WHAT A WINNING IDEA!
Madison Goodfellow was the only one paying attention as Hank’s new press secretary, Mike Something, sat in a corner of their suite at the Des Lux Hotel a day before the Iowa caucus, quietly apoplectic as he read from his smartphone. “Ohhhh, boy. Ohboyohboyohboyohboy. Not good. Not. Good,” he said.
Madison looked up for a moment, just in time to make eye contact from across the room, where she sat on a chaise by the window. She gave her best poker face: a blank canvas. She could guess what he might be reading.
No one else seemed to notice. Room service tables, with the remnants of dinner, sat in the middle of the room. Outside, the dusk rush hour began to overtake downtown Des Moines, and on TV a buxom blonde news anchor gave a rundown of everyone’s Iowa odds: Hank still came out the favorite. Madison hated that picture they always used. He looked so much more presidential when he smiled without showing his teeth (perfect as they were—veneers, naturally), not that anyone had bothered asking her opinion. She had never loved watching the news, but there was so much of it on every hour of the day on so many channels that it was unavoidable. And it had become a new brand of torture watching clip after clip of Hank shouting from so many podiums in so many states. Her husband had undergone some sort of lobotomy since declaring his candidacy. In every public appearance he was sounding more and more like he did at cocktail parties when he’d had too much bourbon: “What’s the big deal? I could fix this whole goddamn mess. Washington just needs a kick in the ass and lemme tell ya, I can kick.” Except he wasn’t drinking. And every day brought new challenges as she learned to coexist with this Frankenstein in expertly tailored suits. She missed the old Hank. The one who used to skinny-dip in their pool in the Hamptons at all hours of the day.
Madison curled her long legs beneath her, sipped her cappuccino and scrolled through her own emails. The most interesting among them: an invitation from Birdie Brandywine. She knew the name. She had read Birdie’s decorating and entertaining book when Hank first started talking about a presidential run nearly a year ago, in an effort to wrap her head around what Washington was about. She realizes you’ll likely be in Iowa, but even so… the email from Madison’s assistant had read, with a photo of Birdie’s very flattering FedExed handwritten note calling Madison a “tastemaker” and “powerful woman in her own right.” Madison so wished she could go to the Iowa viewing party at Birdie’s undoubtedly stunning Georgetown home.
She gazed out the window again. She had no problem with this city itself, it was lovely. The fields and farms they’d passed on the way from their rally by the airport reminded her of home in Alabama. She and Hank spent the majority of their time in New York now, ever since Hank had bought that basketball team. His oil company could run itself at this point. Hank preferred New York to anywhere, and that was certainly all right with her. Her true priority was just to keep her family unit as intact as possible on a daily basis. Or three out of four of them, with Henry, their oldest just a train ride away at boarding school. So New York worked.
Their six-year-old daughter, Gemma, was back in New York with her nanny now, and Madison missed her dearly. Earlier in the day, she had managed to break away from the Hank Machine—as she dubbed the handlers traveling with them 24/7 now—to wander the sculpture park just blocks from the hotel, and had texted Gemma a picture of one piece, the bunny “thinker” sitting on a rock. Madison had sat beneath the spindly branches of the white enamel tree sculpture until she got too cold, yearning for the pinecones Gemma would bring home in her lunch box after weekly nature walks through Central Park with her school class. Though she missed their old life, she actually enjoyed seeing all these towns with Hank. She met so many kind people who wanted to take a picture with her, who held her hands and told her how hard their lives were and how much they needed to believe in someone. Hearing the stories of struggling families, the tears welled in Madison’s own eyes. It was bad out there. They did need someone to believe in. She just wasn’t quite sure her husband was the one for the job.
Madison heard Mike sigh, and from the corner of her eye, watched as he vigorously shook his prematurely balding head, like a dog trying to shimmy water off his coat. She fluffed up her ginger hair and reached into her purse for lip gloss and her Chanel glasses—she just felt she should be wearing glasses for this.
Mike sighed again, ran his fingers through his hair.
“I can hear ya, Wilson,” Hank said flatly, his back to the man as his longtime makeup artist, Penny, spackled a spot on his left cheekbone.
Wilson, Madison thought, that was his name.
“What’s goin’ on over there?”
“Nothing, Bomb,” he said unconvincingly.
Hank liked to be called this, as in “H-Bomb.” It had started in high school when he was a football star who could blaze through any obstacle, and he saw no reason to discontinue it now, in his late forties, after making himself into a billionaire oil man/basketball and baseball team owner/stock market-playing champ.
Mike went on. “It’s just, that, well. Madison—?”
Here it came, she thought. She looked up. Ready. “Hmm?” She smiled innocently.
“We just got a PDF of the interview from Us Weekly. Madison’s cover.”
“Maddy, hear that?” Hank asked.
“I saw! We look divine!” she said, bubbly. The photo of the four of them—Henry, had even come in from Andover—really was frameable. She looked much younger than forty-four and wondered how much—if any—Photoshopping had been done. Not that she minded. Just the opposite; she would’ve liked to know who to thank.
