The Romance Vote

by Ali Vali

  “Just start doing what we’re paying you for and everyone will be happy,” Garnet said when Kathleen’s smile disappeared.

  “Thanks, Chili,” Kathleen added in a nicer tone, after the punch to the gut with what she couldn’t deny seemed to have passed.

  “Don’t thank me yet. You can do that by inviting me to dinner once you’re elected. I’ve heard the cook at the governor’s mansion makes a chocolate cake that’ll make you forget politics—at least during dessert.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Chapter Two

  The elevator doors opened and Huey Pellegrin stepped out to what he liked to call his cash-cow floor. “We got it!” Beth Richards held the phone to her ear with one hand and pumped her fist into the air with the other. “We damn well got it.”

  “They sent Chili into a room full of women, and you had doubts about us getting the contract?” Paul Matherne, Chili’s assistant asked, shaking his head. “Get real, Beth. I bet she had them eating out of her hand as soon as she walked in and gave them that killer smile.”

  Huey laughed at Paul’s reasoning and, like everyone standing around him, knew how hard it was to resist Chili’s personality. It’s what got most of their contracts and why there was hardly any turnover in her department along with a line of folks waiting to come work for her.

  Next to Huey stood his daughter Samantha, both smiling at all the backslapping going on. Their hero was still at Mrs. Bergeron’s local office, but she’d taken the time to call Huey, and now her staff, so they’d know when to uncork the champagne. It was the thick of campaign season and they’d plucked the juiciest job in the state that year, along with senatorial and house seats in four neighboring states.

  Chili had done it again and her team was ready to fight the good fight, every one of them confident of success with her at the helm. Looking at the enthusiasm in each eager face, Huey was sure if Chili asked any of these people to jump off the roof, he’d see them from his window on the way down.

  “I see the jungle is going to be hopping today,” Samantha said, sweeping an errant lock of blond hair behind her ear. Paul’s comment had put a scowl on Samantha’s face, and for a moment Huey thought Sam would wind up hitting him for it. “After she gets back they aren’t going to get any work done.” Sam had stopped close to a cluster of the staff whispering the latest gossip, he guessed, and her mood only darkened further.

  “Honey, I think you’re the only one in the building who’s immune to the Alexander charm. You don’t care for Chili much, do you? The rest of these guys seem to have drunk the Kool-Aid when it comes our main attraction.”

  “Our relationship is just fine, Dad. You just have to pull back a little on the adoration of the golden child. If not, it just goes to her head.”

  He sighed and shook his head at his only child. He’d warned her about Chili’s inability to commit to any woman for more than a month, but Sam seemed to have taken it to a new level. Perhaps she was acting this way for the benefit of his peace of mind, but if she wasn’t it’d be a hard lesson if she drove Chili out the door. Even though the firm was Pellegrin and Morris, his partner Chester had passed away suddenly from a heart attack, leaving him the sole proprietor. They were as successful as ever, but he, unlike Sam, understood why. Chili was the reason the clients came, and she had enough wins to guarantee success if she started her own firm.

  Their star had been at that point for a couple of years, and if that happened, the “jungle,” as his daughter referred to it, would fall silent. He was sure they’d survive, but the loss would definitely affect their bottom line when their slew of clients followed the rainmaker. The business he’d leave Sam would only recover if another Chili walked through the door, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think that powerful a lightning bolt would strike twice in one lifetime. They didn’t call Chili the poll-vaulter for nothing.

  Before he could say anything, the stairwell door opened and out stepped Chili. How she managed the eight floors of stairs every day, a couple of times a day, was beyond him, but it kept her trim and vigorous. He smiled and felt himself relax as he slapped her on the back. The future might be bleak without the golden child, as Sam referred to her, but for now she was here and working for him. That acknowledgment alone calmed him more than any massage he could go out for.

  Their relationship had changed from just employer and employee shortly after Chili had come to work for him. She was the only other person he knew, aside from himself and his late wife, who shared their deep love of the political game. For both of them it was a passion whose fire would never go out, and Huey had come to think of her as part of his family.

  “Huey, what brings you down to the trenches?” Chili shook his hand, clearly not expecting too many accolades. It wasn’t Huey’s style, and she wasn’t the type of person who needed much praise. Her work and the results were all she needed to stroke her ego. “And you come with such a lovely sidekick.”

  Samantha rolled her eyes at the comment but remained silent.

  “I came to remind you not to be late this Saturday. I expect you on the dock by five, Chili, no excuses.” Huey turned and started for the elevator, looking back at her when the doors opened. “One last thing. Congratulations on Bergeron. Good job, kid.” He and Sam heard the cheer as they started for the tenth floor.

  “What’s Saturday?” Paul asked once they made it to Chili’s office.

  “The Pellegrin-Morris annual duck-hunting trip. There’s no better photo op for any politician, Pauly, than to be seen brandishing a firearm. Makes them look tough on crime and strong to the ever-powerful gun lobby.” With a flip of a switch the unique boards in the room rolled to fresh, clean white paper.

