April 25, 2019
"Bess, respectfully, what do you plan on accomplishing by talking to Sterling?"
Elizabeth lets out a heavy sigh before looking over at Mike B. She licks her lips and takes a sharp inhale of breath. She's torn between her righteous anger and the pressure to think clearly. Her blood pressure rises, her heart pounds, and her vision narrows. She's not entirely sure she's thinking clearly. But the more she thinks about it, the angrier she gets.
"I've known Craig for a long time," she starts, willing herself to trust the three men in the SUV with her fully. Mike, Jay, and Blake are already her most trusted advisors; their smart and competent counsel has guided her for years. Still, it isn't easy to let go of her careful, secretive control of this part of her story.
"I—I," she tries again. "Um, for twenty-eight years, I said nothing. I never told a single soul about what happened to me that morning."
"Henry?" Jay presses a tad when she goes silent once more.
She shakes her head, "No, not even Henry. Weird, right? But no. I kept it to myself, and I buried it. And then, on the twenty-eighth anniversary, I'm doing some of my best work burying it. That whole Saturday, I'm kicking ass. I answered emails that morning. I made banana bacon pancakes for my kids. I had sex with my husband before getting ready for Conrad's party. And I was on fire at that party. I was sipping rye, and I was charming. And then I saw him."
She pauses as she tries to gain the courage to keep speaking her truth and make her point as Sterling becomes conflated with Kincaid—two men with differing levels of influence but equal parts hatred for her.
"I saw Kincaid," she clarifies, "Thomas Kincaid, my rapist. It was like the oxygen got sucked out of the East Room. I hadn't known about him—not even his name. I have vivid memories of him, what he looked like, sounded like, smelled like. But I didn't know him; he was just a guy in the park. I mostly assume I was unlucky enough to be on that trail at the same time as him in the dead of winter."
She pauses again and licks her lips.
"It took me by surprise. Why was he in the White House, right? And it set me off. I finally told Henry, and I was finally forced into processing what had happened to me. And I also was able to find out his identity and confront him. And what, you're probably wondering what the hell any of that has to do with Craig Sterling."
She silently thanks all three of them for indulging her stream of consciousness. It's not often she finds herself struggling to speak; her job has trained her for that. But these are personal stories, ones she rarely speaks of. She can hear her blood pounding in her ears.
"Well, let me tell you. There's this thing that happens when you're a woman in management or leadership. It happens to all of us—male subordinates undermining us right to our faces, undercutting our ideas, belittling our contributions. They fall into two camps: the ones who are seemingly unconsciously biased and the ones who are outright misogynists. Craig is the latter. For years I have put up with rape jokes and snide comments about women's worth. You name it. He has been a pain in my ass for years. It turns out, though, he knew exactly who I was, who my rapist was, and he dared to make jokes about it. I can deal with sexism, misogyny, and unconscious bias. What I can't handle is him thinking he has a right to laugh at my story with my rapist and then work with him to derail my announcement."
Mike looks at her for a long time and finally nods, "I understand your grudge here, Bess. I do. But once again, I ask, what do you want to accomplish by ambushing him at his home? You need a goal; you are a presidential candidate now, and you cannot afford to act purely on emotion. That isn't a good strategy. It's too unpredictable."
Elizabeth clenches her jaw. She hates it when Mike is right. She knows he is. The thing is, she knows how to win. She's spent a lifetime in Washington and has worked her ass off, clawing her way to the top of her profession. She's fought for every inch and earned the respect and trust of her colleagues.
"So, what, I let them continue to send people to control the narrative?" She snaps.
"I didn't say that. If you need to talk to Sterling for personal reasons, that is one thing. If you think threatening him is the best way to control the narrative instead of doing something like a Sixty Minutes interview, that's another thing," Mike argues.
She's quiet for a long time, her gaze locked onto the scenery rushing past her. She hates it when Mike is right, and she hates the fact that her gut has been leading her down a road Mike says is unsafe.
"Fine," she finally concedes. "What would you have me do, then? If not, go and talk to him."
"Like I said, if you need to confront him for you. If you feel the need to look him in the eye and say, I know what you know, and how you treated me is not okay, that is fine. I'm saying don't give him the ammunition he needs to continue to derail you," Mike says, his tone gentle and even.
Elizabeth is quiet as she tries to decipher what she wants to get out of ambushing Sterling. Is she acting on pure emotion—a place of unhealed trauma that is bubbling inside her, begging for release? Or is there an effective strategy behind it, an idea that isn't yet clear to her or her staff?
"I..." she sighs. "Step it out for me. Say I don't talk to him. How do we keep the campaign on track if I have to acknowledge the rape at every turn? If Craig and Kincaid never shut up, how do we make it so that's not the story for the next year? I need a strategy, Mike, and I'm not seeing it."
"We can't stop the story, but we can control it," Jay interjects. "You interview as in-depth as you are comfortable with, something like a profile piece. It's endearing, it's personal, your life story in your words, which would happen to include the two, well now, three tragedies the world is the most curious about, your parent's death, your time in Iran, and your rape. And then subsequently, any time any of those get brought up negatively, your response is the one people are familiar with."
