2.0 #2
Evan ran two mock press questions. I answered on autopilot. Jenna cut me off twice to sand a corner. She was always right. Priya slid in to flag a rural clinic line we could add; I approved it. I almost sounded like I cared.
"Commerce in three," Jenna said. "Call's virtual but recorded. Evan stays for the first ten, then I'll send him out."
Margot tapped her phone, bored. "I'm going to stop by the caucus wife thing and say 'hi.'"
"It's spouses now," Jenna said without looking up.
"Right," Margot said, unbothered. She rose, smoothed her skirt, and brushed a hand along the back of my neck on her way past-light, suggestive, for show even when there were no cameras. Her fingers were cool. My skin didn't react.
She glanced over her shoulder. "Try to be charming," she said lightly, blue eyes bright like glass. "It photographs."
The door clicked behind her.
Evan muttered, "Charming's easy," and then went back to phrasing a line I'd never remember after I spoke it.
We did the call. Carlisle postured, I didn't rise. I said "epidemic," "evidence-based," "dignity." There was a swallow of dead air when a rural senator tried to bait me into a headline; I left it. Jenna texted me one word-Good-and that was that.
At 10:15 the screen went black. I took the earpiece out, rolled my shoulders once, then reached for the next folder.
Constituent letters, veteran housing pilot, a grant application for a river cleanup, a state trooper's widow who wanted me to sit in the front pew.
I initialed what needed my pen and sent the rest back with notes.
"Media hit at eleven-thirty," Evan said. "We're walking the hallway, so just...gesture, stop three beats at the rotunda, smile. You know the drill."
I did. My body knew the drill better than I did.
"Anything else?" I asked.
Jenna hesitated. "Bryan's team sent another request to get on your calendar. They didn't say why."
A cable flicked tight in my stomach and went still. "Today?"
"They asked for this week. I told them to send options."
"Good," I said, but the word had a weight.
Bryan was a generation older than me, a friend of my parents, the kind of man who remembered birthdays and also knew exactly where the cameras would be twenty minutes from now.
He'd been circling. Everyone knew he was circling.
You could smell the ambition on men like that before they even lifted their heads to catch the wind.
"Loop me when they send times," I added.
Jenna nodded once. She didn't ask if I wanted it. She knew better than to ask questions that were really traps.
The rest of the morning ran downhill. A constituent I actually liked came in with her daughter to talk about apprenticeships.
We took a picture. I almost smiled a real smile.
A union rep boxed gloves in my conference room and tried to get me to say the word "promise" into a recorder; I didn't.
A staffer briefed me on a crisis I'd be expected to care about by tonight; I taught my face how to look concerned.
Margot came back just before noon, trailing two board members and the vague scent of a department store.
She laughed at something one of them said and touched his forearm with a perfectly appropriate, carefully ambiguous amount of warmth.
She was a professional. I had to respect the competence even when it made me feel like I was watching myself from the ceiling.
When the door shut behind them, she let out a tiny sigh and dropped the smile. "What time should I be ready tonight?"
"There's nothing tonight," I said. "We cut the Gladwyne thing."
She made a face like I'd canceled a flight to Paris. "We can't keep skipping the suburban donors, Brooks. Optics matter."
"I said we cut it," I repeated. My voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. Cold left less mess.
She studied me. I let her. There was a time she would've tried a joke, tried soft. Not anymore. "Fine," she said. "Then I'll have dinner with Serena. We'll be back by nine if you need me to smile next to you on a couch somewhere."
"I don't," I said.
She crossed to me anyway, all silk and light footfall, and set her fingers at my jaw like a photographer had just asked her to. "You look tired," she said softly. "Try not to."
"Go to lunch," I said.
Her hand dropped. "Always a pleasure, Senator." She blew me a kiss that didn't land and left.
I exhaled slowly and stared at the door until the handle settled. Then I opened the drawer and found the bottle of antacids I wasn't supposed to need. Two chalky bites. A glass of water from the carafe. The urge to swap it for something stronger flickered and passed. Daylight had rules.
"Fifteen until you walk the rotunda," Jenna said from the doorway, already moving. "We'll hit three local outlets and give the wire a clean pull quote."
"Which one will try to get cute?" I asked.
