Campaign Widows

by Aimee Agresti

  They kissed curbside, and Sky put his forehead to Jay’s to look in his eyes.

  “You know how much I miss you,” he whispered.

  That was all Jay needed. That alone had been worth the cross-country trip.

  * * *

  Much to Madison’s disappointment, California didn’t even matter to the Hank Machine. They were a lock, everyone had dropped out, and plans were full steam ahead for the convention. At home in the Hamptons, Hank geared up for a coronation. “Why can’t we just skip the convention and hold the election tomorrow so I can win?” he kept saying, puffing on his cigars, and his advisers guffawed. Madison kept busy with Gemma, making a bright summer salad with tomatoes they’d picked from the garden. Her darling girl, in her favorite Lilly Pulitzer dress, sat on the kitchen island, kicking her legs, singing a Taylor Swift song and plucking chunks of tomato from the salad bowl when she thought Madison wasn’t looking. This was their game.

  “Wait a minute, what happened here?” Madison tossed her salad, searching, pretending to be upset. “Who stole my tomatoes?!” Gemma smiled sneakily, her front tooth missing—Madison had been away when it had fallen out, the first one, she was tired of missing things. Gemma put her hand over her mouth, laughing and chewing as Madison kissed the girl’s button nose. “It’s a good thing we picked so many. But where are they?”

  Gemma produced two new tomatoes from behind her back. “Surprise, Mommy!”

  Madison would go to California. She didn’t want to but she had to. On top of everything, Hank’s team was playing the Lakers in the championships. They too were expected to win.

  So much winning. She didn’t know how she was going to do this, talk to him. It certainly wasn’t going to happen right now. But it needed to be done.

  * * *

  Ted was apoplectic and overcaffeinated, among other things, not that Reagan was surprised. If he was calling her in the middle of the night, he had officially come unglued. She pretended that she had been sleeping and missed the California Primary results, even though she and the girls had been awake, together in the living room watching returns trickle in from every single precinct in the state. “All we needed was to fucking win this state, and we could have clinched it. The nomination. Now I don’t know what the fuck this is going to look like.”

  That wasn’t actually mathematically true, but it wasn’t the time to correct him.

  “How the fuck did Rocky Haze make it into this race?” he went on. “Thompson shouldn’t even be here. He’s way too green. Arnold is the only one on either side that actually seems even remotely presidential.”

  “Maybe—” she started, then stopped herself just as fast, but it was too late.

  “Maybe what?”

  She sighed. “Maybe it’s changing, the idea of what is or isn’t ‘presidential,’ I don’t know.”

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

  “No, I just mean... I mean... I don’t know, Thompson and Haze are not bad. I don’t get the idea they would be reckless or stupid, they just might have more of a learning curve. I would be okay with them.”

  The girls squealed in their pack-and-play, “Dadadada!” It was one of the anchors on CNN. Every time someone wearing a suit came on the screen, they thought it was Ted. They had been right once that night: early on when MSNBC interviewed him from the hotel ballroom. He had been so oddly optimistic then: “We think we’ll be celebrating tonight.” She cringed thinking about it now.

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you,” he said again.

  “I just mean, this will be okay. As long as Goodfellow doesn’t win, it’s all okay, right? You know everybody in this town. You’ll get another position fast without a problem, won’t you?”

  He was in no mood for practical matters. “It’s not about that. You don’t understand. Forget it.” He hung up.

  * * *

  Jay edited Sky’s story from the comfort of his U Street apartment:

  ROCKY SHOCKER:

  HAZE PULLS OFF CALIFORNIA WIN

  RAPPER HEADED TO CONTESTED CONVENTION

  He still couldn’t quite believe it, no matter how many times he read the news.

  * * *

  Cady had left work early and made a pilgrimage to the Air and Space Museum. Jackson was away again, so she stayed longer than planned, walking through the replicas of early airliners, standing on a metal plate on the ground and pressing the button so it would shake, shake, shake her up, simulating the bumpy rides on the first commercial jets. It wasn’t unlike the way she had felt since arriving here. Parts of her life—the professional parts—had been fairly smooth sailing, but the stuff she expected to have been easy, the personal part, had instead been shaky.

