"So I date, and sometimes a woman will stay over--maybe even because she likes me. That's how I get by."
Lexie placed a finger to her slightly parted lips. "You sure know how to sugarcoat things, Senator. Ever think about giving it up?"
"Dating?"
Lexie laughed softly. "Politics."
"What else would I do? Every now and then I'm offered the CEO job at some ersatz Halliburton that lives off government contracts. They sure as hell don't want me for my keen grasp of free enterprise; the idea is that I'd cash in my reputation and my contacts, buying dinners for government procurement officers or buttering up former colleagues--half of whom I'd never speak to voluntarily." Stopping himself, Corey smiled. "The simple truth is that I care about what I do, and I'm way too young to retire. So I'm stuck."
"In the Senate?"
"Seems like. Even though, more days than not, I feel like a man in a catatonic trance--unable to speak or move, but perfectly aware of everything around me. Including that our country is a shambles, and my party's still a devil's bargain between fundamentalists and the wealthy. It's pretty hard to watch."
"You're more than a bystander," Lexie demurred. "You carried a lot of people on your back today."
"Which was nothing but symbolic. Truth to tell, you were lobbying for a bill that'll be dead on arrival. The president will veto it as soon as it hits his desk. All I did was make more enemies."
Her smile reappeared. "Not all," she replied. "You also roiled the political waters. There's a job opening up next year, one where you could try to change everything you dislike."
Corey toyed with his glass. "I know that," he said finally. "And everyone else has always known it. That's another reason Janice left me. She knew the price I'd pay, and that I'd be willing to pay it."
"Then maybe you've paid it already."
"Maybe so."
The waitress arrived to take their orders. When she left, Lexie sipped her water, momentarily silent. "So are you running?" she asked. "You've got a great story, as they say at pitch meetings, and charm to burn. You even do candor well, and the people I meet are just dying for a little of that."
"You make it sound like auditioning for a part," Corey answered. "If I ran for president and got slaughtered, I'd lose whatever influence I have as someone who might become president. Today's suicide mission illustrates the problem. In a single vote I managed to further estrange the current president, piss off the Senate majority leader, and incense a boatload of Christian conservatives. Put them all together and it adds up to a death wish."
"Isn't that part of your charm?"
"Enough of the amateur hour," Corey protested with a laugh. "You know just enough to be dangerous, Lexie. So let's explore reality.
"Rush Limbaugh's beating me around the head and ears. Marotta's nailed down the money people. The gun nuts, creationists, anti-environmentalists, and other members of the party's flat-earth coalition hate me like some dread disease. And the people who like me, the moderates and good government types, have been shunted to the margins or left the party altogether." Despite himself, Corey felt his frustration breaking through. "Do I want to be president? Sure. But I'd have to launch a holy war for the soul of the Republican Party, trying to wrench it away from the Christys and Marottas and into my version of the twenty-first century. The people behind Marotta, like Alex Rohr and Magnus Price, don't give up power voluntarily--you'd have to pry their fingers off the wheel. The campaign would be bloody and brutal, an absolute cesspool. And I'd lose."
Taking another sip of mineral water, Lexie regarded him over the rim of her glass. "What about a third party?"
"I've thought about it. But no one's ever done that and won. And if I did win, both parties would make it impossible to govern." Smiling, Corey added, "I'm sure all this is fascinating. But as George Hamilton would say, 'Enough about me.' Why don't we turn to your life for a while?"
The look she gave him was not inviting. "What part?"
"Take your pick. The scholarship to the University of South Carolina, the two years in the Peace Corps, your time at Yale Drama School, your stellar record of activism in causes rock-ribbed Republicans despise. Maybe your star turn as the first black Lady Macbeth on Broadway, or how it felt to win an Oscar." Corey grinned. "So much to choose from. Personally, I'm most interested in your marriage. Seems only fair, doesn't it?"
Lexie raised her eyebrows. "Guess you Googled me."
