Senator Bagwell, of course, was not gracious about it. Sara had hardly expected him to be the kind to lose with dignity.
If we were two boxers fighting on the ring, he'd bite my ankles and send vicious kicks into my kneecaps even after he was on the ground, rather than admit defeat.
"This is preposterous," his voice stiff and shrill with practiced notes of outrage. "Simply preposterous."
Though Bagwell had agreed to sit down with his associate at the beginning of the interview – by then, he'd been Cheshire-grinning and casting Sara looks full of superior glee – the sound of his own voice, which managed to be offensive to women, blacks and immigrants in a record time of eight minutes, caused him to stand up, like a prude maiden attacked in her modesty. They played the recording just once – once was enough. Maybe it wasn't the shortest time it's ever taken a candidate to ruin their chances at the presidency – these things can happen fast; the wrong thing said on TV; the wrong choice of clothes or makeup at a public event.
Little things.
Not like the massive artillery she and Bagwell had been threatening each other with the past two nights.
"Preposterous," Bagwell repeated.
He'd first made for the door, maybe under the impression that if he succeeded in convincing them that he was shocked, things would work all right for him – but at Abruzzi's beckoning of the finger, he'd simply started pacing the room.
"Instead of using big words," said Paul, "why don't we all sit down and try to have an adult conversation?"
"Your recording's a fake," Bagwell interjected. "A practical joke –"
"Yes, yes," Kellerman said, with a tolerant smile. "So is yours."
"Now –"
"No, the gentleman is right," Abruzzi said – although it was Sara alone he was looking at. "Let's get down to business."
A while of silence, throughout which Sara held Abruzzi's gaze – maybe he would see exhaustion, caused by the lack of sleep but especially by the incessant power play of politics.
Sometimes, she envied Michael, who was content with fighting the good fight on a small scale, charity work, and being good to even complete strangers – the mere thought of such a lifestyle had become nearly dreamlike to her, so young had she determined herself for a different path.
Silence among politicians was never just silence. Every move of your body – crossing your legs, self-soothing motions such as rubbing your thumb over your index – everything you did, your opponents could brandish and use against you. See how her weakness shows? Oh, she's not ready for this. Not ready at all.
To make it in this world, you had to convince everyone in the room you were more than human –
And most crucially, more than woman.
But Sara was playing that same game on different rules.
Let Abruzzi see she was tired, so long as he also saw her overwhelming resilience – she would not quit, would not cower under their threats, even under their blows. She was of the 'break sooner than bend' material.
Ultimately, Bagwell returned to his seat; the fidgetiness of his movements indicated to Sara he was still desperate to exonerate himself of having made such politically incorrect statements. She thought it wise to pull the idea out of his head right away.
"It'll do you no more good to accuse me of libel than it would for me to charge you with voyeurism, Senator. It's not about whether either of us is innocent," Sara couldn't help but smile (the foolishness of such a word out there in the jungle), "it's about what we have on each other, and how we're going to go about it. Well?"
"The election's in a week," Paul said. "I think the question we should really be asking ourselves, here, is do we really want to go down in history as the presidential election that disgraced America – you thought the last one was bad?" He shrugged. "That's peanuts compared to what we got. Just last week, the presenter for some baking competition show was fired for admitting he'd used the N-word a couple of decades ago. And we're not dealing exactly with 'locker-room chitchat', are we? This is serious talk. If we air this, your candidate stands to lose a lot more than the election. He could go to jail for this."
"I've heard you aren't popular among the Fox River population," Sara said.
"Oh, that's just –"
"No, no," Abruzzi interrupted again.
On the surface of the desk, his fingers were drawing uncertain shapes, like he felt right at home – which was fine with her. Sara liked those hands better on the desk where she could see them than below it.
"This is negotiation, isn't it?" He said. "Let's just start talking about what our terms are, respectively. And quite frankly, I don't think you have the advantage here." He shrugged. "You have a voice. We have tits."
Sara was unimpressed, "Tits that haven't made themselves guilty of racism and misogyny."
"We both know," Kellerman said, "that Senator Bagwell's voice is as identifiable, if not more, than Governor Tancredi is in your video."
"It's a good voice," Sara agreed. "You ran on it, Senator. Every American who's heard so much as one word from you could identify it beyond doubt."
A moment of silence. Abruzzi's thumb rubbed against the mahogany desk. Bagwell's eyes looked like they might be about to strike her like snakes, the disdain in them was so blatant. For a second, Sara almost hoped he would jump over that desk and strangle her right here and there, so they could put a definite end to this.
