“Aaaanton, I love you,” a female supporter screamed, interrupting David’s speech and Anton’s reverie, and before they could react, a male voice responded, “Jenny, I love you,” and the crowd began to laugh appreciatively when another female voice cried, “Jenny, I love you, too,” and David, quick-witted as ever, leaned in to the microphone and boomed, “Well, folks, I guess we just proved we ain’t Alabama,” and the room erupted in whistles and whoops. Everybody got the governor’s reference to having signed the bill legalizing gay marriage in the state. Playing to the gallery, David half-turned to look at his son, his tall, lithe frame shaking silently with laughter, and Anton felt compelled to stand up and wave to the crowd. Thoughts of his mother had soured his mood slightly so that his smile was a bit strained. Only those who knew him well—Jenny, for instance—knew how uncomfortable he was made by the doting of strangers. He was not a natural politician with an insatiable need to be adored by millions. Still, he felt obliged to please the crowd by landing a long kiss on Jenny’s lips when she, along with Delores, finally joined their men on the stage. He and Jenny had been dating only about eleven months, and already the first fissures had begun to appear in their relationship, but this crowd of young campaign workers and supporters didn’t need to know that. No matter how much he wanted to focus on law and policy, there was a showbiz aspect to politics in the twenty-first century, and the story of how he had administered first aid to Jenny after a skiing accident in New Hampshire had even made the papers. Somebody on the ski slopes had apparently recognized him, shot a video of him making a tourniquet for her, and posted it on YouTube. That Jenny was a statuesque blonde who ran one of the IT start-ups in the state and he was the scion of a political dynasty made for a good story. It was almost inevitable that he would ask her out on a date; it was almost inevitable that, within weeks, she began to appear at his side at important political events, Uncle Connor beaming every time.
Anton followed his parents off the stage, bounding down the six steps that led to the floor of the ballroom, the knowing voice in his head working overtime—There he goes, the young, dynamic new AG, descending the steps without so much as using the handrail—and was immediately mobbed by supporters. Each one, it seemed, wanted something. Some of them shook his hand, some posed for pictures, some thumped his back, some told him exactly what he should do the day he assumed office. He smiled, he nodded, he winked, he shook hands, he hugged, he kissed. Mostly, he kept his eyes on his father’s back, looking to follow the path that David was carving out of the long room and out the door.
THREE HOURS LATER, it was just the two of them in the small sitting room David had off his bedroom in the Governor’s Mansion. Delores had gone to bed; Bradley had offered to drop Jenny and Uncle Connor home. And really, they should be headed to sleep also, but they couldn’t stop grinning at each other, couldn’t stop reminiscing about the campaign. David had been reelected with sixty-five percent of the vote. And despite a few early scares, it had been a relatively easy campaign for Anton, his path smoothed by Uncle Connor’s extensive contacts, David’s impassioned endorsement, the outpouring of sympathy and goodwill that resulted from Pappy’s death, and his fortuitous rescue of Jenny. Anton had to ruefully admit that in spite of his best efforts to make the campaign about the issues, it had been about everything but the issues. It hadn’t hurt that in September, The Monthly, the largest magazine in the state, had put him on the cover and named him “The Most Eligible Bachelor in the State.” Bradley and his other married friends had a field day with the headline and teased him mercilessly. David and Connor had chortled and immediately come up with a strategy to target female voters on Election Day. Only Delores seemed to have a different reaction—she had phoned Anton and asked what he was waiting for when he’d found a wonderful girl like Jenny, reminding him that he was not getting any younger.
“So,” David said, pulling out a cigar and handing one to his son. “How does it feel to be an elected representative of the people at long last?”
Anton pretended to shudder. He leaned forward as his father lit a cigar and handed it to him. “Well. Being AG is not exactly like being in the swamp of politics.” He grinned. “It’s more—lofty.”
David took a long drag, eyeing his son. “We’ll see, my boy, we’ll see.”
They laughed and then fell quiet, both of them exhausted by the day. David rocked in his chair, eyes closed, a small smile on his lips. The cigar burned in his left hand.
“Dad,” Anton said.
David opened his eyes. “Yeah?”
“I just wanted to say . . . thank you.”
“Quite the contrary, my dear Anton. It’s not often that a man has the pleasure of experiencing a historic day like today. You’ve made me very happy.”
“Dad. One more thing.” Anton hesitated, then started again. “I think we should agree not to discuss the cases before me outside of work. That is, I don’t want to treat you any differently than I would any other governor I’d have as a boss.”
David stared expressionlessly at Anton for a moment. Then he smiled. “I agree. And I expected nothing different from you.”
Anton knew the relief showed on his face. “Good deal.” He stared at the floor for a second and then looked up. “I want to give the voters exactly what I promised—the cleanest, most ethical AG’s office ever.” He shushed the voice in his head that sang, Corny, that’s just corny.
David nodded. “Absolutely.” He rolled his eyes. “After what we’ve just been through, it’s the least they can expect.” He was referring to the corruption scandal that had embroiled Peter Duke, the former AG. Peter, who had held the office for over twenty years, had decided not to seek reelection, thereby paving the way for Anton to run.