"Yup."
At this moment, dinner arrived. "I'm flattered," Lexie informed him. "And hungry. The story of my life can wait."
DINNER AFFORDED HIM time to study her more closely. Like much else about her, Lexie's appetite was straightforward: she savored her filet mignon without any pretense of reserve. But Corey continued to sense that there was a considerable part of her that, for all her poise and confidence, she chose to withhold from others. What eluded him were the reasons, though there were many possibilities--starting with the fact that she was black.
Clearly she was beautiful: her high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes betrayed, he learned, a trace of Native American ancestry. But what drew him was her hyperalertness, a mixture of thought and feeling constantly at work--watchful eyes, a quick tongue, a smile that flashed and vanished but conveyed a myriad of emotions. Knowing this woman could be well worthwhile but, even were it possible, the process might take years.
As they finished dinner, Corey asked, "Don't talk to the press much, do you?"
"No-o-o," she answered in a tone of satiric horror. "Maybe I'm like my Blackfoot ancestors, who thought a photograph would steal your soul."
"And yet you're a celebrity."
"True. But that's the price tag for doing what I want to. So I pay it."
Corey took a sip from his glass of wine. "Did the price include your marriage?"
Lexie studied the table, pondering her answer or, perhaps, deciding whether to answer at all. "Ron was a screenwriter," she said at length. "He was black, well educated, and seemed to have the same values I did. And we were both at the beginning of our careers, more hopeful than successful.
"Overnight, it seemed, I broke through--parties, premieres, the things that happen when you're on the rise. Suddenly Ron was 'Mr. Hart'--he never knew why he got the jobs he did, especially when nothing he wrote became a film."
Abruptly, she stopped. "Then what happened?" Corey asked.
Lexie gave a small movement of her shoulders. "Our marriage became a cliche: one night I flew back early from a movie set in Paris and discovered he'd been cheating on me. Suddenly it was over--Ron believed he'd found love at last."
"Sounds like the price of celebrity to me. Or maybe the price of his insecurity."
Lexie returned her gaze to the tablecloth. "Maybe both. But all Ron said was 'You're not home to me, Lexie. There's something about you I can't touch.'"
Though soft, the words seemed to bear the weight of her own self-doubt. "Do you think that's fair?" Corey asked.
Lexie shrugged again. "These days, it's so hard for me to know. People think I can have any man I want. But it's not that simple--I seem to scare men off, or make them feel small. And I don't mean to."
For an instant, Corey felt her solitude, and chose to lighten the moment. "Look at yourself," he admonished with a smile. "You're way too beautiful, and way too smart. What's the average pitifully insecure male supposed to do with that?"
Though her own smile was rueful, Lexie seemed relieved at being probed no further. "Mama always said I had a mouth on me. Sure got that right, didn't she?"
Corey was quiet for a moment. "After dessert," he suggested, "why don't we take a walk. Seems like we've got the night for it."
Briefly, Lexie regarded him across the table, and then gave him something close to a genuine smile. "Guess a walk couldn't hurt us, could it?"
10
"SOUTH CAROLINA," LEXIE TOLD HIM, "IS A FUNNY PLACE--FILLED with bigots, evangelists, storytellers, some truly wonderful folks, and more crazy people than you can c
ount. But it still feels like home to me."
They had walked for a time in the cool of a late September night, and then sat on a park bench near Lexie's hotel, gazing at the traffic through the shadowy branches of trees. "Your home," Corey remarked, "is also the site of a critical primary election, and about the dirtiest politics you can find. A lot of it involving race."
"You don't need to tell me, Senator--it wasn't easy growing up there. But now my uncle's a congressman, and I'm South Carolina's reigning Citizen of the Year. So I guess we've made some progress. Or maybe it's more that I have."
Corey looked at her sideways. "When did you start acting?"
"Early." In the shadows, Lexie's smile seemed reflective. "It was sort of sad, really. Acting was my escape."
