Off Message

by A. C. Fuller

  "Ask me what you want to ask me," she says. "Ask me the question Peter brought me here to answer."

  "Would you consider donating to Ameritocracy, Betty?"

  "I would. But why should I donate now? Why not wait to see if Cecilia wins, then donate directly to her general election campaign?"

  "You said yourself that there were other women you admired in the top ten. More than one of them has an excellent shot of winning."

  "Oh, Mia, we both know that a man is probably going to win in the end. If I was a betting woman, I'd bet the farm on Mast. Americans like to flirt with women candidates, and with radicals, but when it comes down to it, they're gonna pull the lever for Mast. He makes people feel safe."

  I opt not to tell her that voting on Ameritocracy doesn't require a lever. "I wouldn't be so sure about Mast." When she doesn't respond, I launch into my best pitch, the one I spent hours prepping with Steph. "We all have our favorite candidates, Betty, but America needs to see that people, especially successful women like you, are behind the concept of Ameritocracy. They need to see that democracy itself is more important than the outcome of any particular election."

  I walk a small circle, pretending like I'm thinking. At one time, it would have bothered me to be so calculating, so blatantly performative. But I'm living what will probably be the first line in my epitaph, and I want to nail it. "Take the election of 1800, for example. It was a brutal affair. Scandalous. After eight years of President Washington, John Adams had served four and Thomas Jefferson desperately wanted to unseat him. Jefferson and Adams were practically at war.

  "Each candidate controlled half the press, and they tore each other apart. Jefferson was painted as an atheist adulterer, Adams a dictatorial tyrant. Jefferson won, but for quite a while it wasn't clear whether the country would survive the contest. The idea of America was at stake and it was genuinely unclear whether it would survive.

  "When Adams left town on the morning of Jefferson's inauguration—March fourth, 1801— it marked the first time in history that power had changed hands between warring political groups without bloodshed." I pause for effect. "The first time in human history. Now, don't you wish you could go back to that time and, instead of taking a side—Jefferson or Adams, Adams or Jefferson—don't you wish you could invest in the idea of a fair contest, a contest that would set America on a democratic path that, despite its many failings, has lit the world ever since?"

  I pause to make sure I still have Betty's attention, and I do. A young couple behind us is listening as well. "America is in a similar place now," I continue, "and it's not clear whether democracy will survive. We all have our favorites. But I'm asking you to support something much larger than a personal preference. I'm asking you to support the concept of evolved democracy that has the potential to light the world in the twenty-first century."

  If Betty had brought a duffel bag full of cash, she'd hand it over. Her eyes are wet and she's beaming. "I…I…" She reaches into her purse and pulls out a checkbook, literally speechless.

  A minute later, she hands me a check for a million dollars, made out to Ameritocracy. I study the For line at the bottom where, scrawled in old-fashioned cursive, she wrote one word.

  Democracy.

  As Betty and I part ways, I catch Peter's eye from across the room. He's in a classic three-piece suit, close-fitting and cut from cream-colored linen. He looks like Antonio Banderas auditioning for The Great Gatsby. I'd feel out of my league, except that I now live a life where people hand me million-dollar checks because I asked them to.

  "I wondered where you were," I say when we meet in the center of the room.

  "I saw you with Betty and didn't want to get in your way."

  The urge to wave the check and do a little dance is huge, but I fight it. "She gave a million," I offer casually.

  "I was hoping for more, but it's a good start."

  I take his hand and squeeze. "Happy birthday. Thanks for using your party as a fundraiser."

  He smiles slightly. "I think it's what DB would want."

  "He really did believe in the site. He…" I don't know what to say.

  "He really did. He…"

  Peter trails off, too. He and I have spoken about DB a couple times since the funeral, but we both know there's no way to put a positive spin on the situation.

  "Happy birthday, bro!" It's a loud voice from across the room.

  Peter and I turn at the same time as Dawson Gadschmidt struts toward us.

  "Oh no," I whisper.