They sat for another moment, and then David stifled a yawn. “Got to get to bed,” he muttered. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.” But he made no move to get up. Instead he asked, “How come Jenny didn’t stay the night?”
Anton shrugged. “She didn’t want to.”
“Everything okay between you two?”
He shrugged again. “I dunno. I guess so.”
“I see.” David waited a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was gentle. “You’re going to have a lot on your plate in just a few weeks. If you think the relationship is over, it’d be best to let her know now. Don’t you think?”
Anton let out his breath slowly. “Mom likes her,” he said absently. Then, “I’m afraid it’s gonna look like I just used her for the election. You saw the crowd tonight—they love her.”
David nodded. He looked out the window into the dark and then at Anton. “If I were advising you only as a fellow politician, I’d agree with you. To some people, it will look like you used her. But I’m talking to you as your father. One thing I’ve learned about politics—you’ve got to carve out a little space that’s all your own. A place where you don’t let in any of the outside chatter. If you don’t, you’re finished. Know what I mean?”
“Not really.”
“What I’m saying is, you can’t let everything be about politics. If you do, you end up soulless, not knowing who you are. Some things have to belong only to you. Take me, for instance. When I—when Delores and I—first took you in, Pappy hoped I’d enter politics someday. And he was nervous, you know, how it would come across in this lily-white state, us fostering a boy who looked like you. He told me on the phone that he was opposed to it, that it was political suicide. He said my future opponents would have a field day with it.” His voice cracked. “And they did. By golly, the bastards did.”
“Dad—”
“No, it’s okay. Let me finish. So after we’d had you for a few months, I invited Pappy to come visit. He came and stayed for a week. I don’t know if you remember. He and I didn’t discuss his apprehensions again. He just watched us going about our daily life. I took him to see you play soccer one evening, I remember that. And then, during the drive to the airport, I asked him if he still thought having you was a ba
d idea. If he believed that my being governor or senator someday would make me happier than fostering you.” David fell silent, a muscle in his jaw moving compulsively. “And he didn’t say a word. But when he got out of the car, he leaned in and said that I was a better man than he’d ever be. And that’s how I knew that he approved.”
Anton didn’t know what he found more shocking—that Pappy once was opposed to him, or that his father could be so affected by the memory. This was unlike Dad, to be so sentimental. He looked at his father closely and noticed how tired David looked, took in the thinning hair, the sudden stoop of the shoulders, and the unhealthy paleness of his skin. Dad’s getting old, he thought, and it frightened him to think that the man who had always seemed invincible to him, supremely capable, the most self-assured man in the room, could show the first signs of mortality.
Anton reached over and put his hand on David’s shoulder. “It’s late, Dad,” he said. “You’re tired. Let’s go to bed.”
But David shrugged his hand away. “What I’m trying to tell you is—what I’m trying to teach you—is you gotta be guided by your own lights. If you love Jenny, marry her. If you don’t, then let her go. But for chrissake, don’t use her. She’s a woman, not a political mascot.” He took a breath, then turned toward Anton. “The most important decision you’ll ever make in your life, son, is whom you marry. I pray that you find someone who makes you as happy as Dee has made me.”
Without warning, a picture of Carine making blueberry pancakes for him on a Sunday morning flashed in Anton’s head. He had mentioned Delores’s famous pancakes to Carine during a stroll at a Saturday farmers’ market, and she had risen early the next day to make him breakfast. He shook the memory out of his head. “There’s no woman as good as Mom,” he said. “She’s the best.”
David smiled. “No argument there.”
Anton rose to his feet and stretched. He faked a mighty yawn. “Lord, I’m tired,” he said.
As he could’ve predicted, David rose to his feet immediately. “Let’s get you to bed. We can’t have the new AG facing the world sleep-deprived.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They were in the nation’s capital, Anton and Katherine. It felt good to be out of the state with her, away from the scrutiny that usually followed him. Earlier this afternoon, he had delivered a well-received keynote address at the national convention of federal prosecutors. It was an honor to be asked, but what was even better was getting together with his former colleagues in the Department of Justice. Even among the smart, ambitious men and women who made up the government’s lawyers, Anton had distinguished himself for the systematic way in which he had targeted white-collar crime in his state. In fact, during the 2012 campaign he had played up his successful crackdown on the money-laundering scheme involving local casinos—an achievement that Eric Holder, the nation’s AG, had mentioned in his introduction earlier today.
But now he was off the clock, and he and Katherine were looking forward to dinner at Tamarind, the new Indian restaurant on Capitol Hill that they’d heard so much about. They had been dating only a few months, but he was plenty smitten by her. He had met Katherine Banks at a fund-raiser for the human rights organization where she worked, and drawn to her good looks, he had gotten her phone number before he left that evening. What made him ask her out on a second date, and then a third, was the fact that unlike many of the women he came in contact with, Katherine seemed not the least bit impressed by his position or his family history. That and the fact that she teased him mercilessly, deflating his self-importance and ego every chance she got. The only girl in an Irish family of four boys, Katherine had learned to stand up to her brothers’ teasing from an early age and had, as a result, grown sharp elbows. Anton thought she was the most intriguing combination of femininity and an almost masculine briskness that he’d ever known.
