The Race (15 page)

Pierce nodded. "We'll have to leave it at that, then. As you can appreciate, everything else about him is confidential. He has to live with this, too, you know."

With sickening finality, Corey absorbed how completely he had misperceived his brother's letters. "Yes," he answered. "I know."

HIS CAMPAIGN SUSPENDED, Corey accompanied Clay's body back to Ohio.

TV cameras waited at the evangelical church chosen by Corey's mother, present to record the loss suffered by the military hero and his family. Janice was quietly supportive to Corey and his parents, all edginess banished; though she said nothing of herself, it was clear that Clay's death echoed with hard memories of her own mother's suicide and that, for her, it was a tragedy beyond redemption. This was how Corey felt; the service itself, which was focused more on exalting God than evoking the eighteen-year-old boy in the coffin, only deepened his own misery. His father sat next to him, mute and uncomprehending, a soul in life's harness; mystified and vulnerable, Kara held her mother's hand. Only Corey's mother seemed to find comfort in a service that sharpened Corey's distaste for Nettie Grace's overweening God.

They buried Clay on a gray fall afternoon, in the last open corner of the cemetery that would someday hold his parents—but not, Corey had decided, himself. Even now, he reflected bitterly, his brother was alone.

They returned to his parents' house, the family and a few friends, exchanging well-meant reminiscences as the gathering dwindled until the Graces were alone with Nettie's scrapbook of old photographs. Her religious conversion, Corey perceived, had caused a fault line in the album; before, the photos of Corey and Clay were neatly inserted in the plastic sheets; after, most remained in their packages, unopened. The Reverend Christy had turned Nettie's thoughts to a better place.

Now, her eyes filmed with tears as she looked at the snapshots of Clay, so slender and uncertain looking compared to the insouciance that leapt from pictures of the teenaged Corey. Suddenly, her thin frame seemed to quiver. Looking up from the album, she said to Corey in a voice thickened by grief and helplessness, "Didn't you
see
him, Corey? You never should have encouraged him to enter that terrible place. He died from trying to be like you."

Stunned, Corey's first impulse was to issue some scathing rebuke—about her own blindness, or bigotry, or the fact that surely Clay was lucky to be in the arms of God. But he said none of that. Nor did he tell the truth; overcome by the tragedy that had brought them here, rooted in a family maimed by its failures of empathy or comprehension, Corey simply gazed at her, determined only to make this day no worse.

For seconds no one spoke. Turning to Janice, Corey saw her look of quiet compassion. "I think it's time to go," she said.

As they left, she entwined her fingers in his. "She shouldn't blame you, Corey."

For an instant, Corey wanted to tell her why Clay had taken his own life. But, however raw Corey's feelings, the impulse died. "Let her," he answered softly. "It's all she's got but God."

THAT NIGHT, AS he sat in the darkened bungalow Janice and he had rented, the phone rang. He considered not answering, and then, acting on instinct, did.

"Corey?" The voice, deep but gentle, was somehow familiar. "This is Cortland Lane."

Startled, Corey was slow to reply: Cortland Lane was now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with worries well beyond the suicide of the late Cadet Clayton Grace. "Hello, General. I guess I know why you're calling."

"And I apologize for calling so late. But I wanted to tell you personally how sorry I am for your loss."

"Thank you," Corey answered. "It's been hard. I helped Clay get in, you remember."

"I remember. I also know how hard this is on your parents."

This, Corey knew, was his opening. "Not as hard as it could be."

"I understand. So let me assure you that it will get no worse for them. At least as far as the air force is concerned."

Corey felt a surge of relief. "Thank you, sir."

After a brief silence, Lane asked, "So what will you do now?"

Unsure of how to interpret the question, Corey answered, "I don't really know. It's hard to imagine waking up tomorrow, let alone campaigning."

There was another brief pause. "As a military man, Corey, I'm not supposed to care who wins. But I do. The day we met, I said you'd have to find your own way to live with Joe Fitts's death. Perhaps you've found it—as a senator you can do the country some real good. And losing will make
this
loss no better."

Four days later, Corey resumed his campaign.