He wants it, she thought. Could see how much the effort to stop himself cost him.
In the space of a few seconds – the time the silence endured – Sara realized Theodore Bagwell would be willing to do absolutely anything to win the presidency of the United States.
He'd kill me in a heartbeat. And he'd like it.
A flush of nausea stabbed through Sara's chest.
Oh, if she'd chosen the same path as Michael's, she would never have to stand the sight of such people. Someone else could always fight the good fight – right now, she couldn't remember exactly when she'd decided there was just no other path for her.
One day, when this is all over, we'll buy a house somewhere in Panama and leave everything of this life behind.
"Our terms are simple," Sara said, when she sensed it was time – when the two men opposite her had weighed the consequences implied if they were to make this recording public. "You hold on to what you have, and we hold on to ours. The election goes down as it's meant to and we let the result be decided by the popular vote."
Abruzzi chuckled. Sara didn't interpret it as defeat.
"That would suit you well, darling."
"Hey –"
"Oh, don't," Abruzzi sighed at Kellerman's interjection, "I call everybody darling."
"Aren't we a little old for name-calling?" Sara said. "Because I have a perfect set in mind for each of you. How about we skip that, and you just give me a straight answer."
"One week," Kellerman repeated. "Do you have an idea what would happen, if both candidates were disqualified at this point? We could all kiss our careers goodbye, by mere association with the scandal. You should consider yourselves lucky we'd allow Senator Bagwell to stick around in politics, after something like this."
Sara brushed Paul's elbow under the table.
In this world, every means of communication should be employed –
Careful, she meant to tell him. Bagwell might not look much like anything now, she could sense, in her gut, he was the wrong man to humiliate.
Though Paul gave no visible reaction, she sensed in the silence that followed that he'd gotten it.
"It'd do you good to consider we have this country's good name to think about," Sara said. "After all, do you want to be responsible for the crumbling of our reputation abroad? Have we or haven't we been calling ourselves the leaders of the free world – and do we really want to be responsible for our own national disgrace? As the Republican and Democrat candidates chosen by our parties, we each embody the way people see the United States – and I can live with my own truth, Senator Bagwell, I can. Your video is no shame of mine. Could you say the same of yours?"
Bagwell kept silent. When he opened his mouth, she half expected he was going to breathe fire, like one of Hawthorne's devils. "You tricked me. Before there's talk of any deal, I want to know who you hired for your phony recording. I want someone to pay for this."
"Come, come," Abruzzi said. "That'd entitle them to ask me for my handy man, and I've promised him a decent retirement."
Sara bit on her smile, stifled all traces of amusement before the two men opposite her could spot it.
She doubted Abruzzi would ever guess he and Bagwell were talking about one and the same man.
"I don't care what you promised –"
"You know?" Abruzzi interrupted. "I think my candidate and I are going to withdraw for a few minutes, talk about this in the hall. This okay with you?"
"By all means," Sara said.
…
"This is not over," was the first thing Bagwell said as he and Abruzzi stepped out of Kellerman's office. "I can still take her. I –"
"For Christ's sake," Abruzzi grabbed Bagwell by the collar and bumped him into the wall. They were thick enough walls that Sara and Kellerman wouldn't pick up any vibrations, and John was confident Bagwell wouldn't scream – would only stare at him in baffled shock for a while. "Why do you make me do this, Theodore? Do you have any idea how cliché this looks? When I got started in this line of work, I loved the clichés, missed as few of them as possible, but I'm getting old. Why'd you want to get beaten by an old man?"
He punched him in the stomach, the spot which'd cut off his ventilation completely for a few seconds. Again, no screaming – nothing but a short-lived coughing fit as Bagwell recovered, his face no longer a fish out of water but a drowned man in the midst of resurrection.
"I should have gone with the girl," Abruzzi said, nearly to himself. "My tie with your lot – I mean the Great Old Party – is historic. I didn't like you too much, Theodore, but I thought, you know, history matters. Well, shit, man. I should have chosen the future. I should have gone with the girl."
Abruzzi stepped back, his hand releasing Bagwell's collar and going about smoothing his own clothes; Bagwell's face was red, still more shock than anger. If someone were to walk past them in the corridor, they wouldn't think anything unusual had happened.
