by Sara Celi
“I don’t understand.”
Patrick shifted his weight, placed his elbows on his knees, and studied the geometric pattern on the carpet for a breath. When he looked back at me again, the expression in his eyes had changed. “I’m talking about Kathryn.”
My stomach dropped at the sound of her name. Right. Of course. Kathryn. Always Kathryn Van der Loon.
“What do you need me to take care of for you?” Energy coiled hot in my stomach, but I suppressed it.
“No, don’t jump to conclusions.” He put down the Diet Coke and lifted his hand. “This isn’t going where you think it is.”
I swallowed. “Meaning?”
“It’s no secret that Kathryn likes certain things. She’s a certain type of woman.”
I nodded. Kathryn was the young, rich, spoiled, aristocratic type of woman who always seemed like life had given her everything she’d wanted. She and I had nothing in common except Patrick Blanco.
“She’s a huge asset to you. Everyone knows the Van der Loons are the most well-connected family on the East Coast. You need that in an effort like this one.”
Patrick nodded. “I’m going to let you in on a secret, though.”
“I’m all ears,” I said, again wondering why he’d chosen so late to talk with me about his personal life. Couldn’t this have waited until the morning?
“Well…it’s fake.” He laughed once and shook his head a few times, as if saying this surprised even him. “The whole relationship is fake.”
I blanched. “What?”
“It’s an arrangement.” He exhaled. “And I’ve been wanting to tell you this for weeks.”
“Excuse me?” I cleared my throat. “I’m not following. Arrangement?”
Patrick propped his feet on the coffee table between us and sank further into the couch. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. We don’t have any chemistry beyond the surface. At least, not romantic chemistry. It’s for show. For the voters.”
It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard of this idea before. People in Washington did it all the time. Hell, that town turned out political marriages and relationships the same way Hollywood turned out aspiring actors. Still, I hadn’t considered this could be true about Patrick and Kathryn.
Interesting.
“Kathryn is good at it,” he said. “Convincing. And what I’m finding out is, I’m good at it, too.” He made a wild gesture. “And with this campaign, it’s—” He lifted a shoulder.
“What?”
“This is what we have to do to win.”
“Of course,” I said, finding a noncommittal response as I stood from the chair. “And on that note, I probably should head to bed. It’s late, and we have a full day ahead of us.”
I took a few steps toward the door, but when Patrick grabbed my arm, I stopped.
“I know you’re upset.” His eyes searched my face and I smelled a faint hint of his aftershave. “I get it—it’s strange. But don’t leave yet.”
“This is a lot to take in.” I thought of all the times I’d seen Kathryn and Patrick together in the last few weeks. If it was fake, they’d done a great job of convincing everyone it was real.
“Do you know who finances the majority of my super PAC?”
“Super PACs and campaigns don’t speak to each other.” I gave him a mock frown. “I don’t have any communication with anyone involved in any super PAC.”
Patrick laughed. “Of course you don’t. My good, honest, above-the-board director of communications would never do anything unethical. I still want you to answer the question.”
“Okay, let me take two guesses.” I tugged my arm free from his hold, walked back to the sofa, and sat down. “But I’m sure I only need one. Gordon Van der Loon is the main donor.”
“One of three.”
“And what? His daughter is some kind of bait?” I sank further into the cushions and laughed at the absurdity of that idea. “A bargaining chip?”
“Actually, yeah.”
I blanched. “Really?”
“Really. That’s the way something like this works. Kathryn has an agenda. She wants the…exposure…of being the girlfriend of a rising politician.” He shook his head. “And at the time…I’m sure you can put together the pieces. Someone in my position doesn’t have a lot of options and has to make deals when he can.”
“So you agreed to something like this just so you could win.”
He nodded. “Just so I could win. And I will. This will pay off.”