“Yes, Bomb, it’s a handsome photo shoot.” Mike gave Madison the side-eye. “But I’m afraid we’re going to need them to issue some major corrections, sir.”
“You don’t say?” Hank looked over now.
“I mean, I was there. For the interview. But. This is. I don’t know. This is…ridiculous,” Mike stammered.
“What’s he talking about, Magnolia? Someone show this thing to me,” Hank said, still seated.
Madison looked on from behind her spectacles and her cappuccino, pleasantly confused. “What exactly is the problem, Mike?” she asked in her sweetest, most honey-coated voice.
“Madison.”
Mike stood now, taking a few steps in her direction, eyes on his phone. “I was sitting in on this interview. I don’t remember ninety percent of this.”
She wished he would just stop talking, wished, for instance, that there was a ladylike way to punch him in the face. Instead, she just smiled.
“How can anyone make that much up? Get ’em on the horn!” Hank said, angry now.
“Relax, dear, you’ll mess up your makeup,” Madison said calmly.
“She’s right,” Penny agreed under her breath.
“When did you say these things?” Mike pushed.
“What things? I thought it was a delightful interview.”
“‘Delightful,’” Mike repeated. “Things like, ‘My husband would look soooo handsome in the Oval Office. He certainly looks better in a suit than any of his opponents seeking the nomination. Attractive people are good at getting what they want and that would be good for the American people, in terms of foreign policy and so forth.’”
“Right. You’ve got to admit that’s true.” She grinned. It did happen to be true. At forty-eight, Hank still had a boyishness about him, a full head of blond hair (with wisps of distinguished gray mixed in), a trim physique and that Southern charm. Anyone with eyes would have to agree. And she thought she had spoken well. She had always liked how you could add “and so forth” to any statement to give it an air of authority, as though there was so much more you could add but you were giving people just the most salient points. It was an old pageant interview trick. She had scored under just Miss New York in the interview component, way back when.
“She’s got a point, Mike,” Hank considered.
“Well, I’m not sure voters will find it encouraging to hear you say—” he began to read again “—‘Hank knows that I know him better than anyone, better than he even knows himself sometimes, so I’m probably his most trusted adviser, always have been—except those few years when we were divorced, before getting back together again—but otherwise, always have been, always will.’ There’s so much wrong there, besides it being a run-on sentence.”
“These are lovely things to say, aren’t they? I felt like I didn’t give the reporter enough, you know, what would you call it? Meat. During the interview at the house—”
“Meat,” Mike repeated.
“And I wanted to be super—what’s your word, Mike?—approachable.”
“Approachable,” he parroted.
“So I called her back, and we talked a little more,” she said lightly, with a shrug, taking a sip of her cappuccino.
“Of course you did. Okay, well, maybe never do that again.” Mike threw his hands in the air.
“I don’t think I love how you’re talking to me.” She softened her words with a flutter of her lashes.
“You two, get along already,” Hank ordered them from the vanity across the bedroom, tissues in his collar, as Penny airbrushed on his sun-kissed glow. “Hey! Whiplash!” he called out, loud enough to reach the living room, where a handful of trusted advisers could be heard gaming out his Iowa victory rally a day early. His deputy chief of staff, who had started as his driver on the oil company payroll and worked his way up, poked his head in the door. “Where are we on getting this thing tonight moved inside? What kind of idiot books a rally outside in Iowa in January? Gonna be a blizzard tonight.”
“Working on it, Bomb,” Whiplash said, managing not to add that Hank himself had been the idiot. “John is on the phone now with…”
Hank, lost in a status update, had moved on.
“Look, this was supposed to be your big introduction to the American people,” Mike said, sitting on a desk as though he wanted to appear like he was trying to reason.
Madison wasn’t impressed. She chuckled. “The American people already know me.”
“No offense, but Miss Fifty States was…a while ago,” he said, cautious. “They need to be reintroduced to you. And saying things like…” He looked at his phone again, reading in that disapproving tone, “‘Honestly, it’s all a bit stressful. My husband was more fun before the campaign, and I think he spent more time helping people. He used to give away millions of dollars anonymously every year, and now it’s all going to the campaign. I can understand the need for campaign finance law reform. It shouldn’t cost so much to compete for a job. Although, this is the American dream, isn’t it?’” He shook his phone. “Saying this is not the way to do it. I don’t think the American people want to hear about campaign finance reform from you, with all due respect. That’s not your…function…in our unit here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She offered that “who, me?” smile again. “Of course. Won’t happen again. I was just trying to bring something more to the table.”
“Next time, just bring, I don’t know, flowers. From your garden in the Hamptons,” he said. “That would actually be a great idea, and very FLOTUS of you. You know, the White House has a garden.”
“What a winning idea!” She nodded enthusiastically.
“Mike, I need ya. You guys done throwin’ mud?” Hank said lightly, winking at Madison. “Bottom line, Maddy, muzzle it up.”
“Oh, Hank, you’re such a sweet talker.” She laughed it off, not taking any of it seriously, and sipped her cappuccino as she reread Birdie Brandywine’s note. This campaign was going to get ugly.