The Daughters Join the Party

by Joanna Philbin

  “Your father just got back,” her mom said quietly. “And some people decided to come back with him to the hotel.”

  “But where’s Dad?”

  “He was just here a minute ago…” She sighed. “Wait here. I brought a hair dryer you can borrow.”

  As Emma stood alone, her hair dripping on the marble floor of the foyer, the slim, tall figure of her dad walked into the living room. Emma almost didn’t recognize him. In the past three weeks since he’d been gone, his hair had gone almost completely gray at the temples. Bags hung under his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

  “Hey, Dad,” she called out.

  He waved at her and walked over. “Hi, honey,” he said. He threw his arms around her and squeezed her tight. “How’s my little girl?”

  “I’m good.”

  Her dad didn’t seem to notice that her hair was dripping wet, but this wasn’t surprising. “Where’s Remington?”

  “He’s really sick,” Emma said. “I think it’s food poisoning. He said to say he was sorry but he probably can’t give that speech tonight.”

  “Does he need a doctor?” he asked, as Tom Beckett approached them. Unlike her dad, Tom looked exactly the same. Then again, pure evil probably doesn’t age, Emma thought.

  “If I were you, I’d just let him throw up for a few hours,” she told her dad.

  “What is it?” Tom asked, just barely acknowledging Emma with a glance.

  “Remington’s sick,” her father said. “Sounds like he’s got food poisoning. He can’t make the speech.”

  Tom Beckett rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyone you can think of to replace him?”

  “Is that necessary?” asked her dad.

  “Well, we did invite Maria from the Post and Helen from the Times. Remington’s remarks were supposed to kick-start the college-demo campaign.”

  “So I’m supposed to find a teen speaker in the next ten minutes?” her dad asked.

  “Let me look into a few options,” Tom said to Adam. “Shanks!”

  Shanks lumbered toward them. His gray mop of hair fell halfway over his eyes and he seemed to walk with his belly leading the way.

  “Remington’s sick,” her father said. “Tom thinks we need a replacement.”

  “Okay,” Shanks said calmly. “Like who?”

  “Like someone young,” Tom said, annoyed. “Remington was supposed to reach out to the college demo.”

  “Well, what about Emma?” Shanks asked, his eyes twinkling.

  “Emma?” her dad repeated.

  Carolyn walked over with her hair dryer. “What are we talking about?” she asked.

  “We’re trying to come up with a replacement for Remington,” Tom explained.

  “And Shanks just suggested Emma,” her dad said. “No, I don’t think that would be a great idea. Emma, I hope you don’t take that personally.”

  “Not at all,” she said, even though it was hard not to feel a little bit offended.

  Her father sighed. “When does this damn thing start?” he asked his wife.

  “Well, we’re supposed to leave in ten minutes,” her mother said. She handed Emma the hair dryer. “Honey, hurry up. I don’t want you getting a cold.”

  “Senator?” one of the campaign people yelled. “I’ve got Senator Reid on the phone.”

  “Be right there!” he yelled. “Okay. Someone should give Remington a call,” he said distractedly. “See if he’s okay.”

  “I will,” said Carolyn. Emma noticed that her dad didn’t volunteer to do it himself. Emma’s mom turned to her. “We’ll meet you in the lobby in ten minutes. And honey, please take off some of that eyeliner.”

  Emma scurried to the door. She didn’t have much time.

  chapter 16

  “So, are you into World of Warcraft?”

  Emma prodded the bundle of baby green beans with her fork and tried to think of a polite way to discourage the Senate majority leader’s creepy son from talking to her. “No, Mark, I’m not,” she said.

  “It’s really cool,” he replied, staring at her with heavy-lidded eyes.

  Under the table, she checked her watch for the hundredth time. She’d guessed correctly about the kids’ table. At least they were almost to dessert.

  “I’m working on my own role-playing game,” he said. “Some of my buddies and I are writing the code for it.”

  “That’s awesome,” she said.

