4. Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Patrick
“Honey? They’re here.”
My mother’s heels clacked against the tile foyer, a subtle threat she’d fetch me from the kitchen if I didn’t come at her request.
I grabbed a light blazer off the chair, and headed to the room my parents called their library. French doors opened to plush carpet and heavy wood built-in bookcases lined three of the walls. Two small couches faced each other in the middle.
On one of the two couches sat the consultant my mother hired. “You know Bea already,” she stated.
We’d met by video call for an introduction. Bea, which apparently wasn’t short for Beatrice. Just Bea. Her last name Clark. Her name wasted no time, just like the woman. She gave me a curt nod. Pinkish-white skinned and blond with big curls like she’d just left a salon, Bea Clark was petite even in high heels but packed a big punch with her words and attitude. I never would have scored her as a campaign strategist on my own dime, and my mother knew it.
Regret hit instantly. I should have never told her I needed help. It wasn’t that I didn’t want the help—no, wait. That was exactly it. I wanted to do this on my own. On my terms .
But I was in over my head. Within a day after I’d been confirmed as a nominee, the Ribben campaign began their branding expedition. Local radio and TV ads touting their family legacy and commitment to the community. Signage plastered throughout downtown.
I’d brought in two volunteers. We’d sat in the kitchen of my duplex, hunched over cheap pizza, all of us clueless on how to run a political campaign. So I’d made a choice.
And here we were, the result of my choice.
There were other women in the room.
My mother gestured to them. “This here is Marsha Davenport and her daughter Tiara.”
“Tiara…” I tested out the name, not intentionally, as I reached to shake her delicate tanned-skinned hand.
“Because my daughter is a princess and deserves a name fit for crowning glory,” Tiara’s mother drawled in a thick-as-syrup Southern accent. Not exactly common in very Midwestern Detroit.
“They’re from Georgia,” Bea quipped.
Mild panic hit. They’d flown them in? I threw on what I hoped was a campaign-winning smile. Hot sweat beaded at my neck.
“Sit,” Bea commanded lightly.
I took a seat and glanced nervously at my mother. What is this? I asked her with my eyes.
Don’t question me, she spoke back, without saying a word.
“Your little snag,” Bea Clark began, “is a simple roadblock we can pave right over. Just a little image makeover.” She watched me expectantly.
I sat forward, elbows on my knees. “Okay, well. Let’s go.” Maybe I’d been dressing too casually in an attempt to be an “every man” type of candidate. I could spruce up my hair and my wardrobe. Sure. Why not ?
Bea nudged her burgundy-framed glasses upward with her pen. “You need a wife.”
The room deadened of sound. Like being in a soundproof room where a vacuum sucked out all the air molecules.
A wife. A wife? “Uh…”
Bea gave me a look of practiced patience. “What you need to gain legitimacy as a candidate is to find yourself a fiancée. No one votes for a single, unattached man. There’s no trust there. Get a fiancée and you’re good as gold and ready for the big time.”
I swung a look at my mother. She smiled. I was still lost. She tilted her head toward Marsha and her crowning glory daughter.
They were all smiles.
Oh. Oh .
A fiancée …
My vision blurred and a nervous laugh escaped. “Ah, so we’re talking…an engagement…” To a total stranger. I couldn’t believe this was happening.
Bea pointed at Tiara with her weighty ink pen. “She’s cute as a button, has two city aldermen in her family, and a list of pageant wins to boot. She’s perfect.”
Speechless…I was speechless.
“We moved here with Daddy’s business when I was in high school,” Tiara said in a much less syrupy accent. A shy grin surfaced. “I graduated from the University of Michigan and I’m a public relations assistant at a law firm. I’m looking forward to getting to know you.”
Tiara, now, she was a beautiful young woman. Emphasis on young—she looked like she’d just packed up her dorm. Her hair fell long in loose curls, a brunette with a bunch of other tones streaked in. Expensive looking hair. Expensive looking shoes too. Those pointy heels in smooth leather. Legs crossed at the ankles.
A country club girl. I’d spent a lifetime being dragged to our local country club for parties and awards dinners. I’d been given a scholarship from our local club for doing nothing at all, which I’d always thought was preposterous.
No offense to Tiara, who seemed nice enough and thankfully coming off nervous in her own right because this entire conversation was insane, but even if I were to get engaged, it would be to someone completely different from her.
“I think we need to back up here,” I said.
“Patrick.” My mother’s tone came measured. “This little town of yours has expectations. If you want a shot, this is how you do it.”
“By faking an engagement?”
Bea tsk ed at me. “Who says it’s all pretend? Tiara is a catch. This could lead to something genuine and lasting.”
The lack of warmth in Bea’s tone told me everything. She was hired to do a job and was executing.
“This election isn’t big-time politics or anything. Small town, small governance. It’s the rezoning issue that’s got me. The nerve to take affordable housing, albeit an aging building, and rezone to—”
“We’ll have time to talk shop later,” Bea cut in. She patted my knee. “Right now. Fiancée. Image. Media. That’s what we attack first.”
