The Race (12 page)

Corey looked at her sideways. "When did you start acting?"

"Early." In the shadows, Lexie's smile seemed reflective. "It was sort of sad, really. Acting was my escape."

"From what?"

"Daddy had a heart condition—the next heart attack, the doctors said, would kill him. The message I got from Mama was 'Be good, be quiet, keep your daddy's world a certain way, or maybe you'll be the thing that does him in.'" She slowly shook her head. "When I look at pictures from that time, I see this skinny, sad-faced girl.

"What I remember is withdrawing. I'd go sit under that mossy tree in the backyard and read for hours, lost in my own world. I bet I was the only nine-year-old black girl in Greenville who cried over
Wuthering
Heights
. Then I discovered acting, and how you could turn into somebody else."

"Was there a particular 'somebody' you liked best?"

"Yeah," Lexie answered with a laugh. "A bit part in
The Crucible
—a teenaged girl in the grip of hysteria. I got to scream, right out loud, and it wasn't going to kill my daddy. And I realized I felt freer on the stage than I'd ever felt off it.

"A part of me still does. I can be in a play, acting in front of friends who've come to see me, and then have nothing to say to them afterward.
Macbeth
was like that. But most of the time I know how to turn it off—I go home now and I'm Lexie Hart, not somebody else."

The story intrigued him, both for its own sake and because, Corey guessed, she seldom talked about herself. "But is acting still an escape for you?" he asked.

"Yes and no. Maybe politics is vicious, but my form of make-believe comes with its own harsh reality—Hollywood can be like the world's meanest high school, filled with some of the most treacherous people on earth. And I'm almost thirty-seven. If you're a woman and over thirty, you can be obsolete in a nanosecond." Briefly, she glanced at him. "Some days you feel pretty much alone. But then what do they say about Washington: 'If you want a friend, get a dog'?"

Corey laughed. "I'd just have to pay someone to take care of it. So how do you deal with all that?"

Lexie contemplated the grass at her feet. "By limiting my own success, in a way. After I won the Oscar, I didn't want to be hijacked by the machine, posing for every magazine in somebody's designer gowns, or making bad, expensive movies pitched to eighteen-year-old guys." She shook her head and smiled. "Though there
was
one where I fired a laser gun and said, 'Take that, furball.' Every now and then, you just have to take their money—if only to pay for work that matters more.

"But mostly I pick films that will stretch me, even if nobody sees them. I guess it's like what you said about deciding to run for president: I don't want to do what other people expect me to do and wind up earning their contempt for doing it. Or maybe feeling contempt for myself." Lexie paused, then finished softly: "What I can never figure out is whether that makes me proud or just afraid. Ever ask yourself that question?"

"All the time."

They fell silent together. It struck Corey how alike their worlds were—perhaps
they
were—and yet, in many ways, how different. "What's the hardest part," he asked, "being a woman or being black?"

Lexie responded with a mirthless laugh. "In Hollywood or in life?"

"Both, I guess."

She turned to face him. "Life's a bigger subject than we've got time for. But, as in life, race is the hardest thing in Hollywood.

"That can't be a surprise to you. The number of roles for white actors versus black is a lot like the ratio of white to black senators—ninety-nine to one, the last time I looked." Her voice became flat, and perhaps a little weary. "If you're a woman, getting older,
and
you're black, you just have to keep fighting for good parts.

"Some of the trouble is that the male writers who dominate the film business don't create credible women—let alone black women—so much as recycle old stereotypes. Or maybe
their
stereotypes: sign up to play somebody's mother, and it turns out you're playing
their
mother. So you just try to find the humanity in whoever you've agreed to be."

"And when you're
forty
-seven?"

Looking at him more closely, Lexie said, "I've been talking a lot, Senator—"

"Corey."

"Okay, Corey," she said in a slightly sardonic tone. "Feels like I've been performing a monologue. How much of what I do can really interest you?"

How could he penetrate, Corey wondered, the layers of her mistrust? "Pretty much all of it," he answered. "So now I find myself wondering what's ahead for you."