  “Right now there aren’t any girls in it,” he said, “but I could base one on you. If you wanted me to.” He stared at her, breathing heavily through his nose.

  “That’s really okay.”

  “Oh, hey, my dad’s about to speak,” he said, as the almost-eighty-year-old Senator O’Halloran tottered across the stage. Emma looked across the enormous gold and cream ballroom of the Dupont Hotel, its banquet tables lit with candles and laid with gold linen. She wasn’t quite sure where her parents had been seated, but if she found their table she planned to make a beeline for it, just to get away from Mark.

  “All right, all right, I promise not to take up too much of your time,” the elderly senator said in a crotchety voice, “but I do want to say a few words about the man of the hour, Adam Conway.”

  A photographer leaped up and started taking his picture.

  “Adam first came to visit me in my office right after he was sworn in,” Senator O’Halloran said. “To pay his respects, I thought. But no. I think he wanted to know when I was planning to retire.”

  There was an outbreak of laughter throughout the room.

  “Yes, he’s ambitious. Yes, he’s confident. But I’ve never met a man who was more able to support that ambition and confidence. And after what he managed to do last spring with the health-care bill… I don’t know that I’ll ever see anyone pull off that kind of politics again.”

  Emma noticed that the waiters were busy handing out champagne to all the guests. A toast was about to happen.

  “He reminds me a lot of how I was at his age. Hardworking, good-looking, and cocky as hell.”

  More laughter rippled through the room.

  “So let’s have a toast: To Adam Conway, the luckiest guy in Washington.”

  An aide scuttled onstage and handed the senator a glass of champagne, just in time for him to hold it up as everyone in the room shouted, “Hear, hear.”

  The senator took a sip of his champagne, then said, “And now I’ve been told that his brilliant son, Remington, would like to say a few words.” He swiveled his head toward the kids’ table. “Remington? You ready, son?”

  Apparently Senator O’Halloran hadn’t heard the news that Remington was sick. Emma felt her pulse quicken as people craned their heads, looking for her brother.

  The same aide walked hastily across the stage and whispered into the senator’s ear.

  “What do you mean, he’s sick?” the senator asked. “He’s too sick to come up and say something for his father’s fiftieth birthday?”

  Nervous laughter floated through the room.

  “Maybe we can have my son get up here and say a few words!” he exclaimed.

  That was all Emma needed to hear. She scrambled to her feet. “I can speak!” she yelled. Making sure not to trip on her heels, she started to make her way to the stage.

  “I see we have someone coming over here,” the senator said, squinting hard to make out the someone. “I think it’s his daughter, Erma.”

  “Emma,” she clarified as she took the stairs up to the stage two at a time, disregarding the pain from her high heels. She shook the senator’s hand and stepped in front of the mic. “Yes, I do have something to say,” she said. Below her she could see her parents at their table, shocked into complete silence. “I know my brother wishes that he could be here tonight, but I think I have a pretty good idea of what he would have said,” she began. “Actually, I don’t really know what he would have said, but I know what I want to say. And that’s that my generation—whatever that means—needs someone to look up to
. And not someone who’s on reality TV or has an awesome Twitter feed, but a real person. To tell us that we’re gonna be okay. And make sure that we’re going to be okay. Who’s going to let me and my friends know that we’re gonna be able to pay off our college loans and get jobs and live in a world that isn’t going to be melting away in twenty years.” She paused. “Who’s going to tell us that we have a future, instead of just debt and disease and despair. Because sometimes that’s what it feels like, you know?”

  She looked over at Senator O’Halloran, whose eyebrows were arched so high they almost touched his fake hairline.

  “And I don’t mean to pass the buck or anything, but it doesn’t help that wherever you look, someone’s trying to sell us something or promise us something and tell us who to be and how to be and how much we’re supposed to weigh and how many kids we’re supposed to have. When we’re all supposed to be figuring that out for ourselves.”

  Nobody moved out in the crowd. Even Mark O’Halloran seemed attentive. Maybe this is going well, she thought.

