Born to Run

by John M. Green

  “…by a mere 9 electoral college votes…”

  “Excuse me?” said Bobby, his eyebrows arched. “Nine over’s not good enough for you? Fucking one was good enough for Bush in 2000. Even JFK only got 34 over. Don, I’m sick of this ‘ImposterFoster’ bullshit… I’m sick of this Transition Office limbo. I’ve nominated my Cabinet… I’ve got 120 policy task forces running. I want to get on with the job I was elected to do.”

  Don turned his head to the window to hide his bitterness. Outside the Presidential Transition Office, two miles down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, a bunch of kids were making snowmen. They were probably midget Secret Service agents, he decided, though the thought did nothing to lighten his mood.

  Inside the PTO, Don grit his teeth and turned back to see his boss stepping over to the bureau, again. For the fourth time in the last hour Bobby picked up the bottle of bourbon. He held it for a moment as if reading the label for inspiration, then topped up his chunky tumbler. He plopped in a couple of shrunken cubes from the melting bucket of ice and lifted the glass up to his tired, watery eyes. For thirty seconds, or so it seemed to Don, Foster’s eyes searched into the gold liquid as though it were a crystal ball. He again drew the glass to his lips. Foster’s drinking was out of control.

  “That slimy Prentice’s been slithering round here, hasn’t he?” Foster slurred, his eyes struggling to keep focus and avoiding Don’s pointed gaze. “He put you up to this?”

  EVEN ignoring the protocols of Christmas goodwill, the antagonism toward Foster had not abated. According to Don, now White House Chief-of-Staff-to-be, the anti-Foster movement was accelerating.

  The new Congress was due to commence its first short January session in a few days and, given the way the congressional elections had swung, it would be Democrat Majority House leader David Prescott who’d get Speaker. If Don could get Foster to agree, they’d summon Prescott back a few days early from skiing in Aspen and lay it on him. Prescott had been a congressman for sixteen years, and only last year was elevated to Democrat House leader. He’d want to be Speaker and there was no way he’d surrender that role, let alone to a Republican, but maybe a spot as, say, an ambassador would do it. They’d do whatever it took, as far as Don was concerned.

  “Send Prescott to Turkey?” boiled Foster. “That’s like sending sand to the Saudis.”

  “I don’t care,” said Don, hovering at the edge of disrespect before jumping over it. “Mr President, if you want to avoid trouble on Inauguration Day,” only three weeks away, “if Prescott wants Ambassador to fucking Jupiter, you’ll give him keys to the rocket.”

  “Maybe China, then.”

  45

  FOR LITTLE DAVEY, Isabel’s being scratched from the campaign and Hank’s losing it were not big deals. Sure, with enough surly faces around to sour a month’s worth of breakfast milk, he knew Isabel and Ed were sore but even so, this last week had been the boy’s best lead up to Christmas ever. For the whole seven days, Isabel had completely pulled out of all her other obligations. George had come back from California. Ed was there for most of it, though Davey didn’t much care if his dad had to be at work provided George or Isabel were around to play.

  And play George did, though he suffered for it. Stepping back on the lawn to toss Davey a ball, he slipped on a patch of damp grass, threw out a hand to absorb the fall and strained his wrist.

  AT Don Thomas’ urging, it was Spencer Prentice who got to be Foster’s emissary to sweet-talk Isabel. What Spencer didn’t know was that the new Speaker’s first task of gavelling open the year’s first two-week sittings would come just two days before Davey’s ninth birthday.

  Isabel had promised the boy an extra treat, even crossing her heart over it, and Davey was still skipping around the house at the prospect of spending time with her and Ed for a few days’ fun in the snow. She’d been pining for some refuge up in the mountains, far from the media, the pundits and the party. A few days there with her family would be perfect.

  Until a week ago, her time hadn’t been her own for almost two years. Once the campaign was officially lost, she’d been desperately looking forward to taking Davey and Ed away for a week of total sanctuary up in her hideaway shack in the Green Mountains in Vermont. But those plans had to be delayed by the drudge of mandatory party post-mortems, and the exhausting whirl of soirées and breakfasts all around the country. There was nothing to celebrate, but she knew her supporters had to be thanked, especially for sticking with Hank.

