An Excerpt from Dog Days

By Ana Marie Cox

T h u r s d a y , J u l y 29

To: [undisclosed list]

From: Julie.Wrigley@clevelandparkgroup.com

Subject: Flash mob

Where: Four Seasons bar

When: As soon as the last balloon drops

The champagne was cold and expensive. The room was crowded and hot. And you couldn't swing a Democratic Convention credential without braining a network reporter, a campaign staffer, or a hit-or-miss celebrity who had come to Boston to lend his support to the cause. If someone had set off a bomb in the bar of the Four Seasons, political chat shows would only be able to book Republicans and the conventional wisdom packagers from USA Today. Not that anyone would even joke about setting off a bomb. Democrats were now tough on terrorism. They didn't joke about that kind of stuff; it was in the memo.

Some people think that the convention climaxes with the nominee's acceptance speech, but for the scrum of journalists, staffers, and consultants who had bullied and sweet-talked each other through the last four days, these final hours at the bigwigs' hotel bar marked the event's true ending. Speeches had been given. Deadlines had been met-or closely approximated-sound bites had been dispensed, and unless you were unlucky enough to be booked on a news network's desperate attempt to milk the convention for just one more hour of airtime at midnight, your work here was done.

Melanie Thorton kicked off her shoes underneath the table, at a banquette she had slyly reserved earlier under the name of the junior senator from Wisconsin. ("Normally we don't take reservations for booths in the main bar area, Senator, but seeing as how you're expecting a large group . . .") Melanie was junior varsity in the John Hillman for President communications team; often, the most significant perk to the job was just getting to tag along. Tonight was a chance to cash in on little favors and her knowledge of the obscure staff members of obscure legislators.

She had worn flip-flops with her suit for most of the convention, sacrificing style for some degree of comfort during the twenty-two-hour days of constant shuttling between the war room, the convention hall, and the hotel.

For this last night, however, she had attempted to dress up. In theory, this would have meant her least wrinkled Ann Taylor skirt and a shirt with a small, unidentifiable stain under the right collar that she could hide if she left it unbuttoned far enough.

In the end, she wore jeans and dared the shirt, adding some really expensive shoes she had just bought-a pair of strappy Charles David sandals with a heel that was thin and wide, like an upright graham cracker. She had seen them in the Lucky magazine she allowed herself on the shuttle up to Boston and had become fixated on them. She would buy them if she made it through the week, she promised herself, dividing their $350 price tag by all the times she imagined wearing them. That afternoon, after Hillman's final convention hall walk-through, she had snuck out to Newbury Street and laid down her plastic. Now she realized that her carefully rationalized prorating had only justified the shoes' expense, not the searing pain they were causing now. She reached underneath the table to feel if the blister on her left heel had grown from the size of a dime to a silver dollar.

Melanie's friend Julie Wrigley, sitting beside her, noticed. "Serves you right," Julie said with mock scorn. "Helping the economy like that. Didn't you get the talking points? The economy sucks, the president's tax cuts are a historic failure, job growth is down, and consumers are worried about paying their bills-not buying shoes that cost enough to pay for junior's flu shots for the next five years-that is, if flu shots are still available under the failed policies of President Jim Golden."

"Sorry if I fell off my talking points. I am 'working harder and earning less,' if that means anything," Melanie said. She wriggled her toes back into the shoes and eased the heel strap over the blister, wincing. Melanie sat up and pushed her shoulder-length dirty-blond hair-really dirty-blond, she knew-out of her face. Her roots were showing. They had been for a few weeks now. In fact, they weren't roots so much anymore as saplings. Melanie tried to convince herself that this was her look.

She had an open face with wide-set green eyes and a smile that created a single dimple on her left cheek. She had learned early in life that it was a face people tended to think was honest-store managers waved her through blaring shoplifting detectors, and restaurant managers gave her free meals if she even hinted the steak she ordered medium-rare had come out well-done. This genetic accident, this appearance of trustworthiness, mostly reflected her inner stuff. She was a Girl Scout, she didn't cheat at solitaire, and she only took one newspaper out of the vending machine. But appearing so honest also made it much easier to do her job on Hillman's communications staff, which involved a lot of lying.

