Perplexed by his curt reply, I scroll to see if I still have her number. I do, but when I call there’s a message that says her number is no longer in service.
“Arsinoé, why are you still standing there?”
I jump and put my phone into my back pocket. I’m being silly. The woman probably uses burner phones given her proclivity for living on the wrong side of the law.
So why can’t I shake the feeling that something isn’t right?
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.”
