Authors: Bridget Siegel
“Great, great,” he said, looking at her as he flipped through the pages. “Thanks again for staffing this day. I'm so glad you're coming aboard.” Then he paused and looked down at his BlackBerry. “I've just gotta make one call before eightâthirty. Billyâhe's my chief of staff. You've met him?”
“No, not yet. Spoke to him on the phone though.”
“He's the greatest. Really good.” The governor began to dial.
Olivia handed him the briefing and began to look around for Yanni, the first meeting. As she scanned the room, Jo caught her eye and came over.
“Hi, Jo.”
The governor, remembering his Southern manners even during the phone call, stood and kissed her hand.
“Hello, hello,” Jo said in a motherly whisper, so as not to actually disturb the call. “We have you guys set up at a corner table in the main dining room whenever you're ready.”
“Thanks so much, Jo.” Olivia smiled.
The governor had already gone back to his call.
Olivia sat trying to look busy without making herself so busy that she would lose her focus on him. She used the time to study him, his voice, his movements, see if she couldn't get into a rhythm that would assure donors it wasn't her first day by his side.
“Okay, okay, I understand what you're saying and I have to go to these money meetings, but do me a favor, Billy, just check the wording in that bill. It's the paragraph on top of page twelve I'm concerned
with. I think we can do this better. Let's get Senator Saujani on it too. She'll help here.”
A candidate who reads bills
. Olivia hadn't been sure there were any of those left and adored him for actually being interested in governing, not just the politics of it.
“Okay, let's do this,” he said as he hung up the phone and started to the table in the dining room.
“Just one thing I wanted to be sure you saw on this first meeting.” She had watched the governor glance at his briefing but knew he couldn't have read it through. “Most likely Yanni will talk your ear off on banking issues, but just in case”âshe paused, trying to consider a euphemistic way to say itâ“he's had a bit of a family shake-up recently, so I'd stay away from the personal side of things.”
“That's a nice way of saying what?”
“The short story is his wife just left him. For his brother's wife.”
“What?!” His eyes popped so far out of his head she had to giggle.
“Governor.” A brusque voice called him over to a table off to the left as they walked, cutting her explanation short. It was Stephen Bronler, the king of BSDs. Though in his case, he was at least justified in claiming that title. He had built up a small film company from scratch and had become the ultimate titan of the movie industry.
“Stephen!” The governor moved in for a big hug. “How are you, man?”
Stephen stood and threw his muscular arms around the governor. Though only an inch or two taller, he appeared to tower over Taylor because of his robust build. Olivia knew from having written countless briefings on him in the past that the cool mix of colors in his skin was a product of his Indian mother and Moroccan-Russian father. He confirmed her long-held belief that children of mixed ethnicities were, without fail, gorgeous. “Good, good. That production tax-credit law you signed for us in Georgia was huge.”
“Win-win, man. We've had more state revenue off that bill than we ever imagined. If you hadn't brought that to my attention we would have missed out on a lot of good money. You know they did
The Blind Side
in Georgia?”
Olivia tried to slip into the background. She had worked with Stephen on the last presidential campaign but there was no way he could have remembered her.
“You know Olivia Greenley?” Taylor asked.
Olivia wondered if she had not kept her inner monologue to herself.
“Of course,” Stephen said, moving forward and grabbing her arm. “This girl is a winner. You working for him now?” he asked, and without waiting for an answer to the somewhat awkward question, continued. “Why don't you guys come in and see me tomorrow morning? Let's talk about doing an event for you.”
Olivia barely heard the rest of the conversation due to the mix of pride and relief clouding her brain and hearing.
Again characteristically not waiting for an answer, Stephen said insistently, “Ten a.m. She knows where the office is. This is going to be great.”
As they walked away, Taylor turned to her and said, “Tell Jacob to make that happen. My schedule tomorrow doesn't work anyway.” He hesitated, then said, “And find out how long we have to wait after the bill signing to take a contribution.”
“Thanks,” he added. He smiled, seemingly remembering that she wasn't yet a peon on his team. Not officially anyway.
As they proceeded to their table across the room, the governor stopped to say hello to nearly every person along the way.
Some days the Brinmore could use a rope line
, Olivia thought. The tables were filled and bustling with not quite the elite of New York City, but definitely an array of movers and shakers, just as they were every morning. In the corner booth sat the African-American politician always running for something, although no one ever seemed quite sure for what. Olivia actually loved to hear him speak at eventsâhe was inspirational and always talked with gusto about being a Freedom Rider and marching at Selma, two things Olivia often wished she had been alive for. His oratorical skill made it all the more disappointing that he consistently made himself an easy target for character assassination. He traveled everywhere with a woman he freely introduced as his girlfriend even though
he was married, noticeably paid for everything in cash, and spent his campaign war chests on things like weeklong stays in a Four Seasons hotel out of the state he was supposed to be campaigning in.
And apparently a lot of it at daily breakfasts at the Brinmore
, Olivia thought.
She followed closely behind the governor as he moved toward the front two tables. These were reserved for the real social climbers and the new people, both of whom were determined to have their costly breakfast be high-impact. Today, one was occupied by a designer who talked loudly enough for Olivia, and probably everyone else, to hear about plans for an upcoming charity ball.
“Well, what would elevate the event to
that
level?” the designer asked carefully, stirring her coffee with her well-manicured, diamond-covered hand.
Olivia laughed as the designer all but blatantly asked how big a check she would have to write to get the legendary
New York Times
social photographer Bill Cunningham to notice. Though Olivia admittedly loved looking at the pretty dresses in the Style section as much as the next girl, she couldn't help but question the absurdity of the photographer being the kingmaker for charities in the city. Any fundraiser knew the phrase “Bill Cunningham will be there” sold more tickets to a charity event than anything like “One out of three children in America will go hungry tonight.”
