The Race (20 page)

"How will this affect your presidential prospects?"

"Dating?" Carey asked with feigned incredulity. "Last time I looked, there was a war on, and Iran was developing nuclear weapons." With that, he climbed into the limousine and shut the door.

He listened to several messages from Blake Rustin, each more agitated than the last. His advisers were meeting at Brian Lacey's, the final message informed him—if Corey happened to be in the area, he was more than welcome to attend. Deciding swiftly, he instructed the driver to head for the Virginia countryside, then clicked his speed dial for Lexie's cell phone. "Are you back in L.A.?" he asked.

"I got in an hour ago." Her tone was somber. "Guess you've seen."

"Yup. Still love the bikini, by the way."

"This is serious, Corey—especially for you. When I got home, reporters were staking out the place. They're going to be all over my life. You know that, don't you?"

Corey felt the adrenaline wearing off. "I do, and I'm sorry. But not about us."

Lexie hesitated. "What about
you
?"

"What were we going to do—hide forever? Actually, I'm kind of relieved."

"Is
this
really what you would have chosen? Or did you get cornered, and now you're stuck trying to brave it out?"

"I would have chosen a more graceful rollout, Lexie. But I wasn't going anywhere." Pausing, Corey said firmly. "I told them we have a relationship. That's what I want. If you can deal with the fallout, I can."

"I'll have to think about it, Corey." Her voice became gentler. "I just wish we didn't have to decide like this."

"My fault. It's the president thing—"

"What are you going to do about
that
?"

"I have no idea," he admitted. "I'm on my way to meet with my advisers."

"Bet they're excited," she said with a small laugh. "Better have your publicist call my publicist. To borrow a phrase from your world, we both have to be 'on message,' whatever the message may be."

"I know what
I
want it to be," Corey answered. "That we're a couple, and the hell with anyone who doesn't like it."

"Wouldn't it be nice," she said, "to know what we'd have decided without Alex Rohr's assistance. Or to know what will happen now that he's taken such an interest."

Corey knew what she was thinking, as clearly as though she'd said it: black movie stars were one thing; former heroin addicts were another. And he was just as certain she would never offer rape as her excuse. "We never had that chance," he answered. "But whatever I decide, this isn't just about me anymore. It's about us."

"As long as you're with me," Lexie answered, "it's
all
about us. So you need to decide whether to throw away whatever chance you've got of becoming president for a chance at whatever we might have. The unselfish thing for me to do is step away."

"Not for my sake," Corey said, and then wondered if this was quite as true as he made it sound.

"It
was
a nice getaway," Lexie said softly, and got off.

THE TABLOIDS WERE spread across Brian Lacey's dining room table.

"I don't care how good she looks in a swimsuit," Rustin said tiredly. "A lot of Republican women will take one glance at this photograph and decide you're not a leader their children can look up to."

As Lacey and Jack Walters appraised him, Corey leaned forward to scan the photographs: Lexie and Corey holding hands at L'Orangerie; eating dinner on the porch; and, of course, poolside in their "Mexican love nest."

"'Senator Grace,'" Rustin read aloud, "'attempted to conceal his identity, a stark contrast to his reputation for openness and candor.'" Looking up, Rustin said, "Rohr staked you out—the fun you had with him at that hearing came at a price. 'Girlfriend' is bad; 'black girlfriend' is worse; 'black actress girlfriend' is the fucking trifecta."

Rustin sounded as morose as he looked. "If she were Condi Rice," he continued, "you might get by with 'black.' But Lexie Hart is an outspoken liberal who symbolizes everything people loathe about the entertainment industry, right down to this skimpy swimsuit most women know they couldn't wear. Stay with her and you're dead in more primaries than not.
If
you're not dead already."

Corey glanced at him sideways. "Done yet, Blake?"

"Not quite. Most Americans want their president to be an authority figure, not some guy with a 'girlfriend' who tells him what to think. She comes to lobby you on stem-cell research—next thing anyone knows you're voting in favor of stem-cell research." Rustin spoke more evenly. "_I_ know your vote helped pull Christy into the race. But Price and Rohr will make it look like a black Jane Fonda's angling to move into the White House and whisper pillow talk in our besotted president's ear."

