Dropping Stones / Kingmaker SET

by Paul Cwalina

  “Senator, I’d like to meet my…” What? Girlfriend? Fiance’?…”This is Jennifer,” I said, hoping my faux pas would go unnoticed.

  Rick took her hand and held it just a beat or two too long as he looked into her eyes and introduced himself and extended her a compliment on her dress. Jennifer thanked him, pulled her hand away, and immediately reached for Vicki’s hand. It was difficult to tell if Vicki didn’t notice or that she deliberately ignored Jennifer’s extended hand. We gave her the benefit of the doubt.

  The waitress arrived to take our drink order. “Lemonade, please,” I said.

  “We have pink lemonade, sir. Would that be all right?”

  Un-freakin-believable

  “Just water, then. Thank you,” I said, annoyed.

  Rick, Jennifer and Ed ordered water and soft drinks. Vicki ordered a martini, which caused Ed to change his order to a beer so she wouldn’t be drinking alone. Rick gave Vicki a stern, sideways glance, obviously not approving of her ordering the martini.

  We all breezed through small talk and jokes while looking over the menus. Rick’s communication skills were clearly evident, as he seemed to charm even Jennifer enough for her to soften her somewhat harsh and cold demeanor towards him. Vicki was somewhat friendly but quieter than anything and everybody else. Like Jennifer, she was probably dragged to the dinner and would have probably preferred being anywhere but the restaurant and with anyone who was not one of us.

  After we placed our order, I took the opportunity to begin probing for speech material. I started with an easy one by asking about his signature housing bill, one of his few accomplishments in the Senate. His response was disappointing, though. It was vague and focused on him and how he got it through the Senate and the arm twisting he did in the House. I shook it off and pursued another avenue pertaining to the economy. Again, he was talking in sound bites. He was throwing spoonfuls of sugar when I was looking for a meal. It was frustrating enough for me to abandon asking altogether for the time being. I asked about his background and childhood to see if I could get a deeper look into who he was and what made him tick. Give me something I can use in your acceptance speech, dude. I struck some gold there. He was very comfortable talking about himself and the stories were coming easy to him. Some were usable and some were best for a backyard barbecue among friends. Vicki, meanwhile, finished her second martini and flagged down the waitress for a third.

  We continued to explore his personal history throughout dinner, but when dessert and coffee came, I saw it as my last chance to truly engage with him about substance, so I began asking about policy issues again. He was still talking in measured, seemingly prepared talking points. Loosen up, man, and talk already. I made the mistake of leading him into a conversation about the student debt situation. Of all issues for him to finally talk freely, why did it have to be this one? Before I could catch him, he unloaded on the banking industry.

  “My goal would be to get these greedy banks to stop using college students as profit centers. It’s unconscionable,” he said with the most animation he had on any issue.

  Uh-oh.

  “Oh, really?” Jennifer said.

  I placed my foot on top of hers and pressed down to try to stop her. She pulled her foot out from underneath mine and gave me a sideways kick to the shin.

  “Don’t you think it’s the overpriced colleges and universities that view college kids as profit centers?” Jennifer said boldly. “College tuition has risen at more than double the rate of inflation for decades. If they weren’t gouging these kids and their parents, there would be no need for all of these loans, don’t you think?” Rick started to answer, but Jennifer cut him off. “You’re blaming the ambulance for the patient being sick and for the hospital bill, when the ambulance just carried the patient to the hospital. The banks just provided the service of helping these kids attend college.”

  Vicki covered a silent, growing smile by taking a long sip of her drink as Rick eased back in his chair, crossed his arms across his chest, and stared at Jennifer. A condescending smirk appeared on his face. “Well, aren’t you a little spitfire?” he asked.

  “If by spitfire you mean a woman with a master’s degree in finance and more than a decade of experience in banking, then yes, I’m a spitfire,” she said sternly. Then she added, “Sir.”

  Rick stared at her for another moment, and then turned to me. “Look, this election is going to be very easy. There’s no need to worry about policy. Nobody really cares about any of that. Peters is on the wrong side of women’s issues. You see that. I know you do. We get sixty percent of the women’s vote and he won’t be able to touch us. Now, you focus on that and hammer him on that and we will be having all of the policy discussions your little heart desires this time next year in the Oval Office. Do you understand, pard’ner?”

  “As you wish, Mr. President,” I said reverently and with a smile.

  “Good. I like the sound of that. Put whatever you want in the speeches about economic and foreign policy. I trust your instincts. But you best get plenty on a woman’s right to choose and equal pay and all of that other stuff in there first and foremost.”

