Dropping Stones / Kingmaker SET

by Paul Cwalina

  “Well, good thing you don’t work for the chamber of commerce.”

  “Sorry, I don’t think it’s funny. I can’t help but feel for these lost souls. I wish you would see that.”

  “Never really thought about it, I guess.”

  “That’s the problem. Nobody does.”

  “I have enough on my mind,” I said and turned on the television. Jennifer got ready for bed and grabbed a book before getting into a comfortable reading position. She fell asleep about an hour later, but I was restless and had trouble falling asleep. It was just before one o’clock in the morning when I decided to take a quick stroll around the hotel, hoping to clear my head of whatever was bothering me and maybe fatigue my body a bit. I only took two steps from our room when I saw a young woman emerge from Rick’s room down the hall. She was barefoot, disheveled, and was trying to fix her hair with her hand. I did my best to pretend I didn’t see her and turned the other way to stare out the hall window at the city’s lights below. I waited until I heard the elevator doors open and close before going back to our room.

  The highlight of the next day was my address to the gathering regarding messaging and how to best communicate the main themes of the campaign. Jennifer said she spent the day handing out gospel tracts to people on the Strip. I couldn’t think of a bigger waste of time, but she said she felt compelled to reach the people any way she could.

  Just after dinner that evening, Vicki arrived and worked the room. Jennifer was interested in seeing her again, to see if Vicki’s cold treatment of her at our first meeting was just a fluke. We stood and waited near the end of the line as she shook hands and made her way toward us. She was a couple people away from us, signing an autograph, when she looked right at us. She handed the pad back to the person, shook hands with the couple next to us, and then stopped, and turned away from us and walked out.

  Jennifer and I just looked at each other and we followed her out.

  “Mrs. Roman,” Jennifer called. She didn’t respond, so again, Jennifer called to her, “Mrs. Roman.”

  This time she turned without breaking her stride and said, “Hi. Sorry. Gotta run.”

  That simply wasn’t going to cut it with Jennifer. “I need to know what her problem is,” she said. “Did I do something to offend her that night?” she asked me.

  “Not at all, unless she was upset that you challenged Rick on his answers.”

  “Maybe, but something tells me there’s something else going on,” she said. She continued walking after Vicki, who had a secret service agent trailing her. Vicki made her way to a nearby hospitality suite.

  Jennifer ignored the security detail and followed Vicki into the suite. I walked as fast I could to try to stop her, but she got through the door before I could reach her. One of the suited security men stepped in front of me and went into the suite to get Jennifer. “That’s my wife,” I said, following him in. As I got into the door, I said, “Mrs. Roman, I am terribly sorry.”

  At first, she was mildly angry at being cornered like she was, but then she seemed to relax a bit and resigned to confronting Jennifer rather than running away.

  “It’s okay. She can stay,” Vicki said, somewhat business-like.

  “Are you sure?” I asked, while Jennifer shot an angry look my way.

  “I’m sure. Eric, you can leave us,” she dictated, and the secret service agent left the suite. I wasn’t sure if I should stay. I felt awkward, like an intruder, but decided to stay and fade into the background the best I could while Jennifer invited herself into the chair next to Vicki.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Roman, but I need to ask you something,” Jennifer said boldly.

  “Vicki. You can call me Vicki,” she said.

  “I was thinking about our dinner together in Washington a few months ago.”

  “You were pregnant then, weren’t you?” Vicki said, getting up from her chair and pouring herself a drink.

  “Yes, I was. Anyway…”

  “And you had the baby?”

  “Twins, yes,” Jennifer, anxious to continue her thought.

  Vicki seemed surprised and a bit taken aback. “Oh…well…how nice for you. Boys or girls?”

  “One of each, actually,” Jennifer said and then her face seemed to light up with some sort of realization. “You and the senator don’t have children, do you, Mrs. Roman? Does that have something to do with why you seem to not want to be around me? It seems my presence irritates you or provokes you or bothers you in some way. It was noticeable during our dinner together and was palpable just now.”

  Gee, babe, don’t hold back. Tell the future first lady of the United States, who could crush both of us with one phone call, how you really feel.

  Vicki just looked at Jennifer. I wasn’t sure if she was angry at her or simply surprised that Jennifer could read her so easily. She pulled a cigarette from her purse and lit it. Then she grabbed her drink and sat back down next to Jennifer. “Your first?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m…sorry,” Vicki said uncomfortably. “I’m sure you are a wonderful person, but you’re right. I may have been cold toward you. That was small of me. I apologize.”