Patrick sounded so sure of himself and so committed to this idea that it startled me. I expected him to do whatever it took to the win the White House, but I hadn’t expected this. And moreover, I hadn’t expected it to entangle me. But now, it had. I stood up again, not sure how I felt about what he’d just revealed. The clock on the nightstand read one sixteen. God, I was so going to pay for this. We had a long day tomorrow, the first of many.
I studied him for another small beat. “Why tell me this now?”
“Because tomorrow we leave for South Carolina.” His gaze locked with mine. “And you know how it is down there—secrets don’t stay that way. Things come out. I thought you should know. I wanted you to know.”
“I probably should go. It’s late, and we’ve got a crazy day tomorrow.” I stood and crossed the room again. When I reached the door, I turned back toward him. “This is a lot to take in right now. A lot to process.”
He was slack-jawed and wide-eyed. “I know. You don’t like it, do you?”
“I’m not sure.” I shook my head. “We live in two different kinds of reality, Patrick, and that part is very clear. You’re willing to do things that most people wouldn’t do just to get what you want.”
“Listen, I don’t expect you to understand all this—I hardly understand it, either.” But I couldn’t go a day longer without telling you.”
“We both need to get some sleep,” I said. “I know that I can’t function if I don’t get at least four hours, and tomorrow morning, we have to hit the ground hard. South Carolina is going to be crazy. No one thought you’d win New Hampshire, and they’re going to bring everything at you in South Carolina.”
“Think we can handle it?” He raised an eyebrow.
“I hope so.”
But I wasn’t sure. Not even close.
“Okay, team, look alive,” Doug said over a sloshing cup of coffee as he stood in the back of Patrick’s modified campaign bus.
Outside, the rolling hills of New Jersey passed as the bus rolled down I-95. Each minute on the road took us closer to the Palmetto State and our next fight on the way to the White House.
“We already have some good news.” Doug paused as if to make sure each of us paid careful attention to his next sentence. “We already start today ahead, and god knows we need it. For those of you who haven’t checked your emails, two of our opponents dropped out this morning. Tom Sutton and Mark Grace suspended their campaigns a short time ago. We’ll be reaching out to some of their staff members and volunteers to see if they are willing to join our team.”
A small round of applause and a few triumphant cheers traveled through the bus; Doug hushed all of us after a few seconds.
“That doesn’t mean we can get ahead of ourselves, folks. As we know, the Palmetto State is going to define everything about us, and we should expect a fight. Unfortunately, Governor Sayers is still in the race, and he’ll be a huge challenge for us. Patrick is a fantastic politician, but so is Sayers. He’s probably our strongest opponent, and he has a huge network.” As he spoke, Doug tapped his pen to emphasize each word. “We can’t afford to let up.”
“He’s right,” Heather said. “Just this morning, CNN reported that Sayers may get the endorsement of Charleston’s mayor by the end of the week.”
Doug shook his head and clenched his jaw. “Let’s discuss where we are on earned media. Looking at our budget, our media exposure will have to be the crux of this campaign. It’s free, it’s everywhere, and we must leverage
it.” Doug flipped through a few pages on his clipboard. “Starting with TV, I saw some good coverage on the networks last night. Would you agree, Alex?”
“Yes,” I said as I unlocked my iPad and opened the spreadsheet where I logged this kind of information. “All the cable stations carried the victory speech live in its entirety, and the networks dipped in for a few moments. I checked Twitter this morning and Patrick’s official handle has more than five thousand new followers. He also briefly trended last night. The New York Times, The Washington Post, LA Times, and The Guardian all have cover stories, and he’s booked on MSNBC’s Politics Now tonight in the nine ten interview slot…”
I droned on and on, rattling off what Doug wanted to hear, but while my mouth said the right words, my mind wasn’t in the game. I kept thinking about Patrick, Kathryn, and what he’d revealed to me the night before. I couldn’t get past it.
“Alex?”
I blinked.
“Are you listening to me?” Doug’s voice interjected my thoughts. “I just asked you a question. Do you have the answer?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, what?”