Well, not lying. Never exactly lying. She told stories with happy endings and uplifting messages. She cajoled. She sweet-talked and buttered up and occasionally, very occasionally, tweaked a fact so that it slid a little more easily into place. She had discovered this talent early on as well, easing B-pluses to A's and creating completely plausible reasons why she couldn't possibly do windsprints that day. And in spite of all the hours spent earnestly memorizing the reasons for the Whiskey Rebellion and Saturday nights in the library researching the Works Progress Administration, this would be the skill that got her a job in politics.

When Melanie was honest with herself-which was about as often as she was with others-she knew that changing the world was only what first attracted her to the game. There were pictures of her dressed up in a little corduroy suit, getting ready to play Michael Dukakis in her school's mock debate, to prove that she didn't start out on the side of spin. She had logged hours in protest lines and call banks all through school, as well, just one of the warm bodies campaigns were always short on. But would she be here now if she didn't also love the dirty part? The trick of maneuvering a story into print, the knack of using whatever idea was in the air as leverage for a talking point.

Melanie loved knowing that she watched the news with an ear toward what got placed and who would benefit; she loved hearing her ideas spill out of other people's mouths. Working for the Illinois Civil Liberties Union in Chicago the year before, she had done the opposition research for a campaign to defeat a state measure requiring schools to observe "a moment of silence." The proposal was so bland few had bothered to organize against it. But the movement had come apart at the seams after Melanie managed to get the Tribune interested in some of the less reliably unobjectionable proposals that the measure's sponsors also advocated-jail for adultery, mandatory instruction in creationism, the banning of homosexuality.

She suspected it was this come-from-behind culture war victory that put her on the campaign's radar. She had some friends from an Iowa senate campaign who were doing advance work for Hillman early in the primaries as well. One thing was for sure: There had been no résumé, no interview, just a phone call to Chicago the last week of April and a request that she be there by May. The campaign ate communications staff. In fact, one of her first tasks had been to come up with a spin on the high turnover. "We're just trying to accommodate the dozens and dozens of young people who want to put John Hillman in the White House," she had told the Washington Times.

Melanie was levelheaded enough to realize that not all manipulation was bad-she had learned that much in the library as well as in the trenches. Look at Lyndon Johnson, horse-trading and bullying for the sake of the Civil Rights Act. So if she spun in the service of access to birth control or tickled some junior AP stringer under the chin to get him to see things her way, well, the fate of the free world was at stake. Wasn't it?

Julie had put the champagne they were drinking on her boss's room service tab-"He'll just bill it to the client, anyway," she had reasoned. "That is the beauty of being a consultant: clients." She elbowed the guy next to her-a scruffy former speechwriter who seemed to be taking credit for something (all speechwriters do)-and obtained just enough space to reach for more champagne. Julie's elbowing arm was trim and forceful and sheathed in a perfectly pressed Prada pantsuit of summerweight wool, under which she wore a shirt of such crisp whiteness it glowed against her summer-gold skin and sleek, dark hair in the bar's dim lighting. Years after starting out as a Senate aide, she was enjoying all of the benefits-they were chiefly financial-of being in the private sector.

Now that is the beauty of being a consultant, thought Melanie, uncomfortably aware of how her clothes were always striver brands rather than arrived brands, somehow collecting grime each time they were folded in and out of her airline regulation-sized carry-on with its smashed zipper and squeaking wheel. Her clothes didn't seem to fit as well as they used to, either. She had always been curvy-though she preferred "voluptuous"-but a diet of Subway veggie sandwiches (she tried), whatever was left in the office vending machine (she didn't try that hard), and alcohol (sometimes she didn't try at all) had made her jeans tighter than they had been even two months ago.

She wanted a cigarette. The bar was supposed to be non-smoking and Lord knows the Democratic Party itself was supposed to be, but a thin haze hung at the top of the room anyway and she wanted in. The scruffy speechwriter was smoking now, so Melanie wondered aloud if she could get a cigarette from him. "Oh, sorry," he said. "I got this from her"-Melanie couldn't really follow his gesture, and suspected his vagueness was just a way of protecting his supply. He took a drag. "I never smoke." He smiled at her through a careful smoke ring.

