Parties in Congress (19 page)

Her scheduler Penny, whose desk was just inside, was clearly overwhelmed, and her expression was an obvious plea for help. Beyond Penny sat another dozen or so people, looking at her excitedly.

Once everyone was across the threshold, Colleen put her hands up and addressed the entire group. “Hello, folks. Welcome. I’m not really sure to what I owe this visit. Are you all together?” Most started shaking their heads. “All right, are any of you together?” Several looked around at each other, but most had arrived alone, and a few were there in pairs. “Does your visit have anything to do with my appearance last night on TV?”

Suddenly everyone started talking at once.

“Wait, wait,” Colleen shouted, trying to gain the floor again. “I can’t understand you all unless you speak one at a time. Let’s do this by a show of hands instead. How many of you are here because you saw me on Tank Guzman’s show?”

Everyone raised their hand.

Colleen exhaled loudly in surprise. “Um, wow. Okay, so how many of you have come here to chastise me and tell me I’m wrong and/or going to hell?”

No one raised their hand. Colleen smiled broadly and felt instantly more at ease. “Well, that’s nice to know.”

“A couple of protesters were here a little while ago,” a sinewy-looking man with beard stubble said. “But we chased them off.” He was apparently pleased with himself, and the others chuckled with him.

“How many of you are here because you’re looking for a way to help achieve LGBT civil rights?” Colleen asked.

Again, everyone responded in the affirmative. Perhaps Max had been right about how well she’d done against Senator Prescott. If this could serve as a catalyst for something positive, she was more than prepared.

*

Bijal was sorting through video equipment at her desk, preparing to film the evening’s event, as Kristin slumped back down into her chair across from her and sighed.

“Already had a long morning?” Bijal asked.

“It feels more like a long few months.” Kristin began to whisper. “Is it wrong that I just wish tonight’s debate was over?”

“No, but it might be best if you don’t repeat that, just in case.”

Kristin looked around to make sure no one else was listening. “I mean, am I the only one who’s starting to feel like we just can’t catch a break?”

Bijal shook her head and answered softly. “It’s not just you, Kristin. But remember that at any time, the tide could turn. Politics is a weird business. Sometimes a shift in momentum can start with a single grain of sand.”

“Wow, that’s kind of poetic,” Kristin said with a grin. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

“Anytime.” Of course, Bijal didn’t elaborate that she was really looking forward to this debate because it would give her an opportunity to see Colleen, whom she hadn’t seen in several days.

A couple of times she’d actually considered just
stopping by
the K and K, but she couldn’t come up with a reason that wasn’t visibly dripping with pretense. Besides, she’d been keeping a close eye on Colleen’s schedule, at least partially to glean any logical detours Colleen could make to Sue’s bar, and hadn’t spied any real opportunities.

As silly as she felt, this debate at Palmer College would give her an authorized possibility to feed her ridiculous and borderline self-destructive infatuation. Luckily, she just needed to film it from the back of the auditorium. She could remain a detached observer, though perhaps, if she planned it well, she could conveniently bump into Colleen in the ladies’ room afterward. Something about that thought felt terribly illicit, perhaps because Colleen was the most forbidden person she could possibly pursue. But maybe there was more to it than that—

Paige unexpectedly rested her full rump on the edge of Bijal’s desk and effectively broke her semi-smutty reverie. “Hey, ladies. How are you both holding up?”

“Bijal was just helping me get psyched up for the debate,” Kristin replied.

“Really? Did it work?” Paige asked, looking surprised when Kristin nodded. “Then maybe you’d better work some of your magic on me, Bijal.”

Bijal set down her tripod so she could give Paige her full attention. “Are you starting to feel discouraged too?”

Paige snorted. “
Discouraged?
Hell, I passed discouraged in the fast lane weeks ago on the way to demoralized hollow shell. At this point, I’d say just feeling discouraged is a pretty good day.”

