The Race (11 page)

"I am, Senator. Just as I'm familiar with the doctors who claimed that Terri Schiavo had a functioning cerebral cortex." As a spasm of nervous laughter came from the galleries, Corey continued. "Let me suggest that you postpone this vote a week; give those binders to the most recent winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine, Drs. Carole Lauder and Joseph Di Santi; and advise the Senate of their conclusions. Having consulted with both, I know they'd be willing to help you."

Though Marotta looked startled, he swiftly recovered. "Experts will always disagree, Senator. Our obligation is to place ethical considerations above scientific benefits that may not ever exist."

At the corner of his vision, Corey saw Senator Whiteside shake her head, and knew that Marotta had lost her. "My offer stands," Corey said dismissively, and turned from Marotta to his colleagues. "In the gallery," he said, "are many who hope this research will someday stop their suffering, or spare others what they or their loved ones have already suffered. We cannot tell them in good conscience that human beings must suffer or die to protect an embryo that will never become a life—let alone as human sacrifices to political expedience. Nor, in my theology, does the God we purport to believe in require this."

The gallery burst into applause, swiftly gaveled down by the Speaker pro tempore, a venerable Montanan who was Marotta's ally. "And so," Corey concluded, simply, "I will vote in favor of stem-cell research."

THOUGH THE VOTE was fifty-seven to forty-three, Corey felt no elation. Returning to his office, he was certain that his relationship with Marotta would become more difficult yet, and that the media—with some justice—would focus on the role of presidential politics in Corey's own decision.

On his chair was a single slip of paper with a cell-phone number. "She's free for dinner," Eve had written. "Call her."

AS THE MAÎTRE D' GUIDED COREY AND LEXIE HART TO A CORNER table at Tosca, he felt a level of attention more intense than usual. After they were seated, he remarked, "Seems like I'm particularly fascinating tonight. What could it be, I wonder?"

A smile flickered at one corner of her mouth. "Some people," she said, "may think this isn't a presidential thing to do."

Corey laughed. "Depends on which president, I suppose."

Their waitress arrived, seeking assurance that Lexie approved of their table. Instantly, Lexie became so responsive, so concerned that the young woman not be anxious, that Corey saw her from a different angle. The other thing he noted was that Lexie, asked if she cared for a cocktail or wine, ordered mineral water instead.

As Lexie raised her glass, she told him with a smile, "I want to thank you for what you did today. However complex your motives may have been."

Corey looked at her askance. "You're not easy, are you?"

"Not since the day I was born. Or so my mama used to say."

Corey hesitated, then touched his glass to hers. "To Mama."

Briefly, their eyes met. "Yeah," she said softly. "To Mama."

To others, Corey realized, this moment might seem more intimate than it was; two couples at a nearby table were sneaking looks at them, then whispering among themselves. "So what makes you think all this interest is about me?" Lexie inquired. "You do have a certain reputation, you know."

That
again, Corey thought; though he tried to shrug off such comments, this one fed his pervasive sense of being misapprehended. "So I hear. And all richly undeserved."

Her gray-green eyes appraised him, and then she seemed to catch his mood. "If there's one thing I understand, it's being the object of other people's fantasies. That's the business I'm in. I guess it doesn't help that you look like
you
should be in it, too."

Suddenly Corey experienced himself and Lexie less as a couple whom others might misapprehend than as two people who might define, in the next few sentences, whether their interaction would be trivial or truthful. "I joke about this," he told her. "But I look at the guy in
People,
and he doesn't seem like me."

As Lexie gazed at him silently, he registered her indifference to the usual social lubricants—the too easy laugh, or chatter intended to ward off an awkward silence. "So people just misunderstand you?" she asked.

This could have been a gibe or just an invitation to say more plainly what he meant. Perhaps out of loneliness, perhaps because she challenged him, he yielded to the impulse to be candid. "I don't know you at all, Lexie. After tonight, I'll probably never see you again. So I've got nothing to lose by being honest.

