Ultimatum by Matthew Glass Read Free Book Online Page B

rug.
     
    “Looks like Hugo Montera might turn me down for Labor,” he said eventually.
     
    “And you want a Latino in the job?”
     
    “He’s a good guy.”
     
    “Why’s he turning it down?”
     
    “He wasn’t very clear. Disillusioned, something like that. Disillusioned with government after his last stint.”
     
    Heather Benton reached for her husband’s hand. “Then you just have to reillusion him, Joe. You can do that.”
     
    Joe looked at her and smiled. He could see the way she was watching him. She knew whatever was troubling him, it wasn’t Hugo Montera turning down the Department of Labor.
     
    “You know,” she said, “I’ve had a thought. Maybe I won’t give up my job when I become first lady.”
     
    Joe stared at her. Then he started laughing.
     
    “What? Is it crazy?”
     
    Heather Benton was CEO of YouthMatters, a Washington-based organization that relied on private donations to run programs in inner city neighborhoods.
     
    “I think it’s great. It’ll give them…” Joe hooted with amusement. “I don’t know what they’ll make of it.”
     
    “Do you think it’ll make things too difficult for you?”
     
    “Hell, no! You do it!”
     
    “It’s just, I can’t see why I should leave. I care about this job. I care about these issues. I know there are things I can do as first lady, and I’ll cut back my time so I can carry out my functions. I’ll ask Walt if we can employ a deputy, and I’ll forgo salary so there’s no financial issue . . .” She stopped. “What do you think? Really?”
     
    “I think it’s groundbreaking. You want to do it, honey, you do it.”
     
    “I still need to think about it. I haven’t said anything to Walt because I wanted to see what you’d say.”
     
    Joe nodded. He laughed again. “Let’s give ‘em hell!”
     
    “Well, I’m still going to think about it.”
     
    The smile lingered on Joe’s face. He looked down at the rug again. The smile faded.
     
    “Do you remember the night Al Gore lost to George W. Bush?” he said. “First the concession, then the withdrawal.”
     
    Heather looked at him. “Sure.”
     
    “I was in my senior year of law school at U of A. That was the first election when I was really active in a campaign.” Joe smiled and shook his head, remembering. “That was one hot summer. I saw every dusty square inch of Arizona.” He turned to Heather. “Where were you that night? Do you remember?”
     
    “I,” said Heather, “was a sophomore at Brown. Dating an incredibly objectionable guy called Will Danforth. I can’t believe I did, now that I think about it.”
     
    “And on that night...”
     
    “Well, that’s the point. He was so damn happy that night, I think that’s what turned me into a Democrat. And that, my darling, is possibly the reason I was at a certain rally in Boston four years later. Which is where, if I’m not mistaken, I met a certain young staffer on the Kerry campaign called...now, who was it? Oh yes. Joseph Benton.”
     
    “Hell’s bells! You’re saying I have George W. Bush beating Al Gore to thank for thirty years of married bliss?”
     
    “And Will Danforth,” said Heather, with an exaggerated shudder.
     
    Benton smiled. Then his expression became serious again. “You know, that night, the night Gore lost, I felt the world had just kind of fallen in. Everything was going to get messed up by that goddamn fool George W. Bush and nothing would ever be all right again.”
     
    “That wasn’t far off the truth.”
     
    “The thing is . . . You think, if Gore had got in, we wouldn’t be in this mess now?”
     
    Heather ran her fingers over Joe’s hand. “Is the mess really so bad, Joe?”
     
    Joe looked at his wife. He hadn’t told her what he had learned from Dr. Richards three days earlier. But Heather could sense that something had changed, something disturbing.
     
    “You think Gore would have got us going? You think we would have started doing the