The Wrong Side of Right (19 page)

A box popped up, framing a woman I didn’t recognize standing outside a church I did recognize, surrounded by congregants.

Nancy turned the TV up even louder.

“Don’t get me wrooooong,” the woman drawled, dragging the word out like a schoolyard taunt. “I’ve got nothing against kids going out, having a good time, riding the rides. But to do it on the
Lord’s
day?” She let out a helpless laugh, glancing over her shoulder at the white steeple I’d driven past countless times on Santa Monica Boulevard. “
My
family found a church here in Los Angel-ease. It wasn’t hard. It makes me wonder how conservative the Coopers really are. It raises questions about values. I think a lot of people are wondering about that.”

The senator spun around, brought back to life by the sound of this vapid woman’s voice. “Why would she do this? What can they hope to gain by undermining us?”

The way he said it made me suspect this wasn’t some random, woman-on-the-street interview. Her last name was the same as one of the candidates from the primaries. His wife?

“Fred’s an asshole,” Louis said, his affable shrug making the insult seem charming. “This is his Hail Mary pass.” He chuckled. “Excuse the pun.”

“It’s the same old rhino accusation.” Nancy sighed.

“Rhino?” I whispered to Meg.

“Republican In Name Only,” she explained, and I respelled it in my head.

“Wait.” I stepped forward, confused. “She’s a Republican too?”

Lou chuckled. “
Oh
yeah. Just ask her. She’ll tell you. She’ll never stop tellin’ you.”

“So isn’t she on our side?”

Senator Cooper raised his hands in the air. “Thank you, Kate. That’s just what—”

Elliott slammed his phone on the dining room table and glowered through the doorway at us.

“Nobody’s on our side, Mark. Not until the instant the nomination is ratified on Wednesday.
Nobody
gets to relax until then.”

That last part was directed at me. If Elliott wanted me to feel the pressure, he could have spared himself the trouble. I’d hardly slept last night, thinking about the day ahead, all the events that would lead up to my first appearance in front of a packed Staples Center audience, and oh. Right.
America
watching live.

Tonight would be a smile-and-wave on the biggest scale imaginable. The theme of our appearance was “Proud Conservative Women”—we’d parade in after a speech by the female mayor of San Diego. But Nancy deemed the whole day so important that she insisted I be camera-ready from 8:00
A
.
M
.
on. One look at the four-page schedule told me why. This day was going to be crazy.

Somehow, the pages flew by, one lightning-quick event blurring into the next. Libby and other aides had refreshments
handy as we walked between meetings, calling on other hotel suites, popping in on a few joint press appearances and rallies, until at around 5:00
P
.
M
.
, we finally reached the wide courtyard of the Staples Center itself.

“Wow,” I said, seeing the first hordes waiting to be admitted, bearing bedazzled outfits, huge signs, crazy hats. A bus pulled up and as twenty more people piled out, a group in the crowd shouted “Minnesota!” and the bus people whooped.

“Exciting, huh?” Libby skipped in place as she passed me my fifth water bottle of the day. I nodded, gulping it back, trying to drown out my mounting terror.

Inside, I stole a quick glance at the cavernous arena, expecting to be even more terrified by the size of it. But the first association that popped up, unbidden, was Kudzu Giants. No—Andy. Even more mutinous, a sudden sharp pang, wishing I could sneak him in here like he’d done for me. The thought barely had time to form before an aide motioned me backstage.

That quick glance was the longest moment I got to myself all day. By 6:00
P
.
M
.
, after all those water bottles, I was beyond ready for a bathroom break. I figured they’d probably scheduled us one, but when Gracie complained that she needed to go and Gabe ran after her, three staffers stopped me at the door.

“Makeup,” Libby explained, checking her watch with such frenzied eyes that I took pity and went along. Makeup and hair took an hour. I sat patiently, my legs crossed tight and my bladder beginning to bulge.

Nancy poked her head in for a final check. “You look great!”

I lifted myself carefully out of the chair. “Which way are the restrooms?”

