Dropping Stones / Kingmaker SET

by Paul Cwalina

  Greg and the campaign had a Lincoln Town Car pick me up at the airport. I was excited to be in this town and made quick friends with the driver. I asked him to take the long way to the hotel and take me past all of the major sights. We crossed the Potomac with the Jefferson Memorial on our left and a golf course to our right. Then we crossed the Washington Channel passed the empty piers and rolled into Washington DC, the center of power on planet earth.

  The first major building we passed was the headquarters of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I tapped the arm of the driver and said with complete confidence, “That’s where I’ll be working after the election.”

  He turned to look and said, “Oh, that’s nice.”

  He couldn’t care less. He had no idea what I was talking about, but I couldn’t care less that he didn’t. With my success as a city mayor, HUD was the ideal place for me. It was practically a given that I would be working there. I studied the building as we passed and turned my head to continue to look at it until it was out of sight. NASA came up quickly on our left and the department of Health and Human Services on my right. Once past that, the Capitol Building loomed in the distance, also to the left. We exited 695 and made our way to 2nd Street, turning left toward the Capitol. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it as we drove closer. Not until the United States Supreme Court came into view did I avert my eyes from the Capitol to take in the awesome presence of the Supreme Court building and absorb the unmitigated power of the nine voices that speak there.

  We were behind the Capitol Building now and the setting sun was casting it in silhouette, with a brilliant orange-yellow glow around it. We turned left and passed the Russell Senate Office building, Senate Park, the Canadian Embassy, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, the FBI building, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency, until we arrived at the hotel. I was a kid in a candy store wanting to take in the views of each for as long as possible. I wanted to go into each and every one of those buildings. If it weren’t a Sunday, I would have bothered the driver to stop at each one.

  After checking in, I unpacked quickly and sent Greg a text to let him know that I arrived. He offered to bring me to his apartment for dinner with Heather and him, but I gratefully declined and told him I’d see him in the morning. I had no interest in staying in my hotel room. With what little light was left in the day, I wanted to see the White House and anything else I could.

  I exited the hotel and turned right to walk toward the White House. Before getting there, though, I turned right to see the Department of Treasury. There is power in money, and the people who work there have power over money. Like all of the other buildings, it was splendid, seductive, and imposing. I was beginning to feel like I was in ancient Rome looking at the basilicas and forums, fully expecting to see men in togas emerge from the building.

  After soaking it in, I turned and walked back to Pennsylvania Avenue and toward the White House. Daylight was nearly gone, so I couldn’t really see much of the grounds, but through the iron fence I could see the building lit with spotlights like a celebrity; a painting in Chelsea’s museum; a diamond in a jeweler’s case. Beyond this fence, behind those walls, and through those windows walked the world’s most powerful person. I was breathing the same air and standing at the same address.

  When I got back to Pennsylvania Avenue, the Capitol building was shining brilliant white against the black sky in the distance. The moon was large and hung to its right. The streets were quiet and deserted and I stood right in the middle of the street and just stared in amazement at the sight. It was like a cathedral, a shrine and beacon beckoning me to come to it. It was beautiful and I was compelled to walk right down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue toward it. It grew as I got closer until I just stopped again to stare. I thought about Yvonne and the opportunity she gave me and how I threw it away. I should be in that building. I should be in this town. Twenty seconds of anger and stupidity. Twenty seconds cost me everything. I closed my eyes and breathed in everything about the moment. It was intoxicating. Jennifer and the baby may as well have lived on an another planet. There was now such a distance between us in miles and they were even further away in my mind.

  The sky was a bright blue and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky when I stood waiting in front of the hotel for Greg to pick me up the following morning. Traffic was heavy and the streets loud in stark contrast to the way they were during my walk the previous night. Greg arrived within a few minutes. When he pulled up, he put the car in park, jumped out and jogged around the car to greet me. We gave each other the bro handshake-chest bump-hug.

  “Good to see you again,” I said warmly.

  He responded hurriedly, “Good to see you. Let’s get going.”

  We got into the car. As we buckled our seat belts, Greg nodded toward the console and said, “I got you a coffee from the doughnut shop. The office coffee sucks. Can’t be expected to work drinking that garbage.”

  “You are the man. Thanks.”

  As we made our way through town, my mind began racing with anticipation. “So, tell me about the people I’m going to be working with,” I asked.

  “Let’s see. Well, you’ll be reporting to Ed. He’s the director of communications. He’s old school. Use proper English around him; no slang and don’t call anyone ‘dude’ within earshot of him. He’ll rip your lungs out in front of everyone. He likes making examples of people.”