He's full of it, Melanie thought. Everything's about withholding information with these people.

She surveyed the throng. The Four Seasons was one of those new downtown hotels that tried to look old, but in the bar they had given up and just gone with "generic expensive." Marble floors, scattered indoor palm trees, gold gilt anywhere your eye might rest, and furniture so anonymous that it seemed to disappear under the people who sat on it. And who were they? They were people that, a year ago, Melanie would have admitted she was impressed by-the editor of The New Republic, White House correspondents who had earned nicknames from the president, campaign professionals with bit roles in history-making moments (Howard Dean's webmaster, the leader of the Draft Clark movement, the Gore guy who first got the message that Florida was too close to call in 2000).

Today, she was still sort of impressed, but knew better than to admit it. In general, she felt it was only okay to be impressed by the really big names who normal people-her mom, maybe-would recognize: network news anchors like NBC's Brian Williams or movie stars like Ben Affleck-who seemed drawn to the campaign in exact disproportion to crowds being drawn to his movies-and, of course, John Hillman . . . who wasn't there.

Julie followed Melanie's gaze and read her mind: "It's like the fucking Star Wars cantina in here."

"Right," Melanie said, mindfully unimpressed. "Full of freaks."

"Freaks," Julie said, and switched to bland newsreader tones: "Who, come January, could be setting the agenda for a new administration-and a new era." She dropped back into normal register: "I bet Chuck Reed is already picking out his West Wing office."

"Oh, dear God." Melanie took a sip of champagne. "Is that confidence or arrogance?"

"I have to say, a win seems more likely after tonight's speech than it did yesterday." Julie's dark, slightly slanted eyes scanned the party, her full lips thinned into a smirk. Who here would be covering the next administration? Who would be working in it? The challenger's team always looked too young and too disheveled to make it but George Stephanopoulos had gone from wide-eyed wharf rat to the White House to ABC News.

Hillman's acceptance speech had been good. Or at least much better than everyone had expected. And his just barely surpassing expectations gave all the bored campaign writers the excuse they needed to make it a real race again. Melanie had watched the speech from the campaign's temporary war room in a grubby hotel across from the convention hall. Even the candidate's more-profuse-than-usual perspiration had been greeted with optimistic spin: "He looks human!" someone had exclaimed. Kind of a low bar, Melanie had thought, even as she made a mental note to mention the flop sweat to the next reporter who asked her if the candidate was "too stiff" to "connect" to real people.

Melanie found herself caught up in the wave of good feeling as well. After a hard slog through the early primaries, and then losing their precarious momentum to a series of small but painful gaffes, the campaign was picking up steam. They were ahead in the polls-not by much, but just above the margin of error, which was great, considering the high approval ratings Golden had been getting. They might actually win. People allowed their hopes to be raised. Bill Taft, the Buddha of the campaign, had even reportedly greeted Hillman as "Mr. President" when he stepped off the platform that night.

Just like they do every cycle, Mel thought. The bubble of hope broke. But across the room there was also a peal of drunken laughter. An almost foreign sound at a real D.C. party, where no one ever got drunk. Too drunk. And where only Republicans drank champagne.

"The problem with most Washington parties is that it never feels like anyone's going to get laid," Melanie said. "Even when people are naked and climbing into bed together, it doesn't feel like they're going to get laid."

"Hmm." Julie cast a sideways glance at her friend. "I have a pretty good sense of who's getting laid, actually. But really, the problem with most Washington parties is that there's not anyone there you'd want to be laid by. But this isn't really a Washington party, is it?"

Julie and Melanie picked out faces and murmured to each other the names of the famous-for-D.C. who were present and doled out shorthand evaluations: "dull as sand," "grabby," "looks like an alien's idea of a female human," "will never rise above cable." Julie had a perfect and highly compensated talent for summing up entire baskets of complicated personalities in a word or two. It's like bird-watching, Melanie thought. More vicious, but not as pretty.

