...The flight got into Baton Rouge Thursday at 130pm and he was met at the airport by a bald Cajun man that any connoisseur of punditry and exuberant partisanship would recognize in a heartbeat.
“Hello James.”
“Hey Boss. You look like shit.”
“Rough flight. How’s our boy?”
“All nice, a real certified gooder I hear. Won’t hardly talk ‘bout politics no more.”
“Perhaps best for him.”
“Oh c’mon. He was made for the show. Bred for it.”
“ That brings us to my reason for being here. How’s Mary?”
“Sends her love. We both finally gotta ask you, he’s never suspected what you, you, were doing there?”
“Don’t think so. I’ve covered my tracks these several years.”
“You’ve been blitzin’ that state with his virtues all that time and he never wondered where those contracts out of the blue came from?”
“I’d guess not.”
“He’s in for a surprise.”
“If he’s like his old man, he’ll deal with it.”
“Blood does tell.”

Danny and Noelle sipped on their second cocktail before dinner and laughed. He had decided to tell her everything, no matter how embarrassing, about his recent travails.
“Any more skeletons? Done with things you later have to admit to? ” she asked.
“Hope so. Had enough.”
“What are you gonna do now?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Maybe marketing? Creative staff at an ad firm?”
“Maybe. Want to get through this.”
“I bet you miss it.”
“You mean the show?”
“Yes.”
“I do.”
“It’s been your life, your total ambition, since you were a kid. How are you gonna replace it?”
“With having a life. Not a never-ending ExCom masquerading as one.”
“One question though, one I’ve been wanting to ask.”
“Shoot.”
“Did you see anyone after I chucked you?”
“Aside from Janine? No.”
She sighed with relief, “How long will you stay here?”
“A couple more weeks and I’ll go home. Though, I’m not sure what I’m going home to.”
“Your kids, your friends…us.”
“Us as in, ‘us’?”
“I think we can try.”
“Is this just the romance and intensity of this adventure talking? Paris is burning so let’s love tonight?”
“I’ve watched you here and you’re not operating at all like you did in Gering.”
“How so?”
“Back to your core. You’re a man I could fall for. I got you this today at a Goodwill store.”
She reached under the table and brought up a garishly wrapped package. He opened it and gawked. It was The Partridge Family’s Christmas Album. Dear God, not counting his mom making him a toga and laurel wreath for a high school party and his staff’s thirty-fifth birthday present to him of an ink rendering of a Spitfire about to bounce a 109 with his name, and seven kills, on the cockpit of the Spit, this was the nicest thing any adult had ever given him.
Once more, into the breach...