Anton smiled a slow, predatory smile. “And that is precisely why you will change your goddamn speech.” He nodded to Connor. “Come on, Uncle Connor. Let’s give Billy here some time to rework his pretty little speech.”
Anton could feel Annie’s gaze on him as he crossed the room. He and Annie had always liked each other, and he had a hunch that she was rooting for him on this one. His body vibrated a little as he walked out of the room, adrenaline surging through him. He crossed the hallway, heading toward the ballroom in the Governor’s Mansion. Connor hurried to keep up with him, saying something laudatory, but Anton wasn’t really listening. He was amazed by the purity of his anger, that rush of aggression, something he had always abhorred. But now that he’d had a taste of it, he knew he wanted to taste it again. He understood now why his father had clung to his office until today, five months after his heart attack, hoping against hope that he’d recover enough to run the state again. Power was a drug, a high, an addiction. Truth be told, he felt a little high himself, his body reverberating, his small but brutal victory over Bill compensating in some tiny way for the sad, empty feeling he was about to feel, watching his father hand over the governorship to a man they all knew could never fill the shoes of a giant named David Coleman.
CONNOR AND ANTON slipped into a small room to the side of the state ballroom, where supporters and state officials had begun to gather. David was in his wheelchair facing Delores, who sat across from him, their heads bowed together. With a start of surprise, Anton realized that they were praying. He felt embarrassed, as if he were an interloper, but David looked up, smiled, and opened his arms toward Anton in a gesture that was so loving and unguarded, it brought a lump to the younger man’s throat. “Hey, Dad,” he said, his eyes tearing. “How you doing?”
David shrugged. “It’s a sad day,” he said simply.
Connor walked up to his old friend, a broad smile on his face. “Don’t worry,” he said. “There’s gonna be a Coleman in this office again, you mark my words.” He pointed at Anton. “You should’ve seen him in there, taking on Bill Schroder. I’d been going round and round with the jerk for an hour. Anton walks in and demolishes him in two seconds flat. Told him his boss could expect a primary challenge if he didn’t remove his bullshit remarks.”
David laughed his silent laugh, and for a second he looked like his old self. “Did you really?”
Anton looked at his dad shyly. “Aw, you know. I was just messing with him, Dad.”
“From your mouth to God’s ear,” Delores said unexpectedly, raising the water glass she’d been holding. “Here’s to another Coleman in the Governor’s Mansion.”
“Amen.”
“Okay, people. I already have a job, remember?”
Connor had opened his mouth as if to argue when Brad walked in. “You guys ready?” he said. “They’re waiting for us.”
They all froze in place, David’s eyes resting on each of them for a second. “Thank you,” he whispered. “It’s been a great ride. And I couldn’t have done it without each one of you.”
Anton stared at the ground, unwilling to let his father see the tears filling his eyes. Then he stepped behind David’s wheelchair. “Let’s get it over with, Dad,” he said.
ANTON SAT IN the front row, flanked by his mother and Katherine, and watched as his father said a few words, formally resigning from his post and wishing Newman well in the task ahead. He listened to Newman’s speech, ready to bristle at the slightest hint of a slam against his father, but the few times Newman did mention David, he was complimentary. After the ceremony, Anton glowed with pride as several officials gathered around David’s wheelchair, shaking his hand and thanking him for his years of service. He thought back to election night, when he and his father had shared the victory stage as the first father-and-son team to win two statewide offices together. Who could have predicted this abrupt, ignoble end to David’s career?
Annie Bunter walked up to Anton. “That was quite a performance in there,” she said dryly, her eyes brimming with laughter, her manner flirtatious.
“Thanks.”
She touched his arm lightly. “What you said in there. About a primary challenge. Were you serious?”
“Annie,” he said, looking deeply into her face. “If I were, you’d be the last person I’d confide in.”
She searched his face for a long moment and then laughed. “Yup. That’s what I figured.” She walked away, her high heels clicking on the tile floor, and then she stopped and looked back. “It’d be fun. Having you as an opponent, I mean.”
He stood staring at her back, trying to parse what she’d said. Was she encouraging him to run? If he could capture the aggression that he’d displayed in the conference room, trap that feeling of power, like lightning in a bottle, he would win. If he ran, there could be a Coleman in the Governor’s Mansion again. And there was nothing, he knew, no gift he could give his father, that would mean more to him than that.
BOOK FOUR
August 2016
CHAPTER THIRTY
The news kept getting better and better.
Any misgivings Anton had had about challenging the incumbent governor had been laid to rest by the twelve-point blowout in the April primary. And even though Uncle Connor would bite off the head of anyone who said it out loud, internal polling showed that Anton would beat Joe Irving, his Republican opponent, by an even wider margin, an almost unheard-of rout in this political climate.
Indeed, it was obvious that the Coleman name was still golden within the state. On the campaign trail, as Anton worked the ropes, person after person would stop him with a fond recollection about his dad or about Pappy, and despite his exhaustion, Anton left these encounters more certain than ever why he was running. He enjoyed these interactions with the older residents of the state much more than he did the screaming and adulation that now greeted him when he was surrounded by girls too young to vote and women old enough to know better, but as Brad always said, this was the state of retail politics now, and he’d best shut up and learn to enjoy it.
In fact, he was enjoying the campaign. Even if the June issue of People magazine had featured a picture of him with the headline “The Stud Muffin Governor?” He had been mortified, but Brad, who had taken a leave of absence from his business to run the campaign, was thrilled. Anton tried to argue that such fluff pieces undermined the rationale of his campaign, which claimed that he had reluctantly chosen to throw his hat into the ring only because John Newman had governed from the center right and had moved away from the progressive legacy he had inherited. “If we wanted a Republican governor, heck, we’d elect a Republican governor,” Anton had said at the news conference announcing his candidacy. The press had loved that line. But when Anton reminded his campaign manager of the reasons for running, Brad was having none of it. “Listen, idiot,” he’d growled. “I worked for months to get you that People piece. This is national exposure, baby.”