ERICA’S INTRODUCTION AND THE TOUR of the grounds with Kay Barrish have gone well. The crew is busy setting up for the live interview in the living room. Erica, Greg, and Kay are in the kitchen, alongside Kay’s chief of staff, Audra Ruiz, and several other aides. Kay’s husband, Bert Winters, is also there—he’s older than she is, with a casual confidence, soft-spoken and self-effacing, known for standing by his woman and raising prodigious amounts of money for her campaigns.
Erica has been fighting all day to stay focused. She curses this break—the pause in the intensity of the work allows her mind to return to the news she got from Mark. She wants to tell Greg but she has to handle it very carefully, since Mark’s actions were both illegal and unsanctioned by GNN. And who are the perpetrators? Why haven’t they claimed credit? Terrorists are usually quick to trumpet their carnage. Her wheels start turning, carrying her away from the moment. She wills herself back to here and now.
Lesli, Erica’s associate producer, has hired Lisa Golden, LA’s organic caterer to the stars—a woman of about forty, scrubbed and earnest—who has worked for Nylan several times when he was hosting parties in town. The kitchen island is filled with an array of salads and dishes so glistening and artfully presented they almost look fake. Golden describes every dish down to its last non-GMO grain of rice. When she’s done, she introduces her assistant, a Hispanic teenager. “This is Arturo Yanez, who comes to me via Recipe for Success, a program that trains at-risk youth for jobs in the beautiful world of food. I’m a proud supporter.”
“How wonderful!” Kay exclaims.
Arturo smiles with a modest pride that can’t disguise his anxiety.
“Arturo has made you individual tamale pies for today’s supper. Does he have any takers?”
“Me-me-me,” Kay says.
Arturo opens the oven and carefully removes one of a dozen small baking dishes. He puts it on a plate with a fork and hands it to Kay, who takes a bite. “De-lish,” she pronounces. Not for the first time, Erica marvels at her warmth and charm, which flow as naturally as water.
There are other takers on the tamale pie, but not Erica. Food is the furthest thing from her mind. The most important fifteen minutes of her career are coming up. She steps into a quiet corner of the kitchen and reviews her notes. Since the earlier segments covered Kay’s life and career up to this point, she’s going to get right to the billion-dollar question. A little shiver runs up her spine—she’s not sure where her excitement ends and her anxiety begins. Hair and makeup are set up at the kitchen table and she sits down for a quick touch-up. And then her mind—which seems to have a mind of its own—goes back to the unknown hackers, the terrorists, and then to the crash itself, and then she hears the man’s scream as his body is crushed between the ferry and the seawall.
Lesli comes into the kitchen. “We’re all set. It’s five minutes till we go live.”
Erica stands up. Kay comes over, locks arms, and leads her into the living room. “I’m so glad I’m doing this with you,” she says. Then she burps, a discreet burp but still. She smiles sheepishly. “Why aren’t the cameras rolling when you need them?”
Erica and Barrish sit facing each other in straight-back chairs in front of the fireplace. A fire is roaring and the air-conditioning is on—only in LA. Final adjustments are made in the sound and lighting. Greg, who has put on his headset and is communicating with the network back in New York, stands beside the cameraman and looks through the lens. “You both look terrific.”
“Oh, we’re women of substance, we don’t care about that,” Kay says. Laughter ripples through the room, the tension is lightened, and Erica feels a sudden wave of confidence—and affection for this woman. Imagine her in the White House!
“Thirty seconds,” Greg says. The room grows still. Kay sits up a little higher, puts on her game face. Erica takes a deep breath. “Ten seconds and . . . Go!”
“So, Kay,” Erica begins, “we’ve seen your lovely house and grounds, and visited your office and met some of your staff. I know how busy you are with your foundation work and your books and speeches, but I sense that you’re gearing up for something more.”
“You know, Erica, I’ve been very fortunate, very blessed. My work so far has been deeply fulfilling on many levels.”
Erica notices sweat break out on Barrish’s hairline and upper lip.
“But when I look around me at the division and gridlock in this country, and the dangers we face in the world, I’m compelled to get involved.” All the color suddenly drains from Barrish’s face and an odd look comes into her eyes. “As governor, I was all about common sense leadership. I think the country could use some of that right—”
Barrish makes a choking sound and clutches her chest. For a moment she seems suspended, a look of shock in her eyes. Then she collapses to the floor.
