Domestic Affairs (19 page)

As Olivia assessed the chairs, wondering how she could sit without flashing the receptionist or falling completely, a short, stocky man in his late forties appeared.

“Hi, I'm James, the office manager.” He reached out his hand to her. “Come on back.” From the looks of his pleated khaki pants and
polka-dot button-down shirt, Olivia knew he would definitely not be giving her a makeover. Still, she was relieved to see a friendly face and hear a voice rise above a whisper. As she followed closely behind him down the hallway she realized that this would probably be the friendliest face she would encounter here. Office after office was as stark as the reception room. Indistinguishable young men sat at each desk, most of them on headset phones, surrounded by papers, and all looking haggard and well worn despite their brand-new suits. One or two looked up as she passed, but most didn't dare break their concentration. Olivia found herself almost tiptoeing for fear of disturbing them.

At the end of the hallway was an exact replica of the other offices except for the fact that it was void of anything but a desk, some file cabinets, and a big old computer. It wasn't quite the executive suite she had imagined, but it was definitely a large step above most campaign spaces. James flung his arm toward the desk.

“Your palace, madame!”

“Tha—”

“The one right next to you is for the other girl. She's coming, right?”

“Yes, Addie, she's starting Wednesday.” Olivia was relieved she had decided to take the two days to herself to get acquainted with the new offices before Addie began. She had seemed nice enough at the Connecticut event, but Olivia had decided she needed to collect her thoughts before she had a deputy. And that was before she knew there would be so many thoughts to collect.

“Copy room down at the end of that hall, along with a kitchen. It's fully stocked, so help yourself! We put breakfast out around six. By ‘we,' I mean me of course. Lunch goes out around noon. For dinner you're on your own unless the bosses are here late. Then we order up. Usually from ‘21' Club or Marea. Either costs more than my rent, so definitely take them up on it when they ask you to join. If you're here. I heard you work a lot. The boss said you work a lot. That you'd probably need your own key and stuff. You work for Taylor, huh?”

“I do.” Olivia grinned proudly. She was still so excited to be able to say that.
And I love him.
She was determined to stop adding that in her head like it was a good thing.

“I really wanted them to win last time. And he's got that pretty wife. I knocked on doors for them in my neighborhood. Woulda been better if they had won.”

“God, it's so true.” She thought about that all the time. “The world would really be a different place. Hopefully, this time we'll do it right.”

“I like it already. He'd be better as president anyway!”

“Thanks, James.”

“Anyway,” he said, going on with his tour, “this computer should work.”

“Oh, that's okay, I have my laptop. Just as long as I can print from one of them.”

“That should work. I'll have Luke, the IT guy, stop by to check on it. He doesn't get in till about noon most days. Not exactly an early riser. Tech kids.”

“Thank you so much, James. This is great.”

“No problemo. Let me know if you need anything else. I'm right past the kitchen.” He gave her a kind smile and walked away, his arms moving at his sides like a speed-walker's.

Olivia sat down at her new desk and looked around at the empty office. There was a small window that looked directly into another building. It was so quiet, so different from her last campaign office, which was one of the real estate deals—an under-construction, mostly dilapidated floor of a building.

Sitting at the desk felt great. She had never been on a campaign that felt so invincible so early on. Sure, Taylor had a few good challengers in the Democratic field, but none of them really stood a chance. The only close contender was Senator Kramer, from Colorado, but the Democrats didn't need Colorado like they needed the South. A year from now, the Taylor bid would undoubtedly be the forerunning campaign for the president of the United States, and she was in charge of the national fundraising.

