Page 117 of See You Next Tuesday

He absentmindedly opened Anya’s Instagram feed, the same way he always did when he felt like torturing himself. There she was huddled with Jo as they made edits on a speech, and eating pizza on the campaign plane with Preethi, and bursting into laughter on a rope line with that guy Hugo. Hugo was all over Anya’s stories too—the two of them were in a whirlwind of rallies and excitement and late-night burger runs, all while Gabe was stuck in Maryland.

Gabe knew Anya would never cheat on him, with Hugo or anyone—she was way too principled for that. Still, there was something about Hugo that bothered Gabe to no end. He was like Zeke 2.0, the same dependable salt-of-the-earth quality Anya liked, except wittier, more observant. Gabe had checked out Hugo’s feed a couple times—okay, a few times—to see if Anya was similarly all over it. She was. Even worse, Hugo’s captions were legitimately funny. When Gabe was up working until three or four in the morning, when the campaign seemed hopeless and sleep felt impossible and Anya didn’t text him back, he imagined her talking with Hugo. Laughing together. Arguing over strategy, him needling her for the sheer joy of watching her cheeks turn red. Anya falling for Hugo the same way she’d once fallen for Gabe.

It wasn’t true—Gabe knew none of it was true. But he also knew that it could be. And that thought kept him awake.

“Gabe?” Hannah stuck her head into his office. “They’re ready for you.”

Gabe had hated media huddles even when Wheeler was winning the race, but now the meetings were nearly unbearable. The mood in the office was increasingly desperate, and the work only piled higher: more to do, less money to do it, everyone infighting and on edge. There was general agreement that they needed a major strategy shift—and tonight, with Senator Wheeler joining by telephone from his hotel in South Carolina, they were going to decide what it was.

“Senator? Can you hear us?” Gabe asked.

“Yeah.” Senator Wheeler’s voice crackled slightly over the black speakerphone set in the center of the conference table. “Go ahead.”

“Senator, it’s time to go negative,” Hal said. Gabe opened his mouth, but Hal held out his hand to stop him. “Gabe, you’ve made a lot of smart arguments articulating the risks, but we’re out of time. If we don’t cut into Sessego’s margin, we’re done.”

“I think there’s another way,” Gabe said. “A less risky way.”

“What is it?” Senator Wheeler asked.

“We know Liddy and Nathan are likely to run out of money after Super Tuesday, or maybe even before it—but we need them out of the race now,” Gabe said. “So let’s make them an offer.”

“Offer?” Lev asked. “What offer?”

“Whatever they want,” Gabe said. “Convention spot, cabinet position, ambassador to Micronesia—let them rob the store.”

“Christmas at the horse farm?” Hal said wryly, and Senator Wheeler chuckled on the phone.

“Sure,” Gabe agreed. “Give them anything. It’s worth it to get their voters.”

“What makes you think their voters won’t go to Sessego?” Margaret asked.

“Some of them might, but the vast majority will come to us,” Gabe reasoned. “These are mainstream voters who want to win in November. They want a moderate option, not a populist uprising.”

“I think that’s probably true,” Hal agreed. “But we still need a fail-safe. Even if Liddy and Nathan leave the race, Sessego poses too big a risk. We need to neutralize her.”

“With ads that say she can’t be trusted to run our armed forces? That she’ll open our borders?” Gabe scoffed. “It’s racist garbage. If we run with it, we cede the high road going into the general—and that’s if we even make it to the general. Sessego is running a positive campaign about transformational change. If we drag this race into the mud, the backlash could be bad enough to sink us.”

“Well, that’s an easy fix,” Hal said.

“How do you figure, Hal?” Wheeler asked.

“The ads won’t come from us,” Hal explained. “We make the media buys through the super PAC. They certainly have enough money. That way the senator never has to say he approves the message, but we still get it out there and destroy her with it.”

“I like the sound of that,” Wheeler said, and the consultants laughed. Gabe felt sick to his stomach.

“Senator, you don’t have to win this way,” Gabe pled. “Your accomplishments on defense speak for themselves. Your stance on immigration matches the voters’. Let’s clear the field, and then let’s make a full-throated case for why you’re the right choice for the American people.”

“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing for the last year?” Lev demanded. “It’s not enough.”

Gabe ignored Lev and spoke directly to the speakerphone. “Sir, this campaign will be a major part of your legacy. Do you want to be remembered as the candidate who played on people’s worst instincts?”

There was a long pause. They all stared at the black box, waiting for it to speak.

“Get Liddy and Nathan out, and tell the super PAC to put the attack ads on the air tomorrow,” Wheeler said bluntly. “I want to be remembered as the candidate who won.”

Chapter 19

Anya woke to her phone ringing. She sprang up in bed. Had she overslept? Did she miss the charter flight? The debate was tonight; she needed to be in South Carolina. She picked up the phone in a panic.