Page 58 of Pursuit of Happiness

He answered by clapping his hands together, loudly. “Rebecca, Ineed you to head to the press room.” He handed her a sheet of paper. “Here areyour talking points. Everyone else, clear out. I need a moment with thesenator.”

There was some mumbling as they filed out, but Meredith barelypaid attention, relieved at the idea of being alone. Or at least somewhatalone. When the last person out shut the door, she collapsed on the couch. “Iassume you want to go over the speech?”

He shook his head. “No speeches today. You’ll make a briefstatement downstairs, but first I have my own set of talking points just foryou. Are you ready to hear them?”

“Sure. This night couldn’t get much worse.”

“Actually, you’re wrong. You could’ve lost Illinois. And youmight lose more states in the next few weeks. You still have several really bigraces ahead of you, including Washington, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania,Wisconsin, and campaign donations are already under goal. If you lose themajority of these upcoming races, you’re toast.”

“Way to give a pep talk.”

“You don’t need a pep talk, what you need is a kick in the butt.Yes, you took a beating tonight, but in light of the recent news cycle, itcould’ve been worse. And it could still get a lot worse unless you’re willingto do what it takes to stop the bleeding. Right now.”

Meredith sat up straight at the commanding tone in Gordon’svoice. He was right, the road ahead was laced with pitfalls, but her life feltso out of control she wasn’t sure how to maneuver around the obstacles andfinish on top. “I’m listening.”

“I have a plan, and it starts with us becoming a leaner and muchmore efficient operation. You’re going to have a different stump speech forevery city you visit over the course of the next month if we have to stay upround the clock to get them written. The press will have so many sound bitesfrom you, they may have to add an extra hour to the day to stay current.

“You’ve been the frontrunner from the start, and there’s a goodreason for that, but it’s time to pull off the gloves and go full force afterLankin’s record. Let the voters know that you may have taken a hit in the news,but you’re not going down without a fight.”

Meredith stood and started pacing the room, energized by Gordon’sspeech. “Tell me what to do.”

“I will, but first you have to answer one question.”

“Ask away.”

“Do you still want this?”

Meredith froze. The blunt question took her completely bysurprise. Did she still want to be president? The abrupt breakup with Stevie,the steady stream of verbal attacks on her family, the inability to walk downthe street without being swarmed by press all represented only a small taste ofwhat was to come. If she won, she’d live the next four to eight years of herlife surrounded by other people, but completely alone, with any chance at apersonal life put on hold. A year ago, she wouldn’t have cared, strong in thebelief that government service was a calling, and it was her duty to makewhatever sacrifices necessary to rise to the task, but that was before she’dgotten a glimpse of what it could be like to have a future with a smart, sexywoman who liked her in spite of her power and influence, not because of it.What would Stevie say right now if she asked her for advice?

The answer was clear, telegraphed in the way Stevie plowed aheadwith the Barkley case, while never once giving an interview or otherwisedivulging a word about the behind the scenes time they’d shared. Stevie wasclearly fully focused on her career, and Meredith should follow her lead,sacrificing the personal life she wanted for the professional one that she wasdestined to fulfill, but she couldn’t help but wonder why she couldn’t haveboth.

Chapter Twenty

July

Stevie adjusted the hard metal chair so she was closer to thecomputer screen, but she still couldn’t tell what Barkley was working on. Emilyhad arranged for him to get extra time with a computer in the break room at thejail so he could examine the files that had been sent to his email account atFolsom in preparation for his testimony before the grand jury that would hearthe case against the Mitchell Foundation. Yesterday, he’d summoned Stevie tothe jail to show her what he’d found. So far, it was just a big jumble ofnonsense.

“I heard she was your girlfriend,” Barkley said.

Stevie cursed the day he’d decided to become talkative with her,and she feigned ignorance. “Who?”

“You know who. The future Madam President. She seems like a nicelady.”

Stevie considered the description. Yes, Meredith was definitelynice, but that was not one of the descriptors she’d use. She’d tried to avoidseeing her, but every time she turned around, Meredith was on TV, in the paper,on the radio, and she was as attractive as ever, although slight bags under hereyes and a haggard expression were signs she was beginning to experienceexhaustion. Meredith’s presence had become even more prevalent this week sincethe Democratic National Convention was taking place in Baltimore. Some hadspeculated that Meredith would drop out of the race when the news of theinvestigation into her family’s foundation came out followed by her stunningprimary losses, but she’d stayed in and continued to fight for every delegatevote she could get, seemingly energized by her new role as the underdog.Neither she nor Lankin had a clear margin of victory going into this week, andsome were predicting a brokered convention. The news outlets were eating it upwith 24/7 analysis and predictions. For her part, Stevie was just glad they’dstopped talking about her for a while.

“Did you bring me here to talk about my personal life or did youreally want to show me something?”

He motioned to the screen. “I’ll walk you through it.” Hepointed. “See this code right here?”

“Yes.”

“Those are the IP designators. When email comes into Folsom’ssystem, it gets tagged with code indicating the time and date and origin of thesender.”

“Like geographic location?”

“Kind of. We can backtrace what computer it comes from, using theIP address.”

“Okay.” Stevie didn’t know where this was going, but Barkleyseemed intent on explaining it a certain way, and she’d bear with it a bitlonger.

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