“He’s running for president. Your childhood mega crush, and mine!” Kayla marches to the TV remote and flicks it on to the first channel. He’s on the screen—as attractive as he is in person.
“What are Republicans saying?” I ask her.
“They’re shitting in their pants.”
“And the Democrats?”
“Shitting in their pants.”
She sighs and drops down on my couch. “Never voted for an Independent candidate in my life, but this one is mine. Hamilton for the win!” She glances at me. “We miss you at Women of the World. Are you planning to come back after the campaign?”
“Of course.”
“Why leave WoW at all?”
“Because he’s what America’s been waiting for. We deserve it.”
“You hate the spotlight, even though you secretly admire how well your mother takes to it.”
“I’m shy.” I shrug. “It doesn’t come as easy to me as it does to my mother. But I want to be there when he kicks ass.”
“What about our trip to Europe this year?” Kayla asks.
I join her on the couch, sighing as I stare at the ceiling. “We can go to Europe anytime, but it’s not any day that Matt Hamilton runs for president.”
“The perfect baby father and every woman out there knows it. If you can’t have him in your bed or fathering your children, at least let him be our chief in command.”
“Commander in chief,” I correct.
“He can be anything he’d like.”
I groan and laugh.
12
WE FOUND OURSELVES RUNNING THE SAME PATH
Charlotte
I hadn’t really realized I was getting into such a high-stress job when I said yes. You want to help people, have limited time, and you can’t help everyone in the way you want to. It generates some huge pent-up frustrations I’m having trouble venting.
I head up to the park for a quick morning run and he’s there. Matt Hamilton is the most easygoing guy I know, one who can keep his cool during adversity. While the world is in a stir over the news, and the TV keeps replaying his announcement, he’s stretching his quads.
A cap covers my red hair, which I twisted beneath it. Somehow he still recognizes me, his eyebrows rising just a fraction when our eyes meet. He’s not wearing a cap, his hair blows in the wind, and the shirt he wears is pressed against his defined torso.
He’s not only running for president, he’s running the TCS marathon in New York. Though it’s already a huge marathon, the sign-ups have skyrocketed as rumors of his participation leaked. “It’s dangerous, Matt,” Carlisle warned just this week.
Matt laughed. “I’m not running a campaign on fear—fear has no place when you decide to run a country.”
“Reckless!” Carlisle insisted.
Matt rose from behind his desk and slapped his campaign manager’s back, shaking his head, frowning down at him. “Relax. It’s just a marathon. Besides, running helps me keep my head clear.”
I tuck my face under the cap until I run past him with a brief nod of acknowledgment.
I hear his light, agile running steps behind me as he catches up with me, and I’m a little more breathless when I see him in my peripherals.
“Morning, Charlotte.”
“Morning,” I say under my breath, trying to keep my pace.
We run in silence the rest of the hour.
This has been happening every day, for nearly two weeks. We seem to be . . . running together. Not on purpose, though. We both simply seem to want to run at this time, in this park, daily.
“Have any free time this morning at headquarters?” he asks.
“I’ve got a packed schedule.”
“Never too packed for me.”
My lips twist wryly.
His lips twist wryly too. “We’ve got some business to discuss with you.”
“What kind of business?” I ask suspiciously. “Yours or mine?”
“Isn’t it the same?”
I stop running, curious—more curious than our cats, as my mother says. “What is it?”
He laughs. “Patience, grasshopper. I’ll have Carlisle run it by you.”
I glance at his huge black dog, promptly sitting protectively at his side. I grin. “He likes his flea collar?”
He eyes the dog as if only now realizing he seems mighty comfortable with it. He smiles, then hooks his finger on the end of the collar. “Come on, Jack.” He heads to the car. “Want a ride?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
Looking disappointed, he opens the door and hops in, and they drive away.
I stay, stretching for a little bit, and I can’t seem to stop myself from replaying our conversations and grinning. Why do I keep running in this park? Why does he keep running in this park? Why is it suddenly important for me to know?
I knew I would be challenged in many ways when I took on the job, but I never imagined I’d become so fascinated not only with the aspects of campaigning, but with the candidate himself. He is a man who could, in less than a year, become our president. Knowledge about our country and a genuine understanding of how it works seeps from his pores.
I’m intensely curious to know more about his views, but it’s Matt who makes me most curious of all.
On lunch break, I hear that the news of Matt asking Rhonda to change the schedule to accommodate a request of mine seems to have not sat too well with some of the other female aides.
“You know, he’s never paid much attention to any of us.” Martha flips her hair, obviously annoyed.
“Matt and Charlotte’s families go back,” Alison says as I walk in.
“Oh?” She turns wide, questioning eyes my way.
“A little,” I hedge.
“Ah, so that’s why.” She seems relieved.
The energy in the room seems to shift, and all the attention flees from my way over to the door.
My eyes flick over to Matt when he stops by the small cafeteria section to pull out a bottle of water. He cracks it open, thoughtful as he looks at the group of women, then raises his head and sees me.
I smile and pass through the door and when my shoulder brushes his, my skin crackles heatedly.
Absently I brush my hand down my arm as I go back to my desk.
I’m going through my pile of letters when Carlisle stops by my desk.
“Matt wants you to be his new scheduler,” Carlisle says.
I start in surprise. “Me?”
“You’ll need to be open to traveling; we’ll be visiting all fifty states. It’s a good idea for there to be only one scheduler or else a ton of mix-ups can arise. Trust me—not fun to have something in New Hampshire an hour before you have something in San Francisco.”
I gape at him.
“Let’s run down what’s expected of you for the following months,” Carlisle begins.
I’m briefed in a six-by-six room on my duties as political scheduler.
“As our one and only scheduler, you’re to oversee Matt’s agenda for the entire campaign. You’ll have political aides and advance teams to organize, you’ll book his gym workouts, make sure the planes and buses are all stocked with essentials, organize the rallies and his every social and personal engagement for the rest of the year. We need a good balance among all his engagements. Do you think you can do that?”
My head is spinning, but I force myself to reply. “I . . . if Matt thinks I can, then I can,” I say bravely.
He shoots me a dire look. “Just to be clear, a scheduling mistake could cost us the whole campaign. Every minute and second must be accounted for. His father’s scheduler remained at headquarters during his campaign, but Matt wants a more hands-on approach.”
He seems concerned about my ability to do the job, so I nod more firmly than necessary.
“Rhonda will be on press coordination, but she can help if you get stuck in any part of the process; she’ll fill you in on any questions you might have.”
Matt comes in to
see Carlisle, and when my arm brushes his as I pass through the door, my skin crackles heatedly.
I’m smoothing fingers over the tingling skin of my upper arm as I head to my table when Carlisle’s assistant approaches.
“Charlotte—” She points in the direction of the floor where Matt has his office. “You’ll be over here now, outside Matt’s office.”
I swallow, then start gathering my personal things, more determined than ever to make a difference and prove to myself that I can.
13
WARNING
Charlotte
It’s my first day as his official scheduler when I arrive at campaign headquarters the following Monday, step off the elevator, and immediately get to work.
I’m determined to impress and be as kick-ass as everyone on Team Hamilton is proving to be. Especially now that I’m his scheduler; there’s only one of me.
I’m trying to get into the meat of Matt’s most pressing things-to-do when Rhonda appears.
“How are we doing?” she asks me as she approaches.
“Great!” I grin, then spread out a few pages with scattered itineraries—it takes work to really oversee Matt’s schedule, not only because it’s his, but because it involves so many people. “I’m a bit concerned I’m losing some valuable time with the times it takes for the team to arrive by bus—I wonder if I shouldn’t make use of that time somehow for Matt.”
Rhonda drags a chair over and looks at the pages. Matt doesn’t want to plaster slogans across every town and city in the continental United States; he’s doing aggressive online campaigns with both personal opinions and proposed solutions. But even with the online campaign, his schedule is killer.
It could literally kill a man that wasn’t as energetic as this one is.
I can’t imagine either President Jacobs or Gordon Thompson, the Republican front-runner, both much older and much less athletic, enduring it.
As the main scheduler and as we embark on the touring of the country, I’ll be working in the field now. Rather than being cooped up in headquarters, I will be out there, overseeing all the local field campaign aides, ensuring everything runs smoothly on every location and engagement Matt is in.
Rhonda has made it repeatedly clear that my job is to manage both Matt’s personal and professional schedules, and not only that, but I’m to manage the advance teams that will arrive at each location before Matt does to make sure everything is as it should be. She tells me that a good flow of scheduling is paramount for the most effective campaigning. That I need to focus on Matt’s personal time first and foremost, then shoot for a balance between events aimed at high schools, veterans, industrials, the average working man. I am to include all minorities, and definitely women and young people, who seem to be his most devoted fans. To this list, after talking it over with the managers, I’m adding hospitals and hospices in the mix as well.
“He needs time to run every day. Every single day, be sure to give him an hour’s run and at least a half hour to shower and prep for the day. Trust me, he’s on the ball and so much sharper when he’s started his day with that. Add a night off during the weekends so he can see his friends and family or simply have time on his own,” she said when she first explained this to me.
“Just one night off?” I’m appalled to think he’s working so much.
“Only one—that came from Matt himself,” Rhonda assured me, but she looked as wide-eyed and concerned as I did.
Now we sit here as we jointly create his first active campaigning schedule, one where he’ll be traveling extensively.
As Gordon Thompson and Harold Jacobs are throwing themselves full-fledged into their campaigns, so are we. Our first states to visit are states known to be primarily red or blue, which means Texas for primarily Republican and California for primarily Democratic.
“Charlotte, there’s been talk.”
I lift my head. “Excuse me?”
“Some of the aides.” She signals out the door. “They talk about Matt paying more attention to you. Alison has appeased them that you’re childhood friends, but I’d still like to give you some friendly advice.”
