by Amy Faye
Linda takes a deep breath again, closes her eyes again, and steps out the door in as much of a hurry as you can go in heels and a tight-fitting skirt. Which isn't as fast as she'd like, which in turn is why she's not paying close enough attention to avoid the broad-shouldered man in a thousand-dollar suit.
He's surrounded by advisers, a few reporters with their microphones pointed right at his mouth, but the powerful strides keep him out in front of the swarming mass, and in a perfect position for Linda to ram right into him.
"Miss Owens. Glad you could make it," he says. He smiles. His voice is warm and inviting. Just like it sounds on the television. She's heard him since she was a little girl. He was younger, then. Age hasn't slowed him down a bit. She takes in a breath and forces herself to still.
"Mr. Quinn. Nice to finally meet you."
He sweeps an arm around her waist and turns to the crowd. She can't help noticing the way that his arms seem to fit around her waist. She can't help letting him guide her, as if he were there just to control her.
"I'd like you all to meet my new campaign manager, Miss Linda Owens. She's great, you're all going to love her." A microphone gets shoved into Linda's mouth.
She wasn't supposed to be dealing with an announcement right now. Not until the press conference Friday afternoon.
But then, running a political campaign, whether it was for Mayor or for Governor, for Congress or for President, was about dealing with the unexpected.
In Adam Quinn's case, of course, the unexpected was a little more common.
Chapter Two
Linda's home life, unlike her job, was easy. A cute little sweetheart of a dog that wasn't looking for any trouble. He never yapped. At least, not in front of her.
She flips on the news, because there's no time when the news cycle isn't going. Pizza could be great. She's already dialing the numbers into her phone by the time that the audio really kicks in from the television.
And as usual, it turns her stomach.
There's got to be some law out there about exactly how little the news knows what they're talking about. There's internet 'laws' that claim to govern and describe scientifically how internet discussions will go. Poe's law, for example, suggests that all arguments will eventually end in someone being compared to Hitler.
And sure, Adam's been compared to Hitler by several internet commentators. That's not Linda's concern. That's a perception problem. They just have to re-frame the situation. Right now, things look bad, but they always look bad at first.
Donnie jumps up into her lap and pushes his head under her hand. She scratches his head absently. The pizza should be here in about half an hour, which is plenty of time to catch the rest of the evening news.
The new boss is something else. This is her first time on the biggest stage of them all, of course. Maybe they're all like this. Certainly, there are horror stories about every candidate. Stories about people insulting all their staff, treating them like garbage.
Stories about candidates who have had hundreds or thousands of their acquaintances 'mysteriously disappear' and wind up dead in a bathtub in Tijuana. But whether it's luck or skill or just picking the right people, Linda doesn't have to deal with those people.
No, she just has to deal with a man who's never been political about anything in his life.
Married four times. Four. All of the wives, of course, still alive. It's not hard to get ahold of them, either. And they're all ready to talk about it. No secrets, whether you like it or not.
Then there's the girlfriends. Some of them during the marriages, some of them before, some between. There may have been a few since the most recent divorce, but Linda doesn't know about them. And since Mr. Quinn's There's something almost charming about it, because you know he's not doing it on purpose. It's right there on his face.
He likes dating. He likes women. He likes going out with women. Presumably, he likes fucking them, and they're not afraid to admit that they liked fucking him too. The phrase 'couldn't walk right for a week' had been uttered at least twice in the past thirty years, since he'd jumped to the front of the papers with his front-page breakup with the Princess of Spain.
If he'd known, thirty years ago, that he was planning to run for office, maybe he should have managed his life more quietly. Politicians are people, too. They're men, and women, with needs and the money to get what they want. To get what they need.
The reason it's a big deal when someone gets caught cheating on their wife isn't because they were cheating on their wife, after all.
It's because they got caught.
Adam Quinn has gotten caught so many fucking times that it's unbelievable. More unbelievable, still, is the fact that he's doing as well as he is in the polls. Which is why it's absolutely imperative that he turn this ship around as soon as possible.
The sleeping around, fine. Do it quietly, if you have to do it. But there's no stopping him, so he's going to keep doing it.
The brash boldness is great, as long as it's under a little bit of control.
But for God's sake, please, Adam, stop getting caught doing shit and stop throwing curve-balls to your team. Her face appeared on the TV. She looks like hell. She felt like hell at the time. Three cups of coffee and she was jittery, and never mind the need to use the lavatory, she had to give a little impromptu press statement.
Of course Mr. Quinn hadn't been worried about why she was leaving. Of course he wasn't. That would be too convenient, too polite.
No, he was just doing what came naturally. There was some charm in that. And Linda had to admit, if she hadn't been in exactly the position she was in, she wouldn't have minded.
He sounds just like he does on TV. Sounds incredible. He's got a voice for radio, and he always knows what to say in order to get himself plastered all over the evening news, whether he's running for President or not.