Then Melanie saw a chance to flush out some excitement by poking at one of Julie's grudges: "I saw Karl Taylor come in earlier," she said, gesturing toward a tall, dark haired man in a shiny suit. He was the political director for NBN and the editor of The Point, the most read of Washington's daily political tipsheets.

Julie narrowed her eyes. "Maybe you should go let him stare at your chest. I mean, say hi."

Melanie grimaced. "For the sake of the campaign, I probably should."

"His precious Point," said Julie. "It started as an internal memo and now getting a mention in it gives you the Good Housekeeping seal of approval."

"Well, anyone who can make political journalism sexy . . ." Melanie began, goading her.

Julie interrupted, "Well, he has given reporters something to jerk off to, if that's what you mean. Now, more champagne. Do you see our waiter? You'd think a ninety-dollar bottle of champagne would get you better service than this."

"Not when half the bar is ordering the hundred-and-eighty-dollar bottles."

"And Al Franken's probably ordering the eight-hundred-dollar bottle." She drained her glass. "Fuck. All right, scoot out and I'll get more provisions."

Melanie obliged and Julie set off toward the bar. As she disappeared into the crowd, Melanie spotted Hank Lensky and smiled. Okay, it doesn't matter where we are, it's really a D.C. party now, she thought. Everywhere she looked there was someone new who had to be maneuvered around or acknowledged-and with Lensky, she'd need to do both. He had to be acknowledged because he was a softly fading newsmagazine superstar at Current with the off-duty demeanor of an excitable junior faculty member in a ruthlessly competitive English department. He gestured wildly, he wanted to talk about the last time you insulted him by accident, and he wanted to gossip about who was doing the next cover package. He had to be maneuvered around because he hit on any girl who might be a little impressed by him-or recognized him at all, for that matter.

She reached for her BlackBerry, thinking she'd tap out a quick digital warning that Julie should be careful what route she took on her return. Lensky had roped Julie into one too many lengthy conversations, usually ending in a hopeful invitation to adjourn to another party. Mysteriously, the only other guests at these parties were other forty-something bachelors. "I feel like I'm just lucky they've never actually asked me to jump out of a cake," Julie had reported after a night watching dog racing.

Warning Julie was suddenly less important when Melanie saw fifty new messages waiting in her inbox, and the convention gavel had only dropped an hour ago. Most were just offering congratulations on the candidate's speech, which Melanie did take a certain amount of pride in. She didn't have much influence in the campaign, but she had been there for the speech brainstorming session and felt that at least some of her ideas had been incorporated. Ideas such as, "the," "and," and "when." She sighed inwardly. Just to be invited into the room should be enough, she thought to herself, it's a long way from running for student government back in Davenport. But Melanie wanted to go further than the speechwriting room. It will be different if we win in November. Put in my time

now, as a glorified assistant to the communications director. Next stop: the White House.

Where I will be a glorified assistant to the communications director.

She was revived by a message on her BlackBerry screen:

To: ThortonM@hillman.com

From: Rick.Stossel@thinkmag.com

Subject: Polling

Congrats on a great convention . . . I think Hillman will get huge bounce . . .

How about you? Is there a huge bounce in your future?

It wasn't poetry. But Berrys didn't lend themselves to poetry. It was the message she'd been waiting for all night. Melanie looked around; Julie had yet to return. Twisting in her seat to shield the screen from her banquette-mates, Melanie thumbed a rushed reply:

To: Rick.Stossel@thinkmag.com

From: ThortonM@hillman.com

Subject: Re: Polling

I hear the beds at the 4 seasons are awfully springy. Where are u?

She spun the reassuringly mechanical wheel on the side of the thing, found "send" on the menu, and clicked.

"I decided to beat the rush and order a double," Julie announced, arriving with two waiters, accompanying buckets of iced bubbly . . . and Hank Lensky. Julie grimaced just slightly and flicked her head in his direction before regaining practiced brightness: "And you'll never guess who I found!"

