Before I Say Good-Bye (2 page)

“Don’t go out too far,” he had cautioned as he opened his book. “It’s six o’clock, and the lifeguard is leaving.”

Nell would have liked to stay in the water longer, but she could see that the beach was almost deserted now, and she knew that in a few minutes her grandfather would realize he was getting hungry and start to get impatient, especially since they hadn’t even unpacked. Long ago her mother had warned her that any situation that left Cornelius MacDermott both hungry and tired was to be avoided.

Even from a good distance out, Nell could see that he was still deeply absorbed in his book. She knew though that it wouldn’t last much longer. Okay, she thought as she picked up her stroke—“Let’s make waves.”

Suddenly, she felt disoriented, as if she were being turned around.
What was happening to her?

The shore disappeared from view as she felt herself being yanked from side to side, then pulled under. Stunned, she opened her mouth to call for help, but immediately found herself swallowing salty water. Sputtering and choking, she gasped for breath, struggling to keep afloat.

Riptide! While her grandfather was checking in at the front desk, she had overheard two bellmen talking about it. One of them said that there’d been a riptide on the other side of the island last week, and that two guys had drowned. He said that they died because they fought against the pull instead of letting themselves get carried out until they were beyond it.

A riptide is a head-on collision of conflicting currents.
As her arms flailed, Nell remembered reading that description in
National Geographic.

Still, it was impossible not to resist as she felt herself being pulled under the churning waves, down, down, and away from shore.

I can’t let myself get carried out! she thought in a sudden flash of panic. I can’t! If I go out, I’ll never get back in. She managed to orient herself long enough to look toward shore and glimpse the candy-striped umbrella.

“Help me!” she said feebly, her effort to scream ending when the salty water filled her mouth, gagging her. The current that was pulling her out and sucking her under was too strong to fight.

In desperation she flipped onto her back and let her arms go limp. Moments later she was struggling again, resisting the horrifying feeling of her body being rushed out away from shore, away from any hope of help.

I don’t want to die!
she kept saying to herself.
I don’t want to die!
A wave was lifting her, tossing her, pulling
her farther out. “Help me!” she said again, then began to sob.

And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The invisible foamy chains abruptly released her, and she had to flail her arms to keep afloat. This was what they had talked about in the hotel, she thought. She had been tossed beyond the riptide.

Don’t get back into it,
she told herself.
Swim around it.

But she was too tired. She was too far out. She looked at the distant shore. She would never make it. Her eyelids were so heavy. The water was starting to feel warm, like a blanket. She was getting sleepy.

Swim, Nell, you can make it!

It was her mother’s voice, imploring her to fight.

Nell, get moving!

The urgent command from her father stung her senses and succeeded in shattering her lethargy. With blind obedience, Nell swam straight out, then began to make a wide circle around the area of the riptide. Every breath was a sob, every movement of her arms an impossible struggle, but she persevered.

Agonizing minutes later, nearing exhaustion, she managed to dive into a swelling wave that grabbed and held her and rushed her toward shore. Then it crested and broke, tossing her onto the hard, wet sand.

Trembling violently, Nell started to get up, then felt firm hands lifting her to her feet. “I was just coming to call you in,” Cornelius MacDermott said sharply. “No more swimming for you today, young lady. They’re putting up the red flag. They say there are riptides nearby.”

Unable to speak, Nell only nodded.

His face creased with concern, MacDermott pulled off his terry-cloth robe and wrapped it around her.
“You’re chilled, Nell. You shouldn’t have stayed in so long.”

“Thank you, Grandpa. I’m fine.” Nell knew better than to tell her beloved, no-nonsense grandfather what had just happened, and she especially did not want him to know that once again she had had one of those experiences of being in communication with her parents, experiences that this most pragmatic of men brusquely dismissed as a flight of youthful fantasy.

Seventeen years later
Thursday, June 8

one

N
ELL SET OFF
at a brisk pace on her familiar walk from her apartment on Park Avenue and Seventy-third Street to her grandfather’s office on Seventy-second and York. From the peremptory summons she had received, demanding that she be there by three o’clock, she knew that the situation with Bob Gorman must have come to a head. As a result she was not looking forward to the meeting.

