"Governor Young," the reporter called, "I wonder if you would take a question."
Charlie inadvertently half-turned toward the reporter, even as he continued to walk past. He was well-used to being trailed by reporters asking him questions, but there was something about the voice of this one that he recognized.
"Sarah?" he asked, confirming that the face did, in fact, match the voice. He was surprised to see her out of Washington.
"Governor Young," she repeated, "would you take a question?" She only called them by their titles when she was working. It was a signal to both them and to herself that she was working and whatever happened was on the record. It wasn't until they dropped the titles and formalities that they were free to speak naturally.
Although Charlie didn't usually stop to talk to reporters, not even Sarah, he made the snap decision to take a few questions, right there in the middle of the parking lot; amazingly enough, he was on schedule for a change and had a few extra minutes. "Sure, I'll take a question from each of you."
Sarah calmly pulled her pencil from behind her ear while the others scrambled in their bags and pockets. Patiently, she let her three companions ask their questions first; they were all from local papers and asked about the difficulties balancing the state budget with the narrow Democratic majority. Sarah's question was different entirely.
"Governor Young, there are rumours floating around Washington that you're already considering running in the next presidential primaries. Would you care to make a comment?" She looked at him expectantly, even though she already knew the answer.
"Well,
Miss Sutherland," he began, "I've only just been elected governor of
New Hampshire and am looking forward to getting to the business of
running the state. I made a commitment to the people of New
Hampshire and I intend to follow it through. So, in answer to
your question, I will not be considering a run at the White House so
long as I remain governor." He paused, thinking for a
moment. "I think you wasted your question, the primaries aren't
for another two years."
"The voters of the Rhode Island First are faced with an interesting decision tonight. All of the names on the ballot are new; none of them have ever appeared there before. But the people are still being given the chance to vote for their incumbent representative," the news anchor explained, every stand of her platinum blonde hair glued in place against the gentle breeze. "In a love story more suited to Hollywood than to Washington, Congresswoman Alexandra Cunningham, now Alexandra McCosham, was married to…"
Her voice trailed off as Jack changed the channel. "Where are the preliminary results?" Jack groaned, jabbing at the remote control. "We moved heaven and earth to get satellite feed from all over the country and I still can't find out who's winning in Rhode Island, Maryland, or Connecticut."
"You know, Jack," Herb said jokingly, "we are running a race of our own here."
"Seventy-three percent of the polling stations are giving us favourable preliminary reports, another eighteen percent are still going to be counting for the next hour, and for some strange reason, nine percent are still open," Jack listed off, flipping from one channel to the other again.
"How do you do that?" one of the junior staffers questioned. "I mean, you looked at the results sheet for like thirty seconds."
"I can give you a bunch of polling data," Jack answered. "Congress is looking like it's going to be Republican unless all of the New England states go Democratic. The Senate however, looks like it's going to run Democrat for a change with the way the Mid-West split. Florida is almost certainly going to go Republican but the rest of the Eastern Seaboard was looking Democrat a week ago when Gallup ran its last poll. Presidential race was too close to call going in: our guy was at forty-five and their guy was at forty-six five. That one could go either way."
The staffer wandered away, mouth hanging in awe. Herb and Jack were left fairly isolated as the rest of the campaign staff huddled around the televisions playing local stations as they watched the numbers come in. "You know, Jack," Herb started, "I'm sorry that I couldn't give you a better position."
"What are you talking about, Senator?" Jack asked.
"You took a big demotion when you took this job. Half of Washington thought that you had completely lost your mind, especially after the Congresswoman had said no." Herb paused. "Don't think that I don't know that Clift offered you your job back six or eight times."
"Twelve," Jack corrected. "And she never really said no. She just didn't say yes right away."
"And by right away, you mean she didn't say yes for six months until you pushed her into a pool at one of the parties for Governor Seaborn's re-election," Robert Zachowski, the chief of staff, broke in. He held one beer out to Jack and another out to Herb.
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"I suppose that you could say that."
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"And I suppose that you could say that Franklin Roosevelt was a Republican too," Toby countered, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, Alex."
