“Just don’t forget you have two years left of being governor.”
Charlie was quiet, and then he said, “If I resigned, would you think that was terrible? Monty is up to the challenge, no question.” Monty was Ralph Montanetti, the lieutenant governor.
“You wouldn’t want to see this term through to the end?” I said.
“This campaign has been brutal—I don’t have to tell you that, but between the two of us, I’m starting to feel like the thrill is gone. I already know Hank’s gonna be gunning for ’04, but I’m not sure it’s worth it. The idea of winning a presidential election, lately, it’s been reminding me of—What’s that line about making partner at a law firm? You’ve won a pie-eating contest, and your prize is more pie.”
“Will you do me a favor?” I said. “Will you try to remember that whatever happens, we’ll be okay? If you want to stay in politics, if you want to get out and go back to baseball, if you just want to relax—” Charlie was fifty-four by then, and it wouldn’t be embarrassing if he no longer worked; he could take early retirement, we could travel, we could even buy our own second home somewhere other than Halcyon, in Minnesota or Michigan, and he could fish and I could read. “You’re lucky that you have so many options, and so many supporters and admirers,” I said. “That’s what’s important.”
Charlie lifted his head and turned it so that, in the dark, we were face-to-face. From the far side of the second floor, we could hear the televisions and the people still awake in the living room. He said, “When they announced I hadn’t gotten Florida, that pissed me off. We’ve been down there, what, fifteen times in the last year? And I’ll bet you right now everyone in the liberal media is shitting their pants with excitement—they get to say I lost, then they say, ‘No, wait, you didn’t,’ and then they’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, you did.’ Twice the fun, right? Over at the hotel, that wasn’t my idea of a good time, to have to smile like a gracious loser while everyone I’ve ever known sits around staring at me. But then I thought, If everything happens for a reason, God must know what He’s doing. What kind of believer would I be if I only trusted in Him when life goes my way?”
“There’s still the possibility that you won,” I said. “The election’s not over yet.”
He shook his head. “You know I lost, and I do, too. I feel it in my bones. But Lindy, I’m at peace.” He kissed my lips and said, “This might sound crazy, but I’m already starting to think I dodged a bullet.”
____
I THOUGHT WE’D ride back to the White House in the cars we were in—I was looking forward to a moment alone, or alone with three agents, to absorb what just took place—but the minute Edgar Franklin leaves my car, Jessica reappears, climbing in as she holds out a phone. “It’s the president.”
If it were anyone other than Charlie, even Ella, even my mother, I’d refuse. But I raise the phone to my ear, and when I say hello, Charlie says, “When did aliens kidnap my wife and replace her with you?”
He sounds boisterous, and he also sounds like he’s walking somewhere—possibly toward the residence elevator to change for the gala, which is in a rather alarming twenty minutes.
“Charlie, I didn’t intend to catch you off guard, but I couldn’t let another—”
“No, it was brilliant. Hank is only pissed he didn’t think of it himself. One parent to another, that was definitely the way to go.”
“You’re not upset?”
“I just hope Mr. Sympathy appreciated how generous it was of you to make time for him, especially since the word on the street is that now you won’t have a chance to freshen up. But don’t worry, I promise not to tell the students and teachers saluting you that you’re wearing stinky underpants.”
Uneasily, I realize he thinks I spoke to Edgar Franklin in his stead, less as myself than as a presidential surrogate, the way I sometimes attend funerals of foreign leaders. I say, “Charlie, I told Edgar Franklin I support ending the war and bringing home the troops.”
For ten seconds, Charlie is silent, and then, in a bewildered voice, he says, “You support ending the war and bringing home the troops?”
“I made it clear I don’t speak for the administration, I don’t speak for you, and it’s not as if he and I had an elaborate discussion about foreign policy. It was mostly him expressing his views and me listening.”
“I’m sorry, but I think our connection must be messed up. It sounded like you just said that you told an antiwar activist surrounded by TV cameras that you side with him over me.” I am quiet, and Charlie says, “Good God, Lindy.”
“Sweetheart, you and I can have differing opinions. The abortion issue—”
“Is that what this is about? You were determined to cause a huge controversy today, so after the witch doctor croaked, you cooked up another one?”
I feel a great urge to be in the same physical place he is, to set my hand on his cheek, to embrace him—to show him that though I’ve done something uncharacteristic, I’m still his loyal wife.
“I’m walking toward a TV right now,” he says, and then, to someone else, he says, “Yeah, while she was just talking to him.” To me, he says, “Yep, it’s on every station. Way to go, baby. You want to torpedo my immigration bill while you’re at it? Sabotage Social Security reform?”
It’s already on every station? Edgar Franklin climbed from my car minutes ago. But the newscasters must have figured it out while he was still in the limousine, they must be reporting live in their urgently speculative way.
“I’ll be home in five minutes,” I say. “Will you wait for me to get there before you become wound up?”
“See, I always forget this about you,” he says, and even now, long after we first lost our privacy, I can’t help wondering who’s overhearing him. “Every decade, you like to pin me to the ground, pull open my mouth, and take a shit right into it.”
I ONCE THOUGHT, when I was thirty-one and Charlie was running for Congress, that with practice I might learn to hold a novel in my purse and read it during his speeches, but I was wrong; reporters and audience members often glance at a candidate’s wife while he speaks, gauging her reaction. Also around this time, which was when Charlie and I were falling in love, I thought that I could support him not as a politician but as a person, and I told him this, and he thought it, too. “I can assure you I’ll never
____
THE GALA IN my honor, attended by more than three hundred guests, is pleasant and crowded and a bit over-the-top. Charlie and I sit side by side in the front row, and after the third-graders sing “God Bless America” and a tiny twelve-year-old boy in a wheelchair is pushed onstage by his mother to lead us all in
