The Lafayette Campaign: a Tale of Deception and Elections (Frank Adversego Thrillers Book 2)

by Updegrove, Andrew

  For once Frank had thought ahead; he had decided that famous authors didn’t drink beer.

  “Scotch on the rocks, thanks.”

  “Do you have a preference?”

  Okay, he wasn’t that ready. His mind went blank. “Surprise me,” he said finally, his ears burning more brightly than ever.

  But Lila didn’t seem to notice. She leaned towards him to be heard, and put a hand on his arm.

  “I hope you don’t mind me saying this again, Mr. Adversego, but this really is quite an honor for me.”

  “Frank, please, Miss Carberry – call me Frank.”

  She laughed. “Miss Carberry and Frank?”

  He had to smile at that. “Okay, Lila. Please call me Frank.”

  To his relief, Lila was happy to do all the talking. He learned that she had been with the publisher for only a few months, and that he was the first author she was assisting on her own. It was easy to tell she was excited to be involved in the world of publishing, but also nervous; he tried to help by making appreciative noises at appropriate intervals. By the time the hostess came for them, her glass was empty, while Frank left most of his behind.

  When they were seated, she drew a few sheets of paper from her hand bag. “Time for a little business, I guess. Is that all right with you?”

  “Of course.”

  She started with his book tour, but had trouble remembering what some of the abbreviations on his schedule meant. Soon she was looking distressed, concerned that she was not coming across as the professional she yearned to be.

  Frank tried to help again. “You know what? I really don’t feel like thinking about schedules right now. Would that be okay?”

  She brightened, but still seemed off balance. When the waiter arrived to ask if they cared for a drink, she waited for Frank to speak first. “I think I’ll just be having wine,” he said.

  She put her hand on his arm again. “Has anyone toasted you yet on the success of your new book?”

  “Why no – I guess not. But I’ve been on the road until just a few days ago,” he offered, as if it would have made any difference.

  “Well! In that case, as your publisher’s representative, I think we should order a bottle of champagne. What do you say to that?”

  “Why not?”

  She became more confident as she launched into a description of what she called the “current perilous state of the publishing world.” Now that he had a book, Frank’s curiosity was piqued. Lila was pleased with his close attention.

  By the time their wine arrived, Frank was asking questions and nodding at her answers. He found that she had a sharp mind, and an original way of thinking. To his surprise, he found himself in an unusual state: enjoying himself in a social situation.

  He ordered the first thing his eye noticed on the menu, and they continued their conversation without interruption. The smoked glass dividers that hung from the ceiling throughout the dining room were interspersed with flocks of clear incandescent light bulbs dangling from wires, their filaments burning with an orange glow that contributed substantially more atmosphere than useful light. The combination provided the illusion of dining alone while surrounded by holograms of other couples, dimly visible and doubtless many dimensions away.

  By the time their entrees arrived, Frank had become less talkative, happy to just appreciate the rare experience of having dinner with someone who was not only intelligent and attractive but pleasant and engaging as well. So very different from spending time with Josette, who usually kept him off balance and uncomfortable. Lila even appeared to be genuinely interested in him.

  He began to lose the drift of what she saying, more intent on watching her as she spoke. It had been a very long time since he had spent an evening like this. He was under no illusions why; over the years he had increasingly chosen the safety of solitude over the risks and effort of interacting socially in a world where everyone seemed to be so much better at it than he was. He didn’t often allow himself to realize what he couldn’t ignore this evening: that he had been lonelier for quite a while longer than he cared to admit. Perhaps that was why he had been missing his brief interactions with Josette, unsatisfactory as they were.

  Lila had stopped talking. He tried to pull her last words out of the ether. “I’m sorry?”

  She laughed. “I asked if you’d always wanted to write a book?”

  He was about to say ‘no, not at all,’ when he paused. “I guess I can’t really say no, at least not completely. I loved to read when I was young. Almost as soon as I could read, I started devouring everything I could get my hands on. So being an author seemed like something that must be wonderful.”

  She nodded. “Me too. What did you like to read?”

  “Gee, I guess just about anything. But by the time I was in middle school, I decided that if I was going to be reading a lot, I might as well tackle real literature. So I tried a bit of everything. Sometimes I got stubborn for no good reason and kept reading an author I didn’t really like all that much. For example, I read just about everything Nabokov wrote, even though I found some of his devices irritating.”

  “I always wanted to read Nabokov, but never got around to him. What bothered you?”

  “It seems kind of funny to say now. Little things, like how many of his main characters were always fiddling with a little piece of meat stuck in a hollow tooth.”

  She laughed. “Did you find everything he wrote annoying?”

  “No, actually. Some of his books I really liked. ‘Speak, Memory,’ was semiautobiographical, and started with his family leaving Russia. It was a lot less affected than some of his other books. And he wrote a little book about an elderly professor called ‘Pnin’ that I found really charming.”

