“Good for you,” I say. Another bite.
“Would you like to come?” she says. “As my date?”
“That’s awfully nice of you,” I say, “but thanks, no.”
The entire table grows quiet. What happened? Did I speak in a foreign tongue?
“Okay,” she says, recovering her smile as she rises, “but if you change your mind . . . when you change your mind . . .”
“I won’t, but really, thanks for the offer. I’m good.”
She’s barely out of earshot before Sandy starts hissing at my other side.
“No? Thanks for the offer? I’m good? Are you out of your mind?”
Sandy may be talking to me, but he’s watching Millicent walk away. I have to admit: that long black hair, those practically sprayed-on clothes—she sure is something to watch.
I shrug it off.
“That’s been happening all day,” I say.
“What? Hot chicks throwing themselves at you?”
Another shrug. “Pretty much.”
“And you just keep saying, what, No, thank you?”
“They’re just doing it because of my mom. They think it’s cool she got nominated. They think it’s cool she might be president.”
“So?”
“It’s not real.”
“So?”
“When I go out with a girl, I want it to be real.”
“Oh, man.” I can feel Sandy’s disgust. “You are one sick puppy.”
After school, I’m barely through the door when Ann pounces and starts pulling me through the kitchen.
Do I get to eat a snack first? No.
Do I even get a chance to say hello to my father first? No. My dad is just one openmouthed blur as Ann zips me by. I swear, no matter how this campaign turns out, I’ll be glad when it’s over just to get Ann away from me.
“What gives?” I say as Ann practically drags me into my mom’s study. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even touch anyone else’s cell phone.”
“It’s not that,” my mom says.
Then Ann starts in on some whole dog-and-pony show about some morning news program; about how they’ve been obsessed with the two-candidates-from-the-same-state-who-live-in-neighboring-towns angle for the past few weeks; about how now they’ve become obsessed with something else. And that something else involves me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say to my mom. “You want to exploit me on national television?”
My mom winces. “It’s not like that.”
“If you ask me, it sounds exactly like that. A live interview? Tomorrow? You said if I was okay with you running, you’d leave me out of things.”
“Drew, don’t you think you’re—” Ann starts in. But for once, my mom cuts her off.
“I know I said that,” my mom says, “and I meant it. But tomorrow I leave for a midwestern tour. The poll numbers are just so close: up one day, down the next. Sometimes even the most minor thing helps. So if, just this once, you could see your way clear to . . .”
Her voice trails off. It kind of hurts to see her looking so concerned. And a part of me would like to see that Katie Willfield up close, to see just how green her eyes are when not slightly obscured in a blurry picture. Still.
“Yeah,” I say. “No.”
KATIE
I’m in the green room of the New York studio of That Morning Show, Kent waiting just outside the door, set to go on in fifteen minutes. It took just eighty minutes to drive here and now I’m waiting to be interviewed on national television—yippee!—and I’m wondering where the boy is. Shouldn’t he be here by now? But then I think: Maybe he’s so casual, with all that slouching, he’s waiting until the last second to stroll in? Or, perhaps That Morning Show is worried that, with us being political enemies and all, we’d scratch each other’s eyes out if we were left in the same room alone together. So they’re keeping him somewhere other than the green room.
The green room, for those not in the know, is never actually that color, which is a good thing today. Given that I’m wearing a red suit, if it were that color, it’d look like Christmas in here. Although I’m still worried I’ll remind people too much of Christmas due to my green eyes.
Actually, no one knows for sure why the room where performers wait to go onstage or interviewers wait to go on camera is called the green room. So naturally, there’s been a lot of wild speculation on the term’s origin over the past several decades. Some think it’s a corruption of “scene room.” Some think it has to do with Shakespeare referring to the stage as “this green plot.” Some think it goes all the way back to the Blackfriars Theatre in 1599, and that room really was green!
