Domestic Affairs (36 page)

Maggie chuckled and Jacob smiled, remembering that he loved Maggie's ability to still think all of this was interesting and funny.

“So what's up?”

“I need to run something by you. I didn't mention anything to Peter because it's offhand and I didn't want something turning into a story because of me.”

“Okay, I'm braced. Hit me with it. We're off the record, right?”

“Hells to the yeah. Way off on this one. So, they're thinking about running a blind item about a married presidential hopeful sleeping with his fundraiser.”

Jacob gasped. “What?! And you think it's my guy?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my God, that's hilarious!” “Hilarious” was the wrong word. “Totally ridiculous. That man is twisted tight around Aubrey's finger. And Olivia. She's not—No way. Believe me,
I
would know if she was.”

“Jacob Harriston! Are you telling me the story should be about you, not Governor Taylor?”

Jacob laughed and then decided to purposely not deny it. Let her think he and Olivia were sleeping together. It was a lot better than having any rumors about the governor out there, and he knew Maggie would tell others on the down low if even a question arose.

“Maggie, I'm telling you this is not a story!” He said it in gentle-enough protest to suffice as an admittance.

“Wow, I'm glad to hear this. On many levels. I mean I'm glad you're happy. Are you happy?”

“I'm happy,” Jacob said.
I'm not lying
, he told himself yet again.

“Plus, well, the truth is,” she said, almost whispering, “I really didn't want to believe he was one of those guys.”

“He's not, Maggie. He really is better than that.”

“Cool. Thanks for calling back. Sorry to stalk you.”

As Jacob hung up the phone, he sat back thinking about the conversation and wondering why he had instinctively steered Maggie into thinking he was sleeping with Olivia. He dismissed it quickly.

Two cups of hotel coffee, a.k.a. sludge, later, Jacob picked up a pin from the press secretary, Peter, asking if everything was okay with the
New York Post
. Jacob flashed back to his conversation with Maggie. All fine, it was nothing, he wrote back with a weird feeling that it wasn't completely true.
Where the hell does this insecurity come from? There couldn't be any truth to the rumor, could there?

No, there could not.
He scolded himself for even the thought. Still, he couldn't help but muse a little.
They do really get along well. And Olivia has been on every trip, even the ones she didn't really need to be on. That's just because she's a control freak. She's a control freak!
He continued to yell back and forth to himself in his head.
She would never let go enough to take a risk like having an affair with anyone, much less the governor. She yelled at me when I wanted to sneak into a second movie on the same ticket that one time. She hates when I cut lines. She doesn't break rules. And Landon. He is one of the good guys.
He tried to reassure himself, with more than a hint of doubt.
Sure, he's changing. How could he not? He's steps away from being president of the United States. It's okay that he likes better wine. Who cares? Really. He is not sleeping with Olivia.

His head then swerved into a tailspin about letting Maggie think he himself was hooking up with Olivia. What if she put something in the paper about Olivia sleeping with him? That would definitely be the last nail in the nice coffin he was building himself where Sophie was concerned. Fortunately, the campaign's pollster, a known insomniac, called, putting an end to the inner tailspin.

“New poll numbers,” Richard yelled through the phone, not bothering to say hello.

Pollsters were a bizarrely unique breed—with few exceptions, brilliant, almost mad scientists. Their lives were spent studying people's hearts and heads. They interrogated people, evaluated them, and formulated strategies to sway them. One would think this obsession with human thought and behavior would give them an above-average ability to read people, maybe even relate to them. But that theory had a huge margin of error.

The Taylor campaign's pollster was an extreme specimen of the breed. He was heavyset, with a comb-over of white hair that was usually plastered with the sweat that rolled down his rounded, bespectacled face. For Jacob, talking to him was a learned skill, as Richard was completely impervious to sarcasm and repeated himself in almost an autistic fashion.

Despite being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by campaigns worldwide, he dressed like a homeless man, always in a suit that was too big, with his dirty white shirt half-tucked-in, the tail hanging out over his pants. In fact, one time, while Richard was on a corner in New York, waiting for one of his billionaire corporate clients, a family walked by him, stopped, turned around, and gave him a dollar. Richard barely noticed them and took the dollar.

“How we looking?” Jacob inquired.

“We're good, good. It's really looking good.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Richard spun into a description of the numbers that only the man from
A Beautiful Mind
could have followed completely. Jacob got the important points. Sixty-two percent of the people thought Landon Taylor would take the country in the right direction. Head-to-head, Taylor beat Senator Kramer by three. Not a lot, but enough. More importantly, in Iowa, his negatives, political shorthand for what percentage of the people had a negative reaction to him, were down to 34 percent. Much lower than they had been months before, when the campaign started running ads.

“The ads are working.” Jacob lunged back into his couch and threw his tightened fist up in the air.

“The ads are working!” Richard repeated loudly, sounding somewhat proud.

“Great. Can you come in Monday?” Jacob knew Governor Taylor would want the full report in person, every number, every answer, once he heard of the success.

“Yup, yup. I can. I can. Can do. Will do.”

“Okay, great. I'll figure out an opening and let you know. Thanks, Richard.”

On the off chance Taylor was sleeping, Jacob pinned him:
Spoke to Richard. Up for a while if you want summary.

His phone rang almost instantaneously.

“What've we got?”