Lensky grinned and swayed slightly. His hair was a gray-and-black wiry mass, thick and stiff enough to support a dinner plate without losing its shape. His tie was loosened at the neck of a chambray buttondown. "Quite a night for you, Mel. Let me buy you a drink." Melanie raised an eyebrow at Julie as the waiters prepared to open their newly purchased bottles. Julie rolled her eyes and shrugged, mouthing, "Let him."

"Save your money for election day," she said, pointing to the bottles already on deck.

Lensky mimed tragic disappointment, then fluttered his eyelashes behind his thick glasses. It's so third-grade, it's almost cute, thought Melanie. She had noticed that Washington was full of these born-again bachelors, men whose success in the sober field of politics or political journalism somehow freed them to behave like the high-school Lotharios they couldn't be at eighteen, when they were too busy getting their lunch money stolen and passing student council resolutions against depantsing. Their awkward flirting was a fun party game to observe, but it was never much fun to play. Lensky pouted: "You're not rejecting me, are you?"

"Rejection is such a harsh word. I'm tabling you for later consideration."

Julie had refilled their glasses and was scanning the room again, a skill she practiced with such efficiency that Melanie always half-expected her friend to emit sonar-like pings at the approach of any person of interest. Instead, Julie gave Melanie an elbow in the ribs, just before putting her arm around Hank: "Don't look now, but there's your good friend Rick Stossel," she said, brushing her arm up against his. "I heard he mentioned your piece on Hillman on Imus this morning, Hank. Very complimentary. Hey, you used to be on Imus a lot yourself, right? Why did you stop? Too early in the morning for you?"

Lensky looked around. "Yeah, something like that."

Julie couldn't help but twist the knife a little more: "Gosh, I swear you used to be on it all the time. And you were on Rick's show, too, a lot, I thought. . . ."

Lensky's eyes narrowed at Julie, who kept hers wide, with a blankish, innocent smile on her face. "They revamped the whole thing about three months ago," he told her. "They wanted to get a wider range of guests."

Julie knitted her brows and nodded as though Lensky were explaining a calculus problem to her. "So that's why Ron Brownstein is on only every other week now instead of every show?" Julie could pull the wings off flies like this now-it was one of the benefits of being in the private sector. On the Hill and on campaigns, staffers needed reporters more than reporters needed them. After years of currying favor on Capitol Hill, Julie took pleasure in pulling rank.

Melanie inclined her head toward her friend and mouthed, "Stop." Julie winked back then ignored Lensky: "Mr. Stossel is looking good, isn't he? I hear the ratings for Capitol Insider are getting better ever since he started doing that 'reading list' segment. His star has really risen lately. I guess there's no better shortcut to success in Washington than creating an insiders' club with arbitrary rules for membership."

"Yeah, everybody tracks that," Lensky added, looking wistful for the days when he used to not only appear on Stossel's show but also have his articles highlighted by the host.

Melanie spoke up: "I think it's kind of brilliant, really. He's made himself a tastemaker just by declaring himself one."

Lensky smiled. "All the more reason I should go over and pay my respects. You girls want to come over with me? I know he's a big fan of yours, too, Melanie." Lensky's slightly tipsy cadences sharpened up at that and he shot Melanie a more-sober-than-she-had-thought-possible look.

"Well," said Melanie, considering her options. "That's only because I'm fucking him." She smiled sweetly at Lensky as he choked on his drink.

Julie laughed-and then lost a little of her high-priced subtlety: "Haha! Oh, that's a good one, Mel!"

Lensky pounded on his chest, gasping. Julie glared over the diminutive investigative reporter's hunched shoulders and tried to will Melanie into shutting up. Through gritted teeth, she hissed, "What are you doing?"

Melanie continued to smile and stood to thump Lensky's back helpfully. She leaned over and whispered in Julie's ear: "Hiding in plain sight, sweetie."

Lensky sputtered back to normal, slightly flushed. "You got me there, Mel. Whew." He took a restorative swig of beer. "Sorry to have implied anything. Of course you wouldn't be screwing Stossel. He's way too visible. And it's too juicy. And hey," Lensky chuckled, "he'd probably have to cover it himself!"