She looked down at the Google Alert on her BlackBerry, savoring the moment. “Taylor taps Greenley for Fundraising Role.” Sure, her mom didn't know what Politico was, but her colleagues did. She did. And even her mother would understand the significance of a news organization writing about her getting a job. Ben Smith was reporting on her.
Sam Stein and Chris Cillizza, too. She warranted her own Google Alert. At twenty-seven she had made it to the top of her profession. She had flown through the lower ranks of fundraising teams in just three campaigns. Being put in charge of Adams's campaign was a fluke, but she had done well. Now she was changing the world at one of the highest levels. She should write an email to her political science professor and tell him. He'd be so happy for her. She scribbled down the idea in the new notebook she had spent three days picking out. The perfect notebook for the perfect job. Then a wave of panic hit as she remembered she had to actually do the job.

She opened her laptop to a blank Excel file and stared down at the paper next to her computer with the big number written on top of her to-do list. The one right above “write Professor Eigen a note.”

Five million dollars.

Five million dollars and write a note. Spectacular to-do list, Olivia. Perhaps we should start with the money.
She underlined “five million dollars.” That's what they needed to collect before the Iowa Caucus in nine months.

She wasn't sure who had decided on that number. Whatever the reason, it wasn't really her concern. She just had to hit that mark, and in the course of three quarterly filings. She made a chart on her scrap paper. Half a million already in the bank. She would need to bring in another half a million before July 30. Another two million in September and then the final two million in January.

Olivia stared at the Excel sheet and thought about the numbers. This was her favorite part of the process—imagining the budget. Really it was just a theoretical list of numbers, but to her it was where she could do anything, raise any amount. Breaking it out gave her the road map to get to impossible numbers in impossible time. Down the first column she began typing in “New York,” “Texas,” “Florida . . .” and the cities she thought they could work in. She added in prospective hosts and within an hour she had the start to a road map.

As she began turning to her calls, her BlackBerry buzzed.

“Hey, Jacob.”

“Livster! How's the first day?”

“It would probably be better if I had slept at all this weekend!”

“Oh, please. Your ability to operate well without sleep was one of the key reasons I hired you.”

Olivia laughed, knowing that was actually probably true and wondering how she might phrase her unique abilities in the “Special Skills” section of her résumé.

“So what's up?”

“We need to talk about the budget.”

“Okay.” Olivia looked at the sheet, not quite prepared to go through the numbers, but at least having an idea of how she would get to five. Jacob paused a bit.

“So remember when we talked about raising five million before Iowa?”

“Ummm, yeah, my goal hadn't escaped my mind just yet. I'm not that sleep deprived.”

“Yeah, actually we need it to be seven.”

“What?!” Olivia shook her head and realized it was one of Jacob's jokes. “Very funny, Jacob.” She imitated him making fun of her: “And I should wear my sequins when I raise it, right?”

Jacob's voice didn't waver. “You shouldn't really wear sequins when you do anything, Liv.”

She stopped laughing as he continued on.

“This one's for real. We just met with the pollsters. If we can't run an extended media buy in Iowa, we can't move Kramer's negatives, and ours, the way we need to.” Olivia looked into the phone as if she might be able to find a dose of reality there.

“Jacob, that's insane.”

“I know, but we can do it. We have to.”

“Jacob.” She didn't even know what to say. How could they change her budget by so much in one day? Her first day no less. “Two million dollars is a lot of money.”

“Yeah, the pollster thinks so too.”

“Stop it. Stop joking around.” Olivia stammered, more scared than angry, “Okay, I . . . I mean . . . I don't know if I would've even taken this job with that goal.” She knew it wasn't true but changing the goal line by this much, this early, all just seemed so unfair. She had to protest.

“Really?” He sounded sincerely skeptical.

“No,” she replied, “of course not. But it sucks! How often is this going to happen?”

“It won't anymore. I promise.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She rolled her eyes, knowing every minute she spent talking about the goal was one more minute she was psyching herself out and one more minute that she needed to spend working. “Okay, better get started.” She hung her head backward over her chair and closed her eyes.

“That's the spirit!” Jacob yelled with sarcastic motivation.

“You're a pain in my ass, Jacob.”

“You love me for it.”

