Dropping Stones / Kingmaker SET

by Paul Cwalina

  I sent Greg a text rather than calling because it was getting late. I wanted to find out if they were seeing the same thing. Greg called immediately.

  “What’s up?” Greg asked.

  “Hey. I’m just going through these numbers here. Why is he having such a hard time with women? I mean, he’s killing it in the 18-25, but his numbers drop at every subsequent age group,” I said.

  “I know. We’re not sure what’s going on. The exit polling out of Iowa and New Hampshire is confirming it. We did a quick focus group a couple of days ago, but it didn’t yield anything concrete. The women wouldn’t give us anything useful. It was all very vague. We got ‘just a feeling’ or ‘I just don’t like him.’ Really strange.”

  “Yes it is,” I confirmed. “Do you mind if I try something with the speech?”

  “Like what?”

  “Let me see what I can work into the speech to see if we can get a reaction. Is it being videotaped?”

  Greg thought for a moment and said, “I’m pretty sure it is. Why?”

  “Just a hunch. Make sure that it gets recorded for possible use in a television commercial or web video, OK?”

  “Will do,” he said, sounding like he was ready to hang up.

  “By the way, it sounds like you’re out somewhere.”

  “Yeah, I’m at headquarters.”

  “This late?”

  “I don’t sleep anymore, man. You know how this goes,” he said with a weary voice.

  “How’s Heather holding up through all of it?”

  “She’s okay. She keeps a picture of me on the kitchen table to remind her what I look like.”

  I laughed a bit. “She’s a good woman. Hang onto her.” After I said that, I immediately thought of Chelsea and the guilt nearly disengaged me from the conversation completely.

  Greg started to say something, probably a polite, reflexive inquiry into my relationship, but he caught himself, knowing that there was nobody and it would be a source of pain for me. “I will,” he finally said.

  “Okay, I should have the speech to you tonight, but definitely by noon tomorrow. I’m going to slip something in,” I said and again asked to confirm it would be taped. Then I continued, “Now, Nevada and South Carolina are next. I’m assuming that you aren’t worried about Nevada, correct?”

  “If he can’t win his home state, I’ll be looking for a new job the next day,” Greg said, only somewhat jokingly. “No. No worries about Nevada.”

  “All right. I’m going to focus on South Carolina. Look for an email in about an hour or so.”

  I hung up with Greg and immediately got online and began reading every newspaper in South Carolina. I was looking for some insight and perhaps a lead I could follow. It didn’t take long. Every newspaper had on its front page a mention of an abortion bill making its way through the state legislature. At the core of the bill was a restriction on abortions after twenty weeks of pregnancy. It was obvious from the stories that it was becoming a hot-button issue and would certainly be playing a big role in the election there. From the letters to the editors, tempers were elevated and the debate was fierce. While intense and emotionally-charged, the letters had nothing really new to offer. The arguments were the same as they had always been.

  I scoured the papers for more, but found nothing as consistent as the abortion bill. I slipped in just three or four lines right after the mention of the union and wrote them in a way that would make Roman look like he was improvising and going off-script for added effect. I added a throwaway line about equal pay for women, just enough to get attention but not too much to distract from the main theme of the speech.

  After reviewing and editing the speech, I saved it and emailed it to Greg. Around 1:00am, I received a one-word text from Greg: ‘Brilliant’.

  I was alive again. A smile stretched across my face and my pulse quickened. My fatigue from the long day and night faded. I should have collapsed into bed, but I went to work on another speech, instead, hoping to turn the confidence into a force great enough to will myself onto the campaign staff.

  Chapter Three

  Jennifer had called the previous day, as promised, and invited me to her place for dinner. I knew from our conversation at the restaurant that she didn’t exactly hold me in high regard, so I wanted to make a good impression. I woke up early and showered. Then I looked in the mirror and decided to shave off my beard. I was clean-cut and shaven when we met, so maybe this would help. Rather than do it myself, though, I planned to go to one of the last great old-fashioned barbershops in town to get my first-ever straight-edge, hot towel shave.

  I made Santini & Sons my first stop and put my face, neck and life into the hands of eighty-five- year-old Mario Santini. When I told him that it would be first straight-edge shaving experience he had a gleam in his eye. There are so few requests for the service,anymore, and to have the opportunity to deliver someone’s first must have appealed to him a great deal.

  “Oh, mayor, thank you for the honor!” he said in his still somewhat broken English. “I will do my very best for you, sir!”

