“You’re right, Joe. I’ll bet Washington’s even worse than Hollywood.”
I heard the rasp of a match and an inhale.
“Don’t tell me you’re still smoking.”
“Oh, I’m down to two a day.”
“Packs or cigarettes?”
“Ha ha ha. Cigarettes. And most of the time it’s just one, after breakfast. It’s better than a laxative.”
“Now you’re starting to gross me out.”
Kristi laughed. “Thanks for listening, Joe. I feel much better now.”
She hung up then, unconcerned with good-byes.
“So what was that all about?” asked Jenny when I climbed back into bed. After I told her, she said, “I’ll bet he is.”
“Having an affair?”
“Sure,” said Jenny. “He strikes me as the kind of man who needs more than his wife to tell him how great he is.”
I pulled her close to me.
“It doesn’t bother you when Kristi calls me, does it?” She had always told me she didn’t mind, but I liked to check in case she had changed her mind.
“It does when she calls at two in the morning,” said Jenny. She put a hand on the side of my face. “I used to find her calls kind of entertaining—or at least your retelling of them—but more and more, I just feel sorry for her.”
“Don’t ever tell her that.”
“She just seems so lonely. Doesn’t she have any other friends? Any girlfriends?”
“I think she thinks of women more as rivals than friends,” I said, and then, tired from all the talk, I used my mouth to kiss my wife, my lips lingering on hers for a long while, as if they were weary and had found a place to rest.
We got another telephone call the next night, and it was about Flora—in fact, it was from Flora—but it came at a much earlier hour and was much better news. At least I hoped it was good news.
“Well, what’s he like?” was my first question after Flora had shouted, “Guess what—I found the guy I’m going to marry!”
“What’s he like?” she answered. “Oh, Papa mon Joe, he’s perfect. He’s kind and funny and smart and handsome—mon dieu, is he handsome. And he plays guitar—oh, you should hear him—and he’s got a great singing voice too, and—”
“When did you meet him, honey?” asked Jenny, giggling over Flora’s excitement.
“Last week, on the plane to Paris.”
Flora was Haugland Foods’ international buyer (yes, nepotism got her the job, but nepotism’s an easy thing to practice when your daughter graduates summa cum laude from college—her degree was in French literature with a minor in business—and it didn’t hurt that she was also fluent in Spanish and almost fluent in Japanese…I could go on and on, but I don’t want to brag) and her job included travel to Europe and Asia, expanding our international foods and wine section.
“Is he French?” I asked.
“No,” said Flora. “English. And his name’s Nicholas—Nick. Isn’t that the best name you’ve ever heard?”
“Does he live in England?” I asked, already lonesome, imagining Flora spending all her free time on the other side of the Atlantic.
“That’s the funny thing, Dad—he lives in Monterey! And he’s been to the Haugland Foods there!”
We now had two stores in California—Santa Barbara, where Flora still lived, and most recently Monterey.
“How’d he wind up in Monterey?”
“He got lucky,” said Jenny, whose appreciation for the Monterey/Big Sur area was a factor in our choosing the location for the new store. I smiled at her; we were in the den, both sitting in recliners like old farts, talking on our individual cordless phones.
“Well, it was kind of lucky,” said Flora. “He got a job here and decided to stay.”
“What kind of job?” I asked. “What’s he do for a living?”
“He’s a songwriter. You know that song ‘Beautiful Spots’?—remember, it was in the animated movie Charlie and the Cheetah? We all went to see it when I was home on Christmas break a couple years ago, because Conor wanted to see it so bad?”
I shrugged at Jenny and she shrugged back, although into the phone she said, “Oh, I love that song!”
Flora squealed with delight. “Oh, I do too, Mom! And that’s how he landed up here—the director lives in Carmel, and Nick visited when he was working on the movie. Of course he fell in love with the place and has been living there for about five years.”
“How old is this Nick?” I asked.
“‘This Nick,’” said Flora, “is twenty-nine. He’s exactly four years and three days older than me. We’re the same sign.”
“Is that good?” I asked.
