The Perfect Candidate

by Peter Stone

  She did. A pretty formidable punch, actually, which I answered with a bear hug.

  “I think you’ve ruined me for Princeton guys, Cameron Carter. You’ve made quite an impression. On me and this town.”

  “You mean you aren’t going to be able to find another guy who brought down a ranking congressman in two and a half months?”

  “Don’t go talking like you did it alone,” she replied and kissed me. As I kissed back, headlights started to flash at us. It was Oscar, parked across the street and waiting to pick her up. She shot a look of annoyance, amusement, and rage his way, and the flashing stopped.

  “That’s my . . .” She started to explain.

  “. . . your ride,” I said. “I don’t think those Princeton guys are going to appreciate this chaperone of yours everywhere.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, he’s not coming with me.” She laughed. “I’ll just be a normal girl there.”

  She stepped toward the car and then darted back at me for a last, quick kiss. Oscar honked the horn. We both laughed, and she crossed the street.

  As she closed the car door, I shouted, “Lena!”

  She rolled down the window and looked back at me, trying to inconspicuously wipe away a tear. Oscar started to ease the hulking black SUV down the street.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s not going to happen,” I told her. “You’ll never be a normal girl.”

  30

  Zeph and Hillary were still asleep when I left the apartment for the last time. Given the Top 50 controversy, I thought it best to give Hillary some breathing room and not wake them up to say good-bye. We could reunite in the Bay Area sometime.

  My rolling suitcase banged down each step of the building, and I helped the driver lift it into the deep trunk of the taxi. During the forty-five-minute drive to Dulles, an anxious man and domineering woman went at each other on the radio. They were speculating about the BIB scandal—what it meant for the party, the country, the world. The woman suggested that there could be more deaths. The man wondered if there were other accomplices beyond a penitent hitman. And who was this “lasirenita”?

  “Radio okay with you?” asked the driver as we drove across the Potomac River.

  “Sure,” I instinctively said. The couple went on about poor Nani Lancaster—betrayed by her mentor just after her daughter dies.

  “Look for Lancaster to really step up after the elections. Her future as a leader in the party is in the bag,” the woman declared.

  “Actually,” I told the driver, “can you just turn it off?” He obliged, and all we heard was an occasional quick ripple of the tires rolling over cracks in the road. As we headed north on the George Washington Memorial Parkway, I looked back. The Lincoln and Washington memorials gleamed white against the mostly green and leafy landscape of the city. I thought about the grime that was hidden in the cracks of those structures. I thought about the buses of tourists who emptied out into the Capitol building and the Smithsonians. They’d take their pictures and see Ford’s Theater and maybe even meet a photogenic congressman—and then go home humming the national anthem under their breath. I envied them. I thought about Katie and where they’d taken her—where she’d end up.

  And I felt lucky to be getting out of the city alive.

  But mostly and oddly, I thought about Lagrima, and how good it would feel to mow a lawn again. Back and forth, back and forth. Until the patch of grass was done, and I could call it a day.

  • • •

  I saw my dad before he saw me. He was wearing a jean jacket, hands in pockets. Berto stood at his side, texting on his phone. But my dad looked attentive, restless. The same way he would look when I got off the bus from summer camp—waiting to see me and confirm that I was safe. I was the only immediate family he had. How could it be any other way?

  They stood at the bottom of a long escalator in the arrivals area of the Oakland airport. The instant he saw me, his face changed from anxious to Sunday-morning chill. Like he didn’t want me to know he was worried. Like he’d known I was going to be fine all along.

  “Welcome home, son,” he said as we shook hands. After a summer of too-smooth and aggressive handshakes, his craggy hands and just-firm-enough grip felt like, well, home.

  “So one of us has to fly three thousand miles just to have a conversation?” chided Berto.

  “I guess so, you idiot.” Our cupped hands made a popping noise as we gave each other a quick hug. “And I know, I suck.”

  “What was that? I didn’t hear you,” Berto taunted.

  “I suck,” I said a little louder.

  “Oh yes, okay. And just so we’re clear—tell me why you suck?” He assumed the tone of a TV interviewer interrogating a disgraced celebrity.

  I played along. “Because I moved to a big city and it kind of took over my life, even though I didn’t really have a choice.”

  “Continue . . . ,” said Berto after a pause, taking pleasure in my contrition.

  “Dude, are we really doing this?” I said.

  “Yes, we are,” he said calmly.

  “Okay.” I cleared my throat. “And I forgot everyone and everything that’s really important to me . . . especially my dearest pal Humberto, who for the record did something strikingly similar to me on the night of junior prom when he said I couldn’t join the twelve-couple cool-kid group date he was a part of, and the only reason he was invited was because that cheerleader found that wrestler cheating on her with a flag girl, so she needed someone at the last minute. What was her name anyway . . . Paisley?”

  “Kayzlee,” said Berto under his breath. “And you’re slightly off topic.”

