10:05 a.m.
United States Naval Observatory-Washington, DC
"Congressman, thank you for coming."
Susan Hopkins reached out to shake the hand of the tall man in the sharp blue suit. He was United States Representative from Ohio, Michael Parowski. He had prematurely white hair and squinty pale blue eyes. Fifty-five years old, he was handsome in a rugged, Marlboro man sort of way. Blue-collar born and bred, he had the big stone hands and the broad shoulders of a man who started his career as an iron worker.
Susan knew his story. H was a lifelong bachelor. He grew up in Akron, the son of immigrants from Poland. As a teenager, he was a Golden Gloves fighter. The industrial cities of the north, Youngstown, Akron, Cleveland, were his stronghold. His support up there was unshakeable. More than that, it was mythic, the stuff of legend. He was on his ninth term in the House, and his reelections were a breeze, an afterthought.
Would Michael Parowski get reelected in northern Ohio? Would the sun come up again tomorrow? Would the Earth continue to spin on its axis? If you dropped an egg, would it fall to the kitchen floor? He was as inevitable as the laws of physics. He wasn't going anywhere.
Susan had seen the videos of him wading into the crowds at union rallies, holidays, and ethnic festivals (where he did not discriminate-Polish, Greek, Puerto Rican, Italian, African-American, Irish, Mexican, Vietnamese-if you had an ethnicity, he was your man). He was a hand-shaker, a back-slapper, a high-fiver, and a hugger. His signature move was the whisper.
In the midst of mayhem and chaos, dozens or even hundreds of people pressing close to him, he would invariably take some older woman one step aside and whisper something in her ear. Sometimes the women would laugh, sometimes they would blush, sometimes they would wag a finger at him. The crowds adored it, and none of the women ever repeated what he said. It was political theatre of the highest order, the kind that Susan, frankly, loved.
Here in DC, he was a union man all the way-the AFL-CIO gave him a 100 percent rating. He was one of labor's best friends on Capitol Hill. He was more wobbly on some of Susan's other issues: women's rights, gay rights, the environment. But not so much that it was a deal breaker, and in a sense, his strengths complemented hers. She could speak with passion about clean water and clean air, and about women's health, and he could equal her passion when he talked about the plight of the American worker.
Even so, Susan wasn't sure he was the perfect fit, but the Party elders assured her he was. They wanted him on board more than anything. Truth be told, they had practically made the decision for her. And what they really wanted from him, besides his popularity, was his toughness. He was the baddest man in the room. He didn't drink, he didn't smoke, and it at least appeared that he didn't sleep. He lived on airplanes, bouncing back and forth to his district like a ping-pong ball. He would be on the Hill for committee meetings and votes at all hours, at a cemetery in Youngstown in the morning six hours later, fresh and alert, tears in his eyes, wrapping his big strong arms around the mother of a dead serviceman as she melted against his chest.
If his enemies claimed that he had quietly remained friends with a couple of the mobsters who he spent his childhood with in the old neighborhood… well, that only added to the image. He was soft, he was hard, he was loyal, and he was no one to mess with.
He gave her a bright smile. "Madam President, to what do I owe this honor?"
"Please, Michael. It's still Susan."
"Okay. Susan."
She led him back into her study. As Vice President, she had long ago dispensed with holding important meetings in her office. She preferred the somewhat informal feel, and the beautiful surroundings, of the study. When they walked in, Kat Lopez was already there and waiting.
"Do you know my chief-of-staff, Kat Lopez?"
"I haven't had the pleasure."
The two shook hands. Kat gave him one of her rare smiles. "Congressman, I've been a big fan of yours since I was in college."
"When was that, last year?"
Kat did something out of character then. She blushed. It was fast, disappearing almost as soon as it arrived, but it was there. The man had an effect on people.
Susan offered Parowski a chair. "Shall we sit down?"
Parowski settled into one of the comfortable armchairs. Susan sat facing him. Kat stood behind her.
"Mike, we've known each other a long time. So I'm not going to dance around. As you know, I abruptly became President when Thomas Hayes died. It took me this long to get my wheels under me. And I delayed picking my Vice President until the crisis seemed like it was over."
"I've heard some rumblings about what happened yesterday," Parowski said.
Susan nodded. "It's true. We believe it was a terror attack. But we'll survive it like we did the others, and we're going to move forward even stronger and more resilient than before. And one way we're going to do that is with a strong Vice President."
Parowski stared at her.
Susan nodded. "You."
He glanced up at Kat Lopez, then back at Susan. He smiled. Then he laughed.
"I thought you were going to ask me to herd some votes for you on the Hill."
"I am," she said. "I'm going to ask you to do that. But as the Vice President and the President of the Senate, not as the Congressman from Ohio."
She raised her hands. "I know. It feels like I'm throwing this is in your lap, and I am. But I've been putting feelers out, and holding little hush-hush secretive meetings for the past six weeks. You're the name that comes up again and again. You're the one with massive popularity in your own district, and broad appeal across the entire northern tier of the United States, and even in conservative working class districts across the south. And you're the tireless campaigner who can ride hard with me when the time comes to run for reelection."
"I'll do it," he said.
"Take your time," Susan said. "I don't want to rush you."
His smile became broader. Now he raised his hands, almost as if imploring the heavens. "What can I say? It's a dream come true. I love what you're doing. You held this country together at a time when it could have splintered apart. You were a lot tougher than anyone gave you credit for."
"Thank you," Susan said. If he could have seen her in the early days, weeping alone in this very room when she thought ninety thousand people were going to die from the Ebola attack, would he still think that?
She nodded to herself. Probably more than ever.
He pointed at her with his thick index finger. "I'll tell you something else. I always knew that about you. I can read people with the best of them. I learned it as a kid, and I saw it in you years ago, when you first came to DC. Ask anybody. When June sixth came, I told people don't worry, we're in good hands. I told that to the people who were still alive on the Hill, I told it to the TV shows, and I told it personally to at least ten thousand people in my district."
Susan nodded. "I know that." And she did know it. That little fact had come up again and again in her meetings. Michael Parowski has your back.
"You need to know something about me, though," he said. "I'm big. Physically I'm big, and I have a big personality. If you're looking for someone to stand in the back and fade into the wallpaper, then I'm probably not your guy."
"Michael, we vetted you eight ways to Sunday. We know everything about you. We don't want you to stand in the background. We want you upfront, being yourself. We want your strength. We're rebuilding a government here, and in a sense, we're rebuilding people's faith in America. It's hard work, and it's a lot of heavy lifting. That's why we picked you."
He gave her a sidelong look. "You know everything about me, huh?"
She smiled. "Well, almost everything. There's still one mystery I'd like to solve."
"Okay, I'll bite," he said. "What is it?"
"When you pull the old ladies aside at events, what do you whisper to them?"
He grunted. A funny look came into his face. It nearly transformed, decades of wear and tear dropping from it. For a few seconds, he looked almost (but not quite) innocent, like the hardscrabble child he must once have been.
"I tell them how beautiful they look today," he said. "Then I say, 'Don't tell nobody. It's our little secret.' And I mean it, every word of it."
He shook his head, and Susan thought it was almost with wonder-at people, at politics, at the sheer magnitude and audacity of what people like he and Susan did every single day of their lives.
"It works every time," he said.
