Chapter 43. Lennix
LENNIX
“This will be fantastic.”
Millicent fairly glows reading the plans we’ve drafted to announce Owen’s exploratory committee on New Year’s Eve.
Take-out cartons, coffee cups, laptops, and iPads crowd the glass surface of our conference-room table.
The faces around the room look tired, but her response makes the hard work worth it.
“I agree,” Owen says absently. “Fantastic.”
He’s been reading the draft of a bill during the meeting, negotiating the challenge of still serving in the Senate while running for president. That will only intensify the further we get into this process.
Millicent gives him a heatless glare and rolls her eyes. “He’ll be no fun until that bill goes through. Now I do have some questions about the menu and decorations. It is still New Year’s Eve. It has to be festive.”
“It’ll be at our house,” Owen says, still not looking up from the massive stack in front of him. “Our Christmas decorations are up from Thanksgiving ’til St. Patrick’s Day. You don’t get more festive than that.”
“He exaggerates,” she says with a smile. “They’re down by Valentine’s Day.”
She crosses her arms and begins what resembles a military march. “But that is neither here nor there. We need to discuss menu, additional decorations, entertainment, fireworks—”
“Fireworks?” Owen, Kimba and I ask simultaneously.
She lifts one haughty brow, her general’s face on. “Are we going to have a problem with my fireworks? It’s the least we can do to launch one of the greatest presidential administrations in our fine nation’s history. A Cade finally sitting in the Oval? We need to blow some shit up.”
Silence hangs in the air. Everyone exchanges nervous glances.
Then there is a snicker from the far end of the conference-room table.
It’s Maxim, who hasn’t said a word the entire meeting.
With his head and shoulders hunched over his iPad, I assumed he was barely paying attention.
His humor seems to uncork everyone else, and then we’re all laughing.
Owen laughs loudest and pulls his wife down onto his lap.
“My girl wants fireworks,” he says, kissing the top of Millicent’s head. “My girl gets fireworks.”
She giggles and burrows into his neck. “Thank you, O.”
I stand and put on my general face.
“There’s something else we need to discuss,” I say, waiting for the laughter to settle down. “This announcement is taking place at your house. Your Pacific Heights mansion in San Francisco, to be more precise.”
“It’s our home,” Owen says, his voice stiffening. “I thought we agreed that would personalize it rather than at a city hall or something.”
“I think the party at your place is great,” I say.
“And Millicent’s known to be an incredible hostess, so treating it like a party is perfect.
We just need to be cognizant of the optics.
Republicans will paint you as elitist, and speaking frankly, there’s a lot about your background that screams wealth and the dirtiest buzzword of all right now—privilege. ”
“We can’t change who we are,” Millicent says, a little defensively.
“I’m not asking you to change who you are,” I reassure her, keeping my voice calm.
“I’m asking you to manage how they see you.
We don’t want struggling working-class voters to feel like they could never relate to you.
Seeing all your rich friends gathered around the sprawling ballroom in your mansion does not exactly communicate ‘I feel your pain.’”
“Okay,” Millicent says with a small frown. “What do you suggest?”
“I think we need to make sure you don’t look like the one percenters you actually are if we want the middle class pulling the lever for you next year, Senator Cade.
Most Americans don’t even really tune into politics until we start gearing up for elections.
Do you want their first impression of you to be the elitism your opponent will surely accuse you of? ”
My words land with a thump into the subsequent quiet. I give it a beat and am about to elaborate, but Maxim speaks before I can. “She’s right, O.”
I look up to find his stare fixed on me, but he quickly shifts it to his brother. “Not many people grew up the way we did or live the way we do. We want them to know we may have a lot, but we want to use what we have to help.”
“Exactly,” I add. “I’m not suggesting you hide who you are or fake poverty. That would be disingenuous, and your authenticity is one of the most appealing things about you.”
“Then what?” Owen asks.
“Your political positions and your personality, everything about you polls really well with millennials,” I say. “You feel like a breath of fresh air to them.”
“Well, that’s good to know.” Owen laughs. “Did you hear that, Mill? This old guy polls well with millennials.”
A few of the team chuckle, but they’re also typing on their iPads and laptops, jotting notes, grabbing data. They’ve started tracking down leads before I’ve had to ask for them.
“Let’s invite them,” Kimba says, excitement sparking in her dark-brown eyes. “Students, community organizers, Instagram influencers, leaders from marginalized groups—all of them.”
