Page 5 of Wes and Addie Had Their Chance

“Yes, Phil, I remember.”

Wes was pretty sure that someday, when the time came to write his memoir, it would be published under the title Yes, Phil, I Remember: One Politician’s Futile Quest Not to Be Treated Like a Four-Year-Old.

“And don’t forget you need to get scheduled for a sit-down with Ambassador Harlington the second you’re back in DC. In fact,

let’s go ahead and set that up. You’re in Sacramento how long? You’ll be back in time to commemorate the anniversary, won’t

you?” Phil took a deep breath, muttered something, and then exhaled loudly into the receiver, necessitating Wes’s removal

of the phone from his ear. Sadly, he was back before he could miss a word. “What am I saying? Of course you will. That’s Tuesday.

You won’t be in Sacramento longer than a day or two.”

Right?

That was the point in the conversation where, if it were like normal conversations and Philip Brewster and Wesley Hobbes were

like normal men, Phil would have asked for confirmation of that assertion. If Wesley Hobbes were a normal man, his life would

be his own.

Right?

“What if I stayed a little longer?”

Silence emanated. For a long time after leaving Adelaide Springs, the silence had bothered him. Actually, on some level silence

had always bothered him. He’d never really had those natural instincts that seemed for so many to accompany a quiet life and a slower

pace. He’d always felt the need to try to fill the gaps. Depending upon which of his former therapists you asked, he’d been

either afraid he was in trouble or afraid of no longer being someone’s focus. Either way, the silence triggered fear, and

fear triggered his need to hop up on an apple cart, grab a megaphone, and sing “Yankee Doodle Dandy” to try to please someone

or other.

“Why would you stay longer? The anniversary is—”

“Tuesday. Yes, Phil, I know.”

“Well, then, surely you know that it’s not an option for a United States senator from Connecticut, two months out from the

Connecticut primary, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the death of the most beloved governor in Connecticut history

with a visit to Harry Potter Land when he should be in Connecticut.”

“ Could you please remind me which state I represent? It’s so hard to keep track. Connecticut, is it?” Wes sighed in response

to the tense silence on Phil’s end of the line. Except he didn’t. He’d gotten pretty good at only sighing internally. It was

a useful trick that he figured was going to either save his sanity or result in an ulcer. Only time would tell. “And it’s

Harry Potter World .” Nope, that isn’t right either. “Which is in Hollywood. Allow me to remind you one more time that I’m in—”

“You used to be able to take a joke, Senator. I know. You’re in Sacramento.”

Except he wasn’t.

Wes looked out the window and, though it was getting dark, knew that the geography within view confirmed just how far he’d taken his own joke.

Not that it was a joke at all, of course.

Nor a prank. A midlife crisis? Maybe. The only thing he knew for sure was that he and Phil were never going to share a laugh over it.

There was never going to come a day when Phil would good-naturedly tell the story of that time his presidential front-runner ditched his aides and ignored the schedule and claimed he was valiantly fighting for California’s fifty-four electoral votes when, in reality, he had donned a baseball cap, flown coach completely incognito, and smuggled himself back to his Colorado hometown.

“Yeah. Sacramento. And the only magic that’s going to be happening here over the course of the next few days will involve

sealing up undecideds and bringing in massive campaign contributions.”

“Well, I do like the sound of that.” Phil laughed. “Okay, so tell me: Why the need for extra days? If I know you, you’ll have

this all sewn up by noon tomorrow.”

“Noon?” Wes chuckled. “There’s going to be a ticker-tape parade in my honor before the lieutenant governor has gotten the

parsley from breakfast out of his teeth.” (The average taxpayer would be shocked to learn the number of people kept on government

payrolls for the sole purpose of notifying elected officials when they have something green and stringy hanging from their

gums.) “Nevertheless, I want to really stick it to them while I’m here. I don’t just want them to vote for me. I want them

eating out of the palm of my hand. I want to remind them—”

“Who’s ‘them,’ specifically? The lobbyists or the congressional delega—”

“Yes. All of them. I want to remind every single one of them that I don’t like them any more than they like me, but that doesn’t

change the fact that I’m going to be their president soon. It would serve them well not only to remember that but to start

thanking me for even gracing them with my presence. Even if we only have a couple days together, it’s on them. It’s time to

let bygones be bygones, and if they behave, we’ll all get to be part of a little feel-good piece on the nightly news.”