"From what?"
"Daddy had a heart condition--the next heart attack, the doctors said, would kill him. The message I got from Mama was 'Be good, be quiet, keep your daddy's world a certain way, or maybe you'll be the thing that does him in.'" She slowly shook her head. "When I look at pictures from that time, I see this skinny, sad-faced girl.
"What I remember is withdrawing. I'd go sit under that mossy tree in the backyard and read for hours, lost in my own world. I bet I was the only nine-year-old black girl in Greenville who cried over Wuthering Heights. Then I discovered acting, and how you could turn into somebody else."
"Was there a particular 'somebody' you liked best?"
"Yeah," Lexie answered with a laugh. "A bit part in The Crucible--a teenaged girl in the grip of hysteria. I got to scream, right out loud, and it wasn't going to kill my daddy. And I realized I felt freer on the stage than I'd ever felt off it.
"A part of me still does. I can be in a play, acting in front of friends who've come to see me, and then have nothing to say to them afterward. Macbeth was like that. But most of the time I know how to turn it off--I go home now and I'm Lexie Hart, not somebody else."
The story intrigued him, both for its own sake and because, Corey guessed, she seldom talked about herself. "But is acting still an escape for you?" he asked.
"Yes and no. Maybe politics is vicious, but my form of make-believe comes with its own harsh reality--Hollywood can be like the world's meanest high school, filled with some of the most treacherous people on earth. And I'm almost thirty-seven. If you're a woman and over thirty, you can be obsolete in a nanosecond." Briefly, she glanced at him. "Some days you feel pretty much alone. But then what do they say about Washington: 'If you want a friend, get a dog'?"
Corey laughed. "I'd just have to pay someone to take care of it. So how do you deal with all that?"
Lexie contemplated the grass at her feet. "By limiting my own success, in a way. After I won the Oscar, I didn't want to be hijacked by the machine, posing for every magazine in somebody's designer gowns, or making bad, expensive movies pitched to eighteen-year-old guys." She shook her head and smiled. "Though there was one where I fired a laser gun and said, 'Take that, furball.' Every now and then, you just have to take their money--if only to pay for work that matters more.
"But mostly I pick films that will stretch me, even if nobody sees them. I guess it's like what you said about deciding to run for president: I don't want to do what other people expect me to do and wind up earning their contempt for doing it. Or maybe feeling contempt for myself." Lexie paused, then finished softly: "What I can never figure out is whether that makes me proud or just afraid. Ever ask yourself that question?"
"All the time."
They fell silent together. It struck Corey how alike their worlds were--perhaps they were--and yet, in many ways, how different. "What's the hardest part," he asked, "being a woman or being black?"
Lexie responded with a mirthless laugh. "In Hollywood or in life?"
"Both, I guess."
She turned to face him. "Life's a bigger subject than we've got time for. But, as in life, race is the hardest thing in Hollywood.
"That can't be a surprise to you. The number of roles for white actors versus black is a lot like the ratio of white to black senators--ninety-nine to one, the last time I looked." Her voice became flat, and perhaps a little weary. "If you're a woman, getting older, and you're black, you just have to keep fighting for good parts.
"Some of the trouble is that the male writers who dominate the film business don't create credible women--let alone black women--so much as recycle old stereotypes. Or maybe their stereotypes: sign up to play somebody's mother, and it turns out you're playing their mother. So you just try to find the humanity in whoever you've agreed to be."
"And when you're forty-seven?"
Looking at him more closely, Lexie said, "I've been talking a lot, Senator--"
"Corey."
"Okay, Corey," she said in a slightly sardonic tone. "Feels like I've been performing a monologue. How much of what I do can really interest you?"
How could he penetrate, Corey wondered, the layers of her mistrust? "Pretty much all of it," he answered. "So now I find myself wondering what's ahead for you."