“How should I know?” said Flora with a laugh. “I don’t follow that crap.”
We talked for a few more minutes, and then Ben came home from his friend’s, who conveniently lived right across the street, and I handed him the phone so he could hear all about his sister’s new boyfriend.
“He plays guitar?” he said. “Cool! Maybe we can all jam together!”
“Yeah!” said Conor, who was supposed to be asleep but had a sixth sense that alerted him when something exciting was going on. “Tell Flora to tell him I know how to play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ now!”
Conor knew a chunk of the rhythm section, but it was a stretch to say he knew the classic song that all boys learning guitar want to play.
Ben cupped the receiver and said to his brother, “Flora says to tell you the guy she’s going to marry wrote ‘Beautiful Spots’ from Charlie and the Cheetah.”
“Charlie and the Cheetah!” screamed Conor, forgetting all about being the cool purveyor of Led Zeppelin music and reverting to the nine-year-old boy he was. “I love that movie!”
That’s right, ladies, Perfect Rose skin cream, for your perfect skin…And now I’ve got some news I’ve been wanting to tell you, my dear listeners, for a long time. I’ve been a very lucky lady in my life, but you know that the luck of love wasn’t mine for a long, long time. When I first had Tuck Drake on my television show, I thought, Hmmm, there’s an interesting man, but of course he was married, and therefore I couldn’t take the interest any further.
But God works in strange and wonderful ways, and although my heart bleeds for the pain of divorce, sometimes couples are not a godly match, and this was true for Tuck and his former wife, whose embrace of New Age religions surprised and then hurt him. Fortunately Tuck’s two beautiful children, Jake and Jade, were already grown and off at college when Tuck and his former wife made the hard, yet ultimately correct, decision to go their separate ways. So when Tuck appeared again on my show, I knew the gates had been unlocked and I could enter.
Ladies and men (I’m on to you, fellas; my latest demographics show more and more of you are listening in), have you ever been struck dumb by love? That’s what happened to yours truly when Tuck took the microphone from me and said, “I know we’re supposed to talk about the day I accepted Christ, but I just can’t get enough of that drumming of yours. It would just tickle me if you and the Kristi Corps did one of your drum battles.”
I don’t know how many of you listeners saw that episode, but as I beat my rhythms and the audience clapped back, I thought: Here is a man who rejoices in my talents; here is a man who’s not afraid of a woman like me.
It was hard to give up my weekly show at the PPP network, but I wanted to spend weekends with the man I love, and I knew I could still spread the Lord’s word through my radio program. But now, dear listeners, saints and sinners, this too will end. I have other fish to fry—and believe me, these are whoppers.
We’ll be holding a press conference tomorrow—but I wanted my most devoted followers, my beloved Kristi Corps, to hear it first from me.
As you know, there has been talk of my husband, Senator Tuck Drake, running for president of our United most blessed of States. We have a solid base of supporters and a solid message that I believe the good folks of America are going to respond to. Tuck sai
d, as a reward to my faithful listeners, “Why not tell them first?” So on behalf of my husband and myself, I’m announcing his candidacy. The good and godly Mr. Tuck Drake is running for president!
It’s been more than an honor to be on the air with God and you, but there is a season for everything, and this is the time for me to work on my husband’s campaign. I thank you for your time and attention, and I hope you’ll support me in my new venture, just as I’m sure God is.
God bless you, and God bless America. And to keep track of the comings and goings of Drake for President, please check out our website.
Kirk called me as soon as he heard the news.
“Can she be serious? I know there are a lot of nuts in this country, but does she seriously think there are any nutty enough to support Tuck Drake for president?”
“Now I’m really scared,” said Beth, “The day when one lunatic can announce the candidacy of another lunatic and not be laughed out of the country is a terrifying day indeed.”
Gary Conroy sent me a e-mail from Austin, where he was in negotiations to build a Haugland Foods.
It’s all the buzz around here and I’ve been talking to a lot of people. Half seem excited—one woman said, “When a good Christian like Tuck Drake has a good Christian woman like Kristi Casey behind him, my vote’s a guarantee!” On the other hand, an attorney I’ve been working with out here said, “He doesn’t have a chance; with his wife, they’re too off the wall—even for Texas!”
