The Frankenstein Candidate (25 page)

Olivia’s knee was broken. She spent the next week recovering from cruciate ligament surgery in the local hospital. She insisted that Gary get at least two hours in the snow every day, but he never left her room. She fell asleep within her dream and woke up still within her dream, just after her first caesarean section. Georgia was born, and Gary was cradling her even before she did.

Olivia dozed off again, humming a tune in her sleep.

Her hyperactive mind took her to the day she came home late from her work as a senator to find that Gary had fed the girls, read the bedtime stories, and left her a perfect plate of
brandade canapes and cornichon pickles
. There was a note pasted under the plate. It said, “Olivia, my
joie de vivre
.”

She decided to go to work late the next day. It was the day she remembered feeling very powerful…not like an imposter at all. She stayed back to finish her work. That’s when she saw Claire Derouge nestled in the corner of a conference room, looking depressed. She reached out to help her. Their friendship blossomed. After that, Claire always looked up to her.

“If you could please fold your tray and fasten your seat belts.” The announcement broke her reverie.

She wiped her eyes and straightened her seat. One earplug was still in her ear, the music barely discernible. The other earplug dangled—sometimes her whole life seemed to be one dangling, incomplete half. She looked around—the aircraft was full, and many in business class were stealing looks at her; she was famous. She smiled radiantly. She had learned that every public appearance is a photo op and a voter op. A teenage girl came up to her, wanting her autograph. She obliged. Another wan smile…no wait, she really felt like smiling. The airhostess warned the girl off. The wheels had dropped, the runway visible.

The girl made it back to her seat just in time. Seven hundred metric tons of metal screamed at three hundred miles an hour as the screeching rubber on the tarmac and the roar of the reversed engines almost drowned out the captain’s landing announcement. Olivia looked at the window, feeling more rested after her little nap than if she had slept through eight hours.

Stewards and airhostesses from first class left their section to bid her good-bye. She smiled, calm, poised, getting used to all the attention.

She hadn’t even reached the taxi ranks when Victor appeared before her.

“Now is really not a good time. I have an urgent matter…at home,” she said.

“Five minutes, Olivia.”

She nodded in a manner that said, “Fine, your time starts now.”

“Actually, I have a car waiting. Why don’t I drop you home?”

“It’s not on your way, Victor.”

“Well, I need more than five minutes, and I just saved you twenty.”

“Really? Five was all I was going to give you,” she said, tongue-in-cheek, realizing the length of the cab rank and finally letting him in, the patriarch of her society, the man who could make or break a whole life’s career with just a little remark.

Victor always had the best cars and chauffeurs. Once they got in, he got straight to the point. “The press is hounding Martha as well. Have you met Colin’s wife?”

“Surprisingly, no.”

“Well, she’s had it. This is the third time.”

“This time he was entrapped.”

“True, but they picked at his weakness. Larry should have seen it coming. Anyway, Colin wants to go on, but he is damaged goods. He can’t beat Quentin now. Especially not after Martha goes on air.”

“What’s she going to say?”

“That she is leaving him. And that she should have left after the previous two affairs, which are not out there yet.”

“She talked to you?”

“No. But I have my sources. As you do…in this business.”

“Of course. I’m sure you tried to talk her out of it.”

“The problem is that someone is paying a lot of money to the first two women.”

“So it will be out there whether Martha says it or not.”

“Exactly. Better she beats them to it…the bitches.”

“Ow…I have never seen you this way, Victor.”

“I am sorry, excuse my French. Age is making me bitter. Plus, there is…anyway, forget that. The reason I want to speak with you is that I…we in fact, Edward, Tom, myself…we all want you to go on.”

“I thought you said Colin is finished.”

“He is, even though he won’t admit it. Yet.”

“Then what’s the point of me going on? Even his own wife won’t stand by him.”

“I mean on your own.”

“You don’t mean as a presidential candidate?”

Victor nodded. She gasped, looking at the glass door between her and the chauffeur. Here was the elder statesman of the party, supported by powerbrokers and super-delegates, asking her, Olivia Allen, to declare herself as a candidate for the U.S. presidency. She thought of Gary and Natasha and Georgia.

“I don’t know, Victor, too much is happening. I need to lie low for a while. I need time at home.”

“Lie low? Super Wednesday is in four weeks, and it’s not going to wait for you. Everything all right, Olivia?”

“No, but I really can’t go into it right now.”

“Well, think about it. I will make sure you can retain Larry Fox. That’s if you want to retain him, of course. By the way, the real news on Casey is worse. The poisoning is likely to be…well, as I said before, fatal. He may not make it to November unless they can find a miracle cure.”

She unbuckled her seat belt as she arrived, thanking him for the ride.