  I glanced Jennifer’s way. She was ready to explode. I faintly scrunched my lips and squinted my eyes to signal her to restrain herself.

  “We best be going,” Rick said and stood up. Vicki and Ed stood up immediately afterward. Vicki stumbled into Ed as she did and he did his best to prop her up without attracting attention, but nobody could un-see what they already saw. Rick tried to cover. “Honey, it must have been a long time since you’ve had more than one drink. You should be careful,” he said trying to hide his embarrassment.

  “Yeah,” she answered sarcastically. “It’s been a long time since yesterday.”

  Jennifer and I looked at each other and agreed telepathically to get out of there quickly to avoid making the situation any more uncomfortable. We both ignored the incident as we said ‘good night’. We got to the elevator when Jennifer realized she left her phone at the table. I volunteered to go back into the restaurant to retrieve it. The restaurant was empty except for Rick and Vicki, who were unaware that I had come back in. Rick grabbed her upper arm and put her against the wall. I stepped behind a dividing wall to hide myself. “How many times must you embarrass me? Clean up your act,” he said angrily in between expletives.

  She slurred an equal number of swear words back at him as she struggled to free herself from his grasp. Instead of letting her go, he dragged her to a secluded area of the restaurant. “We can’t go anywhere until you settle down and sober up,” he said.

  I did my best to stay hidden until they were out of sight. I walked quickly to the table, picked up the phone, and nearly sprinted out of the restaurant and back to Jennifer. The doors to the elevator opened as soon as I got back and we stepped in. The doors closed and I was still processing what I had just seen in the restaurant when Jennifer stepped in front of me and poked her finger into my chest.

  “Don’t you ever try to stop me from speaking my mind again. I’m not some accessory you’re going to wear to cocktail parties,” she said.

  With the back of my left hand, I swept her finger away. “Don’t give me that I-am-woman-hear-me-roar garbage. Do you have any idea what you cost me in there?”

  “What I cost you? Excuse me?” she said in a raised voice.

  “There is now way he’s going to put someone on the White House staff who has a loose cannon for a spouse!” I yelled back.

  She stopped and stared hard into my eyes. Her anger melted into disappointment and hurt. “White House staff? You lied to me. You’re still planning to work here. To live here. You’ve been lying to me this whole time.” She stopped me cold. I was so consumed with anger that I unwittingly revealed what I had to keep hidden from Jennifer: that I never gave up on moving to DC. I put my head down and exhaled hard. “I wasn’t lying. I was just hoping you would change your mind.”

  Jennifer turned, stepped back to my side and leaned a
gainst the back wall of the elevator. When the doors opened, she practically bolted for the door and kept walking. With her pregnancy it was easy to catch up to her, but that clearly wasn’t what she wanted. We were silent for the entire walk back to the hotel and the elevator to our floor.

  “I’m going to bed,” she said as soon as we entered the room. “Turn around so I can get undressed.”

  I turned and stared at the wall. I heard her slip out of her clothes. “There’s a time and place for everything. That wasn’t the time or place,” I said.

  “And when would be a good time? You keep telling me this guy is going to be president. Should I wait until then? Should I wait until he’s insulated and cut off from the real world and surrounded by a bunch of sycophants and yes-men? I had the chance to point out the error of his thinking and I took advantage of it.”

  “You embarrassed him.”

  “His lack of insight did that, not me. And if he can’t handle it, tough,” she said confidently. “And if you can’t handle it, you know where the door is.” I heard her slip into bed.

  “I certainly do,” I said, frustrated. I got undressed in the dark and collapsed into my bed.

  I spent two restless hours trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep. I thought about the dinner with Rick, but mostly about the tension between Jennifer and me. I couldn’t tell which was more frustrating—our differences or the fact that I was falling in love with someone who wasn’t impressed in the least with my success or what I did for a living.

  I woke the next morning to Jennifer kneeling beside my bed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We should never go to sleep with our anger unresolved. It’s not good for us…or any couple. I’m sorry.”

  I reached out my hand to place it on her cheek. “No, I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I never should have said those things to you and I had no right to be angry with you.”

  She smiled. “Come on. We slept too long. We have a lot to see.”

  We got ready, had breakfast, and made our way outside to start our tour. The hotel was practically next to the White House, so we started there and then walked straight down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Building. I stood in awe and talked Jennifer’s ear off about all of the history of each building. She was politely uninterested and kindly endured my insufferable lectures. I showed her the HUD building and coyly suggested that former mayors could contribute greatly to the agency’s mission because of their experience. She didn’t bite. I wasn’t sure if I was too subtle or if she was making a point with her non-response.