  “Thank you, but I’m more interested in why,” Jennifer said.

  Vicki drew a drag of her cigarette. “Envy, if I’m going to be honest,” she said, and then took a long sip of her drink before setting it down on the table next to her. “Rick has had his sights set on this election ever since he won his first race for mayor of Reno. We were only twenty-nine and he had no desire to have kids. He was adamant about it. Well, as careful as we were, I got pregnant. I kept it from him until I began to really show. Even though I was nervous to tell him, deep down I couldn’t have been happier. To say he didn’t take it well would be putting it lightly. Right away, he insisted that I have an abortion. When I refused, he flew into a rage, throwing and slamming things. For the next couple months, he was just abusive, almost on a daily basis. Mostly it was just verbal…calling me fat and the usual names. Some days the baby and the pressure from work built up enough steam and it was a slap or a push. Either way, not a day went by when he didn’t mention the word abortion. Finally, when I was six months pregnant, I just couldn’t take it anymore and I agreed to terminate the pregnancy. I figured we’d just wait a couple years. He’d change his mind and we’d have a child then.”

  Jennifer wiped a tear from her eye and tried to maintain her composure. Vicki drew another drag from her cigarette and exhaled.

  “We drove down to Sacramento because we didn’t want anyone in Reno or Carson City to know. We found a place and it looked clean and professional. The doctor was on staff at one of the Sacramento hospitals. I felt I was in good hands. They prepped me and he got started. He got the instrument inside me and started pulling the…” Vicki began choking up. She reached for her drink and took the last sip of it. “He started pulling her out in pieces and the assistant was arranging the body parts on the table as they came out to make sure he got everything. I remember being surprised at the amount of blood. Anyway, he pulled out the head and thought he was done, but the assistant told him that the left arm was still inside. So, he started reaching in again, but he had a hard time finding it or getting it. He was getting frustrated and was cursing and he started getting aggressive with the instrument. Then he angrily jammed it in one last time and he tore a hole in my uterus…” Vicki was having a hard time finishing through her tears.

  “Well, he got the arm out and it was over. I was bleeding a lot, it seemed, but I just assumed it was from the procedure. And either he didn’t realize he cut my uterus or he didn’t care. I’ll never know. All I know is that the way it scarred over prevented me from having any more children.” Vicki stopped to try to compose herself, but gave up and finished through her near hysterical crying. “That was my only chance to have a child. She was my only child and I murdered her. The only child I could ever have and I murdered her,” Vicki said hysterically and collapsed into Jennifer’s ar
ms. I was frozen in place. I never felt more out of place and an intruder more than that moment. I wiped tears from my eyes. Jennifer spoke volumes with the intense look she cast my way.

  Eric came back into the suite to see what was going on. He instructed us to leave, but Jennifer wasn’t moving. He insisted, but Jennifer ignored him and kept consoling Vicki. When Vicki had finally regained composure and was stable, Jennifer got up and walked toward me and the door.

  As she passed me, she said, “Is that cup of tea bitter enough now?” We walked out of the suite and began walking down the hall. “I’m leaving. I’m going back home,” she said.

  “Come on, Jennifer,” I said, gently grabbing her arm.

  She pulled it away. “Come on, nothing. I am not staying here.”

  A group of younger campaign workers crossed our path as they were walking from the night club, carrying drinks and carrying on. They were talking and laughing obnoxiously loud and one of the guys grabbed one of the girls where he shouldn’t have and planted a kiss on her. Rather than being offended or putting him in his place, they all just laughed.

  “Daughter of Babylon,” Jennifer said.

  “What?”

  “You are in the Daughter of Babylon and I’m begging you to come out of her,” Jennifer said cryptically.

  “I don’t even know what that means,” I said.

  “Well, you better start opening your eyes and learning what it means,” Jennifer said with a finger in my chest. “I’m going home. I don’t want to spend another minute here or around that selfish, sadistic creep.”

  I had no desire to stay there without her or fighting off Cindy by myself. I told Ed that we’d be leaving on the first flight out we could get in the morning.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jennifer and I were on our way to the airport when I received a text from Cindy.

  ‘Hey. Where did you go?’

  ‘None of your business,’ I replied.