As you can see, there’s been a lot written on the subject—far more than I’ve detailed here—and I’ve read all of it, because I’m nothing if not professional and in the know about all things related to the political process. Particularly interviews. (Also? Dog and I did a blog post about it once.)
Actually, being professional is why I’m wearing a red suit today. I’d been planning on wearing my trademark pink suit, but then a curious thing happened. I got an e-mail late last night through the contact form on The Kat and Dog Blog. I was so excited to see it there—my very first fan e-mail . . . ever!
Then I read it.
Dear Kat: You really need to stop wearing that pink Jackie O suit. Don’t you realize, she was a Democrat and you’re a Republican? Also, that she had on that suit the day her husband was assassinated? When you look at it like that, don’t you think it’s kind of offensive?
Offensive? I never meant to offend anybody. No matter what Jacqueline Onassis’s political affiliation, she was an American treasure and a fashion trendsetter. I’d only ever meant it as an homage!
The fan e-mail, which had turned out to be sadly wanting on the “fan” part, was unsigned but it did contain a P.S.:
P.S.: And picking out the china patterns? Dude, isn’t that a bit premature?
I suppose I should have been offended at being addressed as “Dude.” But I’m aware it is a term implying friendly familiarity in the vernacular of the modern America teen, so truth be told, I was kind of flattered. It was almost as good as the long desired salutation of “Kat”!
As for the rest of the e-mail, I must admit it stung a bit. Still, despite the sting, I am nothing if not capable of learning from my mistakes, making changes as situations require. Hence, the red suit.
I am always a professional.
And because I’m a professional, even though I’m tempted by the array of culinary goodies available in the green room—oh, mini muffins!—I staunchly resist. Because as any professional will tell you, you do not eat any food in the green room right before going on camera. Afterward, maybe. But before? Can you imagine getting the opportunity to be on national television, but then your entire message gets lost because people can’t stop focusing on the food stuck in your front teeth? That would be—
“Miss Willfield?” The speaker is some kind of casually attired stagehand with a headset and clipboard. “We’re ready for you now.”
“Great!” I put on my second brightest smile. Might as well save my brightest for the actual show.
I follow the stagehand onto the set and am introduced to George Gibson, one of the cohosts of That Morning Show. I’m glad it’s him and not his cohost. Everyone in America loves George Gibson. He’s such a good listener and always looks like he’d be so easy to talk to. But I feel inexplicable dismay as I’m invited to take a seat, he takes his, and I realize these are the only two seats currently on the set.
“But where’s the boy going to sit?” I blurt out.
I’ve been so looking forward to meeting my enemy—er, political counterpart—face-to-face. I know I could take him! Not to mention, if I’m being honest, it would be nice being part of a conversation with someone close to my age, however adversarial that conversation might get. Besides, the boy really is cute. There’s still something so . . . familiar about him. I just can’t put
my finger on it yet.
But no one answers my question. All I hear is the countdown from the cameraman until airtime.
“And we’re live in five, four, three, two, one!”
“We’re here today with Katie Willfield,” George addresses his introductory comments directly into the camera, “the only child of presidential hopeful and junior senator from the state of Connecticut, Edward Willfield.” George turns to me. “Katie, how are you this morning?”
“I’m great, George!” I know to address my answers directly to him, resisting the temptation of the amateur, which is to look directly into the camera. It should appear to the audience like we’re just two friends chatting. Still, I can’t resist asking my new friend George, “But where’s the boy?”
“The boy?” George echoes.
“Yes. Where’s the boy going to sit?”
George just looks at me. Well, I suppose that just because he gets twenty million dollars a year for coanchoring a morning show, he’s not necessarily a Harvard rocket scientist.
“The boy,” I prompt. “You know, candidate Reilly’s son?”
I know I should be focusing on my father’s political agenda right now, but somehow the boy’s absence really bothers me.
“Oh!” And . . . bingo. The light of comprehension finally illuminates George’s eyes. “For some reason, he couldn’t make it today.”