I blew out a breath. “Okay. No, not okay. All of this is too much—” I moved my hand in the air, realizing too late that Marsha and Tiara may take offense at insinuating they were the “too much.” I detoured my hand to run through my hair like some dork in a shampoo commercial. Total disaster. “Uh, I just feel like this approach is not a good fit. I won’t run at all if this is what it takes to be taken seriously.”
Bea angled toward me. “The Strauss family name carries weight. This is a good move for you, Patrick. Starting small shows you’re like one of the little guys. You’re not shooting for Pontiac or Sterling Heights. No, you’re starting small. Reasonable. People like that. It’s genuine. This is all a great base for what’s to come. ”
Did I bother asking? Because I had an idea of what I wanted to come next and I wasn’t sure it matched anything these women were thinking. Including my own mother.
“Respectfully, I’d like to take the lead in my own political career.” I didn’t want to climb the ladder to a senator. I’d told my parents exactly that. I just wanted to do right by my town. I stood, regretting involving my parents and Bea Clark in the first place. “It was nice meeting you all, but I’m afraid this isn’t going to work.”
“ Patrick. ” My mother directed what was possibly the sternest but calmest reprimand she’d ever managed. “Sit. Down.”
Bea didn’t blink. “What your mother is saying is that you running for mayor is a potential benefit to many.”
A ringing started in my ears. She didn’t have to say the rest out loud. She wasn’t talking about the people of Birchwood Hills.
This move to run for office had finally caught my father’s attention after years of my apparent disappointments. Using my law degree to work in a legal aid office was unfathomable to him. No corner office in a swanky law firm for me. I wasn’t interested. Worse, to him, I wasn’t even building up to that.
But running for local office? That got him salivating. I knew it the moment I’d let them know I planned to run, and then insisted I wanted nothing from them. So yeah, being back here, even with just my mother and Bea, well, it was all pretty humbling.
My mother looked past me. “Bea, show him the tape.”
I swung to Bea Clark.
“A video.” She tapped at her phone and faced it toward me.
Mayor Eli Ribben, with his leathery-tanned skin and full head of gray hair styled like a patriarch on a soap opera, stood with his arm slung across Eric Ribben’s shoulders at an outdoor event. Eric being the shorter, rounder, ruddier-faced nephew. “We stand for family,” the elder Ribben stated. “And bringing good jobs to good people. A family -run town.”
Eric Ribben flashed a smile. “No outsider, hot-shot lawyer will run our town into the ground.”
“Towns aren’t run on good intentions,” the current mayor continued. “New business brings in tax revenue. That helps the community.”
The video panned to the worn apartment complex they wanted to condemn and rezone. But of course, the shot didn’t show the front of the building with hanging flower baskets on porches and balconies. It lingered on graffiti-laden dumpsters and broken glass strewn across the pavement.
My hands curled into fists. Hot-shot lawyer? I worked at a legal clinic. We had to secure funding to keep the doors open. And I wasn’t an outsider. I’d lived in Birchwood Hills for four years, and grew up only a few miles away. Attended a private college in-state. Law school too. I’d never left.
“They’re the ones working on that casino deal nobody wants,” I ground out. “They’re the ones pushing to rezone an area earmarked for affordable housing to build retail that won’t pay people a living wage. But they call them good jobs because it’s a recognizable brand.”
A current of anger threaded through my veins. Quitting meant giving up. I spent my time and money in my town. The people there didn’t want more of the same chain stores in their community. They could drive a few miles any direction for that. They definitely didn’t want a mega hotel and casino. Again, not when these things existed in other areas nearby.
Bea and my mother knew showing me that video would re-ignite my fire.
Dangit, it was working.
But I didn’t have to let them run this show. Nope. I’d run an honest campaign. I’d be forthright about what I intended to do. I wouldn’t let the Ribbens cast their smoke and mirrors over their campaign promises .
I wouldn’t quit. I couldn’t quit.
But as my weak-turnout events had shown, no one took me seriously. To run for office, for this office, against a family accusing me of being an outsider, I needed more than resolve and a can-do attitude.
I needed a smart strategy. I needed driven people…who were paid. Bea Clark would be paid well for her services, courtesy of the Strauss family.
The things you say you’ll never do…
But I had to draw the line. I definitely wouldn’t fake an engagement to a Southern belle. Yeah, I’d do this, and do it on my own terms. Forget this pageant beauty— sorry, Tiara, you’re probably a great person —I’d forge my own path.
As the women chatted, an idea formed. An outrageous, possibly unhinged idea. There was only one person I trusted to ask, and she wasn’t sitting in this room.
I cleared my throat. “Okay. I’m in, but on one condition.”
Bea raised a sculpted brow. “Name it.”
“I pick my own fiancée.”
My mother huffed in exasperation. “There’s no time. Your campaign is already underway.”
I couldn’t believe I was doing this. “No problem. I only need a few days.” And a hefty sack of luck and a whole lot of nerve.