The Governor's Wife (47 page)

"So you'll veto the bill if the legislature passes it?"

"I can't answer a hypothetical question."

"Sounds like you're dodging the question."

God, feel free to step in anytime and smite these reporters down.

He gave up on Texas reporters and gestured to a network reporter.

"Governor, is it true that you employ illegal Mexican immigrants at the Governor's Mansion?"

"No, that's not true."

"What about Guadalupe Sendejo?"

"Lupe? She's family. She's been with my family since I was a boy."

"But she's undocumented. As are the Mexicans you employ at your ranch."

"They're family, too."

"But they're residing in the U.S. illegally. You're employing illegal immigrants while demanding that the president secure the border to keep illegal immigrants out—isn't that hypocritical?"

Please, God. A little help here.

A good-looking broad bounced up and down with her hand in the air. Surely she wanted to ask him about the shooting. He pointed to her. She jumped up.

"Governor, did your wife leave you?"

"
What?
Of course not."

"Well, where is she? She hasn't been seen at her regular charitable duties in weeks now—the food bank, the homeless shelter, the AIDS clinic. Everyone is wondering where she is."

He hoped he wasn't sweating through the armpits of his powder-blue shirt for all the world to see. He felt a single bead of sweat pop from a pore on his forehead. He couldn't reach up and wipe it off—the cameras would catch him sweating, just the kind of photo op he didn't need. So he ignored the sweat bead as it started its slow descent down his broad forehead. He tried to frown it off, but it hung tight to his skin. He finally reached up as if to brush his hair off his forehead and swiped the sweat bead with his palm. But his sweat pores erupted like Mount St. Helens with the next question.

"Governor, does your wife's absence have anything to do with the rumors that are running rampant around Austin that you're having an affair with your aide, Mandy Morgan. Is that true?"

"
Mandy Morgan?
She's barely older than my daughter—who's probably watching this press conference on TV. You should be ashamed of yourself for asking that question."

"Which you haven't answered."

He glared at her, which usually worked, but she held her ground.
Oh, God, your good buddy Bode is in deep doo-doo here!

"Obviously, my political opponents have fed y'all with a lot of rumors so you'll air this on your shows and print it in your newspapers. Getting me to deny an affair with an aide is almost as good for ratings as me admitting it, right? This is exactly what is wrong with the liberal media in America today. You live for scandal because scandal drives ratings. So even if there's no scandal, you create scandal. And nothing drives ratings higher than a sex scandal involving a political hero, right? But the people of America will see this for what it is, a left-wing media attack. This is exactly what the liberal press does when the people embrace conservative heroes, when the liberal media's power to influence the people is challenged: you launch personal attacks. Tea Partiers are racist, Sarah Palin is dangerous, I'm an adulterer … It's disgusting, and the people hate you for it. But worse than that, it's a cancer on democracy, a cancer that's destroying this country. I'm a tough guy, I played football, I took big hits, I'm used to cheap shots. But only football games were at stake. Our country, our way of life, is at stake now. And the press—so important an institution that it is protected by the First Amendment—goes down into the gutter to report filthy rumors like this. You can't hurt me. But you're hurting my wife and my daughter, and you should be ashamed of yourselves."

But the reporter didn't seem the least bit ashamed.

"So it's all a lie? Your wife hasn't left you, and you're not having an affair?"

Bode jabbed a big finger at the reporter.

"It's a goddamn lie."

Sorry, God, I'm winging it here. Alone.

He walked away from the podium and out the door. Jim Bob caught up with him a few steps down the corridor. Two Texas Rangers shadowed them as they marched down the Capitol corridor and out the east doors and climbed into the waiting Suburban. Bode exhaled.

"What the hell was that all about?"

"That," Jim Bob said, "was the national press. See, Bode, you've played politics only in the friendly waters of Texas, where the press is compliant and we've only got two liberal media outlets in the whole state. Now you're playing politics in the big waters, where all the media are liberal and vicious."

"And who's this Democrat, Jesse Rincón?"

"Your wife's doctor."

"Her gynecologist is a Democrat?"

"No … well, I don't know, he might be … but this isn't about him. Jesse Rincón is her Mexican doctor."

"She goes to a Mexican gynecologist?"

"Not her goddamned gynecologist! The doctor she works with, down on the border. He's a Latino named Jesse Rincón. He's getting a lot of good press for passing up a big-city practice to take care of those poor people in the
colonias
—"

"Oh, the liberal media love that, don't they?"

—"and Latino leaders around the state are pushing him for governor, they see him as the savior. Like the San Antonio mayor."

"Gutiérrez? I gave him state environmental funds to clean up the riverwalk."

"
New York Times
did a front-page profile on him. Rincón."

"No one in Texas reads the
New York Times
, and no one in New York can vote in Texas. As long as he's not on
Fox
, we're okay. You think he's gonna run?"

Jim Bob shrugged. "He hasn't said yes, but he hasn't said no."

"Maybe he doesn't want to be a politician?"

"Everyone wants to be a politician."

"I wanted to be a pro football player."

"I mean, after they grow up."

"Maybe he won't run."

"They put kids in a TV shot with him."

"Damn, he's running. A Latino. You figure the Latino vote will come out for him?"

"Does the Democratic vote come out for a tax increase?"

"Shit."

"He'll sweep the Latino vote."

"Which means he'll win."

"They'll vote for him. And there'll be a Latino in the Governor's Mansion doing more than cooking. On my watch."