“HA!” I can’t help myself. “What a wimp!”
“Excuse me?”
Why is he having trouble comprehending?
“I’m sorry, George. Do I have the lingo wrong? When I tried to master the Urban Dictionary, in order to enhance my grasp of current teenage slang, the definition for the word ‘wimp’ was given as ‘a person who is scared or weak or cowardly.’ Is that not right? And if candidate Reilly’s son refuses to meet with me in a place as safe as your show—I mean, it’s not exactly the Romans in the Coliseum—doesn’t that make him a wimp?”
I’m not sure why I’m being like this. Why is it so important to me that the boy be here? It’s possible that I somehow feel rejected that he didn’t even bother to show up. But that would just be silly. I shrug it off.
“Um, I believe he declined to appear today,” George says. “You know, Katie, that’s a lovely suit.”
“Oh!” Suddenly I feel flustered. “Thank you.”
“With your green eyes, it kind of makes me think of Christmas.”
Well, shoot.
It takes me a moment to recover from realizing the boy is a no-show and even longer to recover from George’s Christmas crack, but I’m a professional. Besides, George immediately moves to sharing photographs of my life with the viewers at home and asking me questions. I’m on more certain ground here. In fact, I knew it was coming. Prior to agreeing to the interview, my father had Marvin insist that we be allowed to see the questions in advance. The show tried to balk at this (“Where would the spontaneity be?”) but Marvin held firm (“She’s still a minor and we don’t want you taking advantage. There’ll be no blindsiding. If we can’t preapprove the questions, no interview.”).
At the time, I kind of resented the implication that I could be blindsided, but now I’m grateful for the predictability.
The first picture George shares is one of me when I was four years old. I’m wearing shorts and my knees are skinned. This is back before I gave up soccer and took to wearing power suits all the time. I’ve got a few teeth missing and there are smudges on my cheeks as I stare directly at the camera.
“So,” George says, “talk us through this photo, Katie.”
“It’s a still photo from a campaign ad I made during a stop with my father in his first run for public office. In the commercial, I said, ‘A vote for Edward Willfield is a vote for your future. Please elect my daddy to the United States Congress.’ ”
“Very nice.”
“Of course, when I saw the commercials playing on TV, I became appalled. My father’s campaign manager at the time, Sissy Bertucci, would never appear in public dressed like that. Sissy was the only woman in my life back then.”
“Your mother died the year before, when you were three, right?”
“That’s right, George. She died of cancer. And I still miss her, even though I only have pictures to remember her by. Sissy impressed me as being everything a woman should be: smart, perky, organized. When, shortly before the next election, Sissy eloped to Hawaii with an envelope-licker, I saw my chance and leaped. I would become my father’s new campaign manager. Well, technically, Marvin has that title. But I knew my father would need someone else in his life to help organize things. That’s when I got my first clipboard.”
“A clipboard?”
“Oh, yes. Sure, I can do a PowerPoint presentation like nobody’s business, and I’ve got an iPhone, an iPad, and anything else i to come down the pike, but nothing can replace a good solid clipboard when a person’s on the campaign trail.”
“Okay,” George says, “what about this shot?”
It’s the one of me at age eight, wearing the first of what would become my trademark pink wool Jackie O suit with matching pumps. Yikes. I wish when I’d gotten that fan e-mail last night, I’d thought to have Marvin call up the network to remove this photo. But, no point in dwelling on that now—I’ve got to power on.
“That was taken during one of my father’s later congressional campaigns, George. I’m being interviewed by Katie Couric on national television. You can’t see her in this shot, but by the time the interview was over, she was the one with tears in her eyes. Really, though, had I known saying that I wished I could remember my own mother better and thought she, Katie, was brave for having raised her kids on her own was going to make her cry so hard, I might have dialed it down a notch. I don’t know what brand of mascara the makeup department on her show uses, but whatever she had on that day, it was not waterproof.”
