jerk of the wheel, I pull into the nearest open spot, right in front of a freestanding row house with a saggy old sofa on the front porch. I remember having a house like this. Back in college.

As I shift the car into park, my hand knocks into Clementine’s purse, which sits between the bucket seats and opens its mouth at the impact. Inside, I spot the edge of a purple leather wallet, a ring of keys, and a single sheet of paper that makes me smile. Even with just the light from the lamppost, there’s no missing what’s on it-it’s young me and Clementine, in a photocopied black-and-white version of the framed photo she gave me earlier today. She gave me the color one. But she kept a copy. For herself.

“Mary Mother of Christ! What you do to my girl?” a cigarette-stained voice calls from outside.

I jump at the noise, but as I scan the block, I don’t see-

“You! You heard me!”

The sound takes me up the cracked brick steps, to the front door of Clementine’s house. The screen door’s shut, but thanks to the glow of the TV inside, I see the outline of an old woman with a bob of white hair.

“She said she’d call me back-she never called me back!” the woman shouts, shoving the screen door open and storming out into the cold wearing a faded pink sweatsuit. She hobbles down the stairs.

Right at us.