by Sara Celi
“Oh, but it—”
“I hadn’t heard this from you,” I said under my breath, aware I'd interrupted James. But I couldn't stop myself. “I didn’t realize this connection.”
A tight smile crossed Kathryn’s face. “It’s not something that I want to dwell on, believe me. I’m not…” She nodded at James. “As I’m sure you understand in your line of work, it’s often hard to explain medical conditions, isn’t it?”
James nodded.
“Anyway.” Kathryn picked up a program with gold script font from the table in front of James. “Is this the order of events for tonight?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll be sure to bid on something in the silent auction.” She glanced from the program back to James. “It was wonderful to meet you.”
She made a move for the doors. I followed her into the ballroom, and then she spun around to face me. “How was that?”
“Amazing. You are amazing.” I stepped closer to her. “Was it true?”
She narrowed her eyes. “It was true to him. And yes—it was true enough about my cousin.”
Congressman Mark Hanover and his wife Judith already waited at table twenty-six, which seated ten people near the center of the room. Kathryn hooked her arm through mine and I led her through the crowd, nodding hellos to the people I knew and smiling at those I didn’t. I wanted to win on Tuesday, and I wanted a shot at changing Ohio. I was going to need every one of them if we’d make it.
Hanover had a big grin for me when we arrived at his table and he clapped me on the back as we reached the seats. “Landon,” he said in a boisterous voice that caused a woman at the next table to pivot in our direction. “You’re looking great, my friend.”
“So are you.” I shifted my attention to Judith, who I embraced and kissed on the cheek. She murmured her hello, and then I watched the two of them turn toward Kathryn Van der Loon. On purpose, I hadn’t told them she’d be my date for the evening. I wanted to see what kind of reaction her presence might create.
“I’m Kathryn.” She extended a hand, which Judith shook. “And it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“You’re… I mean, this is…” Judith furrowed her brow. “I didn’t expect this, Landon.”
“We go back decades. I think I told you once that I got an academic scholarship to Choate. She…”
“Didn’t.” Kathryn laughed. “I didn’t have a scholarship to Choate. My parents paid. I’m not smart enough to get paid to go to school. Not like Landon.”
We all chuckled and a waiter arrived with a tray of champagne. I handed each of them a flute, then raised my glass. “To the campaign. And the movement.”
“Cheers,” Mark said.
I swallowed the first few tastes, my attention on Kathryn. No, I hadn’t expected her arrival the final days of what had been a tough, hard-fought campaign. But she was here. Next to me. And that was amazing. Just what I needed, and exactly what I wanted.
By the time we got back to the Airport Holiday Inn that night, my head swam from the champagne and the overall headiness of the night. I also carried a large basket of candy and restaurant gift certificates wrapped in cellophane and tied with a large green bow.
“I have no idea what I’m going to do with this,” I said as I stepped off the elevator. I’d won it all after bidding two hundred fifty dollars on the basket, a drunk, careless decision, but one that I didn’t regret. “I’m not taking it all back to New York. Do you think your staff will want it?”
“They’ll love it. If there’s food around, they’ll take it. That’s one thing that is true about every campaign staff. Every one.” Landon regarded me as we walked closer to my room, and something shifted in the air.
“They can have it,” I murmured. “Consider it a peace offering.”
“Peace?”
We arrived at my room, and I handed him the wicker basket. “Something like that. Your staff—”
He frowned. “My staff what?”
“Let’s be honest—this has been a shock to them. My showing up wasn’t a development they saw coming.”
He shrugged and shifted his weight. “It’s politics. Things happen and campaigns go through major changes. Even at the state level, and they know that.”
“But don’t you think this is different?”
“How so?” He lowered his voice and took a step toward me. “Besides all the ways I can think of—all the good ways.”
Instinctively, I backed up against the door and the hard metal of the handle pressed into the small of my back. I gave him a half-smile. “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about Kelly. She and I had a little chat earlier today at Saks Fifth Avenue.”
“Oh, god, Kelly.” Landon shook his head and braced a hand on the edge of the doorframe, boxing me in on one side. “She’s—vocal. I’ll put it that way.”
“She also insisted this is a movement, and more than just in the figurative sense. She says you genuinely want to do something big for the people in this state, and that if I’m not a part of it, then I need to leave. She was very strident. Persuasive.”
“Sounds just like her.”
My gaze searched his face, but I didn’t know what I expected to find. “She is protective of you.”
“I don’t need protecting. Not from her.” He leaned in, close enough that I smelled his aftershave. “What I need tonight is…you.”
Before I could blink, our lips met for the first time. Landon kissed me hard, and pulled my body toward his, claiming me. My lips parted and I kissed him back, letting the intensity of the moment wash over me as we molded together.
“This is it,” he said on a growl. “What I’ve wanted for years. Longer than you can imagine.”
I groaned and he pushed me against the door, then he found my lips again.
Landon Marsh was a man who got what he wanted, and what he wanted was me.
“Please,” I said in between kisses. “Don’t stop.”
His lips traced a long row of kisses up my jawline and ended at my ear. “May I come in?”