  He went on to critique other authors he’d read, moving through Faulkner and Hemingway, Waugh and Maugham, Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn, as Lila listened avidly, her eyes glistening a little in the flickering light.

  He realized that he had been talking for quite a while and finished a little abruptly, saying, “So reading all those great authors, I thought being a writer must be one of the greatest things in the world to be. But I never let myself think that I could ever write a book.” And for good reason. It was time to change the subject. The waiter poured the last of the champagne into Lila’s glass, and Frank noticed that he had yet to finish his second glass.

  “How about you? Did you ever want to be an author?”

  “Oh, I don’t think I have that in me. I took a creative writing course once, and I think I just embarrassed myself. But I adore books, and that’s why I wanted to try and have a career in publishing.”

  “Is that hard to do?”

  She laughed a little too loudly. But at the same time, he marveled at how lushly lovely she looked.

  “Yes, I’m afraid it is. I worked very hard in college and graduated summa cum laude from an Ivy League school – as an English major, naturally. I might as well have gone to a community college. You have no idea how degrading it is to go back and live at home, endlessly sending your resumė off to apply for entry-level jobs and never even getting an interview.”

  “Really? With that kind of résumé? That seems really unfair.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and looked down at her hands. “Yeah. Life sucks sometimes, doesn’t it?” She stopped and rotated her champagne glass slowly between her fingers.

  “So what did you do?”

  “Oh, what everyone else does. I went back to grad school and got another degree. This time in marketing. Marketing! How’s that for sad?”

  “Well, not if it worked. And it sounds like it did.”

  Half of her mouth smiled. “Ask me how long it took to get this unpaid internship after I got my second degree.”

  He didn’t know what to say. “Six months?”
<
br />   “Closer to a year.”

  “That’s terrible.” Maybe he could think of a happier topic.

  “Did you grow up in Washington?”

  “I don’t live in Washington. We have a small office in D.C., and I’m rotating through it for a couple of months. I grew up in California, but if you want to get a job in publishing, you pretty much have to move to New York. That’s where all the big publishers have their headquarters, and there aren’t many small ones left.”

  “New York must be exciting, though.”

  “I guess it would be for a lot of people, but not so much for me. I’m a pretty private person, and I don’t know anyone in the city. Plus, everyone at the office is all caught up in their own lives. And now I’m here.”

  She was silent again. He was touched by her reference to herself as a very private person and to the sense of isolation that could accompany that character trait. He wondered how someone with so much going for her hadn’t found more success.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice a little quavery. “I’m afraid I haven’t been very professional this evening.”

  “You’ve been lovely,” he blurted out, and meant it.

  “Really? You’re very sweet.” Then she paused and said, “Do you think it’s kind of hot in here?”

  He didn’t, but there was no reason to say so. He realized for the first time that she was a bit tipsy. Maybe some fresh air would help. “Why don’t I ask for the check?”

  “Thanks. I guess it’s getting late.”

  As he helped her on with her coat, he felt a pang of loneliness. The evening had been an unexpected, but too brief, pleasure. All he had to look forward to now was another solitary evening in his messy, rundown apartment.

  He was no longer following her when they left the restaurant. Instead, she walked by his side.

  “Nice night, isn’t it?” she offered.

  “I guess it is, now that you mention it.” It was unseasonably warm, and the sidewalk was full of chatting couples and groups of friends entering and leaving the busy restaurants and bars that lined the avenue. He didn’t know what to say next, so he said what seemed like the right thing to say under the circumstances. “Can I get you a cab?”

  Her face fell. “Oh, I usually just take the Metro. But it’s such a nice night I think I’ll walk home. And you?” It seemed obvious what she wanted him to say, but he was unsure whether he should say it. But then he did.

  “I guess it would be nice to walk for a while. Mind if I keep you company?”

  She gifted him with the same smile she’d given the waiter, and he couldn’t help melting a bit. He gave a lopsided smile in return, and she slid her arm through his.

  For a little while, he felt on top of the world. He was walking through a busy city with a lovely young woman on his arm who thought his life was interesting and might even find his company enjoyable. He didn’t know what would happen next, and didn’t particularly care. For the moment, he was simply happy to feel like he was back in the land of the living.

  But too soon that pleasant feeling passed as the cool air, the walking, and the bottle of champagne began to take their toll on Lila. Her speech became less clear and her laughter more loud. Gradually, he became simply a hermetic middle-aged man once again, one who had somehow found himself escorting a much younger woman who had had too much to drink.

  Lila stopped, and wavered back and forth.

  “Are you alright?”

  “All of a sudden I don’t feel very good.”

  “I’ll bet it was something we ate. I’m feeling a little queasy myself,” he lied. “I think I better get you a cab.”

  He walked her to the curb and held her steady as he watched for a taxi.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ve been having such a lovely evening.”

  A cab changed lanes and began to slow down.

  “Me too – but don’t worry; here’s a cab now.”

  She looked up at him expectantly, but he spoke before she had a chance to say whatever it was she had in mind.