Doug’s jaw tightened and he shot Heather an annoyed look. “I said, what’s the comparison between the coverage on Patrick versus the national media focus on Sayers? Do you have that?”
“Oh, yes.” I shrugged off my thoughts and swiped through the report. We had a lot of research on Howard Sayers, the evangelical, blue-dog governor of Alabama who won his seat when the GOP candidate found himself forced to drop out after being accused of child pornography. Sayers leaned center, proudly called himself a conservative Democrat, and had made a name for himself around Washington through long filibusters and theatrics. “They still consider him a frontrunner, especially when it comes to South Carolina. He’s polling at 35% support right now across that state, which is double anyone else.”
“Thank you.” Doug sighed and turned to Brian Long, a volunteer with southern ties. “What do you think about attacking his veto in Alabama of Senate Bill 234?”
I settled back into my seat and let their voices fade into the background again. We still had more than eleven hours to go on our trip, and while we rode in the official bus toward Charleston, Patrick traveled on the Van der Loons’ private plane. His schedule had him at a lunch fundraiser in New York followed by a stop in DC that afternoon. He planned to join us in South Carolina that night.
When the meeting ended, I closed my eyes. No wonder Patrick had hooked up with Kathryn; even he had insisted it was political alliance, and for show only. A man like him needed a woman who’d complement him, a woman who would be able to float along during his meteoric rise up the chain of American politics.
No matter what chemistry I thought Patrick and I had, I couldn’t do that. Not even close.
I didn’t have endless connections and a name synonymous with American elitism. I came from a middle-class family in Omaha, and I got into Tulane because I had good grades in high school and three hundred hours of volunteering with Girls on the Run, where I coached fifth graders. I paid for Tulane by working at the call center for a New Orleans dinner cruise company. Now, after years of sixty-hour DC work weeks, I had a chance to own something. If Patrick won the White House, we’d all benefit. I’d get any job I wanted.
My iPhone buzzed. I opened my eyes and slipped it out of my pocket.
Patrick: Sutton and Grace never saw us coming.
Me: Don’t get too cocky. Sayers won’t hesitate to throw his hardest punches.
Patrick’s reply came about twenty seconds later.
Patrick: Promise me we can punch back? I know we have a lot of opposition research on him.
Me: Only if we HAVE to. How’s lunch, by the way? I hope it’s better than the gas station fare we had.
Patrick: Doug being tight with the budget again?
I bit back a smile and glanced at the rest of the staff. They still seemed energized by the end by Doug’s meeting, which had turned to expected endorsements in the coming week by South Carolina politicians. So far, the campaign didn’t have many, and none of those who expressed support could draw a large crowd. I punched the keyboard on my iPhone.
Me: You know Doug.
Patrick: I do. I’ve learned to expect the worst.
Me: He’s currently obsessing over endorsements. Looks like we’ve locked in a few from Charleston, but not one statewide.
Patrick: Guess I’m going to have to win them over.
Me: You can do it.
Patrick: But only if I have you next to me.
I stared at that message for a long time, reading the words over and over until they blurred and bled together. In the end, I didn’t respond. I just didn’t know what to say.
“May I get you anything, Mr. Blanco?” Bridget, the Van Der Loons’ personal flight attendant, said somewhere over Georgia as we flew toward South Carolina. “We should be landing soon. Last call.”
“No, thank you.” I waved her away and turned back to the scenery outside the jet window. Tiny lights clumped together in a splattered pattern below, outlining cities and small towns. Across from me, Kathryn ordered another glass of champagne.
“Something is bothering you,” she said, and tapped my foot with hers. “Tell me.”
“I’m just…” I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”
“Come on, Patrick. I would think after everything that we’ve been through that you would feel comfortable talking to me.”
I did. Over the last three months or so, Kathryn had become a good friend. I could more than give her that, but it didn’t mean I wanted to talk to her about the fact that I’d spent most of the day thinking about Alex. “I’m just overwhelmed. Typical campaign stuff.”