  So Christmas was welcome, a time when she could legitimately say no to anything official. The shack was put on hold till early January. Christmas would be in Manhattan.

  SPENCER spied Isabel before she saw him. He’d phoned earlier, asking to see her urgently, anywhere, just name the place and no, it couldn’t wait.

  It was 5:30 PM when she peered into the crowd as she and Davey skated the ice under Rockefeller Plaza’s floodlights. Ah, there was Spencer’s wave. He was leaning on the rail at the end, a golden aura glowing around him from the huge Grecian statue behind him. Where else would Spencer wait? The defiant Prometheus, the giant Titan who stole fire from the gods to give to humanity, would appeal to Spencer, she decided.

  Spencer watched Isabel skate off the rink and leave Davey with a woman and her son. They were neighbours in the Dakota on West 72nd Street and Central Park West, where Isabel and Ed had their Manhattan pad, just one floor below John Lennon’s old place. Coincidentally, they were also at the Rockefeller Plaza’s four o’clock tea with Santa Claus and they had hooked up with Isabel and Davey for skating afterwards. The mother was delighted to keep an eye on Davey, and almost as soon as the two boys got onto the ice they joined hands and were gliding round and round as if they were junior Torvills and Deans. It was better for Isabel than leaving him to George, her original plan: not only was his wrist strained, but these days his centre of gravity was a foot in front of him; not good on the ice. She left him sitting hunched in the café complaining about the coffee and the service.

  It was while Isabel was crouched down lacing up Davey’s skates that she told him Spencer was coming later to chat. With her head down, she missed the dark frown that clouded over the boy’s face.

  Davey had met Spencer a few times and knew Isabel liked him, but the boy also sensed his father had a different opinion; Ed made no pretence about things like that.

  When Isabel skated off to the side to meet Spencer, she waved back at Davey, unaware it was how his Mommy used to wave, or so Davey’s mind told him. Spencer waved too, just like The Man. And also like The Man, Spencer was an Afro-American. The “look at me, I’m skating” gleam on Davey’s face dimmed as the memories filled his head and he dropped his skating partner’s hand. Slipping backwards, he crashed onto the ice. He lay flat for several seconds, narrowly being avoided by several skaters till his friend’s mother skated over, and since eight-year-olds don’t have far to fall, she got him up fast. She mistook the tears and patted the back of his coat, “It’s only a little fall,” she soothed, careful to mouth the words slowly, but he wasn’t crying about that.

  He grasped her hand tight for the next ten circuits, whimpering each time he spied the couple near the golden statue, their heads close together.

  ISABEL and Spencer finished their tête-à-tête just after Davey was off the ice and back with George in the café at the end of the ice rink. Davey’s hot chocolate with two floating marshmallows was steaming on the table.

  “What was so crucial Spencer had to interrupt your skating time?” George asked.

  “A proposition,” she said, and saw Davey’s blue eyes clamp shut. “We’ll discuss it later, George. Something’s bugging Davey.” She squeezed the boy’s ear lobe and rested her hand on his cheek but his eyes stayed closed, damming back the tears.

  The two adults were silent, contemplating, until George said, “The only proposal you should’ve accepted from Spencer was when he wanted to marry you.”

  Davey had cracked his eyes open and read Ge
orge’s lips. His body began to shudder, he couldn’t stop it. “Don’t leave us,” Davey signed, his tears streaming.

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “He wants to marry you. George said so,” the boy signed.

  Isabel wanted to laugh, but was careful not to, “That was a long time ago. Now I love your daddy, and you.”

  Davey looked away. After a long pause, he turned his head back, “Why did he come?” he signed, his hand motions abrupt, angry.

  Isabel inhaled deeply and spoke—quietly, of course—but paced to give just enough emphasis to her words, “The President wants me to do something important and he got Spencer to ask me to accept.”

  George was as captivated by this as Davey.