What nobody had so-far managed to capture was his looks. The hair looked too tight, too square, too boring on TV. They had to fix his glaring eyes, his military hair-cut. They had to make him look charismatic and like a leader. He had to look like a movie star, or nobody was going to be remotely impressed.
What the cameras utterly failed to capture was the look that he had in person.
The doorbell rings, pulling her halfway out of her reverie. Linda mutes the TV and stands up. Donnie jumps down obediently and follows her to the door. No barks, so different from all the other yappie dogs that she's known. A sweetheart.
A boy on the other side of the door has a pizza in his arms and a blue and black uniform shirt on. Linda fishes out the money that she's going to have to pay, along with a respectable tip.
The cameras didn't manage to capture his look at all. She'd been watching him since she was ten years old. He was all over the TV, then, and he'd been all over it ever since. A man with presence, with personality, with a voice to die for.
And the one thing that she hadn't realized, a gaze that made a woman's knees go weak. She thought she was prepared for this job. She was a professional. She'd dealt with philanderers before. With serial adulterers. They get what they want because they've got enough money to buy it.
That wasn't the case for Adam Quinn. The way he looked at her, she'd have dropped to her knees right there in front of the press, God, and everybody, and she'd have done it for free.
Chapter Three
Adam Quinn sits down for the first time tonight, and for an instant he allows himself to enjoy the respite from the day's work. He lets it wash over him and then looks at the clock. Eleven-thirty. Still work to be done. It's time to start taking himself more seriously again.
There's work that's left to be done. Work that he needs to be doing. If he can't even keep up with his usual workload, then he might as well drop out of the race. The American people don't need a president who can't work a few long days.
He stands up and flicks the news on, walking away and not particularly listening until he hears a familiar voice that catches in his mind.
Not right now, not while he's running for President. Not with her. That would be a terrible idea. Still, he can't take his eyes away. She looks good. She's more comfortable with the cameras than most people who Quinn plucks from the rank-and-file.
Up until now, she's probably mostly been in the background. Campaign manager is a terrible name for what she's doing. But then again, how else would he explain her presence?
No, her job is to mop up his messes, so that he can make them with impunity, and that's exactly what Adam has every intention of doing.
America needs a mess. They need a mess to understand exactly how bad the situation they've gotten themselves into. And he's more than ready to be that mess, if it means that everything else starts getting worked on as well.
He forces himself to turn away from it. There's other work to be done. At least two calls to be made, and the sooner the better. Anything else can be done any time. He can wait until three in the morning if he has to. But the phone calls? At some point, they'll go to sleep.
He picks up the phone. Tom Delaney won't be asleep, but if he only makes one call, then it has to be to Tom. Three rings, and the call connects.
"Yeah?"
"Tom? Is this a bad time?"
"Adam Quinn. You son of a bitch. I was wondering when you were going to call. How's politics treating you?"
"If these boys had to spend five minutes in the business world I think their heads would pop clean off," I tell him. And it's true.
I turn back towards the TV just in time to see Linda walk away from the cameras. They have better taste than to watch her ass while she walks, but I can imagine it pretty well anyways.
"Yeah, they're still green on some shit. Then again, I suppose you already knew that."
"Suppose I did."
"You been feeling alright? Still sleeping, what, six hours a night? Five?"
"Four most nights."
"Shit."
"You don't hear me complaining, do you?"
"I guess not."
"Look, I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing in a minute. I just needed to get in touch with you. I'm interested in your, shall we say, particular brand of political advice. When can you start?"
Delaney doesn't respond right away; a fraction of a second that I can only imagine is spent pretending to look at his watch. "When does your office open tomorrow morning?"
"Good man. I'll talk to you more tomorrow."
"Sure thing."
I disconnect the call without hanging up the phone and start dialing immediately. Some folks have PR people. I suppose I should, too. But there are some things important enough that you take care of them yourself.
A woman's voice answers the phone. She doesn't sound tired, but she does sound distracted.
"Ellen Holden, who's this?"
"Ellen? It's Adam Quinn."
I hear something fall off the table on her end of the line.
"Uh. One second. Jeff, can you get me a notepad and a pen? Five minutes ago. Go."
"I can wait. You sound busy."
"No, not at all. Thanks for calling. What can we help you with?"
"You called my office earlier. An interview, I think?"
"Yes, we were asking about that."
"What were you thinking?"
"Thank you, Jeff. Uh. We were thinking…" Adam wonders if she's waiting on advice from a production manager. Television is a mess. There's no other way to put it. A god damned mess.
Quinn's met Ellen once or twice, and if he's learned one thing, it's that she's smart as a whip. If they just let her control her own damned show, they'd have something ready to air all the time.
