“I don’t think so,” Rebecca answered, looking puzzled.
Tom shrugged. “Okay, just ask around. Tell your dad you’re trying to get her, and maybe he can help.”
“But my dad—”
“Wait, wait,” Matt interrupted, still trying to absorb it. “Jeff said they’ve already set out a schedule of fundraisers.”
“Yeah, but this is going to be even bigger and just for me. I’ve got my own backers, and I told Rebecca if she could find a big outdoor venue, we could do like a barbecue and dance, something like that. You know, make it a thou to fifteen hundred a plate, more for the inner circle.”
“But, Tom,” Matt tried again, “the party has carefully planned the fundraisers. As in when and where and who . . . you can’t just insert a big bruiser in the middle of all that.”
Tom laughed. “Hey, pal,” he said cheerfully, “who’s running for office, you or me?”
“Matt, can we go hunt for frogs?” Grayson asked, oblivious to the conversation around him
Why? There was a huge toad and his pretty little lily pad standing right in front of them.
Chapter Twenty
And it is precisely these variations in behavior and attitude that trigger in each of us a common response: Seeing others around us differing from us, we conclude that these differences . . . are but temporary manifestations of madness, badness, stupidity or sickness . . .
PLEASE UNDERSTAND ME
So here she’d spent several days romanticizing his gift and thinking about little else but him, and he shows up to bust Grayson’s vacuum cleaner and get all bent out of shape because they had planned a big gala fund-raiser? The man seriously needed to get over himself . . . or maybe she did. Definitely one of them did.
Rebecca picked up a piece of Grayson’s little Hoover, which, incidentally, he loved until this afternoon, and his Rescue Buddies, and shoved them into the portable toy box that accompanied them everywhere. Big Pants squatted down to help her, and they both reached for the paramedic at the same time. Rebecca slapped his hand away.
“Ouch,” he whined.
“Where’s the S.W.A.T. guy?” she asked Grayson. He shrugged his shoulders.
“I think he’s over here,” Matt said, and fell over himself—literally—getting it off the desk to hand her.
“Matt, let’s talk about the Hispanic Democrats. Jeff says you’ve got some ideas?” Tom said over her head.
“Ah . . . yeah. Just give me a minute—”
Rebecca stood up, gripping Grayson’s portable toy box with the pieces in it.
“Come on back to the office,” Tom said. “Rebecca, you keep up the good work! And don’t forget to call your dad and tell him all about me!” With a jaunty wave, Tom started back to his office.
Matt shoved a hand through his hair, winced at Rebecca’s cool expression. “Will you wait one second before you take off?” he asked, following Tom.
Rebecca waited exactly one second as she watched him stride down the hall, feeling very baffled by Big Pants, but what else was new, and a little baffled by Tom’s sudden interest in her father. During their hour-long meeting, he had asked her twice if Dad knew about the campaign, what he thought of it, and if he was going to come to any of the events. She tried to explain to Tom that her dad really wasn’t political (and didn’t even attempt to explain his aversion to Democrats in general, or her reservations about him showing up anywhere she was trying to work), but Tom was insistent. “Tell him about me,” he had said without an ounce of self-consciousness.
In spite of her very best efforts to keep the old girl down, Doormat Rebecca reared her ugly head and said, “Sure!” God, she was too polite sometimes! And gullible. And entirely too easily pushed around. She looked at Grayson. “What happened here? You broke your toy.”
He shrugged. “Matt said it was a girl’s toy.”
“Did he,” she breathed. She was going to stand up for herself and stomp on Big Pant’s humongous he-shouldn’t-be-playing-with-vacuums ego. She envisioned doing, in slow motion and really hard, like they did in the Matrix movie.
She found the Rescue Buddy policeman and the fireman, asked Grayson if there was anything else. He pointed to his book, tossed aside. She put that in the sack, too, then returned to the small office where they normally stashed their stuff, gathered up her purse and briefcase and her son, and walked out to her Range Rover. She loaded the stuff into the back, then went around to the passenger side where Grayson was sitting, kicking the dash. “Hop onto your booster.”
“Rebecca!”
Great. She glanced over her shoulder as Grayson climbed over the console and into his booster seat. Matt was jogging toward her, his tie flapping behind him. When he reached the Rover, he stopped, flashed that heart-melting grin, and said, “Hey, I’m really sorry.” When Rebecca didn’t respond, his grin just got deeper and whiter. “I had no right to do a number on the vacuum cleaner. I’m an idiot.”