The Governor's wife

by Mark Gimenez

  Now he wanted to get reelected.

  She had campaigned with him that first election, crisscrossing the State of Texas in a pickup truck. It was romantic, it was fun, and it was important: Bode Bonner was going to make a difference. He promised change, and the voters put him in the Governor's Mansion. Election night was glorious, standing next to her husband, the governor of Texas.

  But once elected, they descended upon him. People vested in state government: people doing business with the state, seeking money from the state, buying from the state, selling to the state, lobbying the state, controlling the state. People vested in the status quo. People who didn't want their world to change. The power brokers and lobbyists and lawyers entered their lives, and they changed Bode Bonner. He became what he had hated. He sold his soul for four more years in the Governor's Mansion. And she had aided and abetted him, the dutiful and loyal governor's wife.

  And she was still living in his shadow.

  He now grabbed the microphone and stalked the stage, no notes, no teleprompter, just Bode Bonner and a microphone, quoting chapter and verse of tea party politics.

  "Washington is giving America away to Wall Street, to multinational corporations that outsource your jobs and in-source their profits…"

  He could've been a preacher. The "Bode Bonner Hour" on Sunday morning television. So tall, so handsome, so articulate-an ex-football player, imagine that-but he wasn't real. He was just an image in a campaign commercial in his cowboy boots and hair sprayed in place. He was a cut-out cardboard figure you stood next to to have your photograph taken. That was not the man she had married. That was the politician Jim Bob Burnet had created.

  She blamed Peggy.

  Jim Bob had met and married Peggy at UT; Lindsay had been her maid of honor and Bode his best man. But Jim Bob had changed when Peggy left him five years later and ran off to California with their daughter, when she had decided that Jim Bob Burnet would never give her the life she wanted. Peggy was like that. Politics-winning elections-became Jim Bob Burnet's life. His obsession. As if he needed to prove to himself and to Peggy that she was wrong about him. But he couldn't do it alone. He needed Bode Bonner. So he took her husband and changed him.

  Jim Bob made her husband a politician.

  "But your voice isn't heard in Washington because you live in a red state and vote Republican, because you read the Bible and not the New York Times…"

  Bode pulled out the pocket-sized Constitution he always carried and waved it in the air like Moses waving the Ten Commandments, a signal that he was building to the big finale, whipping the crowd into an anti-government, tea-party frenzy.

  "Because you believe in Jefferson and Madison, not Marx and Lenin, free enterprise not freeloading, America not ObamaCare…"

  He could fire up a crowd. He always said it was no different than firing up the football team before a game. This crowd was ready to play for Bode Bonner. To vote for Bode Bonner.

  "This is our America! This is God's country! God bless Lubbock! God bless Texas! God bless America! And never ever forget: Bode Bonner's got your back!"

  The crowd broke into wild applause and that familiar chant-"Bo-de! Bo-de! Bo-de!" — just as the crowd had chanted back when he had starred on the Longhorn team. Back then, she had joined in the chant from the spectator seats. But not today. For two terms, she had accepted her role as the dutiful loyal spouse. She had played her role, perfected her role.

  But that had all changed now.

  Her trip to the border had changed her. A month had passed, a month of public appearances and photo ops and volunteer work-but something was missing now. Or now she noticed what had been missing for so long. That day in the colonias had made acting a role unacceptable, living in someone's shadow intolerable, cheering from the sideline unbearable. She wanted to live her own life again. She wanted to be useful again.

  She no longer wanted to be the governor's wife.

  One man in the crowd did not clap or cheer or chant the governor's name, for he hated Bode Bonner with every fiber in his being. He was the state Democratic Party chairman, which is to say, the longest losing coach in the history of the game of politics. Twenty years he had gone without winning a statewide race in Texas.

  With no end in sight.

  Clint Marshall pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed dial for the mayor of San Antonio. Jorge Gutierrez had first won political office before Clint was born. He was the leading Latino in Texas, which meant he was the leader of the Texas Democratic Party. He answered on the second ring.

  "Clint, how are you this day?"

  "Terrible. I'm in Lubbock."

  "Yes, well, that was your first mistake." The mayor chuckled. "What are you doing in Lubbock?"

  "Stalking the governor."

  "Ah. And what have you learned?"

  "That our boy's gonna get his ass kicked in November."

  "You just figured that out?"

  "No-but I'm always hopeful. Or I was."

  "There is no reason to hope, my friend, not for the Governor's Mansion. Not this election. But be patient. Our time will come. The governor-for-life will surely die one day."

  He chuckled again.

  "Maybe, but I'll be out of a job before then."

  "Do not fret, Clint. No one in the party expects you to beat Bode Bonner."

  "Jorge, the guy is fucking Teflon. We've got a twenty-seven-billion-dollar deficit, but no one blames him-hell, they don't even believe we have a deficit. We're suffering the worst economy in decades, and they don't care as long as they can keep their guns and watch Fox News on cable." He paused. "God, what I'd give for a good sex scandal in the Governor's Mansion."

  The mayor laughed. "Clint, would you cheat on the governor's wife if she were your wife?"