It was a beautiful night in May, and they decided to walk to the restaurant. Katherine looked ravishing in her black shirt and tight blue jeans, but Anton eyed her high-heeled sandals dubiously. “It’s at least a seven-block walk,” he said. “You think you can walk in those things?”
“Watch me.”
He laughed, took her hand, and smiled at the doorman as they exited the hotel. It was a warm night, and the District was brimming with young, dynamic couples much like themselves, out on the town, celebrating their good looks and golden careers. They were the next generation of movers and shakers, and they knew it. Some of them, like him, were thoroughbreds, groomed for success. Others were strivers, those who fled the mill towns of Cleveland and Detroit and the farmlands of Iowa and Nebraska, trading on personal smarts and searing ambition. It didn’t matter how they’d gotten here, really, just that they had. They all worked like Roman slaves during the day at their jobs at the White House or on the Hill or in the lobbying firms that formed a kind of parallel government in the District. But the nights belonged to them, and they poured out of their tiny but well-appointed apartments eager for entertainment. Fueled by their expensive wines and the latest microbrews, munching on grass-fed beef and organic chicken, they traded the latest gossip, the news from the Hill, insider information on sex scandals that had yet to be reported and indictments that would soon be front-page news. They thought they were happy, that these were the best days of their lives and that they were smart enough to recognize them as such. If, when they returned home to Cleveland or Omaha for the holidays and were asked by a machinist uncle or a farmer cousin, “But what exactly do you do down there?” and were at a loss for an answer, they assumed the fault was with the relative and not with them. Or they might try and explain that the age of doing was over, that cars and toys and machinery could all be manufactured over there at a fraction of the cost, that it was all about information now, and that they were the vanguard of this new age. If the relative still looked puzzled, they would look away with some irritation and, at the first available chance, text a friend back in the District, “Counting the days until I’m back home.”
Anton was enjoying the anonymity of being in the city with his girl, and he felt a looseness in his limbs, in his gait, that he seldom experienced back home. They had made love just before getting ready for dinner, and he could smell the damp scent of sex in her hair as they walked. A warm wind blew, and he was glad that he’d made reservations on the restaurant’s outdoor patio. Tomorrow they would check out a few of the Smithsonians before meeting Andrea, a friend from Harvard who now worked at the National Portrait Gallery, and her husband for dinner. He had been desperately busy the past few weeks—the Right to Life folks had descended on the state in droves after a federal appeals court had ruled in favor of a hospital that wanted to pull the plug on an indigent man who had been in a coma for six years—and Anton needed this time away. Also, he was really enjoying getting to know Katherine. Things were passionate and romantic between them, and back home it was impossible to spend an entire weekend away from the office.
They were seated right away when they got to the restaurant, the perfume from a nearby honeysuckle bush wafting toward them. They ordered drinks and then relaxed in the comfortable patio chairs. Even though they had debated whether to risk ordering martinis at an ethnic restaurant, they were not disappointed.
They were smiling at each other across the table when a woman in her early twenties approached their table. “Excuse me,” she said, and Anton looked up at her. A few tables away, he could see a few of her friends giggling at her boldness.
“Yeah?”
“Aren’t you Anton Coleman?” she asked.
He flung a quick, apologetic look at Katherine before saying, “Yes.”
The young woman smiled. “I thought so.” She looked over her shoulder at her friends. “Actually, we—my friends and I—we have a bet. One of them says you were named the Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine last year.”
He was used to such occurrences, but it didn’t make them less embarrassing. “I wish,” he said lightly. “I’m afraid your friend is wrong.�
�
“Oh.” The woman stared at him, unsure how to keep the conversation going. She blushed. “Well, I think they should’ve,” she said in a rush.
He heard Katherine gasp, a light sound that perhaps only he heard. He rose to his feet and stuck his hand out. “Well, thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your dinner.”
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.” He stood watching as she walked back to her table, guarding against any further intrusions. He rolled his eyes as he sat down. “They’re all a little drunk.”
Katherine gave him a bemused look. “Apparently, women get that way in your presence.”
He tried laughing it off. “Aw, come on. You can’t blame this on me.”
“No, of course not. I just don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted when these little episodes happen whenever I’m out with you in public.”
He reached out for her hand. “Baby, forget it. She’s just some silly college girl. Now, where were we?”
“We were complimenting each other on our good judgment in ordering these fabulous martinis.” She looked down at her glass, which was almost empty, and Anton immediately signaled the waiter for another round.
They began their meal by ordering Tamarind’s signature appetizer, a combo of crispy spinach and yogurt, and devoured it within minutes. “Wow,” Katherine said. “Guess we were both hungry.”
He looked at her knowingly. “Certain activities always give me a good appetite.”
Everybody's Son Page 17