"I've had one experience with marriage, and I blew it. First, I was unfaithful; then I entered politics—it's hard to know which was worse. Maybe Janice was wrong for me, but I was no prize husband. Or, as it turns out, father." Lexie's dubious look had vanished, Corey noted, encouraging him to continue. "So now I'm a senator in a town filled with women obsessed with politics or power, some of whom may fantasize about my future prospects. It's hard to find that kind of interest heartwarming, or even take it personally. And ever since leaving the Academy, I've lived an itinerant life, and still do—speeches here, a fund-raiser there, some crisis du jour or another. Maybe I'm congenitally restless. Whatever the cause, and however rotten I may feel about this, it's never added up to a second marriage.

"So I date, and sometimes a woman will stay over—maybe even because she likes me. That's how I get by."

Lexie placed a finger to her slightly parted lips. "You sure know how to sugarcoat things, Senator. Ever think about giving it up?"

"Dating?"

Lexie laughed softly. "Politics."

"What else would I do? Every now and then I'm offered the CEO job at some ersatz Halliburton that lives off government contracts. They sure as hell don't want me for my keen grasp of free enterprise; the idea is that I'd cash in my reputation and my contacts, buying dinners for government procurement officers or buttering up former colleagues—half of whom I'd never speak to voluntarily." Stopping himself, Corey smiled. "The simple truth is that I care about what I do, and I'm way too young to retire. So I'm stuck."

"In the Senate?"

"Seems like. Even though, more days than not, I feel like a man in a catatonic trance—unable to speak or move, but perfectly aware of everything around me. Including that our country is a shambles, and my party's still a devil's bargain between fundamentalists and the wealthy. It's pretty hard to watch."

"You're more than a bystander," Lexie demurred. "You carried a lot of people on your back today."

"Which was nothing but symbolic. Truth to tell, you were lobbying for a bill that'll be dead on arrival. The president will veto it as soon as it hits his desk. All I did was make more enemies."

Her smile reappeared. "Not
all,
" she replied. "You also roiled the political waters. There's a job opening up next year, one where you could try to change everything you dislike."

Corey toyed with his glass. "I know that," he said finally. "And everyone else has always known it. That's another reason Janice left me. She knew the price I'd pay, and that I'd be willing to pay it."

"Then maybe you've paid it already."

"Maybe so."

The waitress arrived to take their orders. When she left, Lexie sipped her water, momentarily silent. "So
are
you running?" she asked. "You've got a great story, as they say at pitch meetings, and charm to burn. You even do candor well, and the people I meet are just dying for a little of
that
."

"You make it sound like auditioning for a part," Corey answered. "If I ran for president and got slaughtered, I'd lose whatever influence I have as someone who
might
become president. Today's suicide mission illustrates the problem. In a single vote I managed to further estrange the current president, piss off the Senate majority leader, and incense a boatload of Christian conservatives. Put them all together and it adds up to a death wish."

"Isn't that part of your charm?"

"Enough of the amateur hour," Corey protested with a laugh. "You know just enough to be dangerous, Lexie. So let's explore reality.

"Rush Limbaugh's beating me around the head and ears. Marotta's nailed down the money people. The gun nuts, creationists, anti-environmentalists, and other members of the party's flat-earth coalition hate me like some dread disease. And the people who like me, the moderates and good government types, have been shunted to the margins or left the party altogether." Despite himself, Corey felt his frustration breaking through. "Do I want to be president? Sure. But I'd have to launch a holy war for the soul of the Republican Party, trying to wrench it away from the Christys and Marottas and into my version of the twenty-first century. The people behind Marotta, like Alex Rohr and Magnus Price, don't give up power voluntarily—you'd have to pry their fingers off the wheel. The campaign would be bloody and brutal, an absolute cesspool. And I'd lose."

Taking another sip of mineral water, Lexie regarded him over the rim of her glass. "What about a third party?"

"I've thought about it. But no one's ever done that and won. And if I
did
win, both parties would make it impossible to govern." Smiling, Corey added, "I'm sure all this is fascinating. But as George Hamilton would say, 'Enough about me.' Why don't we turn to
your
life for a while?"

The look she gave him was not inviting. "What part?"

