Diplomat

          There ain't no such thing as a happy diplomat.

          I may not be what's known nowadays as an educated man (my schooling took an end back in '88 after I finished high school), but it don't take a college degree to see a universal truth. And that, my friend, is a truth if I ever did see one. In all my years in Twinbrooke, I haven't once come across a diplomat that looked anywhere close to happy. Oh sure, they laugh and grin like the rest of us, but it just ain't right. No substance behind it, all hollow-like, if you get my drift. And it's not like there's a lack of them kinds of men here, either. Twinbrooke is a suburb of D.C, though as grand or as close as many others. Twinbrooke's still seen as one of the golden destinations for those D.C working families, though, and D.C houses the biggest groups of diplomats I ever did know.

          Now, Twinbrooke's one of those towns where everyone knows everybody. We got the local book club, where the women gather round to swap the local news, and we got the bars, where the men meet to grunt or ramble, depending on how much they've drunken. Though, even without the gossip, you're bound to come across everyone at one point or another. There's only one school, and if you don't have kids, you'll bump into the locals at the grocery store, or the post office, or the general store. Especially the latter, because everyone stops in the general store at least once. I just about know every person in this good old town of ours, since I’m the one running that shop.

          You see, back when I was a kid, you had two choices after you graduated, unless you were enlisting. And that's if you even graduated, because we got a share of dropouts. Anyway, either you got shipped off to some university or you went to work. Most chose the former, and I don't blame them. I had this friend once, a real academic guy. Straight A grades and a hell of a class officer. He did sports too - soccer or lacrosse or something like that. Whatever it was, it got the guy a scholarship. Last I heard, he's heading some major corporation in some city on the east coast. On the other hand, though, I also know guys who invested their whole future in college and ended up right back here doing the same work they'd have been doing anyway. My parents didn't have the cash for to send me to college, and I didn't have the grades for a scholarship, so I went straight to work in Pop's store. Now, it may have left me living with less grandeur than my good executive friend or these D.C diplomats, but I got a good life here that I wouldn't give up for nothing. And whenever I feel envious, I just have to look at one of them diplomats to set me straight.

          It ain't hard to tell who the diplomats are around these parts. Sure, they may dress about the same as any other of our good citizens, though maybe a little fancier, and there are plenty of other D.C commuters in Twinbrooke, but it's easy to pick out who they are. It's the eyes, you see. They're smooth and blank, like staring into a mirror. A mirror without any reflection, that is. Though, I reckon plenty of people see just that, a reflection; how else do you suppose those diplomats do their job so well? It's like all the compromise they got to do robs them of something. Now, I'm not what you'd call a religious man, and I could be wrong about this, but that missing thing seems to be what my good Catholic Ma would call soul. I ain't saying they're evil or nothing, just that there's something gone about them. Missing, like. And let me tell you, it's just wrong. A man isn't meant to mold himself to another man's wants. That there's a woman's job, but even they still manage to keep enough of themselves as to keep from being completely blank. I should know; my wife might change her personality around the other town women, but when it's just the two of us, she is who she is; There ain't no subservience.

          Maybe it's because I let her be whoever she is around me, but my own wife has a firm hold on herself. She's a strong girl. Takes one to have a life with a store owner like me, and she's been that way since I married her the year after I started working. She was in the class just a year under mine, and we met at one of the school dances. The dances were mostly boring, but there ain't much to do in a town like this. Anyway, a couple years later we're married. Couple more after that and she's expecting. Now I've got myself a sixteen year old son, and let me tell you this, he is one complete dope. Hangs around and follows his friends like their some kinda gods. No soul, no mind, no taste, no nothing but what the other kids tell him he should have. Same for those kids too, who are told by other kids who to be. God only knows where it all starts, but I think it somehow leads back to this here capitalistic system our good old country runs on. Wherever it starts, I've seen where it leads, and it's no good, and it's empty.

          I got another universal truth for you: All teenagers are diplomats.

          Luckily, most of them grow out of it. Lord knows I did. At some point, you just gotta man up. For me, that point came when I realized I had to support my own family and my store, and nothing nobody said made a bit of difference in the matter. And ever since, I've worked every day at my store, pulling in the cash to provide for my family. And because of it, I do just fine at my job. Better than the educated men usually expect a small town store like mine to do, anyway.