  "No."

  "Even a Republican governor is not that stupid. Search for another scandal, my friend."

  "Mrs. Bonner! Look this way!"

  The cameras took aim at her like a firing squad, the photographers wanting a front-page photo called out to her, and the people reached out to her. She smiled for the cameras, but the crowds frightened her. The raw emotion. The mob mentality. The power her husband held over them. She eased closer to Ranger Roy, who towered next to her, protecting her, holding her door open and gently tugging her arm. One last wave, then she climbed inside the Suburban and breathed a sigh of relief.

  She had escaped the crowd.

  But her husband didn't want to escape. He loved the crowd. He thrived on the crowd. He needed the crowd as much as they needed him, cheering for him, touching him, taking photos with him, so desperate to breathe the same air he breathed. He shook hands and slapped backs and kissed babies-and a few women-until Jim Bob Burnet pulled him away and pushed him into the vehicle. But Jim Bob did not get in; he was not allowed in the same vehicle as the governor's wife. Ranger Hank shut the door and jumped in the driver's seat; Ranger Roy rode shotgun. They began a slow exit from the fairgrounds through a gauntlet of cheering Republicans. The governor of Texas had a big smile on his face and red lipstick on his cheek.

  "Hell, I could win the White House on red states alone. They love me!"

  Lindsay Bonner stared at her husband. Regardless of the many ways a man ages-hair graying and thinning and finally disappearing entirely; the sharp jaw line descending into floppy jowls; the V-shaped torso gradually turning upside-down until his waist possessed all the structural integrity (and allure) of a mud puddle-his wife still sees the man she fell in love with. She is blind to his physical diminishment.

  But disillusionment-that was another matter.

  Her husband's hair was still golden, his facial features still sharply etched, his body still remarkably tight and muscular, almost as if he hadn't aged at all the last twenty-two years. But he had changed. She no longer saw the man she had fallen in love with. She now sat next to a complete stranger.

  "Who are you?"

  His smile disappeared. He groaned.

  "Don't start with me, Lind
say."

  Up front, Ranger Hank swapped an uneasy glance with Ranger Roy, as if to say, Here we go again. He turned up the volume on the radio.

  "No. Really. Who are you?"

  Her husband pointed at the cheering crowd outside the vehicle.

  "Whoever they want me to be."

  "Do you really believe all that?"

  "All what?"

  "Boys marrying boys, girls marrying girls, Mexicans having Americans…"

  "I'm just riding the wave."

  "What wave?"

  He again gestured at the crowd.

  "That wave. See, it's like investing-"

  "Your daughter's a lesbian."

  "I'm hoping it's a college fad."

  "You really shouldn't encourage that."

  "I didn't tell her to be a lesbian."

  "Not her." She now pointed at the crowd. "Them."

  "I'm not encouraging anything. Jim Bob takes a poll then writes a speech saying what they want to hear. That's different."

  "That's following."

  "That's politics. Jim Bob says-"

  "Jim Bob says…"

  She shook her head.

  "He's tweeting for me now, on that Twitter."

  "He was already thinking for you. Pretty soon, he'll be breathing for you. I guess I should have sex with him."

  She shuddered at the thought.

  "Well, you sure as hell ain't been having sex with me."

  The Rangers grimaced, like kids when their parents argued. Their heads seemed to sink into their shoulders. Hank turned the air conditioning on full blast while she fought the urge to bring up Mandy Morgan- as if I don't know! — but she did not need that gossip running through the Ranger ranks across the State of Texas. Or did they already know? She stared west at the distant haze of the fires and took a long moment to calm herself; she then turned back to her husband.

  "Can we talk about the colonias? "

  Another groan from the governor. "No."

  "Bode, we need to help those people."

  "We're broke and they're Mexicans."

  "They're still people."

  "And we're still broke."

  "If you saw how they live-"

  "I've been to Mexico."

  "But they live in Texas-without running water, sewer, or electricity."

  He exhaled loudly, a sign he was annoyed.

  "Jesus, all you've talked about the last month is the colonias. I wish to hell Jim Bob hadn't sent you down to the border. Incited your liberal Boston breeding."

  She felt the heat rise within her.

  "Bode Bonner, I'm not a Texan by birth or by choice. But after forty years living in this state, I am a Texan. And by God, it's high time you native Texans got over the Alamo and quit hating Mexicans!"

  "I don't hate Mexicans. Hell, I was raised by Mexicans, I worked cattle with Mexicans, I dated… Never mind."

  "You don't hate particular Mexicans, just Mexicans in general."

  "I hate Democrats in general, not Mexicans."

  They cleared the fairgrounds and headed north on the interstate. The wind rocked the Suburban, as if they were driving a billboard up I-27. A pickup truck sped past with a gun rack in the rear window and a bumper sticker that read: O LORD, PLEASE GIVE US ANOTHER OIL BOOM, AND WE PROMISE NOT TO SCREW IT UP THIS TIME. She braced herself to make another run at her husband's humanity-or to find it again.

  "Bode, the poverty in the colonias is staggering. We need to do something."