  "Oh yes. I had to invite him. He's dating Margaret from FMH."

  "I remember."

  And boy, do I. I met them both at the Future Now Festival, also known as Burning Man for billionaires. Dawson was manic and sweaty, probably rolling on several drugs at once. Margaret was sane and classy, as one would expect from a senior executive at Family Media Holdings, one of the most powerful TV and film companies in the world. Now I see that a less-altered Dawson is still the same basic guy, only slightly more filtered.

  Dawson grasps Peter in one of those awkward man-hugs. "Broham! What the hell is up? Happy birthday, dude."

  He doesn't seem to notice me, which is fine. He looks more in control than the last time I saw him, but no less intense. After our brief interaction at Future Now, I would have been happy never to speak with him again if it wasn't for an offhand comment he made about Robert Mast. Weeks before Mast started running TV ads, Dawson knew about them. On its own, there was nothing strange about this. Since Dawson worked for FMH as well, it was plausible that he'd be tied into the world of TV ads.

  It was the amount that piqued my interest: $300,000. The ads ran in markets across the country. Robert Mast walking on a beach with his wife talking about values. Robert Mast standing in front of a tank talking about his military service and military preparedness. Robert Mast standing in front of an American flag holding a copy of his book, A Flag of Promise. There was nothing wrong with the ads, but when combined with Mast's other campaign strategies, they made me think he was running a campaign from 1996.

  When Dawson and Peter reach a lull in their bro-talk, I touch Dawson's arm lightly.

  Turning to me he says, "Oh, hey there Maya."

  "Mia," I correct.

  "Right, sorry. How's the Americana thing going?"

  Peter smirks at me. "Ameritocracy," he offers. I wonder if being corrected twice in two sentences means Dawson's lost some rich-guy dominance ritual I'm not familiar with.

  "Right, right. How's that going?"

  "Fine," I say, "but there's something I want to ask you."

  "Shoot!"

  "When we met before you mentioned that Robert Mast was making a big ad buy. How'd you know that?"

  "That? Oh dude, that was nothing. We let him piggyback on our ad rates at FMH."

  I want to yell WHAT? but I play it off like it's perfectly normal. "Sorry, piggybacked on what?"

  Dawson glances around the room, like he's looking for someone more important to talk to. "Our ad rates."

  I look at Peter, who shrugs.

  "Lemme make sure I get you," I say. "You folks at Family Media Holdings negotiate ad rates with TV networks, and, presumably you get a big discount because you buy in bulk?"

  "Right. Did the negotiation myself. Crushed it!"

  "And you somehow slid Mast's ads into your deals, so that he benefited from your lower ad rate?"

  "Saved the dude a ton of money."

  "Why? Why would you do that?"

  "Dude's a war hero, so why not? Gotta respect the troops."

  "So's Maria Ortiz Morales. Did you help her as well?"

  "Mr. Gunstott likes to help out his bros sometimes."

  I swallow hard, trying to keep myself from blurting out something I'll regret. "You mean Dewey Gunstott?"

  Dawson is distracted again, eyeing the room, but Peter says, "He's the CEO of FMH."

  It's an understatement. Gunstott built FMH from a tiny tax dodge into one of the largest media companies on ear
th, and had been personally implicated in some of their remarkably shady business practices. He also has ties to the CIA, if I remember correctly.

  I hold my gaze on Dawson until he turns around. "What?" he asks.

  Peter touches my hand, as if to tell me not to go any further, but my head is spinning and I have to get a straight answer out of him. "You're telling me that Dewey Gunstott told you to throw your low ad rates to Robert Mast, so he could benefit from them?"

  Dawson glances at Peter, then at me. "Dude, chill. It's nothing. We do stuff like that all the time. We—" He stops suddenly and points at a man across the room. "Dude, it's Chucky Grossman. I gotta go talk to that guy."

  He shakes Peter's hand hurriedly and leaves.

  "What was that about?" Peter asks.

  "I'm not sure, but…ugh!"

  "What?"

  "After the Thomas Morton thing, then DB…I just can't."