  “He sounds like a barrel of laughs.”

  “This is his third presidential campaign. He’s one and one and wants to retire above five hundred,” he said seriously. “And he smokes like a chimney.”

  “You mean straight up into the air?” I joked.

  “He’s not big on jokes, either.”

  “This should be interesting. Who else?”

  “Media...Shannon, Steve, Carlos, Jackie, and a bunch of interns and volunteers. All good people. Then there’s marketing. That’s Valerie, Jung, Jason...”

  “Who else is on the communications staff?”

  “Oh, sorry. Bill, Marcus, Susan and a couple of assistants, Katie and Cindy, who is smoking hot, by the way.”

  “Duly noted,” I said through a smile.

  “That’s everybody in this location. The rest are in Vegas. You’ll meet everyone at the staff meeting first thing this morning.”

  I shook my head. “Wow, I can’t believe Vegas is a presidential campaign headquarters...mind-boggling. Did you ever think you’d see the day?”

  “Be prepared,” Greg said, again seriously. “If we get the nomination, they will probably consolidate offices and move us to Vegas for the general. We already have Caesars booked for the first two days after the convention as kind of a kick-off event.”

  “Move to Vegas?” I asked. “Oh, boy.”

  “Just until the November election is over. Then whatever jobs we get rewarded with will be back here,” he said to assure me. “Just temporary.”

  “Yeah,” I said softly. Jen didn’t even want me to moving to DC. She’ll flip when she hears about Vegas. I absent-mindedly pulled the agreement from my sport coat’s inside pocket and unfolded it. Greg glanced over at it.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Oh, just some papers I need to sign.”

  “Looks like a legal document.”

  “It is,” I sighed and folded the agreement and returned it to my pocket. “I was wondering if I should sign it or not, but it seems to be getting clearer that I should.”

  “Care to elaborate?” Greg asked.

  “Long story. Tell ya about it later.” I said, finishing the conversation as we pulled into the office parking lot.

  The campaign offices were on the second floor, so it was just a quick flight of stairs to the glass doors. The offices were sparsely furnished. There were a few folding tables and some gray fabric cubicles in the large open area, and another folding table in a glass enclosed conference room. The only wall decor was a large red, white, a
nd blue ‘Roman for President’ banner. Next to it was a cheesy life-sized cardboard stand up of the senator.

  Based on the names that Greg rattled off in the car, it looked like most of the staff was already there. A large, overweight man with a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth was standing by the conference room door. He was gray-haired and gray-mustached, and a bit disheveled. He looked like someone who is permanently stressed. That must be Ed, I thought.

  “All right, let’s go!” he said in an elevated, agitated voice. He swung his arm to motion people into the room. Most of the people that hurried past him into the room were half his age or younger. “It’s like I’m working in a damn day care center,” he grumbled loud enough for those around him to hear.

  As I passed, I introduced myself. “Who are you?” he asked only a bit interested in a reply.

  “I’m a speechwriter,” I said nervously.

  “You the guy that did the auto plant speech?” he asked through a mouthful of smoke and still without a smile.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, coughing.

  “Nice work. Don’t let it go to your head. You’re going to have to prove it wasn’t beginner’s luck,” he said in a somewhat grouchy voice. “By the way. You are not a speechwriter. You are the speechwriter. Say goodbye to your personal life. Now, go sit down.”

  I was the center of attention as I looked for a spot at the table, with everyone wondering who I was. I found a seat as Ed stood at the end of the table. “All right, shut up and listen up,” he demanded. He then introduced me and told me to stand and give the room my background. It came easily to me with all of my speaking experience, although I was nervous in front of my new peers.

  As I looked at all of the faces, I tried to guess who was who among the list of names that Greg had rattled off on our ride in. One person I knew for certain was Cindy. Greg was right. She was far and away the most attractive woman in the room. She looked to be in her early to mid- twenties with shoulder length brunette hair, high, pronounced cheekbones, and flawless skin and features. Her long fingers were capped with perfectly manicured nails and she moved her body elegantly in whatever she was doing. If her hair was slightly shorter and a shade lighter, she could pass for Sarah’s twin. Her green eyes met mine and lingered there.

  When I finished, Ed launched into the meeting’s agenda. He started with Roman’s campaign schedule in South Carolina. With each mention of a stop, he would look at me and give me a time and a topic. “Columbia. State legislature. Give him fifteen minutes on federal spending and economic development. Charleston. Women’s conference. He needs a half-hour. Make it about women’s issues, obviously. He’s using the stump speech and your auto plant speech for the rest.”