"The freelancer in the navy blazer. She'll ask if you're eyeing a national profile. You'll say, 'I'm eyeing the work.'"
"I'm eyeing the work," I repeated, and almost smiled.
We stepped into the hallway and the performance started again.
Rotunda. Flags. Microphones lifting like flowers.
I said the words. I said them in a way that made people think I meant them.
Maybe I did, in some skeletal way. I liked building things.
I liked fixing something that stayed fixed once in a while.
It was the rest of it that felt like carrying a refrigerator up a flight of stairs every day for a house that wasn't mine.
After, a legislative aide with too much gel and not enough sleep hustled a family over. A kid with a buzz cut wanted to shake my hand. I crouched to get on his level and asked about his baseball team. His mother's eyes welled. It was the first sincere moment I'd had in three hours.
Back in the office, Priya slid another memo under my nose about a water treatment upgrade we could attach to the broader bill if we moved fast. She was good; she didn't waste my time. "If we call O'Neal's staff now, we can stake the ground before Carlisle tries to drag you on cost."
"Call O'Neal," I said. "Offer to co-sponsor if he gets out of my county in the press. Put it in writing."
Priya's mouth curved, impressed. "Sharp."
"Jenna taught me," I said.
Jenna, from across the room: "I teach you everything."
"You do," I said. It came out almost wry. She looked at me over the top of her tablet, measuring my face for cracks. I kept it smooth.
It went like that until the clock slid toward late afternoon.
The office never went quiet, not really-phones, footsteps, the low whirr of a printer somewhere chewing through paper.
But there's a point in the day when the light shifts across the window and you feel the weight of evening queue up behind the glass.
I was reviewing a line item about port dredging when Jenna's shadow fell across my desk. "Bryan's office."
I looked up.
"They want to stop by," she said. "Today. He's in town for a closed-door with leaders and said if you've got ten, he'll make it five."
"What's the cover?" I asked.
"'Checking in on Pennsylvania,'" she said, deadpan.
I glanced at the clock, at the stack of paper begging to become something, at the glass of water with lemon going warm on the coaster. "Tell him five."
She didn't write it down. She didn't have to.
She hovered half a beat longer, which she never did without a reason. "You good?"
"Define good," I said.
"Functional," she said.
"Always," I said. It was the closest thing to a joke I'd made all day. She shook her head once, almost a smile, and went to marshal the furniture on my calendar to make the meeting appear out of nowhere.
I stood, walked to the window, and rolled my sleeves to my forearms. The glass held my reflection for a second-tall, lean, hair combed back, jaw harder than it had been five years ago. People said I looked like I'd grown into myself. I felt like I'd grown into a suit of armor I couldn't take off.
Monte texted me that the car would be on standby if the schedule blew up. Margot texted a photo of a luncheon table she obviously hadn't eaten at, with a caption that read, Don't forget we're due at Serena's by eight if you change your mind. I didn't answer either.
I turned away from the glass and sat back down, palms flat on the desk, the wood cool under my hands.
Five minutes.
I could already hear the shape of the conversation in my head-the sanded edges, the compliments that were hooks, the way older men smile when they're offering you a crown they plan to hold onto by the ribbon.
I straightened the stack of papers on my desk, made the top line read better, and told the receptionist to send Bryan in the second he stepped off the elevator.
When the knock finally came, it was soft, like he owned the door.
The door opened and Bryan O'Connor stepped through like he owned the building. He wasn't a tall man, but he carried himself like one. Dark suit, deep navy tie, silver at his temples that made him look seasoned instead of old. His handshake had always been firm, his smile calculated just shy of warm.
"Brooks," he said, like we were catching up over coffee instead of standing in a state office thick with history and expectation. "You look sharper every time I see you. Harrisburg's treating you well."
"Depends on the day," I said, gesturing toward the chairs across from my desk.
He didn't sit right away. Walked instead to the window, looked out at the Susquehanna cutting its slow line through the city. "Hell of a view," he murmured. "Reminds me why this state matters."
That was Bryan-every word a little bigger than the room.
When he finally turned, his smile widened just enough. "You've done well for yourself, Brooks. Better than most at your age."
Compliment as hook. Always the same rhythm.
"Appreciate that," I said, easing back in my chair. "I've had a good team."