DONOVAN
The meeting with Cory and Gavin’s boss had gone well. I was armed with a pitch deck on a thumb drive, and once I handed it over to him, he plugged it in. Walking Mr. Lincoln through the slides, I explained how my plan was going to work.
He listened intently. Maybe it was my family name that bought me so much good will. Even though my father had been a disaster, there was still the name recognition. And people were willing to give me some latitude considering that I wasn’t the old man.
They assumed that I’d grown up with a few more morals and that I was trying to play by the rules. That assumption was my best weapon as I moved forward with my plan. I strategically left out the part where I was going to run for mayor after we were successful. They didn’t need to know that.
I played the part of a local boy made good, someone who wanted to give back to the community. I did have a great deal of family money. Some of it might have been ill-gotten, but that was so long ago, the money had long since been laundered. And who among the rich and famous wasn’t a crook? It went without saying that some of their other clients were equally suspect.
I left the meeting feeling energized. I wanted to bring all my friends along for the ride, but I didn’t want to monopolize their time at work. A bar would be a much better scene to explain what I was up to.
I swung into each of their offices, inviting them out for drinks. They agreed, and that gave me a few hours to myself. I had a million things to do in the meantime, and no office within convenient distance.
Leaving the building, I sought out the closest coffee shop and ordered myself a cup. Spreading out on one of the tables, I opened up my laptop. I had a dozen emails to answer, mostly projects I was working on with other people.
I got in touch with my strategic team. They were the ones who were doing research on my behalf, getting information I could use for my eventual campaign. They had a survey they were releasing to the general public designed to give me some pointers about which issues voters were most interested in. I perused the preliminary results and found, to my great relief, that one of the key concerns was the economy. That fit right into my plan. Another hot button topic, cleaning up the city, was exactly what I planned to do. Other voters were worried about schools and the environment. I supposed I could build up ideas around those concerns as well.
Maybe I could target some businesses that were around schools, with a slant that improving the neighborhood would bring more money into the classroom. The environment was an easy one. I could host a few trash pickup events or offer incentives to businesses to reduce their carbon footprint.
Feeling energized, I took a call with a member of my team to discuss the results. They were also pleased at their findings and rattled off a number of suggestions. We were working on graphics as well. I needed an easily recognizable slogan to prop up my campaign. We hadn’t officially announced our bid for the mayor’s office, but there was still a lot of work that had to go on behind the scenes.
Three hours passed without me even noticing. By the time I looked up, I had to go. Packing up my laptop into my briefcase, I headed out to the bar. It was just after five, and the place was hopping. They certainly didn’t need my attention.
I grabbed a waitress and ordered a beer before finding a table in the back. Patrick was the first to arrive. We hugged swiftly and he took his place beside me. As a physical therapist, Pat worked odd hours. Sometimes he had days off in the middle of the week; sometimes he worked until midnight.
“I’ve got three days off, actually,” he said, resting his feet on an empty chair. “The next game isn’t until Friday.”
“I don’t take days off,” I told him.
“To each his own,” Patrick opined.
“I’ve got something I want to show you guys,” I said. “Well, not you specifically, but Gavin and Cory.”
“Are they coming?” Patrick asked.
“I invited them, yeah.”
“It’s nice that they’re back in town.”
“Yeah, I think it’s going to work out well.”
“Cory was moving in a little close on my sister,” Patrick said.
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He cracked his knuckles. “He’s a great guy, but I don’t want him anywhere near Petra.”
“Is she the girl at the bakery?”
“That’s right. Did he tell you about her?”
“Only that he’s all broken up over it,” I laughed. Since I wasn’t involved, I was free to sit back and observe the awkward exchange. Cory being so head over heels and Patrick wanting to shut him down seemed hilarious at first blush. It didn’t occur to me that the drama was only just beginning or that I might find myself intimately involved in the outcome.
Cory and Gavin arrived together around six. Pat and I stood up to greet them, and after many a hearty handshake, we all arranged ourselves around the table. The waitress came back to offer the boys drinks. I had finished my first already and moved on to the second. I wasn’t driving, and my official meetings were done for the day, so it didn’t really matter.
“You ready for this?” I asked, pulling my laptop out.
“It’s not a PowerPoint, is it?” Gavin groaned.