          Now, I may have skipped university, but I've learned something valuable from my time at this store. You see, the average people don't understand the business theory stuff they teach at the higher-up schools. You can apply all the economic ideas you want, but it won't make a dime of difference. I got three things to make this shop work: Reliable prices, workers, and tradition. Twinbrooke's been using this here store for years, and people, they don't change. In a small suburb like this, shopping elsewhere would be like treason. That's why this little shop has stayed afloat all these years. Though, hard work factors in, too. I should know, as I oversee the shop personally every day. Can't trust them teenagers to get it right, you know, and that's mostly who else works here. So I like to manage it all myself. Helps me get that connection with the locals, too, who stop by for their food and conversation. And being there every day, that's how I got to meet Annabel Lee, one of the mighty strangest women I ever did meet.

          It was a weekday maybe a year back when it happened, though I can't remember exactly when. Must've been winter, though, maybe late fall, because we'd gotten the Christmas stuff in already. We usually put the stuff out early November, for all those early shoppers, and we got a nice selection of decorations and trinkets. Nothing too fancy, but none of the local folk seem to mind. It had been a slow week, though, I remember that. Ain't nothing like a slow week when you're in business. It's likely only temporary, because it happens often enough, but there's still that slow and sure worry setting in that maybe this time, it'll be for good. I usually go in and stay longer on days like that, to take care of the problem myself.

          I'd let off the day cashier, some teenager sopped in grease and with an attitude to match. I don't remember the kids name; they're all about the same anyhow, so it's not like there's a point in memorizing it. He ended up quitting about a month later, and I'd found another one just like him within the week. That day, though, I'd given him leave so I could see over the place myself. I like doing that every once and a while, even when business is going well, so the kid took it as normal. I stayed at the register about an hour, and I do recall a couple customers going in and out, but there wasn't nothing new until that hour in, when some woman I didn't recognize walked on in.

          Now, I'm bound to take notice of this woman, if just because I didn't know who she was. Like I said, I know everyone in Twinbrooke, and I still got a steel trap memory, so this woman must've been new. But even without the lack of recognition, this girl was noticeable. She had a body that caught a man's eye; curvy like, but soft. I do like myself a woman with a little softness to her. But it was her face that really did it. Real bright eyes, colored like the pine trees this time of year already brought, framed by waves of brown hair. Came off as looking young to me, maybe mid twenties. Now, I'm a married man, and I believe a man's not a man if he can't keep a commitment, but I did appreciate this new woman's looks. I figured her husband must too, by the look of that ring on her finger. I hadn't seen any new men in town, though, and they're usually the first to visit my general store. I figured I should make a point of introducing myself. I've learned people visit more often if I get to be on good terms with them.

          As it turned out, I wasn't the one to take the initiative to talk. Instead of wandering around and eyeing up the products as I'd expected, the woman walked right on up the counter. She put her one down on the table, extended the other one out towards me, and flashed me this big old smile.

          "So you own this store, right? I'm new in town and the folks 'round here told me I should stop on by. The name's Annabel. Annabel Lee." She said. Her voice dripped like syrup and had that same tooth-ache inducing sweetness.

          I gripped her hand and gave it a good shake. "Rod Jackson, at your service. And you heard right. Welcome to the Twinbrooke General Store."

          After our handshake ended, she glanced around the store. There's a good stock here, and I make sure to keep it looking clean. The cashier kid ends up a janitor just about every night, and I can afford the occasional decoration to make the place nice. Whatever this Annabel girl saw, she seemed to approve, because her smile returned when she looked on back to me.

          "I'm just picking up some items for the house. We just moved in last week, you know. Still don't have everything together." She said, with a soft laugh.

          "Actually, I didn't know. Nobody gave me any word about a new couple in town. But feel free to pick up whatever you need. We got most of the necessities here." I said.

          "Well, we have most of what we need around home. I'm just picking up a thing here or there. And to be honest, I just kind of wanted to check out the place, since I'll probably be here often." She said.