  The rest of the meeting consisted mostly of deep dives into demographics, marketing, and polls. I had my opinions but kept my mouth shut being the new guy at the table. Besides, they had already begun taking my lead on the abortion issue, albeit amateurishly. I was taking notes and would plan to speak up at next week’s meeting. Ed concluded the meeting by saying, “All right, all eyes and minds on South Carolina. Anything but first place and this might be the last time we meet. Got it? Florida is next, so don’t plan on relaxing if we win South Carolina.”

  The meeting lasted two hours and by the end I knew working here was going to be a struggle. There was a major distraction and its name was Cindy. It wasn’t the dozens of glances I cast her way that made her a distraction. A man looking at a beautiful woman is as hard-wired into his DNA as is breathing. What was making Cindy a distraction was the dozens of times I caught her looking at me. That is where trouble begins. The returned glance is the green light, the opening of the gates that turns a man’s fleeting glances into a drive towards conquest and all the pleasure and ego-boosting that comes with it.

  When the meeting adjourned, I remained in the room and stood talking to Valerie and Carlos. Cindy, logic would dictate, should have exited the room by going left from her seat toward the door. Instead, she walked all the way around the table and walked past the three of us. There was plenty of room for her to get through between me and the chairs, but she made sure to brush almost her entire body up against mine as she passed. Perhaps she wanted me to notice that the top button on her blouse was now undone. She shot a look into my eyes when she got past me.

  For the rest of the week, Cindy was ever-present. She just happened to show up wherever I was having lunch or dinner and was always the one to arrange daily happy hour gatherings at the various bars in the city, insisting that I join my co-workers, never taking ‘no’ for an answer. She used the flimsiest of excuses to come to my cubicle throughout the day. I was situated near the water cooler, and I didn’t think a woman could drink so much water during a workday, especially three ounces at a time.

  When we arrived for work on Wednesday morning, there were smiles on everyone’s faces. The mood was light and confident. The latest polling numbers from South Carolina were in and we were rising. We climbed from third into a statistical tie for first. Greg’s ground game was working and our messaging gaining traction. The exhilaration lasted all day and spilled over into happy hour at a sports bar next to the office building. There were plenty of high-fives and cheers as the nightly news programs were showing the latest poll numbers for the South Carolina race. The usual crowd looked on us as geeks and suits, but we didn’t care. For now, the poll numbers were our football and baseball scores, only we were actually on the teams and in the game.

  Greg, Marcus, and I sat in one of the booths. Cindy arrived with Katie and one of the interns. She didn’t even ask before sliding into the booth next to me. She told Kate to sit next to her, which forced her to move right up against me to make room. I was trapped for the evening between the wall and Cindy’s soft body. My nose was immediately full with her scent and it was bewildering. It was sweet and it was seductive.

  “What perfume are you wearing?” I boldly asked.

  “I don’t wear any,” she said softly through a knowing smile.

  “Maybe it’s your hair.”

  “It’s not my hair. It’s just me,” she said with a feminine confidence. “And you know you like it.”

  I just looked at her, still trying to not only determine the source of the scent, but to try to figure out what was going on behind those piercing eyes and in that deviant mind. What is her story? Why is she throwing herself at me like this? Why does she speak with such confidence?

  There was nothing shy about her, nor did she worry about gossip. Throughout the evening, Cindy had her hand under the table and on my knee and then on my thigh before I stopped her.

  “You’ll change your mind soon,” she whispered. “I’ll be here when you do.” Then she said ‘good night’ to everyone and left with Katie.

  Chapter Seven

  It was Friday and my flight back home was scheduled to leave at 2:00 p.m. I needed to finish my work on the speech edits and get them to Ed by noon. Roman was going to be in South Carolina starting that evening and would be there right through the primary the following Tuesday. Every word needed to be perfect, but more importantly, they needed to be ready. The pressure to win was suffocating. Anything less than a first place finish in South Carolina would mean almost certain doom for Roman’s campaign. Donors would flee and his powerful and influential supporters would begin switching allegiances.

  Ever since the Ohio speech, we hit the abortion issue hard, tapping into the hype surrounding the bill in the state’s legislature. The speeches I wrote, the stops Roman made, and the advertising we ran began to center around it and all of the other usual women’s issues. Although we were on the right path, there was a lot of work to be done on the messaging, but we were definitely improving.

  Greg had been out of the office and in South Carolina since Tuesday running the phone banks and door-to-door operations. With him away, I needed a ride to the airport. I asked Katie to make arrangements for a taxi or limo service.

  “Now?” she asked incredulously. “You
’ll never get one in time now. You should have told me this yesterday or first thing this morning.”