Look to the Rainbow (28 page)

     “We haven’t been planning to adopt him out because he’s so ill tempered.”

     The little dog tilted his head to the other side and looked up adorably at Mary Katherine. He looked exactly like what Blue Dog would like in the flesh, she thought. Even more perfect. Evan was a fan of George Rodrique’s iconic dog paintings. “How could anything so cute be ill tempered?” Mary Katherine asked. “Take him out of the cage.”

     The volunteer hesitated as Socrates moved to the edge of his cage and licked Mary Katherine’s hand. “He usually growls and tries to bite us.”

     “Then open the cage and
I’ll
take him out,” Mary Katherine said. The girl opened the cage and Socrates almost jumped into Mary Katherine’s arms. “This is the dog I want.”

      An hour later, she was driving home with the little gray dog sitting in the passenger side of her car. He had been bathed and had his shots and was looking smaller and cuter than he had before. She detoured to a pet store to buy him a red leather collar, a few toys, dog food and a dog bed built to look like a miniature four poster bed.

     When they got back to the house, she gave him the grand tour, put the bed in a corner of their bedroom and let Socrates explore the house and yard on his own. Just before she expected Evan, she got her camera and settled Socrates on the sofa. He waited politely, as if he knew that something was up.

     Evan came through the door and instead of being greeted by Mary Katherine, he was greeted by a shaggy little gray dog who hopped off his sofa and walked over to sit in front of him, looking up expectantly. Evan knelt down to pet him as Mary Katherine captured the moment on her camera. It was love at first sight. Socrates put his front paws on Evan’s knee and looked up at him adoringly. Evan picked him up and crossed the room to kiss Mary Katherine.

     “Does this dog have a name?” he asked, still holding him and scratching his head between the ears.

     “Socrates.” Mary Katherine replied. “Isn’t he perfect?”

     “Of all the gifts you’ve ever given me,” Evan said, “he’s the best.”

     Over dinner she told Evan about how she had selected Socrates, while Socrates lay at Evan’s feet with his head resting on Evan’s shoe. He found it difficult to believe the volunteer had said he was ill tempered. The little dog followed him wherever he went for the entire evening. He waited politely to be invited up on the furniture and when he needed to go out he sat patiently by the door. He scampered up the stairs ahead of them as they went up to go to bed, looking back at them on each landing.  Evan put him on the dog bed and he snuggled down, seemingly content.

     When she woke up the next morning Mary Katherine looked across the room at the little dog bed and what she saw made her gently shake Evan awake.

            “Look at your dog,” she said.

            Evan sat up and saw that sometime in the night Socrates had gotten out of his bed and gotten one of Evan’s running shoes and taken it back to bed with him and was still sound asleep, the shoe between his front paws and his head resting on it.

     “That’s a brand new pair of running shoes,” Evan said, starting to get up.

     Mary Katherine pulled him back. “You have ten other pairs of running shoes. You can buy another pair. You can’t take those from him. He has
abandonment issues.
”

     Evan looked at her incredulously for a moment and then started to laugh. “Are we the only people in the world who would adopt a dog with abandonment issues?”

     “Probably. But look how sweet his is all curled up with your shoe.”

     Two thoughts crossed his mind as he went to put on another pair of shoes for his morning run. One was that his wife would have a made a much better mother than she thought she would and two that he had somehow in a very short time bonded with that scruffy little dog in a way that would exceed all the dog stories in history.

Chapter Twenty Four

     Kel leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. This was not how he wanted to feel on this night. Waiting for the primary returns and anticipating getting the nomination was
not
supposed to be accompanied by signs of going into insulin shock. He had chosen to spend this evening at his campaign headquarters in Newport and it was packed with people and news reporters. He assessed his condition. Slightly dizzy, but he could probably walk out of the room without anyone noticing. He stepped away from the wall and decided he was better off leaning against it. He lifted his hand and it was starting to shake. He searched his coat pockets and realized that he had brought nothing with him in case of just such an emergency. Okay, he thought. Best course of action. He closed his eyes for a minute.

     “Kel?” A hand touched his arm. He opened his eyes and saw Tara standing beside him. “Are you okay?”

     “Not really. Do you think you could find Evan or Alan, or even John somewhere in this crowd?”

     “Will you be all right if I leave you?” Concern was written all over her face.

     He smiled a little. “I hope so.”

     “I’ll be right back.” He watched her go and tried to focus on not letting the dizziness get the best of him. He was not going to pass out in front of all these people. That was the kind of publicity that would end his bid for the White House. And he wasn’t willing to let that happen, after spending the last three months forcing everyone to let him talk about real issues and not his dating life and his diabetes. It had been a hard road for anyone, but for someone prone to the kind of health problems he had it was a grueling road he would be glad to be done traveling.  He let out a sigh of relief as Tara and Evan joined him.

