"If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them." ― George Orwell, 1984
Sara never even switched on her TV on the night of the election. In fact, she left her cell phone in her purse, safe under the coffee table, and shut every window in her elegant apartment in Lincoln Park, to be sure the noises from the city would remain safely on the other side.
Barefoot, but still clad in the tailored green suit she'd worn for today's press conference, Sara felt vaguely absurd, as if maybe the whole campaign had been a dream.
When she was sure to be as disconnected as she could from the outside world and the excitement of tonight's big event, Sara went to bed with a Herman Melville novel and a glass of red wine.
It wasn't just that she deserved a day off as much as anyone or that, if things went according to plan tonight, she wouldn't get the opportunity for one in a long time.
Sara was too old, she felt, for denial.
What she feared was failure.
Not really on a rational level, but that didn't stop anxiety from sticking its black tentacles around her brain – no one was expecting Donald Trump, or that the UK would vote Leave rather than Remain; they hadn't been rational things but they had happened.
So, Sara hadn't wanted to go to dinner with friends, had declined even Paul's company, Paul who had been so involved in her campaign, the failure would feel nearly as much his as hers.
Should the America surprise the world again, tonight, should it favor the wheedling voice of a populist leader, Sara would brace defeat in private and with dignity, as she had done for most of her life with all things.
A single shiver starting from the pit of her stomach ran through her at the ring of her telephone, which she could hear distinctly from the living room.
The cool feel of the wooden flooring beneath her bare feet was somewhat surreal tonight. Sara had no notion of what time it was – only that the sky outside her locked windows was full dark and had been for a long while.
She read Paul's name on the caller ID and shuddered again, dread, excitement, and something she couldn't label, that bubbled thick and red with each beat of her heart, like some pagan malediction.
Oh, the thrill of absolute power –
Did she think she wouldn't feel it?
That because she would use it wisely, that her whole body wouldn't tremble at its sheer might and its formidable potential?
"Hello?" She said when she picked up.
For a moment, she could only hear Kellerman's calm, regular breathing over the phone.
It was foolish that she'd allowed herself to find out in this way, she thought, that for the time that his silence lasted, she felt completely in his power.
"Congratulations," he said.
A sigh broke from the deep recesses of her soul. Tiredness washed over her in one great wave. Her calf hit the coffee table and she pressed her other hand against the sofa to keep from falling.
"What are the numbers?" She asked.
"You mean you didn't watch?"
"Just tell me."
"Three hundred and sixty-two to one hundred and seventy-six. Three votes short of what Obama had on McCain, but you beat him when it comes to the popular vote – sixty three percent. Not quite what you'd call a landslide, but close enough. Damn, Sara. You really haven't watched the results? Thought tonight was a good night for a nap? You still there?"
"Just a sec."
Sara put down the phone and sat down – on the coffee table, as it turned out, because it happened to be closer than the couch.
"How soon do you want to meet?" He asked.
"After facing the press tomorrow."
"All right. We've got a lot of things to talk about –"
"I know."
"You won by a huge margin, but that shouldn't make you complacent. The Republicans still control the Senate and will at least until the mid-terms –"
"I know, Paul. Right now, I just want to take this in, do you mind? We've got four years ahead of us."
The hairs in her neck bristled with surprise – and something else – at the sudden sound of his laughter.
"Yes, that's right," he said. "We're in this for the long run – four years, then four more, then we'll see where we're at. Goodnight, Sara."
Silence sank in again in her apartment, like she'd put her head underwater.
"Oh, my God." It didn't seem like the most irrelevant thing to say right now.
A couple of months from now, she would sit in the most coveted office in the world, amongst the most powerful people in the country, and she would start doing what she had claimed was her life goal since she was five. She would lead. She would –
"Change the world," she said out loud.
What her father had wanted most in his life but could never grasp, what no woman in the country had ever been entitled to so much as hope for until this recent century.
After some time – just how much, Sara couldn't say – the young woman padded back to her bedroom, where Moby-Dick awaited. Like the captain, she felt she had a lot on her plate.
Hard work and danger ahead.
"I'll take them on," Sara said, to herself, to her empty bedroom. Maybe to Captain Achab. "I'm not afraid."
She could hear Paul's laughter again in her mind, when she said this, and the voice of every man that had ever made her feel out of place.
Oh, you had better be ready, honey.
If you just think of what's coming at you –
The thoughts, she felt sure, were only going to go round and round all night until she had lost all hope for sleep, but then, for the first time tonight, Michael entered her mind.