  She ducked into the gift shop before leaving—the primary purpose for her visit—and found just what she needed. With Jackson away, she didn’t know when she’d get to the bar next and she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it so she mailed it from work the next day with a thank you note.

  Parker emailed her a day later. Thanks for the awesome ice cream: they totally changed it, way better than it used to be. Apparently the space program doesn’t need me. Happy to have helped out the other night. Glad you survived that monsoon. Cheers, P

  * * *

  Rocky Haze had contacted Birdie months in advance, introducing herself as though Birdie might not have heard of her, which instantly won Birdie over. If she was still in the race by July 4, Rocky planned to throw “an epic fund-raiser” at the Kennedy Center. Her friends wanted to “help out,” as if pals throwing a bridal shower: Kanye, Beyonce, Jay-Z, John Legend, Alicia Keys, they’d all flown in to perform.

  Even if it hadn’t brought in millions for Rocky Haze, Birdie’s fund-raiser still would have ranked as her personal best. They’d sold out the Kennedy Center’s Opera House with a special added perk of a rooftop afterparty for big donors. The rooftop of the Kennedy Center on a warm and sticky July 4 night watching the fireworks explode in the distance? It didn’t get much better, really. Even Buck couldn’t resist showing up to this one.

  He sidled up to Birdie on the roof, fireworks bursting in a bright kaleidoscope of red, white and blue.

  “Hello, stranger,” he said, watching the sky.

  “Who let you up here? Clearly I need to fire someone,” she said, even though she had put his name on the list, just in case. She knew him well and suspected he would be too intrigued by the zeitgeist of it all to stay away.

  He cut to the chase: “Listen, how about a temporary détente for an introduction to Haze?” he asked, tossing back his brandy.

  With those words, she instantly, blissfully, felt she had the upperhand. And she loved it.

  20

  I’M REALLY HOPING I CAN LIGHT UP THE ROOM

  “Pack your bags,” Jeff greeted Cady as she arrived at work on a hot and humid July morning. “You and Max are on the next flight to Conventionville.” He said it with jazz hands.

  “But Gracie—”

  “Madison called me personally asking for you. And what Madison Goodfellow wants, Madison Goodfellow gets. We want you there for the segment—”

  “‘Madison’s Delegate Style Stars,’” she said.

  “Right. And then her speech tonight.”

  * * *

  Madison had splintered off from the Machine long enough to roam the convention center with Cady, her cameraman, Max, and Mike’s assistant, Kimberly. She had boldly chosen to tell Mike about the segment, as an olive branch. And a bit of a diversion. “I’ll just be walking around handing out certificates to the best dressed delegates. Apparently people get all done up in buttons and hats and red, white and blue everything?” she asked innocently.

  “They do.” Mike sighed. “Okay, you can do it,” he agreed, assigning Kimberly as her babysitter. “But just remember, you’re representing Hank. He is about to be
nominated by a major party for the presidency.”

  “Absolutely!” Madison said.

  It had all been charming in that man-on-the-street, roving-reporter way. And the delegates squealed like game show contestants when they met Madison. A few cried as she handed over their certificates. Others flubbed, overcome with too much emotion to even speak, when Madison posed questions like, “Tell me, did you make this hat? It looks heavy to wear, can I try it?”

  Cady and Max were the perfect companions, cheering her on, all smiles. When they wrapped the segment that afternoon, they walked her back to her hotel room for a nap before the main event, with one final question.

  “How do you feel heading into tonight? What can we expect from your speech?”

  “I suppose I’m a little nervous, you know, that’s probably normal,” she said. “It really is a crazy big crowd. But I’m really hoping I can light up the room!”

  * * *

  She swooshed open the hotel shower curtain to reveal her secret weapon—a thirty-inch Kraskin—leaned upright against the tub, soaking in a jar of tiki torch oil, Goodfellow brand oil, of course. (Not the company’s bread and butter, but a surprisingly lucrative offshoot.) One side of the baton was already finished and wrapped lovingly in aluminum foil. In all these years, Madison thought there would have been greater advances made in the world of pyrotechnics.

