Chapter 1
The machines chatter, the big boards blink, the arrows dart, the markers move. Two anchormen, two anchorwomen, “persons” in another dispensation, peer brightly out of the television screen, chattering away like fury to one another—and to such of the American people as may be listening.
A good many millions are, right now, for this is Election Night.
So-and-So is creeping ahead here.
Such-and-Such is falling behind there.
“You know, it’s interesting to see, Mary, how the Blah-Blah faction in the state of Boo-Boo seems to be overcoming the threat posed by the candidacy of Blip-Blip—”
“Yes, Mike, and of course the ethnic vote has undoubtedly had a lot to do with the apparent victory of Blub-Blub in the rural areas of downstate Ho-Ho—”
“To say nothing of the triumph of Baa-Baa in the industrial areas of upstate No-No—”
“Right! And, Peter, as you know, we can’t expect that third district to come in for Milkswitch, though the latest returns would seem to indicate that Pooplepot is gaining rapidly in the key city of East Whambledump—”
“Where naturally, Eloise, Mayor Squilch is bound to have some influence, even if he has announced that he will finally retire in 1999—”
In other words, the usual stuff—“the customary crap,” as they refer to it privately among themselves—while they try to fill in those yawning hours and hold that yawning audience with talk, talk, talk, charts, charts, charts, computers, computers, computers, Importance, Importance, Importance …
But suddenly the anchorpersons find something that really intrigues them:
“Let’s go to California for a moment, gang! Our man, Joe McGinnis, is out there in Los Angeles right now at the headquarters of the underdog candidate, young Mark Coffin. How does it look in California, Joe?”
A face: young, earnest, pontifical, bearded, shots of City Hall and the Music Center behind.
“Mike, we’re beginning to get some smell here of a possible upset—something that could have a direct bearing on both the fate of young Mark Coffin and the fate of the presidential candidate himself, who’s beginning to drop very narrowly behind, as you know, all across the country. Now as he comes into the Far West and we begin to get the votes from just-closing California precincts, we’re beginning to get just a hint—it’s only three precincts so far out of California’s more than two thousand, you know, Mike, but some people here seem to think it’s significant—that maybe young Mark may pull ahead in this dramatic race between youth and age. And that if he does, he might just conceivably-just possibly, Mike—pull through the presidential candidate with him. Wouldn’t that be something, if the whole presidential election were to be decided by the fate of the youngest senatorial candidate in the country, California’s dynamic and attractive young—”
“Thank you, Joe, we have to return to New York now for a minute. Joe’s young, too, folks”—a fatherly smile—“and he can’t seem to keep his enthusiasm for young Mark Coffin out of his reporting tonight. And I must say it’s hard to blame him, when you consider this young man who virtually has come from nowhere to grab the political spotlight in the most populous state in the Union.
“You will remember that just last spring the party nomination seemed sure to go to Charles Macklin, district attorney of Los Angeles County. Opposing him was the most recent ex-governor of California. It appeared the present governor would have to choose between them, thereby possibly compromising his own promising political future. But with a real stroke of political genius he stuck his thumb into the teaching ranks of the political science department at Stanford University and pulled out the plum of young Mark Coffin—so young, in fact, that at the time he was only twenty-nine, and as of this very moment, though he appears on the basis of early returns to be winning the Senate seat, is still a week away from his thirtieth birthday, the constitutional age at which a senator can take office.
“In the months since he won the nomination with the governor’s help, he’s become perhaps the most appealing, certainly the freshest, face in the whole gallery of national politics. And now if he can pull the presidential candidate in with him—
“Mike, Mike! Joe’s on the line again and he says Mark’s now leading 10,253 votes to 9,981, with five precincts reporting. He says they’re going crazy out there!”
“Yes, Mary, that really does look like a trend. It’s true we still have more than two thousand precincts to go, ladies and gentlemen, but if this trend continues, our computers should soon be predicting a victory for young Mark Coffin. And with him, perhaps, the new President of the United States as well. What a dramatic event that would be! But now let’s go to Chicago for a minute and see what’s happening out there in that hard-fought Senate race while we await further word of this dramatic upset that seems to be in the making in California—this upset that may well decide not only the California Senate seat but the presidency as well.
