The Redemption of Clarissa Saunders
By: Jess

Clarissa is drinking watery coffee at a diner, about to start in on her beef stew, wondering whether her old friend Sadie in Chicago meant it when she said Clarissa could visit anytime, when she has the conversation that turns her around.

"Ain't that a shame?"

Clarissa puts down her cup of coffee. "Isn't what a shame?"

"That." The woman behind the counter tilts her head toward the radio. Clarissa hears it now: a man talking in far-too-cheerful tones about corruption of the Senate in general and of one individual in particular, who stormed out of a committee meeting, refusing to even defend himself against charges. As good as an admission of guilt.

"Who are they talking about?"

"Where'd you just get in from, honey? Mars? Jefferson Smith, of course." She spits out the name like it tastes bad.

"Of course," Clarissa says. She doesn't finish her dinner.

~~

Clarissa's last memory of him is blurry around the edges, but the one thing that sticks is the expression on his face: confusion mixed with concern, as he stood there stupidly in the office, watching her pack up her things to go. She thinks of that while she drives back to Washington; that, and the way it felt when he shook her hand, taking hers in both of his, warmly, looking her in the eye. Looking at her like she was someone important, holding her hand like it was something special.

~~

Sam Foley was a great friend of the common man. Or so the story went: Clarissa believed it, which was why she signed on, turning down a better-paying job in New York. It was also why she stayed, turning down a marriage proposal two years later.

"There's more to life than this job, Clarissa," Joe had said

"It's not just a job, Joe," she'd said in return. She'd believed it.

Joe moved to Philadelphia and married a brunette named Joan who had just delivered twins when Clarissa finally put the pieces together. She didn't say it out loud for another six months, as if by staying quiet she could forget, or make things different.

After a day that involved putting four calls through from Jim Taylor, she met Diz for a drink. All that time waiting, and in the end it wasn't that hard to say.

"He's crooked, Diz."

"Who is?" Diz was foggy-headed already and it was only eight.

"Senator Foley."

"As a dog's hind leg. Never be able prove it, though."

"No."

She could feel Diz looking at her; when she looked up at him, away from her drink, his eyes were clearer. "Don't tell me you didn't know."

"I knew. I didn't at first, and I didn't want to after I found out, but I knew. Now that I've said it out loud, I suppose I have to leave."

"Leave?" Diz looked appalled. "Why?"

"Well, isn't it the moral thing to do?"

"As if there's a moral thing to do in this town." Diz shook his head. "Think you can find another job, times being what they are?"

"That's true." Clarissa's sister had been out of work eight months.

"Stick around, Saunders. You keep the place interesting. Class up the joint." He laid one hand flat on the bar between them. "We'd miss you."

"Thanks, Diz." She reached over and put her hand over his, felt it jump under her touch. "You're a good egg."

Diz smiled at her, and she smiled back, or tried to. It didn't feel right on her face. Nothing felt right on her; not even the new suits she bought herself when she got a raise, or the piano she got after that, which she tried to play every day in her apartment. The inside of her felt caved-in, hollow, as if the important parts of her had been taken out. She did a pretty good job of ignoring it, most of the time, until she recognizes it outside the Lincoln Memorial in the person of Jefferson Smith, his head in his hands.

"I figured I'd find you here," she says. "When you weren't anyplace else."

~~

"And that's it?"

"That's it?" Clarissa looks at fine young Senator Smith, sitting next to her on the sofa, an empty glass in his hand. "Senator, either I didn't explain this thing right, or I shouldn't have given you that second drink."

He looks up and over at her. His eyes are clear, bright with enthusiasm, not alcohol. "No, no, I'm fine. And I know what I'm in for, I just meant – is there anything more I should know?"

"Anything more you should know?" She doesn't laugh, but can't hold back a smile, even though she feels a little sick under it all. "There's a lot more, but we've got one night, not five years. What's more important now is that you get some sleep. You might be on you feet talking for a long while, Senator."

He puts his glass down, gently. "I'm good at that, at least. Usually I've got nature in front of me and a pack of boys at my back, but I suppose the Senate chambers will do."

"They'll have to. And you'll have your boys, though they won't be wearing hiking boots or standing in plain sight. They'll be wearing jackets and spit-shined shoes, being omnipresent but inconspicuous."

He nods, and his voice is quiet when he says, "The pages."

"The pages." Clarissa still has a handful of the pins he handed out in the Senate; he gave them to her to hand out if any young boys stopped by, something she thought silly until the first few showed up and she got to put pins on lapels. "They love you, Jeff."

"They did. Not anymore." Now that the glass is out of his hands, he's interlaced his fingers, folding and unfolding them while he thinks. That's something she admired about him from the start; the way he held a pen or a pipe, gestured while he talked. Long, elegant fingers.

Clarissa leans forward, folds her arms across her chest, and focuses on the task at hand. First: look forward, not back, literally and figuratively. "They will again. A senator who treats non-constituents as human beings is a rare thing, indeed."

She hears something like a laugh. "I would have disagreed with you about that before, but now –"

"But now?"

"But now." He leaves it at that. His voice sounds different when he speaks up again. "You called me Jeff. Just now, and before, too."

She stands up, feels something alarmingly like a blush start in her cheeks. "I –"

"No, no, it's fine," he says, and stands up, too, stepping forward so that she can't avoid looking at him without seeming rude. She does; his hair is falling into his eyes, and he's smiling at her. She feels strange, like she's got too much air in her chest or not enough. She wants him to take her hand.

"I'm glad," he finally says. "It's only right, since I've been calling you Clarissa."

"You have." She can't think of anything better to say.

"Unless-"

"No, no, it's fine," she says. "It's nice. A nice change of pace. You kind of get to forget what your first name sounds like when it's used so rarely."

"Hm." He's still smiling. "What made you come back?"

"Today?"

"Today," he says, as if it's obvious. "Have you left before?"

"Almost, once or twice."

"Why?"

She shrugs. "Got sick of it all."

"What made you come back?"

"Then?" He nods. "I needed a job. This one pays pretty well."

"Ah," he says. "And now?"

"Now? Now, I suppose you could say I remembered why I took the job in the first place. You, Jefferson Smith, are going to be my redemption."

"Am I, now?"

"Yes, you are," she says. "But in order to do a decent job of it, you're going to need-"

"Some sleep, right, right."

"That's right. Big day tomorrow." Clarissa feels like she should do something, go somewhere, but she kind of likes where she's standing, with him so close she can smell his cologne, see the different-colored thread on one of his suit coat's buttons.

~~

He spends the night on her sofa, because it doesn't make sense to go back to his apartment when all his things are in the suitcases he'd left in her doorway. The next time he sleeps, he doesn't wake up for a day, and when he does, it's in a hospital room, with her sitting in the wooden chair next to his bed.

It takes a while for him to get his bearings; when he does, he's looking at her. She's about to tell him what's happened, that they won, that it worked, when he interrupts her, says, his voice still a hoarse whisper, "I got your note."

"I saw," she says. She'd been expecting him to ask about the Senate, the news; she doesn't know how to answer him. She shifts in her chair, takes one of his hands in hers. "Jeff, you shouldn't talk, and -"

"It's the same for me. I mean, I love you. I do."

Clarissa knew that he really shouldn't talk. "You do?"

"I do," he says, and lifts his head a little bit; she leans forward, puts her free hand on his cheek. She kisses him. She pulls back before she wants to, watches him open his eyes again, watches the smile spread across his face.

"Jeff," she says. She doesn't feel hollow anymore; she feels so filled-up that it's hard to get any more words out, but she does. "We won."

~end~

Feedback is always appreciated!.
Take me back.