The Wrong Side of Right(6)
A brother and sister? It was possible. Suddenly the world had cracked open and everything was possible. I couldn’t tell whether they looked like me. I stared at their pictures until a ray of sunlight on the computer screen reminded me to hurry up.
Today would not be like yesterday. Today, I would be prepared.
Click. Google: Cooper for America.
The official campaign website was so crammed with slogans, it was impossible to find actual information. I gave up and found a blog with a list of political staff members.
The friendly redhead was Nancy Oneida, Senator Cooper’s communications chief, in charge of “crafting his message,” whatever that meant.
The Chief Strategist for the campaign was that tall, groomed guy—Bird of Prey—the one who’d glared at me. Elliott Webb. The blog called him a “Machiavellian wunderkind.” It sounded appropriately pretentious to me.
Louis Mankowitz was the crinkly-eyed leprechaun. He and Senator Cooper had been roommates at Harvard. He’d worked on all of the senator’s campaigns, starting with his run for state congress.
That was the one my mom worked on. He must have known her. He might even have known about . . . whatever there was to know. I still wasn’t ready to think about that.
The blog highlighted other staff members, but I didn’t recognize them from yesterday. Those three must have been the senator’s core team, then. Nancy, Louis, Elliott. The ones he trusted most—or as the blog put it, his “inner circle.”
The doorbell rang. Voices filled the house. The invasion had begun.
In the kitchen, Barry was overloading a tray with coffee mugs, putting sugar in some, milk in others. I heard the front door opening and shutting, more people spilling into the living room, others back in the den where the TV was blasting. This was a bigger group than yesterday. Barry winced at the just-emptied coffeemaker.
“They have such specific orders,” he muttered. “This one’s two-thirds a Splenda packet?”
“Let me help,” I said, hoisting the tray. As I ducked into the hall, I glanced back. “I’m sorry about all this.”
He looked too confused to reply.
There were ten people in the TV room. The senator wasn’t one of them. I spotted Nancy, though, casually gorgeous in khakis, pointing to something on the TV screen as she chattered into her phone. Then I followed her finger—and nearly dropped the tray.
I was on TV. My picture was, anyway. And not just any picture—my most recent yearbook photo. They’d taken that shot a few weeks into the school year, only two months after Mom died. I’d barely been able to get out of bed that day, hadn’t remembered to primp for a photo shoot, and wouldn’t have cared anyway.
I should have cared. Because there I was, looking half homeless, dirty hair thrown into a ponytail, dead eyes, splotchy skin, strained smile.
On national television.
“How did they get that photo?”
Everyone in the room stopped talking.
Nancy leaped from the sofa. “She should not be doing that!”
At first, I thought she meant I wasn’t allowed to come in, but then I saw her waving wildly to staff members and felt hands gently prying the tray from my fingers. Leprechaun winked over the coffee mugs at me. “I got this, kiddo.” Louis, I remembered. Campaign Manager.
As he circled the room distributing drinks, Nancy hurried over with an indulgent smile.
“Early riser!” She put her hands on her hips. “I’m impressed—my kids don’t get out of bed at this hour for anything less than a trip to Disney World.”
It surprised me somehow that Nancy had kids. She seemed to exist in a different sphere, free from such messy things as families and theme parks. She pinched the fabric of my sleeve appraisingly.
“And don’t you look nice? Elliott!” Her voice hardened, and I glanced behind me to see Bird of Prey in the doorway, surveying the room as if searching for a mouse to pick off. “Doesn’t Kate look nice?”
She seemed to be proving some kind of point, like they’d made a bet and she’d just won.
Instead of answering, Elliott blinked once and said, “Leave.” Instantly, most of the room hurried out the door, still chattering, jotting notes, until only Nancy, Louis, and Elliott remained. The inner circle.
It was a neat trick. Elliott must have learned it at Evil Political Power-Player School, along with “Grooming for Maximum Intimidation.”
“She does look nice,” Elliott said, shutting the door. “Better than yesterday, anyway. And a hell of a lot better than that photo they keep showing.”
I felt my cheeks flush. It wasn’t like I’d planned to look like crap in my yearbook shot—and yesterday I’d been dressed to take a test, not to meet a firing squad of reporters.