"I've invested a lot of money in you, Theodore. Money that's not going to get me half as much influence as I'd planned on. So here's what we'll do. Personal interactions between you and I are over. You're glad about that, I'm sure, so you don't have to think about my punching you in the gut and how much I'd like to do it again. Right? But you're going to be a strong opposition voice. You go about that however you like. Start a TV channel. Heck, a radio channel. The Governor was right – it is a good voice. You're going to make a lot of money and repay every dime I gave you, 'cause for every one that's missing, I'll knock out one of your teeth. We see eye to eye, so far? Good." Abruzzi didn't pause longer than a second. "Four years from now, when it's election time, you'll respectfully decline from representing the Republican party as a presidential candidate. Sometimes, you just get the one shot, and you either get on the train or you miss it – and you missed it, Bagwell. Make your peace with it."
Abruzzi checked his watch. "We should be getting back. Oh, I forgot to mention, we're taking their deal – you'll be worthless as shit to me in prison." He drew in a sharp breath of air. "Don't you love the smell of fruitless efforts? Jeez Louise. What a waste of time you are."
Abruzzi grabbed the knob on the door to the office. "I'll tell them you'll be a minute."
Then, Bagwell was alone in the corridor, panting for breath, still trying to piece what had happened together.
The wrong man to humiliate, Sara had thought, but not John Abruzzi, who could spot the seeds of danger as well as her, but who was confident enough in his armor not to fear retaliation.
…
They didn't shake hands when it was over. For what was left of the meeting, Bagwell hardly talked, sat back, red-faced and serpent-eyed in his chair, and Sara was conscious of his potentially becoming a threat in the future –
It's like I stole his presidency.
It didn't matter that she won by the popular vote. That's what she'd always be to him. The presidency-thief.
All four people agreed never to air the stolen pieces of privacy they held in their possession, except should the other party break their word first.
A close scrutiny of both Bagwell and Abruzzi informed Sara she had definitely made one enemy – if Bagwell could take her down, or somehow do damage to her legacy, he would.
Hell, if he could damage her, if there were no witnesses, and they were both crossing the same street together, one night, she was certain she'd have to shoot him dead to stop him killing her.
But somehow, even as she studied John Abruzzi carefully, she sensed no animosity, not anger boiling beneath the charming surface of cordiality.
She knew she'd cost him a lot of money, and Abruzzi was probably a dangerous enemy to have; yet somehow, instinct told her he wouldn't seek revenge.
Maybe it's only that he's a fair loser.
After they put an end to the meeting, and he was headed towards the door, he even turned back and said to her, "I did a bad thing to you, Governor." Without contrition or the pretense of remorse. "In the next four to eight years, you're going to find powerful friends are important. If you ever want a favor from me… you need but ask, Miss Tancredi."
Though he'd spoken with respect, Sara went over his offer cautiously. "I don't think I will. Favors from you strike me as coming with a price."
John Abruzzi smiled, a smile that was charming if dangerous, the way one only smiles when they're ahead of you. "Nothing's ever for free," he answered simply.
Bagwell stepped out last, as if it was a matter of pride to have the last word – or as if he didn't want to have John Abruzzi walk behind him, ever.
"I would be very careful, if I were you. The oval's a dangerous place, Miss Tancredi – it's easy to make enemies."
"If I want your advice, I'll be sure to phone you."
Though Bagwell chuckled, Sara wasn't watching his mouth, was too busy looking at his eyes – a bright, savage shine, like wildfire. When she lowered her gaze to his lips, something happened that sent a shudder to creep down her spine –
For a split second, the Senator's tongue flicked past his lips, not to moisten them, but in a pensive way.
An old habit, long shaken off, which reared its head again with the lack of sleep?
Deeper even than her hatred of the man's politics, Sara felt a brutal, visceral disgust for Theodore Bagwell. The thought that he had her naked on camera was suddenly odious.
"Goodbye, Governor. I'm confident we'll see each other again before soon."
"Formally, of course," Kellerman cut in. Eager, Sara felt, to put an end to this interview. "Good day, Senator."
Senator Bagwell didn't linger long past his cue, though there was time for his tongue to dart through his lips again, in a way that was so much like a snake, Sara's arms broke into gooseflesh. No wonder he'd had to repress the habit, to make it as a public figure.
A sigh of relief escaped her when the office door shut close behind them.
Sara turned towards Kellerman, with the intention to make some remark about Bagwell, or maybe Abruzzi – soon, she couldn't remember for sure because he surprised her so, with the cold command on his face, the steel authority in his voice.
"End it," he said.
It caught Sara off guard.
To have him face her, now, at the end of such a long night, for him to cheat her out of victory when she thought confrontations were over, at least for the day – it was still only nine a. m.