  "What? What can government do? We spent trillions fighting the war on poverty, and we lost. All we got for our money are more poor people. I got news for you, Little Miss Colonia-Texas is broke! But you want me to give more money we don't have to Mexicans so they can have more babies they can't afford? We can give those Mexicans all the money in the world, Lindsay, but they're not suddenly gonna start wearing J. Crew and shopping at Whole Foods. The solution isn't more money, it's better behavior. But government can't change human behavior. Government can't make people stop smoking or eating fast food or using drugs or having babies they can't feed. So government can't solve poverty."

  "Government can try."

  "It did. It failed. Government has never solved a single social problem, and it's never gonna solve a single social problem. You liberals cry for more money and more government, but the truth is, government can't make a difference in people's lives. Only people can."

  Her husband's words jolted her-and she knew at that very moment what she had to do. What she would do.

  "You're right."

  "I am?"

  "Yes. And I'm going to make a difference."

  "Good. You go make a difference while I govern a goddamn bankrupt state."

  "How bad is it?"

  "Twenty-seven-billion bad."

  "On TV, you said we don't have a deficit."

  "I lied."

  "Why?"

  "Voters don't want to hear it."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Cut the budget."

  "What?"

  "Everything."

  "Schools?"

  "Education and Medicaid eat up three-fourths of the budget."

  "Raise taxes."

  He laughed, but not as if it were funny.

  "In an election year? You sound like a Democrat. Raise taxes. That's their answer to every problem."

  She didn't think this was the time to tell him she was a Democrat.

  "Use the rainy day fund. What is it now, nine billion?"

  "Nine-point-three."

  "Then use it. At least for schools."

  "The tea party will raise holy hell."

  "Do they control you?"

  "No. They control the voters who control me."

  They rode in silence for a few miles through land that lay as flat as a table top and was as dry as cement. The drought had turned Texas into another Dust Bowl. When she again spoke, her voice was soft.

  "Bode, you don't want to be the governor who gutted public education. You saw the children in Graciela Rodriguez's kindergarten class. They need our help."

  "How many of those kids will graduate in twelve years?"

  "Half. Maybe. But she's their only hope. And you're her only hope. I told her you cared. Please don't make me a liar."

  He sighed and stared out the window at cattle searching for grass on the plains.

  "Bode, please do the right thing."

  "You mean lose the election?"

  "You used to want to do the right thing."

  "I used to lose. Now I win."

  "Is that all that matters?"

  "Better than losing."

  "But why do you want to win?"

  He looked at her as if she were crazy. "Because I'm a politician. That's what we do."

  "But why? "

  "To keep this state out of Democrats' hands, so they don't screw up Texas like they screwed up the rest of the country."

  "We're pretty screwed up if we've got a twenty-seven-billion-dollar deficit."

  "Don't ever say that in public."

  "Bode, I've been the governor's wife for eight years. I know what to say and not to say in public."

  "Well, if you want to be the governor's wife for another four years-"

  "I don't."

  "You don't what?"

  "Want to be the governor's wife."

  She could feel the Rangers' muscles tense up front. The governor turned fully to his wife.

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  There were two Bode Bonners: the public politician and the private man. She still loved the private man, but there was less of him to love. With each passing year living in the Governor's Mansion-with each election-the man seemed to merge into the politician. Or the politician consumed the man. Like a cancer. She had seen cancer eat away at patients in the hospital until they were just a shell of their former selves. The cancer that afflicted her husband-political ambition-had had the same effect on him. Ambition had eaten away all that was good inside Bode Bonner and left hi
m a shell of a man. She had hoped he would recover, but she knew now that he would not survive. He wasn't fighting his cancer. He had become his cancer. She could no longer bear to look at him, this man she had loved and lain with and looked upon as her hero. She now averted her eyes so he could not see her tears.

  "Bode, I'm not happy. With my life."

  "Lindsay, this is our life. I'm the governor, and you're the governor's wife."

  "I'm forty-four years old. Becca's in college now. She doesn't need me, you don't need me-what am I supposed to do the rest of my life? Smile for the cameras? Shop? Play tennis and do lunch at the country club? That's not me. I didn't sign up for that." She wiped her eyes and turned to him. "Bode, I can't do this anymore."

  His expression changed. She saw fear in his eyes.

  "You want a divorce?"

  "I want to be useful."

  "You are. You're the governor's wife."

  "I'm used, not useful. Bode, I don't want to just breathe oxygen and fill the space inside my clothes. I want my life to have meaning. I want to make a difference."

  "You do. You volunteer at the homeless shelter, the food bank, the elementary school-"

  "I want to be a nurse again."

  "A nurse? "

  "Yes."

  "You can't be a nurse."

  "Why not? I kept my license up to date."

  "Where are you gonna work? In the ER at Austin General Hospital? Everyone knowing who you are? It'd be a goddamn fiasco."

  It would.

  "Look, Lindsay, we'll talk about all this when I get back, okay?"

  "Back from where?"

  "Hunting. Me and Jim Bob, we're flying out to John Ed's ranch, tomorrow morning."