Domestic Affairs (26 page)

Without fail, they would go into the partner's office, talk about the latest trial, and switch over to the campaign, at which point he would lean over to Olivia and say, “This little darlin' is Landon's right arm.” Then he would let out a roaring laugh. “And his left too!”

Olivia, of course, would play along, as she'd learned to, mentioning tidbits about the campaign trail that made her sound even more of an insider than she was. When she had first started, she hesitated to name-drop until she figured out that it wasn't bragging at all. Letting donors think she was in close contact with Landon let them feel that they were too. Not to mention they would repeat whatever tidbit she had disclosed (Governor Taylor had to actually taste the fried butter at the Iowa State Fair!) to anyone and everyone they saw, transferring the experience so that the donor would seem closer.
And he's a fabulous kisser
, she longed to add.

With the partner suitably seduced by Olivia's fried-butter anecdote, the three would then walk the halls of the law firm asking for contributions at each office door. Olivia had never seen anything like it in her life. She would quietly walk behind Henley and the partner, unsure if it was even legal to ask partners, associates, and even secretaries to write out checks.

“I think some of them actually think my name is Darlin',” she told Jacob and the governor.

Jacob chuckled. “So how much is in hand from your trick-or-treating-style fundraising?”

“Three twenty!” she gleefully exclaimed.

The governor put his BlackBerry down on the dashboard and turned around to Olivia, both eyebrows raised. “Seriously?”

“Yup! The trip is going to do four hundred.”

“Holy crap!” Jacob smacked her on the arm.

“What he said!” The governor shook his head in amazement.

Olivia smiled. She was proud. It wasn't just the money. It was knowing she had found her niche. She was with people who understood her. She went back to pulling up lists and found herself subconsciously humming the song “Walking on Sunshine.” She giggled with happiness, remembering her sister's theory that people always wound up humming songs that fit how they felt in that moment.

Walking into the Brinmore was always accompanied by a bit of relief for Jacob. He likened the hotel to an enclosed dog park where you could let the dog off the leash. The governor knew the place well enough that he could find his way from the lobby to the room to the restaurant on his own, a skill set that in other places proved more elusive than it should have for a presidential candidate.

“Y'all meet back here in fifteen? That good?” said the governor.

“That's great,” Olivia said obligingly. Jacob smiled again at her, knowing she probably could have used at least twenty-five minutes to pull lists, but was clearly conscious of Jacob's need to get out as soon as possible. As the elevators closed on Taylor, Jacob and Olivia headed toward the business center.

“Loving you right now,” he said, following her as she walked briskly.

“Oh, did you have something tonight?” Olivia turned back to look at him sarcastically, one eyebrow lifted.

He grinned, admitting he had told her maybe four too many times about the date tonight, along with each change in time and place.

“Yeah, I figured we weren't getting out of it.” She turned into the business office at the hotel like it was her own. “So I decided we should get it as close as possible to where you needed to be for Sophie.”

“I totally owe you one.” He plopped down on a chair next to her as she went to work, once again pulling up lists.

“I'll just have Addie strike one of those lines on the drinks-I-owe-you poster I have on my wall.”

“Deal. Do you need help here? Anything I can do?” He was already consumed with his own emails. If they could keep this relatively short, it might actually be perfect for him to get an hour of work done and then get out to Sophie.

“I'm good. Thanks.”

“Okay. I'll jump out and get us a table.”

“Cool. Be there in five.” She spoke without lifting her head from the screen.

Jacob strolled into the restaurant, happy to see it almost empty. A family with a three-year-old sat eating dinner at a table in the center of the room.
Foreign. Alternate time-zone meal.
Behind them, two people were huddled over almost-empty drinks in the corner couches.
Definitely an affair.
When the man stealthily put his hand on the woman's knee after looking around, Jacob congratulated himself on his hypothesis, thinking he should be eligible for some sort of psychological degree in hotel personality assessment. He had spent enough time in them to be able to pick out every particular situation.

He walked straight over to his favorite corner table. It had four big leather chairs clustered together and a surface large enough to accommodate a good deal of spread-out papers. Plus the high and rounded backs of the chairs left them, as he liked to say, AHAP—as hidden as possible. He sat in one of the enormously comfortable, but not too mushy, just-right chairs. Marco, who really seemed to work the restaurant at all times, day and night, walked by.

“Hey, man. Just you tonight?”

“No, no, there's going to be three. The boss is on his way.”

“Okay, okay, big-time.” Marco straightened up a little even at the mention of the governor. “You want to start on something?”

“I would like to start on a vodka immediately, but I think I better stick with a Coke for now.” Jacob smiled. “And actually lemme grab a menu from you, man. I'll get us going on some snacks. My plan is to
get this thing over and done with in under an hour.” One of the greatest parts of a place like the Brinmore and people like Marco was their ability to help Jacob stay within a time frame when he needed it.

“Hot date with the teacher?”

Jacob nodded. Marco knew more about his life than most of Jacob's friends.

“Ten-four. We'll have you out of here by nine fifty-eight. On it, man!” He handed Jacob a menu. Jacob knew the offerings by heart. He didn't think twice about ordering for Taylor or Olivia. Chicken tenders; a thin-crust pizza; an order of sliders; Kobe beef, of course; and truffle fries. He threw on a tuna tartare for good measure, knowing the chances of its getting eaten were minimal. Thankfully, Billy didn't get itemized bills from the Brinmore kitchen. He couldn't imagine the response he would get for thirty-six-dollar sliders and tuna tartare.
That would go over real well with voters
, he thought with a grimace as he got back to his Iowa emails.

