“Yeah. . . . So what have you got?” Gunter pressed her.
“Let me think,” she said, and hid behind a sip of wine as she looked to where Tom was standing, between two chunky gray-haired dudes, and thought, in answer to Gunter’s question, that what she had was a good swift kick in the ass for Tom. In fact, she visualized it, which caused her to smile.
“Something good, huh?” Gunter asked.
Be confident. Be strong. Be assertive! “Yyyess!” she said, perhaps just a tad too enthusiastically. “We have an appearance at the Silver Panthers lined up. We’re throwing a little party the night before their conference begins.”
Neither Frick nor Frack said anything for a moment; they seemed to be mulling it over. But slowly, Gunter began to nod. “No, that’s good—we can actually use that in a couple of spots.” He suddenly sat up, intent on Heather. “I’m thinking of something like those arthritis pill commercials. You know the one that has all the old people dancing and looking hip?”
“Yeah, yeah . . . and there’s the old guy who gets into a rocket and decides to check out the universe?” Heather reminded him.
“Sweet,” said Gunter. “We can get some shots of old dudes like that at the party.” Frick and Frack smiled thinly at each other, then at Rebecca. “So when is this deal?”
“This Thursday evening.”
“We’ll get a photographer out to get some shots of Tom dancing with an old lady,” Gunter said.
Never mind the fact that Rebecca was fairly certain that old lady was not a politically correct term, but they had the wrong idea if they thought there would be any dancing. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, but there won’t be any dancing—”
“You said party!” Heather said accusingly.
“Yes, but not dancing—”
“Then what?” asked Gunter.
“Then bingo.”
“Bin-go?” Gunter shouted, sounding more clueless than upset.
“Lots of senior citizens play bingo.”
“I know seniors play it. But I didn’t think that was what Tom had in mind.” He looked hopeful that Rebecca might, perhaps, be kidding.
She was so not kidding. She had thought long and hard about how to engage the Silver Panthers, had even consulted Jo Lynn (who thought her idea was genius, thank you very much, Frick and Frack). Tom could mingle a little between games and even take one of the breaks to deliver some sort of speech. “Think of how good Tom will look, hanging out with seniors,” she said. “It will be a great way to get their attention.”
“It is a great venue,” Heather reluctantly conceded. “Don’t get me wrong. I mean, the object is to get Tom and voters in the same place at the same time, right? In a place that feels comfortable to them.”
Okay! Heather and her hair were coming around!
“I suppose we could shoot something there. Actually, it might be kind of cool.” She looked at Gunter. “A sort of hip throwback, something like that.”
“Right!” Rebecca brightly agreed, having absolutely no idea what Heather meant.
“Talk to me,” Gunter said, and the two of them proceeded to brainstorm as if she wasn’t sitting right there between them. The one time she tried to interject, Frick flashed a thin, go-over-there-and-leave-us-alone smile, which had unhinged her so completely that she could do nothing but down her wine.
So Rebecca looked around for Tom. While she was drinking that godawfully sweet white wine and doing his business with Frick and Frack, he and his pals had pulled up another table and chairs. Apparently, Tom meant to have a little party. She imagined herself dropping a potted plant on Tom’s fat head. In the course of visualizing that, she noticed that one of his pals—the one with the duck lips and bald pate—was smiling at her.
Ugh.
Unbeknownst to Rebecca, Ben was smiling at her, too. “Je-sus, who the hell is that?” he asked, motioning toward Rebecca’s back with his bourbon.
Matt looked up; his heart did some strange, annoying little flip that he paid no heed. “You don’t want to know, trust me.” He noticed that Tom was there, too, along with Representative Jeffers and Fred Davis. Hello, what is this?
“Like hell I don’t. What are you saying—you know her?” Ben demanded.
“Yeah. She’s working on Tom’s campaign. But she’s a beauty queen from outer space and believe me, you don’t want to get within a ten-mile radius. What I want to know is what the hell is she doing here with Tom.”
“Jealous?” Ben scoffed.
“Hell no,” Matt said as he stood up.
“Let’s talk about slogans a moment,” Gunter was saying, drawing Rebecca’s attention back to him. “Maybe you can help us out.”
And maybe I’ll just have another glass of wine.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?” Gunter asked.