  Chili had always thought better with a pen in her hand, and it was time to start strategizing Kathleen’s campaign. Before long, two of the walls in her office would contain the roadmap that would lead the woman who’d just hired them to victory.

  “I try to forget that we host that, and I can’t believe you’re willing to kill some helpless ducks for a photo op.”

  “Buddy, I’m willing to kill you for a photo op,” she joked as she tossed a pile of messages in the trash. Most were from other gubernatorial campaigns looking for some election-day magic. “I don’t particularly enjoy spending my weekend in a duck blind freezing my ass off, but this event is nonnegotiable as long as I’m here working for Huey. It’s his favorite event that we sponsor, and I don’t want to disappoint him. Besides, you know how much he loves dealing with the media.”

  “Does that mean you may be giving up duck hunting after this election?”

  The view out the two walls of solid glass—the churning brown water of the Mississippi River and parts of the port—captured Chili’s attention, as it often did. She was silent for so long, Paul turned to go.

  “In this business no one would blame me for giving it up,” she said, “the duck hunting, that is. But where I come from, you dance with the one who brung you, and Huey was my dance teacher. As long as he’s leading the band, I’ll be happy to duck hunt. I’m not walking out on him.”

  “Yeah, but one day Samantha’s going to be sitting in the conductor’s chair. What then?”

  “Then we’ll be singing a different tune, but it might still be worth dancing to. You never know until the music strikes up.”

  *

  The office eventually grew quiet as the staff went home. Already the paper walls were starting to show signs of life, but at this time of day Chili liked to dedicate herself to a different type of research. She scanned the national papers and logged onto the blogs for different candidates and political-action groups to get a feel for what was bothering or exciting people.

  It was this attention to detail that gave her the edge very few in her business had, since they usually left it to the peons to troll the net, and inexperience as to what to look for led to huge advantages. That had helped build her winning track record and was also why Huey gave her free rein with all her clients. He had become
more of a supervisor when it came to running the business. The combination worked well and was why he had included her in some of the most important moments of his life.

  She took her reading glasses off and leaned back in the antique wooden desk chair, remembering one of those days. Of all the people he could’ve asked, including a large extended family, Huey had put Chili at the top of his list.

  Early December, the previous year

  “Chili, you about ready to go?” Huey was putting on his jacket, patting his chest to make sure the invitations were in the pocket.

  The office on the eighth floor was quiet, the employees having gone home early to start their Christmas shopping since this year they’d most likely be working. Their days were quieter now with no active campaigns under way, none of any consequence, but they’d recently picked up something that was more like a training exercise.

  Politics was never dormant, even without special elections. The hopefuls always had their eye on the next office and were quietly polling to see what their odds were. Then on the other side of that coin, the incumbents were making plans and hatching schemes to hang on to their shreds of power at any cost, even if it was by their fingernails.

  She walked to the elevator still wondering why Huey had offered her his second ticket to the important event he was attending that night. “Are you sure you don’t want to take your sister?”

  “You know how Sam feels about her aunt, so quit your griping and get in. You don’t have some hot date, do you?”

  “I’m not seeing anyone at the moment, so I have no other place to be.”

  “What happened to Candy?”

  She laughed as she stared at the ceiling of the slow-moving elevator. “Her name wasn’t Candy.”

  “It should’ve been. Any woman seen in public dressed like your last romantic interest should have a pole at the ready somewhere in the vicinity, and the dancer name to go with it.”

  The doors opened to an empty lobby with Huey and Chester’s picture hanging near the entrance. “I take it you didn’t approve.”

  “I call her and every single one of them you date Candy for a reason, Chili.”

  She locked up behind him and put her arm around his shoulder as she guided him to her car. “Lay it on me. I can’t wait.”

  “She’s just a little piece of fluff. You know, like a piece of candy you have to help digest a big meal. In the big scheme of things it’s the meal you remember, not the fluff you have afterward.” He pointed his finger in her face to stop her laughter. “You think it’s funny, but you can’t make it through life on fluff.”

  “What if the main course makes me fat and lazy, though? What would you do then?”

  “Retire happy knowing someone out there cared about you past the morning.”

  They talked shop as Chili drove them to the Tulane campus, where they found a parking spot near their final destination, but it couldn’t be declared a miracle. December graduations, while important, were much smaller affairs than their May counterparts.

  Samantha Pellegrin, Chili knew, had excelled in her course work and finished early so she could accept her father’s job offer. While the campaign they were about to start was small compared to most, it would be a good opportunity for her to learn from both Huey and Chili. This type of education, Huey had told her, would teach her more than Tulane could.

  Not shy, they sat on the first row and talked to the people around them as well as the ones who stopped by to congratulate Huey. Every time one of them did, Chili had to hide her amusement at his aggravation.

  “Why do people do that?” he asked.

  “Maybe they think her great accomplishments are because of genetics, and since her mother isn’t here to take credit for your daughter’s brilliance, they have to make do. We all know that’s where Sam got her brains and good looks.”

