Adventures of the Artificial Woman (16 page)

As outlandish as the idea sounded when first heard, it became more sensible the longer Pierce considered it. When the committee finally came up with suggested candidates, they were either worn-out has-beens of one party or the other; nowobscure former military leaders; or in one case an eccentric ex-president of an Ivy League university, Zoroastrian, bike-riding, clog-wearing.

“Let's face it,” said Howell Fairchild, his white eyebrows rising, “the offer simply does not attract anyone of much potential.” He smiled benignly. “For the reasons previously stipulated.”

 

Munro T. Wentworth, a pharmacist in a little village in southern Illinois, became Phyllis's running mate when, suffering from one of the headaches that were routine on the campaign trail, Pierce stopped off to buy Nuprin at Wentworth's drugstore.

“Nice little shop you've got here. I haven't ever seen a real soda fountain before.” There was even a pair of those elongated glass globes, hanging from chains, in the show window, one filled with orange-colored fluid, the other with green.

“You wouldn't want to make me an offer?” asked the druggist, a comb-over man with a fringe of gray hair and a snub nose. He looked to be in his late forties.

“You're being underpriced out of business by the chain pharmacy at the mall.”

“I shouldn't admit that if I want to sell the store,” Wentworth sheepishly confessed, “but yes.”

“I'll make you a better offer,” said Pierce.

Wentworth was not as amazed as he might have been, or again perhaps it was rather that he was simply not demonstrative. Whichever, such a low level of emotional energy was all to the good for the role he was being given. With equanimity he accepted the condition that he would remain almost as unobtrusive as he had been as a pharmacist, his reward being a campaign expense account more generous than the revenue his store had brought in in recent years. He didn't even require his wife's permission. She had wanted to leave town for the past decade.

“And don't worry about the debate, if any,” Pierce assured him. “If there is one, you'll be coached beforehand. Meanwhile, we'll furnish you with a standard speech, to be delivered at the places on the itinerary we'll draw up. Your greatest asset is that you've actually done something in real life, unlike either of your opposite numbers, career politicians.”

Phyllis had yet to state a policy on any issue, Pierce and the advisors, including foremost among them canny old Howell Fairchild, having determined that an inexperienced candidate did better to say too little than too much. No one has ever had to eat unuttered words, and no matter how late a position is taken, it can usually be defended as preferable to a rash rush to judgment. “Let 'em yap,” said Fairchild, “as long as the window of opportunity hasn't closed. The secret's in knowing when to drop the ax.”

Pierce had to clarify some of these figures of speech for Phyllis, while urging her never to use them while ad-libbing, lest she inadvertently get into Ransome-like flaps. The governor had on several occasions innocently employed an expression that might have been acceptable in another context than the one at hand, but to say that a black cloud hung over the Sloan economy offended an African-American interviewer, and many persons of short stature found insulting Ransome's insistence that the few foreign-policy accomplishments of Sloan's five-foot Secretary of State were dwarfed by his many shortcomings.

When Phyllis, along with Sloan, was challenged to a series of debates by Governor Ransome, her camp waited for the President's reaction. Sloan was not at full strength in such a situation. He excelled only when he could take an initiative, but was often at a loss with topics chosen by others. In the three debates with General Ralph Wellington, his opponent in the first campaign, the judgment of most media analysts was that Sloan had lost a good two and a half. He had boned up on issues of defense, hoping at least to hold his own against the expert Wellington, but felt betrayed when, during the first debate, military matters were all but neglected in favor of national health policy—and the general scored big with an unexpected display of concern for those both poor and ill while Sloan spoke in a way that could be interpreted as callous.

The President did no better in succeeding weeks on the subjects of the economy, Social Security, veterans' benefits, the lot. He was credited with the half a victory (more properly, half a loss) when in a discussion of agricultural policy he reminisced warmly of his rural youth, cleaning out stables, plowing the back forty, slopping the pigs, among which was a three-legged hog he named Horace. Wellington thereupon reflected aloud that in one of their previous meetings Sloan had claimed a peculiar sense of small-business problems that derived from those of the laundromat his father had tried to operate at the edge of a big-city ghetto.