“Out right.” She stopped me with her hand. “Uh-uh. There’s press out there now, getting behind-the-scenes shots. We don’t want them to catch you running for the bathroom.”

She laughed.

I managed a tepid smile. “I won’t run.”

Nancy’s phone beeped. “They’re ready for us.”

As she started away, I realized I had two options. Follow her or rebel—dash past the assembled journalists and duck into the bathroom before anybody got a shot off. My bladder was so full I could barely move, so sprinting wasn’t a viable option. With a wince of pain, I waddled off beside Nancy, praying we’d have one more break before the big moment.

My prayers went unanswered. Whether it was because I’d gone to a theme park on a Sunday, I couldn’t have told you, but this giant venue suddenly seemed to have only one bathroom, and that was the one I was plodding away from, my hopes of relief dying with every plod. Finally, Nancy led me into the wings of the arena where a gaggle of brightly suited ladies were waiting in uncompanionable silence, tapping their stilettos in anticipation.

I recognized Mrs. McReady before I spotted her daughter. Carolee glanced lazily over her shoulder at me, scanning my outfit. I winced a smile and she quickly looked away.

There were a lot of women I didn’t recognize, and others I’d met so briefly that I couldn’t possibly recite their names. The churchy lady wasn’t there. I wondered whether she’d been booted from the appearance for her comments yesterday.

Gracie ran from Meg’s side to hug me around the waist.

I gasped. “Not too tight!”

“Okay, ladies, let’s go!” said the earphoned coordinator, and we walked into the arena to a deafening cheer that seemed to ricochet back on itself like the roar of a waterfall. The first thing I took in was color everywhere, red, white, and blue—strange to see when it wasn’t July Fourth. Then faces poked out from the mess of signs, and waving hands, and oh my God, there were so many of them. The lights scanned the stadium like they were searching for escapees, and as they found us, the crowd got even louder, music blasting from the stage’s speakers. Everyone surrounding our path stood, applauding.

“What’s wrong with you?” Gracie yelled up at me.

“What do you mean?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“You look really weird!”

I leaned down as far as my bladder would allow. “I haven’t peed since we left this morning,” I hissed, and Gracie let out a laugh so loud that the cameras beside the stage swerved to focus on us.

Great.
I grimaced a grin and kept taking mini steps forward, one at a time.

On the stage, we lined up as rehearsed, and after endless silent seconds and even more endless announcements of our names—like anybody here didn’t know who we were!—followed by absolutely interminable, but very kind, really, applause from the audience, we were free and I smiled and waved my way back off the stage and through the crowd, hit the edge of the wings, and speed-waddled down the empty
corridor to the bathrooms, marveling at the miracle that had just occurred. I had somehow managed not to humiliate myself on national television.

Or so I thought.

The first call back at the hotel was Penny. “You looked so pretty up there! But. Um . . . what was going on with your walking?”

Oh God.

She was my best friend, I reminded myself. Only someone who’d known me since first grade could possibly notice something as subtle as that.

Andy called while I was still on with Penny. I clicked over, heart pounding.

“Quinn. I don’t know how to ask this without sounding like an asshole . . .” He didn’t wait for permission. “Did you have to pay a visit to the
bathroom
, by chance?”

I blushed so violently that my knees nearly crumpled from lack of blood.

“I only know because I’ve been there.” He laughed. “You’ve gotta make them wait for you—even if you have to make a run for it, fight for your right to urinate!”

“Next time,” I got out, covering my hot cheeks with my hands.

“You looked great, though,” he added. “It was nice to see your face.”

I started to smile.

“Your pained . . . sweating face . . .”

“I hate you.”

I could hear him grin.
“Liar
.
”

The news commentary was instant. Nancy shushed everybody when the cable stations mentioned my name in their recap of the evening.

“
Kate Quinn made a charmingly nervous first appearance on the convention stage
. . .”

Up on the screen, there I was, tiny, waddling up the steps and crossing the stage with my knees pressed together, my eyes fluttering with panic.