"Take your pick. The scholarship to the University of South Carolina, the two years in the Peace Corps, your time at Yale Drama School, your stellar record of activism in causes rock-ribbed Republicans despise. Maybe your star turn as the first black Lady Macbeth on Broadway, or how it felt to win an Oscar." Corey grinned. "So much to choose from. Personally, I'm most interested in your marriage. Seems only fair, doesn't it?"

Lexie raised her eyebrows. "Guess you Googled me."

"Yup."

At this moment, dinner arrived. "I'm flattered," Lexie informed him. "And hungry. The story of my life can wait."

DINNER AFFORDED HIM time to study her more closely. Like much else about her, Lexie's appetite was straightforward: she savored her filet mignon without any pretense of reserve. But Corey continued to sense that there was a considerable part of her that, for all her poise and confidence, she chose to withhold from others. What eluded him were the reasons, though there were many possibilities—starting with the fact that she was black.

Clearly she was beautiful: her high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes betrayed, he learned, a trace of Native American ancestry. But what drew him was her hyperalertness, a mixture of thought and feeling constantly at work—watchful eyes, a quick tongue, a smile that flashed and vanished but conveyed a myriad of emotions. Knowing this woman could be well worthwhile but, even were it possible, the process might take years.

As they finished dinner, Corey asked, "Don't talk to the press much, do you?"

"No-o-o," she answered in a tone of satiric horror. "Maybe I'm like my Blackfoot ancestors, who thought a photograph would steal your soul."

"And yet you're a celebrity."

"True. But that's the price tag for doing what I want to. So I pay it."

Corey took a sip from his glass of wine. "Did the price include your marriage?"

Lexie studied the table, pondering her answer or, perhaps, deciding whether to answer at all. "Ron was a screenwriter," she said at length. "He was black, well educated, and seemed to have the same values I did. And we were both at the beginning of our careers, more hopeful than successful.

"Overnight, it seemed, I broke through—parties, premieres, the things that happen when you're on the rise. Suddenly Ron was 'Mr. Hart'—he never knew why he got the jobs he did, especially when nothing he wrote became a film."

Abruptly, she stopped. "Then what happened?" Corey asked.

Lexie gave a small movement of her shoulders. "Our marriage became a cliché: one night I flew back early from a movie set in Paris and discovered he'd been cheating on me. Suddenly it was over—Ron believed he'd found love at last."

"Sounds like the price of celebrity to me. Or maybe the price of his insecurity."

Lexie returned her gaze to the tablecloth. "Maybe both. But all Ron said was 'You're not home to me, Lexie. There's something about you I can't touch.'"

Though soft, the words seemed to bear the weight of her own self-doubt. "Do you think that's fair?" Corey asked.

Lexie shrugged again. "These days, it's so hard for me to know. People think I can have any man I want. But it's not that simple—I seem to scare men off, or make them feel small. And I don't mean to."

For an instant, Corey felt her solitude, and chose to lighten the moment. "Look at yourself," he admonished with a smile. "You're way too beautiful, and way too smart. What's the average pitifully insecure male supposed to do with
that
?"

Though her own smile was rueful, Lexie seemed relieved at being probed no further. "Mama always said I had a mouth on me. Sure got
that
right, didn't she?"

Corey was quiet for a moment. "After dessert," he suggested, "why don't we take a walk. Seems like we've got the night for it."

Briefly, Lexie regarded him across the table, and then gave him something close to a genuine smile. "Guess a walk couldn't hurt us, could it?"

"SOUTH CAROLINA," LEXIE TOLD HIM, "IS A FUNNY PLACE—FILLED with bigots, evangelists, storytellers, some truly wonderful folks, and more crazy people than you can count. But it still feels like home to me."

They had walked for a time in the cool of a late September night, and then sat on a park bench near Lexie's hotel, gazing at the traffic through the shadowy branches of trees. "Your home," Corey remarked, "is also the site of a critical primary election, and about the dirtiest politics you can find. A lot of it involving race."

"You don't need to tell
me,
Senator—it wasn't easy growing up there. But now my uncle's a congressman, and I'm South Carolina's reigning Citizen of the Year. So I guess we've made some progress. Or maybe it's more that
I
have."