Parties in Congress (27 page)

“Wow, good thing you’re completely incapacitated.”

“And probably couldn’t stand right now if I had to.”

“You might feel better faster if you had something to eat. Interested in lunch?”

“Sounds good. What’s on the menu?”

“General Tso’s Chicken and Polish sausage.”

Bijal jerked her head up quickly. “Um…”

“Just kidding. I packed sandwiches and fruit salad. Would you prefer roast beef or ham and cheese? Oh, and I also brought peanut butter, in case you weren’t feeling particularly carnivorous,” Colleen said, holding them all up.

“I’ll take the ham, if that’s okay.”

“Absolutely.” Colleen found the correct sandwich and extended it to Bijal.

Bijal grimaced as she struggled to sit back up. In resignation, she relaxed her muscles again. “Can you just set it on my body somewhere? I’ll get it in a minute.”

“I’ve broken you, haven’t I?”

“I’m not broken,” Bijal replied weakly, “just recharging.”

“Like a solar cell?”

“A wheezing, sticky solar cell, yes.”

Colleen poured some of her bottled water over a handkerchief, then wrung it out. “Close your eyes, Bijal.”

She followed instructions as Colleen wiped the damp fabric along her cheeks and forehead. “Mmm, that feels nice.”

Before she could process any other random television flashbacks, Colleen’s lips lightly brushed hers. When the kiss ended, Bijal opened her eyes and was undone by Colleen’s blatantly amorous expression.

“Sorry,” Colleen said, her tone husky. “I couldn’t help myself. You’re very alluring when you’re all sweaty and wounded.”

“Then stick around, ’cause I have
lots
of those kinds of moments.” They kissed again, and for the first time in nearly an hour, Bijal completely forgot about her burning muscles and unqualified exhaustion. Instead, the amazing way Colleen’s mouth moved against hers was thoroughly monopolizing her mental faculties, and her stomach lurched at the contact. Colleen pulled back again, and Bijal’s lust-tinted gaze vacillated from the hunger in Colleen’s eyes, to her full and wondrous lips, and back again. “If I were to get really wounded—like, if I needed stitches or something, what might that get me?”

“A trip to the emergency room,” Colleen replied, still only inches away.

“That’s it?”

“And maybe I’d take off my shirt while I applied pressure to the wound.”

“If you’re trying to slow my heart rate, you’re failing spectacularly.”

Colleen gave another smoldering look. “Sorry.”

“You’re
so
forgiven.”

“You should eat.”

“You read my mind,” Bijal purred, rising to meet Colleen’s mouth with her own again.

Colleen softly placed her hand against Bijal’s collarbone and forced her back down. “I actually meant food.”

“Oh, damn.”

“Apparently we’ve found a cure for your low energy.” Colleen backed away and picked the sandwich up and again offered it to Bijal.

Bijal sat up gingerly and took the ham and cheese sandwich out of the baggie. “That may cure a number of ailments. I’m looking forward to doing the research.”

“Sadly, that’s the part we’re supposed to be waiting on, remember?”

“Then you’d better start keeping your lips to yourself, sugar.”

Colleen chewed a bit of her roast beef and swallowed. “I’ll do my best, but you’ll need to stop looking so tempting.”

Bijal had another rush of adrenaline. “So maybe what we need is a little bland conversation.”

“You start.”

“Tell me about this trip you have next week.”

“It’s a standard congressional delegation, what we call a CODEL. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, periodically it’s in my best interest to travel where our armed forces are. I’ll only be there for a few days.”

“I’m surprised that you’re going in the middle of your campaign.”

“My main job is being a congresswoman, not a campaigner. And between you and me, I
hate
campaigning.”

“That’s understandable,” Bijal said.

“I mean, it’s just such bullshit—running around shaking hands and kissing babies.”

“You could always change it up and kiss hands and shake babies.”

“And having to run every two years makes it pretty difficult to stay focused on Washington and the tasks at hand.”

“Some might argue that an election every two years forces you to get back in your district and interface with your constituents.”

Colleen smiled wryly. “Yeah, well, giving speeches and eating barbecue at a truck stop doesn’t really impact the people in my district the way what I do on their behalf does.”

“That might depend on the barbecue.”

“I’d like to think that the best things I can do to encourage people to vote for me are to consistently do what’s best for them and to not be a douchebag.”

“Whoa, slow down there, Colleen. You’re talking like some kind of crazy radical.”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely. Why actually make an effort and accomplish things when you can just sit on your ass and then lie at election time and
say
that you accomplished things?”

“You may have me confused with a career politician. I’m less of a lazy lump and more of a shit-stirrer.”

Bijal nodded as she took another sip of water. “I have noticed that.”

“In fact, if you want to tune in to Tank Guzman tomorrow night, I’ll be back on, stirring my next shit bucket.”

“More evisceration of the anti-gay-adoption crowd?”

“No, tomorrow it’s all about the Saturday Amendment.”

“Really?” Bijal knew the Democrats were pressuring Colleen, and no doubt several other progressives in the House, to pass the bill with the amendment included. But to break so publicly with her party so close to Election Day was a pretty ballsy move. “You’re going on TV to oppose it?”

“Yup.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I didn’t necessarily change my mind about anything,” Colleen replied. “I just decided that I feel very strongly about this. It’s one reason I ran for Congress to begin with, and I refuse to let anyone try to intimidate me to vote against my conscience.”

“Even if the intimidators are your own party leaders?”

“
Especially
if that’s who they are. I don’t need their campaign support. So I’m just going to put what’s really going on out there for public consumption. It’ll either resonate with people who are pro-choice, or it won’t matter enough to stop it. Either way, I won’t be happy if I don’t at least find out. If it costs me my seat in the House, so be it.”