I saw Shannon Saxon whatever-her-name-was-now (she was on her third husband) in the store and she said, “I hope he gets the nomination and then I hope he wins the whole thing! I was kind of turned off by Kristi being a preacher and everything, but she’d be a great First Lady—I mean, they’re so cute together!”
“God chose Tuck as my husband,” Kristi was quoted in our local newspaper, “and I truly believe He’s going to chose him for president.”
“Maybe you should tell what you know, Joe,” said Jenny after I folded the newspaper in half and sat on it, thinking it served a better purpose keeping my ass warm than being a forum for Kristi’s craziness. Jenny and I were in the stands watching Conor’s hockey team get creamed by a team from the suburbs. “You know, expose her for what she is.”
I watched as Conor stole the puck and dashed across the blue line, only to have a boy twice his size knock him down.
“Tripping!” I hollered, jumping up.
The play continued, the refs ignoring my calls to penalize the opposing goon.
“I actually have thought of that,” I said, sitting down on Kristi and Tuck’s smiling faces.
Jenny pulled the red plaid blanket she always brought to games over my knees.
“I don’t think I could subject myself—could subject you and the kids—to all the scrutiny. Think of the headlines: ‘Presidential Hopeful’s Dreams Blindsided by Accusations of His Wife’s High School Blow Jobs and College Acid Trips.’”
Jenny laughed, then shivered.
“Besides, it’s old news. All that stuff happened more than thirty years ago. All she’d need to do is hold a press conference on the power of redemption.”
“Still, it might show people what a hypocrite she is, and by association, Tuck Drake.”
I shrugged, and then tensed as the other team’s star center backhanded the puck. Our goalie stopped it, and I exhaled.
“She’s had people try to call her on things before. Remember that guy who claimed he was married to her back in the early eighties? He said they lived down in Mexico and made their living selling fenced jewelry? Remember, they even printed a copy of a marriage certificate in the magazine, and all Kristi said was, ‘I won’t even dignify this sad man’s fantasies and talents at forgery’ or something like that, and it died down just like that?”
Jenny nodded. “I remember you saying, ‘So that’s what she was doing all those years.’”
“Right. Even though I’ve got two postcards from her that lend a lot more credence to that guy’s story of her marriage than she’d like to admit. But that’s just it.” I unscrewed the Thermos of coffee and took a swallow. “Proof doesn’t matter. Kristi will make you believe what she wants you to believe.”
“Well, that’s why someone’s got to stop her, Joe. Stop her and her dangerous husband.”
The clock ran out and the buzzer rang.
“Listen, Jenny, Americans are wising up. Even if his party gives him the nomination, he’ll never get elected. No way. Never.”
“From your lips,” said Jenny.
I laughed. “What? To God’s ear? Well, let’s hope—although we’ll probably have to wrestle the Kristi Corps to get anywhere near.”
Tuck, with Kristi at his side, continued to get more press coverage than other candidates—they were more than a novelty, after all; they were a force—but Jenny and I made it a point to turn the channel whenever their blond hair and pious faces came on the television; we had our own lives to live and could only take so much. Besides, we had a wedding—or we thought we had a wedding—to plan.
Flora brought her fiancé Nick home for Thanksgiving, and all the trepidation a father feels about his future son-in-law was for naught. I loved the guy. Immediately. And not just because he gave Conor an autographed CD of the Charlie and the Cheetah soundtrack or because he spent a half hour in Ben’s room showing him chord progressions. It wasn’t because he played a game of Scrabble with my mom, Len, and me and graciously lost, and it wasn’t because he told Jenny he’d had the great fortune to be at a dinner party with Jean-Pierre Rampal a year before he died.
“I was composing some music for a movie that never saw the light of day,” he said in his crisp British accent, “but the producer—who’d had much better luck with other films—had worked with Monsieur Rampal and he was giving a concert in London and one thing led to another…which ultimately was dinner.”