Corey felt Lacey and Jack Walters watching him. "At the risk of stating the obvious," he told them, "I wasn't making a political decision when I went to Cabo San Lucas. And the people who'd vote against me for this would vote against me anyhow."

Turning his palms up, Rustin glanced at Lacey in a wordless plea for help. His thin face filled with doubt, Lacey spoke somberly. "I'm torn here, Corey. Most of what Blake says happens to be true, even if it's a sad commentary on our country and our party. But we're still a racially divided society.

"She might actually help you here or there—primaries like Michigan and New Hampshire, where white moderates remain significant. But in the West and the South—"

"He's dead in South Carolina," Rustin interrupted flatly. "You think Rohr's going to back off now? He'll have people hammering on Corey twenty-four/seven, until 'war hero' is replaced in the public mind by 'the guy who's fucking Lexie Hart.'" Turning to Corey, he added, "Sorry, but that's what's going to happen."

"Depends on how you spin it," Lacey responded. "Some people are suckers for romance, especially if it ripens into love. Suppose she and Corey got married?"

Rustin smiled in disbelief. "I'm serious," Lacey insisted. "It addresses the problem of running as a bachelor. It puts Corey back on the side of family values, yet eliminates the bad example of a forty-three-year-old presidential candidate having sex outside of wedlock. It will give the new Mrs. Grace a chance to use her obvious charm, intelligence, and communications skills in the service of whatever issues are good for Corey.

"Most of all, it gives Corey a chance to stand for love and marriage. And marrying a black woman would confirm that he's the candidate with guts—"

Corey began laughing.

"Did I miss the punch line?" Jack Walters asked him.

"Why don't we just get Lexie on the line and explain that marriage will be better for my image? Then one of you can pop the question." Corey shook his head. "_That_ would be one of the odder proposals in the history of marriage."

"Maybe so," Lacey said. "But not in the history of politics. Lexie Hart has all the elements of a good political wife. She's poised, gracious, and articulate. She's already dealt with fame and the media—nobody needs to tell her there's no such thing as off the record—and she's learned what to give and what to withhold. She's an incredible draw in her own right, with magnetism to burn. Not even Mary Rose Marotta can compete with
that
.

"More and more people of color are crossing over into the American mainstream—Bill Cosby, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey. Together, you're the best-looking couple on the planet: Jack and Jackie Kennedy, only from appealingly modest backgrounds. And in a general election, she'll help pull in new constituents you need to win, like minorities and the young." Lacey paused for emphasis. "The worst of both worlds, Corey, is where you are now—having an affair. If you love her, marry her, and the faster the better. Otherwise, you really
do
have to get out of Dodge."

All at once, Corey felt drained. Looking from Lacey to Rustin to Walters, he said, "I believe that Cortland Lane could have been elected president. You may disagree. But the political impact of my involvement with Lexie can't dictate the fate of our relationship.

"I'm seeing Lexie Hart—at least if she's still agreeable. But it's completely absurd to imagine that I'd marry her for political damage control. Even if I wanted to,
she
wouldn't."

Head bent forward, Ruskin touched his eyes. "Then don't run from it," Lacey advised gamely, "and don't flaunt it. Go out socially—but not in Hollywood. Buy her a one-piece bathing suit. Book separate hotel rooms: Rohr and Price will be all over pajama parties. The snapshot you want is of two smart and mature professionals with serious intentions."

Rustin gazed across the table, his expression bleak, his feelings of shock and betrayal so apparent that Corey felt genuine sympathy. "You would have been president," he said quietly. "I swear it."

"And now I can't be?"

Rustin's shrug was a heavy, dispirited movement of his shoulders. "I've given you my best assessment. If you're still considering a run, I'll poll it."

"Do that," Corey said softly. He was not sure whether he said this just to mollify Rustin or because some stubborn part of him could not abandon hope.

"'DATING'?" LEXIE ASKED with faint amusement. "Sounds like a step backward to me. Is your brain trust hiring a chaperone?"

Returning from Lacey's horse farm, Corey watched rain and sleet spatter the car windows. "That's where I drew the line. Seriously, Lexie, this is what I want."

"As opposed to the presidency?"

