I put one boot up on her dash and tried to wiggle it around to make it more comfortable. “I can sympathize with you women having to wear high heels. We men demand too much.”

“I haven’t worn high heels since high school prom.” She hesitated. “You never came to prom.”

“Nope, I did not. I was working. Saving up money for the move I knew was coming.”

“You know, I . . . um . . . I waited for you to ask me. Up until the last day, I waited.”

“Really? Why? Every guy in school would’ve thought they’d won the lottery if you’d gone with them.”

She shook her head. “You’re such an idiot.”

We talked about my father and then her father, and how she had managed to work as a prosecutor and keep up the ranch at the same time. When we got to the conference center, cars lined the street, and the parking lot was full. She parked in a nearby lot behind an appliance store, and we crossed the street.

Inside, the place was decorated like a country music concert. They didn’t wear tuxedos or have champagne or maintain all the pretenses people in South Beach would’ve for something like this. I got the impression no one had memorized quotes by George Bernard Shaw to pass off as their own or was telling fake or embellished stories of things that happened on ski trips to the Alps. Everybody here was focused on having fun, laughing genuinely while sipping beer out of bottles.

“What?” she asked. “Don’t tell me this is too lowbrow for the great Tatum Graham?”

“Not at all. The opposite.”

We mingled for a bit, and at one point Gates had to leave me to glad-hand. I stood at the bar and sipped a Miller while I watched her. She moved adeptly through the crowd, knowing exactly who she needed to speak with and who she could avoid since time was limited. The men were clearly infatuated with her, and ever so subtly she would touch them on the shoulder or the elbow. And as she left them and walked away, they would stare at her.

“She’s something, isn’t she?” the bartender said.

“She certainly is.”

“I asked her out once.”

I turned to him: young guy with blond hair. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. She said no. She said she didn’t really date. One of the guys here, Mr. Long, he went out with her a few times. He said that Gates doesn’t like men, if you know what I mean.”

“Ah. Claiming someone is a lesbian. The last refuge of the failed suitor.”

“Um, what?”

“Nothing.” I threw a twenty on the bar. “Thanks for the drink.”

I worked my way back to her, and she took my arm and said, “Tatum, this is Horace. He’s running against me.”