But there's too much for any one person to do, between setting up teleprompters, gathering stories, writing copy, getting the set design just right, getting clothes just right, makeup, everything.
She's smart enough to do it, and she's smart enough to hire the right people for the things she can't do herself. But of course, the network wouldn't let anyone fly solo. No chance in hell.
So they put their greedy little fingers in everything, and it comes out a big mess, and everyone gets to act surprised that it didn't all go perfectly smoothly.
"Ellen?"
"Sorry, I was just confirming something. Yeah. We've got a slot open tomorrow afternoon?"
"No. Too soon. What would you say to an exclusive next week? Thursday."
"An exclusive?" Her voice is trying to hide the sound of her pleasure at the idea. She can't afford to tip her hand too much. Not for any reason, really.
"I'd expect that you would put in a certain amount of effort to making sure that people who might be interested in it would know it's coming up."
"And you won't be doing any interviews before that?"
"Nothing sit down, not with me. I want to keep the mystery up a little."
"Okay. You got it, then."
"Are we filming this? Or doing it live?"
"Which would you prefer?"
"You know what I'd prefer, Ellen. I'd prefer to be able to get whatever I say straight to the people."
"You're still not going to be able to say 'fuck' on live TV. It's on a delay."
"Not even a little one?" I let her hear the laugh.
"Not even a little one. They don't even let me say it."
"No, I suppose not. Well, live is better than edited, I think."
"Live it is, then."
"I'll see you in a week," he says, and he sets the phone into its cradle.
A week is a long time, and he's going to have to give her plenty to talk about in that time. Plenty to talk about means plenty of coverage. And an exclusive interview is the perfect time to assure people that it's all under control.
The perfect time, indeed.
Chapter Four
Adam Quinn takes his coffee black. He's avoided sugar. It's one of the things to which he attributes his health. There's something to be said for the amount of time in the day that you have when you barely sleep, but it's hell on your constitution.
In spite of that, he's been going hard and strong for years. No sick days. No days that he's considered it.
Politicians have to be careful about what they do with their recreation time. They can't afford to get caught by the wrong people with a nose full of coke, or a heroin needle in their arms.
Of course, for the sort of person who needs to run for President, needs to run for Senate, needs to make a career out of being loved by people… that sort of constant threat is exactly what they want. They can't get enough of it. They need to be taking risks all the time.
When you're in business, risk is something that's very important. Something to be managed carefully. You don't want to take too much. If you bet everything on a turn of the die, you're a fool.
But if you don't take enough risk… then you don't grow. You might as well be gambling your entire business on the other guys all blowing themselves up. Which they might do, but it's not a winning bet.
Now, the twist comes in. Because you have to take the right risks. It's not okay to say, well, I'll just hedge my bets in business, but I'll play it risky by also driving NASCAR. That's risky, right?
Well, sure. But it's a risk that doesn't pay off.
Drugs are a risk that doesn't pay off. Alcohol isn't even a risk. It's got no payoff at all, never mind one that equalizes the value. Sugar… well, sugar's a fair question. A man might choose to consume sugar and he wouldn't be wrong in doing so.
Call it a little risk. And it's paying off. Stay healthy, and then when your country needs someone to come in and introduce a little healthy risk, you're strong enough to do the job and you don't have a nasty coke habit to kick.
Or a nasty Coke habit, for that matter, so you don't have to explain why it's totally fine th
at someone with a sixty-inch waist should be president. It keeps you out of the hospital, and that in turn keeps the papers from speculating that you might be dying any day now.
God only knows, celebrity magazines already had enough ammunition to throw at him, he didn't need to be giving them more.
The lights in the office flick on, and for the first time it occurs to Quinn that the lights were off. He'd been working on a computer, and the lights hadn't been needed, so he hadn't even considered it.
"Oh," a woman's voice says from the door. "Good morning, Mr. Quinn. I didn't realize you were in here."
"Linda. How are you feeling? You handling everything okay?"
She smiles faintly. I like that smile. She's able to very effectively skirt the hard-ass look that most women in the political arena develop. Too many people at the high level of politics, men and women, look like they're hoping for a chance to stick their foot up your ass and break it off.
"I'm feeling fine. You've really taken over the media since the announcement."
She clicks a remote, and a television on the wall turns from black to gray. A moment later, CNN starts playing. The morning show is going over the same things that they were talking about all yesterday, only now they're doing it with light-hearted banter.
"So, about this announcement from Adam Quinn, what? Is this a joke? Or something?" The host laughs. "I just. I'm really surprised. He's never seemed—"
His co-host pipes in. She's an attractive young woman. "No, I guess he hasn't. But if someone's going to do it—I mean, he's already done everything else, hasn't he? He must have been thinking, 'well, I might as well,' right?"
The chatter isn't adding to anything.
"Is that a problem for you, Miss Owens?"
"It's a lot to take in, but I don't think it's a problem, no."