Deep in thought, she was oblivious to the admiring glances that occasionally came her way. After all, she and Adam were happily married. Still, she knew that some people found a tall woman, with the slim, strong body of an athlete, short chestnut-colored hair that was now forming into humidity-caused ringlets, midnight-blue eyes, and a generous mouth, attractive. While growing up, and frequently attending public events with her grandfather, Nell’s rueful observation was that when the media described her, that was usually the word used—“attractive.”

“To me, attractive is like having a guy say, ‘She’s not much to look at, but what a personality!’ It’s the kiss of death. Just once I want to be described as ‘beautiful’ or
‘elegant’ or ‘stunning’ or even ‘stylish,’ ” she had complained when she was twenty.

Typically, her grandfather’s comment had been, “For God’s sake don’t be so silly. Be grateful you’ve got a head on your shoulders and know how to use it.”

The trouble was that she knew already what he wanted to discuss with her today, and the way he was going to ask her to use her head was a problem. His plans for her and Adam’s objections to them were most decidedly an issue.

A
T EIGHTY-TWO,
Cornelius MacDermott had lost little of the vigor that for decades had made him one of the nation’s most prominent congressmen. Elected at thirty to represent the midtown Manhattan district where he had been raised, he stayed in that spot for fifty years, resisting all arguments to run for the Senate. On his eightieth birthday he had chosen not to run again. “I’m not trying to beat Strom Thurmond’s record as the longest-serving guy on the Hill,” he had announced.

Retirement for Mac meant opening a consulting office and making sure that New York City and State stayed in his party’s political fold. An endorsement from him was a virtual laying on of hands for neophyte campaigners. Years ago he had created his party’s most famous election commercial on TV: “What did that other bunch ever do for you?” followed by silence and a succession of bewildered expressions. Recognized everywhere, he could not walk down the street without being showered with affectionate and respectful greetings.

Occasionally he grumbled to Nell about his status as a local celebrity: “Can’t set foot outside my door without making sure I’m camera ready.”

To which she replied, “You’d have a heart attack if people ignored you, and you know it.”

When she reached his office today, Nell waved to the receptionist and walked back to her grandfather’s suite. “The mood?” she asked Liz Hanley, his longtime secretary.

Liz, a handsome sixty-year-old, with dark brown hair and a no-nonsense expression, raised her eyes to heaven. “It was a dark and stormy night,” she said.

“Oh boy, that bad,” Nell said with a sigh. She tapped on the door of the private office as she let herself in. “Top of the day, Congressman.”

“You’re late, Nell,” Cornelius MacDermott barked, as he spun his desk chair around to face her.

“Not according to my watch. Three on the dot.”

“I thought I told you to get here
by
three.”

“I had a column to turn in, and unfortunately my editor shares your sentiments about punctuality. Now, how about showing me the winning smile that melts the voters’ hearts?”

“Today I haven’t got one. Sit down, Nell.” MacDermott indicated the couch situated beneath the corner window that offered panoramic views of the city east and north. He had chosen that office because it gave him a view of his longtime congressional district.

Nell called it his fiefdom.

As she settled on the couch, she looked at him anxiously. There was an unfamiliar weariness in his blue eyes, clouding his usual keenly observant expression. His erect carriage, even when he was seated, always gave the
impression that he was taller than his actual height, but today even that seemed diminished. Even Mac’s famous shock of white hair appeared thinner. As she watched, he clasped his hands together and shrugged his shoulders as though trying to dislodge an invisible burden. With sinking heart, Nell thought for the first time in her memory that her grandfather looked his age.

He stared past her for a long moment, then got up and moved to a comfortable armchair near the couch.

“Nell, we’ve got a crisis, and you’ve got to solve it. After being nominated for a second term, that weasel Bob Gorman has decided not to run. He’s been offered a sweetheart deal to head up a new Internet company. He’ll serve out his term till the election but says he can’t afford to live on a congressman’s salary. I pointed out to him that when I helped him get the nomination two years ago, all he talked about at the time was a commitment to serving the people.”