“Victor,” she said, opening her own door before the chauffeur could get to it, “there was something else…you stopped after you said age has made you bitter.”

“Prostate. The news has leaked. But I will be cured, doctors say.”

“Oh, I am so sorry to hear that,” she said.

As she got off, her head was spinning. Only a few weeks ago, the man she loved was right beside her, and the man she admired had not only announced he was running for president but had anointed her as a vice presidential candidate. In those few weeks, her country had been challenged with more problems than in the five years before that. Her personal challenges were even greater. What possibly could she have done to push Gary away?

Dr. Mardi Tedman got off the podium to thunderous ovation at the Climate Challenge Symposium. He looked older than his fifty years. With a receding hairline, a skinny body in a five-foot-three frame, which had hardly grown since his high-school days at the Cypress Academy, and glasses as thick as magnifying lenses, he looked more like the famous scientist Stephen Hawking than any other man alive. People close to him even nicknamed him Steevee. Mardi was not wheelchair bound, but he could only walk in slow, measured steps. But he had an excellent, clear voice and a rapaciously high intelligence that he was never afraid to demonstrate.

People often wondered how so tiny a creature could be so intimidating. But growing up devoid of social skills and years of seeking approval had made him well aware of human needs and desires, which he simply factored into his human interaction. Mardi could ruin careers with an offhand remark about someone’s work. Mardi knew his strong suit. He had published over four hundred scientific papers across a wide range of disciplines. No one was as smart as him. With time, that got him to the post of the chief scientific officer for the federal government, a newly created post. Mardi had extraordinary bipartisan support, and he had been the United States’ first and only chief scientific officer, having held the post for over five consecutive years. His second three-year term was scheduled to finish shortly after the new president was sworn in. At various times, he had also been the chief scientist at a major alternate energy research organization in the private sector, the head of the Atomic Energy Department, and the professor and head of environmental science at Harvard University.

Those who didn’t know him well called him the CSO. In Mardi’s five years as CSO, new laws were passed that made it mandatory to require carbon abatement programs in almost any conceivable industry.

When it came to scientific judgment, Mardi’s word was law. Mardi himself didn’t necessarily believe everything he said was true, but what mattered to him was that everyone else did. Mardi was like a ferocious advocate. Once you got him on your side on any scientific issue, you never lost, justice be damned.

“Dr. Tedman, may I see you for a moment?” It was his friend and admirer, Dr. James Roxburgh, who thought it was endearing to call his friend Dr. Tedman sometimes instead of just Mardi. Mardi loved admiration from any and all quarters.

“Sure, James.”

They stepped aside.

“Mardi, we have word that Frankenstein is going to air about the environment.”

“Who?”

“Frank Stein, the independent. I recall you said you know him…a friend of yours at school, I heard.”

Mardi tensed up.

“It could be good news. I mean if this guy knows what’s good for him, his environmental stance would be upright, surely…”

“I don’t know…we haven’t talked for thirty-one years.”

“He sort of went all funny last week you know…I mean, he was doing so well in the polls, polling ten, twenty points ahead of Spain and Kirby…but then he went all pro-business. He doesn’t have the right advisers, does he?”

Mardi looked blankly at James.

“Anyway, Mardi, I think he will try to revive his campaign in a major way. I think you should call him…you know, just proffer some advice.”

Mardi’s hands were sweating.

“I can try to organize this. Let’s meet him, say just the three of us. You are world famous, Mardi…he won’t say no, surely? I mean Spain has already agreed to pressure Russia and China. India and Brazil would follow, I think. Quentin is ours, always has been…another of your schoolmates I believe. Venice will be the final nail in the coffin…there was Kyoto and Copenhagen and Durban and Lisbon and Rio…wasn’t that a masterstroke, Rio…oh, Rio got all the Third World real serious about carbon abatement. Once the BRICs sign, the world is all ours.”

Mardi now had a full-blown headache.

“Are you with me, Mardi…hey, are you feeling well?”

Mardi was getting a full-blown anxiety attack. He sat down. He was given a glass of water. Several conference attendees rushed to his side.

“I’m all right, I’m all right.”

Mardi struggled to his feet.

“James, no…let’s just wait…see what he says, shall we?”

“Sure, whatever you say, Dr. Tedman. You’re probably right. He may just self-destruct, he is halfway there even now…why bother?”

“I need some air.”

Mardi left the conference. He never made it back. Something kept driving him up the streets, randomly at first, then with the sole purpose of getting as far away from his scientific brethren as possible. No, he could not face them today.

He needed to see his friend, right now. He called her—there was no answer. Damn it, where was she when he needed her the most? He left a message. He then went straight to his apartment, opened a bottle of bourbon, and started to cry.