  “Kayzlee,” I repeated loudly as I nodded my head. I noticed my dad look at his watch as we continued the playful dive back into the ruts of an old fight renewed. “You could easily have fit two more people in that Hummer limo.”

  “It was a fire code thing,” said Berto. “And anyway—your counterpoint is noted, and your apology is accepted.”

  “And your brush with high school elites nearly destroyed you and everything you cherished,” I said, trying not to break a smile.

  “How was your flight?” my dad interrupted. He led us toward the baggage claim with a comfortably mundane change of conversation.

  Berto revealed that his mother was making a welcome lunch for us the next day, and I said, “You have no idea how good that sounds.”

  As we neared the conveyor belt of the baggage claim, I thought I saw Lena sitting nearby. In one of her signature long dresses, cinched at the waist with a broad brown belt. The look-alike then stood up and walked toward us, wheeling a tiny suitcase behind her. She looked a lot like Lena because she was Lena. Standing in front of me. In the Oakland airport.

  “Can I hitch a ride to Lagrima?” she asked. “Someone once told me it’s a very nice place.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked as my dad and Berto tried to contain their smiles. “How did you get here?”

  “I got in a couple hours ago. San Diego conference is on autopilot, and I had a few days to kill. I’ve never been to Lagrima before, so I thought to myself, Why not fly up there? And your friend Humberto proved very helpful with the timing and logistics,” she said as Berto savored my complete surprise.

  I laughed in amazement. “You what?” I looked at Berto.

  “You have a troubling pattern of underestimating my ability to find people and make things happen,” said Lena. “But I guess that’s all I can expect from one of the Fifty Hottest Staffers on Capitol Hill. . . .”

  “Excuse me?” asked my dad.

  “You mean, he didn’t tell you? Cameron was selected as . . . ,” Lena gladly began to explain.

  “No, no, no. Stop there,” I said. My dad would not appreciate the frivolous honor, and Berto already had enough to tease me about. “Let’s get a snack before we hit the road?”

  We drove to a sports bar near the airport, with Barry Manilow’s “Looks Like We Made It” serenading us the whole way there. We ente
red the bar to find that someone had turned the channel to a news network. Images of Capitol Hill corridors flashed across the screen—familiar and yet somehow a universe away.

  As we ordered food from the server, Lena asked if there was any edamame on the menu.

  In response, my dad, Berto, and the server said, “What’s that now?” “Excuse me?” and “Eda-what?” respectively.

  “It’s Cameron’s favorite,” replied Lena.

  Acknowledging the less-informed taste buds in our presence, I looked at Lena and said, “See, it’s not just me.”

  My dad shrugged his shoulders and went on. “Well, you guys can order anything you want. Actually, order three servings of anything you want. Lunch is on me.”

  “Dad, you don’t have to . . . ,” I said. Our family went Dutch at restaurants. When my dad took me to restaurants at all.

  “I could handle three Philly cheesesteaks,” said Berto.

  “No, I insist,” he said. “I was waiting to tell you in person, Cameron . . .”

  And then it hit me: The CVSU contract.

  “You remember that college job I lost a while ago?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, trying my best to seem surprised.

  “Well, I got a call yesterday, and they want me to do it. We got the CVSU contract, buddy. We got it.”

  Memo did it.

  “Congratulations,” said Lena.

  “Dad, that’s incredible! There’s no one who would do a better job. I’m really proud of you.”

  “Couldn’t have done it without your help,” he said.

  That’s one way of putting it, I thought. Though I didn’t plan to tell Dad about my extra nudge from across the country that summer.

  “Okay, so are we still getting three of everything?” asked Berto.

  I heard a familiar voice behind me on TV. It was Nani Lancaster—her voice a little bolder, more upbeat than when we’d last spoken. Perhaps just less drunk. But it was terrifying, all the same. I turned to look at her on TV. I was the only person in the restaurant watching. The ticker at the bottom of the screen read, “Rep Lancaster speaks out as former colleague Rep Beck resigns from Congress.”

  She looked confident, intense, and sharp. Ready. “My fellow Americans, only our judicial system and the Almighty will judge Congressman Beck. Thank you for your support and trust in these trying times for my family and our government. You have shown me that the American people care most about progress. We don’t dwell on scandal. . . .”

  Of course you don’t want anyone to dwell on this scandal.

  “We don’t point fingers. We move forward together. And God willing, this November, we will—”

  The channel abruptly changed to a football game, and multiple bar patrons erupted in cheers.

  I heard a familiar dull ding in my backpack. It took me an extra second to realize that I still had the flip phone from Memo. It was the first time I realize he had not retrieved it from me before I’d left.

  I unzipped my bag to see that there was a new message: Hey, son. Could I interest you in another assignment?

  I closed the phone and buried it deep within my backpack.

  Lena asked intelligent questions about landscaping, and my dad was happy to talk with her about his favorite subject. I smiled at her, and she held my hand. Berto’s eyes were fixed on the football game.