  Her phone’s alarm buzzed: forty-five minutes were up. A generous amount of time, but she could think of little more embarrassing than a flame extinguished too early. She shook off the excess oil into the tub, pulled the precut foil sheet from her bag, snuggled it around the oil-coated end, tucked the apparatus into a garbage bag and shoved it into her Balenciaga tote as cheers erupted outside the bathroom door. In the lounge of their presidential suite the Machine celebrated, as they had since the roll call earlier this evening, officially clinching the nomination.

  She was scheduled to take the podium at ten, and as they all rode over together in the SUV and made their way through the back entrance to the wings of the stage, she never let her bag out of her sight.

  “Don’t be nervous,” Mike said to her. “Everyone is predisposed to like you, because they like Hank.”

  She had slipped the music to the sound engineer that afternoon: “Hank made a change for my opening tonight, you know, copyright thingy,” she’d said. A very believable lie. It had proved plenty hard to find a proper fight anthem. Hank had racked up primary votes, but none of those voters seemed to be chart-topping musicians willing to grant him permission to use their songs.

  She looked straight up. Back in the day, she had had a good arm, could toss that baton into the rafters without breaking a sweat. The ceiling height of the arena was 140 feet, give or take, so at least there would be plenty of room if she could still manage to give the baton some good air when she threw it. She had only gotten in a few practice rounds last time she was at the Hamptons home. Gemma loved to watch, but Madison only allowed it if the girl was nestled firmly in her nanny Isobel’s arms—lest Gemma should rush at Madison and grab for the baton. Madison had always found, though, if she closed her eyes, visualized her routine, it all had a way of going off flawlessly.

  The crowd roared for Hank. They did love him, didn’t they?

  “...I know, I know, I know,” he was saying to them. “You’re not really supposed to see me or hear from me until the last day of this big show. But you know what I say to the way things are supposed to be done? Fuck all that!” The convention center went wild. “I do things MY way. I am Hank Goodfellow! I am your new leader!” Signs all around the grand space waved at him, among them, #GoodfellowGoodForUs. “So I wasn’t about to let just anyone introduce this next lady. She is special and has been special to me since we met in high school back in Tuscaloosa. Meet your next first lady, Madison Goodfellow!”

  “Sweet Home Alabama” cued up, just as it was supposed to, and Hank accidentally exited stage left instead of stage right, where she waited. All the better, she thought, as she walked out smiling and waving in her sensible Mike-approved navy blazer and skirt suit and white boots, a sequined star-spangled top peeking out beneath. Many in the crowd waved tall, narrow signs reading “Mad About Maddy!”

  Once at the podium, music fading, she bellowed into the microphone: “Thank you, Hank! And thank you all! Hello there! I’m Madison! And I think you’ve had about enough talking for one day! I thought this was supposed to be a celebration! This is how we do it where I’m from!” The new music blared now: “Hail to the Chief,” a techno remix, suitable for a dance club. In one flowing motion—fast enough that no one would have time to stop her—she pulled the lighter from her pocket, flicking it on with one hand while the other reached back to pull the baton out from the hole she’d made in the lining of her oversize blazer. She lit the oil-soaked Kevlar-wick ends of the baton, slid the lighter across the floor to the backstage area, threw the flaming baton up, up, up into the air and before its descent, ripped off her blazer and skirt, tossing them into the crowd and revealing her sequined and skirted red, white and blue majorette leotard beneath.

  Prancing, preening, twirling, she skipped and leaped and flipped and threw the fiery stick so high and so fast, it resembled a spinning, lit wheel. She felt her mind clear, in that zen zone of autopilot and muscle memory, ease and exhilaration.

  From the corner of her eye, mid-split-leap after her final toss, she caught Mike’s slack-jawed expression. He was the most dangerous of the Machine because he was, as of now, the only true legitimate political operative on the campaign. The others were just Hank’s business buddies from the oil company; they didn’t really know what they were doing here. But Mike did.

