The Wrong Side of Right

by Jenn Marie Thorne

Meg leaned forward, slid her wineglass away. “Really.”

  “Yeah. I mean, it’s a lot of memorization.” I smiled, remembering the AP prep I’d been embroiled in just a week back. “But in between all the facts and dates . . . there are lives. I feel like that’s what history really is, a collection of decisions, things people did because of . . . I don’t know. What they were afraid of or what they hoped for. I like the human side of it. It’s amazing how much one person can change the world, even if they don’t know they’re doing it.”

  All three of them stared at me, and I realized that that must have been the most I’d said in one go since I met them.

  Gabe broke the silence. “History’s Mom’s favorite too.”

  “Really?”

  Meg didn’t answer, just kept squinting like she was trying to think where she remembered me from.

  “Yep, she was a history perfessor.”

  “PROfessor,” Gracie corrected.

  “In a college.”

  “At Harvard,” Grace corrected again, rolling her eyes.

  Meg got up to clear the table and I rose to help her, half expecting her to wave me off. She didn’t. I met her in the kitchen, where she hand-washed and I dried while the twins wiped the table clean. It was nice the way everybody pitched in. It was . . . normal.

  “I think I read somewhere that you’re a straight-A student?” Meg asked.

  I didn’t know what she meant at first, and then I remembered—the New York Times profile.

  “I got a B in pre-calc,” I admitted.

  “And two APs this past semester?” She dried her hands and turned to face me.

  “Three,” I said.

  “Good.”

  She smiled. And in that moment, she looked so much like my mom that I had to pretend to find a spot on the counter and scour it with a paper towel until my eyes dried up again.

  5

  I awoke to the shriek of a whistle.

  “Up and at ’em!”

  I blinked to find an elfin girl glaring down at me from the end of my mattress. An eerie giggle sounded from the doorway, but by the time I’d sat up, Gabe’s head was already disappearing around the corner.

  Gracie fell cross-legged onto the blankets. “Mom went to the store, but she said we should help you get accamated.” She scrambled from the bed. “Let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked, rubbing my eyes as Gracie pulled me into the hallway by my elbow.

  “Downstairs first,” Gabe mumbled, racing around the corner.

  Gracie started the tour once we reached the foyer. “This is the pantry where we have snacks and things like that . . . that’s Daddy’s study . . . that’s the dining room, but Mom said we can move the table to fit a piano when I learn to play, so it’ll be the dining and music room then.”

  I could already picture a piano in the sunny corner by the window. “Are you taking lessons?”

  “No, I’m taking ballet now, but I’m really clumsy. Like I’m the worst in my whole class.” She didn’t look particularly upset about it.

  “I’m not a very good dancer either,” I admitted.

  She gripped my arm. “It probably runs in the family!”

  “Maybe.” I smiled at Gabe. “Are you a good dancer?”

  His eyes widened, but before he could answer, Gracie said, “He’s bad too. But he’s really good at drawing.”

  “Ah.” I caught his eye for a split second. “What kind of stuff do you do?”

  Again, Gracie answered. “Plants and birds and things. They look really real.”

  Gabe muttered something too quiet to hear, so I lowered my head, and he repeated it. “My favorite are blue jays.”

  And then, apparently mortified, he darted down the hallway and straight outside. Gracie, unfazed, took me up to their playroom to show me the sketches littering his desk. They really were good—even in penciled black-and-white, I could tell the pigeons from the cardinals. When the grand tour finally took us to the backyard, I looked for Gabe to compliment him, but he was hiding behind an oak tree, engrossed in a sketch of a squirrel perched on the bird feeder.

  I had the sudden sense that if I interrupted this moment, the whole scene around me would crumble—trees, sky, family, all of it.

  Holding my breath, I turned away.

  • • •

  The Coopers usually went on a two-week trip to Martha’s Vineyard this time each summer, but they were skipping it this year because, as Gracie put it, “Daddy’s got to meet lots of people and tell them he’s running for president.”

