Sins of the Mother by Victoria Christopher Murray Page B

were wide and clear. Focused, as if he cared. So she rested her arms on the table, tilted her head. “Yeah, I’d never really gotten involved in a campaign before. I mean, I gave a little bit of money to Jesse when he ran the second time in eighty-eight, but this was the first time that I really got in there and worked to make a difference.” She told him about the thousands of phone calls she’d made, the hundreds of doors she’d knocked on, the scheduling she’d done to keep the local office organized.
    He listened. He nodded. He laughed.
    “So, you’re an Obama gal?”
    “Is there anything else?”
    He chuckled. “I guess not. Why didn’t I know this?” Before she could respond, he said, “Because I’m an Obama guy! I was on his National Finance Committee.” He stuffed his mouth with more of his duck before he added, “I knew I wouldn’t have time to work in one of those little neighborhood offices like you did.” He waved his hand as if those volunteers—like Alexis—didn’t count. Then his head rose a bit more when he said, “I joined his team as a bundler.”
    Alexis blinked and wondered what had happened to the man who had been there a moment ago. As Cabot shut her and took over the conversation, she put down her fork and picked up her glass once again. She tried not to roll her eyes when he spoke of the two star-studded fund-raisers he’d held at his home.
    “Now that I think about it, I wish that I’d invited you. You would have made a great date. Much better than—” Hestopped himself, cleared his throat. “Well, anyway, I wish you’d been there with me. I could’ve introduced you to Magic and Cookie, and then Denzel and Pauletta were there. Samuel and LaTanya . . .”
    Alexis wanted to lean over and bang her head on the table as he named just about every celebrity who lived in Los Angeles.
    But when he said, “And you know, this way I was able to give more than the twenty-three-hundred-dollar limit,” her eyes got wide.
    “What?”
    “You know . . . those stupid rules limiting how much you can contribute to a campaign. Well, just by pulling a couple of names from a phone book,” he lowered his voice even more, “I was able to get around that.” Pride was all up in his grin. “I learned how to do that after I attended a Republican fund-raiser years ago. Now those cats, they know how to make the money work.”
    Alexis couldn’t believe it. Cabot Adams had just confessed to committing a crime, and if there’d been a policeman nearby, she would’ve had him arrested. Not for his confession, but for impersonating a man on a date.
    “And then,” he continued his soliloquy, “Page Six . . .” He paused. “You’re familiar with them, right?” Even though she nodded, he went on to say, “They’re the gossip page in the
New York Post.
Well anyway, my last fund-raiser was even mentioned in their column.” He flicked invisible lint from the sleeve of his jacket. “I couldn’t believe it.”
    That makes two of us,
Alexis thought. She couldn’t believe it either—couldn’t believe that she was still here.
    It took more than thirty minutes for him to finish his Obama stories—and for the waiter to clear the table.
    Then the young man was back, saying, “Can I tempt you with dessert? A chocolate soufflé, perhaps?”
    “No,” she said.
    “Yes,” Cabot said, and looked at her. “Come on, this is a special night. Shouldn’t we share something?”
    Yeah, conversation!
That’s what she wanted to say. But then she remembered her pastor’s sermon from last Sunday.
    “Only a fool says everything on their mind,”
was what Pastor Ford had said.
“I bring that to you straight from Proverbs.”
    So instead of telling Cabot off like she wanted to do, Alexis leaned back and pressed her hand against the purple silk of her dress. Rubbing her stomach, she said, “I’m watching my weight,” hoping that would convince him to end the evening.
    But all he did was put his