  ‘You need to come back to DC full time’

  I didn’t respond and I put my phone away.

  When we landed and I turned my phone back on, I had a text from Ed that he had sent to the entire group and three more from Cindy.

  Ed cryptically wrote ‘North Carolina, Ohio, and New Jersey.’

  I responded, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Mark my words, this election will come down to those three states. I’m looking at the numbers. I’ve been at this long enough.’

  ‘Send me the numbers,’ I texted back and then opened the texts from Cindy. Two of them just said ‘Hello?’ but the third one left me concerned.

  ‘You leave me no choice. I’ll make you come back.’ Great. Now what is she up to?

  August arrived and the first poll numbers after the other party’s convention were encouraging. Although Rick’s lead was cut in half, it must have been devastating to the Peters campaign that they couldn’t even generate a clear lead immediately after their convention. Again, we resisted popping champagne bottles, because we realized a general poll didn’t count. Presidential elections are won state by state. Although that picture was still encouraging, we were a long way from election day. Time in a presidential election is measured like dog years, and that left plenty of time for something to happen to throw us off the path.

  At the beginning of the second week, Jennifer and I were enjoying lunch on the back deck while the twins were down for their naps. The way the sunlight attached itself to her caused me to stop and enjoy the simplicity of just filling my eyes with the beauty of the moment. Never far from reach were my pen and worn notepad that helped keep moments of clarity like these guarded against loss.

  As I put the notebook back down, a text from Cindy came. ‘Can’t wait to see you in DC again!’

  I wanted to ignore it, but I was irritated that she interrupted my time with Jennifer. I responded, ‘Will you knock it off already? I’m not going back to DC’

  ‘Oh, I think you’ll change your mind.’

  I had grown tired of Cindy’s games, so I didn’t respond, but it was less than a minute later that I received a call from Greg.

  “Hey, has anyone called you yet?” he said, sounding somber.

  “Called me? No, why?”

  “If you’re not already sitting down, you should.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Ed. He had a heart attack. He’s gone.”

  I shot up out of my chair. “What?! Are you serious?”

  “Afraid so. Last night. They found him this morning in a hotel room.”

  “What was he doing in a hotel room?”

  “Well, they found two drinking glasses and two cigarettes. One of each had lipstick on it, so…” Greg said, allowing the details to fill in by themselves.

  “You think he had a heart attack while…” I said, equally uneasy with the thought of it. “Did the woman report it?”

  “No. There was no 911 call. There was no call to the police. The cleaning crew found him.” Reason number 659 not to work for a hotel cleaning crew.

  “Wow, I’m just numb,” I said, running my hand through my hair.

  “I have no idea who will make the funeral arrangements.”

  “Well, the only thing I know is that he would want to be buried in DC. That city was his life.”

  “No doubt. I’ll let you know when I find out anything.”

  “Yeah, please do.”

  “Hey,” he said then paused. “Not to be morbid, but this puts you first in line for the director of communications at the White House.”

  “Whoa. I didn’t even think of that.”

  “Not the way you wanted it, I’m sure, but…” he said again, leaving the details to fill in themselves. I didn’t know how to respond, so Greg broke the silence. “Well, anyway, I will give you a call when I hear anything.”

  I exhaled hard, sat back down on a bench, and raked my hand through my hair. Jennifer came over and sat next to me.

  “Sounds like someone died,” she said effetely.

  “Ed. Heart attack,” I managed to get out.

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry,” she said genuinely and put her arm around me.

  “I’m all right. I’m just stunned,” I said and then paused. “I’d like to go to the funeral. You don’t have to go.”

  “Of course. We’ll be fine here.”

  I flew into DC that Wednesday night, ignoring three texts from Cindy as I picked up my rental car and drove to the hotel. There was no church service planned, just a simple service at the gravesite scheduled for ten o’clock.

  I was among the first to arrive and stood under the oppressive August sun as others arrived slowly. I was convinced I was adding to the humidity in the air by the sheer volume of sweat pouring out of me. All of the men were wiping their foreheads and all of the ladies were fanning themselves with whatever they had to try to fend off the heat. Nobody south of the Mason-Dixon Line should be buried in July or August. I’m sure the body could be preserved until October.

  I looked around at the people gathered and realized I knew every single one of them. With the exception of a handful of Congressmen, they were all from the campaign staff. There should have been someone there that I didn’t know, a family member, a wife, somebody. But there wasn’t.