“That's right,” Sloan agreed. “Summers I was sent out to my country uncle's hard-luck little farm.” He then displayed the wit that subsequently got him elected, regardless of his so-called deficiencies as identified by the talking heads. “I cain't say I was ever much of a farmer, but I did acquire one skill there that still comes in handy: I can always reckanize manure.”

This thrust got a raucous ovation from his attendant claque and was widely quoted from then on throughout the campaign. The celebrated columnist and pundit Dexter Halliday spent Election Day evening in General Wellington's hotel suite, and his report on this experience gained him still another Pulitzer nomination. When the outcome was clear, along about midnight, Wellington shook his mane of snowy hair and addressed his wife, who was of his own age but looked a decade younger. “Mother, we went to an awful lot of trouble only to prove that politics is what I always thought it was: horseshit.”

Howell Fairchild believed it likely that Sloan would pass up the debates altogether this time. There was no legal requirement that they be held, and the polls regularly suggested that few watched them and fewer were influenced. Elaine DeMillo, a leading member of Phyllis's team and an early defector from Ransome's when a series of his gay-bashing golf-course jokes were overheard by a caddy and reported, urged Phyllis to participate in the debates only if Sloan did so as well. But Fred O'Casey, veteran of almost as many campaigns as Fairchild, advised her to take the opposite course and debate only if the President did not.

“Those two are always at odds,” Pierce noted privately to Phyllis. “Maybe we ought to ease one or the other out.”

“That would not be wise,” said Phyllis. “Each is very bright. Having opposing points of view on hand provides equilibrium.”

“It just makes me uncomfortable that they don't like each other.”

“On the contrary, they are in love.”

“What?
Isn't Elaine a Lesbian?”

“Certainly not. She and Fred have been romantically connected since the campaign began and are planning to get married after my victory. Opposites attract, Ellery. Politically she's an idealist, while Fred is a pragmatist.”

“How do you know such things, Phyllis?”

“Girl talk.”

“I hope
you
don't exchange girlish confidences.”

“Hardly,” Phyllis said. “I'm running for the Presidency.”

“Then she doesn't know you're pregnant. Which reminds me, it's time your belly begins to thicken.”

“That's your job, Ellery.”

It was the sharp-eyed columnist Inez Goldwyn who first, as a half-joke, asked whether Phyllis, though campaigning vigorously in coast-to-coast whistle-stop swings, had managed to gain weight or had, remarkably at such a time, become pregnant? A few weeks thereafter, it was no longer a question.

Wearing expectant-mother attire, a tails-out blouse under which her abdomen was mounded, Phyllis made the announcement at a news conference attended by clamorous media personnel, who subsequently reacted according to the persuasions of their respective front offices. Running for President while carrying a baby was either a mockery of human values or a celebration thereof; an astonishingly cynical political device or a heartwarming statement of fecundity as opposed to the cold quest for power; the ascendancy of office over family or absolutely vice versa.

Phyllis's ratings rose or fell throughout the constituencies, going higher among Hispanics, African Americans (with whom since early on she had already been the front-runner), and, somewhat surprisingly to most of her team, gay men; whereas she lost some support from Lesbians, a good deal from born-again Christians, and all of the little she had hitherto enjoyed with orthodox Jews, who were basically in Ransome's pocket. The split between the homosexes, though mysterious to Howell Fairchild who dated from a time when such matters were kept discreet, was easily explained by Elaine DeMillo: gay men were notoriously sentimental about motherhood; Lesbians were not.

In sum, however, a pregnant Phyllis, who had regained with a vengeance her former support by the soccer moms, soon had climbed from her flat-bellied 19 percent to 25, taking most points from Governor Ransome, still leading at 38, with the President now at 32. If these figures held, the current 5 percent undecided would not make a difference, but of course such numbers never were stable, as Fairchild and O'Casey could affirm from unhappy experiences with early front-runners who were trounced on Election Day.

Pierce still had no confidants but Phyllis. “I know we had decided you would have a miscarriage not long before the election, but—”

“Excuse me, Ellery. If there was a decision, it was yours,” Phyllis said. “I only participated in the discussion.”

