He shrugged. “It depends. And really, it could go either way. It could help with a sympathy vote. You and Joe have always shown a united front, been very upfront about co-parenting”—he waved a hand—“all that shit.” Caro and my father were nodding along with Grayson. Stick and I stayed silent, but I sensed him fidgeting beside me. This was new to both of us, but at least I was genetically predisposed to be a dispassionate cutthroat.
“You would obviously be openly supportive of Joe running for office.” He tapped his pen, looked around the table. “But…it could go the other way. Voters skew older, especially here, and people have a long memory. They might somehow equate you being sick with Joe cheating on you.”
“That’s absurd,” my father said.
“It’s a gut reaction. They wouldn’t logically believe that. But they’d see you two together, obviously note that Caro was dying.”
I looked out of the corner of my eye at how Caro was taking the frank talk, but she was nodding, and even finished for Grayson: “And emotionally make the leap from the man who hurt me to the state I’m in now.”
“Right. It’s a risk. But it’s probably more of a risk to not have you public at all. It will open a can of ‘what’s Caro think about Joe running’ that we’d do well to get out in front of.”
“You sure we can’t call Betsy and Joey back sooner?” my father asked Caro. “They’d help diffuse it all. If they were there too, supporting me and beside you, maybe people wouldn’t make that emotional leap.”
“No. I do not want them back until either after the election, or when I…need to say my goodbyes.”
I could tell my father wanted to argue with her, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. His douche meter ticked lower by a few notches.
But he was still in the red zone.
Grayson was watching me, waiting. He knew it had to be my idea, even though he’d planted the seed at Betsy’s wedding. I took a deep breath, and he gave me a small nod.
“What if I was there? Whenever Caro was? I mean, surely she’s not going to—won’t be able to—do a ton of stuff, right? A few appearances?” I motioned to Grayson. “You said something about an interview early on with a friendly journalist? What if I was part of that?”
Grayson smiled at me—a small one, but it felt good.
“You’re just as much of a double-edged sword as I am,” Caro said. “We position you to show Joe’s a family man, but everybody remembers he was cheating on his wife when you were conceived.”
“This is all bullshit. Jane has nothing to do with this. She’s got a good thing going at school. You don’t want to mess with that,” Stick said from beside me.
It was sweet, kind of, that he was sticking up for me. Little did he know there was no room at this table for sweet.
My father looked at Stick like he was something from the bottom of his shoe. “I thought you were Caro’s help? How do you evenknowJane?”
Stick looked at me, daring me to answer my father.
“He’s—”
“Irrelevant for this conversation. Stick, I know you mean well, but Jane is involved, whether she wants to be or not. This campaign—and governorship—will affect her. She might as well get used to that now, and be in on the decision-making process.”
Oh, crap. I hadn’t even thought beyond this governor campaign. What would it mean for me to have my father be the governor of Maryland?
There was no way a simple interview with Caro, then a summer of smiling and waving from a stage, would be the end of it.
It would only be the beginning. And somehow I just knew that Maryland wouldn’t be enough.
“This is bigger, right? I mean, Maryland is just the first step,” I said, looking at each of them.
None of them answered, but their faces all confirmed I was right.
“Oh, Jesus,” I whispered. “Jaybird will be back forever.”
“We have to win this election first, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Grayson said, sensing my growing agitation.
Yeah, I was starting to freak out.
I kind of liked the idea of the strategizing and the power plays, and the guessing what image people would respond to. But from the table, behind the scenes.
I had a flash of me in the future on the steps of the Capitol in DC (was that even where they swore in the president?) standing next to Betsy and Joey as my father was sworn in.