“And viewers can still find that interview on YouTube.”
“That’s right, George. Thirty million hits!”
“Finally,” George says, “this last shot?”
It’s me at age twelve, again with the pink Jackie O suit. Yikes!
I could tell George so much about this picture, considering it represented the beginning of my ousting from political life.
There was a recession, a depression, inflation, deflation, stagnation, and pretty much every other “-ation” going on at the time. Okay, maybe all those things can’t go on at the same time, but the economy had definitely gone cablooey. And even if there was only one of those -ations, there was also confrontation, in the form of Corbin Cox III, who challenged my father for a seat in the US Senate.
The race was too close, scarily close. People wanted change. The people of Connecticut wanted change and they didn’t care what form it took, even if that form was Corbin Cox III, who kept saying insulting things about my father.
“Just take it,” I had counseled my father at the time.
“Are you crazy, kid?” Marvin said. “The press’ll eat him alive.”
“No, they won’t,” I countered, steely as I held my clipboard close to my chest. “If Cox keeps throwing stones, Dad gets to take the higher ground. He gets to say things like, ‘I don’t believe in negative campaigning’ and ‘If my esteemed colleague chooses to spend his time engaging in schoolyard mudslinging, I respect his right to do so. But if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll spend my time serving the best interests of the Nutmeg State.’ ”
For the record, I do a very credible impersonation of my father. Very basso. Very profundo.
Marvin looked skeptical. “I don’t know, kid. You really think the best strategy for your dad is to just, basically, lie there and take it?”
It was all I could do not to roll my eyes.
Okay, I did roll my eyes.
“Have you never seen The Godfather?” I said with a world-weary sigh.
“About thirty, forty years ago. Why? What’s The Godfather got to do with anything?”
“Sonn
y’s brother-in-law. The only reason Sonny’s henchmen don’t kill the brother-in-law outright for laying a hand on Sonny’s sister is because the brother-in-law just lies there and takes it.”
I didn’t add the part about the brother-in-law getting killed later on. Why poke holes in my own argument? Anyway, by the end of The Godfather almost everyone else is dead too, so it’s not like any one strategy ever saves anyone forever.
“I still don’t know,” Marvin said. “Edward, what do you think?”
My father cocked his thumb and forefinger and pointed at me. “Gotta go with the kid, Marvin,” he said. “She’s never steered me wrong yet.”
My father made the right decision. He listened to me and we won the election, even if it was a squeaker.
A year later my father got a message from Sissy in Hawaii. Sissy wasn’t getting in touch to say she wanted back in. Rather, she wanted me out. She said she’d been seeing me on too many political TV shows and now that I was entering my “important teen years,” I should be allowed to retire from the limelight. She said it was too much pressure for a kid my age and that I should just be allowed to have a “normal life.”
If it were up to me, I would have told her to mind her own business.
But it wasn’t up to me. My father cut me off, cold turkey. He said Sissy was right. He’d taken advantage of me long enough. Taken advantage of me? His campaigns were my life! So my father relented. He said I could help with strategy, if it was that important to me, but I was to give no more interviews, either print or on TV. He didn’t want me subjected to that kind of scrutiny.
At the time I was tempted to say, “Ex-cuse me? Where would you be if I hadn’t made Katie Couric cry and if I hadn’t known so much about The Godfather?”
Still, a good politician knows when the only road to success is compromise. I could tell that, just this once, if I pressed my father for more I’d wind up with less. So what else could I do? I caved.
Four years later, I’m back.
I always knew it was just a matter of time.
But I don’t tell George any of this because even though everyone understands that everything to do with politics is Machiavellian, at least on some level, no one wants their nose pressed in it. And when you’re a politician, even a politician’s daughter, you never publicly cite The Godfather as inspiration for your campaign. I mean, who else will they blame if horses’ heads start showing up in people’s beds?
Red Girl, Blue Boy: An If Only novel (If Only . . .) Page 3
