Candidate: A Love Story (18 page)

“Well, I will leave you to the ladies at this point and let you get unpacked. Ms. Galloway, and do not hesitate to contact me for anything. My name is Guillermo Correra.”

Kate offered her hand, and he took it with both of his thick square hands and looked at her through soft, weathered, dark eyes. “Welcome to the Santuario del Corazón. It’s a true pleasure having you with us.”

Kate believed him. She’d been to dozens of hotels, she’d had great service and knew the job of providing customers with excellence. This was different. She wanted to crawl into his lap, have him read her a story or push her on the swings. It was a bizarre reaction, but she felt protected. How could Grady have possibly known what she needed at the very moment he found her outside waiting for her car? Reading people was her job.

“Thank you so much.” It was all she could manage as Guillermo turned, adjusted the flowers on the coffee table in front of a huge rust-colored couch, and closed the door behind him.

Chapter Nineteen

S
omething happens to a woman when her husband is unfaithful. Songs and poems are written about heartbreak and betrayal, but they only serve to flower up the ugly truth. The young girl, the one inside every grown woman, the one dancing around in her mother’s shoes, she dies. The wide-eyed innocent who looked up at the man she loved and professed her devotion, she leaves and the woman is never the same. Even when she heals, kicks out the bitterness and the pain, she is changed. Some will say she becomes more of a woman, stronger, but Kate simply lost herself, her whole self.

She was starting to find her way back. That was the first thought she had when she awoke to knocking at the door. It took her a moment to realize she was still in the hotel suite. Kate hopped out of the massive four-poster bed she slept in last night, and shuffled to the door.

“Good morning,” Grady chirped, as Kate squinted into the morning light and pushed the hair out of her face. He walked past her with bags and a smile that told her he was definitely a morning person.

“Why?” she croaked, and then cleared her throat. “Why am I always opening the door to you holding bags? Do you just carry them around with you?”

“I do. You’ve discovered my secret. I’m a bag man.” Grady laughed, put the bags on the counter, and began removing several boxes of cereal.

Kate walked toward him, picked up the box of Fruit Loops, and asked, “Do I want to know?”

“You said you’ve never tried sugar cereal. That’s tragic, so I thought we might remedy that this morning.”

Kate put down the box and turned to go into the bathroom. She smiled. Just when she thought she had him, knew what she was dealing with, he pulled out another surprise.

“Wait, where are you going?” Grady asked, pulling two gallons of milk and paper bowls out of the remaining bag.

“Teeth, I need to brush my teeth and put some clothes on.”

“No need to do that on my—”

Kate held up her hand. “Don’t, please don’t finish that sentence.” The bathroom door closed.

When Kate emerged from the bathroom a few moments later in tan shorts and a white oversized button-up shirt, her hair was pulled off her face in a ponytail. She’d washed her face, but had not bothered to put make-up on. She hated make-up. Besides, it was Saturday, she was in a beyond-compare hotel suite with her equally gorgeous client, who was clearly taking pity on her because she had a small nervous breakdown because her ex-husband was going to marry the woman he was banging while they were married. Mascara would not make any of that better, so Kate didn’t see the need.

Grady had made coffee in the little kitchenette, but was nowhere to be found.

“Hello?” she called.

“In here. The dining room?”

“This place has a dining room?” She hadn’t even noticed the second arch leading out of the entrance when she collapsed into bed last night. She took her coffee and walked barefoot through the tile arch and there, sitting criss-cross on top of a very large Spanish-looking table, was an incredibly handsome man surrounded by what looked like two dozen boxes of cereal. Grady was in jeans, his hair still had a morning swirly in the back, and he wore a faded navy blue T-shirt. He too was a barefoot, flip-flops on the floor by the table. Kate laughed for the first time since leaving the benefit the night before.

She stood next to Grady, sipped her coffee, and asked, “Are we eating all of these?”

Grady looked at her, barely able to move amongst the boxes.

“Okay, here’s my plan. I’ve left a space up here for you to sit too. I have bowls and milk and a very large trash can. We are going to eat our way through this cereal and find you a favorite sugary cereal.”

Kate nodded, handed him her coffee cup, and began climbing into her spot. “I mean, we should probably be working on your speech for the Cactus League Luncheon on Monday, or attending your father’s discussion on immigration this afternoon, but yes, this seems like a priority.” Kate shook her head and smiled. She was giving in or giving up, she wasn’t sure which, but she sat on the table facing Grady and crossed her legs. He smiled, and she was suddenly wide awake.