“Last night was huge.” She grinned. “Daddy says you’re going to get such a fantastic bounce out of this. You’re the hottest thing in American politics right now.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Well, that’s why I’m saying it for you.” She shifted her weight in the seat as satisfaction seemed to roll over her. “And if you win in South Carolina…”
“Don’t say that. Don’t jinx it.”
“You’re going to get the nomination. Daddy will make sure of it.”
“I’m sure he will.”
“Just win in South Carolina, and you’ll prove to everyone that you have more than a decent shot at the White House. And from there, anything is possible.” A smile pulled at her lips. “Anything.”
Bridget arrived with Kathryn’s fresh glass of champagne, and I welcomed the break in conversation. I didn’t like talking much about Kathryn’s father. As kind and pleasant as she was, he was often the exact opposite, and no day passed in my campaign without a reminder of just how much I owed him. Before he decided to back me, I’d been nothing more than a struggling Ohio senator, gasping for air in a town that chewed up ideals and spit them out every year. I might have won over the people of Ohio, but I hadn’t been a darling of DC. Far from it.
One dinner meeting with Gordon Van der Loon changed all of that. Now, at thirty-eight, I’d just won a major primary and had a shot at the presidency. I owed him, and I had a reminder of that sitting right across from me. I turned back to the view from the airplane window.
We arrived at Charleston Executive Airport about fifteen minutes later, and from there a small caravan of three black SUVs transported us to our downtown hotel. Kathryn settled into our two-bedroom suite and I called Doug to let him know we had arrived. It was after eleven and at the edge of a long day, but I still had one more thing I wanted to do. I found the list of staff hotel rooms in my email, and I stared at it for a while.
Room 415. Four fifteen. Room 415.
Just six rooms away from mine.
Once Kathryn went to sleep, I made the short walk there. It took fifteen seconds, maybe thirty. Arriving at the door, I balled my fist and raised it. Was Alex still awake? Would she invite me inside?
In the end, though, I didn’t knock. Didn’t
have the courage. Instead, I dropped my hand to my side, turned on my heel, and walked back to my own room. That night, I hardly slept. When I did, I dreamed about Alexandra Jones.
When I woke up the next morning, a cold sweat drenched my sheets.
Eight days stretched before us on the calendar between primary day in New Hampshire and primary day in South Carolina. I wanted a strong showing, I needed to use them all. That meant starting at six most days and ending around midnight. In between, I had directed my staff to plan as many breakfasts, rallies, factory tours, church visits, festivals, and town-hall appearances as they could muster. South Carolina voters didn’t know me at all, but they would.
On our first full day in the state, we kicked the morning off with a breakfast for Charleston’s Democrats at a restaurant called Marriane’s in the city’s French Quarter. We booked the back room and invited any active member of the party to attend what we called an “open conversation with the candidate”. Marriane’s provided endless coffee, donuts, yogurt, and fresh fruit; when Kathryn and I arrived, we found staffers scurrying in and out of the room as they put the final touches on breakfast. I left Kathryn near the door and made a few excuses about needing to go over last-minute items with the staff.
In reality, I had another agenda.
At the far end of the room, Alex sorted through “Blanco for President” bumper stickers and buttons. As soon as we walked in, I had trouble tearing my attention away. I wanted to talk to her. No, I needed to talk to her.
“Hello,” I said, once I got close to the table. “Busy already, I see.”
She jumped and whirled around. “Patrick. Good morning.”
“How’s it coming?”
She glanced at the large cardboard box. “We have enough for this event, but we will need to put in another order soon.”
“Excellent. Whatever you need. Let’s blanket this state with buttons and bumper stickers.”
“Don’t forget the signs. We have hundreds of those, too.” She picked up one of the buttons and fiddled with the back of it as she spoke. “Did you have a nice flight?”