  I pulled my hand away from Lena to open my backpack again. I dug for the flip phone. The message was still there.

  My fingers hovered over the keypad as I started to write back.

  Epilogue

  The man opens the door to a small room and sees the woman watching a big-screen TV. Nani Lancaster is talking about the Almighty and elections and partnering with America.

  “Can you believe this?” she says to him, her open hand pointing at the TV. “Filling the vacuum. I called this one.”

  She sips piping-hot tea from a weathered UVA mug.

  “You know she called Cameron into her office. Freaked him out good,” he says.

  “Well, she didn’t scare him away completely,” she says, picking up a picture frame of a young boy and holding it in her hand.

  “He did a great job, you know,” he says. “When you carried out a pedestrian hit-and-run in front of the Mexican embassy, it didn’t hurt, but he did most of the work. You were right. He was perfect for the job. And I told him you’d be proud—just like you told me to.”

  “I’m good at making car accidents look real,” she says. “And you’re good at being Memo Adair.”

  They sit in silence as Lancaster reads an Abraham Lincoln quote. The woman opens a cabinet and pulls out a thick file with a sticker on it that reads, NANI LANCASTER.

  “Does the secure mobile line still work?” she asks.

  He activates the line and tells her she can text anything she wants. “But remember, he thinks it’s me who’s been on the other end all along. And you’re going to have a tough time getting him back here. I think he wants to stay in Lagrima.”

  “I thought that too, once,” she replies.

  She hesitates for a minute and then types:

  “Hey, son.”

  Her son.

  “Could I interest you in another assignment?”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First of all, thank you Neil Gaiman for this: “If you only write when you’re inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist because you’re going to have to make your word count today and those words aren’t going to wait for you whether you’re inspired or not. . . . The process of writing can be magical. . . . Mostly it’s a process of putting one word after another.”

  Fortunately, my sources of inspiration were never too faint or far away:

  Thank you to Washington, DC, for being my first thrilling, sour, indelible, heady taste of life beyond the town I grew up in. This story might resemble a burn book, but I promise it is a love letter.

  Thank you, Margaret Stohl, for the spark.

  Much gratitude to the spectacular Richard Abate and Rachel Kim—and the whole 3 Arts team—for the motivating mix of candor and genuine care.

  To everyone at Simon & Schuster, the customized attention and support I’ve felt from you completely belies what one might expect of a giant global publishing company. Thank you to my editor, David Gale; Amanda Ramirez; Justin Chanda; Katrina Groover; Greg Stadnyk; Lauren Hoffman; Chrissy Noh; Lisa Moraleda; Anna Jarzab; and Michelle Leo.

  Many thanks for perfectly timed insights and encouragement from Julie Scheina, Jared Stone, Morgan James, Jessica Kantor, Sarah Burnes, and Sarah Stevenson Johnson.

  Thank you to the English and Government public school teachers from whom I had the great fortune of learning: Miriam Frye, Ellen Klopf, Linda Chrabas, Barbara McBride, Ronna Rutishauser, Ken Adair, and Chris Walker. There’s really no adequate way to acknowledge your generous lifetimes of investment in others, but this former student did listen to a thing or two you said.

  Thank you, Tom and Diane Stone, for instilling in me your love of storytelling in all forms—including the singular story of your own lives.

  Finally and fundamentally: Karissa, you are my best friend, my first reader, the inspiration for all of the grace and love in anything I write, and the real reason anyone is holding this book in their hands.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photograph © 2017 by Heather Kincaid

  PETER STONE is a lifelong fan of thrillers on the big screen, small screen, and page. A Truman Scholar, he worked in Washington, DC, first as an intern on Capitol Hill and later as a Spanish tutor for a former Speaker of the House, prior to his career in film and TV marketing. The Perfect Candidate is his debut novel. He recently moved to Japan with his wife and two sons.

  Simon & Schuster • New York

  Visit us at simonandschuster.com/teen

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Peter-Stone

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New Yor
k, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Peter Stone

  Jacket photograph copyright © 2018 by Thinkstock

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Jacket design by Greg Stadnyk

  Interior design by Hilary Zarycky

  Jacket design by Greg Stadnyk · Jacket photograph copyright © 2018 by Thinkstock

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Stone, Peter (Media marketing consultant), author.

  Title: The perfect candidate / Peter Stone.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Simon & Shuster Books for Young Readers, [2018] | Summary: When Cameron Carter goes straight from high school in small-town California to a summer internship with a powerful U.S. Congressman he admires, he soon learns that not everything in Washington, D.C. is as it appears.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017040211 | ISBN 9781534422179 (hardcover) | ISBN 9721534422193 (eBook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Internship programs—Fiction. | Interpersonal relations—Fiction. | Legislators—Fiction. | Political corruption—Fiction. | Washington (D.C.)—Fiction. Classification: LCC PZ7.1.S7548 Per 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017040211