Another politician appropriately sat at the other “climber” table. Olivia stifled an eye-roll as the short, overweight man stood in his already crinkled suit to shake the governor's hand. He had literally made a career of running losing campaigns, including the congressional one he was in the middle of.
“This one really has that winning feel to it,” she heard him say, and she wondered how someone 0 for 6 would know what that felt like. Rumor had it, understandably, that his wealthy sister continually encouraged and funded his campaigns in order to keep him out of the family business. He shook Olivia's hand as the governor started to walk away, handing her the same business card she had received at least a dozen times over the years. His committee was listed as “friends of” rather than specifying any year or office so he never needed to change it.
“So nice to meet you,” he said so superficially that it would have been better if he had ignored her altogether.
You have met me a million times
, Olivia thought. She faked a polite smile.
“So nice to
see
you as well,” she said, changing out the words. She wondered why all politicians couldn't learn Campaign Lesson #9âalways use the word “see” instead of “meet,” just in case. She had to smile when Taylor leaned into her as she caught up to his side and whispered, “We should get his lists.”
Their hellos had given Yanni Filipaki plenty of time to get settled at the table. He didn't mind that the walk around the room had made Taylor technically fifteen minutes late to the actual table, since that walk confirmed that the most popular kid in the cafeteria was ending up with him. Yanni was a Greek shipping heir turned trader, turned playboy, turned just about anything he wanted since he was worth billions. With an “-s.” She had met him on the district attorney's race, where he had given over $150,000. He had also hosted events, and as someone always willing to lend a helicopter or one of his three jets, he had soared, quite literally, to the top of Olivia's PPL.
The PPL, or “private plane list,” was an ever-important Excel sheet that listed all the important details about private planes that candidates might need to borrow. It had each plane's size, number of seats, whether or not it needed to refuel on a cross-country trip, and what the actual costs of its usage were on the off chance one needed to report it as a contribution. Olivia had gotten creative with her list while procrastinating one night, so it now also contained notes detailing things like “Yanni's biggest plane serves hot food” and that the hedge-fund manager and designer wife's plane had “the most comfortable couches and most spacious bathroom.” Jacob was always prodding her to add a ranking column for the attractiveness of female flight attendants and X's for flights with the dreaded male attendants, but Olivia had yet to oblige.
From the instant they sat down, Yanni and the governor clicked. Olivia sat quietly through breakfast, marveling at the governor's ease in gliding between subjectsâexport, import, banking, jazz, and American history. They even seemed to have read and memorized all the same articles in Golf Digest. Yanni, medium height and medium build, sat back comfortably in his chair. He had a mop of curly black hair and matching bushy eyebrows that would probably have seemed more intense if not for his always perfectly tanned skin. Olivia wondered if that
was his natural Greek coloring or if it was due to his weekend jaunts to the Caribbean.
Probably both
, she thought.
In meetings like this she often felt like a fly on the wall of a man date and tried to stay on that wall so as not to disrupt the flow of the breakfast. Only toward the end of the meeting, when the conversation turned to the Hamptons, did she chime in.
“Yanni has a palace out there and throws the best parties ever,” she said, knowing it would please both men by boosting Yanni's ego and providing an easy segue for the governor to ask for an event.
“It's not as nice as my place in St. John but it'll do.” Yanni played right into the ask. “We should do an event for you out there.”
“That would be great.”
“How much does one of those events have to raise?” Yanni asked, chomping on a piece of bacon.
Olivia jumped in, saving the candidate from having to say a number, something candidates across the board hated.
“We'd need it to raise at least a hundred thousand dollars to justify taking him out of Iowa.”
Taylor glanced over at Olivia, clearly impressed with her gumption.
“But how much does it have to raise to be a good one?” Yanni asked.
“Depends how good you want it to be!” Olivia knew this game well and thought she could get him to at least $500,000 before the breakfast was over, but Governor Taylor was relatively new to Yanni.
Breaking the game of chicken, he piped up. “Our top raiser raised us about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars at one event in California.”
Olivia was thrown by the low number, but she figured it would be an easy one for Yanni to top and she wasn't wrong.
“Well, then,” Yanni said with a smile, “put me down for two fiftyone and let's get this thing scheduled. Can't have New York trailing Los Angeles. Who else are you meeting while you're in town? How long are you here?”
“We've got a full day of meetings,” Olivia boasted.
The governor finished her sentence, proud of his newly scheduled morning meeting with Bronler: “And we just added on a meeting
with Stephen.” He glanced over at the film producer, knowing everyone recognized him simply by his first name. “So now we'll be here till tomorrow.”
“Perfect. Well, now I've got your dinner plans,” Yanni said without waiting to hear if the governor could even make a dinner engagement with Yanni. “We can wrangle some cohosts for my event.”
As Yanni scribbled down a location for seven o'clock that night and said his good-byes, Olivia heard Jo receiving a boisterous greeting at the door.
Ugh. I know that voice.
Olivia looked to the door and confirmed the thought as Yanni left and Taylor sat back down to wait for their next meeting.
Chris, the former White House deputy chief of staff, whom she used to date, had walked into the room.
He moved to Manhattan just to torture me. I know it.
She straightened, tense, trying to track his moves as he swept from table to table. He was, of course, caught up in a round of hellos. His hellos were always lively, something that had first attracted her to him. People seemed to love when he arrived, regardless of the people, regardless of the room. He had an infectious charm. And that was not just the biased opinion of someone who used to love him. Orin, one of her favorite donors, once commented to her that Chris's walking and preaching at events was such a natural fluid movement that he seemed more like an athlete than a politician.
Taylor has that too
, Olivia thought. It was a rare gift to be able to make a speech or a round of hellos look like a beautiful dance.