America the Beautiful

by Laura Hayden

  But she wasn’t just a political operative. She was a Christian. And what were her duties as a Christian in this situation? With the evidence Kate now had in her hands, it was clear that, however horrible it was, the whole thing was just a youthful accident. He’d never meant for things to end in bloody tragedy and death.

  Did Kate want to let this loose?

  Her hands shook. She thought of all that had happened the last time she’d let a horrible secret become public. She couldn’t bear to have another disaster like that one on her conscience.

  She bowed her head and asked God for guidance.

  Questions floated into her thoughts. Did this terrible accident call into question the competence of the candidate? Would he govern badly now, or was his youthful stupidity behind him? He’d sworn to run a clean and honest campaign. Did he mean it?

  What was the right thing to do? As a Christian politician, not as a cutthroat political operative. She had a responsibility to her faith as well as to her candidate.

  The answer came to her, along with that sense of peace she associated with letting her soul rule her actions and not just cold logic.

  She could deep-six this information. The last thing she needed was to put a weapon of this caliber in Emily’s hands. She’d done it once, and look how that had turned out. . . . How had Dozier put it? “The only solution I see is for you to arm yourself but not necessarily her.”

  Kate thought about what Wes had said—that her political actions from that point on should be governed by her faith, not by any simple calculation of political expediency. If she couldn’t win this election on the merits of her candidate, then she didn’t deserve to win the election at all.

  It was the right answer for Kate.

  She’d run this campaign on Emily’s merits, not her rival’s flaws.

  Kate made up her mind. “Okay, here’s the deal. Bury it.”

  There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone. Finally Lee spoke. “You don’t plan to use it?”

  “No. Bury it—someplace safe and not connected to either of you or to me. Just make sure it’s retrievable by remote if we absolutely have to deal with it later. I might need to destroy it in a hurry.”

  “But what about—?”

  “And most important of all, do not mention this to Emily. Not a word of it. Ever. No written reports, no project names on the expense report. No voice mails, no e-mails. You don’t mention this to anyone or bring it up unless I introduce the topic. Bill it to my personal account, not the campaign one. Okay?”

  “You’re the boss. Simple as that. I’ll go make burial arrangements.” Sierra dropped off the line, but Lee remained.

  “Kate? I know your business is your business. But if I can add a personal note, I think you’re making the right decision here.”

  “Thanks, Lee.” She cast her eyes toward the heavens. I know I am. . . . She looked down. Her hands had stopped shaking. They were rock-steady.

  The moment Kate hung up the phone, she knew she would have to push the disclosure and its appalling implications to the back of her mind. If she continued to think about it, it would color every word she spoke, every action she took, from here on in as she spoke about their rival.

  She’d never be able to look the man in the eyes and keep her chin up. Or her lunch down.

  But how easy would it be to forget a brutal death and a miserable cover-up?

  There was no real “business as usual” in the world of politics, unless Kate considered “constant and uncontrolled chaos” the proper way to run a business.

  January 3 was the start date for the early primaries in this election, but their preparation for it had started long ago. The day after Christmas, Emily had left for her thirty-ninth and longest trip to Iowa since starting her campaign eighteen months prior. From that point on, she had attended every banquet, every debate, accepted almost every invitation to speak as a presidential hopeful. She’d spend the better part of early December in Iowa and was returning to roost there for another week to comb through the state from top to bottom, west to east, conducting a whistle-stop campaign.

  But instead of the more traditional train, she had chosen to ride in the biggest pickup truck available for her rounds of appearances. Occasionally, she’d make the Secret Service agent move over and drive herself into a small town simply for the perverse enjoyment of watching the expressions of the crowds as she climbed out of the driver’s seat.

  Instead of addressing a ballroom of thousands with her bigger-than-life image projected on two large screens flanking the stage, Emily would meet the people in their homes and workplaces. Walk and talk with them. Eat with them. Commiserate, find common ground, listen to their ideas, their complaints, and hopefully, their praise.

  She would court them with her decisive politics, her easy wit, her hard-nosed stance on issues, and her sense of compassion. It was one of her strengths. Emily managed to play good ol’ boy politics while still remaining a gracious lady. Kate admired that about her friend. It was a hard balance to maintain. As one media reporter put it, “Governor Benton does the political version of dancing backwards while wearing high heels with style. Better yet, she makes it all look so very easy.”

  Kate wondered if the public had any inkling how much effort Emily put into building her “everywoman” persona. For a girl who played horsey on the president’s knee as a child, got married at the White House, and was raised every day in an atmosphere of privilege and power, keeping that veneer of everywoman in place was a real struggle.

  Yet she did it. Well.

  In Iowa, there was no earthly way for any candidate to reach every caucus location; there were well over two thousand of them, with meetings held in school gymnasiums, town halls, and living rooms across Iowa. But Janis Weems, the director of the state’s field office, had extensive experience with the process and had helped steer Emily to a good mixture of large and medium-size voter areas, not to mention a few smaller ones for “Your opinion is valuable too” influence and media ops.

