The Governor's wife

by Mark Gimenez

"It's not fair. One illegitimate baby, and I can't be president."

  "Fair is where you go to see farm animals. Politics is winning and losing. And there's only one way you're gonna win now."

  "Which is?"

  "You gotta get her back. Lindsay."

  "She won't want me back."

  "Not back like that-back here. In the Mansion. Being the governor's wife. Standing by her man. At least until the election. People love her. If she stands by you, they'll stand by you. Beg her if you have to, Bode, but get her back to Austin."

  At least his daughter loved him. Bode found Becca standing in her room staring out the window. He went over to her and put his hands on her shoulders.

  "Hi, honey."

  She turned and slapped him across the face. Hard.

  "That's for hurting Mom."

  "Becca-"

  "Are you fucking around on her? With Mandy?"

  "Becca-"

  "You are, aren't you? Goddamnit, Daddy, you're just like all those other politicians-a fucking asshole. Like all men."

  Disappointing your wife is a tough thing for a man. But disappointing your child-that's a worse thing. The worst thing. To see that look of utter disgust in his daughter's eyes cut Bode Bonner to his core.

  Jim Bob knocked on Mandy's closed office door in the Mansion then entered. She was crying. He was carrying that morning's newspapers.

  "You okay, kiddo?"

  She nodded like a little girl. Jim Bob sat down as if weary then tossed the newspapers on the desk.

  "You see all this?" She glanced at the headlines-BODE BONNER A CHEATER… BONNER A GONER?… ANOTHER MARRIED REPUBLICAN WITH A MISTRESS… JOHN EDWARDS REDUX… SCHWARZENEGGER SEQUEL-and nodded.

  "And TV last night?"

  Another weak nod.

  "What are you going to do?"

  "About what?"

  "The baby."

  She shrugged innocently.

  "Have it."

  "You're not considering an abortion?"

  "An abortion? Bode's pro-life."

  "He might make an exception for you."

  "He would be disappointed with me."

  "Maybe not."

  "I could never have an abortion." She smiled as if she were looking at baby clothes. "Do you know that right now he-or she-is five inches long and weighs five ounces and has little hands and fingers and toes. I even felt a little kick."

  Jim Bob sighed. She had it bad.

  "Donations to the reelection committee dried up, like someone turned off the money faucet," Jim Bob said. "The donors are pulling their pledges to the Super PAC. And John Ed called, wants to know if this will derail his special legislation."

  "I can't worry about his condemnation bill right now. I got Mandy to worry about."

  "She wants to have the baby."

  " Why? "

  "Because you're pro-life."

  "But this is my life."

  It took four bourbons for Bode to work up the courage to call his wife.

  "Is she pregnant?"

  He couldn't tell his wife the truth.

  "No."

  "You're not lying to me, are you?"

  "No."

  He was lying about lying.

  "Are you drinking?"

  "Are you talking in an Irish accent?"

  "So you had to drink to find the courage to call me?"

  "I'm drinking 'cause my life just went into the crapper."

  "What did you tell Becca?"

  "She slapped me before I could say much of anything."

  "Good for her. Ask her to slap you once for me. Maybe twice."

  "I'll make a note."

  She was silent.

  "Lindsay, please come home."

  "Are you going to cut the school budget?"

  "If I don't, will you come home?"

  "I'm not negotiating, Bode."

  "I am. I'll do anything you want. To get you back."

  "Except love me."

  "Lindsay, I've always loved you."

  "Do you love Mandy?"

  "No."

  "You're having an affair with a twenty-seven-year-old girl, but you want me to come home and stand by your side? Be the good wife?"

  "I ended it. With Mandy."

  "You did? Why?"

  "The Professor said-"

  "Oh. For politics. Not for me."

  "What about you? Are you having an affair? With your doctor?"

  "No."

  "If the press finds out you're having an affair with my only political rival, I'll never be president."

  "That's why you care?"

  "Lindsay, I can be president."

  "Why do you want to be president?"

  "Because I can."

