Chapter Thirty-Five
Kwame
Boundaries
“Oh, before I forget, I hear you were at the NMAAHC last week. I didn’t realize you were still involved with that project.” The Governor and I had just said our goodbyes, and I catch his question right before I hang up.
“My mother’s donations are ongoing. I wasn’t there for her. The tickets were my father's. I wasn’t going but a friend wanted to.”
“Would this be the friend that my daughter says displaced her for your affection?”
“I'm not sure how to respond to that,” I say after an awkward pause where I listened for sounds of humor in his voice and heard none.
“Honestly would be good. You know that I would've liked for the two of you to come together. You seemed to be rekindling things.”
“No, we weren’t. We’re just friends.”
“I see. Well, given your lack of political ambition for public service, maybe it’s best that you go your separate ways.”
The way he characterized it rubs me wrong. “I’m interested in public service. I'm not interested in politics.”
“Running for office to represent your fellow citizens is the highest form of public service. Trying to climb the DOJ ladder is all good but feels like you’re making the safe choice.”
“In what way?”
“You’re more interested in winning than being great.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You’re letting fear keep you in your comfort zone.”
“I’m not.” I know he's goading me, but it still gets under my skin.
His opinion matters to me maybe more than anyone else's. He is everything that I thought my father should be. And yet here he is on the same page as my father. Neighbors they may have been, brought together by their wives’ friendship more than their own mutual interest in each other.
They play golf together, but I get the sense it’s only because they are members at the same clubs.
They couldn’t be more different. Governor Persaud has been married for almost forty years to the same woman. He’s got children who respect and trust him. And he got something that's rare for politicians, a sterling reputation and being known for his integrity.
If he has skeletons in his closet, they are there so well buried that they may as well not exist because as many times as he's run for office, his opposition has tried, and the worst they could come up with was a credit card he defaulted on when he was in college.
And all that did was make him more relatable to the voters.
“It's not that I win more in court. It's that I am getting results for the people who need them. All politics looks like is people getting results for the people who paid to send them there.”
“That’s what you think of me?”
“Of course not, but you're not running for Congress are you? You're the governor of the commonwealth. You have one term to serve. You'll do good and go back to private practice.”
“I’m not going back to private practice. I like politics.”
“Oh, so the Senate, then?”
“I’m not interested in lawmaking. Executive office seems better suited to my talents.”
“I see. But you only get one term as governor. Where do you go after that but the oval office?” I laugh.
He doesn’t. “Between you and me, Kwame. I'm beginning to explore the possibility of running for president.”
My eyes bug out of my head. “Wow. I didn’t know you had that ambition.”
“I didn’t know it either. It’s been floated by the party. Donors like your father are ready to open their checkbooks.”
I bet he is.
“Well, you’d have my support. It would be historic—the Guyanese American President.”
“Why not? America seems to be in a history making mood.”
I ponder it. He’s right. Two years ago, the voters chose a radical path forward and now, a woman whose grandparents were enslaved and toiled to build the White House sits behind the Resolute Desk.
The country could be ready for a man whose parents came here with empty pockets and built a dynasty in a single generation-.
“I know how to make something out of nothing and I love this country. We have our first woman behind the Resolute Desk. It’s past time we have a first gen member of the global majority representing the most prosperous country in the world.
” His voice is like steel and yet full of passion.
It’s not surprising he won his election by a landslide.
“It would be greatest honor of my life to lead a country that gave my parents refuge and opportunity.”
Not for the first time in my life, I wish he’d been my dad. “I don’t understand my father’s loathing of the only place on earth where this story is even possible.”
“He doesn’t loathe America. He just wants it to bend to his will and hates that it won’t.”
“That’s even worse,” I say dryly.
He chuckles. “Listen, your father is who he is. He’s not going to change. You should stop expecting things you know he’s not capable of and you’ll see him more clearly.”
“I see him just fine. I just wish he’d see me too, and that me making this choice won’t lead to World War III and another decade of estrangement.”
“You know that the sky can only support one sun, right?”
Gooseflesh blooms on my scalp and runs down my back. “My mom used to say that all the time. Did she say it to you, too?”
“She must have. And she’s right. I admire your father and think he’s a very smart man, but he doesn’t know what’s best for you. And don’t let your desire to march to your own drum keep you from pursuing something that could be good for you.”
“What do you mean?’
“There’s going to be a vacant Senate seat that I’ll have the power to fill. You’ve got a lot of options, and a lot of talents. But I think you’d be the perfect appointment. Seriously.”
The thought excites and repulses me all at once. “Thank you for your faith in me, but it’s just not for me.”
“You’ve got six months to decide. Never say never. Anything can happen.”
I glance around my office with a view that stretches all the way to the Jefferson Memorial.
It’s gorgeous, but I’d rather be in a windowless office doing work that’s important to me and makes me want to get out of bed in the morning instead of dreading work like I do now.
I start work on my application for the State’s Attorney. These are highly sought after and coveted jobs. I’m in for a rigorous months-long interview process. As stressful and competitive as that will be, it’ll make telling my father what I’ve decided look like a cake walk.