The Phoenix Candidate(74)

Jared’s had me mostly quarantined against the media firestorm that erupted after Conover’s official announcement, taking only a few select interviews as we prepare for the convention. It’s my debut night, and I can’t hide my satisfaction every time I see a clip from Knox on Politics, my platform coming through in sharp, unflinching soundbites.

There’s no hiding it. No apologizing for it.

And Conover doesn’t want me to.

“You ready for this, baby girl?” Trey’s holding my hand in the wings, grinning like crazy, as the Democratic National Convention heats up on its second night. The environment is electric and I see Jared here and there, slipping around the margins, orchestrating everything.

“As I’ll ever be.”

“You puked yet?”

I roll my eyes at Trey, but my stomach is queasy with fear. Not again, I tell it. I prayed to the porcelain goddess already this morning. Let’s not start again and ruin my lipstick.

My body obeys.

Rivera introduces me in glowing terms, his recitation of my résumé both complimentary and sweeping.

I hear him pause and music swells beneath his voice. Rivera continues, “Ladies and gentlemen, the congresswoman from Oregon and the next vice president of the United States of America … Grace Garcia Colton!”

The music blares and I follow my cue, hit my mark, and just breathe. Rivera grasps my hand in a firm, one-for-the-cameras shake. The applause is so loud I can’t even hear the music, the lights so bright I can’t see Mama Bea and Aliza in the place of honor where a candidate’s family should be.

I don’t see them but I know they’re there.

I turn to the podium and remind myself to wave, the gentle, close-fingered motion that Jared instructed.

“Don’t go too fast or you’ll look like a spastic chicken, just fluttering around,” he said.

And so I grip the podium, smile until my teeth dry out, and wave.

After several long minutes, the applause falls away. The teleprompter begins scrolling, timidly at first, and I open my mouth to speak. And then I close it. I put my hand on my heart, my eyes stinging with tears, as real and raw emotion overcomes me.

Vice president. This could be real.

This could be my first step toward a completely different life, a life Ethan never would have allowed, but that his death enabled. He brought me here. Nothing but the fiery passion to protect him, to defend other children like him, and to meet my firm promise that his death would not be in vain. It all drove me to this moment.

“Thank you,” I start, my voice trembling. I’m off script already. “Thank you, Senator Conover, for this opportunity. And thank you, America, for this moment.”

I bow my head and grasp the locket that holds Ethan’s picture. Just for a moment, but it’s enough. It’s enough to ground my legs as I stand here at a glass podium with fifty thousand people in this stadium watching me, and tens of millions more tuned in on TV.

I am ready.

And I begin. “I am honored today to accept your challenge and your choice. I accept the responsibility to serve and defend America, to champion our ideals, and to join with Senator Shep Conover as your choice for vice president, representing the Democratic Party…”





***





From the moment Conover chose me, everything changed.

I don’t mean from the moment he announced my name on national television a few days before the convention. Although everything changed then, too, because the Secret Service security detail suddenly became a major part of my life.

Like every other major party candidate, they’ve given me a code name. In 2008, Sarah Palin was Denali. Hillary Clinton was Evergreen. Years ago, Ted Kennedy was not so lucky with his nickname: Sunburn.

I’m Phoenix. The mythical bird that rises from the ashes.

I’ve risen from fear and grief, from scandal and suffering, and from the crushing loneliness of walking with a purpose that is outside myself, but not within me. I know what’s within me now, and I’m ready to fly again.

I say everything changed when Conover chose me, but I don’t mean when he chose to meet me in Oregon, when he started my life on this crazy spiral that forced me to question what’s possible, what I’m made of, and what I truly desire.

I’d have to turn back the clock three years to show you the precise moment when everything changed, even though I was unaware. I made a little speech—an inconsequential speech—for undergrads in the communications department of my alma mater. Someone took a video with their phone and uploaded it to YouTube.

And that wobbly recording is how Conover first found me.

“We have a history, through the First Amendment, of protecting things even though they’re unpalatable. Unpopular religious views. Dissident speech. Rabble-rousers and crazies and bigots and even treasonous viewpoints—they’re all protected, because what we value more than family values … is freedom.”