Each appearance required an act of will. But in early November, at the age of thirty, Corey Grace was narrowly elected to the Senate.

LEXIE LISTENED IN SILENCE. WHEN AT LAST COREY TURNED TO FACE her, her expression was dispassionate, as if nothing he had told her was in any way remarkable.

"So you never told your parents?"

"I never even told Janice."

Lexie studied him. "Do you know why?"

Corey leaned forward, arms resting on his knees as he stared at a patch of dirt. "What I told myself," he said, "was that teaching my homophobic parents a moral lesson was cruel—if they wanted to blame me, that was the price of compassion, and probably fair enough at that.

"As for Janice, I worried there might be some edgy night, maybe after a drink or two, when she zinged my mother with the truth. So it was better just to add another brick to our wall of silence. Or so I told myself at the time."

"And now?"

"Now I wonder. As long as my parents are living, I've got the same excuse. But there's something more to this.

"Right now, a lot of people see me as a 'good Republican' when it comes to gays. And what's my big contribution? I don't actively hate them. I don't beat the drums against gay marriage. I barely say anything, actually." Corey's voice turned harsh. "If I tell the truth about Clay, I've got no excuse for not confronting Christy and Marotta about victimizing people for who they were born to be, or for not labeling all their crap about protecting the sanctity of marriage the joke that it is. I mean, does anyone really think that Janice and I got divorced because we figured out that ten years later guys would be marrying each other in Massachusetts? Not only is it bullshit, but it's
exactly
the kind of calculated cruelty Price and Marotta profit from ginning up. They're generating hatred against gays as surely as Bob Christy helped push my brother off the roof—except that Christy may actually believe what he's saying." Corey's voice flattened. "That's what
I
believe, Lexie. And if I said it in public I'd be absolutely dead as a presidential candidate—over with, as in 'stick a fork in Corey Grace.' That's a pretty good reason to leave my brother behind."

"But you haven't."

All at once, Corey felt drained. "No. Clay's still with me. Only now he knows that I'm a coward."

Lexie considered him, silent.

"Say something," Corey demanded.

"About what? We're not defined by any one thing we're done—or haven't done. The truth about most people is more complicated than that." Pausing, she finished softly, "And kinder, I hope."

After a time, they began their slow descent to the wooded trail below, quiet until they reached the parking lot. Lexie turned to him, hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt. "You're only forty-three, Corey. You've got time to sort it out."

THE LATE-AFTERNOON FOOTBALL game pitted the Cleveland Browns, Corey's team, against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sitting at the kitchen counter, Corey and Lexie ate salmon steaks and watched the Browns take a brutal pounding. But the game, Corey knew, was Lexie's way of leaving him in peace.

Shortly before halftime, his phone rang. "You watching CNN?" Rustin asked.

"Not if I can help it."

Even on the telephone, Corey could hear his adviser exhale. "Get back to Washington, Corey. Marotta's declaring tomorrow, and it's time to get moving. You've got no real campaign infrastructure or fund-raising operation—"

"I can raise money on the Internet," Corey objected. "I've got the name recognition to do it, and supporters on Wall Street who honestly care that our country's going off the cliff. So don't push me, Blake—I can wait a while longer."

Lexie, Corey saw, was trying to focus on her salmon. "Why risk it?" Rustin asked. "What will you know in a month or two that you don't know now? We both know you want this more than anything in the world."

"Do 'we' now," Corey said sardonically. "How nice for both of us—"

"Where
are
you, for Godsakes?"

"In Palm Springs with my lover, Michael, who looks fetching in the feather boa I just bought him. Using my own charge card, by the way, so Price will know where to send the reporters from Rohr News." Pausing, Corey finished tersely, "I'll be sure to watch Marotta. The rest can wait till I get back."

Hanging up, he clicked the television off. Lexie looked up at him, her expression indecipherable. "Do you think any less of me?" he asked.

"For what?"

It took Corey a moment to realize that in her mind, and perhaps in his, the question did not refer to Clay alone. "Whatever."

"No," she answered, and then amended this with a smile. "At least not yet."

That night, Corey lay awake, wishing she were close. But what he might say or do, and how she might respond, was as unclear to him as what his future held.