She waited. She knew that last week her grandfather had heard the first rumors about Gorman not running for a second term. Obviously the rumors had been confirmed.

“Nell, there’s one person—and only one, in my opinion—who could step in and keep that seat in the party.” MacDermott frowned. “You should have done it two years ago when I retired and you know it.” He paused. “Look, it’s in your blood. You wanted to do it from the start, but Adam talked you out of it. Don’t let that happen again.”

“Mac, please don’t start on Adam.”

“I’m not starting on anyone, Nell. I’m telling you that I know you, and you’re a political animal. I’ve been grooming you for my job since you were a
teenager. I wasn’t thrilled when you married Adam Cauliff, but don’t forget, I helped him to get his start in New York when I introduced him to Walters and Arsdale, a fine architectural firm and among my most valued supporters.”

Mac’s lips tightened. “It didn’t make me look good when, after less than three years, Adam walked out on them, taking their chief assistant, and opened his own operation. All right, maybe that’s good business. But from the outset, Adam knew my plans for you, your plans for yourself. What made him change his mind? You were supposed to run for my seat when I retired, and he knew it. He had no right to talk you out of it then, and he has no right to try to talk you out of it now.”

“Mac, I enjoy being a columnist. You may not have noticed, but I get mighty good feedback.”

“You write a darn good column. I grant you that. But it’s not enough for you and you know it.”

“Look, my reluctance now isn’t that Adam asked me to give up the idea of running for office.”

“No? Then what do you call it?”

“We both want children. You know that. He suggested I wait until after that happens. In ten years I’ll only be forty-two. That would be a good age to start running for elective office.”

Her grandfather stood impatiently. “Nell, in ten years the parade will have passed you by. Events move too fast to wait. Admit it. You’re aching to throw your hat in the ring. Remember what you said when you informed me you were going to call me Mac?”

Nell leaned forward, clasped her hands together and tucked them under her chin. She remembered; it
happened when she was a freshman at Georgetown. At his initial protest, she had held her ground. “Look, you always say I’m your best friend, and your friends call you Mac,” she had told him. “If I keep calling you Grandpa, I’ll always be perceived as a kid. When I’m with you in public I want to be considered your aide-de-camp.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he had responded.

She remembered how she’d held up the dictionary. “Listen to the definition. In brief, an aide-de-camp is ‘a subordinate or confidential assistant.’ God knows for the present I’m both to you.”

“For the present?” he had asked.

“Until you retire and I take over your seat.”

“Remember, Nell?” Cornelius MacDermott said, breaking her reverie. “You were a cocky college kid when you said that, but you meant it.”

“I remember,” she said.

He came and stood right in front of her, leaning forward, his face right in front of hers. “Nell, seize the moment. If you don’t, you’ll regret it. When Gorman confirms that he isn’t running, there’ll be a scramble for the nomination. I want the committee to consider candidates behind you from the get-go.”

“When is the get-go?” she asked cautiously.

“At the annual dinner, on the 30th. You and Adam will be there. Gorman will be announcing his intention to leave when his term is complete; he’ll get teary-eyed and sniffle and say that, while it was a difficult decision for him to make, something has made it much easier. Then he’s going to dry his eyes and blow his nose, point to you and bellow that
you,
Cornelia MacDermott Cauliff, are going to run for the seat previously
occupied by your grandfather for nearly fifty years. It will be Cornelia replacing Cornelius. The wave of the third millennium.”

Obviously pleased with himself and his vision, MacDermott smiled broadly. “Nell, it’ll bring the house down.”

With a pang of regret, Nell remembered that two years ago, when Bob Gorman ran for Mac’s seat, she had had a wild sense of impatience, a compulsion to be there, a need to see herself in his place. Mac was right. She was a political animal. If she didn’t get into the arena now, it
could
be too late—or at least, too late for a shot at this seat, which was where she wanted to start a political career.