From the other corner of the room came a faint popping sound and Toby was instantly spinning around, bellowing, "If that was champagne, that cork had better be back in the bottle within the next ten seconds or so help me…"
"Toby," Alex pointed out softly, "that was the sound of the porters closing the shutters. The weathermen have been predicting a storm hitting most of the Eastern Seaboard for the past couple of hours and they're starting to batten things down. No one would dare even think of opening a bottle of champagne until victory was officially declared; you know why?"
"It would be tempting fate," Toby replied, nodding his head at her. "I trained you well." He chomped at his cigar a little more and resumed his pacing back and forth across the small room. "How much longer until the polling stations close?"
"Another half hour or so," she answered, checking her watch. "Hopefully the ballots get counted before the storm really settles in. There's an emergency generator, but we're not going to be able to get anything other than local information, if we even get that."
"Any word from Jack?"
"None yet. He won't be able to phone until the race there has been called officially." She grinned over at Toby. "He wouldn't want to tempt fate for Herb Martin anyway."
"Are you mocking me?" Toby asked, stepping back so that he could regard her with mock incredulousness. "I come all the way out here to sit with you on election night because your husband has to be in the wilds of North Dakota and this is the thanks I get?"
"The wilds of North Dakota?" she laughed. "They have power and everything there, Toby. Have you ever been to North Dakota?"
"Rabble-rousing," Toby stormed. "That's what you're doing: rabble-rousing."
Alex laughed. "That may be what I'm doing, but it's definitely not what I should be doing."
"Don't tell me that you haven't written your speeches yet," Toby groaned.
"You know," she answered nonchalantly, "if I wait long enough, I only have to write one."
"You are beyond impossible, you feminist…"
She cut him off, laughing again.
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"Impervious."
"Donna," Josh whined.
"Joshua, no amount of whining you can do is going to make them count the votes any faster," Donna told him, throwing her hand up into the air in frustration. "Honestly, the kids aren't even this bad!"
"Where are the kids anyway? I don't think I've seen them yet today," Josh commented, looking around the room to see if he could spot them.
Donna turned to one of her aides, complaining, "And he didn't see why CJ had to come and make sure they did their homework and didn't throw a party."
"Hey," Josh protested, "I knew they were with CJ. I just wanted to know where they are right now."
"Did Dad forget about us again?" Joan asked, coming around from behind Josh and into his line of vision.
"I didn't forget about you," Josh maintained. "I've got a mind like a steel trap; nothing gets through it."
"Except Mom's birthday last year," Joan started listing. "And your anniversary before that, and her birthday the year before."
"And I think that you forgot your anniversary that year too," Noah chimed in.
"I don't think that you've ever remembered my birthday," CJ added. "It's okay, Josh. There's no need to buy me anything. I'll just take the cash."
"Ah, CJ," Josh greeted her, "how wonderful to see you again."
"I saw you this morning at breakfast," CJ reminded him flatly.
"And I didn't see you after that. So it's nice to see you again," Josh recovered quickly.
"Secret plan to fight inflation?" CJ asked Donna.
"I don't let him out in public very often," Donna agreed.
"You do realise that I'm right here?" Josh protested. Both women continued to ignore him.
"Have you heard anything from Toby yet?" Donna queried anxiously. Alex's opponents had been polling fairly closely behind her for most of the race.
CJ shook her head. "He won't phone until the race has been officially called. If we want to know anything, we're better off checking the Internet."
"If we want to know about anything we're better off checking the Internet," Josh ranted. "We should have hard numbers coming up from the West Coast and preliminary numbers from some of the other states. This is the best chance we've had to get a Democrat in the White House since Worrell and we can't even find out who's winning."
"The cable's out for the area and we couldn't get satellite feed set up in time," Donna explained softly as Josh continued.
"I mean, honestly. Nicholson's screwed stuff up for the past eight years and we've got to get the damn Republicans out of there so that we can have a chance to fix it back up again. The new Republican guy, Sheldon, hasn't got a clue what's going on. And here we are, not able to find out any of it except over some Internet site." He paused for a second, realizing that no one was listening.
"The only thing that could make this better is if the power were to go out," he grumbled to himself, stalking off to find something to drink.
He hadn't gotten more than a few steps when the lights flickered. "Don't you dare," he warned them. He took another two steps and the room was plunged into blackness. "Okay," he said, "now someone's in trouble."