  That statement rolled out of Gracie’s mouth the way it would if she were talking about any parent—how her dentist mother cleaned teeth or her accountant father did taxes.

  “She’s a natural,” Meg told me over lunch on Friday, watching as Gracie and Gabe splashed in the pristinely tiled pool. “She’d be out there giving stump speeches right now if we’d let her.”

  “And Gabe?” I asked.

  “No.” She winced. “Gabriel hates the cameras. And the crowds. All of it, really, poor thing. I let him stay home as much as I can, but it’s a battle. They want the twins front and center.”

  That “They” struck me. Them—the team, the campaign aides. Not “we want” or “Mark wants” but “They want.” It wasn’t the first time I’d heard Meg refer to the campaign that way, always with a sourness to her voice, as if she were talking about an ant infestation.

  “I don’t let Them set up shop here,” she’d replied when I complimented how clean the house was. “This is a campaign-free zone.”

  Meg’s attitude surprised me. She seemed ambivalent, resigned to the campaign as an unavoidable condition of her marriage. I guess I’d expected her to be a modern-day Lady Macbeth, as ambitious for her husband as he was for himself—especially given how vague an impression I’d gotten of the senator so far. He seemed like he’d woken up on a parade float, waving and smiling, letting it take him where it would. On TV, he was passionate, optimistic, charismatic. In real life, he was . . . well, right now he was absent. I had to remind myself that I didn’t know him. Not yet.

  • • •

  Despite our staged introduction, it turned out Meg really did enjoy gardening.

  “She’s got a green thumb,” Gracie said, watching her mom from the back deck the next morning, wearing the appraising squint of an expert. “But not as green a thumb as Grandma.”

  My pulse jumped so fast I had to steady myself against a patio chair. “Grandma?”

  “She lives in Massachusetts. We don’t see her a lot.”

  “Oh.” I tried to make my voice sound normal. “Do you have . . . other grandparents?”

  “They died a long time ago, before me and Gabe were born.” She sounded sad, but in a singsong way, like she knew that was how she was meant to feel. “So now there’s just my grandma.”

  She shot me a blink I couldn’t decipher. “My grandma,” I could read, though. As in “Not yours.” Meg’s mom, then.

  Before disappointment had time to strike, Meg waved me over.

  “You bored?” she asked. “I could use a hand.”

  After a half hour of companionable digging, I finally got up the nerve to ask the question that had been stirring in my mind since the senator left on Thursday.

  “I’m really glad I’ve gotten to meet you guys,” I started, my gloved hand cupping a bulb while she dug a spade into the ground like it had done something to annoy her. “This has been amazing. But . . .”

  She glanced up.

  “Am I . . . in hiding?”

  She set down the spade, pivoting on her knee to listen. I swiped a trickle of sweat with my wrist and went on.

  “I mean, it kind of feels like I was invited here so They’d know where I was.” There I went, using the capital-T They, like everybody else. “So They could make sure I wouldn’t give any interviews or say something that would ruin . . . whatever they’re planning.”

  “Astute.” She took the bulb from me, stifling or fo
rcing a smile—I couldn’t tell which. “You have a political mind.”

  I almost said thank you, but coming from Meg, I wasn’t sure it was a compliment.

  She covered the bulb with soil and stood, offering me a hand up. “They don’t want me to jump the gun with this, Kate, but I think you can handle it.”

  I swallowed, waited. There was dirt tickling my nose, but I didn’t dare smear it while she was watching me.

  She gazed past me at one of the guards patrolling the edge of the lawn.

  “The whole team will be back from Michigan tomorrow morning,” she said, slipping off her gloves. “Mark’s going to take you to lunch and ask you to join us for the summer.” My heart started to thud. “To campaign with us. That’s what this weekend was about—to see whether we could all get along. Whether the idea had any shot at working.”

  The sun came out from the corner of a cloud and suddenly the yard was so glitteringly bright that I felt my knees giving way.

  The whole summer. Campaign. “With us.” I’d be part of the Us. Meg peered at the sky like she was waiting for something to drop out of it.