The Suburban exited the Capitol grounds and turned right on Eleventh Street.

"How the hell did they find out about Mandy?"

"Jolene, probably."

"Damn. I thought she wanted to screw me."

"She just did."

"Maybe they found out from Mandy. Maybe she told a friend. Or texted someone." He stared out the window. "Jesus, this day can't get any worse."

The Suburban entered the gates to the Mansion and stopped in the rear driveway. Bode bolted out and marched inside the Mansion and down the corridor to Mandy's office. He barged in without knocking on the closed door. Because he was pissed.
Excuse me God, but I am pissed.
Because his mistress had been talking out of turn.

"Damnit, Mandy, did you—"

A loud gagging noise interrupted him. Mandy was bent over behind her desk. Another gagging sound, and she sat up. She was holding the trash basket. The smell of puke permeated the small room.

"You sick?"

She spit into the basket, put the basket down, wiped her mouth with a tissue, and shook her head.

"I'm pregnant."

One hundred eleven degrees, and it was only the fifth day of July.

Lindsay Bonner had lived in Texas for almost forty years, so she knew heat; but the heat on the border defined heat. The air felt as if it were on fire. She wiped sweat from her face and drank another bottled water. Three hours she had walked the
colonia
on her morning rounds. She arrived back at the clinic feeling a bit woozy. She opened the door and stepped inside. Inez greeted her, but her words sounded distant. The girl's pretty face seemed vague.

"Doctor!"

Lindsay opened her eyes to Jesse and Inez hovering over her. She was lying on the examining table. Jesse checked her pulse; Inez dabbed her forehead with a cold wet towel.

"What happened?"

"You fainted."

"The heat."

"You are sure you are not pregnant?"

His question made her laugh.

"Only if I'm the Virgin Mary."

They had tried to have a baby for four years, he and Lindsay. But she couldn't get pregnant. Not his fault. His sperm production was stupendous, the doctor had said. Her plumbing was fine. Just relax, it'll happen. It did. Bode would never forget that hot summer day nineteen years before when he had ridden in from the herd and found Lindsay waiting for him by the barn. Crying. He had dismounted and gone to her. He took off his gloves and wiped the tears from her face, sure she was about to tell him she had breast cancer. Instead, she smiled and said, "We're going to have a baby."

That day he had said, "Thanks, God."

Today he said, "Why, God?"

That was still the happiest day of his life. This was not the second happiest day of his life. Bode Bonner's love child. It wasn't fair. Movie stars can have a dozen kids out of wedlock, and no one cares. In fact, they
ooh
and
ahh
over their baby bumps at the Academy Awards, as if they're the first women in the whole fucking world to have a baby. But let the leading presidential candidate sire one child—
one!
—with a woman who wasn't his wife, and you'd think the whole fucking world was ending.

And not just his political career.

Bode Bonner would be laughed out of the presidential race just as John Edwards had been, another cheating politician with good hair. And like all men who had ascribed their sudden success to divine intervention, Bode Bonner's thoughts now focused on one disturbing question: Why would God let this happen to him? To His chosen candidate? He stepped into Jim Bob's office, shut the door, and said, "She's pregnant."

"Good. Maybe she'll come home now."

"Not Lindsay. Mandy."

The news knocked Jim Bob back in his chair as forcefully as a two-by-four across his pasty face—which seemed even pastier now. He didn't speak for a long moment. When he caught his breath and regained his voice, he said, "For Christ's sake, Bode, you never heard of condoms?"

"It was just once."

"You been screwing her for more than a year."

"Once without a condom."

That one time was a problem.

"Why wasn't she on the fucking pill?"

"She said she went off because she was gaining weight, didn't want me to think she was fat."

"And pregnant is better?"

"What are we gonna do?"

He could see the Professor's mind working through the five stages of political grief: anger, acceptance, recovery, strategy, polls.

"Treat it like the deficit: deny, deny, deny."

"That didn't work so well for Clinton, Schwarzenegger, Edwards, Sanford, Weiner …"

"It buys time."

"For what?"

"A mass murder, a war in the Mideast, a plane crash, that Lohan gal to do something stupid … for something else to come along and dominate the news."

"Then what?"

The Professor shrugged. "Standard political sex scandal procedure: confess, cry, seek treatment, promise to be a better man, vote for a liberal spending program."

"I'm not crying on national TV."

"No choice. It's in the playbook."

While Bode considered that spectacle, Jim Bob put his elbows on his desk and his face in his hands. He exhaled like a dying man taking his last breath of life.

"The governor and the governor's wife, both having affairs. That's not in the fucking playbook."

"
Both?
What are you talking about?"

Jim Bob looked up, as if surprised that Bode had heard his words. But he couldn't maintain eye contact. His gaze dropped to a large envelope on his otherwise bare desk. He reached over as if the act pained him and picked up the envelope. He hesitated, then held it out to Bode. He still did not look Bode in the eye.

Bode now hesitated.

He took a deep breath and the envelope. He opened the flap and reached inside. He removed a stack of photos. Jim Bob's eyes remained down. Bode looked at the top photo then sat down hard in a chair. He thumbed through the photos and saw his wife … with another man … a Latino man … a young, handsome man … sitting on a porch drinking wine … smiling … laughing … now standing and … dancing. His wife in another man's arms.

"Jesse Rincón," Jim Bob said. "I sent Eddie down there, to check him out."

"Thought he was a gopher."