“Good. Okay, now you’re going to like the second half of this little activity.”

“Oh, there’s a second half? Do tell.”

“Well it’s technically research, which will appeal to your incessant need to work on the weekends. With each box of cereal, every sample, we are going to ask each other one question.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. It’s only fair.”

Kate shook her head.

“Let’s not start the morning off this way. I brought sugar, you want to know more about me so you can exploit that for my father’s gain.”

Kate laughed.

“And I want to know more about you because—”

“Because?” Kate asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Because I should get some reward. I did all the shopping.”

She laughed again and gave in.

“Okay, here goes,” Grady continued. “We are going to ease into this. I don’t want your system to go into shock when you taste what you’ve been missing all these years. I give you Honey Nut Cheerios.” He handed her a paper bowl and a plastic spoon. “Now for the purposes of research, we’re using 2 percent milk. When I was a kid we drank whole milk, but I just can’t get that stuff down anymore, so 2 percent it is.” He looked at Kate, who had her spoon poised and ready. “I suppose you had blue milk as a kid?”

Kate nodded. “Skim milk all the way. I still drink it.”

Grady gave a dramatic sigh. “A travesty. Let’s begin.”

“Wait. Don’t I get to ask my question first?”

“After your taste-test.” Grady said with a full mouth. “Mmm, Honey Nuts are in a class all their own. These are delicious.”

Kate took a bite.

“Well?” Grady asked.

“Not bad,” she mumbled over chewing. “I can taste the honey, sort of like a graham cracker. Not sure I’m too excited about the weird film floating in my milk, but not bad.”

“Okay. Good start. Ask away.”

“Why did you major in history?”

Grady thought a minute.

“Huh, I wasn’t expecting such a personal question. I guess it’s the context. I like seeing my life within the context of history. It’s comforting, gives me perspective.”

Kate put her spoon down and swallowed the bite of Honey Nut she had just put in her mouth. “Who the hell are you?”

Grady laughed and poured himself a little more. “That’s a loaded question. Is that really a question?”

“I’m really not sure what to make of you. One minute you’re dating cheerleaders and the next I get this.” Kate set her bowl down and suddenly looked serious. “Grady, both of these guys can’t possibly exist, so I’m wondering, do the cheerleaders get to try cereals? Do they see what I’m seeing right now?”

Grady seemed to stumble for a moment. His spoonful of cereal hovered near his mouth, and a drop of milk dripped down into the bowl. Kate didn’t think it was possible to catch him off guard, but he quickly recovered and said, “No. I do the cereal routine for special guests. Usually only in hotels, actually.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know, but now is not the time for serious. We are surrounded by all of this delicious sugary mess and you’ve already gotten an answer to your question. Toss your bowl because we are now going to try another one of my top ten. Fasten your seatbelt, Galloway, because you are about to experience marshmallow stars and clovers.”

Kate laughed and reached for her next bowl, but Grady held it and asked his question.

“When you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?

“Seriously?”

“Do you want the marshmallows, Kate?”

She sighed. “I . . . I wanted to be a lot of things. When I was really little I wanted to be a PE teacher.”

Grady laughed.

“Hey, no laughing. I really did. I remember having these fantasies about organizing the locker room the way I wanted it and having all of my own balls. All different kinds for all of the sports. I even imagined that the balls would have a
property of
stamp.” Kate laughed at herself and then looked at Grady, who smiled and handed her the next bowl. She took a bite.

“Eh,” she said. “These are not my favorite.”

“Are you insane?” Grady said, chomping through his bowl. He looked like a kid waiting for Saturday morning cartoons.

“I’m just not feeling it. The cereal part is kind of bland and the marshmallows are weird. It’s not blended.”

“It blends in your mouth, that’s the cool part.”

Kate shook her head, leaned over and dumped the bowl in the trashcan. Grady had a longing expression as if someone had just run over his puppy.

“Unbelievable. Maybe we should have had your taste buds checked before this.”

Kate laughed and said, “Okay, next question.”

Grady added a little more to his bowl.

“Ready?” she asked.

He nodded.

“What is your relationship like with your sister? Are you close?”

“Look at you go with the personal questions, Kate. I think you want to know me. Is this a date?”