“Wow,” Bijal said, taken aback. “You might be past the point where a simple chat can bring you back around.” She apparently wasn’t the only campaign worker who’d had a slow sinking feeling over these last few weeks. Who knew how many others were in their midst, keeping up a strong façade yet, inside, softly counting the days till failure?

Eliot approached them and Bijal struggled to not openly recoil, silently hoping he was just passing by on his way to someone else’s desk. She wasn’t certain what about Eliot unsettled her, but the more time she spent with him, the more concentrated her feelings became. “Well, hello, people,” he said. “Are we all set for tonight?”

The three of them nodded weakly, though Eliot’s sneer implied that he didn’t believe their feigned enthusiasm any more than they did.

“We’re just a little…worn down,” Kristin replied tactfully.

“Understood,” Eliot replied, putting his hands in his pockets. “It’s certainly not true that this campaign staff isn’t pulling its weight.”

An awkward silence ensued until Paige finally spoke. “Has…has someone actually said that?”

Eliot’s eyes widened for an instant, presumably with the realization that he had just admitted that the NRCC had assumed they were all lazy. “Huh? Oh, are you kidding? Of course not. Never.” Bijal was slightly disappointed that yet another career politician had turned out to be such a horrible liar. He quickly turned his attention to the video equipment. “You’re testing the equipment before you pack it, right?”

Bijal closed her eyes briefly, hoping they wouldn’t obviously roll at her boss’s transparent attempt to change an uncomfortable subject. “Yes. Trust me, I’m a pro with this thing now.”

Eliot winked in a way that implied a sexual confidence he had no business deluding himself with. “Really? So you’re a regular Paris Hilton, huh?”

Bijal interrupted another uncomfortable period of quiet, though this time, completely against her will. “Eww,” she replied in disgust. “Um…no.” She now understood
exactly
what she didn’t like about Eliot—his inherent and intense skeeviness.

“So where’s Janet, anyway?” Kristin asked, her expression of shock belying her reasonable inquiry. “I thought we were supposed to do a full mock debate before we headed over to the college.”

“She had to stop by her doctor’s office this morning,” Eliot replied. “I told her that she’d picked the worst day in the world for an appointment, but she promised she’d be quick.”

Paige scoffed and crossed her arms. “A quick doctor’s appointment? I’ve never heard of one of those. Is that like a unicorn?”

“Or a trustworthy man,” Kristin added, suddenly realizing one was standing there. “No offense, Eliot.”

He shrugged. “If I were trustworthy, I wouldn’t be in politics.”

Bijal started packing the equipment into the camera bag, hoping to end this conversation that had now rapidly gone south. “Maybe we should make that our new campaign slogan, Eliot. We could put it on the yard signs—right under Janet’s name.”

“Heh.” Eliot chuckled. “You’re sassy.”

Bijal turned to Paige and Kristin in frustration. “Why do people keep telling me that? Is that even a real thing?”

As though to punish her further, Bijal didn’t get an answer. Instead, everyone’s attention shifted to Janet, who had finally arrived at the office and was shuffling toward them wearing large dark glasses as though she was incognito.

“Well, that took forever,” Eliot announced, looking at his watch. When Janet didn’t immediately respond, his expression changed. “Is everything okay?”

“We may have a little problem, people,” Janet said quietly.

Eliot now seemed to be panicking. “Why? What’s wrong?”

Janet removed her sunglasses to reveal that the whites of her eyes were puffy, runny, and the color of Roma tomatoes.

“Ahh!” Kristin blurted.

“Gesundheit,” Bijal said quickly, hoping to cover for Kristin’s spontaneous eruption.

“Thank you,” Kristin replied unconvincingly, her face still registering horror.

Everyone stared, amazed at what they were seeing.

“Is it noticeable?” Janet asked.

“What the fuck is wrong with your eyes?” Eliot shouted, coming unglued all at once.

Janet looked pathetic. “Do you think the cameras will be able to pick it up?”

“Pick it up?” Eliot parroted. “You look like a demon!”

Bijal didn’t fully understand how this pleasant day had quickly turned into a fetid mound of warm dung with seemingly no end in sight. “Janet, what is that?”