After a moment, she shrugged. "Producing films I care about—maybe directing them as well. But I'll need financial backing. And the moneymen in film are often as crass as they are powerful. Alex Rohr, for example—he's where our worlds connect.

"Beyond that, I'd like to do more plays. They can be wonderful—every night, the same character turns out a little different." Glancing at Corey, she said, "And politics, of course. For me, that started as early as acting did."

"Because of civil rights?"

"That, and just plain being poor." Her voice softened. "Mama always loved the Kennedys, the idea that rich folks somehow cared about her life. So I learned to connect government with lifting people up—that we had this obligation to see to one another.

"As a celebrity I've got the power to do something—at least until the fame runs out. But fame has also made me careful." Pausing, she pulled her suit coat more tightly around her shoulders, as though warding off a chill. "There are plenty of people in your business I don't like at all. But I know how hurtful it can be to live your life in public. So I try very hard to keep focused on the issues, even when politicians come after me—or my industry—in a personal and nasty way."

"You're a bit of a target," Corey responded. "Personally, I don't much care if some actor decides to go off on
me
. But I care a lot about the kind of crap the entertainment world inundates our kids with. That's where Christy and I can find some common ground."

"Even about censorship?" Lexie asked pointedly.

"Not that. But I sure as hell think your industry can do better than it does. I also think you know it." Corey felt the cell phone vibrate in his pocket, the silent ringing used to alert him to what, at this hour, was some no doubt urgent message. "Look," he added in a mollifying tone, "the sins of show business aren't about you and me. I just didn't feel like sitting on my opinions."

"Oh, this much we agree about—my industry can do a
whole
lot better by black people than the kind of trash they make about us. There's a movie I want to produce that's all about that. Assuming I can ever get it off the ground."

Judging from the frustration in her voice, this was as important to her as anything she had mentioned. "Tell me about it," Corey requested.

Slowly, Lexie shook her head. "It's a long story, and it's getting late."

Disappointed, Corey shrugged. "Perhaps next time, then."

For a long time, Lexie held his gaze. "Maybe it's what you've been asking, and what I've chosen to tell you. Or maybe it's just me. Whatever, I'm feeling the need to be honest.

"You seem like a decent guy, Corey. I've enjoyed tonight, and I'm very grateful for your vote today. But I can't stand your political party—to me, it's carried the stench of racism and privilege ever since most of the segregationists in South Carolina made it their new home."

"I didn't invite them," Corey interrupted. "And I don't like them."

"Still, they're part of the company you've chosen to keep." Though Lexie's voice softened, her tone was firm. "Maybe, on some things, we could agree to disagree. Maybe all this sounds incredibly bizarre to you—my own personal brand of bigotry. But race cuts deep for me. If I have to argue with somebody about it, or ask them to consider what I've been forced to think about since the day I figured out I wasn't white, it's way too much to take on."

Nettled, Corey stood, hands jammed in his pockets. "So people can never change or grow, and all Republicans are alike? That's pretty condescending. Why not just let the two of us be people?"

Folding her arms, Lexie said quietly, "As you acknowledge, you're a busy man with large ambitions. So why does it matter to you? Do I symbolize some sort of outreach program, or am I today's new challenge?"

The question had just enough truth to sting Corey and, for a moment, silence him. But the answer that came to him felt like a deeper truth. "I really can't explain this, Lexie, and I'll be damned if I'll jump through hoops for you. But somehow it feels like
you
matter—_you,_ not some random African-American, Oscar-winning movie star. I can't imagine spending time with you and just going through the motions. And at the risk of sounding conceited, I'm big enough for you."

Even in the moonlight, Corey could detect her smile of skepticism. "Because you're a senator?"

"Because you don't scare me. I'm not even particularly in awe of you. That leaves me free to like you and, believe it or not, take a genuine interest in how you see the world—including my world. I may even be capable of sorting out your unbelievable defensiveness from your incredible lack of tact. So, yes, I think I'd like to see you again."