  “So I guess what I’m trying to say is, we all need a hero right now. Someone who’s not an actor, and not a reality star, and not some made-up character in an online role-playing game. We need a real person who we can trust.” She paused and looked right at her dad. “Which is why I’m glad that my dad is running for president.”

  The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Oh my God, she thought. I did not just say that.

  There was an audible gasp. She looked down at her father’s table. He looked stricken. Tom Beckett and Shanks closed in around him, hiding him from sight. Emma looked at her mom, hoping for some assurance that this wasn’t as bad as it seemed. But her mom only gripped the stem of her wineglass and stared straight ahead.

  But then somebody started to clap. Soon the applause picked up across the room, building in a wave until everyone, it seemed, was applauding. One by one, people rose to their feet. They were giving her dad a standing ovation, even though he hadn’t said anything.

  Finally her dad stood up. Shaky at first, and then gaining more confidence, he lifted his hand and waved. His gleaming white smile was almost triumphant, as if he’d already won the nomination. He’s playing along, Emma thought. He’s letting them think that I did this on purpose.

  But just as she started to clap, too, she noticed Tom Beckett, standing right below the stage. He was staring at her. His bright blue eyes glittered with anger, and with the side of his hand, he mimed slicing his own throat over and over. He wanted her to get off the stage, and quick. It didn’t matter that her dad was handling this perfectly. She was in massive trouble. Again.

  chapter 17

  “I didn’t mean it! I swear to God I didn’t mean it,” she said as the elevator carried them swiftly up to the penthouse floor.

  Her dad sighed loudly. Her mom patted her gently on the back but shook her head, her eyes on the floor. Shanks studied the buttons as they lit up one by one.

  “This is a disaster,” Tom murmured, pacing around the elevator. “A disaster.”

  “Tom, calm down, it’s all okay. He covered well,” Shanks said as the elevator doors opened.

  “But it’s too soon,” Tom said as they headed down the hall. “We were going to wait until we had everything in place. We don’t even have a budget set up yet. Now we’re doomed before we’ve even gotten out of the gate.”

  “We’re not doomed,” Shanks said, sliding the keycard into the door of the presidential suite. “Let’s keep this in perspective.”

  The several aides still inside the suite sat up at attention as they walked in. From the worried looks on their faces Emma could tell they knew already. One girl grimaced sympathetically as Emma sat down on the couch.

  “I think we all have to take a deep breath and look at this rationally,” Shanks said, as her parents sat down on the couch opposite Emma. “What’s done is done. Now we just have to figure out how to spin this.”

  “There is no spinning this!” Tom blurted out. “Who the hell announces they’re running for president this early? Nobody! How are we going to afford a campaign for the next twenty-six months?”

  Randall put down his cell phone. “The New York Times wants to know if what Emma said was a mistake or not.”

  “Christ,” Tom groaned.

  “It was a mistake,” her father said.

  “No,” Shanks said, holding up a beefy hand. “If we’re trying to get the young voters, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to shoot it down.”

  “What do you mean?” Tom asked.

  “I mean, the way we’ve been talking about branding the senator is through his relatively young age. The way he appeals to young voters. And if he has a teenage daughter who can boil it all down and speak from the heart like that, then let’s go with it.”

  Emma glanced at her dad. His fingers rubbed his cleft chin, and his green eyes had a distant look. “Maybe you’re right,” he mused.

  “So, nothing?” Randall asked.

  Tom shook his head. “We don’t confirm or deny. We say that his daughter spoke from the heart. I want to know the second anyone has the story up,” he said. “And that includes the blogs.”

  Randall went back to the phone.

  “I think I’ll go to bed,” Emma said, standing up. “If that’s okay with everyone.”

  “No, don’t go,” her father said, also getting to his feet. “Hold on. I want to talk to you for a second.” Emma and Carolyn followed him into the bedroom and he closed the door.