"What?"
Both of them were standing. Paul's hands fell unawkward along his sides, his posture and the grit in his eyes showing strength – power.
He's not the one running for president.
But only a fool would think power could be measured by that alone.
"Your affair. Whoever the man on the video is. It's too much of a risk." He shook his head, but compassion was nowhere in his eyes, in his words. "I wish this didn't even need saying."
Sara clenched her jaw. Your quickness to recover was what kept you alive in the jungle – even when the attack came from a friend.
"You don't tell me whether or not I keep a lover, Paul."
"I do."
She chuckled. "I wish you wouldn't. After all we've been through in the past forty-eight hours, I'd be all the sorrier to fire you." He said nothing. She might as well go on. "Because I don't have a husband, I can't have a love life? I can't have a lover because I'm a woman?"
"I'm assuming you didn't go public with your relationship because he's not suitable for public life. Frankly, Sara, I don't care why. I don't care if he's a recovered addict or an ex-con or whatever you generally look charitably upon."
"Stop, Paul," she warned him.
It was one thing for her to be aware of his coldness, that she could make out its overall shape from time to time, get glimpses of ruthless pragmatism in his eyes – it was another for him to show it overtly to her. Though they both lived in the same universe, they weren't of the same metal, nor were they ruled by the same laws. Sara had always known this. And she had valued his friendship and cared for him, all the time knowing that he had all the potential in his disregard for human feeling to become a monster.
You told yourself you could keep it checked, and at the very worst, he'd be your monster, not so dangerous as long as you kept him on a leash.
What a fool she'd been.
"If you wanted to come out with the relationship, that'd be different," he said. "I could write it into your narrative, but it'd have to be a televised courtship, and he'd have to become your husband –"
"No."
However things went from here, she knew this for certain – that she didn't want to involve Michael into this masquerade, to have him play the fool for the cameras.
He'd chosen the shadows when she chose the spotlight, and she wouldn't coerce him into a different life.
"That's what I inferred," Kellerman said. "So," he repeated, "end it. And it's not your good reputation I'm concerned about, Sara. If you are going to be the president you say you are, that means radically breaking from anything we've ever seen in Washington. It means you're going to make very rich corporations very angry. It means you're going to be the most targeted president in history, that the handful of people at the top of the world are going to want to kill you more than they've ever wanted to kill anybody. It means," he finished, "that I don't want to have to worry about your sneaking out of the White House so you can screw your lover in the romantic moonlight."
Sara thought it useless to chide his crassness right now.
"You understand what I mean?"
"Yes."
"So we agree?" He smiled at Sara's silence; the surface-smile she hated. "If not your own security, think of his. Just think, if his face had been clear in the video, the risk he would have been running. When you come up against big guns, Sara, they go after those you love. It's why you're perfect for this. Up until recently, what you loved was the people – democracy. It's the only thing you would have been willing to lay down your life for, isn't it?"
"I told you to stop."
"Do you really want to find yourself in a position where you have to make an uncomfortable choice – the man you love or your country?"
It was Sara's turn to laugh; just as she'd hated Kellerman's smile, she hated her own laughter, which was cold and just as sharp.
"You should write sensational novels, Paul. I don't think my career's nearly exciting enough a narrative for you."
"You know I'm right, though."
"Yes." The word was cold in her mouth, like something dead, something from the tremendous depths of the underworld. "But, Paul, if I'd listened to people like you tell me how to lead my life, I wouldn't be who I am, or where I am right now."
"Well," he said, "let me put it this way. After everything you've gone through, all the way you've come to distance yourself from womanly stereotypes – do you really want to give it all up because of sentiment? Don't you think you'll hate yourself if you allow love to cost you this one war?"
Sara grabbed her purse. Calmly. It was below her to storm out of the office like a teenage girl in fury.
"You're on the path to greatness," he said, as she was headed out. "Most of the time, greatness is lonely."
"Don't call me today, Paul. I need time to think."
"As you wish."
On her way to her car, Sara thought of how Lincoln had been sitting there a few hours ago, and what he'd told her about Michael – a little colder and a little older, was how he'd described his brother; was very close to what Sara felt like.
Maybe, the thought flashed through her mind, it wasn't too late for them to find each other on the same path.
…
End Notes: Sorry it took me longer than usual to update. We're getting close to the end of Part 1 (yes, I'm actually thinking of this story in several parts) and you can look forward to a Mi/Sa confrontation in the next chapter. I'm excited to know your thoughts!