Julie looked at Melanie square in the eye. "And then there's the fact that he's married."

"Oh, right. Hmm." The recently divorced Lensky looked at his shoes.

"That, too."

Not like that matters in this town, Melanie thought to herself, observing Lensky's discomfort. She drew herself up. "Right," said Melanie. "Right."

Julie took Lensky's arm. "Let's go say hi, eh?" She spun him around and started off. Turning her head over her shoulder, "Wanna come, Mel?"

Melanie waved: "No, thanks-we're fucking later!" she said brightly. Julie looked upward with exasperation. Lensky looked back over his shoulder quizzically. Julie jerked him forward.

Melanie could see Rick for herself now, surrounded by his own small gaggle of admirers. He still had traces of pancake along his jaw from doing television earlier. He was wearing a black suit, as usual, and his dark hair kept swinging in front of his eyes. He had a kind of body common in Washington, his skinny past evident in thin wrists and a gawky neck. He carried his moderate gut well, despite a slouch expertly calculated to show everyone how unimpressed he was. In his early forties, he was older than Melanie would have usually aimed for. But he was the national correspondent for THINK magazine, the kind of omnipresent journalist who drove town car drivers crazy with a schedule that on any given day might include a hit on Good Morning America, a call-in to Imus, lunch with a senator, and a shouting match with Chris Matthews. He also had his own Sunday afternoon show on the upstart news network America Now. And he wrote his share of cover stories, too.

Their courtship-or what passed for it-had begun with maddeningly terse e-mails from the high-flying power broker that managed to fuse flirtation with trace amounts of condescension. "Nice work on the plane today," he had written her after she spent a rare day out of the war room traveling with the campaign and listening to the daily briefing, "but you shouldn't wear pleated pants."

Melanie didn't think that she was the kind of girl who only responded to men who tried to woo her by putting her down. But the attention he gave her-both positive and negative-was addictive. Then there was the public flattery-not in his pieces, but in the third-hand compliments that found their way back to her. The gaming of that backchannel network probably impressed her more than the compliments themselves-and maybe just as much as who he was. He was someone her mom would recognize . . . though maybe not right away.

At first the attention had been embarrassing, especially when every other journalist in town had been writing stories about "the communications meltdown in the Hillman campaign." But when his public flattery had been combined with sly invitations to drinks and a locked-eyes series of compliments that started with "the smartest woman in politics" and continued through "the way those boots show off your legs," she found herself wondering what it would be like to have the romantic attention of someone so in demand. At any given moment, half of D.C. was trying to get him to buy their line, mention their story, or get booked on his show. From dinner with the New York Times's senior Washington correspondent he would Berry her e-mails asking her what underwear she was wearing or call her between cable TV appearances. "It's not that power is an aphrodisiac," she had told Julie later. "It's having someone powerful desire you."

As she looked at him from across the bar, he winked at her over Julie and Lensky, who hadn't quite made their way over to him yet. She grinned back and pulled out her Berry again.

To: ThortonM@hillman.com

From: Rick.Stossel@thinkmag.com

Subject: Re: Polling

I am somehow stuck in a conversation with Tom Edsall about campaign finance and he's given me 15 minutes already on independent expenditures and could be on for an hour more. Set off a bomb, break a window. Do something.

Let's leave.

To: Rick.Stossel@thinkmag.com

From: ThortonM@hillman.com

Subject: Re: Polling

I can see how that could get you excited. 5 minutes? In front of the bar?

She looked up just in time to see Rick look down to his belt to check for her messages. Melanie smiled to herself.

"You still working?" a voice at Melanie's elbow inquired. Melanie shoved her Berry back in her purse. Paul Lead, the Washington Post's shortish gossip columnist looked at her over the world's largest reporter's notebook. She felt a prickle of tension between her shoulder blades. She had some secrets to hide-she had just BlackBerried one of them-and although Lead's nose for dirt had been thrown off by a temporary posting to the paper's Baghdad bureau, he made her nervous.

"Oh, you know"-Melanie shrugged-"the spinning never stops."

