The GQ Candidate: A Novel - Softcover

Goff, Keli

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1439158738 ISBN 13: 9781439158739

Publisher: Atria, 2012

Synopsis

The West Wing meets Entourage when “one of the most provocative political bloggers in the country” (The Philadelphia Tribune) exposes the stunning implications a historical bid for the presidency has on the candidate’s inner circle.

Michigan governor Luke Cooper, one of the few black and—by virtue of adoption—Jewish elected officials, stuns his tight-knit friends with his decision to run for president. But could their efforts to help ultimately be his political downfall? Scandal and gossip surrounding his supporters rock his campaign, and even Luke’s wife grows wary of the spotlight when a surprise from their past inconveniently resurfaces. . . .

Selected for the Los Angeles Times’s summer reading list and as one of More magazine’s “Beach Reads You’ll Love,” Keli Goff ’s clever and entertaining debut novel is a spot-on golden ticket into the secret heart of the political circus.

About this title

About the Author

Keli Goff is an author, blogger and political analyst whose commentary on politics and pop culture appears regularly in national television, print and online publications. She is a frequent guest on news programs on the networks CNN, FOX, MSNBC and NPR, and is a regular contributor to TheLoop21.com and the Huffington Post. She is the author of the book PARTY CRASHING: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence. This is her first novel.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1

Laura Cooper was having one of those days.

She was already running late that morning, having completely forgotten that her youngest son, Milo, was supposed to be at school early for a special choir practice. While she was rushing around the kitchen trying to make Milo and his brother a quick breakfast she dropped an entire carton of milk that splattered not only the kitchen floor, but the ceiling, her clothes, and even her hair. Laura rarely cursed but if there was ever a time to do so it was now. She didn’t have to, though. The moment the milk dropped Laura heard a loud “Oh shit!”

It was six-year-old Milo.

“What did you say?” Laura asked.

Milo looked at her bashfully.

“Nothing.”

“Where did you hear that word?” Laura demanded.

“Daddy,” Milo’s older brother, James, declared. “He said it when he spilt his drink in the car.”

“Did he?” Laura replied. “Well that is not a nice word and it’s not a word that little boys should be saying.”

“But daddies can say it?” Milo asked, confused.

“Daddies shouldn’t say it either.”

“Is Daddy in trouble?”

“He will be when I see him,” Laura said. “Which is hardly ever . . . ,” she mumbled under her breath.

The last two years had been great for her husband Luke’s career but terrible on their marriage. He was now Governor Luke Cooper, one of the youngest governors in the nation and among a handful who are black or Jewish—he being both. And he was widely recognized as a rising national star in the Democratic Party. His friends had taken to jokingly referring to him as “Mr. President,” a nickname that Luke seemed to eat up, but which drove Laura insane. She had taken to calling him that herself, but only when she was irritated with him. As in “Mr. President. Would it be too much trouble for you to put your dishes in the dishwasher like everyone else in this family does—including your sons who are in elementary school?”

The night before Laura’s spilt milk, Luke dropped a bombshell that made the moniker more than a term of endearment among his inner circle. He announced that he was considering a run for the presidency. At the behest of some of his advisors he had done some polling and it showed that he was a viable candidate for the next presidential election, less than three years away. He had decent national name recognition and his favorability rating among those who knew who he was was through the roof.

“So what do you think?” He asked her like a kid waiting to receive a gold star from a parent for good grades on a report card.

Laura stood in her nightgown staring at him for a moment.

Finally she replied, “I’m . . . I’m sorry but I’m really tired.”

Luke, looking a bit like a deflated balloon said, “Oh. Well I know you’ve had a long day. We can talk about this tomorrow.”

But that’s not what Laura meant. She meant she was tired of it all. Tired of campaigning. Tired of living in a fishbowl. Tired of feeling like a single parent while he hopped from one event to another across the state seven days a week. And most of all tired of pretending that her black, Jewish husband didn’t receive death threats as regularly as most people receive junk mail.

She climbed into bed.

Luke climbed in beside her an hour later. Though she was still wide-awake, the thought of a presidential campaign weighing on her, terrifying her, she pretended to be asleep. He scooted next to her and wrapped his arm around her waist, reached for her hand and whispered in her ear “Love you.” She didn’t say a word, but gently squeezed his hand.

When Laura awoke the following morning she was exhausted, having gotten only a few hours of restless sleep, and she was torn.

As much as Luke’s happiness meant to her—and it meant a lot—she had to admit that while the two of them began their life with similar dreams—or so she thought—this was not the case today.

While Laura dreamed of a life out of the public eye, having been burnt by the nasty rumors and innuendo that accompanied Luke’s gubernatorial race, Luke now dreamed of the White House.