“Bob McClendon out there in Chicago, how are things where you are?”
Their voices fade into the background, turned down by a firm and even impatient hand. (Yet, really, why should he be impatient? It’s his fate that’s being decided, isn’t it?) Their ever-so-animated, earnestly smiling, earnestly mouthing faces continue to grimace. Robbed of voices, and with them of Importance, they are abruptly reduced to what they are, little people on a little screen in a living room—a living room casual, comfortable, unpretentious. Through a window in the distance the gleaming floodlit tower of the Hoover library on the Stanford campus accentuates the night. There is an air of excitement, here, too, but it is subdued, cautious, sensible. Nobody here has much faith in computers, long-range predictions, the desperate time-filling burblings of commentators. Everybody here is hopeful but not yet really daring to hope too much: in California the night is still young and there is a long way to go.
Instinctively the occupants of the room—a lithe and beautiful girl of twenty-seven, an earnest college kid of twenty, a pleasant-faced man in his sixties, his equally pleasant-faced wife—turn to the fair-haired, level-eyed, good-looking young man seated before the television set with two sleepy youngsters, Linnie, seven, and Mark, Jr., six, on his lap. Aware that they expect him to say something, be it inane or sensible—just something, on this fantastically important night for them all—Mark Coffin of California (Not even elected yet, he tells himself wryly, and already I’m calling me Mark Coffin of California) smiles and says,
“Well, I’m glad they’re optimistic.”
“Aren’t you?” asks Johnny McVickers, the college kid lounging on the rug beside him.
“Not yet,” he says soberly.
“Daddy’s going to be President!” Linnie announces, at which they all laugh.
“I believe you, baby,” says her mother, Linda, starting to serve the coffee and sandwiches she has just brought from the kitchen. “But one thing at a time.”
“Won’t it be wonderful if he owes the presidency to you?” Johnny McVickers asks. “He’ll be obligated to you for life!”
“I’m not so sure, Johnny,” Mark replies soberly, “that I want a man like that to feel he’s obligated to me. I doubt if it would make him love me. I’ll feel better if he takes California on his own. I’ll just think about me and not worry about him, for the time being.”
“You’re going to make it,” Linda says confidently.
“Think so?” he asks, taking her hand and looking up at her.
“I just talked to Daddy in Washington. He’s at national headquarters. They’re all convinced you’ve got it sewed up.”
“Great,” Mark says dryly. “That’ll do it for me. Is he convinced?”
“Yes, he thinks so. By a very narrow margin—but then, you know Daddy. He always was a conservative.”
“I’ll bank on Senator Elrod’s judgment any time,” Mark says.
“Except on a few defense issues,” his father remarks with a smile from the sofa across the room.
“And a few foreign policy issues,” his mother echoes, beside him.
“That’s right,” Mark agrees crisply. “On those, we may have some differences. But that’s our personal problem.”
Actually, of course, it’s more than that. In a grand library in Georgetown it’s already being discussed by three men who will have much influence on Mark Coffin’s senatorial career if he has one. The host is Chauncey Baron, sixty-three, a New Yorker of supreme and icy elegance who has been in and out of the State Department for the past three administrations in one capacity and another. A towering man with a fierce mustache, a frigid gaze and no patience with the fools of this world, of whom he perceives himself to be surrounded by multitudes, he looks the perfect Secretary of State and, in a two-year stint with the previous administration, proved himself to be.
Chauncey is entertaining two of his oldest and dearest friends tonight, Senate Majority Leader Arthur Emmet Hampton of Nebraska and Senate Minority Leader Herbert Esplin of Ohio. Art Hampton is sixty-eight, a spare, dry, decent, patient, compassionate and tolerant man who understands his colleagues’ foibles with all the brilliance of a Lyndon Johnson but treats them with all the discreet refusal to take advantage of a Mike Mansfield. Herb Esplin, sixty-five, is a florid orator, a sly wit, an outwardly easygoing, backslapping politician whose amiable aspect disguises one of the most sophisticated political minds of Washington.
The three have known one another for many years, sometimes allies, sometimes opponents, veterans of many a battle on the Hill and in Foggy Bottom.