“I ate the yucky marshmallows. Answer, Grady.”

“Let’s see, are Kara and I close?” He paused for a minute. “Yes, I would say we are close. We are two years apart and when we were younger we were very close. She was a tomboy, if you can believe it, so we did a lot together. I remember one time we tried to run away and she insisted on taking her cat. It was the middle of the night and we put the cat in a pillowcase. By the time we got to the door the damn thing was howling. Woke the whole house up.”

They both laughed.

“Kara has grown into something I’m not quite sure I can relate to most of the time, but that’s recent. She studied to be a chef, you know?”

“I didn’t know that,” Kate said, finishing up her coffee, hoping it would wash the Lucky Charm taste out of her mouth.

“Yes, but then she gave it up. My parents hadn’t known, so when they found out they were pissed. Kara was never really the same when she came home.” Grady seemed to go off in his thoughts for a moment. “Anyway, the answer to your question is, yes. I am close with my sister.”

“Do you ever think about getting married again?” Grady asked, and Kate could tell he was expecting her to sidestep.

“No,” she answered, as truthful as she knew how. That was the game, right?

“You never want to, or you never think about it?” Grady asked, while he seemed to look around for his next box of cereal.

Kate made an obnoxious buzzer sound and said, “Oh we’re sorry, Mr. Malendar, but this is a one question per bowl game.”

Grady shook his head and poured the next round. They went on like this, back and forth, for the next two hours. Grady eventually learned that Kate didn’t completely rule out getting married again, but she had not thought about it at all since her divorce. Kate learned that Grady cutting his knee open, when he fell in the wash behind his house, was the scariest thing he’d experienced as a child. Grady showed her the scar from twelve stitches.

Kate shared that she went to both of her proms with guys she barely knew. She was never asked, so her dad set her up with sons of the guys on the force. One of them didn’t dance with her once. That little gem was her answer to, “What was your most humiliating moment in high school?”

“I should have just stayed home or gone with my friends. Oh, if I only knew then what I know now,” Kate added.

Grady agreed and told her that he didn’t walk in his high school graduation because he got into a fight with his father about Stanford and took off for two weeks to drive through Mexico. All in all they got through ten different cereals, ten sets of questions, and maybe a few extra. Kate finally settled on Fruit Loops as her favorite sugar cereal, citing the crunch and the rainbow milk as a bonus. Grady agreed that “Loops,” as he called them, were in his top three, but told Kate nothing would replace his Honey Nut Cheerios. She laughed herself silly when he explained that he had a favorite bowl and spoon that he used and still ate them for breakfast every morning.

The following morning, Kate answered emails and finished Grady’s speech, but also made time for a massage and a pedicure while Grady left for some mystery “details” he needed to take care of. When he returned, they hiked through Vista Hermosa Park. Over a late lunch, on a little bench at the top of their hike, Grady listened to the closely-guarded story of Kate’s first marriage.

He checked her out of the hotel, after she said goodbye and thanked the staff, and his driver delivered Kate to her apartment. The weekend, as promised, had pampered her and it was fun. Fun, one of life’s little treasures Kate had forgotten all about. Grady was smart and generous. She felt safe with him and was pretty sure he did with her. It was so strange to find that the person she was responsible for sheltering, making look good, was actually doing the same for her. Kate didn’t know what to do with all of the feelings floating around inside of her, but she was certain of one thing while she unpacked her bag and started a load of laundry. Real life was very real and nothing about her time with Grady felt real.

Chapter Twenty

T
he report was in her email when she got out of the shower on Sunday night. Kate put on her pajama bottoms and a tank top. She made some of the Chamomile tea the spa had sent home, opened her laptop, and sat on the floor by her large living room window to catch up on what the real world had been doing while she was playing make-believe. Even after a shower, she could still smell the hotel, feel the oils from the spa on her skin. The first sip of tea burned her lips, so she set it on the window ledge and pulled up her work email. Kate scanned the screen. Basic stuff, meeting minutes from the week before, a couple of new meeting requests, the latest poll numbers showing the senator now only two points behind his opponent, and then her eyes landed on the subject line: Complete Background (Malendar, G) CONFIDENTIAL. Kate clicked on the email, opened the attachment, and sipped her tea again. Her stomach growled, and after a weekend in la-la land, Toaster Strudel seemed downright boring. Maybe she would order take-out.