She had always put their family first even when he didn’t. She had loved teaching and being in the classroom but gave up her career as Luke’s political star rose. And that wasn’t the end of her sacrifice. There were days when he left the house at 7 a.m.—just as the boys were rising—only to return after 11 p.m. long after they had gone to sleep. More and more she began to feel not like half of a power couple, but rather like a single parent. She hadn’t signed up for having her own career goals and dreams become secondary. She had wanted to become a specialist helping children with learning disabilities from disadvantaged backgrounds and once thought of pursuing her PhD in the subject. That was a distant memory now. Laura recalled once hearing a relationship “expert” say that healthy relationships are characterized by compromise on the part of both but endless sacrifice by neither. And yet after all of these years she felt as though she was the only one doing the compromising and sacrificing.

Luke and Laura rarely fought. Neither was really the raise-your-voice type, but they did have one legendary blowout that was still a source of teasing among Luke’s friends. Both of the boys had come down with the flu and Laura had spent her day wiping noses, making soup, and cleaning up vomit. When Luke returned home around 9, the boys were sound asleep while Laura was sitting on the couch staring blankly at the TV screen, clearly exhausted. When he walked in and bellowed, “Hey, hon!” she barely looked up and simply said, “Hey.”

“How are the little guys?”

“Asleep.”

“Awww. Hate I missed ’em.”

Then he took off his coat and threw it on a chair like he always did, and began giving a rundown of his day as he made his way to the kitchen shouting, “Hey, hon—where’s the leftover meatloaf?”

“Second shelf of the fridge.”

“I looked. Can’t find it.”

“It’s on the second shelf.”

“Can’t find it.”

“Well it’s there.”

“Hon, can’t you just come help me find it? I’m just so tired. You know I had to work all day.”

Laura sat upright. Jumped off of the couch. Walked into the kitchen. She reached for the Tupperware container, positioned smack in the middle of the second shelf, with a small label reading “meatloaf,” and handed it over to him. She then pulled out a container of gravy, opened it, and proceeded to pour the cold goop over his head.

“What the!??” he screamed.

“I worked all day too!” she said. “If you’d like to trade places and stay here tomorrow cleaning up puke while I fill in for you sitting and talking with a bunch of adults, be my guest.”

She then turned on her heel and walked out of the kitchen, but not before shouting back at him, “And in case you hadn’t noticed, the hall closet is for hanging clothes like your coat.”

Luke was stunned. In all their years together he had never seen Laura so angry.

The following morning, when Laura woke at 5 to check on the boys, Luke wasn’t beside her. She looked in the spare bedroom, then on the couch.

Finally she went into Milo’s bedroom and saw Luke sleeping on the floor next to his son’s bed with a box of tissues on his chest and an open bottle of children’s cough syrup next to him. Milo’s arm was dangling down the side of the bed with his tiny fingers wrapped around Luke’s thumb.

Laura walked into the kitchen to prepare herself a quiet cup of coffee and was struck by two things. The kitchen was spotless. The dishes were put away and the floor gleamed where a puddle of gravy had been the night before. There was a beautiful bouquet of yellow roses—her favorite—on the breakfast table, and a note that read “To the hardest working person in our home. I love and APPRECIATE you. Luke.”

And so Laura continued with their delicate compromise, and from that day on Luke continued making an effort to let her know how much he appreciated her for it. Their compromise then took them all the way to the governor’s mansion and now Luke was hoping it would take them all the way to the White House.

She needed advice. So she decided to talk to the one person she knew she could trust: her mother-in-law, Esther.

Ever since losing her own mother to cancer Laura had grown extremely close to Luke’s. Esther had longed for a daughter and in Laura she had finally gotten one. They were a bit of an odd couple, and the strength of their bond perplexed some, particularly Esther’s other daughters-in-law. After all, unlike them, Laura wasn’t even Jewish—far from it. But this black woman who had been raised Catholic, and now attended an Episcopalian church, was the one who most reminded Esther of her younger self. Laura was tough in a quiet and unassuming sort of way. She put her kids first—ahead of her own career and ahead of her husband.

Laura and Esther often did mother–daughter things together—something they actually began to keep secret so that the other Cooper wives wouldn’t grow jealous. They had a standing appointment for mani-pedis every three weeks at Bebe’s Day Spa, a perfect occasion for Laura to seek Esther’s help in coming to terms with Luke’s new ambition. As they sat with hands and feet under dryers, Esther finally asked Laura what was wrong.

“And don’t try to convince me that something’s not wrong. I can al...

About this edition

• Publisher: Atria
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1439158738
• ISBN 13: 9781439158739
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384