The Prodigal Daughter (52 page)

The
Future.
1982-1995 319

When the
chairman sat down, Florentyna came forward to the center of the stage and stood
directly in front of Ralph Brooks.

“Mr. Cimirman, I
have come to Chicago today to announce that I am not a candidate for the United
States Senate.”

She paused and
there were cries of “Why not’?” and “Who stopped you?”

She went on as
though she had heard nothing. “I have had the privilego of serving my district
in Illinois for eight years in the Unitcd States House of Representatives and I
look forward to working for the best interests of the people in the future. I
have always believed in party unity-”

“But not party
fixing,” someone shouted.

Once agiin,
Florentyna ignored the interruption. --so I shall be happy to back the
candidate you select to be on the Democratic ticket,” she said, trying to sound
convincing.

An
uproar started, amid which cries of”Senator Kane.
Senator Kane”
were
clearly audible.

David Rodgers
looked pointedly at Florentyna as she continued. “To my supporters, I say that
there may come another time and another place, but it will not be tonight, so
let us remember in this key 8tate that it is the Republicans we have to defeat,
not ourselves. If Mrs. Rodgers becomes the next senator, I fc~el certain that
she will serve the party with the same ability we have grown to expect from her
husband. Should the Republicans capture the seat, you can be assured that I
shall devote myself to seeing we win it back in six years’ time. Whatever the
outcome, the committee can depend on my support in this ~_rucial state during
election year.”

Florentyna
quickly resumed her seat in the second row as her supportcrs cheered and
cheered.

When
thc
chairman had brought the hall to order, which he tried
to do as quickly as possible, he called upon the next United States Senator
from Illinois, Mrs. Betty Rodgers, to address the meeting. Until then,
Florentyna had kept her head bowed
‘ but
she could not
resist glancing up at her adversary. Betty Rodgers clearly had not been
prepared for any opposition and looked in an agitated state as she fidgeted
with her notes.

She read a
prepared speech, sometimes almost in a whisper, and although it was well
researched the delivery made her husband sound like Cicero.

Florentyna felt
sad and embarrassed for her and almost despised the committee for putting Betty
Rodgers through such an ordeal. She began to wonder to what extremes Ralph
Brooks would go to keep her out of the Senate. When Betty RodFers sat down she
was shaking like jelly, and Florentyna quictly left the platform and stepped
out of a side door so that she would no longer embarrass them. She hailed a cab
and asked the driver to take heT to O’Hare Airport.

“Sure thing,
Mrs. Kane,”
came
the quick reply. “I hope you’re going
to run for the Senate again,
You’ll
win the seat easy
this time.”

“No, I shall not
be running,” Florentyna said flatly. “The Democratic candidate will be Betty
Rodgers.”

“
Who’s
ihe?” asked the taxi driver.

“Senatoir
Rodgers’s wife.”

“What’s she know
about the job? Her husband wasn’t that hot,” the chiver said testily, and drove
the rest of the way in silence. It gave Florentyna the opportunity to reflect
that she would have to run as an independent candidate if she was ever going to
have any chance of winning a seat in the Senate. Her biggest anxiety was
splitting the vote with Betty Rodgers and letting a Republican take the seat.
The party would never forgive her if that was the eventual outcome. It would
spell the end of her political career. Brooks now looked as if he were going to
win either way. She cursed herself for not beating him when she had the chance.

The cab came to
a halt outside the terminal building. As she paid the driver he said, “It still
doesn’t make sense to me. I’ll tell you, lady, my wife thinks you’re going to
be President. I can’t see it myself, because I could never vote for a woman.”

Florentyna
laughed.

“No offense
meant, lady.”

“No offense
taken,” she said, and doubled his tip.

She checked her
watch and made her way to the boarding gate: another thirty minutes before
takeoff,
She
bought copies of Time and Newsweek from
the newsstand. Bush on both covers: the tirst shots of the Presidential
campaign were being fired. She looked up at the telemonitor to check the New
York gate numbet: “12C.” It amused her to think of the extremes the officials
at O’Hare went to in order to avoid “Gate 13.” She sat down in a red plastic
swivel chair and began to read the profile on George Bush. She became so
engrossed in the article that she did not hear the loudspeaker. The message was
repeated: “Mrs. Florentyna Kane, please go to the nearest white courtesy
telephone.”

Florentyna
continued reading about the Zapata Oil Company executive who had gone through
the House, the Republican National Committee, the CIA and the U.S. Mission to
China to become Vice President. A TWA passenger representative came over and
touched her lightly on the shoulder. She looked up.

“Mrs.
Kane,
isn’t that for you?” the young man said, pointing at a
loudspeaker.

Florentyna
listened. “Yes, it
is,
thank you.” She walked across
the lounge to the nearest phone. At times like this, she always imagined that
one of the children had been involved in an accident and even now she had to
remind herself that Annabel was over twenty-one and William was married.

She picked up
the phone Senator Rodgers’s voice came over loud and clear. “Florentyna, is
that you?”

“Yes it is,” she
replied.

“Thank God I
caught you. Betty has decided she doesn’t want to run after all. She feels the
campaign would be too great a strain on ht.-r. Can you come back before this
place is torn apart?”

“What for?”
asked Florentyna, her mind in a whirl.

“Can’t you hear
what’s going on here?” said Rodgers. Florentyna listened to cries of “Kane,
Kane, Kane,” as clear as Rodgers’s own voice.

“They want to endorse
you as the official candidate and no one is going to leave until you return.”

Florentyria’s
fingers clenched into a fist.
“I am not interested, David.”

