Thursday, November 26, 2054

Chapter Thirty-One

When we got to the office, the entire staff stood and cheered our entrance. I knew I was in for a bumpy ride, but I’ll admit it; this felt great. Nothing had leaked and we’d taken the entire world by surprise. As many of us who could fit, jammed ourselves into Addie’s office and spent most of the day watching the reaction on Addie’s Wall-o-Vision. We had a blast.

Every talking head had an opinion. At one end of the spectrum, the prevailing thought was that I was completely deluded. Clearly I was a dangerous man with no qualifications for office. My history was emphasized and the world was told that even if I shut up and just went back to selling auto parts, I wasn’t “fit for proper society”.

The majority opinion was “Wait and see”. They tried to be even-handed about everything without taking sides. All very honorable and very professional. And very boring.

At the far end of the spectrum was a tiny minority who thought my campaign was going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. They hadn’t read my position papers, so they weren’t basing any of this on what I wanted to achieve, but only on the fact that having me in the race would make things interesting.

We had the most fun watching the first group.

The phone, of course, didn’t stop ringing once all day. Addie’s standing instruction was that everyone who called should be told, “We’re not entertaining any interview requests today. Please leave your number and we’ll get back to you in a few days.”

At about One in the afternoon, Addie turned the sound down, hushed us all and picked up her phone. She dialed and we all waited for whoever it was to answer. We only heard Addie’s side of the conversation. “Hi Jon, this is Addie Rotholz.” A pause, a smile, “Yes, that Addie Rotholz. So listen, let me get right to the point. I’m not taking anyone’s calls today and I’m offering you Paul, but only if you put him on tomorrow.” Pause. “Yeah, I thought you’d be okay with that. Well see you tomorrow.”

All of us just looked at her as she hung up the phone. She smiled.

No comments: