45

Eleanor went straight to her hotel room after the debate, talked to her kids in Alexandria, watched some TV, went to bed, and slept until ten Friday morning. When she opened her eyes, she knew without looking at the clock that she had lost control of herself and overslept massively. The red light on her phone was flashing like a police car, the blackout curtains on her hotel room windows were limned with the hot, hysterical white light of midday. She felt wizened and dehydrated and headachy.

She opened her curtains about six inches, letting a slab of arid light into the room, ordered some room service (yogurt, a large infusion of juice, and lots of coffee), and took a shower. The yogurt arrived with a stack of message slips from various journalists, most of whom had deadlines that had already expired. She was still sitting on her bed in her hotel bathrobe, trying to get the coffee into her system as fast as possible, sorting these messages into stacks, when someone knocked at her door. Shave and a haircut, two bits.

It was her girlfriend Mary Catherine Cozzano, turned out in a smashingly professional navy blue ensemble. Mary Catherine was doing some major grinning, showing some serious dimple action this morning.

"I'm not worthy," Eleanor said, placing one hand to the breast of her white terrycloth bathrobe.

"My daughter costume," Mary Catherine explained.

"Well, I knew I overslept," Eleanor said, ushering her into the room, "but looking at you I feel like I am way behind the curve."

"You don't know how right you are," Mary Catherine said provocatively. She groped for the curtain pull and yanked it decisively, flooding the room with light. Then she turned around and sat down on the unmade bed, facing Eleanor, who was squinting between her fingers.

"You have this look on your face like you are in possession of important state secrets that you can't wait to blab," Eleanor said. "So let me assure you that I have a Top-Secret Alpha clearance. Coffee?"

"No thanks," Mary Catherine said. "I had breakfast four hours ago."

Eleanor laughed and pretended to be ashamed of herself. "In Alexandria my neighbor's dog starts barking at five a.m. sharp," she said, "so I never get the opportunity to sleep in."

"Well," Mary Catherine said, "I think you'll find that the accommodations are much quieter on the grounds of the Naval Observatory."

"Naval Observatory?"

"Yeah," Mary Catherine said innocently.

The Naval Observatory was a circular patch of land along Massachusetts Avenue, northwest of downtown D.C., in a part of town that Eleanor had rarely visited while growing up there. Its function was to provide very nice housing to a few important Navy types who needed quick access to the White House. And it contained the official residence of the Vice President of the United States.

She inhaled sharply and looked at Mary Catherine's face. Mary Catherine was sucking in her cheeks, trying not to break out laughing.

"I'm going to be made an admiral?" Eleanor said.

Mary Catherine shook her head.

The idea was too stunning. Eleanor couldn't speak. It couldn't be.

If Cozzano were a fringe candidate, she'd understand it. A purely symbolic candidacy, like the Libertarians or the Socialists, might pick someone like her as a running mate. But Cozzano was no fringe candidate.

Hell, Cozzano was the leader. All the polls had him out in front. It was impossible.

"You're playing with me, girl," Eleanor said.

Mary Catherine just shook her head. She put one hand over her mouth, trying to contain herself.

That one gesture finally brought it home to Eleanor. This wasn't just some nice young lady she had made friends with at a convention, after all. This was the daughter of the candidate himself. And the way she was dressed-

"You came here to do some serious business," Eleanor said.

Mary Catherine nodded.

"You came here to NOTIFY ME!" Eleanor said, and finally she couldn't hold back any longer; she slid forward out of her chair, on to her knees, put both hands over her face, and started screaming. Mary Catherine, laughing hysterically, wrapped Eleanor up in her arms and held her tight.

In some deep, remote part of her soul, Eleanor knew that she was acting just like the winning contestants on the game shows that she used to watch when she was unemployed. But she didn't care. Come to think of it, it wasn't a bad analogy. She had gone on the biggest quiz show of all time and won the penultimate prize.

The results were so odd and yet so important that Cyrus Rutherford Ogle ran one more test, shortly before the announce­ment. They were starting off the broadcast with a round-table discussion among the four metapundits whom Ogle had hand-picked from Central Casting.

One of them was a gruff, grandfatherly old man who projected traditional American family values. He had made a comfortable living playing a cowboy patriarch in various Westerns and an admiral on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Another was a tweedy academic (lab-coat wearing pseudoscientist on a couple of drug commercials). Then there was a middle-aged, professional-looking young women whose role was to puncture the egos of the two men (occasional lawyer on L.A. Law). Finally, they had a stylish, younger black woman with a Hispanic surname and generically progressive politics (roommate/best friend to better-known actresses in various films). All four of the metapundits would gather every evening and engage in a spirited discussion of political issues that had come up during the day's events at the National Town Meeting. All four of them had, at one time, worked in soap operas and had the ability to memorize dialogue rapidly, which came in handy since Ogle and his staff scripted the discussions.

During tonight's discussion, the tweedy academic metapundit delivered a bombshell several minutes into the program by announcing that he had spoken with a high-level Cozzano operative minutes before the program and that this person had confirmed that Eleanor Richmond would be the vice-presidential candidate.

Cy Ogle was ensconced in the Eye of Cy at the moment his line was delivered, and the results were intense and striking. There were a few discrepancies between the new information and last night's debate results, but they were not big discrepancies. Richmond had a hard core of support that would never change. There was also a smaller but strong anti-Richmond segment, led by Byron Jeffcote (Trailer-Park Nazi, Ocala, Florida) and by a few others like the Post-Confederate Gravy Eater and the Orange County Book Burner.

But reaction among more moderately conservative whites was not half-bad. And the big surprise was still there: Chase Merriam loved Eleanor Richmond. Cy Ogle picked up the phone and got his press secretary.

"Go ahead and announce it," he said. "The demographics are perfect."

"Richmond?" the secretary said, still a little uncertain about this whole idea.

"Eleanor Richmond," Ogle said.

On the other end of the line, he heard keys whacking on a computer keyboard. The press release was now being transmitted digitally to the wire services, computer-faxed to every press outlet in the Western world. Cozzano's state and local campaign managers, in all fifty states, were receiving information packets on Eleanor Richmond - pictures, videotapes, and canned sound bites for them to toss off to the local media. It all happened in an instant.

"It's done," his press secretary said.

"Good" Ogle said. "White House, here we come. I gotta go," he concluded. "I have a call on another line."

It wasn't just any old phone line. This was a special line that Ogle had agreed to keep open. The only person who had this phone number was Buckminster Salvador. Cy Ogle's boss. Rarely heard from, rarely seen, but always there.