  “Mr. Santini, you’ll have to stop calling me mayor,” I said, somewhat less sadly than I had in the recent weeks. I was getting used to it, I suppose.

  “You will always be my mayor, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mario. That’s very kind of you to say.”

  “Now, let’s take a look at this beard. Why are you shaving it today?”

  “Trying to impress a woman.”

  “Ahhh...very good start, sir. Yes, very good. Nothing better than a good shave for that.

  Let’s fix your hair, first, though,” he said.

  Excuse me?

  “Something wrong with my hair, Mario?”

  “No, no, sir. But you want to impress this woman, no? So, let’s clean it up a bit. That’s all.”

  “Whatever you say, Mario. So, you know something about impressing the ladies?” I said jokingly.

  He smiled. “I only ever wanted to impress one...my Angela. And today, we are married sixty-five years!”

  “Congratulations, Mario. Sixty-five years. That’s amazing. What’s your secret?”

  Mario laughed. “Secrets. Everybody wants to know secrets. No secrets, sir,” he said. Then he poked his finger into my chest. “You give this woman all of your heart—all of it! You make no room for anybody to come between you. She is priority number one. Always. That’s the only secret I know.”

  “I will keep that in mind, Mr. Santini. Thank you for letting me in on that secret.”

  “You are most welcome. You always remember that and you will be married sixty-five years, too.”

  “Still in love with Angela?”

  “Oh, yes. She is the apple of my eye. Always will be.”

  “And I suppose she feels the same way about you, huh?”

  “Eh...she hates my guts. She is always mad that I want to keep cutting hair. She always wants me to retire.”

  “That means she loves you, Mario. She wants to be with you.”

  “Come to my house. Then tell me that,” he said and we both laughed. “You know, I almost didn’t come to work today. I thought about staying home, but something told me to come here today. Now, I know why. In all my years of cutting hair in this city, this was the first time I got to do it for the mayor. This was the best anniversary gift I can think of for me. Thank you for the honor, mayor.”

  “The honor is mine, Mr. Santini.”

  We spent the remainder of the time talking about the city, local politics, and how everything is changing...for the worse, we agreed.

  I left Santini’s, rubbing my face and enjoying the feeling of the best shave of my life. I finally understood the attraction of that experience from a better, long-gone time. As I walked to my motorcycle, it occurred to me that such a means of transportation is probably not what Jennifer is looking for in a father for her child, so I made my next stop a used car lot owned by one of my campaign supporters.

  I didn’t waste much
time, there. We made a quick deal on a five-year old Nissan and I was able to write him a check for it. He and one of his salesmen delivered it to my house while I continued with my day.

  Guests are usually expected to bring something to dinner, I thought. I decided to get a good bottle of wine. I drove about forty miles out into the country to my favorite wine shop and spent a great deal of time looking over the selections. I wanted to impress her. Jennifer was definitely different than Chelsea. I could buy a $9 box of wine and Chelsea would have enjoyed it without a word. Sarah, my former fiance’, would have sent me back to the store. Jennifer, though, I wasn’t sure what she would do in such a circumstance.

  I remembered that she was drinking white zinfandel that night we met, but there was no way I could possibly drink that. Then I stopped to think about that for a moment. I remember what she was drinking that night but I couldn’t remember her name? Wow. Was I really that shallow?

  I pulled out my smartphone and started Googling wines. I wanted one we could both enjoy and I wanted it to be a good year for that wine. I finally decided on a vintage New Zealand pinot noir. It was $60 for the bottle which was more than I wanted to spend, but I really wanted to impress her and perhaps make up for how I’d treated her up to that point.

  With the shave, the new car, and the bottle of wine, I was feeling good, or at least better about myself. I was still nervous about seeing Jennifer that evening, but I felt confident that I was getting it together.

  I spent the rest of the day getting my house cleaned up and in order, paying some bills, and getting a good power nap. It was about an hour before I left for Jennifer’s that I received a text from Greg.

  ‘The speech was a hit with all the right people internally. Give us a couple days.’

  I was flying. It was exactly what I wanted and needed to hear. I was on my way back. I could feel it.

  I pulled the car into the development where Jennifer lived. I vaguely remembered it from the night we came back to her place, but it was midnight then and very little was visible. The homes weren’t mansions, but they were all very nice and relatively new. My GPS guided me directly to her door.

  I rang the doorbell and held the bottle of wine behind my back while I waited. She opened the door and gave me a friendly ‘Hi’...much friendlier than our encounter at the coffeehouse two days prior.

