The Prodigal Daughter Read online

  “I believe both Pete and Florentyna should visit all the red states at least once, but Pete should concentrate his energies in the South while Florentyna spends most of her time in the North. Only California, with its massive forty-five electoral votes, will have to be visited by both of you regularly. During the sixty-two days left before the election, we must use every spare minute on states where we have a genuine chance and make only token visits to those fringe areas we captured in the 1964 landslide. As for our own white states, we must be prepared to visit them all once so that we cannot be accused of taking them for granted. I consider Ohio a no-hoper as it’s Russell Warner’s home state, but we mustn’t let the Republicans assume Florida is theirs just because Warner’s running mate was once the state’s senior senator. Now, I’ve also worked out a daily routine for you both, starting next Monday,” he continued, handing the candidate and Florentyna separate sheaves of paper, “and I think you should be in contact with each other at least twice a day, at eight o’clock in the morning and eleven o’clock at night, always Central Time.”

  Florentya found herself impressed by the work Ralph Brooks had put in before the briefing and could appreciate why Parkin had become so reliant on him. For the next hour Brooks answered queries that arose from his plan and agreement was reached on their basic strategy for the campaign. At twelve-thirty the Vice President and Florentyna walked on to the north portico of the White House to speak to the press. Ralph Brooks seemed to have statistics for everything: The press, he warned them, was divided like everyone else. One hundred and fifty papers with twenty-two million readers were already supporting the Democrats, while one hundred and forty-two with twenty-one point seven million readers were backing the Republicans. If they needed to know, he added, he could supply the relevant facts for any paper in the country.

  Florentyna looked out across the lawn at Lafayette Square, dotted with lunchtime strollers and picnickers. If elected, she would rarely again be able to visit Washington’s parks and memorials. Not unaccompanied, anyway. Parkin escorted her back to the Vice President’s office when the press had asked all the usual questions and received the usual answers. When they returned to the office they found that Parkin’s Filipino stewards had set up lunch on the conference table. Florentyna came away from the meeting feeling a lot better about how matters were working out, especially since the Vice President had twice in the hearing of Brooks referred to their earlier agreement concerning 1996. Still Florentyna thought it would be a long time before she could totally trust Parkin.

  On September 7 she flew into Chicago to start her part of the election campaign but found that even though the press was still hard put to keep up with the daily routine she put herself through, she lacked the drive that had been a trademark of her earlier campaigning.

  The Brooks plan ran smoothly for the first few days as Florentyna traveled through Illinois, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. She met with no surprises until she arrived in New York, where the press was waiting in large numbers at the Albany airport. They wanted to know her views about Pete Parkin’s treatment of Chicanos. Florentyna confessed that she didn’t know what they were talking about, so they told her that the candidate had said that he had never had any trouble with Chicanos on his ranch; they were like his own children. Civil rights leaders were up in arms all over the country and all Florentyna could think of to say was, “I am sure he has been misunderstood or else his words have been taken out of context.”

  Russell Warner, the Republican candidate, said there could be no misunderstanding. Pete Parkin was simply a racist. Florentyna kept repudiating these statements although she suspected they were rooted in truth. Both Florentyna and Pete Parkin had to break off from their scheduled plans to fly to Alabama and attend the funeral of Ralph Abernathy. Ralph Brooks described the death to an aide as timely. When Florentyna heard what he had said she nearly swore at him in front of the press.

  Florentyna continued her travels through Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia, before going on to California, where she was joined by Edward. Bella and Claude took them out to a restaurant in Chinatown. The manager gave them a corner alcove where no one could see them or, more importantly, hear them, but the relaxed break only lasted for a few hours before Florentyna had to fly on to Los Angeles.

  The press was becoming bored with the petty squabbles between Parkin and Warner over everything except real issues, and when the two candidates appeared together on a television debate in Pittsburgh, the universal opinion was that they both lost and that the only person of Presidential stature in the whole campaign was turning out to be Senator Kane. Many journalists expressed the view that it was a tragedy that Senator Kane had ever let it be known she was willing to be Pete Parkin’s running mate.

  “I’ll write what really happened in my memoirs,” she told Edward. “Only by then who will care?”

  “In truth, no one,” replied Edward. “How many Americans could tell you the name of Harry Truman’s Vice President?”

  The next day, Pete Parkin flew into Los Angeles to join Florentyna for one of their few joint appearances. She met him at the airport. He walked off Air Force II holding up Missouri’s Unterrified Democrat, the only paper that had run as its headline “Parkin Wins Debate”: Florentyna had to admire the way he could make a rhinoceros look thin-skinned. California was to be the last stop before they returned to their own states and they held a final rally in the Rose Bowl. Parkin and Florentyna were surrounded by stars, half of whom were on stage for the free publicity they were guaranteed whichever candidate was in town. Along with Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino and Jane Fonda, Florentyna spent most of her time signing autographs. She didn’t know what to say to the girl who, puzzled by her signature, asked: “Which was your last movie?”

  The following morning, Florentyna flew back to Chicago while Pete Parkin left for Texas. As soon as Florentyna’s 707 touched down in the Windy City, she was greeted by a crowd of over thirty thousand people, the biggest any candidate had had on the campaign trail.

  On the morning of the election she voted at the elementary school in the Ninth District, in the presence of the usual group of reporters from the networks and the press. She smiled for them, knowing she would be forgotten news within a week if the Democrats lost. She spent the day going from committee room to polling places to television studio, and ended up back at her suite in the Chicago Baron a few minutes after the polls had closed.

  Florentyna indulged herself with her first really long hot bath in over five months and a change of clothes that was not affected by whom she was spending the evening with. Then she was joined by William, Joanna, Annabel and Richard, who, at the age of seven, was being allowed to watch his first election. Edward arrived just after ten-thirty and for the first time in his life saw Florentyna with her shoes off and her feet propped up on a table.

  “Miss Tredgold wouldn’t have approved.”

  “Miss Tredgold never had to do seven months of campaigning without a break,” she replied.

  In a room full of food, drink, family and friends, Florentyna watched the results come in from the East Coast. It was obvious from the moment that New Hampshire went to the Democrats and Massachusetts to the Republicans that they were all in for a long night. Florentyna was delighted that the weather had been dry right across the nation that day. She had never forgotten Theodore H. White telling her that America always voted Republican until 5 P.M. on Election Day. From that time on, working men and women on their way home decide whether to stop at the polls; if they do and only if they do, the country will go Democratic. It looked as though a lot of them had stopped by, but she wondered if it would turn out to be enough. By midnight, the Democrats had taken Illinois and Texas but lost Ohio and Pennsylvania and when the voting machines closed down in California, three hours after New York, America still hadn’t elected a President. The private polls conducted outside the voting places proved only that the nation’s largest state wasn’t wild about either candidate.