  “But,” signed Davey, his hands a blur, “we don’t like the President.”

  “What does he want?” interrupted George.

  Isabel could see Davey’s lips pressed. “He wants me to become House Speaker.”

  “What?” George blurted, almost blowing his buckteeth out of his mouth. He sprayed with such force his puffy cheeks and turkey neck quivered.

  “What’s a house speaker?” Davey asked, imagining something like a talking building. Whatever it was, he knew it was bad, and it only got worse after she explained it might disrupt their planned special trip.

  Davey signed, “I want to go to the shack. You promised!”

  “We’ll go, for sure, but it will have to be later.”

  Davey pulled his cap over his eyes and slumped in his chair.

  “Say no,” said George. “For a change, do something for yourself. And for Davey,” he looked at the boy cringing into the back of his chair. “Take him up to the shack and damn them all. For once, Ed’ll agree with me. You’ll see.”

  Davey could see through the weave of his cap. George was Isabel’s dad, sort of. She had to listen to what he said, didn’t she? He pushed his cap up and sipped the last syrupy dregs of his hot chocolate. “Can I have another one?” Before Isabel could even swivel to signal, the waitress, who had recognised her celebrity customer even under the hat, came over. She explained she could sign ASL—her mother was deaf—and she winked at Davey and told them another hot chocolate was already on its way, with three marshmallows this time.

  She also thought of phoning her friend at NBC to tell him the other snippet of their conversation she’d seen Isabel signing.

  ED was late for dinner at the restaurant. Who was surprised? The mood around the table, already tense over whether Isabel would take the job, and whether Davey would get to go to the shack, stretched even tighter the longer they waited. The best George could suggest was another round of “I Spy” which, in ASL, was quite a challenge, especially for him.

  Having delayed ordering as long as they could, they were just digging into their shrimp cocktails when Ed came up behind Davey and tousled his hair. Instead of getting a big hug from his son, all Ed got was a melancholic signing that dumped the speakership question at him, even before he had a chance to sit down.

  Despite Ed’s loathing for Foster—George picked that right—and the obvious jibe that Foster had to be desperate, Ed was as much for it as Isabel was.

  “It is the country’s third most important job,” said Ed.

  “Third?” asked George, wondering what Ed was getting at. Surely a Secretary of State or Defence, or the chairmanship of Coca-Cola rated over someone who banged a gavel every day.

  Isabel explained it for him, “After the Vice-President, it’s the Speaker who’s next-in-line for the presidential succession.” From Davey’s blank expression, it was obvious he had no idea what she was talking about, so she tried afresh, “Davey, if something bad happens to both the President and the Vice-President, like they die or something, then the Speaker automatically steps up to become President.”

  “But not in your case,” said George, “since you’re not a natural born citizen, right?”

  “You never know,” she said curiously.

  To George, the strange advent of both Ed’s and Isabel’s eager harmony set off his suspicions big time. He didn’t let up, right through dinner. He kept pushing how she needed a break after the gruelling campaign but Isabel wasn’t listening, he could see that. She maintained a look: an unfamiliar glaze. He imagined it was the wash of exhaustion, proof of his point, but the distance in her eyes and the flicker of a smile he thought he detected in the corners of her mouth made him wonder if it was something else? Ambition? Lust for power? If it had been Ed, for sure. But Isabel? No way.

  She closed the debate when dessert arrived. She held up her spoon and said, “George, enough. I’m doing it,” and then dug it into her pear soufflé.

  Davey burst into tears.

  THE four were back at the apartment in front of the fire, but there wasn’t a lot of warmth in the room. Davey was pretending to fool around with his toy penguin Pip on the silk and gold-thread Savafid prayer rug, playing at being Eskimos while secretly reading the adults’ lips. He didn’t know, and wouldn’t have cared that there are no penguins in the Arctic. Isabel wondered if Ed would ask the boy to be careful of his prized 400-year-old rug, but he seemed more focused on what her plans were.

  She had been explaining that the House’s first session would sit for ten days at the start of January before it recessed again until Inauguration Day on the twentieth. Then, there’d be a five-day session and a further break of around a week, resuming for the President’s first State of the Union Address. He was delivering it early in February, she said.