“My ophthalmologist says it’s bacterial conjunctivitis.”

“Pinkeye,” Paige said.

“Or in your case, festering, oozy blood eye,” Eliot added, his voice becoming shrill and accusatory.

Janet continued as though he hadn’t spoken. “My eyes started to bother me a little yesterday, but when I woke up this morning I could barely open them. It was like they’d been glued shut. It looks bad, huh?”

“Well, it doesn’t look good,” Paige replied matter-of-factly.

“Will we need to postpone the debate?” Janet asked.

Everyone turned to Eliot. This was definitely his decision. He ran his palm over his chin nervously as he seemed to frantically mull on it. “I’d rather not postpone. It implies weakness. Did you get drops or anything? Will it look any better by tonight?”

“No to both,” Janet said dejectedly. “He said it’ll take several days, but it has to clear up on its own.”

“Is it contagious?” Kristin asked.

Janet glared in response. At least Bijal assumed she was glaring. Honestly, it was hard to tell. “Don’t worry. I’ll try not to rub my eyes on any of you.”

Paige cleared her throat. “Or rub your eyes and then touch…oh, anything?”

Janet replaced her dark glasses. “So now what?”

“You’ll look this way through the weekend?” Eliot asked, his teeth firmly clenched.

Janet nodded. “Apparently.”

“Can’t you take something to make you look less…diseased? Some kind of eye-whitener?” Eliot looked demented now.

“There’s nothing like that,” Paige replied with a wave of her hand. “My husband had pinkeye a few months ago. But he didn’t have anything like
that
.” She wiggled her fingers in Janet’s direction.

Everyone was rapidly starting to break down. True, the campaign workers had slowly grown more disheartened as each increasingly scandalous thing had occurred. Bijal suspected that most, like her, were simply operating more out of a sense of duty than from any zeal or expectation of winning. Now that their candidate was poised for what would likely be her last opportunity to appear commanding and informed—to possibly undo some of the recent damage to her credibility—she would appear without any eye whites.

Sensing that Eliot would
not
step up into his leadership role, and that without a voice of reason, the campaign was within thirty seconds of completely imploding, Bijal stood and motioned for everyone to stop speaking. “Okay, that’s enough. We’ve had a good couple minutes to freak out. Let’s move on to how we can fix this.”

Everyone nodded except Eliot, who was staring at her blankly. “So then, let’s hear your ‘fix,’” he hissed, using air quotes sarcastically. Perhaps he wasn’t the most receptive person when someone else took charge.

“Fine,” Bijal replied. “We need to assess the value of this debate. We’re all aware that we’ve had some recent very public, damaging setbacks. At the same time, O’Bannon has gone on national television in what’s been generally perceived as a favorable appearance. Her fund-raising has spiked outrageously in the past several days as a result, whereas ours has…not.”

“Agreed,” Janet said, pulling up a chair.

“So calling off this debate would certainly do nothing to alter our momentum. O’Bannon’s clip on Tank Guzman has gone viral on YouTube, and so has Janet’s clip talking about Thai food. This may be our last stand. Otherwise our numbers continue to decline and O’Bannon’s continue to rise,” Bijal explained calmly.

“Is it possible to reschedule it?” Paige asked.

Bijal shook her head. “Calling it off the day of the debate can only look bad for us—like we’re unprepared. I mean, we could contact the O’Bannon camp, sure.”

“You’re right,” Janet said. “Everyone will think we’re afraid to take O’Bannon on.”

“What if you did the debate with your sunglasses on?” Kristin asked.

Paige scoffed. “You don’t think that might come off as a little Roy Orbison?”

“Who?” Kristin asked.

Bijal smiled at Paige. “You’ll need an example from the last ten years if you want to make your point.”

“So Corey Hart is out too?” Paige said.

“I’m afraid so,” Bijal said. “Look, if you simply explain to the audience why you’re wearing them, you’ll be fine. In fact, it might make you appear more dedicated and serious, which is certainly a plus, right?”