She saw him cool and quiet, the way he was when she'd last seen him, when even his kisses had an evaporating feel to them, and their goodbye had been like a dream, the present already become the past.
She saw him watching the results without surprise, with nothing but the sure confidence he had placed in her from the beginning.
Though unreachable, she could sense a certain proximity between them, like an invisible bond.
What about you, my love, she wondered. Did you get what you wanted? Did you win?
…
Michael watched the results sitting on the ground of his apartment, the book on his lap – Criminal Justice, An Introduction – neglected for the past few hours. Though the couch and armchairs had gone surprisingly fast, there were still a few kitchen chairs left that Michael could have dragged to the living room for the evening, but he didn't really mind the discomfort – found he actually liked it, the feel of returning to the essentials.
Michael had started putting his furniture on sale the day after he saw Sara at the charity center, and though he put them up at what he considered was a high enough price, he was surprised at how quickly the items were bought and claimed, turning his apartment into an empty carcass. In the next few years, he wouldn't need comfort or to live somewhere pleasant to look at. Probably, he was going to be flying to different cities all the time – wherever the trials took him. There was some money aside, but if he was going to make it through law school, he was going to need all that he could get. Selling unnecessary furniture was one way to get there as any. In his big, empty apartment, Michael intended to have only the bare minimum – a bed, a refrigerator; and a television.
Champagne would have been in order, but there was only a couple of beers in the fridge that Lincoln must have left there when he moved out. Michael grabbed those, then went back to the living room and sat down on the floor again, looking pleased, but no smile.
Would America have elected her if he had been in the picture? Boyfriend, or husband? Or would that have drawn too much attention – pressure to throw Lincoln under the bus, to condemn his deadbeat of a brother, because someone who stands up for criminals can hardly be White House material, even as a plus one.
What would the title have been exactly; first man?
To some, it would have been a humiliation. A man can't be boss in his own couple, he's not much of a man. The time was ripe for this to change.
Sara and he could have been a team. He would have borne the subtle accusations with pride, if TV presenters tried to paint him as a feminized man, to hint she was the one to wear the pants – he would have answered the sly ones with directness enough to chill their bones.
"You think it's me you're insulting?" He would have said. "When you let on that I'm whipped, because she's not, that I'm weak because she's strong – that gender relations, human relations, can only work in terms of binaries, zeroes and ones?"
Really, it would have been nearly too much for them – a husband. Because the first ladies had been like an afterthought, the grace of the country, nearly a weakness to make the figure of the president more human, the people would have been nearly as disturbed with a male first lady as with a female president. Maybe even more, because it would have raised questions about power between couples, questions that would reach the voters' own private lives, and to which they did not want answers.
Michael could have supported Sara in her presidency, could have been an active campaigner – what the hell? – for prisoners' rights, fought for the betterment of living conditions in penitentiaries, that might have even legitimated his relation to his brother, and Sara would have stood by him, would have carried the necessary bills to Congress to make their ideas into law.
They could have been partners as well as lovers.
But there seemed no point in thinking about this now.
Michael enjoyed his beer, just one, because he needed to get another few chapters done with before bed.
As they each celebrated her victory from their respective homes, Michael thought that they could have faced it – the press, the puzzled reactions. They could have carried mentalities forward by showing the world a man could love his wife and step back as she was elevated to the highest office in the country, that he could weather the hard times with her and bring her comfort when possible. Support her, for a change, as she achieved greatness.
"Could she have stood this?" He wondered. He didn't know how long he'd been giving thought to all this. The beer was lukewarm when he took another sip.
Maybe the reason why their relationship had worked so well was that he was separate from her life – could she have allowed him in, when she had learned to fend for herself alone in this world? She had employees, like Paul, and probably a long list of others, but could she have tolerated a partner?
For the time being, Michael didn't see how he could bring an answer.
One day, maybe.
When she had proven herself and the world that she could do this alone, she would realize she didn't have to.
The love that had grown in the shadows, like flowers on a frozen soil – that was over, one of those things you can't go back to, can only revisit in the realm of memory and dream.
That did not mean he couldn't love her or didn't love her now.
Only that when he would speak of love to her again, it would be in broad daylight.
…
Theodore Bagwell was sharing drinks with a handful of fellow senators and loyal friends, on election night.
"A bloody disgrace," one of them spoke for them all, crushing peanuts with his knuckles over the table. "For a twenty-nine-year-old princess to inherit leadership of the country. I'm sorry, Theo. It's a sad day for us all."
