her down.
Still, her overwhelmed heart had backed them both into a corner from which
there could be no reprieve.
XXX
The next four weeks were absolute chaos, with reporters
buzzing around Arnold and Marg like they were a fine gourmet meal. Their main
rival, the incumbent mayor David Dodds, seemed to be developing an acute case
of foot in mouth disease. Instead of ignoring Arnold, and focusing on his main
rival, Nevil, who was the shifty ‘jobs for everyone’ candidate, David had
decided to attack newcomer Arnold with a gusto and fervor that was as dirty as
it was expensive.
The massive, ill-advised, month long campaign against Arnold
was making David’s campaign manager, Howard Reading, extremely angry and
frustrated. Howard quickly resigned, and was on public record as saying that
David’s stupid ads were merely giving Arnold a lot of free publicity he
wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. As the saying goes, bad publicity can be good
publicity in that it shines a spotlight on the one you are trashing. As a
result, reporters were dangling microphones and recorders in Marg and Arnolds
faces all day long, and the more they did, was the more that Arnold and Marg
began articulating their campaign platform and repudiating David’s ill-fated
lies against them. As a stroke of sheer genius, Marg then persuaded the
disenchanted and disenfranchised Howard to join their camp, a move that was as
embarrassing to the incumbent mayor as it was devastating.
Marg listened to the phone ring five times. Once more and it
would go into voice mail. The voice of Arnold suddenly greeted her.
“Hi hon.”
“Hi right back at you. We’re up almost a full twenty-five
points since the beginning of the campaign when you first tossed your hat into
the ring over a month ago.”
“A full twenty-five points? How is that possible?” Arnold asked,
trying to hide the escalating jubilation in his excited voice.
“Well, with David running off at the mouth, spouting his
lies about you and inconsistencies about his own platform, a lot of voters are
starting to listen to our campaign slogans.”
“That is great news, although, I may have gotten us into
some hot water with some ill-advised vocal bloopers of my own.”
She listened to his confession apprehensively. They had
agreed that he would stick strictly to their campaign platform on helping
create more facilities for women, such as subsidized daycare, and more abuse
shelters, not to mention their five point plan to try to revitalize downtown
and attract new businesses to the city. She had also come up with the brilliant
plan to recruit hundreds of animal lovers as dog catching volunteers. It had
also been agreed that she would do the heavy lifting where interviewing the
press was concerned.
“Just what did you say and to whom?” she asked, unable to
stop herself from trembling.
“Well, that Scottie fellow from the Detroit Herald. He asked
about you and I.”
Marg’s ears were suddenly primed and at full attention,
attentive to every syllable that should from henceforth leave his trembling
lips. “You and I?”
“Yes, you and I. He wanted to know if it were true that you
and I were actually lovers.”
Marg cringed. They had worked so diligently to keep their
private life out of the campaign. Someway, somehow, some nosy reporter was catching
on to the fact that they were mixing business with pleasure on the side.
“Sounds as though someone told him about you and I. We’ve
been very careful. He would have never have guessed that on his own,” she
surmised.
“I agree, and I was just about to tell him that we were not
an item, when I suddenly bit my tongue and asked him where he had heard such a
rumor. That is when he shocked me by saying your mother insisted that we were
actually engaged to be married.”
Marg was flabbergasted. All her life her mother had been
pushing her nose into her business, trying to influence which boy should take
her to the prom or which man she should
Still, her overwhelmed heart had backed them both into a corner from which
there could be no reprieve.
XXX
The next four weeks were absolute chaos, with reporters
buzzing around Arnold and Marg like they were a fine gourmet meal. Their main
rival, the incumbent mayor David Dodds, seemed to be developing an acute case
of foot in mouth disease. Instead of ignoring Arnold, and focusing on his main
rival, Nevil, who was the shifty ‘jobs for everyone’ candidate, David had
decided to attack newcomer Arnold with a gusto and fervor that was as dirty as
it was expensive.
The massive, ill-advised, month long campaign against Arnold
was making David’s campaign manager, Howard Reading, extremely angry and
frustrated. Howard quickly resigned, and was on public record as saying that
David’s stupid ads were merely giving Arnold a lot of free publicity he
wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. As the saying goes, bad publicity can be good
publicity in that it shines a spotlight on the one you are trashing. As a
result, reporters were dangling microphones and recorders in Marg and Arnolds
faces all day long, and the more they did, was the more that Arnold and Marg
began articulating their campaign platform and repudiating David’s ill-fated
lies against them. As a stroke of sheer genius, Marg then persuaded the
disenchanted and disenfranchised Howard to join their camp, a move that was as
embarrassing to the incumbent mayor as it was devastating.
Marg listened to the phone ring five times. Once more and it
would go into voice mail. The voice of Arnold suddenly greeted her.
“Hi hon.”
“Hi right back at you. We’re up almost a full twenty-five
points since the beginning of the campaign when you first tossed your hat into
the ring over a month ago.”
“A full twenty-five points? How is that possible?” Arnold asked,
trying to hide the escalating jubilation in his excited voice.
“Well, with David running off at the mouth, spouting his
lies about you and inconsistencies about his own platform, a lot of voters are
starting to listen to our campaign slogans.”
“That is great news, although, I may have gotten us into
some hot water with some ill-advised vocal bloopers of my own.”
She listened to his confession apprehensively. They had
agreed that he would stick strictly to their campaign platform on helping
create more facilities for women, such as subsidized daycare, and more abuse
shelters, not to mention their five point plan to try to revitalize downtown
and attract new businesses to the city. She had also come up with the brilliant
plan to recruit hundreds of animal lovers as dog catching volunteers. It had
also been agreed that she would do the heavy lifting where interviewing the
press was concerned.
“Just what did you say and to whom?” she asked, unable to
stop herself from trembling.
“Well, that Scottie fellow from the Detroit Herald. He asked
about you and I.”
Marg’s ears were suddenly primed and at full attention,
attentive to every syllable that should from henceforth leave his trembling
lips. “You and I?”
“Yes, you and I. He wanted to know if it were true that you
and I were actually lovers.”
Marg cringed. They had worked so diligently to keep their
private life out of the campaign. Someway, somehow, some nosy reporter was catching
on to the fact that they were mixing business with pleasure on the side.
“Sounds as though someone told him about you and I. We’ve
been very careful. He would have never have guessed that on his own,” she
surmised.
“I agree, and I was just about to tell him that we were not
an item, when I suddenly bit my tongue and asked him where he had heard such a
rumor. That is when he shocked me by saying your mother insisted that we were
actually engaged to be married.”
Marg was flabbergasted. All her life her mother had been
pushing her nose into her business, trying to influence which boy should take
her to the prom or which man she should
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