"But what about the narrative that my rape is somehow a liability?" Elizabeth asks. "Narratives that I'm too weak or emotional to lead will already be an issue. What happens when those narratives are expounded upon, not to mention those narratives about where the blame lies? That I'm weak because I didn't fight him off or didn't report him, or even worse, that I'm asking for it. How do I combat those? I can't just control the narrative, not if those are the narratives floating around. I can't be seen as weak; people already have to be convinced that a woman could be the President of the United States, and that's hard enough. This will make it harder. I'll look weak and unworthy of the office."
"Ma'am," Blake says in an apprehensive tone, "I, um, I'd encourage you to think about whether or not the thought that people will think you're unworthy and weak is projection."
Elizabeth is silent for a long moment. Henry had basically told her the same thing—that she needed to get rid of the shame. She wonders where the shame comes from. She's been thinking about that a lot lately. Is it because she didn't fight harder? Is it because she didn't report it because she was ashamed? Did the shame cause her not to report, or did she not report because she was ashamed? She knows she shouldn't be ashamed; she's heard it over and over from Henry and Dr. Sherman and the #metoo movement. But that doesn't stop the thoughts from creeping into her head when she's vulnerable or scared.
"I know I'm not weak," she insists, although does she? Is this another lie she's telling herself?
"And the world already knows that," Blake says sternly. "You were a highly decorated CIA Case Officer, a highly respected and repeatedly published geopolitician and political scientist, and a Secretary of State who stood toe to toe with dictators, despots, and defense hawks alike. You are a woman who has accomplished incredible things, Madam Secretary. A man who is willing to try and use a personal story about you that happened decades ago, a story he knows, because he is connected to the perpetrator, to tear you down, is not going to succeed. That narrative is that you did all of that, accomplished all of that after you were raped. That is what you tell people."
Elizabeth swallows and then nods slowly. Having her whole life out there for scrutiny feels so invasive—it's the main reason she never wrote the book Mike wanted her to. And it's not just her story, it's Will's, and Henry's, and the kid's, too. There's so much privacy at stake. And, in some ways, the thought of telling the world is terrifying. She's done enough interviews at this point to know that the subject is rarely in control of the narrative. She's always felt like her story was a very private, very painful thing, and it still is, but she knows Blake is right. The only way to win this battle is to be proactive and have power and control over the narrative.
"Okay," she whispers, nodding slowly, "okay, I can do an interview."
Blake smiles, "Yes, ma'am."
Her stomach flips, maybe she should've consulted Henry and the kids before promising an in-depth life story interview. And does agreeing to do this get rid of her want to destroy Craig Sterling? She feels her fists clenching, and the anger surging again. Her breath hitches as her heart begins to pound. She shakes her head as if the physical motion can shake off the feelings. For years, Craig tormented her on purpose. She wants to know at what point he gained the knowledge of her most intimate secret. And, even more so, how long has he kept it? Did he enjoy listening as Kincaid recounted her screams? Does he get some sick thrill out of the idea that his close friend raped her.
She clenches her jaw and tries to breathe through the rage. She needs to decide what she wants out of Craig. Do his answers to her questions help or hurt? Is it even worth talking to him? She beat Craig once when she ran his corrupt ass out of the White House. Is the best winning simply ignoring him?
She cracks her window a tad as she becomes nauseated by her want of revenge. That's what it is. She doesn't want answers. She wants blood and not Craig's. No, Craig is just a proxy for Kincaid. She's always hated Craig, but this is something entirely different. The rage is overwhelming—the last time she felt nothing but this unadulterated pure rage she was in Iraq allowing a man to be tortured for information. She didn't enjoy that. No, that was the worst part of her job, the thing that gave her nightmares. It was a dark time, one she'd never experienced before. It was the first time the line between black and white had started to blur.
She closes her eyes and wills herself to remember the feeling. The smell, the taste, the sounds, the sight of a man being tortured all caused by her exhausted rage.
"I don't need to talk to him." She says in a flurry of sudden clarity.
"You're sure, ma'am?" Jay asks her, surprised.
She nods, "Yeah, no, I don't need to talk to him. The best revenge is a life well lived right? Well, if all goes as planned I'm going to be the next President of the United States. I worked my ass off to get here, and I'm going to work my ass off to stay here. I don't need to speak with him. No, the best revenge is making them realize their attempts are futile and that I'm more powerful than they could ever dream of being. Their attempt is pathetic, and I'm not going to acknowledge it. I'm just going to win."
Jay nods, "Understood, Madam Secretary."
Elizabeth takes a deep breath and looks at Mike, "Do you agree?"
He nods, "I do. I was never opposed to your decision. I was only worried you were operating on pure emotion. It's easy to do when faced with something this personal. You've always had an eye for the big picture, Bess. I knew you'd get back there. Now can we go back to campaign headquarters now, please? You have merch to approve and now an interview to prep for."
Elizabeth manages a smile and a nod, "Yeah, yeah."