"I haven't decided." Corey hesitated. "Is that absolutely a deal breaker?"

Lexie was silent. "_I'm_ a deal breaker, Corey. If your advisers knew—"

"One step at a time," Corey said. "First, I need to ask you for a date."

THEY PUT OUT a joint press release, emphasizing their regard for each other and the seriousness of their relationship.

This only increased the frenzy. Reporters from Rohr's media empire and elsewhere staked out their homes and badgered friends for comments; Marotta laced his speeches with references to "Hollywood values"; more forthright, Bob Christy called their relationship "unacceptable not because of Ms. Hart's race, but for the moral example it sets for children of
any
race." The photograph of Lexie became a staple of cable news; a virulent right-wing talk-show host accused Corey of "thinking with an organ more commonly associated with the tawdry excesses of Democratic presidents"; Jay Leno called the relationship a "bold departure from the Republican tradition of pedophilia and petty graft." Corey's e-mails and telephone calls were more unfavorable than not, including a number from Ohioans professing their regret for having supported him. Consoled by early polling that suggested Americans were, on the whole, more generous than his mail, Corey felt more pain for Lexie than for himself.

Her first trip to Washington was difficult. At Citronelle, the smiles of fellow diners were offset by the fat inebriate who, passing their table, expressed sympathy to Corey for the hard life of a politician. Nodding to Lexie as if she were a potted plant, the man said pointedly, "You have to be real careful who you're seen with, Senator."

Lexie's face went blank. Coldly, Corey answered, "I am. So please leave."

The man opened his mouth, then silently retreated. "Sorry," Corey told her.

Lexie shrugged. "He was drunk. Sober he'd only have thought it." Reaching out, she covered his hand, adding softly, "Let it go, Corey."

But he couldn't quite. The next night, at a Republican gala, well-dressed men and women vied to meet this emissary from a wholly different world, many friendly or at least polite, a few staring openly. Lexie was unfailingly gracious. "It's okay," she murmured to Corey. "We may not feel like Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, but people think we are."

Only later could she tell him what she had overheard in the ladies' room of the hotel. "She's very well-spoken," one woman told a friend sotto voce. "Usually they're not so well educated." She paused, then added tartly, "Actresses, I mean."

"She does seem nice," the first woman insisted. "And even more attractive in person than on film. There must be some Caucasian blood there, don't you think?"

"Whatever race she is," her friend responded, "it's enough to make a United States senator lose his senses. At least
some
of his senses."

Sitting in the underground parking lot of her hotel, Corey watched her expressionless face for clues as to how she felt. The vignette, he concluded, was clue enough. Kissing her, he said lightly, "Actually, my senses have never worked better. All of them."

Lexie rested her forehead against his. It was then, though he refrained from telling her, that Corey Grace decided not to run for president.

THIS DECISION, COREY FOUND, DID NOT PUT AN END TO HIS AMBIVALENCE.

He still did not tell Lexie, rationalizing that this might help her feel less responsible for his decision when he announced it. For another week he maintained his hectic schedule in the key primary states, torn between the vision of a relationship with Lexie unimpeded by presidential politics and dread of the letdown he would feel on the day of public relinquishment, made more bitter by the satisfaction it would give men like Rohr and Magnus Price.

Oddly, it was his mother who provoked him to move out of this twilight zone. Calling Corey over a busy weekend in New Hampshire, she informed him that she and his father worried, along with the Reverend Christy, that "carrying on with this woman is lowering the morals of our children." When Corey gently rebuked her, she implored him, "Please, Corey—try to imagine what your own brother would think of you now." Appalled by her appropriation of a boy she had understood so little, Corey answered quietly, "I really can't, Mom. And neither can you."

Hanging up, Corey reflected sadly on his distance from the woman who had borne him. But she had crystallized a larger truth: for too many people like her, his relationship with Lexie had been defined by his antagonists. Lexie did not deserve this, and he would be selfish to continue making her a target.

Later that day, when Marotta called to request a meeting, Corey understood his purpose: to suggest that, in light of Corey's new realities, his only rational choice was to support Marotta over Christy. It was then that Corey called Blake Rustin and Brian Lacey, informing them of his decision: he would tell Marotta that he had chosen not to run, and let the conversation flow from there.