Chapter 9: The Evolution
The flickering chandelier light caught the gold flecks in Rina’s eyes as she mentioned Rachmaninoff. Jon felt a strange, specific thrill—a click of a lock turning over. It wasn’t just that she knew the music; it was that she had lived inside it, her body translating its architecture into motion on ice.
“Which piece?” he asked, his voice lower.
“Piano Concerto No. 2,” she said. “The adagio sostenuto, for the step sequence.”
He could hear it instantly in his head—the lush, sorrowful swell of strings giving way to that clear, solitary piano line, melancholic and relentless. He imagined her carving long, clean arcs across the ice, the music pulling her into its heart. The image was so vivid it felt like a memory.
“That’s a brutal choice,” he said, admiration plain in his tone. “All that emotion. Nowhere to hide.”
“Hiding was never the point,” she replied, taking a sip of water. “The point was to feel it all the way through. Even the ugly parts.”
He held her gaze, the noise of the restaurant fading to a distant hum. For a second, it was just the two of them and the ghost of a piano concerto in a quiet room.
“I’d like to play for you sometime,” he said. The words came out before he could polish them, a straightforward want laid bare.
Her expression softened, the political sharpness dissolving into something quieter, more curious. “I’d like that.”
“I’m better at Chopin,” he added, a slight, self-deprecating shrug returning. “Less… Russian melodrama.”
“I like Russian melodrama,” she said, a small smile playing on her lips. “But I’ll take whatever you’re offering.”
The waitress reappeared, refilled their coffee without asking, and vanished again. The interruption was brief, but it shifted the air.
Rina leaned back, studying him with a frankness that was becoming familiar. “You’re interesting, Jon.”
He snorted lightly, looking down at his hands wrapped around the warm mug. “I’m a politics nerd who can play piano. That’s not interesting, that’s just a quirky resume.”
“No,” she said, her voice firm enough to make him look up. “That’s not what I mean. The pieces don’t add up to a whole. The guy who wants to fix welfare and the guy who loses himself in Chopin… they’re the same person. That’s interesting. Most people are one or the other. All heart or all head. You seem… integrated.”
He was silent for a moment, turning her words over. He’d never considered it that way. To him, it was just life—the noisy, demanding world of people and problems, and the silent, demanding world of the keyboard. One fed the other, but he’d never had a name for it.
“Integrated,” he repeated, tasting the word. “Sounds better than ‘schizophrenic.’”
She laughed, a real, bright sound that cut through the low murmur of the room. “It is better. It’s rare.”
He watched her laugh, the way it reached her eyes, and felt a surge of warmth that had nothing to do with the coffee. He defaulted to deflection, a habit born of Massachusetts modesty. “Okay, but let’s not pretend I’m the fascinating one at this table. I just learned you debated national figures and landed a triple whatever to one of the most technically demanding concertos in history before you could legally buy a beer. ‘Interesting’ is your baseline setting.”
Rina didn’t blush or demur. She tilted her head, accepting the assessment with a gracious, amused nod. “Well, yes. That’s all established.” Her smile widened, infectious and clever. “But it’s more fun to be interesting with someone who can keep up.”
The challenge, and the compliment, hung between them. It wasn’t flattery. It was a statement of fact, and it buzzed in the air like a live wire.
He reached across the table, his fingers brushing the back of her hand where it rested beside her fork. A simple point of contact. Her skin was cool. She didn’t pull away.
“So what’s the plan, Lincoln?” he asked, his thumb tracing a faint line across her knuckle. “We finish this profoundly average hotel food. Then what?”
She glanced at their joined hands, then back at his face, her expression turning practical. “Well, it’s still afternoon. We should probably attend the straw poll.” A faint, conspiratorial smirk touched her lips. “The closing event. A civic duty.”
“A civic duty,” he repeated, playing along.
“And then,” she said, her voice dropping to a low, intimate register that sent a jolt through him, “we’ll probably go back to one of our rooms. Have sex one more time.” She stated it as simple fact, no artifice, and the bluntness was more arresting than any flirtation. “Then we go back to our respective schools. Back to reality. Holy Cross for you, Harvard for me.”
Jon absorbed this. The timeline was logical, inevitable, but hearing it laid out so plainly made the remaining hours feel precious and condensed.
“That sounds…” he began.
“Efficient?” she offered, arching an eyebrow.
“I was going to say ‘perfect,’ but efficient works too.” He grinned, that small gap between his teeth appearing. “Though I’m objecting to the ‘one more time’ phrasing. Makes it sound so final.”
“It’s not,” Rina said, and now her tone was earnest, the plan unfolding. “We’ve exchanged numbers. AIM screen names.” She squeezed his fingers. “We’ll be talking. Messaging. Daily, if my prediction is right.”
The certainty in her voice was a tangible thing, a bridge being built between this hotel and everything that came after. He could see it: the familiar chime of an instant message popping up on his desktop, her name glowing in the dim light of his dorm room.
“Daily sounds about right,” he agreed.
“We’ll figure out our class schedules,” she continued, thinking aloud, her thumb now tracing absent circles on his wrist. “Find a day that works. We both take the train, meet halfway.” She shrugged, as if the solution were obvious. “Framingham or Natick. We can go on actual dates. The kind with bad movie popcorn and arguments about the symbolism.”