I pulled away and his gaze met mine. For a long beat, we stared at each other.
He shook his head. “I want you. And I’m not afraid to admit it.”
“I want you, too,” I whispered. “But not tonight. It’s not right.”
The corners of his mouth pulled downward, like a child pouting. “Why not?”
“I want to see the movement. Want to see what’s really going on, and why you did this.” I sighed. “I want to understand you.”
“Okay. Fair enough.” He took a step backward. “Tomorrow at the town hall in Newtonville. That’s the best place to see the movement.”
Forty minutes south of Cleveland and a smidge east of Columbus, Newtonville had all the marks of a broken, forgotten Ohio city. Once a proud town of twelve thousand, the population had dwindled in the late 90s when Kizmet Steel closed its plant and moved two thousand jobs to Mexico. Within five years, the downtown died, too, and the winds of change that swept through the town square might as well have been tornado force.
Now, less than five thousand people remained in Kizmet, and most of them felt anger and despair at a government they said had stopped caring about them decades ago. Every once in a while, an investigative reporter from the Columbus Dispatch or the Cincinnati Enquirer profiled the ongoing unemployment and increasing heroin problem in Newtonville and its surrounding county, but it never did much good. Newtonville might as well have been on the other side of Saturn, and the people there knew it.
When our van pulled up to VFW Hall #454, I turned to Kathryn. We sat in the backseat, crushed next to Kelly, who had barely said five words to Kathryn all morning.
“What you saw the other day at the party offices is nothing. That’s not the real effort.” I nodded at the faded red doors across the crowded parking lot. “What’s going on in there is at the heart of all this. This is where we win.”
Kathryn, Kelly, Jack, and I filed into the main event hall a f
ew moments later, where a crowd of at least three hundred waited. Voters sat in hard-backed metal chairs and drank coffee from Styrofoam cups as they talked about various issues of the day. To the far left side of the room, a few dozen packages of donuts lay open, and at the end stood a small podium and a few seats.
I turned to Kathryn and leaned into her as I placed a hand on the small of her back. “Showtime.” Then I pulled away from her and waved to the crowd, making eye contact with as many people as I could. More than one had curious expressions on their faces.
“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give a warm welcome to the next senator from Ohio, Landon Marsh,” yelled a robust man as we made our way to the front. “Mr. Marsh, Newtonville is thrilled to have you here.”
The crowd erupted into a loud round of applause, along with shouts of “Landon! Landon! Landon!” When we arrived at our seats, Kathryn, Kelly, and Jack sat down, while I approached the podium.
“Good morning,” I told the crowd as the applause died down. “You’re all so generous for coming here this morning just to speak with me. I might be the first politician from Cincinnati to get such a warm welcome.” I paused and a few people chuckled in the audience. “But really, I’m glad that I’m here. We have a lot of problems impacting Ohioans these days, and what I want to do is not only fix them, but I want to take your concerns to Washington, and let them know the Midwest is not just the heart of America, it is the heartbeat of America!”
This was probably my one-hundredth rally of similar size in the last five months. I’d done them as much as I could, in as many towns as I could. They’d started as a lark, a “throw the dart and see if it sticks” kind of effort, but the first one in Washington Court House got me 300 enthusiastic voters and the thought that there might be some kind of untapped need across the Buckeye State.
As the applause and cheers died down, I shifted to my largest point.
“I know Newtonville has a long and proud history when it comes to Kizmet Steel. I know many of the wonderful people in this community worked long hours at that plant, making sure that it produced some of the best products in the Midwest.” I took the microphone off the podium and stepped away from the lectern. As I said my next few words, I walked closer to the first row of voters. “And when that company closed, I know hard times came to your community. It’s not easy when you have to worry about how you’re going to pay your bills, or what will happen next if the mortgage is late.”
A few heads throughout the crowd nodded in agreement as I spoke. I glanced over at my team, then pivoted back to the attendees. The energy was starting to build, and I felt it push onto me.
“Wall Street has forgotten us. The big banks couldn’t care less about what happens here in the heartland. They don’t even think of this state—they take it for granted that we’ll vote one way or fall in line with what they say. They don’t listen. They don’t care.”
More heads began nodding.
“This isn’t about fear, and this isn’t about nostalgia for the past. That’s not what matters to me, and I would guess that’s not what matters to many of you. This is about jobs. Opportunity. A chance to live a life where our children and our grandchildren will have it better than we did. The only way to do that is if we make our voices heard, and make them heard on Capitol Hill.”
A few of the assembled people called out “yes” or “that’s right” as I moved to the next part of my remarks, and I knew I had most of the crowd with me.
“The same-old, same-old in Washington doesn’t work. I know you hear that from politicians all the time. They blow in and out of here every few years claiming they’re going to make changes, and all they really do is enrich themselves. I’m here to tell you—to promise you—that this kind of standard is no longer acceptable. It’s no longer okay. It’s no longer right. This is our nation, too, and we deserve a voice in Washington.”
“Here, here!” came a shout from the back of the room.