          I nodded. Most people did end up around the shop plenty. There wasn't much real competition around Twinbrooke. "Do what you please." I said. "And if you don't mind my asking, what do you and your husband do? For a living, I mean."

          "Well, I'm starting as an administrator down at the Twinbrooke Elementary School in about a week, and my husband, well, he's a politician down in D.C." She said.

          I'd begun sorting out some of the countertop merchandise, but at that, I stopped and lifted an eyebrow. "Husband's a diplomat?"

          "What? No. No, he's a congressman." She said.

          "Isn't that what I said?"

          She furrowed her brow and tilted her head. "What?"

          I could see she wasn't getting the point, so I just shook my head. "Forget it."

          If you've seen as many diplomat wives as I have, then you'll understand my surprise at her answer. She certainly didn't look like any political wife I ever saw. It's not that most of the women are unattractive; I've seen some better looking even than this girl. It's that most of those women have a certain hardness to them. No matter how smooth their skin is, you can always see the lines worn into their faces. They're sturdy, I guess I'd say. And I don't see too many happy ones neither, like they somehow caught their husbands' disease. So you see, this girl seemed to me unlike the other diplomat wives I'd ever seen.

          Probably because she was so young. Give it a few years and I reckoned she'd be like the others, but I'd see that if the time came.

          "So will your husband be coming around anytime? I like to meet the new folks around here." I said. "So you should go on and send him by next time."

          She appeared to forget about the previous comment, as that visible confusion vanished. "Oh, he's busy. Goes down to D.C just about every day for work. Just the schedule of a politician, I suppose." She said, with a tone of voice like she was reading a report. I guess it just comes to be matter-of-fact when you live that kind of life.

          "Yeah, yeah, I get it. Politicians, for all that time they spend working you'd think they'd get something done." I said, barely thinking about it. She didn't look like the kind of woman who'd get offended by that, but you never do know.

          To my surprise, she laughed at the comment. "I know what you mean. He's good at what he does, and what he does is politics, but that doesn't mean anything ever gets accomplished." She said.

          I couldn't help it; I had to smile at that. "It ain't every day I hear a woman say that kind of thing about her own husband."

          Annabel shook her head. "No, no, he's a good guy, a good husband. But that doesn't make him any less of a politician." She said. "Not like it's his job to get stuff done, anyway. Not anymore, these days."

          I nodded, since it made plenty sense, and began to go back to sorting out the merchandise."Seems like the case. You seem like you got a good head on your shoulders, anyway, so he's okay in my book."

          She smiled, and I noticed how her eyes crinkled with the curve of her lips. "Even a diplomat deserves a good woman, doesn't he?" She asked.

          I looked down and shrugged. "Yeah, guess so."

          We parted ways there. She picked up a few items from the store, though I can't remember what. Food and some hygiene related goods, I think. It wasn't until after she left that I realized she'd referred to her husband as a diplomat. I had a good chuckle at that; guess she was sharper than I'd thought.

          I find myself thinking about Annabel's words a lot for some reason. Guess it's because before she'd come around, I'd always had it in my mind that them diplomats just completely lost themselves. But that can't be true, because they've got their families. They all had their own Annabels at one point or another. I don't know, maybe the woman becomes kind of a keeper of their man's soul. Or maybe that soul is just hidden. Heck, maybe women just have some ability to see what a man can't. I don't know what the reason is, just that I doubt I ever will.

          I did meet Annabel's husband after a time, and he's every bit as expected. Tall, well-groomed, with eyes like mirrors. I see how he got elected; If a man ain't careful, he really will begin to see himself in those shiny eyes. I've caught on to that trick though, you see, so I know it's untrue, that the reflection is just his blankness. He's not a bad guy, though. None of them are, really. Just empty. Not a happy man, either, but like I said: There ain't no such thing as a happy diplomat.

          As for Annabel, well, she's still a pretty thing, but I see the signs a’ coming. Her eyes don't crinkle the way they used to, and each day that sweetness gets more and more forced. There are lines, too. Invisible, weary lines plaguing that young face of hers. We don't talk much no more, but when we do, there's a sigh underneath that sing-song voice.

          Within a few years, I reckon she'll be tired and hardened, just like the others.

          And that, I suppose, is just the way it goes.