  “You’ll be home in no time. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this evening. It was very kind of you to spend it with me.” She frowned and wobbled a bit as she tried to pull herself together.

  He opened the door, and helped her in. “Good night, Frank,” she said softly and, he thought, a little gratefully. “I’ll meet you at the bookstore on Thursday.” She gave a little smile. “I really am sure it’s Thursday this time.”

  He smiled and closed the door, and the cab pulled away. He watched as it merged into the river of red and silver taillights weaving and flowing away into the distance. Then he turned and began the long walk home.

  * * *

  51

  Au Revoir

  Frank managed to survive all three weeks of his whirlwind book tour, if only barely. Now he was back in Washington, and suddenly he had absolutely nothing to do.

  It shouldn’t have been such a shock, but it was. With all of the frantic activity of the past year, he hadn’t had the time or the inclination to think about what he would do when the election and his book were behind him. Now he realized he didn’t know what to do the next morning, let alone for the next year.

  He had already sorted through the small pile of impersonal mail that had piled up while he was away, and paid all the bills. He’d even straightened up his apartment, sort of, and thrown out everything he’d found in his refrigerator and freezer. Now he really and truly had nothing else to do.

  He pulled on a coat and stood on the pavement outside, looking one way and then the other up the street. Both directions looked about the same. He’d neglected his running while on the book tour and felt out of shape, so he set off walking at a brisk pace in the direction of nowhere in particular that was slightly uphill.

  Later he found himself on the bridge to Georgetown, and stopped to look out over the park below and the river beyond. He recalled stopping there with Josette once, pointing out the points of interest, enjoying the enthusiasm she showed as she recognized monuments that until then had only been names to her.

  He leaned on the side of the bridge and mused a while on the banal, but nonetheless unsettling, tumult of his personal life over the last year. So this is what it felt like to be sadder but wiser. All those silly thoughts he’d had about Josette. His evening with Lila had finally sorted that out for him. It hadn’t so much been Josette, really, that had him in a twist. It was really all about her youth, or more properly, the way her company forced him to be aware of the likelihood that his own youth, and with it all the possibilities and pursuits that life offered to the young, were in the past. When he was with her, he could flirt with the illusion that the door on that period of his own life might still be ajar.

  But of course it was not. Those days, and everything he had then taken for granted, and – worse – those things he had not taken advantage of, were behind him. Even if he were capable of reintegrating socially with the world around him, that particular time was past.

  That was the clear, if bittersweet, realization he was now examining. He knew objectively that everyone grew older, and that when they did, their lives changed. He prided himself on being objective, and hoped that if at times he might act like a fool, at least he’d notice.

  He wasn’t going to deny that he had reached out to Josette for companionship, but he was disoriented by how much he found himself mourning the failure of that effort. And all the more, because his instinctive shrinking away from human contact seemed to relegate the possibility of female companionship of any sort to the past as well.

  So good-bye to that view and to the memories it brought back. He turned and headed back towards his apartment, hands in his pockets. And then he heard a voice behind him with a French accent.

  “Frank? Is that you?”

&
nbsp; The voice belonged to Simone Falconet.

  “Simone! How nice to see you. I thought you would be back in Paris by now.”

  She gave a wry smile. “I am afraid not. It seems that there is no room for me in my old department, at least for now.”

  “But that’s terrible! How did that happen?”

  “Ah, but that is a long story; office politics can be so awful, you know? But now I am a visiting professor at George Washington University, and I am enjoying your city very much.”

  “Well, I’m glad for that,” he said.

  “Are you busy? I am just out for a walk, and I want to tell you how much I enjoyed your book!”

  Please God, he thought. Don’t start with the wolverine scene. But what could he say? Clearly he was already out for a walk.

  “No, not busy. But let’s leave the book behind; I’m just back from a promotional tour, and I’m all ‘booked’ out.”

  She gave him a warm smile. “Of course. I understand completely – I have sometimes felt the same way. And please – let me take you to lunch. I have so much to thank you for.”

  “Really? I can’t think what.”

  “For helping Josette stay out of trouble, or I should say from getting in worse trouble. Come! Do not look so surprised, and no, we need speak of it no more. But I know how much she is in your debt.”

  He frowned but said nothing. How much might Josette have shared with her about the election? But as they walked towards Georgetown, Simone was true to her word. The subject did not come up again.

  He was surprised how easily they fell into a conversation. Perhaps she gave him the benefit of the doubt in the way he spoke. Maybe a non-native English speaker was less likely to recognize a non sequitur if she heard one. Whatever the cause, she seemed to be enjoying their interaction.

  When they sat down to lunch, Simone told him that she must teach him how to eat like the French. She ordered for both of them, asked whether there was any decent cheese to be had, and then instructed the waiter to bring the salads after the entrees, followed by a selection of the cheeses she specified and some grapes. Rather than feeling embarrassed, he found himself laughing when she poked gentle fun at his lack of sophistication regarding food.