How could they not tell?!

Nancy gave me a hug. “Charmingly nervous. I’d say that’s pretty close to perfect.”

“Nice job, kiddo,” the senator said. He shot me a wink and I turned to hide what had to be the goofiest grin in the world.

“I’ve got a wardrobe note,” Elliott said.

“Of course you do,” I muttered under my breath.

Elliott didn’t deign to look at me. “Can we get her some freaking high heels? Next to Carolee, she looks like a munchkin.”

“Hey now!” Lou put his hands in the air. “Let’s not insult the vertically challenged—myself included. Shorties vote too, you know.”

He nodded to me with mock-seriousness and I let out a laugh. It had been nice to see more of Lou during the lead-up to the convention. He’d traveled here with his wife and their four-month-old baby, and I’d enjoyed watching him in dad mode, cradling his daughter while directing traffic over his cell phone.

Nancy waved everybody silent again and turned up the TV.

“Kate’s one to watch in the coming days,”
said the news pundit. “
She’s her father’s daughter and I expect we’ll see that Cooper confidence come out more and more as the campaign progresses . . .”

That Cooper confidence. I glanced at the senator in the hallway, wondering whether what Lou said that first week at headquarters was actually true. Maybe we were alike after all. Judging by the giddiness I felt right now, the idea was clearly starting to grow on me.

Along one edge of the living room, I spotted Gracie in her pajamas, poking her head around the corner to stare at the television with a furrowed brow. As her blue eyes veered to mine, I cocked my head to ask what was wrong, but she gave me no more than a blank blink before disappearing back into her room.

21

Tuesday, July 29

RNC Day Two

98
DAYS
UNTIL
THE
GENERA
L
ELECTION

It was Meg’s turn to be a nervous wreck. And the senator was teasing her mercilessly for it.

“Come on, Meggie,” he said, using a name I’d never heard uttered before, and judging by her death-glare, might never hear again. “‘It’s just like an undergrad lecture, except all of these people actually want to be there.’ Isn’t that what you always tell me, Miss Cool as a Cucumber?”

He grinned and tried to poke her in the side, but she whapped him away, laughing.

“Let me concentrate!”

She went back to scribbling last-minute changes to tonight’s speech. I stayed close, wondering whether she’d ask me to weigh in, like usual. I suspected the professor in her was using the campaign as a teaching opportunity, especially when she’d point to key phrases and say, “What does this convey, Kate? What will voters pick up on?” She knew the answers already, that much was obvious, but she wanted me to come up with my own response. Or maybe she wanted my perspective as a younger person.

In any case, she didn’t ask and I didn’t mind. Today was as close to a day off as I would get during the convention,
my responsibilities limited to tagging along for a few family appearances, then looking after the twins in the suite until tonight’s televised events. Around six o’clock, Gabe, Gracie, and I would sit in a special box seat and watch Meg deliver her address while the senator watched backstage, hidden until his big moment at the end of the convention.

The crowd was as galvanized Tuesday as they’d been on night one, and this time, I was actually able to enjoy it. There were several speeches before Meg’s, a bunch of junior congressmen, then the petite, energetic governor of Wisconsin, who’d walked with us in the Conservative Women Parade yesterday. Nancy had told me that all of these people were up-and-comers in the Republican party, many of them on a national stage for the first time in their careers. I could only imagine how anxious they must be, experiencing a single moment that could affect the entire trajectory of their lives. I cheered as loud as I could.

But when I started listening to what they were actually saying, my voice faltered. Underneath the feel-good sound bites and battle cries that sent the crowd into an ecstatic frenzy, there was an undercurrent that set my teeth on edge.

“I believe this is the Greatest. Nation. In the World,” one junior senator said, to resounding applause. “President Lawrence says he considers us citizens of the world. Well, my friends, I don’t know about you. But I am first and foremost—an American!”

Can’t you be both?
I wondered.