“Yes!” I agree. Kimba and I basically share a brain, so I see where this could go. “Bus caravans.”
“By car, by train,” she picks up. “We send out invitations now to campus leaders, folks who volunteered for campaigns, all key figures in those crucial demographics. We don’t leave them with their faces pressed to the window.”
“Right,” I say. “We open the doors. Yes, I have a big house, but it’s your house, too. At least for tonight.”
Everyone laughs again, and the brief tension that had infiltrated the room flees completely. I pace, my brain like a beehive, every idea causing another and chasing that one until I’m buzzing with thoughts and I can’t get the words out fast enough.
“Not just a party to celebrate a New Year’s Eve,” I say, my voice climbing, “but a new era!”
“A new era’s eve party,” Kimba laughs, high-fiving me. “Ooooh! We’re cooking with hot grease now, honey.”
We continue spitballing ideas and assigning actionable items. It’s another hour before we break, but I feel much better about this soiree we’re throwing.
“Big plans for Thanksgiving, Lennix?” Millicent asks, gathering some of the dinner debris while the team packs up to go.
“Lennix doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving,” Maxim says from the other end of the table, his words quiet. He looks up from his iPad to meet my eyes. “Unless that’s changed?”
He and I stare at one another so long I feel other people noticing.
“No, I don’t celebrate,” I say.
Thanksgiving is one of those distinctly American traditions that has problematic origins for American Indians.
“I don’t begrudge other people celebrating,” I tell them, shrugging. “Even some from my tribe celebrate. It’s fine. I just don’t.” I smile to lighten the mood and my words. “But I do go home. My dad and I order pizza and watch parades and boring football games.”
Everyone laughs, keeps packing up and heading out. I’m still processing that Maxim knows I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. I must have forgotten we discussed it. I thought I remembered everything about that week.
“Maxim, Lennix,” Owen says. “Could you two hang for a minute?”
Maxim glances at the Richard Mille watch on his wrist. “I can give you twenty of them. Jin Lei has my car downstairs and a flight waiting.”
“You’re leaving DC?” I ask before I catch my damn tongue.
Maxim goes still in the middle of pulling on his leather jacket and glances up at me, one brow lifted.
“I mean,” I say hastily. “I just wondered in case we need anything or have questions.”
He pulls his jacket on and grabs his iPad from the table. “Kimba has my itinerary and knows how to get in touch with me.”
One of my conditions. He doesn’t say it, but the silent truth travels the length of the table.
“Yeah, I’ve been in contact with Jin Lei,” Kimba affirms, smiling. “I know how to find you.”
He smiles back with an ease that doesn’t exist between the two of us anymore.
He hasn’t made any attempts to contact me.
Everything I’ve heard of Maxim comes through Kimba or the gossip columns.
There seems to be a report about him on DC’s social circuit every night.
The latest morsel involved him kissing a Russian ambassador’s daughter.
I’ve been convincing myself all week that I don’t care.
He does think I’m with Wallace. Maybe he decided to give up?
And shouldn’t I be happy if he has?
“Well, my mama has started cooking Thanksgiving dinner,” Kimba says, rubbing her stomach. “I can already smell the turkey and dressing.”
“Oooh, and string bean casserole,” Howard groans.
“Mac and cheese,” Kimba bounces back as they leave the conference room.
“I’m gonna go check on the twins,” Millicent says. She pauses at the door and turns to me. “Thanks for not backing down in the meeting, Lennix. Some people blow smoke up my ass because of who I’m married to.”
“First of all, if I blew smoke up your ass,” I tell her, “it would be because of who you are, not your husband. And second of all, I got no smoke, lady.”
We exchange slow, genuine smiles. She nods and leaves the room.
“So what’s up, brother?” Maxim asks. “I got a plane to catch.”
“Where are you going?” Owen asks, frowning a little.
“Berlin, Prague, Stockholm,” Maxim says. “Then it gets fuzzy and you’ll have to ask Jin Lei.”
“When do you come back to the States?” Owen asks. “Will you be home for Christmas?”
Maxim’s face shutters. “You already know the answer to that, O. I’ll make sure to send the twins their gifts and—”
“And your mother?” Owen demands. “When will you see her?”
“I see Mom more than ever,” Maxim fires back. “Just not with him. He doesn’t want to see me.”
“And he says you don’t want to see him.” Exasperation and frustration war on Owen’s face. “You two are the most—”