This roused me out of my sad-Ben-watching stupor. On the one hand, boy, did I ever have thoughts about the way they’d handled my bill. On the other, what was the point?
I’d been asking myself that question a lot lately. Now that I’d fumbled the ball and Dakota had to step in to save the Green Machine, I could forget my promotion to vice president of public affairs. The thought of returning to my normal communications work filled me with weariness and a little bit of dread. What if I’d outgrown my role?
I looked at Dakota and Wendy, and a thought struck me: What if I’d outgrownLise? Without the goal of passing the Green Machine pulling me out of bed every morning—okay,okay, and the thought of seeing Ben, too—my life felt hollow and purposeless. So, maybe it wasn’t worth sticking my nose in Dakota’s business yet again. Maybe I should let this bill die alongside my ambition.
“Actually, yes,” Ben said, stopping his foot tapping and turning to face us at the table. “I do want to get something off my chest.”
Like they’d been taken over by alien intelligence, all five of our phones started buzzing at the same time—over and over, practically hopping off the table.
“What the hell?” Wendy grabbed for her phone.
The door to the conference room burst open, and a young man I recognized as one of the governor’s junior aides stood there, red-faced and panting. “Governor, sorry for interrupting, but you have to see this. It’s all over the news.”
My stomach dropped.
The aide showed us his iPad, which was streaming Fox News 7. “Breaking news out of the state capitol, as details of a jaw-dropping scandal are coming to light,” said the anchor, a pretty blonde woman in a power suit. “Fox 7 is the first to report that Texas State Governor Grover Mane is allegedly having an affair with prominent local businesswoman Dakota Young, CEO of electric vehicle company Lise Motors.”
Oh my God.It had leaked.
“What? Bullshit!” Wendy spun to Dakota. “This is utter fabrication. We have to call the stationright nowand tell them they’re lying on air!”
Dakota’s face was leached of color. The governor’s was bright red. Neither of them said a word, until the unspoken truth became plain.
“Jesus,” Wendy breathed. “All this time?”
Dakota nodded, the movement slight. “We ended it. But...yes. It’s true.”
Wendy turned to me. “Is this why you and Lee have been so weird?Leeknew and I didn’t?”
I couldn’t speak. The very worst thing that could possibly happen was happening. Instinctively, I turned to Ben, and saw my horror mirrored on his face.
“Not only is the fact that Young is married raising eyebrows,” the anchor continued from the iPad, “but she and the governor are well-known to be working on what climate change activists have called a groundbreaking clean energy bill this session. Now critics of the bill are calling its integrity into question.”
The screen cut to Samuel Slittery, and the sight was like a punch to the gut. He shook his head sorrowfully. “You know, I always thought there was something fishy about the way Governor Mane relied so much on a woman—uh, this particular woman—for transportation and energy policy. Well, now we know Dakota Young was sleeping her way into a position of power.”
“You’vegotto be kidding me,” Dakota growled.
Slittery sighed dramatically, and I knew he was loving this with every fiber of his being. “There’s just no way SB 3—what people have been calling the Green Machine bill—can pass. The public simply cannot trust the democratic process has operated the way it was supposed to. Frankly, in my opinion, the bill would have been a disaster for Texas anyway. The people of Texas don’t want weak electric cars. They want big, brawny, manly trucks like the new Ford Guzzler XXL, an exclusive collaboration coming later this year from Mendax and Ford Motor Company.”
“You have got to bekidding me!” Wendy shouted at the screen.
I was watching my worst nightmare unfold in real time.
The camera cut to Senator Roy McBuck, who was walking through a parking lot, wearing a cowboy hat. “I’m afraid the Senate is going to have serious questions about the legitimacy of the SB 3 bill. The people of Texas can rest assured my colleagues in the Senate and I have no tolerance for corruption. That’s all I’ll say at this time.”
“That man was willing to sell himself to the highest bidder,” Ben said through gritted teeth. “And he has the nerve to talk about corruption.”
The video flashed back to the anchor, who gave us a grave look. “There you have it, folks. The first scandal of Governor Mane’s administration—and boy, is it a doozy. Will it spell the end of Lise Motors? The end of the governor’s once-vaunted political career? Stick with us here at Fox News 7 as the details unfold.”
26
Sure, It Looks Bad
The governor was the last to arrive, wearing a tan trench coat and a baseball cap, giant sunglasses shielding his face. He probably thought he looked convincingly incognito, so I didn’t have the heart to tell him in reality, he looked like a slightly more masculine version of Carmen Sandiego.
“Good, you’re here,” Wendy said. “Now we can begin.”
“You have a beautiful home,” said the governor as he shuffled in. Even in the middle of a crisis, he couldn’t turn off the charming politician.
