by Laura Hayden
She offered her best explanation. “It makes sense if you’re desperate. You can’t stop shows like Bramble and Friends when they’ve gotten their hooks into a story. They bought that footage and you know they’re going to show it. The only thing Henderson can possibly do to mitigate things is substitute his patently fake reel for the real one. He gets a good laugh on the show, and if he’s lucky, he blames the fake on someone else. Like us, for example.”
“Of course he’s going to blame us. Everyone knows I’m the only candidate who hasn’t been openly skewered on the show. Everyone already thinks you’re sleeping with the producer.”
Kate stared at her friend in shock. “Emily!”
Her friend shrugged. “Well, it’s what they think. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. I don’t care either way.”
“Emily!” Kate said, making no effort to hide her exasperation.
“I know; I know. You don’t sleep around. You’re still waiting for the right man to come along.” She grinned. “I’m looking, too, but what’s the harm in doing some sampling along the way?”
“Emily!” Her friend knew just where to needle her—long practice and native talent had rendered Emily’s barbs an art form.
“Don’t get your panty hose in a wad, Kate. I was kidding.”
“Can we get back to talking about the show?” Kate demanded. “Not my sex life—or the lack thereof?”
“Fine. Whatever people think about you and your producer boyfriend—” Kate rolled her eyes—“I bet they now say you two have had a falling out and the show won’t go out of its way to protect me any longer.” Emily began to pace the room, kicking at random furniture legs during her circuit around the space. “It’d be so much easier if you’d just slept with the man when he asked.”
Kate straightened in indignation, which was hard to do when she was slumped on the end of a modernist, low-slung leather couch. Emily’s designer taste ran more to high style than high comfort. “Doug didn’t ask.” She felt her face begin to flush. “And I wouldn’t have even if he had.”
“C’mon, K. Loosen the chastity belt, will ya? You’re cutting off your circulation. I was there, remember? Doug Lamb did everything short of undress you in public at that last press dinner. He was making a move for you and you ignored him.”
The heat of blazing embarrassment scorched Kate’s cheeks. “I can’t believe you’re saying these things to me, Emily. They’re uncalled for. They’re—”
“They’re mean, Kate.” Emily stopped pacing in the middle of the room. “They’re mean and vindictive.” She glared at Kate, then threw her hands up in exasperation. “Get with the program, sister. I’m doing this on purpose. I’m trying to rile you up. You work better when you’re mad. So get mad, Kate. Blow a cork.” Her voice rose. “Use that remarkable brain of yours to figure out how in the world we extricate ourselves from this and salvage everything we’ve been trying to do for the last two years. Do your job.”
Kate had been slow to recognize the drill. She hated it and she knew it was far less effective than Emily realized. Kate would always go to the wall when Emily appealed to her better half. But Kate pretended once again that the kick Emily had tried was just what she needed to spur her to action.
In reality, Kate figured she was manipulating Emily instead, trying to goad her into coming up with a suitable plan that wouldn’t involve the revelation of Henderson’s infidelity.
Her mind raced ahead. She couldn’t let this turn into a media circus with that poor pregnant girl at its center. The only really appropriate way to spin this—the only way her conscience would allow her to play it—was to keep the footage under the table. Tell Emily she’d handle it. Get a private meeting with Henderson and Ted Fontini, his campaign manager, and show them the clips they had with no overt threats. Let them draw their own conclusions concerning how much shucking and jiving it would take to knock the images and the words Henderson had said to a pregnant woman not his wife out of the memories of a scandal-hungry American public. That would be Mission: Impossible 2008.
Henderson and his advisers would soon realize that they couldn’t possibly recover from a revelation like that—not when it came complete with indisputable visual aids. They’d soon realize that their best means to secure Henderson’s political future and his current marriage—or possible pending divorce—and achieve a good life for his as yet unborn child would be for him to initiate a quiet side step out of the race for president. But if he played ball with Kate, dropped out of the race, it wouldn’t be a scorched-earth situation. He could run again. Getting out of Emily’s way today wouldn’t end his current career in the Senate or affect his chances of running for office again. Kate would bury the evidence. Emily would get what she wanted. And Henderson could do the right thing—whatever that was—by the women in his life. She figured that there was nothing like incriminating footage in a competitor’s hands to spur him on to make that little kid’s world right.
Best of all, Kate thought, the decision would be his, not theirs. Now that was a satisfactory outcome, she decided. Not only did it do no lasting harm to her conscience or her soul, it gave Henderson a chance to repair his fractured world rather than try to pick up the shards of a shattered life. Henderson clearly needed to change his course. Now he had the opportunity and the motivation to straighten out and fly right.
Emily stopped pacing again and stared at her. “A smile? Is that a real smile on your face?” She dropped to the miserably designed couch, falling into a boneless sprawl next to Kate. “See? My insidious plan worked and now you have a newer, more insidious plan, right? So? What is it? What do we do? Who do we do it to?”
Kate hesitated. The only flaw in her plan was that she might have to let Emily see the third clip. From that point on, it’d be an uphill battle to keep her friend from trying to blast it from media mountaintop to media mountaintop. How could she stop that from happening? Could she keep Emily from going for the throat?
