writes the same sentence over and over, tweaking words. She tweets – which she does anonymously, because these things never die on the Internet and one day some of things she’s said could really bite her in the ass. She exercises on the floor of the kitchen, lying flat on the dark slate tiles, the moon outside, the blinds left up, doing push ups and sit ups until she leaves a patch of sweat the breadth of her body on the tiles themselves.
Twenty-three words. She counts them, and reads them, and tries to evaluate them, two sentences that she knows can’t live up to, and that can’t actually mean anything, not taken like this. She reads them so many times that they start to disintegrate, ceasing to look like actual words any more, starting to be just shapes on the page that she happened to type.
In his hotel room, Laurence dreams: of his children and his wife. And there’s a pale room, pale because the light is so bright, and pale because it’s not a place that he knows. Maybe that’s how dreams are, he thinks through it, because he knows that he’s dreaming. If they’re not grounded, if they’re not somehow stolen from what is actually real, maybe they’re just faded before they even begin. So Deanna and the kids are clear as day, but the room, the background – it’s not a thing that exists and they are taken away from him. They’re pulled backwards into the pale, and there’s nothing that Laurence can do to stop it.
When he wakes up, the dream is a memory that is barely there.
The representatives from the party’s higher echelons all stand to shake Laurence’s hand, and they smile and laugh and pat him on the back.
‘You ready for this?’ one of them asks. ‘You ready for what’s going to happen to your life, son?’
‘Not especially,’ Laurence says, moving around the room, ‘but I’ll do my best.’ They grin, waiting for him to speak more. This is him as a show-pony: put him in front of a crowd and watch him perform. ‘I’m highly adaptable, that’s my thing. That’s always been my thing. Adapt, don’t stop talking, don’t let the others get a word in edgeways.’
‘It’s his major skill,’ Amit says, ‘and it means that he never ends up listening to me as well.’ That gets a laugh, because they know it’s not true. Amit knows his own reputation, and he knows what he’s worth to the campaign. Everybody in the room does.
There are two empty spaces at the table, the chairs already pulled out for them, the glasses already filled with water, and the two men take them and sit down. The smiling doesn’t stop, nor the gentle laughs that accompany the comfort of the situation for the panel.
‘So, you’re going to be formally announcing Monday,’ an older woman at the far end of the table says, ‘making sure that we get the full week’s cycle. Are you ready for that?’
‘Yes,’ Laurence says.
‘Of course, it’ll mean you’ll have to slightly scale back your day-to-day work, but you’ll still be working for them for a good while yet.’
‘And there’s no race? No contest?’ Amit asks.
‘Nobody with any weight,’ another man says. ‘A few senators are batting their lashes, but your man here tests off the scale.’
‘What about Homme?’
‘He’s thrown his hat into the ring, sure. But you throw a hat onto the floor, it’s likely to get trodden on.’
Another of the old guard interrupts him. ‘Senator Walker, you have our full support. You go out there, you work the states you have to work, shake the hands and kiss the babies. That’s a cliché, Laurence, but clichés exist for a reason. There’s always truth packed inside them.’
‘How long are we talking?’
‘Usually it’s a twelve, fifteen-month race from announcing the intent. This time, we’re winding it back. Let’s try for six before anybody else concedes and then we can concentrate on putting the pressure on POTUS, see if we can’t get him a little scared about what we’re bringing to the table.’ The man who says this, who once ran for President himself, back in the latter part of the last decade, grins. ‘Laurence, you’re a threat. You’re what the party needs, let’s be honest. You’re going to shake this up. You’re going to drag voters in by their bootstraps and coat tails, and you’re going to win this thing.’
‘Thanks for your faith,’ Laurence says, looking around at them all. He makes eye contact with every single one of them; he wants them to know that he’s serious, that their support means something to him. That’s been one of his major arguments the last few years: politics has become about empty words and even emptier eyes, promises made that are made for self-aggrandizing reasons rather than because somebody believes that they are the right thing to do. This is how he’s become popular, a man of the people.
‘There’s paperwork, of course, and we have to talk strategy.’
‘What sort of strategy?’ Amit asks.
‘Well, for one thing, the very reason that you were hired,’ the ex-nominee replies. ‘We’re going to have to talk about ClearVista.’
The bar is in a hotel that’s full of people who shouldn’t be there at a quarter of four in the afternoon, so nobody bats an eyelid when Laurence and Amit take a table. Laurence orders an Old Fashioned, Amit lemonade. He and Amit don’t talk until the drinks arrive, brought by a waiter, brandishing them on a polished silver tray, like some service from a time long before this. Laurence sips; the drink is sharp enough, and good. The meetings with the higher echelons of the party always terrify him; they bring out the prospects of the future, and the reality of what this all could mean over time. Amit brings out the paperwork and the contracts.
‘They’re footing the bills,’ he says.
‘But this feels like bullshit,’ Laurence argues.
‘Necessary bullshit,’ Amit says. ‘Look, they want this, and everybody’s going to be using it. You know that POTUS’s team have some Here’s what Four More Years will mean stuff prepared, and you know that if they don’t, the press will. Anybody can use these stats; better we’re first out of the gate with them.’
‘So I fill this in, and then it tells me if I should be President?’
‘In theory.’ Amit flicks through the pages. ‘All this stuff, it’s all designed to use as a jumping-off point, that’s all. You answer this stuff honestly, the data miner verifies it – and then the concept of you as an honest candidate rises. It’s not rocket science, not like people think it is.’
‘It’s numbers.’
‘It’s math; they’re different things.’ Amit turns to various questions. ‘I have never cheated on my wife. You tick the True box, and you move on.’ He leans in close. ‘That is true, right?’
‘Of course it’s true.’
‘Just checking. Because this is when there’s no chance for secrets, Laurence. This is when you have to be honest. All those things people hide, they come out. Clinton never inhaled, remember? But Obama did. And that stuff seeps.’ He finds more questions and picks them out. ‘These are easy wins. I have fought in a war. I have been honest about my policies. I have never lied about my sexual preferences. These are so easy, Larry.’
‘What’s the deadline? Realistically.’
