Page 34 of Primary Season
It’s hard to describe how strange my apartment felt when I opened the door to it twelve and a half hours later. Julie, my roommate, wasn’t home from work yet, and the deafening silence made me shudder. How much had my life changed in the span of one day? Just twenty-four hours before, I’d been a level-headed, impressive, driven, focused manager of a campaign, a woman who had everything going for her. At long last, I was going to be someone in DC, not just a person on the outside looking in, never a part of the inner circle. Running Patrick Blanco’s PR team would do that and more. Hell, if I played it right, I might even wind up as his press secretary once Patrick made it into the Oval Office.
But now, none of that was in my future. None of it.
Instead, I was the harlot in a national sex scandal, the “other woman” of a man who seemed to have everything he ever wanted. I was a slut, a tart, a manipulator who used her position to get close to her boss, a shrew with no morals who put sex above all else. I’d read all this and more all over the Internet as I waited in the Columbia airport for my hastily booked flight home. As I sat in one of the fake leather seats in the terminal, I broke the cardinal rule of public relations—I read the comments on the articles written about my relationship with Patrick as the news began to spread across the country. I searched my name on Facebook, I found myself trending on Twitter. I scrolled up and down the screen of my phone, digesting it all.
No, the words weren’t kind.
Fame had never been something that I’d chased, but now I had it. For better or for worse. The words, the accusations, and the pain of the last week stuck to me like tar. My career was over. I’d probably never live this down. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past the media to bring it up whenever they talked about Patrick.
I tossed my bags in my bedroom, wandered into the kitchen, found a bottle of pinot noir in the cupboard, opened it, and poured myself a large glass. I was halfway through it before the bitter wine blunted the pain, and realization washed through me that I literally had no options left in my playbook. I’d have to go back to Omaha sooner than I thought.
Fuck.
I poured myself another glass. By the time Julie, my roommate, came home, I’d drunk two more.
“Oh god, this is worse than I thought,” she said.
“I don’t give a damn.” I shouted at her from across the room because I couldn’t have stood up, even if I’d tired. “It’s not like…you know how these things…”
“Doesn’t South Carolina vote tomorrow?” Julie dropped her briefcase by the door and put her hands on her hips. “Shouldn’t you be there? Alex, I—”
“Isss fiiiiine.” I’d been passing the time with a Netflix marathon ofGossip Girl. I was a third of the way into my second bottle, and the alcohol had made things blurry and soft, which also meant I had trouble forming words. “They don’t need me. Besides…no problem. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” Julie hung her trench coat on the hook by the door and rushed over to me. She placed a hand on my forehead. “Good. You’re not sick. Just drunk.”
“Don’t say that,” I managed. “I’m not drunk.”
“God knows I would be.” Julie jerked her head in the direction of the doorway. “At least the media haven’t found out where you live.” She sighed. “Not yet.”
“They don’t…they don’t care ‘bout me.” I turned on the couch until I had a view of the ceiling tiles. “They care about him. And Kathryn Van der Schorn.”
“Van der Loon.”
“Whatever.” I waved a sluggish hand at my room. “They want…I want— I want more. I want—”
“Good god, you are smashed.” Julie glanced at the TV, then back at me. “Oh, yes.Gossip Girl. Want some company?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Without even asking, she poured me another glass of that second bottle.
Seated next to me in the black Denali as we drove to the Myrtle Beach VFW hall on Primary Election Day, Doug shook his head and locked his phone. “It’s not good,” he said. “Not what we want to see at all. The last poll out of Charleston has you tied with Sayers.Tied.That’s within the margin of error, and he has the momentum, not you.”
“It’s one poll.”
“Five-Thirty-Eightalso has your chance of winning this thing at 35 percent.”
I nodded, taking in this information. “We’ll have to meet as many people as we can today, talk to as many voters as possible. Tell people to get to the polls. It’s only seven. We’ve got a long day ahead. We can do this.”
Doug and Heather exchanged a look. Even though I only saw the back of their heads, I could guess the expressions on their faces. They weren’t encouraged. They weren’t optimistic. Not even close.
“Good grief,” Kathryn muttered under her breath. “Bloody freaking hell.”
“This week has been a disaster,” Doug admitted.
“We’ll be fine,” I said, but the words didn’t sound convincing, even to me. “This isn’t something we can’t overcome. We all know the polls in this state are all over the place. Can’t be trusted. The voters haven’t had their say.”
The driver parked the Denali in front of the hall and I unlocked my seatbelt. “Come on, team. We’ve had a few setbacks this week, but let’s go out there and win this one.”