  “And what do you think?” I asked her.

  She sighed. “This is not an easy situation.”

  I nodded through my disappointment. Of course it wasn’t easy. She’d put up a good front this weekend, but I could see the effort behind it. Every smile was strained, like she was sick and pretending to be healthy. Except she wasn’t sick. Just sad. Embarrassed.

  Her name was on the news now too. She was being called a victim all across America. Something told me that was not a role this woman relished.

  “But,” she went on. “If you’re asking me whether this weekend’s social experiment is sound, then . . .” She frowned thoughtfully. “Yes. I think we’ll get along fine.”

  Her expression didn’t change after she said it. Even so, I felt a little frisson of joy. Meg got along with me. She didn’t hate me. She was willing to give this a shot.

  “There’s another tactic behind this weekend,” she went on, nodding for me to stroll with her to the back porch. “They want to lull you into thinking it’ll be this easy. It won’t. You won’t be able to hole up like this, forget who you are. You’ll be a part of the campaign like the rest of us. Do you think you’re strong enough for that?”

  I opened my mouth, ready to swear any oath, but before I could, she turned away, laughing, her hand in her messy hair.

  “What am I saying? You have no idea whether you’re strong enough. You have no idea what this will be.” I winced, but maybe realizing she’d sounded patronizing, Meg looked me in the eye. “The primaries were brutal. Brutal. We were hoping it would be smooth sailing until the general election, but . . .”

  She bit back her words.

  I finished them for her. “But me.”

  “Yep.”

  My head drooped heavy. I pulled off my gardening gloves, finger by finger. My nails were caked with brown underneath, and I wondered how I’d managed to let that happen.

  “I wanted to give you a heads-up. He’ll ask you himself tomorrow.” Meg opened the door for me, echoing the senator’s words. “It’s entirely your choice.”

  • • •

  The guest room had a window bench lined with plush cushions. I braced myself against the bright corner, my old flip phone pressed against my ear.

  “But do you think it’s a good idea?”

  My uncle’s voice kept rising in pitch. “If you think it’s a good idea, I think it’s a good idea. And I’m right here if you need me. I’m not going anywhere, that’s for sure.”

  He was all for it. He’d asked the right questions—whether they were treating me well, whether I felt safe, if there were enough security guards, if they were asking me to do anything I didn’t want to do—but he still sounded like a cheerleader the whole phone call.

  So why was I gripping the phone more and more tightly?

  “I mean . . .” My mouth went dry. “Do you think Tess will mind? I sort of offered to help her with the day care over the summer . . .”

  “Oh.” Barry paused. “Honestly, hon, I’m not sure she’d be able to keep that going if you were home. I mean—if you wanna come back, we’ll make it work. But if the reporters found out and we needed to have police here . . .”

  “No.” I let my head fall against the windowpane. “I get it.”

  As usual, Penny was more direct.

  “Are you kidding me? If you don’t do this, you’re complete chicken shit and I disown you.”

  I laughed. “It’s a bit more complicated than you’re making it out to be, Pen.”

  “Is it, though?” I could hear her twirling an imaginary mustache over the phone. “Is it?”

  “Well . . . yeah. There are things involved. Feelings. And . . . reporters. And campaigning . . .”

  “And travel,” Penny cooed. “You know the Republican convention’s in LA, right?”

  I didn’t, actually. Everything I knew about politics came from history textbooks and overheard diatribes from my mom’s friends. There might have been a time when a presidential campaign would have interested me. But in the past year, the nightly news had become a dull drone, a meaningless stream of bulletins about people I didn’t know.

  Until now.

  “This is an obvious choice, Kate,” she went on, and in a flash, I pictured myself inviting her along to keep me company here—to lend me some of her bravado. But it was a fleeting, impossible wish, so instead of blurting it, I recited: “Is that your two cents, Penny?”

  Penny groaned, our usual routine. Then she sighed. “I know this is a big deal. I don’t mean to bully you about it. But this is how I see it—it’s crazy, and amazing, and surreal—and you have to do it. You just do.”

