“Well, Frank, you’ve just thrown away the teachers’ vote.”
Patrick Lovett was perfectly serious as he faced Senator Tomlinson. Not angry, but deadly troubled.
Then he turned to Jake, “And you let him do it. You just sat there and let him make an enemy of the National Education Association. Three million votes down the drain. More.”
The three men were at the campaign headquarters, holed up in Tomlinson’s makeshift office. Outside, aides and volunteers were answering phone calls and handling their routine chores. Tami was out there, Jake knew, fielding inquiries from the news media about the senator’s “attack” on the nation’s public schools. Inside the office, the normally unflappable Lovett was standing in front of Tomlinson’s desk like an accusing prosecutor.
“I didn’t say anything that isn’t true,” Tomlinson replied stubbornly.
“What’s truth got to do with it?” Lovett snapped. “The NEA is powerful, Frank. It’s resisted every attempt to reform the schools since god knows when. Remember Bush’s No Child Left Behind program? Where is it now? In the garbage can, that’s where it is. And that’s where we’re going to be if we can’t patch things up with the teachers’ union.”
Jake thought, At least Pat said “we” and not “you.”
His jaw set, Tomlinson said, “I’m not going to back down from what I said.”
Lovett plunked himself down on one of the rickety chairs in front of the desk. “There’s a firestorm blazing out there, Frank. Cecilia’s blog has been picked up all through the Internet. Major news media outlets want to interview you—not about your space plan but about your attack on the teachers.”
“I can’t back down.”
“Nobody expects you to back down, but you’ve got to soften the message. Don’t be so confrontational.”
“Jesus Christ, Pat, it’s the truth!”
Lovett sucked in a deep breath. Then he said, slowly, patiently, “You assume that the National Education Association is involved in education. It’s not. It’s a union, like the United Auto Workers or the Teamsters. It’s the biggest goddamned union in the country!”
“But—”
Lovett steamrollered on. “Its main goal, its purpose, is to protect its members. Not education. Not teaching kids. It exists to protect its members and get them the best employment conditions it possibly can. Remember that, Frank.”
Tomlinson muttered, “Okay, I’ll remember it.”
“And remember this, too,” Lovett said, leveling a finger at the senator. “Fighting with the NEA takes away from your real, central point, your space plan. And you’ve got no choice but to put this firestorm out, one way or the other. Otherwise your real message gets lost.”
Jake heard himself offer, “Maybe we could use this to get Frank more media time, get him noticed more.”
“Making lemonade out of the lemon?” Lovett responded. “Nice trick, if you can do it.”
“Could we arrange a meeting with the head of the NEA? A sort of peace conference?”
Lovett stared at Jake for a long, silent moment. Then he suggested, “Yeah. Maybe with a couple of astronauts included.”
“We’d be trying to work out ways where public schools could start to put more emphasis on STEM subjects.”
“Who do we know in the NEA organization?” Lovett asked.
Senator Tomlinson’s dark expression eased into a small grin. “There’s my cousin, Connie Zeeman.”
Jolted with surprise, Jake blurted, “Connie’s with the NEA?”
Tomlinson nodded. “One of their fundraisers. Didn’t you know, Jake?”
Before he’d met Tami, Jake and Connie had been involved in a brief but intense affair. The senator had introduced the two of them to each other, and seemed to know every move they made together. Jake had often suspected that Connie provided detailed accounts of their tumultuous sex games to her cousin.
“No, she never mentioned that,” Jake choked out.
“Let’s see if Connie can help us meet with NEA’s upper management,” Tomlinson said, grinning knowingly.
Lovett, apparently oblivious to the byplay between Jake and the senator, said, “That’s a beginning. Meantime, I’ll tweak some of my contacts, see what we can accomplish.”
“Good,” said the senator.
Lovett got to his feet, but before he turned to leave the office, he leveled a warning finger at Tomlinson. “Make no mistake, Frank. This is a fire that’s got to be put out quickly. Every minute you spend appeasing the NEA is a minute taken away from the story you’re trying to tell the voters.”
“I understand,” Tomlinson said, looking solemn once more.
But as soon as Lovett left the office the senator said to Jake, “I’m not going to appease them or anyone else.”
Jake tried to soothe the senator. “Appease isn’t the right word.”
“Then what is?”
Thinking of his times in bed with Connie, Jake replied, “Seduction.”
* * *
As he drove home that evening, Jake debated telling Tami about Tomlinson contacting his cousin. He had told his wife about his affair with Connie, and Tami had taken the news with good grace. But now, with the tensions straining their marriage, he wondered how Tami would feel about Connie’s reappearance on the scene. He wondered how he felt about it.
He got home before Tami, but as soon as she stepped through the front door Jake pecked her on the lips, then said, “Frank’s calling his cousin, Connie, to help him with this NEA mess.”
“Connie?” Tami asked, her brows knitting slightly. “She’s back in town?”
“No, she’s still home in California.” Then he added, “So far.”
Tami let her tote bag slip off her shoulder and thump onto the table by the front entrance. With a smile to show she wasn’t accusing, she asked, “Is Frank pimping for you now?”
Jake felt his cheeks burn. “Tami!”
She patted his cheek. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. It was supposed to be funny.”
As they went to the kitchen and the wine closet by the fridge, Jake explained the problem with the NEA.
Tami nodded. “I’ve been fielding requests for interviews with Frank all day long. Cecilia’s blog has gone viral.”
“We’re trying to set up a sort of peace conference with NEA’s top people.”
“Good idea. Like Obama and Putin, back then.”
“We’ll try to do better than that!” Jake said fervently as he reached for a wine bottle.