Lead nodded, lowering his notebook and holstering his pen in its spiral. "It's true. What I wouldn't give for a good, honest war zone," he said wistfully. By unfortunate accident, the Washington Post's e-mail protocol conflated his first initial and last name. Everyone called him "Plead." As a handle, it was Dickensian but apt.

"Riiiight," said Melanie, steeling herself for the inevitable.

"All these parties. 'Are you on the list, are you off the list . . .' " Lead grumbled.

It's coming, she thought, in the next sentence he will mention Baghdad.

"I wish I were back in Baghdad. . . ." He sighed.

"Who doesn't?" Melanie replied.

He's like a walking drinking game. In fact, Julie and Melanie had tried to work one out once: If he mentions Baghdad take a shot. Bosnia a double. If you throw up before he puts his head on your shoulder you win.

"Feh. I guess I like not getting shot at."

"As opposed to all the free food and booze?" she asked.

"It's so fattening!"

"How could I have overlooked that. . . . They're real slave-drivers at the Post, aren't they?" She didn't hate him particularly. He was just the worst possible combination of possible Washington traits-tiresome and a potential threat. He was boring and dangerous.

"Oh, now you're making fun of me."

Melanie sighed and attempted to look for the flashing notification light on her Berry without appearing to look for it. She was unsuccessful-she had probably drunk too much champagne to pull off subtlety.

Lead scowled: "And now you've clearly got something more important to do."

The light was flashing, and even though she knew it was going to piss Lead off, she reached back into her purse and with one hand, fished the Berry out. "Sorry, Paul," she said. "Work, you know, work."

"Uh-huh."

To: ThortonM@hillman.com

From: Rick.Stossel@thinkmag.com

Subject: Re: Polling

I'm waiting for you now.

Melanie jerked her head up and looked around. Rick was just outside

the bar's exit, leaning against a pillar in the lobby, nonchalantly checking the insta-polls.

"Oh, crap," Melanie said as she put the pager back. "Really, sorry. But this is sort of important."

"Right." Lead looked toward the lobby. He looked like he might be pulling his pen out again.

"Uh, the dial groups just wrapped up," Melanie said, walking backward, still holding her champagne glass. "And they're through the roof!"

"Hmm. Can I call the campaign about that?"

"Yeah, sure!" Melanie said, wondering if, in fact, there was a dial group wrapping up. Sure there was! She turned around and began to trot toward the exit, the room spinning in front of her. Hey, I'm kind of hammered, she realized. Fuck, where's Julie? Melanie looked around quickly. She'll understand. Right? Right. She reached for her Berry with one hand. "Fuck," she muttered to herself. "Fuck!" she yelled, sprawling headfirst onto the floor. She caught herself hard on one hand and two knees. The champagne glass shattered. One of her pricey high graham cracker heels snapped. "Fuck."

Glancing up she saw Rick look toward her, through the bar's entrance, horrified. Hillary Clinton's chief of staff was standing next to him, and seemed frozen in mid-sentence. The entire bar was frozen in midsentence, really.

Melanie sighed, rolled over on her backside-into a small but still quite damp puddle of champagne. If she said "fuck" again in front of all these reporters, the FCC might get involved. She restrained herself and started to stand, shaking on her uneven heels. Julie hurried over as a busboy started sweeping up shards of glass. "That's her heel," Julie pointed out as she arrived. "Don't take that-it's worth more than the champagne."

"I fell off of my shoes," said Melanie, as though the scene needed an explanation.

People had started back to their conversations. Julie waved at the remaining gawkers. "She'll be doing another show at midnight, folks! Be here all week!" She handed Melanie her heel and said, more quietly, "Where's your boyfriend when you really need him?"

"Ha-ha." Melanie glanced out and saw Rick start toward the elevators.

"I gotta run."

"I don't think you're gonna get anywhere very fast."

"Yeah, yeah," said Melanie, lopsidedly loping out of the bar. "Hold the elevator! Going up! Hold the elevator!"

From inside the elevator, Rick's hand shot out. Melanie grabbed it and limped in.

It was just the two of them. He let the door close.

"Well," he said. "That was smooth."