  • • •

  He took me to Mr. Chen’s, a Chinese restaurant tucked into an unassuming strip mall a few minutes from their house. It was surprisingly nice inside, dark and quiet, with carved booths, ornate vases, and, most noticeably, huge painted panels where the windows should be.

  At lunch, the senator’s eyes darted everywhere but at me. He glanced, smiled, and panicked when I looked up at him, suddenly fascinated with the plastic dragon calendar covering the door to the kitchens. He downed four ice waters and his entire meal before he finally got up the nerve to ask.

  He said “good experience,” “see the country,” and then, at last, “chance to get to know each other.”

  I said, “Of course,” “This is great,” “I’d be happy to do anything I can for the campaign for as long as you need me to.”

  He got the check and we left, both of us taking greedy gulps of air as soon as we hit the parking lot.

  The triumvirate was waiting for us in a clown-car of a Mercedes just outside the restaurant, where James had dropped us off. Elliott Webb opened the passenger door and the senator shot him a quick nod.

  Elliott winced a smile. “Great. Now we can get to work.”

  6

  Monday, June 16

  Officially Joining the Campaign

  141 DAYS UNTIL THE GENERAL ELECTION

  I knew that as of Monday morning, everything was going to change. What I didn’t expect were headlights blazing through my bedroom window at 6:00 A.M., and an army of campaign aides clustered on the senator’s front drive.

  Peeking out, I watched light spill over the porch, the front door opening wide. Everyone in the crowd fell silent. But it was Meg who stepped onto the driveway, hands on hips.

  “Despite any new developments,” she announced wryly, “this house will remain a no-work zone for the rest of the campaign. Got it? Thanks! Now go.”

  As the sun came up, the grumbling staff left in a slow procession for the campaign office, and when the senator got in the last car, an opaque brick of an SUV, I scrambled downstairs just in time to get in with him.

  Nancy was waiting in the front seat next to James. She leaned past her chair to pat me on the knee. “So glad you said yes, sweetie,” she sa
id.

  The senator gave me a playful nudge with his elbow like I’d seen him do with Gracie. He was trying. But there was something about the effort of it that made me feel both thrilled and embarrassed.

  As the iron gates glided open, Nancy rapped on the window.

  “Photo op?” Her finger paused on the window controller, bottom right—the one that opened my window. Outside the dark glass, the press mob was shouting, cameras ready. I tucked my hair behind my ears and held my breath, bracing for the onslaught of flashes that I’d been protected from all weekend.

  The senator hesitated. “Not yet. Let’s wait to see what Elliott’s thinking.”

  Nancy nodded and I exhaled, watching the press recede behind us. She passed back a mussed copy of this morning’s Washington Post.

  “What’re they saying today?” The senator scanned the front page. I tried not to gape, but there it was, that same awful picture of me. Hadn’t Nancy mentioned leaking another one? Any other one?

  Nancy pulled out her notes.

  “Munson on Fox News is with us on this—the word heroic is out there.” She looked over her shoulder, gauging the senator’s reaction.

  “But that’s Fox.”

  “That’s Fox,” she repeated, riffling through the pages of a legal pad. “Wall Street Journal published poll results—total rush job, we need to call them out on that . . .”

  “And?” The senator looked up from the newspaper.

  She cleared her throat. “Sixty-two percent disapprove. Values. But like I said . . .”

  “Not a viable poll—make sure we get that out there.”

  “Ferris was on Meet the Press.”

  “How’d he do?”

  “He was okay. Lots of generalities, but that’s all we can do right now.” She turned to a new page. “We actually got a good quote out of Tom Bellamy.”

  The senator leaned forward. “They cornered a Supreme Court Justice over this?” He sat back as if disgusted. Then he raised an eyebrow. “What’s the sound bite?”

  She read. “‘I’ve known Mark Cooper since he was a law student of mine at Yale. He’s a stand-up guy and Kate is one lucky girl to have him as her dad.’”