"You can kiss goodbye our credibility as world leaders," another volunteered. "She won't take this country to war if that's where it needs to go. You heard her on pacifism. She's been raised on the principles of Gandhi and Luther King – Jesus. A sheltered teenager living in a golden bubble. My, oh my. Are we in for something."
"I'm glad we see eye to eye," Bagwell said, calm, confident – he'd taken the time he needed to cool this off long before the election. "And I'm sure a lot people in the Senate will agree with us. Because the Senate is still ours, let us not forget that. America was built so that the executive could be countered by other branches when it exerted unlawful power – and so you see the huge responsibility that is ours, don't you, my brothers?"
A vague silence settled at the table. One of the men cleared his throat, "Of course, we're going to have to intervene if she messes up. Be the adults. She's still a kid, and so we might have to berate her like one –"
"No, no," Bagwell cut in, shaking his head with a grave air. "It's much more serious than that." He paused for a second. "By electing her as president, America has made a mistake that may be lethal to its own image. It's common knowledge leaders need to be feared and loved – and she may be loved, I've got eyes like the rest of you all. But will she be feared? Tut-tut," he moistened his lips. "With the slack grip she'll have on our borders, it's only a matter of time before terrorists pour into this country. Immigrants will breed like rats until America's crawling with these parasites. The damage will be irreparable, if we don't act fast."
"What do you suggest?"
A smile crooked its way up Bagwell's mouth. Oh, the fear in his fellow senator's eyes, as if he was about to suggest murder. Murder would be far too sweet a fate for that woman – just imagine the cult of martyrdom that'd arise around her fair dead body.
"I suggest that our priority," Bagwell said, "in the next few years, be entirely focused on making Sara Tancredi a one-term president. But more than that… she must be revealed as the most incompetent, the most unthinkable president this country has ever had. Someone the people will remember like a red iron tattoo; you know what I'm saying? It's the only way to make sure they're never tempted to elect someone like her again."
An uneasy pause between the senators. Bagwell had long been used to acting as a leader for these people, but perhaps it had never quite looked so personal or spiteful.
"Or do you want the America that she's promoting? Do you want a clawless, toothless giant staggering about the world stage like an impotent baby? An America with no borders – how long until no one at this table can recognize it as the land they grew up in? Until our own country is uncivilized and unchristian, corrupted to the backbone, and all because some idealist kid is for making love not war, and will open up our gates as widely as she opens her thighs no doubt, hey? If any one of you can look her in the face and call her Madam President without grinding his teeth, then call me on what I'm saying right now. But do it now."
Silence, still uneasy, but that none would dare to break so much as by clearing his throat.
"Good," said Bagwell. "Then we will be an opposition such as no president has ever faced. Cut the legislative branch from the president, you cut off their arm – as we know she'll already be impotent as a war leader, take lawmaking from her, too, and in the first few months already, we'll see her wriggle powerless on the floor, like a worm."
"But Theo –"
Bagwell raised dangerous eyes on the senator. They were not to look disgusted at his choice of words. Bagwell was, after all, the party leader, and partisanship must mean a lot in the United States, at a time when the current president was a walking buffoon that Republicans had spent the past four years making excuses for to the press and the public.
"I mean," he said, "aren't people going to turn against us?"
Bagwell's reply came with a feline grin. "If there's one thing the past three elections taught us, it's that this country is a divided one – and there's no use, now, talking about reconciliation. Nobody wants it. Sad truth is, we've reached a gap great enough that it can't be bridged, fellows – because none of us can imagine sharing this land with people whose ideas are a threat to American ideology. So this is not about showing a united front, is it?"
Bagwell paused. He, like Abruzzi, knew how to create effect.
"It's about acknowledging the divide, and fighting like hell to win – by taking the country to war if we have to."
"Legislative war," one senator interceded. "You mean that metaphorically, right?"
Bagwell didn't answer. The Cheshire grin was still beaming on his lips. "In the next few years, it's our duty to show loyal Americans that we still stand for their principles – and they can come to us, when the White House shipwrecks and it's all panic and death in there."
If anyone at the table thought Bagwell's words too ominous, they didn't say.
"My friends," he sighed. "Sempre paratus. Isn't that right?"
He picked up his glass on the table – looking, not at them, but beyond, at the television screen. As if he were giving a toast to America.
…
End Notes: Oh the plans I have for this story. Please let me know your ideas, I'd be delighted if you could think of other characters to include in here (Gretchen's already booked for the next chapters). I also wanted to thank you for all the guest reviews that I unfortunately can't send private messages to. Your support means a lot – it means everything. Before I forget, the title is a reference to the wonderful HBO show of the same name which I recommend to you all. See you soon with an update!