  We took a break from the tour for lunch and to give a pregnant woman a much-needed rest. I tried to steer the conversation toward one last-ditch effort to sell her on the town. “So, do you have a better understanding of the buildings than the last time you were here?” I asked.

  She gave me a half smile. “Yeah, I certainly do.”

  “Impressive, aren’t they?”

  Jennifer sighed as a way to warn me that I wasn’t going to like the response. “Whitewashed tombs,” she said.

  “Um…what?”

  “Whitewashed tombs. That’s what Jesus called the Pharisees. They looked good on the outside for appearances sake, but they were dead inside. They didn’t love or worship God. They liked their positions in the church. They liked the admiration. They liked the fancy clothing they wore. They liked sitting in the honored places at church or with kings. It was all about them and their power. They were dead inside, though. That’s what I see when I see the Capitol and the White House. They’re very nice and clean and shiny on the outside, but inside them such evil things happen. The hearts of those men and women are wicked. There’s no other way I can say it,” she said and then offered a simple apology for not giving the response for which I had hoped.

  Like those whitewashed tombs, I put on a strong, positive face, but inside I was mourning the loss of my hope for changing her mind and the premature death of my plans to be a part of the most powerful city on the planet.

  “What you’re looking for isn’t here,” she said. “You have to trust me on that.” I didn’t respond.

  I had no desire to continue walking through the city. It would only serve to further torture me, and Jennifer probably wanted nothing more than to take a nap. We went back to the hotel and both slept until dinner. When dinner ended, she offered to accompany me anywhere I wanted to go in the city, but I told her that I preferred to just go back to the hotel.

  She went to bed early, around nine o’clock. I sat in the chair next to the window and just stared at the city in its twilight. I woke up in the same position in the morning.

  Despite Jennifer’s best efforts, it was a mostly silent flight home.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The month of April passed with little in the way of surprises. Roman won Texas and California to seal the nomination, and almost ran the table on the rest. Only New York went the other way, but Rick’s last remaining opponent was a New York congressman, so we chalked it up to his home-state advantage and the stubborn northeast bias against a senator from Nevada. The party machine was not pleased with the congressman’s holding out and pressured him to drop out of the race the day after he won the primary.

  Jennifer spent much of the month trying to soften the blow of my coming to grips with leaving my dream of being part of the DC power structure behind. She was exceedingly kind and, at times, over-compensated. She often pointed out jobs for which she thought I was qualified, including some at the bank. I politely passed on them all. I may have had to look for something else after the election, but I was going to savor every second of what I was doing until then.

  With the nomination sewn up, I had no need to keep writing campaign speeches. Rick resorted to using stump speeches, and he and Ed wanted me focused on the acceptance speech. I struggled, just as Ed warned I would. Writing on behalf of a party is much different than writing for a single candidate. Each word had to be measured against the whims and delicately balanced among the plethora of special interest groups. A poorly chosen word or phrase could put Rick on the wrong side of a headline and shut out of a donor’s checkbook.

  I had never typed and deleted so much in my life. Had I been born thirty years earlier, the floor would have been covered with crumpled paper. I was frustrated and frazzled when Walter paid me a visit, or perhaps he was paying Emily a visit through her paintings.

  “You look terrible, young man,” Walter said. He was nearing eighty years-old, so his patience for polite or politically correct language was clearly waning. Maybe he just felt he didn’t have that kind of time left and he didn’t want to waste any of it on words he didn’t mean.

  “You should see the other guy,” I joked. That seemed to amuse him enough to get a genuine chuckle. “What can I do for you, Walter?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Just checking on the place, I guess. Just making sure you’re not building a bomb or raising ferrets up here or something.”

  I laughed. “Which would be worse?”

  “Ferrets. So, what has you all tied up in knots? On a Saturday, no less.”

  “Trying to write the senator’s acceptance speech.”

  “Isn’t that what you do, write speeches? Why is this one different?” he said as he sat down.

  “Well, Walter, this one is a big one. This one sets the stage for the whole general election,” I answered while running my fingers through my hair and leaving it even more messed than before. “There’s economic policy, foreign policy, tax and spending policies, social policy…”

  Walter wore an almost semi-condescending smile which turned into a chuckle as I continued. “I have to work everything in from his housing bill to his childhood. How would he deal with North Korea, China and Russia? Israel and the Palestinians? Then I have to work in the bigger philosophical stuff like how all of those things will make America a better place for our children…”

  I was interrupted by Walter’s shaking head and growing laughter.

  “Son, do you really think that sillin
ess is going to make America a better place? You more than anyone should know all of that is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”