The Prodigal Daughter

by Jeffrey Archer

  “I believe both Pete and Florentyna should visit all the red states at least once, but Pete should concentrate his energies in the South while Florentyna spends most of her time in the North. Only California, with its massive forty-five electoral votes, will have to be visited by both of you regularly. During the sixty-two days left before the election, we must use every spare minute on states where we have a genuine chance and make only token visits to those fringe areas we captured in the 1964 landslide. As for our own white states, we must be prepared to visit them all once so that we cannot be accused of taking them for granted. I consider Ohio a no-hoper as it’s Russell Warner’s home state, but we mustn’t let the Republicans assume Florida is theirs just because Warner’s running mate was once the state’s senior senator. Now, I’ve also worked out a daily routine for you both, starting next Monday,” he continued, handing the candidate and Florentyna separate sheaves of paper, “and I think you should be in contact with each other at least twice a day, at eight o’clock in the morning and eleven o’clock at night, always Central Time.”

  Florentya found herself impressed by the work Ralph Brooks had put in before the briefing and could appreciate why Parkin had become so reliant on him. For the next hour Brooks answered queries that arose from his plan and agreement was reached on their basic strategy for the campaign. At twelve-thirty the Vice President and Florentyna walked on to the north portico of the White House to speak to the press. Ralph Brooks seemed to have statistics for everything: The press, he warned them, was divided like everyone else. One hundred and fifty papers with twenty-two million readers were already supporting the Democrats, while one hundred and forty-two with twenty-one point seven million readers were backing the Republicans. If they needed to know, he added, he could supply the relevant facts for any paper in the country.

  Florentyna looked out across the lawn at Lafayette Square, dotted with lunchtime strollers and picnickers. If elected, she would rarely again be able to visit Washington’s parks and memorials. Not unaccompanied, anyway. Parkin escorted her back to the Vice President’s office when the press had asked all the usual questions and received the usual answers. When they returned to the office they found that Parkin’s Filipino stewards had set up lunch on the conference table. Florentyna came away from the meeting feeling a lot better about how matters were working out, especially since the Vice President had twice in the hearing of Brooks referred to their earlier agreement concerning 1996. Still Florentyna thought it would be a long time before she could totally trust Parkin.

  On September 7 she flew into Chicago to start her part of the election campaign but found that even though the press was still hard put to keep up with the daily routine she put herself through, she lacked the drive that had been a trademark of her earlier campaigning.

  The Brooks plan ran smoothly for the first few days as Florentyna traveled through Illinois, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. She met with no surprises until she arrived in New York, where the press was waiting in large numbers at the Albany airport. They wanted to know her views about Pete Parkin’s treatment of Chicanos. Florentyna confessed that she didn’t know what they were talking about, so they told her that the candidate had said that he had never had any trouble with Chicanos on his ranch; they were like his own children. Civil rights leaders were up in arms all over the country and all Florentyna could think of to say was, “I am sure he has been misunderstood or else his words have been taken out of context.”

  Russell Warner, the Republican candidate, said there could be no misunderstanding. Pete Parkin was simply a racist. Florentyna kept repudiating these statements although she suspected they were rooted in truth. Both Florentyna and Pete Parkin had to break off from their scheduled plans to fly to Alabama and attend the funeral of Ralph Abernathy. Ralph Brooks described the death to an aide as timely. When Florentyna heard what he had said she nearly swore at him in front of the press.

  Florentyna continued her travels through Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia, before going on to California, where she was joined by Edward. Bella and Claude took them out to a restaurant in Chinatown. The manager gave them a corner alcove where no one could see them or, more importantly, hear them, but the relaxed break only lasted for a few hours before Florentyna had to fly on to Los Angeles.

  The press was becoming bored with the petty squabbles between Parkin and Warner over everything except real issues, and when the two candidates appeared together on a television debate in Pittsburgh, the universal opinion was that they both lost and that the only person of Presidential stature in the whole campaign was turning out to be Senator Kane. Many journalists expressed the view that it was a tragedy that Senator Kane had ever let it be known she was willing to be Pete Parkin’s running mate.

  “I’ll write what really happened in my memoirs,” she told Edward. “Only by then who will care?”

  “In truth, no one,” replied Edward. “How many Americans could tell you the name of Harry Truman’s Vice President?”

  The next day, Pete Parkin flew into Los Angeles to join Florentyna for one of their few joint appearances. She met him at the airport. He walked off Air Force II holding up Missouri’s Unterrified Democrat, the only paper that had run as its headline “Parkin Wins Debate”: Florentyna had to admire the way he could make a rhinoceros look thin-skinned. California was to be the last stop before they returned to their own states and they held a final rally in the Rose Bowl. Parkin and Florentyna were surrounded by stars, half of whom were on stage for the free publicity they were guaranteed whichever candidate was in town. Along with Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino and Jane Fonda, Florentyna spent most of her time signing autographs. She didn’t know what to say to the girl who, puzzled by her signature, asked: “Which was your last movie?”