  And while Emily wooed support from the good people of Iowa under the close watch of Janis and Kate’s second-in-command and deputy, David Dickens, Kate led more Benton advance ground troops in New Hampshire in anticipation of the primary to be held there a little more than two weeks later. Tim Healy, an old friend from their Georgetown days, helmed their headquarters in Nevada and was instrumental in helping them define Nevada’s new role in their campaign strategy. But because of the fact that one of Nevada’s beloved sons, Senator Stephen Hyde, was also running, no other candidate was taking Nevada quite as seriously as the state might have wished prior to declaring its primary date change.

  Nonetheless, Emily wasn’t ignoring that state, or Michigan, either. Thanks to the wonders of modern air travel, she would be able to hit “Lunch with a Leader” in Whitehall, Michigan, then attend a dinner and rally in Greenville, New Hampshire, and be back in time for “Morning Coffee with the Candidate” in Blue Diamond, Nevada, the following morning.

  No matter where she was, Emily tried to call Kate each night—whether from the back of the RV she used in the more rural areas, from a local bed-and-breakfast, or from the guest bedroom in someone’s house. Emily didn’t stay in hotels in Iowa. Even if there had been any five-star hotels there, she knew earnest candidates wouldn’t stay in one. Not if they didn’t want to be mocked on the local evening news and called an elitist.

  Candidates in Iowa not only had to appreciate average citizens, but they had to be one themselves. At least they had to pretend they were average, everyday folks long enough to fool the Iowans if they planned to win, and they arranged their average lodgings accordingly.

  Lacking an average, everyday background, Emily frequently called Kate to get advice on how to fake being normal. Kate, recognizing the caller ID, answered her cell on the first ring. “How’s it going, M?”

  “All I want is a stiff drink,” Emily declared in a scratchy voice, worn thin from talking nearly continuously every
waking moment for days. “If another yahoo complains to me about border control one more time, I think I’ll scream.”

  “It’s an important topic. The people in nonborder states need to know where you stand.”

  “I understand that. But I’d just sat there answering that same question for the idiot sitting next to him. I felt like saying, ‘Open your stupid ears, Yokel. What have I been talking about for the last eight and half minutes?’”

  “No, no, no . . . ,” Kate teased. “You’re using the Y words. I thought we agreed you wouldn’t use any of the Y words—yokel, yahoo, yo-yo.”

  Emily snorted. “Farmer Fred is lucky I didn’t use the F word.”

  It was a game they played. Emily would whine to Kate about some harmless aspect of the campaign, never complaining about the big issues—spotty media coverage, poor crowd turnout, scheduling problems, or overwhelming exhaustion.

  By venting over innocuous issues in a safe arena, Emily bled off enough of the building pressure so that she could deal with the more pressing issues and worries of the campaign in a much better humor.

  After all, the Iowa caucus was a big deal. As Iowa goes, so goes the nation wasn’t just an idle saying—it had history behind it. Come in first or second place in Iowa, and you were a lot more likely to become that party’s presidential candidate in the end. And then there was the value of momentum.

  America loved a winner.

  If a candidate won Iowa, campaign contributions would pick up. After all, everybody wanted to back a winner. More often than not, they also wanted someone else to prove to them their choice was indeed a winner.

  Iowa was great for that, even if it had meant campaigning hard there in the holiday season. At least they didn’t have to interrupt their Thanksgiving holiday plans to go vote. For a while there, both Emily and Kate had feared that it might be a possibility. Their two years on the campaign trail would be grueling enough as it was. But each time the states jockeyed to be “First in the Nation,” they inched their primaries earlier and earlier, adding weeks to the time frame, even threatening the holidays.

  Having them in January was bad enough.

  And Iowa’s was to be held earlier this year by the standards of previous elections. It meant that Emily had pretty much campaigned continuously over the holidays. Her gift to Kate of an uninterrupted Christmas with her family had been a sacrifice of real hardship for Emily and the campaign that Kate would never forget.

  But the media flurry accompanying a declared win in Iowa would result in national and international news coverage in which a candidate’s name became associated with the word winner. The more times Americans heard this, the more likely they were to believe in the inevitability of the word. Even better, such media coverage cost them nothing.

  Emily and Kate had blown vast quantities of their advertising expense budget on commercials for Iowa and New Hampshire—to the tune of $6.2 million dollars, a very large chunk of the remaining campaign contributions on hand. However, both of them viewed this spending as an investment in Emily’s future.

  Every presidential candidate—Republican, Democrat, or Independent—felt an unavoidable financial pinch in late December and early January. Donations were always down across the board, what with the holiday gift-giving season and increased competition from charitable organizations for donors’ loose cash. Every campaign had increased its expenditures early in the race, thanks to political pressure laid on by all the early primaries. The whole race started in earnest nearly a year sooner than it had in earlier presidential elections. These days, many candidates—Emily included—started their campaigns as soon as they filed with the FEC. They hit the ground and started running hard with their campaign more than two full years before the actual election. Building a grassroots campaign in every state took time, money, and lots of manpower. Even when a candidate was independently wealthy like Emily, there were still limits to available funds.