Wes’s campaign manager cackled on the other end of the call like the heartless, maniacal supervillain he was, and Wes thought

he might be sick. Not that Phil was the cause of the nausea. Not this time.

“Well, if that’s the case, go get ’em. I have to say, it’s nice to hear you focused again. Ever since Wray passed, I’ve been wondering if you even had it in you—”

“You don’t need to worry about that.” There we go. Nausea. Phil’s fault. Order was restored.

Being revolted by much of what came out of Phil’s mouth was nothing new, of course. But something about hearing him say the

name of his late wife caused Wes to feel so much more than just queasiness. The nausea was easy. The sadness and regret were

something else entirely.

“Well, I’m going to go ahead and reach out to Harlington’s office, and then when you—”

Wes was startled out of listening to the rest of Phil’s patronizing instructions about how he should hold his scissors and

always remember to put the lid back on the glue stick by a sound akin to that of a 747 idling nearby. He turned to face the

bellow and discovered the revving engine seemingly belonged to a normal—if not somewhat massive and ancient—vehicle parked

just outside the glass doors of the airport lobby. The headlights were shining directly into his eyes, so he was rendered

blind as he raised his hand and waved. The sharp honk of the horn that followed didn’t exactly bode well for the service he

expected he was about to receive, but there was no one else waiting around. The ride had to be his.

“I’m gonna cut you off there, Phil. My car’s here.” He’d really hoped to have a few moments of solitude to think about all

that was to come without Phil blabbering into his ear, but some dreams were not meant to be. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Call me when you—”

Wes ended the call and stuffed his phone into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, then reached down and hoisted up his suitcase

and his trusty Tumi leather backpack that rarely left his side. He would never stop being grateful that at least he was the

young and “hip” politician who could get away with carrying a backpack rather than a briefcase. It was a small consolation

that, on certain days, provided the only fuel in his tank.

“Thank you!” He was pretty sure someone was in that back room behind the counter.

He could hear sports announcers effusing from a television, and every so often he heard a desk chair creaking loudly, but he’d witnessed no other signs of life.

“Have a nice evening!” Wes’s voice cracked, and he took a deep breath and smiled at the sound.

“Signs of life,” he whispered to himself encouragingly.

He was actually grateful for the squeaky voice and the moisture on his palms and the way his heart seemed to be attempting

to keep pace with a group of sprinting track-and-field athletes only it could see. He wasn’t sure whether to attribute the

rush of adrenaline to all the lies he had told in order to break free—to be free, even if just for a little while—or to finally being back home, but the signs of life were a welcome reminder that he

was doing the right thing.

Home?

Yes. Home.

“Good evening,” he said, waving again and greeting the driver through the old orange-and-white Ford Bronco’s slightly cracked-open

window. The brunette in the driver’s seat stared at him with wide eyes as he passed. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting,” he

prepared to say as he began to climb in, reacting to the death glare she was giving him—which he initially processed as clear

communication that he had, in fact, kept her waiting. But then, quickly, but still just a little too slowly, his brain remembered

he wasn’t in Sacramento or Hollywood or Hartford or even one of his off-the-beaten-path campaign stops in a far-flung corner

of the rural heartland. No, he was in Adelaide Springs, and it was possible he would encounter many, many sets of glaring eyes during his visit. Some of them would probably even be familiar to him.

But no set of eyes across the entire nation would ever be as familiar to him as the ones glaring at him now.

Wes lowered his foot from the running board and took a step back to stand beside the driver’s door again. “Addie?” he attempted

to say into the cold, dark air, but the two syllables seemed hesitant to move past his lips.

The wide-eyed glare fell for just a moment at the sound of her name and morphed into something softer.

But in an instant any hint of softness was gone, replaced by what he interpreted as narrow-eyed skepticism and mistrust. Maybe he was attempting to read too much into a nearly imperceptible gamut of expressions that danced across her face for a second, maybe two, but skepticism and mistrust had been what he expected from every set of eyes from his past. He hadn’t been expecting Addie’s eyes at all, but how much truer must the feelings be for her?

She cleared her throat and turned away to face front, adjusting the rearview mirror before gripping the steering wheel with

both hands. “Better climb in, Senator. The meter’s running.”