“Quite right, as usual, Phyl. Here's what I'm getting at now: what a shock it will be, with possible negative consequences, if you lose the child you're supposedly carrying. We're getting such a terrific boost from the pregnancy—the latest Gallup puts you now at only two points below Sloan. Zogby calls you one up and closing on Ransome. Furthermore, the expected mudslinging by your opponents has not yet occurred, and in my opinion—supported by both Elaine and Fred along with most of the rest of our team—it may never happen. A pregnant woman is probably immune from personal attack.”

Phyllis wore substantial padding, suggesting a hefty infant to come, symbolic of health, strength, and prosperity. She had adopted an appropriate carriage and stride. As with everything else she did, her performance as an expectant mother was flawless. She was sitting now with her trousered legs apart to accommodate the burden above, a slightly coarse posture, but they were alone in their private quarters in the campaign aircraft—that same private jet they had originally planned to buy for Pierce's vacation, way back when.

“If you are now considering that perhaps I should simulate the delivery of a child, remember that in addition to the aforementioned necessity of producing new artificial infants at regular intervals, there's another problem, Ellery. How then could you ever reveal what I am? The American public might accept an animatronic Presidential candidate, but never would it condone the birth of a robot baby.”

T
he details of the miscarriage had to be concealed from Phyllis's own team (except of course Janet and Cliff, who needed no explanation), though it proved an easier cover-up during the frenzy of the late campaign than it might have at a time of fewer distractions. The physical procedure consisted only of the removal of padding. For the sake of the imposture, Phyllis stayed out of sight from all for twenty-four hours. As to the doctor and medical facility, Pierce told another story to each member of the inner circle, begging each never to reveal it. When everybody immediately did so to one another, they did not resent but rather admired the skill of this till now inexperienced politico at disqualifying in advance the inevitable leakage to favored outlets.

No two media references agreed, but the mystery if anything only seemed to increase Phyllis's approval by a public that while always eager for news about celebrities invariably applauded their demand for privacy and indignant denunciation of the paparazzi.

The miscarriage was used by each side in the ongoing abortion debate to make its own case, as absurd as that might seem to its opponent: Leave the termination of pregnancy to God, or, Why would God object to abortions when He performs them Himself? Phyllis never announced her own policy on this issue or indeed any other. Commentators at first needled her for her apparent lack of any program whatever, or even a discernible political philosophy, and when this had no effect, moved into broad derision. What kind of hoax was here being imposed on the American electorate?

At a typical rally, after a preliminary hour of rousing band music, a prancing Rockette line of winsome young women in red, white, and blue miniskirts and straw boaters labeled
PHYLLIS
, and the distribution of balloons, rubber-reeded Bronx-cheer devices on which to blow at any reference to the other Presidential candidates, and clackers and horns for the riotous celebration of every optimistic truism, Phyllis herself would clatter down by helicopter in whichever landing space was offered, sometimes so constricted as to imperil the crowd.

For such appearances she was attired in action-film costume, metallic bra, gold helmet, molded bronze greaves, short sword at waist, coiled lash in hand. She was body-miked with an impeccable system designed by Pierce himself.

“You all know who I am.
[Horns and clackers, initiated by shills distributed throughout the audience]
I won't waste your time as the others do!
[Flatulent noise of vibrating rubber]
I respect every human being!
[Hitherto unseen placards rise, labeled
PHYLLIS, YOU THE GIRL
]
I want the best for each American, and I can get it for you.
Everything will be all right
….” With a wave of her gauntleted arm, she would leap back into the helicopter, which quickly rose and made a hummingbird escape toward the horizon.

“Everything will be all right” soon became the popular tag phrase of the moment, widely ridiculed but even more widely repeated, especially by the young, as a kind of involuntary verbal tic. This had been Phyllis's aim, as defined at a strategy meeting with the brain trust, none of whose members, including even Pierce, had at first agreed with her contention that such a platitudinous pseudo-statement could have any but a deleterious effect.