Muted by Chauncey’s hand, as impatient as Mark’s, the anchor-persons bubble silently but ever-so-brightly away on the television set that temporarily dominates the room. Chauncey ignores them as he approaches his guests, drinks in hand.
“Is young Mark Coffin going to make it?”
“I just talked to his father-in-law at national headquarters,” Art Hampton says. “Jim Elrod says Mark’s going to make it by the skin of his teeth.”
“And with him,” Herb Esplin says, “your distinguished candidate for President.”
“Whom you, as Minority Leader of the U. S. Senate,” Chauncey says, “just can’t wait to welcome to the White House.”
“We’re going to cut him up in little bits and pieces and spread him all over Pennsylvania Avenue for the crows to eat,” Herb Esplin says cheerfully, “and not even my dear friend the distinguished majority leader of the U. S. Senate will be able to put him back together again.”
“Well,” Art says, “since I’ll be leading my gallant little band of seventy-three against your overpowering force of twenty-seven, I think perhaps I’ll be able to.”
“Ah well,” Herb says with airy good humor, “we’ll see. Are you going back to the State Department, Chaunce? Or are you going to remain a private citizen so you can keep on chasing all those Hollywood glamour girls you like so much?”
“Who says I like Hollywood glamour girls?” Chauncey demands blandly. Herb hoots and Art smiles.
“Come on, now, Chaunce,” Herb says. “Don’t kid your old pals here. Yon stern and dignified austerity hideth a suave pursuer, methinks. That’s why we all keep book on you. It’s intriguing to see how many young ladies can be successfully seduced by state-manship, profundity, world-shaking decisions and all that other crap you handle so beautifully.”
“Well, at least,” Chauncey says, “you admit I do handle it beautifully. So who cares what else I handle?”
“Absolutely right,” Herb agrees jovially. “So, are you going back to State?”
“If I see this in Jack Anderson’s column tomorrow morning,” Chauncey Baron says sternly, “I shall shoot you both. But yes, I think I will be nominated—if Mark wins, and if he carries the President in with him.”
“How will it feel to be Secretary of State for the second time?” Art inquires.
“Damned depressing, frankly,” Chauncey says somberly. “Things are, as usual, in one hell of a mess. Africa is threatening to explode again at any minute, ditto the Middle East, ditto Latin America, ditto Asia, ditto you name it. The Soviets have reached a point in their power build-up where they’re about ready to begin some serious bullying and blackmailing, and I’m not sure we have the strength or the will to stand up to them. Other than that, things are in great shape everywhere.”
“And yet you and your new President-to-be want to take on the job!” Herb says.
“Somebody has to.”
“And you think you can do it best.”
“Don’t we all think that in Washington, whatever we do?” Art inquires. “We wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“What are you going to do with young Mark if he makes it?” Herb asks Art.
“I’d like to see him on the Foreign Relations Committee,” Chauncey offers. “Can’t you get him on there, Art? He’s written a couple of books on America’s place in the world that have mightily impressed me, even though I don’t agree with some of his arguments. I don’t know whether you two have read them, but—”
“I haven’t,” Art says, “but I know he’s a smart boy. I don’t know how I can get him on that committee, though. We don’t have that many seats available. Unless”—his eyes brighten mischievously as he turns to his colleague—“we can persuade the minority to give us a seat.”
“Oh no you don’t,” Herb Esplin says crisply. “But I’ll tell you what you can do. You can get old Luther Hanson of Minnesota off there and put Mark in his place.”
“Luther would bellow like a wounded moose.”
“Nobody likes him, anyway. And I tell you what we’ll do in return. We’ll bounce Johnny Johnson of New Hampshire, who is in the same category, and replace him with Kal Tokumatsu of Hawaii, whom everybody likes. How’s that?”
“God!” Art Hampton exclaims wryly. “All this bloodshed just for a freshman from California.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Chauncey Baron says quietly. “I could work with him.”
“We’ll see,” Art Hampton says. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Do that,” Chauncey says, flicking up the volume of the television to find the anchorpersons outdoing themselves. Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Vermont, Illinois and Ohio are all toss-ups. Washington and Oregon have definitely gone for the opposition candidate for President. Mark Coffin has increased his lead to 10,000 votes with some one thousand precincts still to be reported. Millimeter by millimeter the presidential candidate, though his margin is less, is creeping up with him. “California may very well be deciding the fate of the nation and the world tonight!” Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, maps, graphs, lights, computers, talk, talk, talk, smile, smile, smile, strain, strain, strain, Importance, Importance, Importance. Elsewhere in Washington on this cold and blustery night they are also discussing Mark Coffin and his coat-tail-rider.
In the vast concourse of the Kennedy Center—red carpet, gleaming glass chandeliers, giant two-story windows looking out upon the terrace over the dark Potomac to the deep woods and scattered lights of Virginia—it is intermission. Ten television sets have been established here, too, evenly spaced down the length of the concourse. Crowds are milling about, smoking, laughing drinking, talking; big groups are gathered around each set. Near one of them the British ambassador, Admiral Sir Harry Fairfield, spare, leathery, bright-eyed, is standing thoughtfully beside stocky, impatient-looking Valerian Bukanin of the Soviet Union and thin, permanently disapproving Pierre Duchamps DeLatour of France.
“Well,” Sir Harry says, puffing on a cigarette, “I see our friend may be making it. Thanks to young Mark Coffin, that is.”
“And Britain is pleased,” Bukanin observes, not looking very pleased himself.
“The town’s become dull lately,” Sir Harry says lightly. “I think it will liven things a bit. Might liven ’em for the whole world, in fact.”
“The candidate is no friend of France,” Pierre DeLatour says dourly.
“Nonsense!” Sir Harry says jovially. “You take your ambassadorial duties too intensely, Pierre. Everyone is a friend to France! As France, of course, is a friend to everyone.”
Pierre gives him a sharp look; Bukanin snorts.
“The government of the Soviet Union is not pleased,” he says sourly. “More lectures, more moralizing, more meddling! He will be no better than the last one.”
“If he has as much cause as the last one,” Sir Harry says calmly, “more power to him.”
“You are clever,” Bukanin says, “but your country is pathetic, so it does not matter.”
“Spoken with true Soviet diplomacy,” Sir Harry says acidly, while his French colleague looks pleased at his discomfiture.
Bukanin shrugs.
“When one has power, who needs diplomacy?”
“Not as much power as you think, I venture,” Sir Harry says, “when that one”—gesturing to the television set on which a single face is momentarily appearing—“becomes President.”
“He is not President yet,” Bukanin says.
“And if he becomes so,” Pierre DeLatour remarks, “he will owe it to this young Mark Coffin, will he not? Therefore I shall spend some time cultivating young Mark Coffin.”
“So will we all, I dare say,” Sir Harry agrees. “I believe in cultivating all the new ones, particularly in the Senate. It has great influence on American foreign policy.”
“Ha!” Bukanin snorts. “It takes no great intelligence to support a policy of bullying and meddling!”
“True,” Sir Harry murmurs, bland once more, and again Valerian looks at him sharply. “Alas, how true.”
“Well,” Pierre says as bells begin to ring and the crowd begins to drift back into the three theaters of Kennedy Center, “we shall see what these young ones have to offer. Mark Coffin may be the most important of all, but there are others.”
“Yes,” Sir Harry agrees. “It promises to be an interesting ‘freshman class,’ as they call it. Good night, Valerian. Her Majesty’s Government hope the government of the Soviet Union will not be too overwhelmed by today’s results.”
“Ha!” Bukanin says, gives him a look, turns on his heel and stalks off.
“Do you hope young Mark Coffin and his candidate win?” Pierre inquires as they watch him plod away, and then begin to walk through the throng toward their waiting wives.
“Devoutly,” Sir Harry says.
“So do we,” the French ambassador agrees. “And along with many other stout hearts as well.”