I feel so shocked and uncomfortable at the thought of anyone assuming anything outrageous that I’m mute, unblinking as I meet Rhonda’s friendly but concerned gray gaze.
“Don’t,” she says quietly, holding my stare.
She shakes her head, glancing down at the itinerary, slashing a big red line over one event and adding a big red arrow for us to move it to the next day.
“Matt is unshakable right now where he stands.” She looks at me again. “He owns the heart of every American simply because we all watched him lose his father the way he did, keep his mother on her feet, and remain pretty down-to-earth and humble despite him being one of the most famous men in the world. Any dirt the parties want to dig up on him, there’s nothing Carlisle hasn’t studied and can easily counterattack.”
My eyes widen. “You’re not implying . . .”
“Charlotte, I’m fifty-five, married twice, with three children,” she says, smiling a bit like my mother did when Matt and his father, the president, came over for dinner and she told me Matt was handsome. “If you believe in him being the solution we’re looking for—”
“I do!” I say vehemently, dragging the schedule over to my side and frowning down at it, trying hard to concentrate on it again.
“Then keep it professional. You’ll be spending a lot of time together.”
I think of the things I think about when I curl up alone in my apartment and a warmth of guilt creeps up my cheeks, but I stare down at the schedule and try to regain my focus.
Once Rhonda and I finally wrap up the beginning campaign schedule, she claps her hands.
“Guess we’re done here. You’ll make sure he gets a copy?”
“Of course.”
She dons her coat and we say goodbye as she heads to her new office and I head out of mine and toward Matt’s.
As I approach, I hear the whispers of Carlisle telling Matt, “We should be unearthing the dirt on Jacobs . . . He made many mistakes during his administration . . . and don’t get me started on Gordon.”
“We’re running a clean campaign—and we’re playing defense. No attacks unless we’re personally attacked—we counterattack. Then and only then.”
“Matt, these two are specialists at attacking. That’s the way elections are won. You make people afraid, and then you shine the light and don the hat of their savior. Personally, I think Jacobs has let the economy go to shit just so he can come up with a shining plan to save it. As for Gordon—hell, he will throw out everything wrong with you, starting with the fact that you didn’t serve in the military.”
“Neither did he.”
“But he’ll be the one to say it.”
“And make it easier to point out that I was doing other things that my father, the president, had asked me to. He wanted me to learn to be a leader—hell, Benton, it bugs the shit out of me he didn’t let me serve and you know it.”
“Gordon will rub it in. Jacobs will keep on the First Lady issue . . .”
“Really, if that’s what we have to be afraid of . . .” Matt lets out a low, self-assured chuckle.
Carlisle sighs. “You have a bit of a sense of humor, which makes you approachable but, god, your stubbornness, Matt.”
I knock on the door.
Matt lifts his head, waves me in, and suddenly he is watching every step I take into the room.
I set the folder on his desk and as I slowly leave the room, I hear Carlisle insist, “We need more slogans, Matt. People need to know what you bring to the table.”
“I bring me.”
Carlisle sighs.
“Carlisle. For years the public has come to believe every promise made by every candidate has been pure bullshit. Nobody believes in them anymore. Politics have been totally tainted by propaganda. It wasn’t like this in the beginning, Carlisle. There weren’t slogan campaigns; hell, until Andrew Ja
ckson, not even slandering campaigns. I serve my country.”
“Speaking of. Our opponents are barely underway with primaries and they’re already attacking the streets with propaganda.”
Matt listens attentively, then says, “We’re in modern times, Carlisle. The internet works. Hamilton is tree-friendly.” He angles his head. “Charlotte.” Matt raises his voice as he calls my name when I step outside.
I peer back in.
“You can save more trees as the president,” Carlisle mumbles as Matt waves me forward. I’m tempted to tell Carlisle that I do like Matt’s different approaches.
Political figures are loved and hated across the world. They’ve come to be seen as necessary evils. But it wasn’t that way with Washington. He’s the only president who received every single vote—he was a champion, a leader, not a “necessary evil.” There was no propaganda, no marketing campaign, no bullshit slogans. Matt is not a politician, and I think it makes a difference. He gives no practiced speeches. He doesn’t even look 100 percent polished. He prefers sweaters and slacks and button-down shirts when he goes out in public. He looks steady, which is what the country wants, a little bit rebellious, which is what the country needs, and different, the embodiment of the change we crave.
But I keep my thoughts to myself.
Carlisle exits and Matt steeples his fingers, nodding in the direction of the now empty doorway. “What do you think?”
“I . . . about what Carlisle says?”
He nods, that infuriatingly adorable dancing sparkle appearing in his eyes.
I smile privately. “I do think you’re stubborn,” I admit, scrunching my nose playfully at him.
“Is that all?”
I shrug mysteriously.
But no, that’s not all at all!
He has good judgment, drive, and discipline.
When the character debates come up later in the game, Gordon has had four wives, President Jacobs lets his wife rule the country for him, and Matt, on the other hand, is a very balanced man. He listens to opinions of people he respects and whose intelligence matches his own, but ultimately he makes his own choice.