After a moment, she shrugged. "Producing films I care about--maybe directing them as well. But I'll need financial backing. And the moneymen in film are often as crass as they are powerful. Alex Rohr, for example--he's where our worlds connect.
"Beyond that, I'd like to do more plays. They can be wonderful--every night, the same character turns out a little different." Glancing at Corey, she said, "And politics, of course. For me, that started as early as acting did."
"Because of civil rights?"
"That, and just plain being poor." Her voice softened. "Mama always loved the Kennedys, the idea that rich folks somehow cared about her life. So I learned to connect government with lifting people up--that we had this obligation to see to one another.
"As a celebrity I've got the power to do something--at least until the fame runs out. But fame has also made me careful." Pausing, she pulled her suit coat more tightly around her shoulders, as though warding off a chill. "There are plenty of people in your business I don't like at all. But I know how hurtful it can be to live your life in public. So I try very hard to keep focused on the issues, even when politicians come after me--or my industry--in a personal and nasty way."
"You're a bit of a target," Corey responded. "Personally, I don't much care if some actor decides to go off on me. But I care a lot about the kind of crap the entertainment world inundates our kids with. That's where Christy and I can find some common ground."
"Even about censorship?" Lexie asked pointedly.
"Not that. But I sure as hell think your industry can do better than it does. I also think you know it." Corey felt the cell phone vibrate in his pocket, the silent ringing used to alert him to what, at this hour, was some no doubt urgent message. "Look," he added in a mollifying tone, "the sins of show business aren't about you and me. I just didn't feel like sitting on my opinions."
"Oh, this much we agree about--my industry can do a whole lot better by black people than the kind of trash they make about us. There's a movie I want to produce that's all about that. Assuming I can ever get it off the ground."
Judging from the frustration in her voice, this was as important to her as anything she had mentioned. "Tell me about it," Corey requested.
Slowly, Lexie shook her head. "It's a long story, and it's getting late."
Disappointed, Corey shrugged. "Perhaps next time, then."
For a long time, Lexie held his gaze. "Maybe it's what you've been asking, and what I've chosen to tell you. Or maybe it's just me. Whatever, I'm feeling the need to be honest.
"You seem like a decent guy, Corey. I've enjoyed tonight, and I'm very grateful for your vote today. But I can't stand your political party--to me, it's carried the stench of racism and privilege ever since most of the segregationists in South Carolina made it their new home."
"I didn't invite them," Corey interrupted. "And I don't like them."
"Still, they're part of the company you've chosen to keep." Though Lexie's voice softened, h
er tone was firm. "Maybe, on some things, we could agree to disagree. Maybe all this sounds incredibly bizarre to you--my own personal brand of bigotry. But race cuts deep for me. If I have to argue with somebody about it, or ask them to consider what I've been forced to think about since the day I figured out I wasn't white, it's way too much to take on."
Nettled, Corey stood, hands jammed in his pockets. "So people can never change or grow, and all Republicans are alike? That's pretty condescending. Why not just let the two of us be people?"
Folding her arms, Lexie said quietly, "As you acknowledge, you're a busy man with large ambitions. So why does it matter to you? Do I symbolize some sort of outreach program, or am I today's new challenge?"
The question had just enough truth to sting Corey and, for a moment, silence him. But the answer that came to him felt like a deeper truth. "I really can't explain this, Lexie, and I'll be damned if I'll jump through hoops for you. But somehow it feels like you matter--you, not some random African-American, Oscar-winning movie star. I can't imagine spending time with you and just going through the motions. And at the risk of sounding conceited, I'm big enough for you."
Even in the moonlight, Corey could detect her smile of skepticism. "Because you're a senator?"
"Because you don't scare me. I'm not even particularly in awe of you. That leaves me free to like you and, believe it or not, take a genuine interest in how you see the world--including my world. I may even be capable of sorting out your unbelievable defensiveness from your incredible lack of tact. So, yes, I think I'd like to see you again."
The Race Page 9