  “Hi,” I said and stepped inside. I bent down and leaned in to kiss her on her cheek.

  She pulled away and stopped me with a hand to my chest. “Whoa, Casanova. We might as well get this out of the way right now. There will be no physical contact between us at all. No kissing, no handholding, no hugging...I think we’ve had enough of that for the time being. Got it?”

  I was taken aback and felt embarrassed, like I had violated her somehow. “Oh...okay...I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. I just want us to have an understanding. I just think we need to actually get to know one another without that kind of stuff getting in the way, okay?”

  “Okay. I understand,” I said and then immediately pulled the wine out from behind my back, hoping it would redeem me and make up for whatever it is that I did. “I brought this for dinner.” I then went on for a minute about the wine and why I thought it would be the perfect choice for both of us. I thought she might pick up on how it showed a willingness to compromise.

  “Oh,” she said. “Um...that was very thoughtful, but I’m pregnant. I can’t have alcohol. It would hurt the baby.”

  Unbelievable. I didn’t even think of that. Strike one.

  She turned and started walking from the foyer toward the dining room. “This way,” she said. I followed her and looked at the furniture and decor. I noticed a small sculpture of a horse as well as two small paintings of horses, too, along the way. Note: she has a thing for horses. Put that in the brownie points bank.

  “You shaved your beard,” she said.

  “Yes. I thought I’d clean up for you. Women like a clean-shaven guy, right?” I said confidently.

  “Actually, I kind of liked the beard,” she said.

  Well, that figures. Strike two.

  We got to the dining room and she told me to have a seat and that she would have the appetizer out in a minute. Appetizer? Who makes an appetizer? I looked around the room and noticed another paining of horses on the wall closest to the table. It was unlike the playful, charming paintings in the other room, though. In this painting there were four horses, each a different color. The point of view for the painter was from the ground looking up at the horses. They looked muscular and menacing. These weren’t the gentle creatures waiting to be given sugar and carrots. These horses exuded power and they were intimidating. It looked as though they were going to burst through the painting and trample whatever was in their path. Me, for instance.

  On the table was a seven-prong candelabra, each with a lit candle. The settings were coordinated with cloth napkins rolled into holders and what looked to be crystal water goblets. She had obviously put a lot of thought into this dinner.

  She came back into the room with a plate of stuffed mushrooms. I stood up and she looked at me surprised and smiled. She placed them onto the table and said, “I hope you like these.” I made my way around the table and pulled out her chair. Again she looked at me with surprise and said, “I was married to Jeff for seven years and not once did he stand or pull out a chair for me. Thank you.” As I made my way back to my chair, she continued “I want to apologize. I didn’t even ask you about any dietary restrictions or what you liked to eat. That was inconsiderate of me. I’m sorry,” she said, still somewhat businesslike.

  “I love stuffed mushrooms and I’m sure I will enjoy whatever you made for dinner,” I said. Then I crossed my fingers and said, “Me and food are like this.” She smiled a cautious smile. I jumped at the chance to compliment her. “You look beautiful,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said genuinely. “But, please tell me that fifty pounds and a dozen stretch marks from now. That’s when I’m going to need to hear it. Not now.”

  “I promise,” I said, fairly disingenuously.

  “I do appreciate the compliment, but right now it’s coming from your crotch. When it comes from your heart, then tell me.”

  She doesn’t exactly mince words, does she?

  I didn’t respond to that, opting instead to move on. “So, what do you do for a living?”

  “Well, like I told you that night at the bar, I’m a vice president at Omega Bank & Trust,” she said, slightly annoyed that I had forgotten. Actually, I would have no idea if she had even told me or not.

  “Sorry. I don’t remember that.”

  “Yeah, well, you spent most of that night talking to my cleavage,”

  A small, sly smile crept into my face. “Sorry.”

  “Please don’t smile at that. How do you think that made me feel?” she asked, annoyed at what she saw as my insensitivity.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s insulting to a woman. You make her feel that what she is saying is meaningless; that it has no merit,” she lectured.

  “Well, excuse me, but it didn’t seem like your goal was to have a deep philosophical conversation that night,” I softly shot back, fearing a return salvo.

  She wasn’t expecting me to respond that way. She just gave me a look. She was busted. “Yeah, well, that was a one-time thing. I don’t know what came over me. I’m not proud of that. Besides, that’s not the point. If a woman was trying to have a meaningful conversation with you, your leering would have prevented it.”