The mundanity of it—the train schedules, the suburban mall towns—somehow made the prospect more thrilling than any grand gesture. It was a plan. A future with mechanics and logistics, born from the fury of a conference table and the quiet of a restaurant.
“I hear the Framingham theaters have exceptional sticky floors,” Jon said.
“The stickier the better,” she countered, her smile returning. She released his hand and looked toward the window, where afternoon sunlight slanted across the faded red tablecloth. “But first, the straw poll. Then,” she looked back, her gaze holding his, “the part I’m actually thinking about right now.”
He threw a few bills onto the table, more than enough to cover the check. The action felt decisive. “Then let’s not keep future-you waiting.”
They stood together, the wooden legs of his chair scraping softly on the tile. The conference room adrenaline was gone, replaced by this new, steady current of anticipation. It hummed between them as they walked out, side by side, into the lobby’s bright light, already mapping the hours ahead.
It hummed between them as they walked out, side by side, into the lobby’s bright light, already mapping the hours ahead. The low thump of bass from the main ballroom pulsed through the carpet like a gathering heartbeat, pulling them back toward the crowd.
“Showtime,” Rina said, squaring her shoulders with a theatrical breath.
They slipped into the bustling ballroom just as a DNC staffer was calling for final votes. The air was thick with the smell of wool suits, perfume, and cheap champagne, a stark contrast to the quiet restaurant. Hundreds of students milled, their laminated credentials flashing under chandeliers.
Rina grabbed two paper ballots from a folding table, handing one to Jon. She leaned close, her voice warm in his ear. “I already know my guy’s taking this. But it’s a party tradition—pointless, but mandatory.”
“Who’s your guy?” Jon asked, though he already knew.
“Dean,” she said, her eyes glinting with certainty. “The energy, the bluntness. He’s not reciting poetry, he’s swinging a bat at the furniture. It’s what people want right now.” She marked her ballot with a quick, decisive check.
Jon looked down at the names printed on the thin slip: Gephardt, Kerry, Dean, Edwards. His stomach tightened. He’d spent last summer fetching coffee in Senator Kerry’s Boston office, memorizing the careful, measured cadences of his speeches.
“He’ll win this straw poll,” Rina continued, nodding toward a scrum of Dean supporters yelling, “Yeah!” by the stage. “But Kerry will get the nomination. Democrats, in the end, always play it safe. They go with the general, not the revolutionary. Dean’s the fight; Kerry’s the verdict.”
Her analysis was so clean, so unemotional, it felt like truth. Jon felt the pull she described, the raw, screaming appeal of Dean’s unvarnished rage against the war. It was a physical force in the room.
He pictured the intern bullpen, the stacked policy briefs, the senior advisor who’d bought him a beer and said, “Loyalty matters in this business, kid.” His pen hovered.
“You interred for Kerry, right?” Rina asked softly, watching his face. She didn’t push. “It’s okay. It’s just a straw poll.”
That permission, granted so easily, cut the tension. He gave her a grateful, sheepish look. “Feels a bit like treason.”
“It’s not,” she laughed, bumping his shoulder with hers. “It’s a beauty pageant in a hotel. Vote your conscience, or your resume. Either way, I’m not mad.”
He scratched a checkmark next to John Kerry’s name. The loyalty was less a conviction today than a footprint from a past self, a path already walked. They dropped their folded ballots into the same gray box, her vote for the revolution and his for the establishment vanishing together.
“Now we wait,” she said, leading him to a relatively quiet spot near a draped fire exit. Their arms brushed as they leaned against the wall, watching the circus.
A local party chair took the microphone, tapping it with a finger. The feedback squeal cut through the din. “Alright, folks! We have the results from today’s straw poll!”
A hush, incomplete but thickening, settled over the crowd. Jon felt Rina’s posture change beside him, a slight straightening of her spine.
“In fourth place… John Edwards!” A polite smatter of applause. “In third… Dick Gephardt!” Another ripple. The chair drew out the moment, adjusting his glasses under the lights. “In second place… Senator John Kerry!”
A louder, more sustained ovation rose from one corner of the room. Jon clapped automatically, a strange hollow feeling in his chest. He’d known. Rina had known.
She slipped her hand into his, lacing their fingers together. Her palm was cool and dry.
“And the winner of this weekend’s straw poll…” the chair boomed, “Governor Howard Dean!”
The room exploded. A deafening, primal yell erupted from the majority of the crowd, a wave of pure sound that vibrated in Jon’s ribcage. “Dean! Dean! Dean!” She was right. It wasn’t just victory; it was catharsis.
Rina didn’t cheer. She just watched, a small, knowing smile on her lips as the chants shook the crystal teardrops of the chandeliers. She turned to Jon, the riot of sound crashing around them, and leaned in until her lips touched his ear.
“Told you,” she whispered, the words swallowed by the roaring crowd. Her free hand came up to cradle his jaw, her thumb brushing his cheekbone. “Now can we please get out of here?”
The noise was a blanket, a chaos that shrouded them completely. He nodded, unable to speak, and let her pull him through the cheering bodies, the thunderous applause for a future that felt, for one loud moment, completely inevitable.