The crowd thins, the concourse gradually becomes almost deserted, but Mike the anchorperson is still hard at work. “And up there in Vermont we’ve got an interesting Senate race, too, though it isn’t having the national impact of the race in California because the presidential candidate has already carried the state. In this instance he appears to be carrying the candidate for the Senate—Lieutenant Governor Richard “Rick” Duclos—that’s spelled D-u-c-l-o-s but pronounced Du-cloh, ladies and gentlemen—an attractive young liberal who comes to the national scene with a reputation for good government and an equally notable reputation as a political Romeo. Washington has already seen a good deal of Rick Duclos in recent months, when he’s been down there on frequent visits as his state’s emissary seeking federal funds. We understand he’s already fluttered a good many feminine hearts in the capital, and now as a United States Senator he’s bound to flutter even more. Let’s go to Vermont and see what’s happening to Rick Duclos—”
But although the camera eye is in Duclos headquarters in Montpelier, a scene of much excitement with large banners and posters of the candidate, he is nowhere to be found.
“Well,” Mike says as campaign aides can be seen running about, wildly agitated, trying to find their candidate to take advantage of this unexpected national exposure, “at the moment Rick doesn’t seem to be available, so we’ll take you back to California now to see what’s new with young Mark Coffin—”
His voice trails away, the agitated campaign staffers fade from the nation’s sight. In a far back room of the hotel that houses his headquarters the candidate, unaware of the search for him because he has a more pressing matter on his hands, is backed up against the door, pinned by a very upset young lady.
“You aren’t going to do this to me, Rick Duclos!” she cries angrily as she struggles into her dress, he into his trousers. “I’ve kept quiet all through this campaign when I could have blown it sky-high. God, why didn’t I? Why was I ever so stupid as to let you persuade me that you really wanted to marry me? ‘You’ll be Mrs. Senator Rick Duclos.’ Oh hell, yes! What a stupid fool I’ve been!”
“No, you haven’t,” Rick says, turning on the charm as much as possible in the midst of his hasty struggle to resume his clothes. “You’ve been everything to me.”
“ ‘Everything to you!’ Don’t give me that corny crap! Unless you announce our marriage tonight I’m going to tell the whole wide world what a cheat you are. I’m going to tell everybody! I’m going on television! I’ll destroy you!” And, by now half-presentable, she tries to dodge around him.
“You can’t do that!” he exclaims in genuine alarm, gripping the door and refusing to budge. “Now, you listen to me. I told you that I was going to take you to Washington—”
“As Mrs. Senator Rick Duclos!”
“As Mrs. Senator Rick Duclos. And what makes you think I didn’t mean it? As soon as I get settled—”
“Ha!”
“As soon as I get settled, I’ll send for you and you’ll be down there in a jiffy—”
“You bet I will!”
“—in a jiffy, and then we’ll get it all arranged. So what’s the problem?”
“But why can’t you announce it tonight?” she asks, beginning to sound somewhat mollified.
“Strategy,” he says solemnly, and she begins to flare up again. But he talks fast and she calms down. “It isn’t that I don’t love you, and it isn’t that I don’t have big plans for you—”
“To be Mrs. Senator Rick Duclos.”
“To be Mrs. Senator Rick Duclos,” he echoes, gritting his teeth. “But there’s timing in these matters. You can’t just barge into something in politics, you have to have timing. Now, when I get down there, you just sit tight—”
“In your law office in Montpelier. I’ll be there. Where in hell else would I go?”
“—and when it’s right, I’ll send for you, and there’ll be a big announcement and everything will be okay.”
“Really?” she asks uncertainly.
“Really,” he assures her with great sincerity.
“Well—”
“And now, luv”—briskly—“I really must get back out there. I think the tide’s turning and I’m beginning to win, and I’ve got to be on hand for the media. So why don’t you slip out first and I’ll be along in a couple of minutes?”
“Oh, Rick,” she says, dissolving suddenly as he draws her tenderly toward him and prepares a positively magnificent kiss.
“Trust me, baby,” he says passionately. “Trust me.”
There is a knock on the door, a young voice, abrupt, embarrassed.
“Dad! They want you out there!”
“Okay,” Rick calls, coming up for air. “Run along now, honey.” He opens the door and pushes her out, giving his tie a last tug as he does so. She goes, exchanging a sharply hostile glance with the dark gangling kid of eighteen who stands in the hall.
“Thanks, Pat,” Rick says with hearty relief as they watch the girl disappear. “You saved me just in time.”