  “Pretty soft, this congressional life,” said George.

  “Oh, George!” Isabel sighed. She’d explained her new plan, a plan regrettably without Davey: that she’d still fly up to her shack, but it would have to be later and alone, for the few free days just ahead of the State of the Union.

  She caught Davey lip-reading and looked directly at him. “Davey darling, like I said, you can’t come because you’ll be back at school and they need you for rehearsals for the school pantomime. But,” she said, pointing between the two of them, “we’ll still get up there one day, I really do promise… ”

  Davey’s eyes dropped to Pip, and Isabel knew there was no point in continuing.

  Suddenly, Davey jumped up and signed, “Goodnight,” and without a kiss or a hug for anyone, not even George, he ran to his room.

  George slumped back into the sofa as Isabel left to get Davey dressed for bed. He glowered at Ed, but the former general didn’t notice or care; he had moved to the window and was gazing out at the snow flurries. After a minute, Ed gave George a curt nod, turned and walked off, leaving George to stew in front of the fire alone.

  ISABEL sat cross-legged on the bed with Davey.

  “A cross-your-heart promise means something,” he signed at her. Deep in his own heart, he was sure she’d broken her promise because Ed had wanted her to. It was always Ed’s fault. All Ed had needed to say was no. He was the man in the house. When Isabel ran for president, Ed was going to be First Man; the papers said so, and a First Man must be really important, or he wouldn’t be first. So, if Ed had just said no, it would all be over and they would all go up to the shack. That’s what George said, and George knew about stuff because he was old. But Ed didn’t say no.

  Davey pushed Isabel away as thoughts started pouring out to him; if only he knew how to sign them.

  At least he didn’t scream.

  46

  THE PRESIDENT-ELECT stood behind the lectern in the Transition Office pressroom, flanked by David Prescott and Isabel, and a wall of oak veneer behind him with a logo of “The Office of the President-Elect”. His tone had been even, his demeanour calm but purposeful. With his announcement over, his eyes skimmed across the ragged carpet of raised hands and he gave the first nod to the Chicago Tribune reporter, who was guaranteed to ask a safe starter question since Don Thomas had set it up.

  “Sir, can you give us some background to this appointment?”

  “Sure, Anne. Representative… or shoul
d I say, Ambassador Prescott,” said Foster, “has worked over many years developing close links with China…”

  Don Thomas, standing at the side, twisted around to watch the press’s reactions.

  Bobby Foster continued, “and when I offered him the ambassadorship, not only did he accept but, conscious of his responsibility as the likely new House Speaker, he sought my counsel. Isabel Diaz was the obvious choice to us both… as Speaker, I mean. Unconventional, sure, but obvious when you think about it. I have spoken to the leadership of both Parties and, as I already mentioned, I am delighted to say that she has their unwavering support and we all expect the House to elect her at its first session on…”

  “Doña Isabel, why are you doing this?” It was the correspondent from Miami’s El Nuevo Herald. He was fresh to the Washington press gaggle and blurted out his question without waiting for the President to finish, let alone being called.

  Isabel tilted her head toward Foster.

  “Go ahead,” he said, forcing a smile through gritted teeth, and he stepped back from the lectern to make room for her.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking his spot. “For this phase of my life I deeply wanted to serve the American people but, in case you missed it, things didn’t go as I planned…,” though she did get the laughs she planned. “And you know,” she shrugged, “when the President of the United States asks…”

  “Ms Diaz…”

  Another one! Foster was incensed.

  “Los Angeles Times… Isn’t there an irony here, ma’am? My read of the succession rules says you’ll be next-in-line after Vice-President Taylor if anything, God forbid, should happen to the President. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  The reporter’s analysis was only half correct. As Don Thomas had explained it to Foster and as most legal commentators were now busy scribbling, there was simply no way Isabel could become president; at least not without a Supreme Court bench that would be bold enough to upend centuries of settled constitutional law, and that wasn’t going to happen.