  The following morning, Florentyna flew back to Chicago while Pete Parkin left for Texas. As soon as Florentyna’s 707 touched down in the Windy City, she was greeted by a crowd of over thirty thousand people, the biggest any candidate had had on the campaign trail.

  On the morning of the election she voted at the elementary school in the Ninth District, in the presence of the usual group of reporters from the networks and the press. She smiled for them, knowing she would be forgotten news within a week if the Democrats lost. She spent the day going from committee room to polling places to television studio, and ended up back at her suite in the Chicago Baron a few minutes after the polls had closed.

  Florentyna indulged herself with her first really long hot bath in over five months and a change of clothes that was not affected by whom she was spending the evening with. Then she was joined by William, Joanna, Annabel and Richard, who, at the age of seven, was being allowed to watch his first election. Edward arrived just after ten-thirty and for the first time in his life saw Florentyna with her shoes off and her feet propped up on a table.

  “Miss Tredgold wouldn’t have approved.”

  “Miss Tredgold never had to do seven months of campaigning without a break,” she replied.

  In a room full of food, drink, family and friends, Florentyna watched the results come in from the East Coast. It was obvious from the moment that New Hampshire went to the Democrats and Massachusetts to the Republicans that they were all in for a long night. Florentyna was delighted that the weather had been dry right across the nation that day. She had never forgotten Theodore H. White telling her that America always voted Republican until 5 P.M. on Election Day. From that time on, working men and women on their way home decide whether to stop at the polls; if they do and only if they do, the country will go Democratic. It looked as though a lot of them had stopped by, but she wondered if it would turn out to be enough. By midnight, the Democrats had taken Illinois and Texas but lost Ohio and Pennsylvania and when the voting machines closed down in California, three hours after New York, America still hadn’t elected a President. The private polls conducted outside the voting places proved only that the nation’s largest state wasn’t wild about either candidate.


  At the George Novak Suite in the Chicago Baron, some ate, some drank, some slept. But Florentyna remained wide awake throughout the whole proceedings and at two thirty-three, CBS announced the result she had been waiting for: California had been won by the Democrats, the returns showing 50.2 to 49.8, a margin of a mere 332,000 votes, giving the election to Parkin. Florentyna picked up the phone by her side.

  “Are you calling the President-elect to congratulate him?” asked Edward.

  “No,” said Florentyna. “I’m calling Bella to thank her for putting him there.”

  Florentyna spent the next few days in Cape Cod having a total rest, only to find she kept waking at six each morning with nothing to do except wait for the morning papers. She was delighted when Edward joined her on Wednesday but couldn’t get used to his affectionately addressing her as “V.P.”

  Pete Parkin had already called a press conference at his Texas ranch to say he would not be naming his cabinet until the New Year. Florentyna returned to Washington on November 14, for the lameduck session of Congress, and prepared for her move from the Russell Building to the White House. Although her time was fully occupied in the Senate and Illinois, it came as a surprise to her that she spoke to the President-elect only two or three times a week and then on the phone. Congress adjourned two weeks after Thanksgiving, and Florentyna returned to Cape Cod for a family Christmas with a grandson who kept calling her Grannie President.

  “Not yet,” she told him.

  On January 9 the President-elect arrived in Washington and held a press conference to announce his cabinet. Although Florentyna had not been consulted on his appointments, no one was expecting any real surprises: Charles Lee was made Secretary of Defense and would have been everyone’s choice. Paul Rowe retained his position as director of the CIA. Pierre Levale became attorney general, and Michael Brewer, national security advisor. Florentyna didn’t raise an eyebrow until Parkin came to his choice for Secretary of State. She sat in disbelief when the President declared:

  “Chicago can rightly be proud of having produced the Vice President as well as the Secretary of State.”

  By Inauguration Day, Florentyna’s personal belongings in the Baron had been packed up and were all ready for delivery to the Vice President’s official residence on Observatory Circle. The huge Victorian house seemed grotesquely large for a family of one.

  For this inauguration, Florentyna’s whole family sat in seats one row behind Pete Parkin’s wife and daughters, while Florentyna sat on one side of the President and Ralph Brooks sat immediately behind him. When she stepped forward to take the oath of office, her only thought was to wish that Richard were there by her side to remind her she was getting closer and closer. Glancing sideways at Pete Parkin, she concluded that Richard would still have voted Republican.

  Chief Justice William Rehnquist gave her a warm smile as she repeated after him the oath of office for the Vice President.

  “‘I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…’”

  “‘I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…’”

  Florentyna’s words had sounded clear and confident, perhaps because she had learned the oath by heart. Annabel winked at her as she returned to her seat amid deafening applause.

  After the Chief Justice administered the Presidential oath to Parkin, Florentyna listened intently as America’s new Chief Executive delivered his inaugural address. She had not been consulted about it and she hadn’t even seen its final draft until the night before. Once again Parkin referred to her as the greatest little lady in the land.