“Like a mailman loves a pit bull.”

She hung up the phone and threw her head down on her folded arms.
Fifteen minutes ago I wasn't sure five was possible. How the heck am I going to get to seven?
A hopeless ache started to grow in her stomach.

“Hard first day?”

She opened her eyes and picked up her head to see James peering in the door. She rubbed at one of her eyes, remembering she was neither alone nor in the world she had just created for herself.

“Oh, hi. Sorry. No, not so bad at all! All good.” She added in a thumbs-up. “All good” was such a useful phrase. People rarely pressed for further information after it was said. She wondered when she had started saying it. Probably in high school, she thought. It was so much easier to use those two words than explain all her protests and rallies to friends, who really didn't want to hear about global warming or Iraq anyway.

“Glad to hear it! Have some coffee! We have great coffee here.”

“Will do. Thanks so much.” She turned back to the Excel file and added ten more blank lines. That was her sole accomplishment for a solid hour. She simply couldn't get her head around the challenge.

By six that evening she still wasn't sure seven million was humanly possible, much less probable. The buzz of a private number calling on her phone was a welcome distraction.
Adams
, she thought with a smile. He had been calling all day with things he had “forgotten” to ask her before she left. The familiarity of his voice was a comfort. Plus the questions were easy.

But when she picked up the private number this time there was a silent pause on the other end of the line.

“Hello?”

“Hey, babe.”

Olivia smiled, recognizing the governor's voice but not the familiarity, as embarrassment caused her face to flush.

“Hi.” Silence filled the line as she sat nervously awaiting her boss's words. Just the sound of his accent excited her in a way she couldn't help but admit was more than professional.

“So.” He paused. “Jacob thought I should call and make sure we hadn't scared you off this weekend.”

Olivia made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh or a snort.

“I know.”

He seemed to have a bizarre understanding of the sound she didn't comprehend herself. Did that mean there really was something odd to what had happened?

“Wait. Did you—?” She wasn't even sure what she was asking him. “Did he—?”
Stop it. Nothing happened
, she repeated to herself again, annoyed that she needed so much reminding of such a simple fact.

“He was worried Yanni and the party did it.”

“Oh, no. I wasn't. It was fine.” She laughed awkwardly, wishing she had a clue what he was thinking. And wishing, a little bit, that she hadn't been totally off base. That there was something more meaningful to his coming into her room than a casual accident.

“It probably should have,” he said with a touch of introspective humor. “So we're still okay? You're not scared off?”

“I'm not scared off. I mean the numbers are a little scary, but when it comes to you guys, I'm good.” She tried to lighten her tone.

“Are they realistic?” Word of the budget had swerved him immediately into business mode.

“Well, yes,” she said, a bit unsure and unprepared to talk about it. “I mean, they're high. Really high. But campaigns know no other way I guess. I think if they were too realistic I'd be more worried. We need to make a splash, right?”

“We need to show massive numbers for this to work, but more
than that we need to not be surprised. If you can't get them, I need you to speak up.”

Olivia thought about speaking up right then and there and then quickly thought better of it. The force of his voice jarred her into a memory of being in school and needing to have the right answer. “Okay. I know.”

“Look, this campaign is about to expand by the minute,” he said. “We're making decisions now based on the budget. Huge decisions—media-buy projections, consultants. Once we go down this road, there's no turning back. We can't change the budget halfway through.”

Suddenly the numbers in front of Olivia that she had stared at all day became objects of even more intense trepidation. She was responsible for people's salaries and, more importantly, for whether or not those people would be able to do what they needed to win Iowa. Iowa. A huge national event that could determine the presidency was suddenly a tangible item on her scribbled to-do list.

“I put together the start of a plan today.” She didn't tell him it was for two million off his goal. It was a big exaggeration. A lie maybe. But how could she not? “We can get there. I know we can. I can do this.” The last sentence fell out of her mouth, but she said it more to herself than to him.