The Candidate

Hank here, reading your mind. You think Henrietta has no business letting Wagman define another character’s character like this. The Brenda he’s getting off on is only in his head.

Where is Wagman, but in your head? Or your version of Brenda? They’re composed of hearsay from Henrietta, whose head they all came from. And you know whose head she came from. Wagman has at least seen Brenda in the flesh. Has, in fact, touched that flesh, even if ever so slightly. When Wagman closed his eyes and began to imagine, he donned the mantle of author. Fantasy author, to be sure, but what fantasy isn’t based on some nugget of reality?

The subconscious is a powerful tool. It can see beneath the camouflage of another subconscious. It can wrest the essence from it, pull it right up through the skin and not only read it, but free it. Allow it to act on its own.

Poor Brenda. She has been discovered. Uncovered. By Wagman. By Jason. She is suspicious of herself. She has only her inner discipline and Henrietta to save her from this self. That’s all from me, folks. Back to Brenda.

On the morning in question, she lies in bed, a little smile of satisfaction on her face, ignoring the occasional groan from her bedmate. Why had he drunk so much wine? Nobody else had.

She doesn’t want to be here now, next to this sweating, moaning man. She wants to be back in last night, back in her hour of glory. Listening to Mitchell Wagman extol her every attribute. How sympathetic he was. How attuned to everything she stands for. How well he knew her. She’d been shocked. And flattered.

“I know you secretly want to help the whole world. Not just your family, or your school, not even your town, or for that matter, your country. You want to improve the lot of all mankind.”

She’d been spell-bound. He had access to her inner-most thoughts. He knew her heart!

“I’m offering you a platform from which you can disperse your largess.” The man could talk, too. She’d underestimated his abilities. “A perch from which you can reach out and touch the billions of people who live on our planet.”

She froze it in her mind. His face was aglow with the same urgent purpose she felt pounding through her, all through her. And now came the moment. Her hand slipped down into her pajamas, and rested where the pounding was the hardest.

“That place,” he said, looking deep into her eyes for the first time, “is the United States Congress.”

For a second everything stopped. Then she exploded. Waves of fulfillment flowed over her.

She savored the sensation as it ebbed away. Had she been a smoker, she would have reached for her cigarettes, and lain back against the pillow, puffing, watching the wreaths of smoke, content with herself and the universe.

Today she was meeting Nat Grogan. She knew him by sight – everybody did – but had never spoken to him. It would be her introduction to the field of politics. Field in the sense, not of intellectual growth but of a ball game. Hadn’t Mitch used that phrase? (A warm feeling suffused her when his name came up.) Play ball with me, he’d said.

Well, she was going to play ball. Because he was right. A congressman is a powerful person. And she would be a congressman, not a congesswoman. She’d make that clear from the start. She was no weak sister to be dealt with lightly and ordered around, told what to say, and to whom to say it. If they wanted her, they’d have to take all of her, all her notions, and more important, all her principles. They were not going to drag her down into the mud.

Jason was right about the nature of their small political cabal. It consisted of the high rollers in the district. The flashy people with loud laughs and glitter. Nat Grogan, for instance, was famous for his five carat diamond ring. Bigger than his brain, was the joke.

She would not become a joke. She would put her foot down the moment the ordering around started – if she didn’t like what they wanted her to do. Or say. Or wear. Well, maybe she’d listen to them on that one. The Hillary suits might be stale. Or, they might resonate with the voters; she was Secretary of State. It wasn’t President, but it was something.

She fought down the habitual disappointment that came with the thought that they had lost. She loved Barack, didn’t she? What more could he ask? That she be a happy loser? There was no such thing.

Historic event. Those words came to mind whenever he did. It would have been an historic event had a woman been elected, too. Maybe more of one. They would have had to deal with a First Gentleman. One who wasn’t exactly a gentleman. She laughed to herself.

Flushing and mild murmuring from the kids’ side of the hall told her it was time to get up and go down to make breakfast. They could get it themselves, but that would make her feel guilty, so every morning, in her rose-colored robe and matching slippers, she put together yogurt and granola – her kids were the only ones she knew who ate this stuff – and for warmth and an old-fashioned feeling left over from her own childhood, eggs and toast to go with it. Her children would not fade away from low blood-sugar in the middle of the morning.

While they ate, she showered and dressed. In the signature yellow pants suit. When she came out, the children were living their own life, squabbling, talking TV, running up and down the stairs laughing, screeching, yelling. Jason slept through it all. It was normal background noise. She called Jason’s office, said he was sick, and left him a note saying she’d done so.

She left. They would all take care of themselves. Her stomach was beginning to anticipate her meeting, and now that she was on her way, she didn’t feel as confident as she had in bed. How did she look? How should she act? What would be expected of her?

She was still trying to figure it all out as she walked up the grand, granite steps of her school. The administration worked all through July. One good reason to remain a teacher and not move (what was thought of as) up.

But then there was no more time. As she walked in the front door, a hand came down on her shoulder. A big hand. The shoulder almost gave way under it. She looked up into Wagman’s face.

“You don’t have to sign in. The school year is over for you.” The hand propelled her down the hall to his office. Past Madge to the inner sanctum. It didn’t exactly force her down into a seat, but it would have been hard to resist its pressure.

Wagman was all business. Not even a smile. “We can’t meet Grogan here,” he said. “Wouldn’t look right. Conflict of interest… all that crap. We’re meeting for breakfast at the Diner. Then you’re going shopping for some clothes with Adele – you’ll like her – have to get you out of those suits, no offense intended. And tell Adele to find you some make-up. You’re playing with the grown-ups now.”