  "Can't what?"

  "Can't deal with another problem with a leading candidate. You heard Dawson."

  "You're thinking it's an illegal, in-kind donation to give Mast the lower ad rates?"

  "Not illegal, but possibly in violation of our policies. That's not all, though. I've wondered for a couple months where he was getting the money and…"

  "And what?"

  "I have a creeping suspicion that something is going on. Like I said, ugh!"

  Peter smiles. "Don't worry. If something's going on, you'll figure it out."

  "And it's your birthday. Let's get a drink and raise some damn money."

  Over the next three hours, I have several interactions that follow the same script as my conversation with Betty:

  Meet a potential donor.

  Make a minute or two of small talk.

  Listen as they tell me about their favorite Ameritocracy candidate.

  Transition to the subject of money.

  Drop a version of my closing argument, adjusted for the audience. For some, I use the election of 1800. For others, the Civil War or the turmoil of 1968.

  I remind the self-made millionaires in the room how it felt to be poor, highlighting how many of our candidates themselves came from nothing. For the old-money crowd, I rely on guilt by reminding them that they're rich partly because of the systems America had in place to create more wealth than at any other time in history. When I run into resistance, I trot out a guilt-inducing paragraph like, "I know a lot of older folks don't believe in what we're doing. They figure they got rich under the two-party system sometime in the last hundred years, so it must be okay. And honestly, I can understand that. It makes sense to them. It just doesn't make sense to me, you know? How about you?"

  And it works.

  By the time the party winds down, I've gotten checks for $7.2 million, more money than I thought I'd see in a lifetime. Exhausted, I find Steph and Benjamin on the lawn out front. "How'd you do?" I ask Steph.

  "She did awesome," Benjamin says. "What was it, honey?"

  "Two and a half million in checks."

  Steph mimics a mic drop, then looks at me as if to say, top that!

  "Hair over seven million." It's a shock to hear myself say the number out loud.

  Steph steps back. "What the what?"

  "I know, right?"

  "Almost ten million dollars combined," Benjamin says. "I'm fighting the urge to ask for a raise right now."

  "Sorry buddy," I say. "It's all going to the candidates. We have enough operating money to get to July at our current burn rate. Ten million is incredible. I mean...it's more than that. But it's still peanuts compared to what the Democrats and Republicans are raising, even when combined with what we already have." I'm about to go into my dismay about recent reports that the DNC and RNC have broken every previous fundraising record, but I've lost them. Benjamin points at an Asian man in a tuxedo who recently stepped onto the lawn.

  "I see him," Steph says.

  "What?" I ask.

  "You haven't gotten to Mr. Hanyu yet, have you?"

  "No," I say. "He was on your list and—"

  Steph and Benjamin are already walking away. Maybe the fact that I nearly doubled her fundraising inspired Steph to keep trying.

  I walk to a metal bench under an oak tree in the corner of the garden, away from the people but still in sight of the house. I bring the glass of wine to my nose and inhale deeply, taking in the stony, grassy scent. Back in Seattle, a nice glass of white wine was a once-a-week treat. At Peter's house, it flows freely, and I'm going to enjoy it. I take a long sip, then another, filling with gratitude as the alcohol hits me. I'm thankful for the night, for the party. Thankful for Peter and the outpouring of support Ameritocracy has received. Thankful that I managed to avoid Gretchen Esposito all night.

  But as often happens when I have a quiet moment, DB enters my mind, followed with feelings of guilt, loss, and confusion. I squirm, both in my seat and internally. It's unreal to be sipping wine, raising money, and continuing on as though nothing happened. But I don't see any other option.

  The more I sit with it, the more I realize that his suicide isn't something I'll be able to think my way out of. It just is. His parents and his sister have released a number of statements since his death, talking about his longtime struggle with depression that almost nobody knew about. They've even given his psychotherapist permission to discuss his treatment to some extent. I keep thinking of something his sister said on CNN: "People need to understand how many folks you see every day are just barely hanging on."