The petite Wisconsin governor spoke to more specific issues. “Our opponents want to bury their heads in the sand.
About terrorism abroad. An educational system that isn’t serving our students. Unchecked illegal immigration—all the insidious undercurrents that threaten the very fabric of our way of life. Mark Cooper is a man who has proven that he can face difficult issues head-on. He’s what this country needs!”

I pictured myself wearing a T-shirt that read “Difficult Issue.”
Maybe after the election.
But then my mind looped back over her list of “insidious undercurrents,” and I felt myself shrink, praying that against all probability, Penny wasn’t watching with her family.

“Our vision for the country is the same as my parents’ and grandparents’,” one extremely pale congressman said. “One with strong, wholesome values. One that respects and upholds the Constitution. One that defends the freedom of
true
Americans, like you and me.”

As their speeches rolled out, I started to develop a much crisper picture of what “The America We Know” looked like. It sure didn’t look like the neighborhood where I grew up. And it
really
didn’t look like the Diazes’. I felt bile rising in my throat.

All summer, I’d managed to keep that policy binder buried, ignoring any mention of immigration on the news or in the senator’s stump speeches. But here, surrounded by thousands of screaming supporters, there was no escaping the party line. It was a hard line, all right.

More than hard. Unbearable.

So it was both a thrill and a relief when at long last, Meg took the stage, wearing a dark green suit, her blond hair
elegantly bobbed, her smile flashing white even from back here. As I stood, pulling Gracie and Gabe up with me, a cameraman scuttled in front of us and crouched to film our reactions.

“I can’t see!” Gracie pouted directly into the camera. I hurriedly lifted her so that she was standing on her chair, her head well above the cameraman’s. In the row behind us, Governor Rizzo’s family laughed and tapped Gracie’s shoulder to give her a high five.

Gabe grabbed my elbow, his face grave. I held my breath, hoping he wasn’t having a panic attack from the attention. But then he gripped more tightly, boosting himself onto his own seat—and grinned like he was looking down at Magic Mountain from the top of a roller coaster.

Up on stage, Meg made her way out of a small crowd of cheering bigwigs and approached the podium. Gabe waved wildly. Spotting us in our box, Meg’s mouth dropped open in surprise. She shot him a delighted thumbs-up, then stepped behind the microphone—and proceeded to blow all the other speakers out of the water.

Meg was articulate but relatable, warm but forceful. She talked about the regular Americans she’d met throughout the campaign, who were going through tough economic times. She made a gentle allusion to the “challenges and unexpected blessings” that had recently come into her life, and at the mention, I could feel the heat of the camera lens focusing on my face.

As she concluded, she turned to our section with a warm smile.

“Like me, my stepdaughter, Kate, is a history buff. One night recently, she told me something that really resonated. ‘History is about people,’ she said. ‘It’s amazing how much one person can change the world, even if they don’t know they’re doing it.’”

The audience fell into a hush as she paused. I covered my grin with the tips of my fingers.

“I want to say this to everyone who’s watching.
You
are that one person. You have a vote, a voice, a say. And no one can take that away from you. So on November the fourth—let’s go out there and change the world. God bless you all, and God bless America!”

• • •

“Nice quote, Kate,” Penny said later as I curled up in my hotel room, relishing the feel of my ratty old pajamas. “She seems like a really nice lady. And smart—why isn’t
she
running for president?”

I laughed, thinking of Meg’s daily countdown. “Only one hundred and thirteen more days.” “Only one hundred and six more days.” She still said it every morning. As skilled as Meg had proven to be at politics, I knew that she saw the campaign as an intellectual exercise at its best and a grueling test of will the rest of the time.

“Or maybe you should run,” Penny suggested.

I snorted. “Fat chance.”

“I could see it.” Her voice was flat. “Kate Quinn Cooper.
Republican
from California.”

She was trying to bait me. I didn’t respond.

“I mean, you’re Miss Junior Republican now, right?
Somebody at the convention called you ‘The next generation of the GOP.’ What does GOP even
mean
?”

“Grand Old Party,” I answered. I could hear her choking on the other end of the line.