“I have something that may work.”
“For heaven’s sake, what, K?”
It took less than two minutes to outline the basic plan. She had to tell Emily what she had, though she didn’t intend to show her friend the clip. It took Kate well over an hour to dissuade Emily from using the evidence right away to blast the gentleman senator from Michigan out of political waters for the rest of his life. But no matter what Kate said, assured, or explained, Emily insisted on at least seeing the footage before she would agree to Kate’s plan. After another hour of argument, Kate finally relented.
It was the first time Kate had seen the footage on a big screen. Witnessing Henderson’s betrayal against his wife in an almost life-size plasma version made it all the more real, and that, in turn, made her job even harder. Kellie Scarborough, the Other Woman, was no frowsy blonde bimbo out to snag herself some political bigwig sugar daddy. She looked normal. Nice, even. Despite the poor quality of the footage, she had a visible glow about her. Plus, Kate couldn’t help but notice the way she held her belly with obvious maternal instincts. Kate even liked the way she’d made polite responses to two somewhat intrusive women in a hotel elevator.
Kellie might have been having an affair with a married man, but she clearly loved him and their unborn child. She was nothing more than an average young woman who’d made the mistake of loving the wrong man. Everybody made mistakes, Kate knew. Christ had called her to love others the way he loved them and to treat them as she wished to be treated herself. She couldn’t live with the thought of being the person who destroyed all that hope for the future in the young woman’s eyes. Worse, she couldn’t stand being the person who made sure Henderson’s wife knew he’d betrayed her on such a fundamental level.
Henderson deserved the chance to tell his wife himself and ask for her forgiveness.
Watching the video, it was clear to Kate that Henderson had something in his eyes that transcended lust and desire—it was . . . love? Maybe it was not as much for the woman as for the unborn child. His unbo
rn child. But it was love, nonetheless. Henderson simply couldn’t fake something like that.
Kate felt pity and sorrow as she viewed the footage—nobody in that fractured family was going to come out of this unscarred.
Emily watched the video with the anticipation and enthusiasm of someone watching the season finale of a favorite television show, oohing and aahing over the action, wanting to replay “the good bits.” In Kate’s opinion, there really were no good bits, not in light of what was likely to happen next.
“I can’t wait to see that smug so-and-so’s face when he gets a load of this. Just think of all those loyal campaign workers in tears when they realize he’s just a lying, cheating—”
“No,” Kate said softly.
“What?”
“We don’t release it to the public. Nothing good will come of that.”
Emily stared at Kate as if she’d completely lost her mind. “Are you crazy? Of course something good will come from it. He’ll drop out of the race. In disgrace.”
“We need him.” Before Emily could contradict her, Kate continued. “We need him to back out quietly and give you his endorsement. If you threaten him openly, he won’t do it. His pride won’t let him. But . . .” She stood, now getting the advantage of superior positioning to drive home her point. “But if we present him with the footage under the table, give him a chance to save face in public, we can convince him to give you the endorsement.”
“Blackmail, you mean.”
“No. Not at all. Honorable behavior on both sides.”
“Same outcome, perhaps. But it’s not nearly as satisfying as watching him squirm under public scrutiny, listening to his feeble attempts to explain how he forgot all about his ‘promise to moral America’ while he cheerfully slept with his current mistress who now carries his illegitimate child. You know what they say: ‘Pride goeth before the fall.’ And I do so want to see him fall a very long way down. Why, he—”
“Emily, stop.” Kate sent a small prayer heavenward that Emily might see the whole picture. For Kate’s sake, for Henderson’s sake, for that innocent child’s sake, Emily had to listen! “We have to play it my way. Taking the low road means exposing you as the source of the leak. That could be just as bad for you as for him. You’ll look too ruthless, too unfeeling. Sure, he’ll go down. But so will you. Voters don’t like an angry candidate. Do you want to risk that?”
Emily opened her mouth, prepared to argue the point. Kate kept talking before her friend could get a word out.
“Seriously, it could cost you points. You don’t want that. What goes around, comes around. But if we do this my way, Henderson steps out of the race and stays in power, and he owes us favors. Forget the possible blowback if we leak this stuff. Do you want to give up that leverage? If we go public, the backlash could be a career killer for you just as much as it will be for Henderson. Listen to me. You don’t have to destroy him to clear the path for yourself to the nomination. Yes, he made a bad moral decision, but it’s not for us to judge.”
“The Bible says to smite your enemies,” Emily said.
“I’m not sure you can apply that to this context, M. Maybe a more applicable reference would be Jesus’ instruction to ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If we use Henderson’s mistake like a club and pound the guy into roadkill, it’s not just bad politics. It’s a sin. And I don’t want that sin on my conscience. Give the man a chance to save face and bow out on his own terms. Look, if you can’t do it just because it’s the right thing to do, think of it this way: You’ll inherit his support. You’ll have markers to call in. And he’ll still be out of the way. It’ll be better for you, not just better for him. Remember, whatever you think of Henderson, there are innocents involved here. His wife. The child.”
“You didn’t mention his girlfriend.”