  But a win in Iowa, a strong showing or better in Mark Henderson’s Michigan less than two weeks later, a very strong second-place finish against the hometown boy in Nevada four days later, and then a decisive win three days after that in New Hampshire—all that would turn the fund-raising spigot on again and pour much-needed donations back into the campaign coffers. A new bumper crop of volunteers would also likely show up at the doors of their campaign offices throughout the country. So the way to achieve financial solvency, gain momentum, and generate media coverage was to travel the back roads of Iowa and do things the old-fashioned way.

  It was traditional, just like admiring the butter sculptures at the Iowa State Fair. It was sometimes necessary to do things the old-fashioned way to grease the wheels of the new political machine. Besides, having Emily chow down on funnel cakes in front of the cameras in Iowa appeased the secret wishes of the American public to see their presidential candidates either cut down to size or humanized by the indulgent intake of untold amounts of fat and calories.

  In their hearts, Americans still wanted to see their presidential candidates work the crowds, kiss the babies, and shake the hands of the common man, so the candidates complied. According to the field report from their deputy manager, Dave Dickens, Emily had found her stride on the road doing just that.

  She charmed everyone, male and female, with her straightforward answers, good humor, and when the occasion called for it, sympathy. Kate had drilled that into Emily long ago. “Sometimes you can’t fix everyone’s problems, but you can at least listen and offer your sincerest condolences.”

  Evidently, the lesson had taken.

  At the moment, Kate was having a hard time following her own advice. Her meeting with Alexander Michaels, the New Hampshire state director, had been interrupted by a volunteer staffer with a minor medical emergency. As much sympathy as she felt for the young man and his physical discomfort, tempus fugit.

  But her attention became even more split when she heard her cell phone ching once, the sign of an incoming text message. Since Alex was still dealing with the distracting problem, she discreetly pulled out the phone and read: U at NH HQ? Can we meet? Nick

  Kate stared at the words, not quite comprehending them at first. The only Nick she knew was Nick Beaudry, and if the message was from him, then how had he gotten her private cell phone number?

  In what universe did he think that campaign staff from opposing parties met routinely to chitchat, share trade secrets, or gossip?

  Why in the world is he calling?

  She thought for a moment. Curiosity. That’s why. It was the same reason she was willing to text him back.

  She typed: Prove U R Nick.

  The answer came quickly. 12 at PO’B in NO

  It was definitely Nick Beaudry. The sudden heat of embarrassment filled Kate’s face as she remembered when they’d all first met. It was in the crowd outside Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. At Emily’s insistence, they’d ended up sharing a minuscule bar table. Between the four of them—Emily, Kate, Nick, and his friend Wendell—they’d imbibed a dozen Hurricane drinks that night. At least that’s what Emily loved to tell. Truth be known, Kate had had only one drink and didn’t even finish it. Where they went after that, no one quite remembered—what little alcohol Kate had ingested had messed up her sense of direction. But the rest of them managed to keep their souvenir Hurricane Glasses intact, which was no mean feat when stumbling drunk through the streets of New Orleans in the middle of Mardi Gras.

  Where?, she typed.

  Hungry?

  Always

  Bagel Mike Close 2U Meet at 10?

  She consulted her daily planner. OK

  It wouldn’t hurt to listen to him. Even if it might be a setup.

  Meeting him in public had its complications, but doing so in private would be far more damaging if news of it got out. No matter how careful political people were, clandestine meetings always had a way of backfiring on them, their campaigns, and their candidates. The whole Watergate mess had left behind its share of object
lessons, and that one had been taken to heart by everyone on both sides of the aisle.

  Kate had no qualms about her ability to keep campaign secrets. But when it came to guarding the truth, it helped if a political operative valued truth far more than the opponent did. In this case, Kate knew that she held the truth sacred. Nick, however, held it loosely, if he held it at all.

  She wondered what he wanted. . . .

  After Alex’s staff crisis du moment was dealt with, he and Kate went over the New Hampshire schedule in detail. Kate penciled in some suggested additional appearances for Emily based on what the field researchers had seen as holes in their demographics.

  Alex hit a key, saving the changes they’d made in the centralized online calendar, then looked up. “Umm . . . can I ask a personal question?”

  “Sure.”

  He pushed back from the desk. “What about you? Why don’t you speak on Emily’s behalf? I think you could make great political headway as her official spokeswoman.”

  Kate tried not to sigh. She’d answered this question more times than any other one that came up from the campaign’s workers.

  Now she offered her pat answer. “Emily’s the headliner. I stay in the background. I always have; I always will. I can be more effective that way.”

  She gathered up the spread of papers she’d trailed across Alex’s desk, then looked up at him. “You haven’t met Emily’s cousin Margaret yet, have you?”

  “I haven’t had the pleasure. But I’m supposed to meet her in an hour or so at the first of the appearances we’ve scheduled for today.”

  “Trust me. You’ll find Margaret to be very engaging and incredibly persuasive.”