  “They used to call it the secret weapon at Tuscaloosa High School,” she told Mike backstage immediately afterward, shaking the steel case that housed her extinguishing baton. “I thought it might be nice. You know, even if the team was losing and I brought it out, the crowd revved up. Once we came back from a twenty-one-point deficit in the third quarter to win the game. And really, a good fire baton routine is worth a thousand words.”

  “Magnolia, that brought me back! Didn’t know you could still do that.” Hank greeted her with a kiss and wide smile.

  She could see in his eyes a glimmer of the old Hank.

  “It’s like ridin’ a bike,” she said, in urgent need of a glass of rosé, and secretly relieved she hadn’t set fire to anything. The crowd had been tough, silent and puzzled at the start, but then they’d more than made up for it.

  Mike closed his eyes as though speaking to a toddler. “While we appreciate the artistry and spectacle, I think it’s best, in the future, if you could just stand there and read the words we’ve written. Smile. Wave. That would be perfect.”

  “Sure thing. But if you change your mind...” She grinned.

  “And technically,” Mike continued, “we’re not allowed to use that song. Yet.”

  “Well, I don’t see why not,” Hank piped up. “It’s a great tune. They’ll be playin’ it for me soon enough anyhow.”

  21

  THIS’LL BE A NICE MEMORY FOR THE BABY BOOK

  Ted had been home two days waiting to ship out to the July convention, and Reagan found herself counting the minutes until he would be gone again. He was on the phone constantly—nothing new—but jittery, nervous, dropping things, yelling, talking to himself. She had begun to worry. “This is the process, you always say that,” she’d tried to console him. “Short of paying off superdelegates, I think things are out of your control at this point, right?”

  “Stay out of it,” he’d said.

  So it had been her idea for Ted to meet up with his old buddies for drinks, let off steam. He hadn’t seen them since the campaign had revved up. They had all left the Hill around the time he ran for Congress and now spent their weekends doing things like half-marathons or coaching Little League. “Uber into the city,” she�
��d told him, “have a beer, do something fun for a night.”

  She almost didn’t answer the phone when it rang after midnight, but it was a 202 number and she figured it was one of the guys’ phones, that he had lost his, left it in a cab or a bar, that he was having too much fun.

  A recording asked if she would accept charges for a call from “Ted Campion.” She sat straight up in bed. “Yes, yes, yes, of course,” she blurted.

  “Rea. It’s me,” he slurred. He sounded exhausted and drunk.

  “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  “No. I’m okay.”

  “Then what the fuck is—”

  “I was at that bar from the fund-raiser,” he started in, loudly but very, very slowly, mumbling. “Pretext... Prelude...whatever... Goodfellow’s asshole press secretary was there... Fuckin’ hate that guy... You know who...I’m talking about?... Guess I had too much...to drink?... Maybe not enough to eat...dunno...been dehydrated...lately...”

  “Yeah, yeah, what happened?”

  “He was talkin’ shit about Arnold and all... I landed a pretty good punch—”

  “What the hell, Ted, how fucking old are you?” She pulled on yoga pants that didn’t have a hole in them, a T-shirt, found her car keys and wallet, threw them in a bag.

  “But there were some off-duty Capitol Hill police and the Goodfellow asshole called 911 like I’m some kind of menace...”

  She was barely listening at this point. She put him on speaker, texted Jay and Cady, and was dressed and waiting by the time Cady arrived. There was no way she was dragging the twins out of bed in the middle of the night to pick up daddy at the jail.

  * * *

  She pulled up to the station on a quiet residential street not far from the hubbub of Eastern Market. She’d passed by restaurants with so many young patrons seated outside, sipping drinks, probably talking about the convention, maybe Madison Goodfellow’s impressive agility, maybe the showdown to come between Arnold, Thompson and Rocky Haze. Or maybe they were just talking about their hot intern—because every office had one—or their friends who had made it onto The Hill’s 50 Most Beautiful List, which had just come out. She and Ted had been on it back in the day, featured together. They laughed about it now, but his colleagues had framed it when he left to run for Congress and gifted it to him as a gag. It now hung in their living room, beside their wedding photos.