I walked down the center aisle of the audience, making sure I made unique eye contact with every step. I didn’t see one person with a bored or distracted expression. Many had their attention glued to me, as if they waited for each of my next words.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the sad truth is, my opponent stopped speaking for you all a long time ago. He stopped listening to the people of Ohio, and for the last few years, he has put his own interests ahead of the work that needs to be done for the people.” I stopped in the center of the aisle. “He wanted to be president more than he wanted to serve. And that’s unacceptable.”
I paused for dramatic effect.
“I want to be a senator, not for my own personal gain. Not because I want power. Not because I have my sights set on a higher office. I want to be your next senator because I want to represent you. I want to bring back prestige to this community and to all of Ohio’s small towns. I want to fight for you when no one else will, and that’s why I humbly ask for your vote on Tuesday. This election is only four days away. Four days. But just think of it like this: in four days, we have a chance to make a real change. We have a chance to take Ohio in a different direction. And it starts with you.”
The applause swelled around me, and a few in the front row leapt to their feet, triggering a larger standing ovation. I heard whistles and cheers as the crowd shared their enthusiasm for what I said, but I didn’t find myself focusing on it. Instead, my attention landed on Kathryn, who stood, clapping along with the rest of my staff. A large, Hollywood-esque grin decorated her face, and when she saw me looking at her, she mouthed two words. “Great job.”
We were going to win this. Four days to go.
The campaign walked out of that rally with about two thousand dollars in donations. As we drove back to Landon’s Columbus headquarters, Kelly and Jack celebrated in the car, not bothering to hide their excitement about the movement and the way voters received Landon’s speeches and presence in general. I didn’t say much until later, when Landon drove the two of us to the Residence Inn where we’d be staying the next few nights. Kelly and Jack had insisted on remaining at the office for a strategy session on phone banking and robo calls.
“Patrick’s a tough man to beat,” I said as Landon parked the van. “He’s shrewd and nothing bothers him. At least, not when it comes to the minds of the voters. He has a knack for maintaining his cool when he’s around them.”
“I’ve seen that. He’s charming.”
I gave Landon a sideways glance. “But you are, too. And something more than that, I think. You’re authentic. And Patrick, for all his talents, has lost that over the last few years.”
Landon turned off the van engine. “I have to admit, I’m worried about tomorrow night’s debate. He’s good at debating. Highly skilled.”
“But your presence throws him off.” I pointed to my chest. “And I do, too.”
Landon narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m hoping you’re right, Kathryn. I hope to god you’re right.”
About a half hour before the debate, Kelly burst into the dressing room I’d been given at the Ohio Theatre in downtown Columbus. “Just got a look at the crowd. They’re already streaming in, and it’s going to be a packed house.” She sank into the couch on the far side of the room. “This is big time.”
“It’s not big time. It’s state politics, and that means it is local. Remember that.” I sipped my coffee, looked around the room at Kelly, Jack, and Kathryn. “In fact, I think we all would do well to remember that.”
“The theater seats almost three thousand. Three thousand.” Kelly tapped her foot, her gaze fixated on a spot on the floor. She looked up at me. “How many tickets did the Republican party get?”
“Several hundred. I got a text earlier that they gave out all of them.” Jack shrugged. “Why not?”
I leaned against the counter in front of a wide bank of mirrors illuminated by florescent bulbs. “Let me just give you all a word of caution. This is just one part of our strategy. I need to do well here, but even if I don’t win, i
t’s not the end of our campaign. Early voting has already started across the state, remember? This was a last-minute add because the race is so tight. Let’s focus on that.”
“You still need to knock it out of the park,” Kathryn said. “Mess with his head, and take him off balance a little.”
“I’d like to do more than take him off balance,” Jack muttered. “I want to crush him.”
“And I will.” I cleared my throat. “We will.”
A knock came at the door, and a man with a clipboard and a headset opened it. “Mr. Marsh,” he said. “I’m just here to give you a fifteen-minute warning. Do you have on your microphone?”
I smiled at the production assistant. “Yes, of course.”
“Then if you’re ready, we’ll be heading backstage.”
I gave my team a small nod. “It’s time. And Kathryn, I’d like for you to accompany me.”
“Absolutely.”
The production assistant led us down a long hallway toward the wings of the stage, which were littered with props and set pieces from the numerous productions the Ohio Theatre often hosted for Columbians. As we walked closer to the stage, various stagehands, security guards, interns, and volunteers scurried around working on final preparations. I tried to stay calm and not dwell on the fact that this would be the first debate I’d competed in since high school government class, which I lost. Somewhere along the walk, I grabbed Kathryn’s hand.
“You’re going to do great,” she said, pulling closer to me. “Just remember all the things that you told me and the voters the other day. This is a movement, and as long as you remember that, you’re going to be fine.”
“Thanks, I—”
“Kathryn Van der Loon!” boomed a voice. “I thought I saw you there.”
Patrick Blanco stepped out of the shadows near one of the dark curtains that lined either side of the stage. I barely saw his face in the fuzzy zigzags of light, but I would have recognized his voice anywhere. Behind him stood a woman I guessed was Alexandra Jones. She crossed her arms as we approached.