  After the inauguration ceremony was over, Parkin, Brooks and Florentyna joined congressional leaders for lunch in the Capitol. Her Senate colleagues gave Florentyna a warm welcome when she took her place on the dais. After lunch they climbed into limousines for the drive down Pennsylvania Avenue that would lead the inaugural parade. Sitting in the enclosed viewing stand in front of the White House, Florentyna watched floats, marching bands and assorted governors roll by, representing every one of the fifty states. She stood and applauded when the farmers of Illinois saluted her, and later after making a token visit to every one of the inaugural balls, she spent her first night in the Vice President’s house and realized the closer she got to the top, the more alone she became.

  The next morning, the President held his first cabinet meeting. This time Ralph Brooks sat on his right-hand side. The group, visibly tired from the seven inaugural balls the night before, assembled in the Cabinet Room. Florentyna sat at the far end of the long oval table, surrounded by men with whose views she had rarely been in accord in the past, aware that she was going to have to spend four years battling against them before she could hope to form her own cabinet. She wondered how many of them knew about her deal with Parkin.

  As soon as Florentyna had settled into her wing of the White House, she appointed Janet Brown as head of her personal office. Many of the positions left vacant by Parkin’s staff she also filled with her old team from the campaign and Senate days.

  Of the remaining staff she inherited, she quickly learned how valuable their skills and special qualifications would have been had they not disappeared one by one as the President offered them executive jobs. Within three months, Parkin had denuded her office of all the most competent staff, taking first the middle-ranking campaign operatives and then some of the inner circle of advisors.

  Florentyna tried not to show her anger when the President offered Janet Brown the position of Under Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

  Janet didn’t hesitate over the new opportunity: and in a handwritten letter to the President she accepted the great compliment he had paid her but explained in detail why she felt unable to consider any government position other than to serve the Vice President.

  “If you can wait four years, so can I,” she explained.

  Florentyna had often read that the life of the Vice President was, to quote John Nance Garner, “not worth a pitcher of warm spit,” but even she was surprised to find how little real work she had to do compared with her days in Congress. She had received more letters when she had been a Senator. Everyone seemed to write to the President or the state representatives. Even the people had worked out that the Vice President had no power. Florentyna enjoyed presiding over the Senate for important debates, because it kept her in contact with colleagues who would be helping her again in four years’ time, and they made sure she was aware of what was being said covertly in the halls of Congress, as well as on the House and Senate floor. Many senators used her to get messages through to the President, but as time went by she began to wonder whom she should use for the same purpose, as the days turned into weeks in which Pete Parkin did not bother to consult her on any major issue.

  During her first year as Vice President, Florentyna made goodwill tours to Brazil and Japan, attended the funerals of Willy Brandt in Berlin and Edward Heath in London, carried out on-site inspections of three natural disasters and chaired so many special task forces that she felt qualified to publish her own guide to how the government works.

  The first year went slowly, the second even more so. The only highlight was representing the government at the crowning of King Charles III in Westminster Abbey after Queen Elizabeth II’s abdication in 1994. Florentyna stayed with Ambassador John Sawyer at Winfield House, conscious of how similar their respective roles were in the matter of form over substance. She seemed to spend hours chatting about how the world was run and what the President was doing on matters such as the building up of Russian troops on the Pakistan border. She gained most of her information from the Washington Post and envied Ralph Brooks’s real involvement as Secretary of State. Although she kept herself well informed on what was going on in the world at large, for only the second time in her life she was bored. She longed for 1996, fearing her years
as Vice President would yield very few positive results.

  Once Air Force II had landed back at Andrews, Florentyna returned to her work and spent the rest of the week checking through the State and CIA traffic that had piled up in her absence abroad. She rested over the weekend even though CBS informed the public that the dollar had suffered as a result of the international crisis. The Russians were massing more forces on the Pakistan border, a fact that the President had dismissed in his weekly press conference as “not of great importance.” The Russians, he assured the assembled journalists, were not interested in crossing any borders into countries that had treaties with the United States.

  During the following week the panic seemed to subside and the dollar recovered. “It’s a cosmetic recovery,” Florentyna pointed out to Janet, “caused by the Russians. The international brokers are reporting that the Bank of Moscow is selling gold, which was exactly what they did before invading Afghanistan. I do wish bankers would not treat history on a week-to-week basis.”

  Although several politicians and journalists contacted Florentyna to express their fears, she could only placate them as she watched proceedings from the wings. She even considered making an appointment to see the President, but by Friday evening most Americans were on their way home for a peaceful weekend convinced the immediate danger had passed. Florentyna remained in her office in the west wing that Friday evening and read through the cables from ambassadors and agents on the Indian subcontinent. The more she read, the more she felt unable to share the President’s relaxed stance. As there was very little she could do about it, she neatly stacked up the papers, put them into a special red folder and prepared to go home. She checked her watch. 6:32. Edward had flown down from New York and would be joining her for dinner at 7:30. She was laughing about the thought of filing her own papers when Janet rushed into the office.