  "That's it?"

  "It's an adventure."

  "It's a game. Just another game to win."

  "Lindsay, life's just a game to men. Sports, business, politics… winning football games, making money, winning elections… you do it to prove you can."

  "Prove to whom?"

  "Yourself."

  He heard her sigh, and then she was silent for a moment. Bode asked the question he had to ask.

  "Do you love him?"

  "I don't know."

  "But you might?"

  "I might."

  "Your doctor wants my job and my wife."

  "He doesn't want your job."

  "Just my wife."

  "And what do you want, Bode? Your job or your wife?"

  He loved his wife, but did he love politics more? He didn't answer quickly enough for her liking.

  "Your job." She exhaled into the phone. "The Governor's Mansion is not my home. It never was. And the White House never will be. I don't want that life, Bode. You'll have to live it alone."

  THIRTY-ONE

  The next morning, Jim Bob greeted Mandy Morgan as if she were a visiting princess. He opened his door for her, he escorted her to a chair in front of his desk, he offered her coffee "I'm not drinking coffee anymore, caffeine is bad for the baby."

  — and otherwise treated her royally. He tried not to stare at her belly. There was nothing to see yet, but disaster was growing inside that belly. That being in her belly threatened everything Jim Bob Burnet had dreamed about and worked for the last twenty-five years of his life. That life threatened his life. He wasn't going to let this ex-cheerleader and her bastard baby ruin his life. He got right to the point.

  "I'm prepared to pay you one million dollars."

  Her expression turned suspicious.

  "To do what?"

  "Abort."

  "No."

  "Mandy-"

  "I wouldn't take a million dollars from Mr. Johnson for sex, and I'm not taking a million dollars for my baby."

  "John Ed offered you a million dollars for sex?"

  "Yes."

  "And you didn't take it?"

  "No."

  "Why the hell not?"

  "I'm not like that. I know you think I'm just Bode's plaything, but I'm not. I'm a lot smarter than you think. I'm not having an abortion." She pointed at Eddie sitting on the couch. "And he's scaring me."

  Jim Bob turned to Eddie and nodded to the door. Eddie stood and walked out.

  "Mandy, you been watching TV? What they're saying about Bode?"

  She nodded. "It's terrible."

  "Yes, it is. Don't you want him to be president?"

  "Yes. And I want to be the first lady."

  Jim Bob stared at this girl and thought, What fucking world is she living in?

  She was sixteen, and she made her living as a prostitute in Nuevo Laredo. She flinched when Jesse stuck the needle into her arm. Penicillin. She had worked in a maquiladora, but had been laid off when the factory closed and her job had been moved to Asia. She had no other skills. Now she had syphilis.

  "I need to see you again in one week," he said to her in Spanish.

  She nodded, but recoiled when the door swung open and two armed men entered.

  "No!" she cried.

  Je
sse stood in front of her and blocked the men.

  "What do you want?"

  "Her. She is puta."

  "She is my patient. Get out."

  The man pulled a gun and put the barrel to Jesse's head.

  "No!" Lindsay screamed.

  The other man now stepped close to the man holding the gun and said in a low voice, "El Diablo, he put out the order. No harm is to come to the doctor. If you kill him, you will face El Diablo's justice."

  The man with the gun exhaled. His hand dropped. He turned and walked out. The other man followed. Jesse's hands were shaking. Lindsay came to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

  "Jesse, are you okay?"

  "I know I will die one day on this border, but I am very happy that this was not that day."

  "I thought the boss's official policy was abstinence," Eddie Jones said. "I guess only for school kids."

  "Funny."

  "I don't figure the boss is gonna get into the White House with a bastard child."

  Mandy had left, and Eddie Jones had returned to the sofa in Jim Bob's office.

  "No shit."

  Eddie thought something was funny.

  "These unforeseen, unexpected, unpleasant things are coming fast now."

  "No goddamn cheerleader is gonna take the White House from me."

  "I can make that unpleasant problem go away."

  "She won't get an abortion."