He starts to put his arm around his son but Pat isn’t having any. He shrugs it off roughly and stalks down the hall ahead of his father.
“Well, okay,” Rick says with a jauntiness that doesn’t quite come off. “Well, okay, if that’s the way you feel.”
Down the hall there is a burst of shouts and lights as he straightens himself defiantly and goes to meet his triumph. But his eyes are bleak and unhappy for a moment before he puts on his smile and the crowd swallows him up.
At the same moment on Washington’s fashionable Foxhall Road, haunt of former Vice-Presidents and others financially able to achieve the neighborhood, the guests at a formal black-tie dinner party in a beautiful white-porticoed house are now strewn about the enormous living room on chairs, sofas, ottomans, the floor—glasses in hand, eyes and ears attentive to the latest from Mike the anchorperson, still gallantly plugging along as the hour nears 1 a.m. in the East, 10 p.m. on the West Coast.
“—in Colorado, where the suddenly tragic figure of young Bob Templeton, thirty-six, has won overwhelming election to the Senate. It was just a week ago, as you all remember, that Senator-elect Templeton’s wife and two daughters were killed in the crash of the family plane when they were on their way to join him for a campaign rally. Prior to this tragic event, his election had been considered a certainty, but today’s results seem to indicate that he has, understandably, received an enormous sympathy vote as well. Robert Templeton, new United States Senator from Colorado, a man who takes to Washington a ravaged heart but great promise as a legislator, is expected to—”
“Tell me,” a woman’s voice inquires, “is this your first Election Night party at Lyddie’s?”
“You know it is, darling,” rejoins another. “How long have you been coming, since 1916?”
“Not quite, sweetie, but long enough to have left the category of gate-crasher and be considered a Real Friend.”
“Well!”
The arch conversation, whatever its potentials, is terminated by the entry of Lydia Bates, drenched in diamonds, rubies, emeralds and pearls; at eighty-three Washington’s acknowledged hostess with the mostest, who knows everyone, invites everyone, tosses everyone together in parties that sometimes erupt into major arguments and news stories. Lyddie is the widow of the late Speaker of the House Tillman Bates of Illinois, who is so late—some twenty-one years, by now—that Lyddie has long since become a Washington institution in her own right. Possessed of enormous wealth left her by her father—“Daddy was something big and mysterious in the anthracite industry”—she has used it to fund and support, unknown to the public, many charitable causes at home and abroad. But she has reserved a few millions of it—“my fun money,” she calls it—for the sole purpose of entertaining and being part of the Washington that so thoroughly entertains her. An invitation to “Lyddie’s on Foxhall Road” is a command invitation. Her house, “Roedean,” is the only private home to which all Presidents irrespective of party will go. She is one of those perennially chipper, eternally bright, eternally mischievous and delightful old ladies who ought to be allowed to live to 110 because they enjoy life so. Still a beauty and charmer at eighty-three, she is bright as a button, sharp as a razor and generous as the Potomac is wide. She wouldn’t live anywhere else, do anything other than what she does. She and Washington are perfectly met. Many a promising young career has been socially launched under Lyddie’s wing; and now she thinks she sees another one coming.
“Now, listen, everybody,” she cries, clapping her hands. “We’re going to make bets. We’re all agreed California is the key to it, right?”
“Right!”
“All right, then, we want to know, first, the time when the decision will be final—”
“My God, Lyddie, that may be six a.m.!”
“You’re all perfectly welcome, I have twenty beds and the rest of you can sleep on the floor—and we want to know who’s going to win the presidency and we want to know if Mark Coffin is going to be senator. And we want to know your best guess as to the margin of each one’s victory. So, Jan darling, if you will assist in passing out these pencils and sheets of paper —”
“Can we trust a United States Senator, even one from Michigan?” somebody calls, and laughter greets the tall, gray-haired woman who comes forward to Lyddie’s side: Senator Janet Hanson Hardesty, at sixty still strikingly handsome, always beautifully dressed, beautifully coifed, beautifully organized; a dynamo of high intelligence and great intuition, possessed of a steel-trap mind that is usually a match for any of her male colleagues in the Senate and sometimes more than a match for all of them put together. Tonight she is wearing one of her characteristically simple, characteristically expensive dresses, something floating, in a misty rose pink, with her trademark diamond brooch in the shape of a spray of flowers pinned to her left shoulder.