“
What?
I always thought it stood for something serious.”

“It’s a nickname. Like the elephant’s our mascot.”

“‘
Our
’?”

My defenses started to flare. “Yes.
Our.
I’m a part of this campaign, so I’m a part of the party too.”

She didn’t say anything. So I kept going.

“Question, Penny—when I was asking for advice back in June, weren’t
you
the one who told me I
had
to do this?”

“Go along on the campaign, not go along with everything—”

She cut herself off with a sigh. I knew what she meant. I ignored it.

“It’s not so horrible, you know. They’re good people with worthwhile goals. Freedom is a good thing. Personal responsibility is a good thing.”

“Wow, you’re
really
into this.” Her voice was quiet. “That must be why I’ve hardly seen you this week.”

I started to apologize. “There’s just so much going on—”

“I know,” she said. “I’m watching it on TV.”

• • •

I couldn’t sleep that night, and not just from my conversation with Penny. There were no huge events planned Wednesday, just the usual succession of breakfasts, donor handshakes, and volunteer meet and greets. Nothing I hadn’t done a
million times this summer. But my stomach was in knots, my limbs jumpy under the covers.

It was Marta, I realized. I was nervous to see her and I couldn’t put my finger on why.

When my car arrived at the Starlight Diner the next morning, I felt my nerves sink into dread. More than that, something familiar and unwelcome. Grief.

I asked the driver to pick me up in exactly forty-five minutes. He was hesitant to leave me, but there were no cameras in sight, the street was quiet, and the diner empty, except for Marta’s slumped silhouette in the usual corner booth.

Opposite her was an empty seat. The one my mom used to take.

I drew in a breath and held it as I clomped in my low heels across the shiny diner floor, too nervous to exhale until Marta jumped up to hug the air out of me, her eyes glittering.

“Look at you,” she said. “You look . . . different.”

“Thank you,” I said, but I sensed that it wasn’t quite a compliment.

After we’d ordered, Marta asked tentative questions about how my life had changed since the last time we’d talked.

“Do you like the Coopers?”

“Yes, very much,” I answered. “They’ve been wonderful. I haven’t gotten to know the senator as much because of the campaign . . .”

Marta blanched. Before I could ask her why, she smiled. “And you’re a big sister!”

“Yeah! They’re great. We get plenty of bonding time out on the road. The campaign bus is big, but—”

“Have you seen Penny since you’ve been back?”

After chatting for a few more minutes, it occurred to me that Marta was changing the subject every time the campaign came up. If I didn’t know her so well, I would’ve suspected she hated talking politics. Something was off.

“No Freddie today?” I asked, thinking that question would be safe enough.

She took a gulp of water. “Freddie actually passed back in May.”

“Oh no.”
Freddie too.
“I’m so sorry.”

Marta’s fingers kept tapping the edge of the booth, as if she were waiting for a buzzer to go off. It wasn’t like her to be this antsy.

She’s feeling what I am,
I told myself.
The emptiness of the booth. Last time there were three of us, four with Freddie, and now it’s just us. And we don’t know how to talk to each other anymore.

I tried again to break the ice. “How’s the Cocina?”

She froze even more at that, eyes wide like I’d caught her with her hand in a cash register. “I actually moved on a few months ago.”

So that was why she was anxious. She felt guilty about leaving my mom’s organization. Maybe she saw it as breaking a promise to her best friend, but who was I to hold that against her? I reached out to put my hand on top of her restless one. It balled up under my palm.

I tried to smile. “So where are you working now?”

She swallowed, pulled her arm back.

“I’m fundraising for the Lawrence campaign, actually.
I’ve always been an active Democrat and it was too big an opportunity to pass up.”

She said it quickly, defensively. It did come as a bit of a shock to hear that she was working on the opponent’s campaign, but I made sure not to show it.

“That’s amazing, Marta—”

“You’re happy, right?”

She was holding on to the booth, staring at me so intently that it was impossible not to read the bare emotion in her eyes. The fear, the doubt. No.

The guilt.