Callie shook her head. It was impossible. “He’s gone for the next three months—or six.”
“We’ll see,” Liv said with the smile of a child who’d snooped and discovered their Christmas presents.
“What does that mean?”
Liv shrugged, her smile widening.
“Babe, come on. What do you know?”
“Nope!” Liv mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”
∞∞∞
“Senator Thorne, thank you so much for meeting with me,” Noah said as he shook the older woman’s hand.
Senator Thorne was shorter than he’d thought she would be, probably only five foot six despite her patent leather pumps, her statuesque appearance an optical illusion created by the pinstripe pantsuits she favored. Her black hair was cropped short, making her features appear more severe and her blue eyes seem larger. Despite having been on the campaign trail with the senator and Wolf’s film crew for the last week, this was the first time he was speaking to the woman directly.
“Of course,” the senator said, gesturing for Noah to take a seat in the wingback chair opposite her.
The small seating area in the senator’s suite, which was also serving as headquarters for the campaign’s week in New Hampshire, was cluttered with lawn signs and stacks of flyers proudly proclaiming the first LGBTQ+ vice presidential candidate.
“Please, call me Laura,” the senator said. “I understand you have something on your mind.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Laura. Please,” she insisted.
“Laura,” he relented with a smile.
“Oh! Thank you for allowing us to use your piece for the new commercial. When Wolf played it for me, I just knew that was the one.”
A television commercial featuring the senator and her wife walking hand-in-hand through a farmer’s market had been shot the day Noah arrived and would begin airing next week. The senator had requested to use one of Noah’s score fragments from his application package as the background music. He warmed under her praise, but he was too nervous about his request to really enjoy it.
“Tell me. How did you make it sound so much like…me?”
“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Noah scooted forward on the chair so he was sitting on the very edge of the seat, his elbows braced on his knees. “I watched hours of your speeches on the internet. I could probably recite a few from memory at this point.”
“Not the old ‘A library in every city’ one I hope,” she said with a laugh.
He nodded, smiling. He’d played that one for Callie a few times. He was pretty sure it was the reason Callie was planning to vote for the Carmichael-Thorne ticket in November.
“That one and many others. I especially liked your speech about better protections for workers with invisible disabilities.”
She sat back in her chair, crossing her legs. “I’m glad someone did. The crowd wasn’t too fond of that particular idea that day.”
“I watched the videos, studied the rhythm of your speech, the pattern of your gait. When you pause and when you rush ahead. You have this habit of elongating the last syllable of a word if you want to really emphasize it.”
She laughed again. “Yes, I’m aware. It drives my communications team batty.”
“But it’s you,” he said. “It’s the unique sound of Senator Laura Thorne. That’s what I wrote into the music.”
She smiled. “Wolf wasn’t lying about you. You are quite the impressive young man.”
“Thank you.”
“So what can I do for you, Noah?”
He released a breath. Now or never.