“Her too. She fell for a married man. She shouldn’t be branded with a scarlet letter because of it. Let Henderson and those poor women find a way to work this out on a personal level, not as the center ring in a public media circus. Remember what it was like for you when your marriage to Nick fell apart? You can spare Henderson’s wife that kind of trouble. Wouldn’t you like to do that?”
Kate said the next words softly, but firmly. “You only need to stop him on a political level. You’re too good to stoop to destroying him personally.”
Emily contemplated Kate’s warning for a while, then finally nodded. “I see your point.” A wistful look filled her face. “But it would have been so much more fun my way.”
The meeting began as Kate hoped. Emily managed to hide her unholy glee under a facade of concern and disappointment that her esteemed opponent had made such a tragic error in judgment. The word blackmail never entered the picture as Kate played the footage. Henderson, eaten up with guilt, and Fontini, numb with shock, both agreed that it’d be better if the footage wasn’t released. They also agreed that perhaps Henderson should step out of the picture for this election cycle and work through his personal problems before running again.
Kate offered her condolences and her hopes that Henderson could resolve things in his private life. She meant every word of that. The look in that young woman’s eyes was haunting her.
Henderson appeared to be too catatonic to react, though Fontini thanked her for handling this so discreetly.
Kate didn’t bring up the discussion of a possible endorsement at that point. She’d already discussed it with Emily. Henderson and Fontini both needed to come to grips with the end of this stage of their political plans before she or Emily could broach the subject. Asking for Henderson’s support could wait for a follow-up call a day or two later when both men realized how close they’d come to public humiliation and career meltdown.
But Emily was refusing to follow the script they’d agreed upon.
She refused to temper her triumph with mercy. She just came right out and said what she wanted—and this time it was clear that what she was up to was blackmail. When she mentioned the word endorsement to Henderson, it was like a hot breeze fanning the smoldering embers of the man’s presidential plans. Instead of dousing the last hope of any flame, it transformed that last spark into an inferno.
Kate could see the outrage rise in Henderson’s eyes.
“I’m not ready to make these sorts of decisions right now, not without discussing it with my advisers,” Henderson said with a sudden sense of purpose. He stood. “We’ll get back to you on that.”
If Kate had been a violent person, she would have strangled Emily. As it was, she had to pray for patience. She waited until the two men departed before she released a sigh that she wished could be a scream.
“You blew it.”
“No.” Emily shook her head. “I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. You needed to let Henderson come to the conclusion he should support you himself. Instead, you assumed he’d already accepted the inevitable. You pushed him too early for the endorsement and now you’re not going to get it. He’s going to blame you, not himself, for the fix he’s in. He’ll probably become a bitter enemy, not the ally you could have made him.”
“Ridiculous. Why? Our platforms aren’t that much different.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s furious. He’s going to shoot the messenger. You.”
“No,” Emily said with her usual air of certainty. “Wait until his press conference. You’ll see. He’ll hold off until ten o’clock tonight for the announcement, hoping he’ll get a network news break-in on prime time in three time zones and the lead story on the West Coast local news. He wants to go out with a bang, but he’ll be lucky to get a crawl on the bottom of the screen, instead.”
Kate could see the gears turning in Emily’s head. “Too bad the networks aren’t going to want to interrupt their Christmas specials for the likes of him.”
Emily’s glare of righteous conviction wavered slightly. “Yeah, too bad. . . .”
That evening, Kate tried to distance herself from the television, the Internet, and her la
nd and cell phones. But all of them conspired to continually interrupt what she had hoped would be a peaceful evening. By 10:02 p.m. Eastern, there had been no news crawl, no breaking news, no hint of Henderson’s self-removal from the race for the party’s nomination. It appeared that the last hour of prime time would be saved from “A Special News Report.”
Somewhere in the back of her head, Kate wondered if that meant Emily’s untimely push to control Henderson had resulted in the man’s decision to dig in and attempt to spin the press his way. He wouldn’t be the first senator to play that game. Senator Larry Craig had survived an embarrassing arrest in Minneapolis. David Vitter had showed up on the D.C. Madam’s phone logs with barely a ripple on his immediate career after he apologized to his wife and the voters. Ted Kennedy got through Chappaquiddick, and that was much more scandalous than what Henderson did. In the bad old days, Bob Packwood had tried to brazen out so much bad behavior with women that it had forced the moribund Senate Ethics Committee into action. Maybe Henderson was gearing up a classic, weepy “flawed man” scenario in the hopes of appealing to legions of equally flawed constituents.
As long as he withdrew from the race, Kate hoped Emily would leave well enough alone. But if Henderson didn’t act soon, Kate was terrified that Emily would take things into her own hands.
And at one minute past eleven, Kate watched in horror and dread as she saw the grainy footage of Mark Henderson kissing his pregnant mistress in the elevator air as the lead hourly story on CNN. Moments later, the story broke on all four major networks as they cut in on the local news, a rarity. The timing was classic—it hit the late night news on the East Coast and in the Central time zone and broke into the prime time feed for Mountain and Pacific.
The news release couldn’t have been better calculated for maximum saturation and exposure.