  "If she goes away, the baby goes away. I can make that happen."

  Jim Bob stared at Eddie Jones. He knew Eddie had a questionable past-shit, he worked in Iraq as a mercenary-but kill Mandy? From Eddie's expression, Jim Bob knew Eddie could kill her, dispose of her body, and then eat Tex-Mex for lunch without the need for a Tums. The guy was that cold. But was Jim Bob Burnet? How far would he go to save Bode Bonner's political career? And his?

  "Let me talk to Bode, make another run at her."

  His insurance policy shook his head.

  "Woman like that, only a bullet will change her mind."

  Maybe Eddie was right. In five months, "William Bode Bonner" would be typed under FATHER on a birth certificate in an Austin hospital. Jim Bob Burnet could not allow that day to come.

  "Rest assured, Eddie-Mandy Morgan is either gonna come to Jesus or meet Him."

  "Is Jesus in heaven?" little Carmelita asked her father.

  In the white compound in Nuevo Laredo, Enrique de la Garza was reading the ingles to his ten-year-old daughter. She smelled of strawberry shampoo. Her mother used to read to her each night, but the task had fallen to her father.

  "Yes."

  "I miss him."

  "I do as well."

  "Is the man who killed Jesus going to jail?"

  "No, mi hija. He is going to hell."

  ONE MONTH BEFORE

  THIRTY-TWO

  Enrique de la Garza entered the chapel on the ground floor of his compound and dipped his finger into the font of holy water, then genuflected and made the sign of the cross. Each morning at eight he came into his chapel to pray and contemplate his life, to ask God for guidance and forgiveness, to confess his sins and receive the sacrament of Communion. He now walked up the short aisle to the altar rail where Padre Rafael awaited him, as he did each morning. Enrique knelt before him.

  " El cuerpo de Cristo," the padre said. The body of Christ.

  Enrique turned his face up, opened his mouth, and extended his tongue. Padre Rafael placed the Communion host on his tongue. Enrique de la Garza accepted the true body of Jesus Christ into his own. He was supposed to confess his sins, venial and mortal, prior to receiving Communion, as he did each day. But he could not that day.

  For his mortal sin was yet to come that day.

  A "come to Jesus" meeting, the Professor called it. Just like those evangelical tent revivals in the South where the faithful came down front to give their lives over to Jesus, to be born again, it was time for Mandy Morgan to come to Jesus, he had said. Or at least to Bode Bonner. It was time for her to give her life over to him so he could be the next president of the United States of America. It was the seventh day of August when Mandy marched into the Governor's Office where Bode and Jim Bob awaited her arrival, stood in front of the governor's desk, planted her fists in her ever-expanding hips, and announced, "I'm not aborting our baby."

  Bode jumped out of his chair and came around the desk to her. She stood there breathing a bit fast, never a good sign with a woman and particularly a pregnant woman.

  "Whoa, now, honey-no one's talking about abortion."

  "You're not?"

  "No, absolutely not. We just wanted to figure out how we're gonna handle this, uh, situation."

  "Situation? You mean our baby?"

  "Uh, yeah… that."

  Bode got her settled into a chair then stroked her narrow shoulders like he was calming a skittish colt. Once her breathing had returned to normal, he returned to his chair on the other side of the desk. The morning sun shone through the east-facing floor-length windows and directly on him. If not for the fact that he had sired a child out of wedlock, it would be a nice summer day in Austin, Texas.

  "Mandy," the Professor said, "you're a smart girl. And you've been in politics for several years now. So you understand the political ramifications for Bode if it were revealed that the leading Republican presidential candidate fathered a love child-"

  "A love child? What does that mean?"

  As if Jim Bob had accused her unborn child of not being as smart as the other unborn children.

  "A child by a woman other than his wife, that's all." He quickly added, "A woman he loves."

  "Oh."

  She smiled at Bode. Jim Bob gave Bode a look, as if he were setting her up.

  "So, well, uh… here's the thing, Mandy. I… we… think it prudent for everyone involved to, uh, confirm the, uh… situation."