Like the pollster, Taylor didn't say hello, but unlike Richard's failure at normal niceties, Jacob liked Taylor's lapse. Especially after their exchange earlier. Jacob chalked the nongreeting up to the fact that they had gone back to the conversation they were perennially in the middle of. A five-year conversation that didn't warrant hellos or good-byes, just continued.

“Sixty-three right direction with you and negatives are down to thirty-four.”

“Hmm. Okay. That's not so bad.” When they went over the polls it was one of the rare times Jacob heard insecurity in the governor's voice, even when the numbers were good.

“That's
great
, Gov. The ads are working.”

“Good,” Taylor repeated contentedly but with a pondering hesitation. “Let's get Richard down next week for the full run-through.”

“I've got him coming in Monday.” Jacob loved being a step ahead.

“Great. That will be great.” The governor paused. “How you feeling? You good?”

“Me? Yeah, I'm good, Gov.” This was the equivalent of an apology from Taylor. Jacob knew and appreciated it.

“You feel good about things?”

“I feel great about them. There's a direct bump from the ads, which means we're going in the right direction. If we can drop the negatives another four or five points, this thing is in the bag.”

Taylor sat quietly on the other end. No matter how often he did this, Jacob would never get used to it.
“I'm just thinking,”
Taylor had once explained. For Jacob it was just bizarre, and he often had to make sure the call hadn't dropped completely.

“You still there?” he asked.

“I'm here. It feels good out there too, doesn't it? The energy, it's really moving with us.”

“Yeah.” Jacob paused himself. The voice he recognized had returned to the other end of the line. The one that belonged to the man he admired. The one that carried with it that thing, that magic that won elections. “We've really got it.” The words felt weighty coming out of his mouth. It wasn't just Governor Taylor. It was “them.” It was the campaign. It was the sum of the parts coming together perfectly.

“Yup.” Landon acquiesced. “The magic.”

The clock moved slower than seemed possible. Olivia sat at the table with friends in Hazan's, the hottest new restaurant in New York, trying to seem less distracted than she was, which was difficult, considering how distracted she felt. The governor was due in from New Hampshire at nine, which meant they would meet around nine forty-five. All she wanted to do in the meantime was take a nap, but she hadn't been out with Marcy and Katherine in forever, a fact they had reminded her of with great regularity. She had agreed to meet them and three friends and had begun her overdue apology to them by getting them the reservation. Actually, Alek had gotten the reservation, as he was beloved in every hotspot in town, undoubtedly because he handed out hundred-dollar bills with the same regularity with which most people handed out business cards.

She sat listening to their stories, feeling even more isolated than she had before. Tracy's boyfriend had just proposed to her; Stephanie, who had recently launched her new clothing line, was busy planning Tracy's engagement party, which would be when Olivia's Texas event was held. Another missed event. Katherine had just gotten a new job at a swank book company, Amy was going to open a bakery, and Marcy was getting serious with her new boyfriend, whom Olivia had still not even met.

She was too far behind any of the stories to jump into the discussions, and the whole topic of life-changing events made her desperate to tell her own story. She bit into her lip a bit when Marcy gushed about her new man, wishing she could tell them how Landon's eyes seared into her, how he told her she wasn't like anyone he had ever met. The stories she could tell them swirled in her head and she wished quietly that they could meet him.
They would love him. Well, who wouldn't?
She let herself daydream about his walking in and sitting down.
One day they'll meet
, she told herself wistfully as she glanced down at her BlackBerry.

Need some food and a drink. Where can we go?

Here!
She continued on with her fantasy but would never actually consider writing that. Just the fact that he wanted to go out somewhere was a step in the right direction. She loved the excitement of going out with him because being in public together—admittedly while trying everything short of wearing camouflage to remain unnoticed—seemed to give the relationship an ounce of reality, at least in her mind. The logistics, though, were less enjoyable. They needed each time to pick a small place that would be totally empty. A few places by her apartment could work, but it was a Saturday night, so she couldn't be sure any of them wouldn't be filled with unemployed recent college grads or young moms on their night out.

Text me when you're in. I'll look for somewhere empty.

She looked up just in time to catch an annoyed gaze from Marcy.

“Sorry,” she mouthed.

“Whatever,” Marcy said with a dead-eyed glare.

It wasn't only the guilty feeling that came with her sister's annoyance that disturbed Olivia; it was her own internal struggle. She wanted to be interested in the stories being told. She wanted to care about what shoes she should be wearing, how many carats Tracy's ring was (six, she heard at least four times). She wanted to fit in. But the truth was she didn't. All she really wanted to discuss was whether or not the polling in Iowa was accurate and if Senator Kramer's new ad would have any real effect on the numbers. She looked around the table and wished for one moment when she didn't care about any of that more nerdy stuff.

As Marcy turned her head to order dessert, Olivia looked down again at her BlackBerry.

See you in about an hour.

Olivia couldn't help but smile, knowing in an hour she would be sitting across from someone who wanted to talk about everything she wanted to talk about.

Katherine smiled. “What's so fun on the BlackBerry?”

“Oh.” Olivia paused, not used to people catching her inappropriate smiles. She missed only a beat. “Looks like Senator Kramer just went down a few points in Iowa.”

“Oh,” Katherine said, her enthusiasm diffused.

Unfettered, Olivia continued. “Do you know how many more people vote for
American Idol
than for the president of the United States?”

“Hmmm.” The faces around the table looked at her with blank stares, the same ones she had seen all her life.

By the time nine fifteen came around, Olivia was itching to leave. The others planned the next stop, at J. Cooper's, a new bar in the Meatpacking District.