The Zero Game

“No, I think that’s-” Cutting herself off, Trish quickly flipped open her three-ring binder and shuffled through the pages. “Aw, crap,” she added. “I just remembered… I got one last project…”

“Actually, me, too,” Dinah said dryly, thumbing through her own notebook but never taking her eyes off her Senate counterpart.

Trish sat up straight and stared back at Dinah. For almost twenty seconds, the two women sat there, on opposite sides of the conference table, without saying a word. Next to them, Ezra and Georgia watched them like the spectators they usually were. Samurai standoff, Matthew used to call it. Happened every time they tried to close the bill. The final grab at the goody bag.

Dinah tapped the point of her pencil against the table, readying her sword. Even with Matthew gone, the battle had to go on. That is, until someone gave up.

“My mistake…” Trish finally offered. “I was reading it wrong… That project can wait till next year.”

Ezra smiled. Dinah barely grinned. She was never one to gloat. Especially with the Senate. As she well knew, if you gloated with the Senate, they’d always bite you back.

“Glad to hear it,” Dinah replied, zipping her fanny pack and standing up from the table.

Enjoying the victory, Ezra hummed Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah under his breath. Matthew used to do the same thing when his office mate would come in and throw around her weight. Someone’s in the kitchen I knoooow...

“So that’s it?” Georgia asked. “We’re finally finished?”

“Actually, Matthew said you should’ve been finished a week ago,” Dinah clarified. “Now we’re in a mad scramble with a vote at the end of the week.”

“The bill’s on the Floor at the end of the week?” Trish asked. “Since when?”

“Since this morning, when Leadership made the announcement without asking anyone.” All three of her colleagues shook their heads, but it really wasn’t much of a surprise. During election years, the biggest race in Congress was always the one to get home. That’s how campaigns were won. That and the individual projects Members brought home for their districts: a water project in Florida, a new sewer system in Massachusetts… and even that tiny gold mine in South Dakota, Dinah thought.

“You really think we can finish Conference in a week?” Trish called out.

“I don’t see why not,” Dinah replied, lugging the rest of the paperwork to the door that connected to her office. “All you have to do now is sell it to your boss.”

Trish nodded, watching Dinah leave. “By the way,” she called out, “thanks for taking over for Matthew. I know it’s been hard with everything that’s-”

“It had to get done,” Dinah interrupted. “It’s as simple as that.”

With a slam, the door shut behind her, and Dinah crossed back into her office. She was never one for the falsities of small talk, but more important, if she’d waited any longer, she might’ve missed the person who, as she looked across the room, was waiting so patiently for her.

“All set?” Barry asked, leaning against the short filing cabinet between Matthew’s and Dinah’s desks.

“All set,” Dinah replied. “Now where do you want to go to celebrate?”

35

“YEAH… ABSOLUTELY… WE’RE from Wendell,” I say, nodding to the big guy in overalls standing outside our car window. “How’d you know?”

He motions to my button-down shirt. Under his overalls, he’s sporting a Spring Break ’94 T-shirt with neon orange letters. Doesn’t take a genius to know who’s the outsider.

“Shelley, right?” I ask, reading the name that’s written in black magic marker across the front of his banged-up construction helmet. “Janos told me to say hi.”

“Who’s Janos?” he asks, confused.

That tells me the first part. Whatever’s going on down there, these guys are just hired hands. “Sorry…” I say. “He’s another Wendell guy. I thought you two might’ve-”

“Shelley, you there?” a voice squawks through the two-way radio on his belt.

“’Scuse me,” he says, grabbing the radio. “Mileaway?” he asks.

“Where you at?” the voice shoots back.

“They got me up top the whole day,” Shelley says.

“Surface rat.”

“Mole.”

“Better than deep-level trash,” the voice shoots back.

“Amen to that,” Shelley says, shooting me a grin and inviting me in on the joke. I nod as if it’s the best mining barb I’ve heard all week, then quickly point to one of the few open parking spaces. “Listen, should we…?”

“Uh – ya… right there’s perfect,” Shelley says as the guy on his two-way continues talking. “There’s gear in the dry,” Shelley adds, motioning to the large brick building just behind the metal teepee. “And here…” He pulls a key ring of round metal tags from his pocket and undoes the latch, dropping four of the tags in my hand. Two are imprinted with the number 27; the other two have the number 15. “Don’t forget to tag in,” he explains. “One in your pocket, one on the wall.”

With a quick thanks, we’re headed for our parking spot, and he’s back on his radio.