  Mandy Morgan was in fact a smart girl. She stood and again drove her fists into her hips, which from that angle appeared even wider.

  "Confirm the situation? You mean prove that Bode's the father? That this baby is our baby? That I didn't fuck around on him?"

  Bode had never before heard Mandy say the f-word, not even when they had sex. That was another bad sign with a woman. In their twenty-two years of marriage, the only time Lindsay had ever said the f-word to him was when he vetoed that CHIPS program providing health care for children in Texas, a cause near and dear to her heart. "Fuck you, Bode Bonner!" she had screamed. Then she had moved out of their bedroom. Mandy now turned to him. On him.

  "Bode Bonner-I love you. I've always loved you and I always will love you. Only you. I have been one hundred percent faithful to you-not even a million dollars could make me cheat on you."

  "A million dollars?"

  "John Ed offered her a million bucks for sex," Jim Bob said.

  "While we were out hunting?"

  Mandy nodded.

  "That old son of a bitch." He looked back at Mandy. "You didn't take it?"

  "No! I would never cheat on you, Bode. You're my man. My only man."

  She placed her hands on her belly; the baby bump was starting to show.

  "This is your child. Our child."

  He knew she had been faithful. He knew the child was his. But he also knew that that child stood between him and the White House.

  "I know all that, Mandy. But you know that baby will destroy my chances to be president. Since that press conference, my poll numbers have plummeted. And my Twitter followers are down to… what, Jim Bob?"

  Jim Bob fiddled with his phone.

  "Below Paris Hilton."

  Bode turned his palms up at Mandy.

  "Below Paris Hilton."

  She threw her hands up.

  "Why? If boys can marry boys and adopt babies and girls can marry girls and get pregnant with sperm from a donor and they can all be celebrated as wonderful families on Good Morning America, why can't we have this baby without being married? Why is their lifestyle okay but not ours?"

 
"Politics," the Professor said. "Gays and lesbians are liberal Democrats, so the liberal media celebrate their lifestyle. Not so much a conservative Republican married to one woman and fathering a child with another one-especially one who looks like you."

  "Mandy," Bode said, "you're absolutely right. It's not fair, the media shouldn't have a double standard for liberals and conservatives, it shouldn't matter. But politics isn't about right and wrong, fair or unfair. It's about winning and losing. Politics is played in the real world, and in the real world it matters. It matters to those voters who vote on family values because it's not their family values. Mandy, the reality is, they'll vote for another Republican. I won't make it out of Iowa."

  Mandy's expression softened a bit, so Bode pushed on. It was time to have the talk with his mistress.

  "Mandy, you're young, and I'm old."

  "I know."

  "I'm not that old!" He sighed. "But you're young enough to be my daughter."

  "I know."

  "You want children, I have a child. You're looking forward to your life, I'm looking back on mine. You need a young man, not an old guy. When that child goes to college, I'll be on social security, if it's still around."

  "The child?"

  "Social security."

  "Oh."

  "Your best years are ahead of you. Mine are in the past. You're young and beautiful, and I'm old and…"

  He waited. Nothing from Mandy, except a few tears, the first good sign that morning.

  "… not as handsome as I used to be. Mandy, this isn't the start of my life. This is my last great adventure."

  "Having our baby?"

  "Running for president. But if you have that baby, I won't be president. I won't be able to change the world, I won't be able to make the world a better place for Republicans-for their children. I won't be able to save America from the Democrats like God wants me to-"

  Whoops. Bode knew he had made a mistake, but before he could repair the damage, the Professor pounced.

  " Like God wants you to? What the hell does that mean?"

  Jim Bob wanted a "come to Jesus" meeting, Bode thought, so let's give him one. It was time for Bode Bonner to share his religious epiphany with the world-or at least with the Professor.

  "It means that God wants me to be president. It means that He put me on John Ed's ranch that day-"

  "God and a Gulfstream."

  Bode ignored his sarcasm. Nonbeliever.