“But Florentyna,
I thought-”

“Not unless I
have the backing of the committee and you personally propose my name in
nomination.”

“Florentyria,
anything you say. Betty always thought you were the righi person for the job.
It was just that Ralph Brooks pushed her into it.”

“Ralph Brooks?”

“Yes, but Betty
now realizes that was nothing more than a self-serving exercise. So for God’s
sake come back.”

“I’m on my way.”
Florentyna ran down the corridor to the taxi stand. A cab shot up to her side.

“Where
to this time, Mrs. Kane?”

She smiled.
“Back to where we started.”

“I suppose you
know where you’re going, but I can’t understand how an ordinary guy like me is
meant to put any faith in politicians I just don’t know.”

Florentyna
prayed that the driver would be silent on his return journey so that she could
compose her thoughts, but this time he treated her to a diatribe: on his wife,
whom he ought to leave; his mother-in-law, who wouldn’t leave him; his son, who
was on drugs and didn’t work, and his daughter, who was living in a California
commune run by a religious cult.”

What a frigging
country-beg your pardon, Mrs. Kane,” he said as they drew up beside the hall.
God, how she had wanted to tell him to shut up.
She paid him
for the second time that evening.

“Maybe I will
vote for you after all when you run for President,” he said.

She smiled. “And
I could work on the people who ride this cab-there must be at least three
hundred each week. “

Florentyna
shuddered -another lesson learned.

She tried to
collect her thoughts as she entered the building. The
audience
had risen from their seats and were
cheering wildly. Some clapped their
hands above their heads while others stood on chairs. The first person to greet
her on the platform was Senator Rodgers, and then his wife, who gave Florentyna
a smile of re I ief. The chain-nan shook her hand heartily.

Senator Brooks
was nowhere to be seen: sometimes she really hated politics.

She turned to
face her supporters in the hall and they cheered even louder: sometimes she
really loved politics.

Florentyna stood
in the center of the stage, but it was five minutes before the chain-nan could
bring the meeting to order. When there was complete silence, she simply said,
“Thomas Jefferson once remarked: ‘I have returned sooner than I expected.’ I am
happy to accept your nomination for the United States Senate. “

She was not
allowed to deliver a further word that night as they thronged around her. A
little after twelve-thirty she crept into her room at the Chicago Baron.
Immediately she picked up the phone and started dialing 212, forgetting that it
was one-thirty in New York.

“Who is it?”
said a drowsy voice.

“Mark Antony.”

“Who?”

“I come to bury
Betty, not to praise her.”

“Jessie, have
you gone mad?”

“No, but I’ve
been endorsed as the Democratic candidate for the United States Senate.”
Florentyna explained haw it had come about.

“George Orwell
said a lot of terrible things were going to happen this year, but he made no
mention of you waking me up in the middle of the night just to announce you are
going to be a senator.”

“I just thought
you would like to be the first to know.”

“Perhaps you’d
better call Edward.”

“Do you think I
ought to? You’ve already reminded me that it’s one-thirty in New York,” “I know
it is, but why should I be the only person you wake up in the middle of the
night so that you can misquote Julius Caesar?”

Senator Rodgers
kept his word and backed Florentyna throughout her whole campaign. For the
first time in years she was free of pressures from Washington and could devote
all her energies to an election. This time there were no thunderbolts or
meteorites that could not be contained, although Ralph Brooks’s lukewarm
support on one occasion and implied praise of her Republican opponent on
another did not help her cause.

The rnain
interest in the country that year was the Presidential campaign.

The major
surprise was the choice of the Democratic Presidential candidate, a man who had
come from nowhere to beat Walter Mondale and Edward Kennedy in the primaries
with his program dubbed the “Fresh Approach.”
The candidate
viskted Illinois on no less than six occasions during the campaign, appearing
with Florentyna every time.

On the day of
the election, the Chicago papers said once again that the Senate race was too
close to call. The pollsters were wrong and the loquacious cab driver was
right, because at eight-thirty Central
time
, the
Republican candidate conceded an overwhelming victory. Later the pollsters
tried to explain away their statistical errors by speculating that many men
would not admit they were going to vote for a woman as senator. Either way, it
didn’t matter, because the new President-elect’s telegram said it all:

WELCOME BACK TO WASHINGTON, SENATOR KANE

N
INETEEN
FUGHTY-FIVE was to be a year for funerals, which made Florentyna feel every day
of her fifty-one years.

She returned to
Washington to find she had been allocated a suite in the Russell Building, a
mere six hundred yards from her old congressional office in the Longworth
Building. For several days while she was settling in, she found herself still
driving into the Longworth garage rather than the Russell courtyard. She also
could not get used to being addressed as Senator, especially by Richard, who
could mouth the title in such a way as to make it sound like a term of abuse.
“You may imagine your status has incrxased, but they still haven’t given you a
raise in salary. I can’t wait for you to be President,” he added. “Then at
least you will earn as much as one of the bank’s vice presidents, “

Florentyna’s
salary might not have risen, but her expenses had as once again she surrounded
herself with a team many senators would envy. She would have been the first to
acknowledge the advantage of a strong financial base outside the world of
politics. Most of her old team returned and were supplemented by new staffers
who were in no doubt about Florentyna’s future. Her office in the Russell
Building was in Suite 440.

The other four
rooms were now occupied by the fourteen staffers, led by the intrepid Janet
Brown, who Florentyna had decided long ago was married to her job. In addition,
Florentyna now had four offices throughout Illinois with three staffers working
in each of them.