AT SIX A.M., ROB AND MARY ROSE MAROTTA SAT DRINKING COFFEE AT the breakfast table of their modest home outside Pittsburgh.

In one sense, this was typical, part of the fabric of their marriage—Rob, restless and unable to sleep; Mary Rose, despite her own weariness from the various demands of their children, stirring herself from the warmth of their bed to serve as a sounding board. But today was different: in four hours, he would declare his candidacy for president of the United States.

Despite this, Rob saw the two of them clearly: he in his robe, the thick black hair on his crown standing up in the way that amused Mary Rose, who, as she did so often, appraised him with a look combining keenness with affection. She battled with her weight now, and the fifteen extra pounds blurred the gamine face that had charmed him at age nineteen, but the girl he had fallen in love with still shone through the woman who had been his partner for twenty-four years of marriage. Whatever good fortune Corey Grace enjoyed, Rob told himself, he would not have traded this moment for the best moment of Grace's life.

Putting down her coffee mug, Mary Rose touched his wrist. "Once you start speaking," she assured her husband, "people will feel what they always do—that they're listening to someone smart and solid, who can meet whatever challenges we face. That's what people need so desperately, Rob—to feel safe."

Rob felt himself smile. "'Solid,'" he repeated. "'Safe.' It sort of sounds like cement settling in a driveway."

Mary Rose smiled. "You know what I mean. This is about Corey, I suspect. But why worry about Corey Grace when he's not what the party wants?"

"Because he's the kind of man who lightning strikes—a risk taker who doesn't care about much of anything but what he wants to do." He stirred more creamer into his coffee. "Most everyone else in our caucus is pretty simple to decode—they want to keep their seat, and they want their dignity honored, and it's all a matter of assessing how those needs affect them on a given issue. But Corey is unpredictable. And he's a much better intuitive politician than even Magnus gives him credit for."

Mary Rose sipped her coffee, her clear blue eyes gauging her husband's mood. "Why brood over him, Robbie? He may have good looks and good luck, but the same things that perplex you about Corey Grace bother other people."

Rob sat back in his chair. "He's
already
affecting me in ways I can't help. He gave Christy his excuse to run—you don't think Grace intended that when he stuck it to me on stem cells? Now I have to pretzel myself trying to keep Christian conservatives from voting for Christy, knowing that if I 'go too far' I may give Corey an opening to the left.

"That's the reason I've moved up my announcement—to regain the momentum and keep party people from looking toward Grace. In a two-way race I'd beat him—I've got the organization, the financial backing, and I've worked damned hard to keep the major factions of our party together. But in a three-way race, who knows?"

"What does Magnus say?"

The carefully neutral tone of the question, Rob knew well, reflected their shared but unspoken misgivings about his master strategist. "That my first job is to preempt Christy, then finish him off in the early primaries. Worry about Grace later, is the strategy. Problem is, Christy's got his own money and a hard core of followers who get him confused with God. He may wind up being tougher to kill than a cockroach."

The faint smile this elicited from Mary Rose did not conceal her worry. "Sometimes I don't know whether Magnus is Mephistopheles or only Machiavelli. But you seem to think he's right about most things."

"He is." Marotta paused, reluctant to express his deeper feelings. Then, because they were partners in everything, he did so. "The problem with Magnus is that he respects no one as much as himself. Sometimes I think he believes he could make a tackling dummy president and I'm the dummy he's using to prove it."

His wife's smile vanished. "He chose you because you'd make a fine president. And because he needs you. Without you, Magnus Price is that nerd in glasses who couldn't get a date in high school. Just be yourself."

It was the closest she dared come, Rob perceived, to expressing her deeper concern: that the 'price of Price,' as she called it, would be for Rob to become so enmeshed in tactics that he could lose some part of himself. "Only Grace gets to be himself, honey. Mere mortals have to choose their spots. The key is to remember why we're doing this."

"Because you should be president," Mary Rose answered simply. "Whenever I listen to you, I'm so proud of what you stand for. And whatever doubts you may feel, people
see
how capable you are. That's why you'll win."