  “So, Emma,” her father said. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was just trying to help,” she said. “Remington was gone, and trust me, you really didn’t want Mark O’Halloran up there, so I just did it. And I knew you didn’t think I could do it—”

  “So you wanted to prove me wrong,” he said with a smile. Her father picked up a bottle of water from the bedside table and twisted off the cap.

  “Not just that. I guess I… I guess I’ve changed my mind about all this.”

  Carolyn sat on the bed and gently took off her shoes. “Adam, do you think those people might be able to go home soon?” she asked.

  “Story’s up!” they heard Tom yell from the other room.

  They ran into the living room. Everyone was huddled in front of someone’s laptop. Emma hung back while her parents elbowed their way to the screen. She was terrified to know what it said.

  “Conway’s kin announces presidential run,” Tom Beckett read aloud. “Senator Adam Conway’s teenage daughter reportedly stunned friends and colleagues tonight when she announced his plans for a presidential run in the next election. Fourteen-year-old Emma spoke about her generation’s fears for the future, explaining her relief and pride that her own father would be seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, concluding with the words, ‘This is why I’m glad my dad is running for president.’ ” Tom cleared his throat. “Guests at the Dupont Hotel greeted the news with shock, and then something close to hysteria. Senator Conway confirmed the announcement himself by waving to the crowd. Even though announcing his run this many months in advance could be a liability, many see this stealth announcement as a brilliant publicity move. ‘If I were going to announce my candidacy this far in advance, then I’d have this girl do it for me,’ said Senator Frawley, a guest at tonight’s event. ‘This girl has all the charisma of her father, and then some.’ ”

  Shanks looked at Emma and held up his bear paw of a hand. “High five, little lady,” he said.

  “The Post’s up!” The girl who’d given Emma the sympathetic smile carried her laptop to the dining room table. “They’re calling it a genius move,” she said as everyone flocked to her screen. “And Emma’s speech ‘winning.’ ”

  Her father scanned the screens of both computers. “Wow. They really do think we planned it this way.”

  “Emma Conway’s announcement of her father’s campaign is a historical first,” Shanks read. He turned to Adam. “Congratulations, Senator
,” said Shanks. “You’re officially running for president.”

  “I am, aren’t I?” Adam said, finally looking relaxed. He slapped his chief of staff on the back. “Let’s have some champagne!”

  Randall produced a bottle of Krug and two glasses from a gift basket on the coffee table and popped the cork. Her father filled a glass and gave it to Carolyn, then filled another for himself. “To breaking the rules,” he said, “and to our secret weapon.” He raised his glass to Emma and smiled. “Good job, Emma.”

  “Hear, hear!” everyone yelled, even if they didn’t have a glass. Randall handed her a 7Up and clinked glasses with her. Someone else clicked on CNN, and plastered across the bottom of the screen were the words CONWAY RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. Just seeing those words made Emma feel giddy. This was actually happening, and she’d been the one to kick it off.

  The only person who wasn’t smiling or drinking was Tom Beckett. He was already in a corner, typing furiously on his laptop, on to managing the next crisis.

  By the time Emma left the room she had two texts from Carina.

  Holy SHNIT, read one.

  Double Holy SHNIT, read the next.

  And there was a third text, from Lizzie:

  Do u know what u’ve started here???

  Emma laughed out loud for the first time that night. Then she sent a reply:

  Absolutely not.

  chapter 18

  The next morning Emma stepped into the shower and stood under the hot stream of water. She’d slept only two hours, but she felt wide awake, so awake that she sang a little tune as she lathered up her hair. She assumed that by now the news had traveled to every media outlet in the country, and the announcement was probably on all the news crawls, in all capital letters: CONWAY RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. Here we go, she thought. Let’s rock this thing.

  When she’d dried off she pulled on the jeans, ripped T-shirt, and long black cardigan she’d worn on the train and stuffed her Betsey Johnson dress back into her duffel. It was tempting to turn on CNN and get a peek at the news, but watching a bunch of people yelling about her dad’s decision—either for it or against it—would be too weird right now.