Joe T. Evangeline paced his office, wondering if he should make yet one more phone call. The person he wished to call was Julie Galjour, his new best friend. Or so he'd thought.
But he'd phoned her three times in the last two days, once at her office and twice on her cell phone. All he'd gotten was her voice mail. He'd left casual, chatty messages, but his friend had not called him back.
Unusual.
No, actually alarming.
He'd e-mailed her, too, with the same result.
What could this be about?
He'd replayed in great detail their lunch meeting, wondering if he'd uttered some sentence that had given Julie some reason to rethink or even retract her offer. But no, he couldn't find such a moment. It had ended on such an upbeat note.
So why was she avoiding him?
The Guv stopped pacing and decided he was simply overreacting. Ms. Galjour was an extremely busy professional. Surely this silence was merely related to her hectic schedule. He decided to try her one more time. But this time he would make it a more official call so that the director of the Department of Environmental Conservation would have business reasons to speak with the governor of Louisiana. He pushed his intercom button and said, “Minna, would you mind getting Julie Galjour on the phone for me? I need some additional statistics from her on that channel matter.”
“Of course, Governor. One moment.”
A moment later Minna buzzed.
“I'm sorry, Governor,” Minna said perfunctorily, “I just spoke with Julie's secretary, and she's apparently out of town.”
“Hmm, strange. I didn't know she had any trips planned—well, not that I necessarily would know such a thing.”
The Guv leaned back in his chair, still uneasy. He began pacing again, parsing other possibilities for her silence. One immediate thought increased his alarm. His number was registering on her caller ID—he knew this because just after their lunch, having traded cell phone numbers, he'd called her with some afterthought and she'd answered, calling him by name. Now she was probably using that information to dodge him!
He tried to shove such thoughts from his mind, but they wouldn't dislodge.
On a hunch, he buzzed Minna again.
“Yes, Governor?”
“Is there something you're not telling me?”
“About what?”
“About our Ms. Galjour. You did, recall, set up our lunch meeting.”
“Why, yes I did. And I thought you said it went well.”
“Very well, Minna. So why is our friend suddenly not returning my phone calls?”
There was a long silence on Minna's end. “Well,” she finally replied, “I don't know. As I said earlier, she's probably just preoccupied.”
“Ah, yes, well, I'm sure you're right. Anyway, I'm going out for a bit, Minna. Back in ten.”
“Going where, Governor? You have an appointment in twenty minutes.”
“I'm going out, Minna, and since ten minutes is less than twenty minutes, I'll be back in time.”
“Snippy today, are we?”
He switched off the intercom. Minna's not being straight with me!
Five minutes later he was in a little-used basement office where he knew there was a pay phone. He put in a quarter and dialed Julie's cell phone number again.
She picked up on the third ring. “Hello, this is Julie.”
The Guv realized he didn't know what to say.
“Hello? Hello? Anybody there?”
The Guv finally found his voice. “Ah, Ms. Galjour, it's Joe T. Evangeline. The governor of the state of Louisiana. Remember me?”
There was a silence on the other end.
“Julie? Are you still there?”
“Ah, yes, Joe,” she stammered. “Listen, I apologize for not calling back, but, uh, I've been, uh, kinda busy. And in fact, I can't really talk now—I'm in the middle of something. Perhaps later. Okay?”
“Would you want to suggest a time when it would be okay to call you back?”
“Uh, well, I'm not really sure. But, anyway, I should go. I need to—”
“Julie,” the Guv said in as calm a voice as he could muster, “would you mind telling me what's going on?”
“Nothing, Governor. Nothing at all. I just can't talk now is all. Maybe—”
“Well, you sound stressed. Has something happened? Everything okay with your family?”
“No, nothing's happened and my family's fine. It's just that—look, really, I'll call you in a couple of days, promise.”
“A couple of days? Uh, well, look, there's some stuff on the channel I need from you, uh, your office. I'm not sure it can wait a couple of days.” His voice trailed off. Why did he suddenly feel…defeated?
Another silence followed.
“Julie?” he said. “You still there?”
“Yes, I'm here, and, well, whatever you need on the channel, just have your people call Deke and he'll take care of it. I'm sorry, but now's just not a good time to chat. I do really have to go. I must.”
The phone went dead.
Julie Galjour had hung up on him!
Joe T. Evangeline replaced the receiver, left the tiny dark office, and caught the freight elevator back to his floor. Feeling glum, he walked down a corridor toward a back entrance to his office used mostly by caterers and the cleaning people. His hand was on his office door when he heard something that startled him—the muffled voice of Minna Cancienne.
He walked back and put his ear to Minna's service door. “Yes, dear,” he heard her say, “I know how hard it must be. And, really, I tried to buy you some time by downplaying the whole thing. But he's concerned—very concerned. He thinks you've abandoned him.” After a long pause, she continued. “No, of course, I totally understand. And I still think this will all work out. Courage, my dear. Courage.”
Courage? Courage for what?
He heard Minna hang up the phone. As Joe tiptoed back to his office, a thought stabbed through his brain.
Something has gone terribly awry.