Bijal studied Colleen for a moment. “Chicks with convictions are hot.”

“Hmm, so how’s your sandwich?”

“It may be the best ham-and-cheese I’ve ever had.”

Colleen scoffed. “It’s okay to be candid. I’ll lead you back down the mountain whether you like it or not.”

“Trust me,” Bijal said. “Candor isn’t a problem for me.”

Bijal pushed open the door to Denton Campaign Headquarters and hobbled inside. She tried to brush aside the muscle aches, but her thighs and calves burned as though she’d hauled a sack of bricks across the Himalayas, and her back twinged whenever she twisted. Dumping her bag at her desk, she booted up her PC and, rather than wait for it, headed directly for the coffeemaker.

She grabbed the mug that said “2008 Republican National Convention—St. Paul, Minn.” and emptied the hot carafe into it.

“Good morning, Bijal,” Kristin said from the break-room doorway. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Bijal replied, tearing open a packet of sweetener and fumbling for a spoon. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason—just that you’re walking like a sunburned nudist.”

Bijal turned to face her and shifted her weight against the counter behind her. “Yeah, I went hiking yesterday. This is my post-exercise healthy glow.”

Kristin looked horrified. “Oh, my God. Really?”

“Mmm-hmm. I thought it sucked while I was doing it, but now the pain has reached a new apex. It’s like the Cadillac of physical anguish.”

“That’s how you chose to spend your day off? Hiking your way to paralysis?”

Bijal took a sip of her coffee and happily let the elixir slide down her throat. “Admittedly, I did it more for the company and less for the gnarled hamstrings.”

“Ooh, you mean it was a
date
?”

“Sort of.”

“Tell me all about him,” Kristin said eagerly. “I’m so ready for some good news.”

This was not a conversation Bijal was either prepared for or remotely interested in having. “Maybe a little later. I don’t want to jinx it.”

“It’s that new?”

Bijal nodded and took another swallow of java.

Suddenly, Dan, the office manager, poked his head into the break room. “Ah, you
are
here. Eliot’s calling an emergency meeting in his office.”

“What time?” Kristin asked.

“Right now,” he replied. “And he wants you both there.”

Kristin’s expression was grim. “Maybe you were wrong and you haven’t reached the apex of your pain yet.”

“Well, I’m sure he’s not calling us into his office to talk about how awesome the debate went.”

They both started the slow death march to see Eliot. “Did you look at the editorials and blogs?” Kristin asked quietly.

“Yeah, they were merciless. I couldn’t find a single positive analysis, unless you count the crazy guy who said eleven different times throughout the course of his secessionist rant that he wanted to ‘do’ Janet.”

“Eww, I don’t think we
can
count that, can we?”

“I doubt it, because I’m pretty sure what he wants to do to Margaret Thatcher is a felony.”

They arrived at Eliot’s open door and were hastily ushered inside, where most of the campaign workers were already sitting, standing, or leaning. Janet was noticeably absent, which made Bijal wonder if this might be a meeting to talk about her dropping out of the race entirely.

“Dan, shut the door, please,” Eliot said.

Dan stepped inside, pulling it closed behind him.

“No,” Eliot amended in irritation. “I mean from the
outside
.”

“Oh,” Dan replied dejectedly. He shuffled awkwardly out of the room.

“I have a few announcements,” he said. “First, I want everyone to know that I’ve fired Paige for her reckless behavior. For those of you who weren’t aware, she gave Mayor Denton mood-altering narcotics before the debate, resulting in the complete and utter shutdown of the mayor’s mental faculties.”

Eliot had apparently assumed he might hear gasps of horror or cries of anger at his rather exaggerated allegations, because he paused dramatically and eyed everyone expectantly. Instead, people just looked warily around the room at each other, as though trying to gauge what might be coming next.

“At any rate, I’m sure most of you are feeling rather disheartened today, based on our disappointing performance against O’Bannon and the slew of negative press that it generated. How many of you feel, at this point, that we should throw in the towel?”

People seemed confused. No doubt they wanted to be honest and admit that, yes, winning this campaign would now take not only a miracle from God, but perhaps also a natural disaster and/or a zombie apocalypse. But most people had already learned that when the boss asks for your honesty, he or she rarely, if ever, actually wants it. No one raised their hand, nodded in tacit agreement, or even twitched an eyebrow.

Eliot pursed his lips. “None of you? Nobody in here feels like we should just accept the fact that we’re down too far in the polls to come back in just five weeks?”

Ted, who had recently been moved to oversee the phone bank, bravely held up his hand.

“Aha!” Eliot asserted, his finger extended in accusation. “Then you can go right ahead and leave, Ted.”

Ted appeared stunned. “What?”

“We don’t need your negativity,” Eliot explained. “And anyone else who agrees with Ted can go right along with him.”

Ted’s brow furrowed and he walked with conviction, stopping only a few inches from Eliot. Ted was tall and imposing in stature. Bijal had little doubt that Eliot was probably very close to his threshold of wetting himself, right there in front of all his direct reports. “You’re an idiot,” Ted growled. “Maybe not as big an idiot as Donna, but still an idiot.” Just when it looked like he might take a swing at Eliot, Ted stomped out of the office and slammed the door.

Eliot sagged in obvious relief. “So can I assume that all we have left in the room are people with positive, can-do attitudes?” People nodded dumbly, having seen the repercussions of answering to the contrary. “Good. Because we need that kind of energy to turn this race around! This meeting is to announce a new beginning for the Denton for Congress campaign. We have a new focus, a new direction, and a new message that’s being broadcast to the public starting today in our latest ads. Kristin, hit the lights.”