Erica freezes for an instant. The room is silent. What’s happening?
Then she’s on the floor beside Kay. She puts her hands over the other woman’s heart and pushes down again and again, then she tilts Barrish’s head back, chin up, pinches her nostrils, clamps her mouth over Kay’s and forces one breath, two breaths, three breaths—life!—into her lungs. There’s no response. Now Audra Ruiz is on the other side of Barrish’s body doing the chest compressions as Erica continues the rescue breaths, and now Kay’s husband is there, too, one of Kay’s hands in his own, saying, “Stay with us, my love, stay with us!” There’s controlled panic in the room as Lesli calls 911 and Greg yells, “Cut away!” into his headset.
EMTs arrive in less than five minutes and take over. They insert a breathing tube into Barrish’s windpipe and attach defibrillator electrodes above and below her heart and then deliver a jolt of electricity; her upper body jerks but her heart doesn’t start beating. The seconds tick by. They jolt her again. Still nothing. The seconds turn to minutes. They load her onto a stretcher—Bert Winters by her side, still holding her hand—and carry her away to the hospital.
Silent shock settles over the room. To go in a seeming instant from all of that energy and life force to . . . nothing. It’s over. Kay Barrish is gone.
Erica’s mind is blank, like a whiteboard, a flat line, then disassociation, as if she’s hurtling away from this scene, away, away into another world, a better world. Her legs feel weak and she grabs the back of a chair. She feels an arm around her shoulders.
“Are you okay?” Greg asks.
Then she remembers: she’s a reporter, and the most powerful woman in America has just died in her arms. She has a job to do. “The hospital, Greg, I have to get to the hospital and file a report!”
“No, Erica, an anchor from our local affiliate is already on the way there.”
“Greg, no, I want to go, I have to go!” She moves toward the front door, frantic.
Greg grips her by the shoulders and looks into her eyes. “Erica, you’re in shock. You’re in no condition to report on anything.”
She looks at him and somehow he gets through. And she knows he’s right.
As she died, Kay Barrish looked into Erica’s eyes—with eyes that were filled with disbelief and terror. Erica knows she will never forget that look. And she wants to cry—for Kay, for herself, for the country, she wants to just weep and weep.
But Erica doesn’t cry. No. Uh-uh. Growing up, tears only earned her more scorn from her folks—“Crybaby, crybaby!” Instead she takes the deepest breath of her life, holds it a moment, and then slowly exhales. The room comes into focus around her. People are crying, walking around in a daze, on their phones. Outside she can hear the arrival of news trucks and police cars.
“There’s a lot of press outside,” Greg says. “Do you feel up to making a brief statement? If not, I can do it.”
“I’ll do it,” Erica says, suddenly thankful for the task and the purpose it brings.
Five minutes later she stands at the bottom of the driveway in front of a battalion of reporters and microphones, lights and cameras, a growing crowd of stunned onlookers—there are helicopters whirling overhead, their spotlights sweeping over the scene. Questions are shouted at Erica and she ignores them, saying in a steady voice: “At 8:04 tonight, while I was interviewing her, former governor Kay Barrish suffered what appeared to be cardiac arrest. Her chief of staff, Audra Ruiz, and I attempted CPR but were unable to revive her. At 8:09 emergency personnel from St. John’s Hospital arrived and took over the efforts. Governor Barrish remained unresponsive. At approximately twenty past eight her body was taken to the hospital. That’s all I have to say.” Erica turns from the cameras. And then, without thinking, she turns back and begins to speak again, this time slowly, in a more intimate tone. “I only spent two days with Kay Barrish, but that was more than enough time for me to know that she was a remarkable woman, a smart and kind woman who cared deeply about our country, about all of us. I’ve lost a friend. What our nation has lost is incalculable.”
Greg takes her arm and gently leads her to a waiting car. She gets in. The driver, an older black man, turns and gives her a sad smile, his eyes red-rimmed. “Are you comfortable?” he asks.
Erica nods. As the car moves slowly down the street and the mayhem recedes, she leans back and rests her head against the soft leather. A sudden wave of exhaustion, deeper than bone, overtakes her, and she closes her eyes. She just wants to sleep, to sleep forever.