“Oh, what was he like?” asked Jenny, her brown eyes shining.
“Everything you’d expect from his playing. Considerate. Funny. Passionate. And always listening, with a great eagerness, to what was going on.”
But all that stuff was a bonus. Why I loved the guy immediately was because I could see how deeply and truly he loved Flora and how she returned that same deep and true love.
Still, I suppose I had to ask the standard questions, and I did so as we had our first Thanksgiving dinner together.
“Will you love and honor Flora the way she deserves to be loved and honored?”
“Dad!” said Flora in embarrassed protest.
“Yes, I will,” said Nick solemnly.
Conor, watching all of this at the end of the table, giggled.
“Do you swear never to be a jerk, never to hurt her, never to become blind to all the wonder that is our Flora?”
Nick set his fork and knife down and folded his hands in his lap.
“I swear,” he said.
Flora didn’t protest and Conor didn’t laugh. There was absolute silence around the dinner table.
“Can I trust you to always listen to her, to never shut her out, and to always tell her what’s on your mind?”
“You can,” said Nick, “although sometimes there are things on my mind that really aren’t worth sharing.”
“Point taken,” I said, nodding. “Jenny, is there anything you’d like Nick to promise us?”
Jenny sat quietly for a moment, at the other end of the table.
“I really don’t think he needs to promise us anything. It’s Flora he should make the promises to.”
At that moment, Flora leaned over her plate and began to cry, and for a moment, I thought all the good feelings I had for Nick were going to have to be chucked.
Her tears were brief, replaced quickly with a smile and then laughter.
“Je suis desolée,” she said, dabbing at her face with her napkin. “I’m so sorry…but so glad.”
I saw Ben and Conor exchange the same puzzled look that passed between all the adults at the table.
“See,” continued Flora, “Nick has already made these promises. I mean to me. I’m sad because you weren’t there to hear them being made…but so glad that I did and that…and that we’re already married.”
There was bedlam at the dinner table; shouts; questions thrown; answers; laughs; toasts; and then, tears. My own.
“Oh, Papa mon Joe,” said Flora, getting up from her chair. She sat on the arm of my chair, her arm around me. “I’m so sorry, but we were just so—ready. And we didn’t want to plan a big affair—we just wanted to do it. No fuss, no bother, and dinner at the deli section of Haugland Foods, Santa Barbara.”
I sniffed. “I’m happy for you, honey, I really am.” I brought my gaze up at Nick, who looked apologetic and miserable. “And for you too, Nick. It’s just that I…I always wanted to walk you down the aisle, Flora.”
There was a moment of pure silence and I sat in it, feeling like a fool, until Jenny broke it.
“Okay,” she said, pushing back her chair. “Everybody get up. Dad’s going to walk Flora down the aisle.”
I asked the same question my boys asked: “Huh?” but I got up anyway.
“All right, Ben, you take Nick and Conor into your room and don’t come out until I call you.”
“Okay,” said Ben, lifting his shoulders in a shrug but obeying his mother nevertheless. “Come on, guys,” he said, leading them up the stairs to his room.
“And Flora, you come with me,” said Jenny. “We’ll get you ready. Carole, you sit at the piano. Beth, Linda, Len—I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”
Jenny wasn’t the bossy type, so on the rare occasion that she issued orders, everyone listened.
Ten minutes later she emerged from the bedroom, hollering up the stairs for the boys to come out.
She had Conor and Ben stand by Nick at the fireplace, and she sat down next to Len on the couch. I was told to stand by the dining room and when she said, “Okay, Carole, hit it!” my mother began playing the wedding march, and Flora emerged from the hallway.
After seeing the fancy robe Kristi had worn in her Des Moines hotel room, I had been inspired to buy Jenny a white satin robe, but she never wore it, preferring her old pilled quilted one. While it might not be a suitable robe for my wife, it was the perfect wedding dress for my daughter, who wore it along with a veil made out of an old doily Jenny’s grandmother had crocheted. She held a bouquet of silk flowers Jenny had heisted from an arrangement in the guest bathroom. I had never seen such a beautiful bride.