Joe Ottingly needed $225 for the rental van to transport fifteen volunteers every day for a month. Jacob started to think about the fact that the bill tonight would undoubtedly be more than that and then tried to remember Landon's advice on compartmentalizing. “The worlds have to be kept separate in your mind,” Landon had explained once on a plane ride. They were on their way from a rural farming town that was slowly dying to Alek's birthday party on a private Caribbean island that he had rented for a week.

“He rented the entire island?!” Jacob had asked incredulously.

The governor, newly elected, had taken the question and broadened it into an entire political theory, as he often liked to do. “You can't possibly rationalize one world in the context of the other,” he told him. “It would drive you mad if you tried.”

Jacob looked up from his email just as Olivia hustled into the dining room, almost panting, and sat down as if she had just finished a marathon.

“Okay.” She exhaled the word as she dropped papers all over the table and started sorting them. “I brought a Florida list, a Democratic National Committee trustee list, and
Institutional Investor
's top-paid hedge fund managers.”

“And I got you chicken fingers.”

“You're a god.”

He laughed as she started to pull herself together, clearly nervous. “It's easy, because you and the gov have the exact same palate—a three-year-old's.”

“Touché. Actually you will be happy to hear I have acquired a taste for sushi.” She puffed out her chest.

“Holy crap, I never thought I'd see the day. How did that happen?”

“That art event at the Mastrimonicos'. Literally, Jacob,” she explained, still dazzled by it herself, “they had all of Nobu in the kitchen. At least twenty workers, all in their Nobu uniforms.”

“Oh! That's right! Where Ashley Mastrimonico actually ate.” He laughed heartily. The Mastrimonicos were major Democratic donors. “Man, that stuff must have been really good.”

“It was insane.”

“Let me guess, to
diiiiie
for?” He said it with Ashley's exact accent and a toss of his imaginary hair.

“Exactly. She was completely binge-eating in the kitchen during the speech. And get this—I compliment her on her dress and she says, ‘Oh, it's just a little nothing! Bergdorf is right downstairs, so when I don't have anything to wear—which is always—I just hop down in my robe, and they can always find the perfect thing. It's like an extended closet!' How crazy is that?”

“She goes to a store in her robe?”

“She goes to one of the most expensive stores in the world in her robe! And picks out clothes like it was her closet!” Olivia's eyes opened wider. “Sometimes she gets two of the same dress because she forgets she already has it. How much fun would it be to have so many clothes you forget which ones you have?!”

“I'd like to forget some of the clothes you have. At what age do you think you'll stop wearing sequins?”

Olivia reached over and mimed a punch at his arm, laughing loudly. Her cackle would have embarrassed Jacob if the room had been fuller. Olivia must have noticed his expression because she mugged a sheepish grin.

“Okay, okay, time to break up the party here,” the governor said
lightly as he approached the table. “I mean we do have an election to win here.”

“Speaking of clothes I'd like to forget, hi, Gov. That was actually Olivia laughing, not a screaming cry for help.”

“Very funny, Jacob. Sorry about that.” Olivia looked more annoyed than she usually did at his jabs.

He smiled and mouthed, “What?” as the governor sat down.

“Hello there, Marco.” Taylor extended his arm to shake the waiter's hand.

“Seriously, Governor.” Jacob appraised Taylor's khaki Gap pants and striped shirt paired unsurprisingly with his favorite Great American Vending Machine Company baseball hat, the one he loved to wear because he thought it made him incognito. “I wasn't aware there was a dysfunctional sailors' event tonight. It must have fallen off my calendar.”

Olivia's eyes opened wide at Jacob.

“What's wrong with this?” Taylor tugged at his shirt like a young kid. “I got these at J.Crew!” He tried to defend the outfit. “We can't all be fashion mavens like you.”

Jacob laughed. Casual clothes were feared among politicians more than election losses. All politicians, male and female, as far as Jacob could tell, were petrified of having to wear anything other than a suit. Wanting to seem real and approachable while not wanting to cross over to anything that could be criticized or would subconsciously turn voters off led all of them to the same ensemble: a shirt, usually polo, tucked into khakis, with an awkward leather belt. He noticed it first about Landon, but as the years went on, he realized it was what they all did, even the women. That and the T-shirts all politicians seemed to wear under their suit shirts seemed like the required fashion faux pas in politics.

“I think it looks nice. Comfortable,” Olivia said, eyes widened with every comment to send Jacob a back-off signal.

“Okay, Hallmark. I think you are spending too much time in Iowa.”

“Hallmark?” the governor asked.

“Yeah, Olivia's like a greeting card store—she can find something
nice to say about anything. If the city was on fire she'd tell you how pretty the red in the flame was.”

The governor smacked his hand down on the table with a hearty laugh.

Olivia smiled acceptingly.

“Okay, Wiseass and Hallmark,” the governor said, “let's get this show on the road. What have we got?”

Olivia started explaining her lists. “I brought a few,” she said, and started telling him about their sources.

“
Institutional Investor
sounds interesting,” the governor said, reading over her shoulder. “Let's start there.”

Olivia went through the names as if she had written historical biographies on each one. For each one there was a plan of action and a point of contact.

Jacob wrote away on his BlackBerry, answering emails and devising the new scheduling-management program he had been working on for weeks. A system where things were scheduled in a meaningful, logical, and unemotional manner was unheard-of in political campaigns, especially presidential ones, but Jacob was determined to do it. He wasn't sure how exactly he would do it, but he knew with more work, he could get it done. He thought for sure it would be the lasting mark he would leave on campaign life and imagined himself in his corner office years from now hearing from political staffers that he had revolutionized scheduling.