“Let’s make it bipartisan, then,” Jan Hardesty suggests with a smile. “Clem Chisholm, come up here!”
Across the room obediently rises another of those who will have much to do with Mark Coffin’s senatorial career if he has one: a solidly built good-looking gentleman of forty, Illinois’s first black senator, Clement Chisholm, former mayor of Springfield, a political sensation when he defied the machine and won an upset victory two years ago. His wife Claretta, an ex-model and still a beauty at thirty-nine, pushes him forward with a shove as everyone laughs and applauds.
When the two senators, both tall, handsome and striking, flank Lyddie with great distinction, she looks up at them with her bright birdlike glance.
“Now, then, dears,” she says. “Jan, you take half of these slips of paper, which will be—Lord, how many of you did I invite to this party? Was it sixty? No, that was four years ago. Forty-six, that’s it. Jan, you count out twenty-three and give the rest to Clem—”
“Suppose she only gives me twenty-two?” Clem inquires with a smile.
“Now,” Jan says with mock severity, “the minority would never give the majority a fast count, you know that, Clem. Lyddie will make sure we’re both honest.”
“That’s right, dear,” Lyddie says, beaming, as Jan counts to twenty-three in a firm voice and hands the remainder to Clem, who chuckles and of course doesn’t bother to count as they start to distribute the tallies among the guests.
“I do hope this new President will be all right,” Lyddie says thoughtfully as she watches them. “And I hope this young Mark Coffin will be a nice boy, too. We do so need some nice people in Washington.”
“Lyddie, dear, that isn’t very flattering,” somebody calls. “What about us?”
“Oh, I know, but you’re old nice people. I want some new nice people.”
“You mean people you can mold, Lyddie—people you can twist and turn to your own devious purposes—”
“I just mean people I’d like to entertain,” Lyddie says cheerfully. “But then”—looking about—“I guess my standards aren’t really all that high, are they?”
“Oh, Lyddie, you’re impossible!”
“You’re outrageous!”
“You’re—” and so on, until someone calls sharply,
“Quiet, everybody! There’s something new coming in on California!”
And as they cluster forward around the television set, it appears that California is indeed heating up. Mark’s lead is beginning to climb a little, from 10,000 votes to about 20,000, with some three hundred precincts still to be counted. The presidential candidate’s margin, though less than Mark’s, is climbing in tandem, precinct by precinct.
It is obvious that Mark is indeed carrying the President with him.
They find, with a quick switch of channels, that one of the networks has already conceded the state to both Mark and the President. The other two, including the by now rather haggard quartet with whom the evening began, are not quite yet ready to do so. It is obvious, however, that their tension is mounting, as it is at Lyddies’s on Foxhall Road; and as it is at national headquarters on Connecticut Avenue.
A big, bare, brightly lighted room filled with posters, tables, desks, typewriters, new ticker tape, confetti waiting to be thrown. The usual mix of old pros and young enthusiasts clad in everything from black tie to blue jeans. The sort of great excited hodgepodge that is a headquarters on Election Night.
Three are standing aloof on the edge of the hubbub, watching it with a shrewd professional gaze: a stocky, white-haired man of sixty; an obviously brisk and superior young gentleman of twenty-eight; and a pretty and obviously knowledgeable girl of twenty-six. Their badges, headed MEDIA, identify them: BILL ADAMS, ASSOCIATED PRESS; CHUCK DANGERFIELD, “WASHINGTON INSIDE”; LISETTE GRAYSON, ABC.
“You’re the man with the experience, Bill,” Chuck begins, and then shouts over the clamor as Bill cups a hand in mock deafness. “I SAID YOU’RE THE MAN WITH THE EXPERIENCE. Tell us what’s going to happen.”
“I think we’ve got a brand-new President and a brand-new baby United States Senator. Don’t you kids think so?”
“I’d like to, on both counts,” Lisette says, “but I’m learning to be cautious in my old age. We still have three hundred precincts to go.”
“A mere bagatelle,” Chuck says airily. “God, will it be great to see a new face in the White House!”