For a long time she simply stared up at him. Then, standing, she touched his sleeve. "Walk me back, okay?"

They walked three blocks in silence, alone on the empty sidewalks. Only at the hotel did the doorman, trying hard not to stare, remind Corey of what they both could never escape.

Turning, she looked at him, her gaze direct and steady. "Thanks for dinner," she said. "If I came off too harsh, I'm sorry."

Once again, Corey felt the cell phone vibrating in his pocket. "Not too harsh. Just someone who doesn't know me.

"Maybe you never will. But I promise not to see the next dinner as a Tracy-Hepburn film where I help you discover your inner girl—let alone your inner Republican."

Lexie gave him a last fleeting smile. "No chance of that," she said and then, turning, vanished as the doorman whisked her through the entrance.

Pondering her meaning, Corey resolved to find a cab.

It took him five minutes to flag one. Only as they neared his town house did the sight of the Capitol, a glowing dome in the darkness, remind him to check his messages.

There were three, all from Blake Rustin: Bob Christy, Rustin had it on good authority, was planning an announcement next week. "You flushed him out today," Rustin said with palpable satisfaction. "I'm pretty damn sure he'll run. After that, the only question is how badly he damages Rob Marotta, and what that does for you."

ON THE FIRST TUESDAY IN OCTOBER, COREY AND BLAKE RUSTIN watched the Reverend Bob Christy make his "special announcement."

Christy sat in an overstuffed chair on the set of his TV show, speaking without notes as the camera framed his face. "For forty years," Christy said gravely, "I have watched our own government precipitate our nation's moral decline.

"The day it began still burns in my memory. I was in divinity school, watching the news, when Walter Cronkite told us that the United States Supreme Court—the so-called protector of our liberties—had barred America's children from beginning their school day with a simple prayer to our Creator." Christy's voice thickened. "Tears came to my eyes. And yet I did nothing."

"He's running," Rustin said.

Christy leaned forward, his face filling the screen. "Ten years later, that same court told American women they had the right to
murder
their unborn children. And I realized that these nine judges had become the high priests of our government's new 'religion'—a secular humanism that knew no boundaries and saw no need of God."

Sipping black coffee, Corey imagined his mother watching. "The man's good," he told Rustin. "You can agree or not, but he has a gift for touching the nerve endings of our social disquiet."

"I had always disdained politics," Christy went on, "until I realized that our
politics
disdained our
God
.

"How could God, I asked myself, ordain our form of government and then be indifferent to its works?" Christy's voice became low and stern. "But it was
we
who had become indifferent, heedless of our duty to ensure that America obeys God's laws.

"Ever since that awful day when the Supreme Court sanctioned murder, millions of ordinary Americans have risen to fight a godless government that asks us to accept rampant divorce, sexual promiscuity, gay marriage, the relentless eradication of God from public life, and a contempt for life itself so profound that we dismember babies in their mothers' wombs." Christy's eyes moistened, and his mobile features appeared to sag with the weight of grief. "The outcome of this great battle remains in doubt. Two weeks ago, in the United States Senate, a group of renegade Republicans joined with Democrats to approve a death sentence for four hundred thousand potential lives who cannot speak in their own defense. Imagine what they would say if we could hear them."

Christy paused, shaking his head in reproof. "It's all of a piece, whether abortion or stem-cell research. But this much is obvious: everyone who believes in abortion has already been born. Perhaps they do not see that a society that allows them to select which babies will die can also decide which old people will live."

"This is where I get off the train," Corey observed. "Trying to cure paralysis doesn't lead to euthanasia."

Briefly, Christy closed his eyes. "For two weeks," he said in a hushed voice, "I have prayed on what to do. In the millions, you have shared with me
your
hopes and prayers for our beloved, wayward country.

"I have heard your voices and, I humbly believe, the voice of God Himself. And so the journey I began forty years ago has led me to this awesome day." Slowly, Christy's eyes opened, and he spoke in a husky tremor. "Today, grateful for your blessing, I declare my candidacy for president of the United States ..."