Dissident Read Free

sweater, you wear the sweater the next year. You know the rule.”
    “I didn’t make fun of it last year.”
    “‘That thing looks like Picasso vomited on a Monet then sewed a bunch of random Jo-Ann Fabric patterns on it,’” he quoted.
    “That wasn’t a joke. It was the truth,” she groused.
    Tom laughed. “Chrissy loves it as much as you do.”
    Caroline’s daughter Marguerite came bounding into the room, grabbing a handful of Cheetos from one of the bowls on the snack table. “Wow, mom. That sweater sucks.”
    The blunt wisdom of a far too mature ten year old who spent way too much time repeating her mother’s colorful language. “Thanks, Mo. Where’s Sophie?”
    Marguerite shoved the Cheetos into her mouth. “I don’t know. Jess said she was going to make her a whiskey sour.”
    “Jess was kidding.”
    “So you say.”
    “So I know.” Caroline looked at her watch. “It’s almost time for you two to go to bed.”
    Marguerite’s face fell. “Just a little bit longer? Please?”
    It had been hard not to indulge them during the past year, and Caroline’s resolve broke easily. “Eleven. That’s it.”
    “No midnight?”
    “No midnight. Pretend you live in Nova Scotia and it’s already the New Year by then. Go hang out with your sister for a while.”
    “Okay.” Marguerite skipped away.
    Tom, who had witnessed the exchange, grinned. “It’s those moments that make you hope she’s not going to go to law school, right? She barely pushed that one at all.”
    Caroline laughed. Her loyalty to Notre Dame Law School was one of the reasons Tom liked her so much.
    “Between the two of us and our disturbing passion for Our Lady’s university, it might be damn near impossible to keep her away from South Bend.” She looked over his shoulder and saw a late arrival she hadn’t noticed before. “You invited Bob?”
    Tom kept grinning. “What with Christine considering moving up to the Senate next term, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to have the Speaker of the House here.”
    An interesting choice. Christine Sullivan and Robert Allen didn’t exactly get along all the time. Caroline barely contained her surprise. “Breaking her own ‘no Washington people, except for Caroline and her family’ rule?”
    “Apparently so.”
    “That woman will do anything for an endorsement.”
    “Would you endorse her?”
    “If she wants me to. You know how much I love bridging the partisan divide.” She looked down at her now-empty glass. “Do you think John McIntyre will show up?”
    Tom’s grin disappeared as he took the glass from her. “I have no idea. Chrissy only met him once during the election and I’m not sure he was very enamored with her. But maybe.” The smile returned. “I know you wanted him to come.”
    “Well, it’s not that I want him to come, I just….” She wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted anymore.
    Caroline had suffered through a pretty terrible year and was eager for it to be over.  She had first been elected to Congress four years prior, riding a wave of anti-incumbent fervor that many people hoped would invigorate the country and get people more engaged in the process.  Which, peculiarly enough, the pundits seemed to say every two years. She ran as a moderate to liberal Democrat in a solidly blue district in the Maryland suburbs outside the District of Columbia, and voters responded to her earnest style and quirky sense of humor. 
    She was a decent looking woman in her mid-thirties with brown eyes, auburn hair, and a relatively okay figure that required constant exercise because of two pregnancies and her weakness for all sorts of yummy foods (particularly deep dish pizza and chocolate). But her personality and charm coupled with her professional background made her an appealing upstart candidate. Her husband Nick hadn’t been all that thrilled about her blossoming political career, but she’d dedicated her life to public service and he knew that one day she’d want to