    Evan told Tara to take his arm. “And the three of us are going to waltz out of here like we’re just talking.” When it was just the three of them in another room, Evan took control of the situation and Tara sat beside him looking worried, but not talking. He drank the orange juice Evan handed him and accepted the expected lecture about carrying glucose with him while Evan checked his blood sugar levels. Evan took glucose tablets out of his own pocket and handed them to Kel in case he needed them later.

    “Crisis averted,” Evan said, refilling the glass and handing it back again. “But honestly, I’ll be glad to see all this end. November can’t come soon enough.”

    “I really have tried to keep it all in check, Evan.” Kel sat the glass down on the table beside him and reached for Tara’s hand, hoping she would take it. She did.

    “I know you have. And when I told the press it wouldn’t interfere with your ability to be President, I meant it. But when you’re pushing yourself this hard physically, you need to be extremely cautious.”

     It was nothing that Kel didn’t already know. He’d simply forgotten to take anything with him tonight. A stupid mistake, but at least nothing had happened. Evan said that he would go and give John an update and Kel told him that he would be out in a few minutes. He was still holding Tara’s hand .

    “Sorry about that,” he said.

     “It was nothing compared to the last time I saw you have problems,” she said, referring to his hospital stay.

      “It really doesn’t bother you, does it?”

      “That you’re diabetic? No. Not at all. That’s not even a part of why I don’t know if I can commit to this relationship.”

      “Then what is it? I know I made that one comment, but I had every intention of coming back to talk to you. But you weren’t there.”

     “So many things, Kel. I don’t know if I can handle the media attention, I’m not sure what you want, and I’m essentially the same age as your children. How do I know if I could be first lady? And I don’t know if the relationship could wait until you were done in the White House.”

     “Do you love me?”

     She looked into his eyes. “Yes.”

    “Then nothing else should matter.”

     She pulled her hand away and stood and walked to the door. “But it does. I’m going to go get ready to announce you getting enough delegates. I’ll see you later.”

      He sat there, considering what she had said. The media attention he might be able to do something about. He wasn’t sure why she had said she didn’t know what he wanted. He thought he had made that abundantly clear. He hadn’t ever really given much thought to the age difference, because it never felt as if there was one. And yet that had been one of his biggest objections to Alan and Janet’s engagement, even though Alan had told him he never noticed the difference.  And it he did win the election? Would he have to wait out his term in the White House to be able to have something permanent with her? On that count he didn’t know if he had enough patience. The timing of this thing had always been wrong. If only they could have met while he was just a senator things might have been easier. They loved each other, but couldn’t seem to find a way to make it work.

      “Kel?” John stood in the doorway. “You okay?”

     “Yes, just a little too much insulin. Evan took care of it.”

     “They’re about to announce the poll results.”

     “Let’s go see how we did then.” He hated that it was so easy to pretend nothing was bothering him, a skill he had learned all too well during the time he was married to Alise. As hard as he had worked for it, he would rather be trying to fix things with Tara rather than making a speech about how excited he was to move forward. But that’s what he did. He stood on the stage with Jim and Janet and John and Kim and Skip and thanked all of the people who had worked so hard on the campaign and promised to make sure they won in November.

     Tara covered the speech he made and was proud of him, but didn’t stay to talk to him afterward. She had booked a hotel this time rather than stay at Lily’s and had an early morning flight back to Washington.  At the hotel she watched the continuing coverage of the primaries and the concession speeches of the other candidates. She would have liked, had the timing been different, to share this night with him. She was certain he was going to be the next President of the United States. His dream was so close to coming true, and she didn’t know if she could be there to see it happen. It was a bittersweet moment.

Chapter Twenty Five

    
It was the last night of the convention and Kel would officially be named his party’s candidate for President. There was excitement in the air and anticipation for what he would say in his acceptance speech. The entire O’Brien family was here, along with George and Lily and Evan and Mary Katherine. Tara had covered each night, doing a story every evening, but had not spent more time with Kel than just a few brief minutes each day. She had been asked to sit with the family and she almost refused, but Lily had taken her by the hand and said she must and her boss had loved the idea. He’d told her to interview them too, which she had, and it had run before that night’s coverage of the event. Like everyone else in the room she was captivated by his enthusiasm and his eloquent acceptance speech. When he was done he got a standing ovation.  His family went up on the stage afterwards and she was taken along with them. He hugged each one in turn and they were all talking animatedly as the traditional balloons and red, white and blue confetti fell and the reporters were doing their live shots. And then he saw her, standing at the edge of the group and came and stood in front of her, looking happier and somehow more rested than she had seen him in a long time. His arms went around her and he bent to kiss her and she couldn’t resist, locking her hands behind his head as somewhere around them it seemed a million flashes were going off. She knew what photos were going to be on the front pages of every newspaper tomorrow and for the brief moment in time that he was kissing her, she didn’t care. In fact time seemed to stand still.