As he reached for the doorknob, Tomlinson said, with a sly grin, “You’ll enjoy politics, Jake. Great way to meet women.”

Amy Wexler

AMY WEXLER

The party was still going strong, dozens of people talking, laughing, drinking. Jake watched as a pair of older men, both portly, both in dark business suits, came up to Tomlinson.

“Where’s your jacket, Frankie?” one of them demanded; he was bald, florid-faced. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the din of the others.

“I left it in the library,” said Tomlinson, with a good-natured smile.

The bald man shook his head disapprovingly. “If you’re going to be a United States senator—”

Raising a warning hand, Tomlinson said, “I haven’t made up my mind about that yet.”

The other old man smiled knowingly. “Yes you have, you just don’t want to admit it in public yet.”

“Now, really, Mr. McPherson…”

Jake felt a tug on his sleeve. Turning, he saw Amy Wexler standing beside him. She leaned toward him and said into his ear, “How did it go?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“You’re going to join the staff?”

“I don’t know. Mr. Tomlinson wants a good idea to campaign on.”

Her sculpted face looked somewhere between curious and skeptical. “A good idea?”

Jake nodded. The party seemed noisier than ever, and he didn’t like shouting to make himself heard.

Amy seemed to understand. Taking his arm in her grip, she tugged him toward the French doors. As he meekly followed her Jake glimpsed Bob Rogers in the crowd, talking earnestly with a stubby little guy who looked vaguely familiar: maybe a news anchor from one of the local TV stations, Jake thought.

Amy led Jake through the French doors and out onto the patio. It was still blazing August hot outside, but mercifully quiet. She walked to a white-painted bench placed in the deep shade of a thickly leafed box elder tree. Brushing dead leaves off the wooden bench, she sat down. Dumbly, Jake sat beside her.

“That’s better,” Amy said.

He agreed. “It’s pretty noisy in there, isn’t it?”

“It gets noisier as they drink more liquor.”

“I remember reading a paper once,” Jake said, “that calculated the noise of a cocktail party, based on the number of people and the number of drinks served.”

“A scientific paper?”

“Yeah. It was published in New Scientist, I think.”

She smoothed her long blue-and-green skirt with one hand. It made Jake think of the sea: not that he had ever seen an ocean firsthand, but he pictured a softly billowing sea, far from land, alone on a sailboat with a beautiful long-legged woman. Then a memory of Louise flared in his mind and he felt guilty.

“What’s the matter?” Amy asked.

He looked away from her. “Does it show?”

“Something’s bothering you, that’s obvious.” She seemed genuinely concerned.

“It’s … personal.”

“Oh. I see.”