  If I'd known he was clinically depressed, would I have done anything differently? It certainly doesn't excuse his treatment of women. Most of all, I can't escape the feeling that if David Benson had never signed up for my website, he'd still be alive.

  "That's not true!" A faint male voice drifts from an open window on the first floor of the house.

  "I don't know what you think you saw, but you're clearly mistaken." The second voice is Peter's. He sounds irritated, even angry.

  I creep toward the window as the first voice says, "I'm just saying, you know it's not okay." I recognize Malcolm's voice and see his hightop fade from my vantage point below the window. He and Peter are in Peter's private study.

  "You've been a good assistant," Peter says, "but there are some things you need to stay out of if you want to keep your job. One of them is telling me what I do and do not know."

  It's a surprise to hear either of them agitated, as they are two of the most emotionally level people I know.

  "Mia!" It's Steph, calling me from across the lawn. I turn quickly, sipping my wine and hurrying towards her.

  "What were you doing?" she asks as Benjamin slides up beside her, displaying a check. "Never mind. Look."

  I read the check, which is made out to Ameritocracy for half a million dollars. Steph does another mic-drop gesture as I realize we just crossed the ten-million-dollar mark for the night.

  As she pulls me back into the party, I glance back at the window, wondering whether Peter and Malcolm are still arguing, and what they're arguing about.

  8

  After the party, Peter and I sit on stools in his kitchen as cleaning noises fill the house—vacuums, recycling, clinking glasses. His staff is hard at work.

  He's changed into a black silk robe and sips Red Bull out of a fancy cognac glass. "Care for a nightcap?" He holds up the glass with a grin.

  I've had to come to terms with the fact that Peter sometimes comes across as Scrooge McDuck, or the guy who runs the rich-kid summer camp in a bad eighties movie. I guess I made my peace with it on my second night at his place. After a dinner of Dover sole with lobster sauce and individual chocolate soufflés, we spent the night in bed watching Saved by the Bell on his massive TV. We have a shared fondness for cheesy shows from the nineties, and, I don't know, I guess I have a thing for dorks.

  But tonight I'm wiped out, not in the mood for his cedar sauna or two-person bathtub. "How do you sleep after drinking Red Bull this late?"

  "You want a glass of cognac
or not?"

  "I only had a glass or two of wine so...why not?"

  "You were awesome, by the way." He pours me what's probably a thirty-dollar glass of booze. "Ten million?"

  "A little over. I did everything I could to stay positive today, and I know it went well, but I…"

  He slides the drink across the marble counter. "What is it, Mia?"

  "DB. I can't get him out of my head."

  "Neither can I."

  "And Mast. That ad buy thing with Gadschmidt. I don't want to talk about it. We don't need to."

  I sip the cognac, which burns in a good way, but for some reason it's not soothing. And Peter can tell. He puts a hand on my knee. "What's going on tonight?"

  "I don't know. I'm just...something. Scared, maybe."

  "Did you eat anything at the party?"

  "You weren't serving Cobb salads."

  He hops up and heads for one of the two fridges. "There are other dishes. You need a sandwich."

  Peter claims to not be much of a cook, and from what I can tell he has at least two of them on staff. But late nights in his kitchen are like episodes of Top Chef.

  The kitchen is small by the standard set by the rest of his house. Peter calls it intimate, but it's almost as big as the apartment I grew up in. Not that I don't like it: it's got two ovens, an eight-burner gas range, and a huge center island that, I have to admit, Peter and I have twice used for activities other than sandwich making.

  He pulls out an assortment of little containers and baggies. "So, what's really going on?"

  "I'm just nervous."

  "I thought you were over that."

  He doesn't say it condescendingly, but it stings. A few months back, when Saturday Night Live did a sketch about me, I felt above it all. Now I feel like I'm being dragged back down into the mud. I don't say any of this to Peter. Something just feels off.

  "I know what it is," Peter says. "It's starting to feel real that one of the people in your top ten could be the next president. That makes sense."