“And in the Senate,” Bill says.
“Even if he is still wearing his Pampers, as the L.A. Times put it the other day,” Lisette says with a laugh.
“Have you met him?” Chuck asks. “He’s really quite a guy. He’s a hell of a nice fellow, actually. And he has a delightful wife, too.”
“Is he a liberal?” Lisette inquires.
“He’s sexy,” Chuck assures her solemnly. “What more do you want?”
“I want to know if he’s a liberal,” Lisette says, a trifle impatiently.
“He’s a nice guy,” Chuck repeats. “I think I can agree with him on a lot of things. I think you can, too.”
“Good,” Lisette says. “Now, about his being sexy—”
“Honey,” Bill Adams says, “I think the first thing I’m going to say to him is, ‘Watch out for our Lisette. She’s dynamite.’”
“He’s a big boy,” Lisette says cheerfully. “I dare say he can take care of himself.”
“I dare say Linda will take care of him, too,” Chuck remarks. “She’s not Senator Elrod’s daughter for nothing. Plus which, she’s a damned attractive gal herself. I wouldn’t try to move in, if I were you.”
“You’re obviously planning to move in, as a friend,” Lisette observes. “I’ll move in, too—as a friend. Anyway, I think he’s going to be a damned good news source, so I’ll cultivate him.”
“He isn’t in yet,” Bill points out, but just then there’s a wild, ecstatic whoop and the room explodes in sound.
“Oh yes he is!” Chuck shouts. “And so’s the President!”
Confetti flies, voices babble, faces and bodies whirl in a wild fandango of celebration. A new day has dawned, and at national headquarters a thousand hopefuls are ecstatically preparing to climb on board.
At the modest home on the Stanford campus everyone is wildly happy, too. Mark’s living room is crowded with excited friends and supporters. Linda is in his arms, crying. Linnie and Mark, Jr., are standing beside them bewildered but happy. Mark’s parents, hand in hand, are dancing a jig. The telephone is ringing insistently and outside there is the growing murmur of many people.
Presently Mark disengages himself gently from Linda with a final jubilant kiss and reaches for the phone. Abruptly his expression sobers, his voice becomes respectful. The room falls swiftly silent.
“Yes, it is, Mr. President,” he says, “a great victory…Well, congratulations to you, too, sir, I couldn’t be more delighted…Oh, thank you, but you could have done it without me. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Mark Coffin!” Linda hisses. “You could, too! Don’t you tell him that! He got in on your coattails, and don’t you let him forget it!”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Mark says, smiling and waving her away. “Yes, I look forward very much to working with you, too. I think it’s going to be a great administration, a great challenge. Yes, sir … Well, you know you can always count on me.”
“He cannot!” Linda hisses again, all her instincts as a senatorial daughter and child of politics aroused. “Don’t let him think that!”
“Yes, sir,” Mark says. “Yes, thank you. I’ll see you in Washington. Yes, sir. Good night…Well”—turning back—“that was nice of him.”
“Nice of him, nothing!” Linda snorts. “He knows he owes his victory to you, and don’t you ever humble yourself to him, Mark Coffin!”
“Well,” Mark says, “he is going to be the President.”
“But you’re going to be Senator Mark Coffin,” Linda says fiercely. “And that’s only the beginning!”
“Maybe,” he replies with an affectionate smile. “Maybe.”
“No maybes,” Linda says firmly. “Nothing but yeses, from here on in.”
“Mark!” his father calls from across the room. “Some special people here to see you.”
Mark and Linda step forward to the door, his arm around her. They are greeted with a roar of welcome by what must be at least a thousand jubilant Stanford students massed on the lawn and filling the street. Somebody leads them in a cheer: “Give ’em the ax, the ax, the ax!” Somebody else begins to sing the Stanford Hymn. Instantly it is taken up by a thousand voices.
Linda starts crying again, and Mark’s eyes also fill with tears as they stand and wave while the singing mounts. But behind Mark’s tears a somber expression grows in his level gray eyes.
Suddenly the fun and games are over.
Suddenly it is all real.
Ahead lies the United States Senate and a world, seemingly in permanent disarray, for which he is now, in some substantial measure, responsible.
***