It’s telling that Mom and Dad don’t mention Stella’s absence a single time during their visit. Maybe I’m not the only one making progress when it comes to emotional growth. Mom and Dad have heard crickets from her. They haven’t bothered calling her in over three months.
On Thanksgiving Day all of us spend time cooking together, watching the Macy’s parade on TV, followed by football that afternoon, enjoying our time together as an extended family. The next big event will be the lighting of the outside White House Christmas tree and everyone’s returning for that, too.
Another RSVP Stella hasn’t responded to, and it’s looking like she won’t because the deadline’s next week.
I know it’s wrong of me to gloat… But yeah, I’m gloating. I finally have everything I ever wanted, other than Stella finally growing a conscience.
Even I’m not greedy or naive enough to keep hoping that will happen.
* * *
The Monday morning after Thanksgiving,once our families have departed I summon Ciro to my study next to the Oval for a private talk and ask him to close the door behind him.
“Sir?” he asks when he turns to me.
I wave him toward the sofa. “Quit that,” I tell him. “Elliot and Ciro today.”
He sits. “What’s up?”
“You tell me. You haven’t officially announced yet. Still thinking about it?”
“Been thinking about it a lot.”
“And?”
He looks amused. “It was a topic of discussion this weekend. Ily’s still making up her mind and you know I give her opinion a lot of weight.”
I snort. “I know those conversations. But, seriously. If you’re going to run let’s set up the announcement and start building your war chest.” I’m a little over a year into my second term at this point, meaning we need to focus on crowning my heir apparent.
“I believe she will say yes. We’ll make our final decision by tonight, but we had too many family members around this weekend to discuss it.”
“The sooner, the better. The GOP already has potential candidates out there beating their chests. We need to get ahead of them. We want them chasing you and scrambling to play catch-up.”
“If my answer is yes I take it that means I’ll have your full support?”
“Me, Shae—everyone. We’ll completely throw our weight behind you and put on a blitz the likes of which no one’s seen in decades. I want you inheriting this office from me. That means twenty-four consecutive years of Democrats in the Oval. Lots of things we can accomplish with another eight years following me.”
“IfI were to win.”
“Oh, I have no doubt you’ll win. Two in-house polls hypothetically featuring you as a candidate against any number of popular GOP frontrunners has you winning by no less than ten points against their strongest potential candidates.” Those results quietly arrived in Jordan’s inbox early last week.
“Really?”
I nod. “Really.”
He laces his fingers behind his head and sits back, staring into space for a long moment. “I can’t get too far over my skis and give you an answer before Ily gives me one, and you know why.”
“I do.”
There’s no mistaking the hunger in his expression, the desire for more.
He’s so close to this office he can taste it, and I don’t mean by licking my desk or the carpet, either.
“Mateo will graduate from college before my two terms are up,” he finally says. “If I win re-election. Daniela might not like having Secret Service chaperoning her every move in high school and college.”
“How many parents get that level of security for their kids, though?” I smile. “Talk about a virgin alarm.”
He snorts. “There is that.”