  “Have you always been this sassy?” he asked with affection. Lillie Pellegrin, from everything Chili had read about her and had heard from Huey, had been brilliant and would’ve had a legendary reputation in the business by now, but she’d lost her battle to a bad heart when Sam was four. Her loss had left Huey in turn heartbroken, and time hadn’t made him want to move on with anyone else. Aside from a few dinner dates that revolved around work, Huey’s whole world was Sam and the business.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t resist, and I could tell by how you keep patting the picture in your coat pocket that you’re thinking about her. If I had the power to grant you one wish, Huey, she’d be sitting right next to you.”

  “Lillie would’ve loved this.”

  “Until she saw who the guest speaker is tonight. From what you’ve told me about her, she might have been tempted to heckle him during his speech. Hell, I might do that in her honor.”

  “Yeah, Senator Billy Fudge was one of our first clients, actually.”

  “You represented that pompous ass?” Chili turned in her seat with the same sense of shock that would have registered if he’d suddenly told her they were representing David Duke for Grand Wizard of the Klan.

  “I realize one of the things you pride yourself on is your gut when it comes to people and what they hold in their heart.” He stopped to shake hands with another well-wisher. “I had a pretty good track record on that myself until Billy.”

  “He must’ve put up a hell of a show if he fooled you that badly.”

  “Not only me but Lillie as well. He ran, got himself elected, and once he won, he changed his party affiliation two weeks after he got to Washington.” Huey shook his head in apparent disgust. “It went downhill from there. His record on the environment and women’s rights made me want to start a recall petition on the ass, but damn if he doesn’t squeak out a win election after election. Makes you wonder about the intelligence of the voters in this state.”

  They both faced the stage as the proceedings started. The deans and the president of the university came out and took their seats on the stage as the graduates filed in from the back. There was the usual pomp and circumstance, and after Senator Fudge gave the commencement speech, the valedictorian got up and gave another talk.

  After all the things Huey had done to change the face of politics, Chili could tell from the way his chest puffed up that his proudest moment was when Samantha rose and walked to the podium. Samantha Pellegrin wasn’t only beautiful, but she was also one of the brightest people Chili had ever met, and having her around the office starting Monday was going to be interesting.

  “In closing,” Sam said five minutes later, “my class and I would like to offer our thanks to the professors who so generously gave of themselves. Our time here will leave us with fond memories and a good foundation to build on. As my father loves to say, the future belongs to those who fight for it. If you want it to reflect what you want, stand up and be heard. History isn’t made by the silent. Thank you all.”

  As soon as the graduates collected their caps off the ground, Sam came over and fell into Huey’s arms. “Your mother would’ve loved to have seen you tonight, baby.” He wiped his eyes and pulled her tighter. “You did great.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.” Sam kissed Huey’s cheek and wiped away his tears. “Thanks for coming, Chili,” Sam said when Huey let her go.

  “Congratulations.” Chili gave her not-as-vigorous a hug as Huey, then held out a small box she’d fished out of her jacket pocket. “I hope you don’t mind, but I picked up something to help you remember the day.”

  Sam ripped the box open like a woman who loved getting gifts and then just stood still when she opened it. “Your dad told me that your grandparents gave your mom a string of pearls the day she graduated, and it was her favorite piece of jewelry since she was wearing it the day she met this guy,” Chili said, pointing to Huey. “I’m sure if she’d been here today, she would’ve continued that tradition.”

  “This is beautiful.” Sam kissed her on the cheek and Chili’s ears got hot, which made Huey’s eyebrows go up, but he didn’t say anything. “Could you help me?” Sam asked as
she pulled the strand out and handed it to Chili.

  “I’m glad I guessed right.” With a quiet click Chili fastened the clasp and let the strand rest around Sam’s neck. Her gift really stood out against the black of the graduation gown. “The pearls look great on you.”

  Huey thrust a camera at Chili, and the picture of them smiling ended up on his desk.

  *

  The memory was one of Chili’s favorite. She’d be forever grateful that he’d included her in something so special. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have a family she loved dearly, but her parents didn’t share the same love for politics as she and Huey did. They had a passion for the game that not only ran deep, but it ran in the same vein. Chili hated to think where they’d be if Huey was her complete opposite when it came to the voting booth.

  She clicked on the webpage of Steven Fajil, Kathleen’s opponent, and laughed at the sperm picture that popped up, or at least that’s what she liked to call it. He was in his early forties, had a beautiful wife, and there on her lap sat the proof that his swimmers worked: a boy who appeared to be around three and his baby sister, who Chili remembered reading had been born just four months prior. It made a touching scene and would work well out on the campaign trail as Steven tried to pound Kathleen into the pavement with his message. That their current and very popular governor loved this guy and would be singing his praises at every campaign stop wouldn’t hurt once they started in earnest.

  Before she could scroll down to see if his bullet points of information had changed any, her phone rang.

  “Alexander.”

  “Still at the office?”

  While the question was asked with what Chili guessed was annoyance, all she did was prop her feet on her desk. “Yes. I’m still at the office because I’m still working.”

  “Of course you’re still working. For the all-knowing Alexander to quit before midnight would be a sin. If you decide to knock off early though, I’ll make it worth your while.”