“My study of past Presidential campaigns suggests otherwise,” she had said. “People usually elect the candidate who is most reassuring, even in a time when there are no specific crises, for it is the nature of citizens of a democracy, as opposed, say, to benevolent despotism, always to expect trouble and concomitantly fear that those in power won't be able to deal effectively with it. ‘Everything will be all right' covers all contingencies, the inevitable recessions, the probable scandals, the precedented wars. That its meaning is unfocused is its strength.”

In view of Phyllis's consistent rise in the polls, the others usually deferred to her wishes in the end, and so they did now. If it didn't work it could be dropped without damage, Howell Fairchild pointed out. He was relied on ever to provide the pragmatic compromise that could amicably settle a difference, and throughout a long career he never acquired a serious enemy.

By the end of September, Phyllis had pulled ahead of Sloan and was nipping at Ransome's heels. Four of five nightly panelists on cable were anti-Phyllis, including an acid-tongued right-wing female, a defensive ex-cabinet member of a former liberal administration for which no one nowadays had a good word, and an amiable English emigré with what, always to the delight of his intimidated American colleagues, he called twaddle.

After wrangling for many months on the matter, representatives of the three Presidential candidates at last agreed on a series of three debates, two in late October, the final one on the very eve of the election.

Governor Ransome was universally declared by the media to be the clear winner of the first two, giving as he did a structured and measured response to every question. He was moderate on taxes yet not opposed to focused social programs; he called for a powerful military but not one that squandered money on comic-book fantasy weapons; he characterized himself as a “militant peacemonger,” but threatened to demolish any rogue nation that challenged his sincerity. His boldest stance was on the issue of abortion: hands off. He was both pro-life and pro-choice, or neither. Let 'em battle it out, the American way.

The foregoing policy or lack thereof was not enunciated until the final debate, the night before the second Tuesday in November. It was clear to the pundits why he had waited so long, but not understandable why he had taken such a position at all, offending both sides on a matter in which there was no middle. One theory held that by the end of the campaign he had cracked under the obligation to please everybody that had throughout his career masked a fundamental disdain for the public, reporters ever having found him cold and rude when the cameras were off.

President Joe Sloan appeared to be drunk at the first debate, but it was universally assumed that as usual he was giving a performance intended to amuse and divert. He swayed violently, clutching the lectern, spouting gibberish, and at one point he belched loudly. At several others, he vigorously scratched his crotch. He lip-farted and blew his nose twice, one nostril at a time, sans handkerchief.

The polls next day were devastating. Not only had no one bought his act, but almost everybody polled had been offended by the implication that he was entertaining.

A transformed Sloan came to the second debate. Now he was tight-buttocked and gimlet-eyed. He out-statisticked Ransome at every turn, quoting Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P figures for every day in the third quarter of the second year of his administration, to make a point concerning fiscal philosophy; naming twenty-two different heirloom apples when, in defense of his agricultural policy, he compared the harvest of New York state with that of the Pacific Northwest; and justifying his opposition to a new bomber because of its possibly unreliable landing gear, the deficiencies of which he explained in great technical detail, sneering at a less than vigilant Pentagon that had been consistently praised by Governor Ransome. But most of those polled next day found this performance boring to the point of suffocation and for that matter as phony as his previous appearance. His numbers now hovered on the brink of one digit.

Two hours before the start of the third debate, the White House physician announced that the President had been put to bed with a respiratory complaint at Walter Reed Memorial. He was not in danger, but he could speak only with difficulty. Vice President Dean Forsythe was offered as a substitute, but the League of Women Voters, debate sponsors, declined.

Therefore Governor Ransome debated, if it could be called that, with only Phyllis. He was more extravagant than he had ever been before, now that an opportunity had been presented to him, in Sloan's absence, to claim the spotlight, but with awkward body language and a nonresonant tenor, he had few gifts as a performer, and though he could pretend to some successes in his own state on education, prescription drugs, and penal reform, they had been diluted by an apparently contradictory rise in both the personal income tax and the deficit, which was pointed out by a waspish, toupeed member of the attendant panel of journalists, to whom Ransome's response was an ad hominem attack on his opposition.

Phyllis was hostilely received by all panelists, as in fact she had been from the first. They made no effort to conceal their disdain for a Presidential candidate who advanced no specific policies on any issue, but their colleagues had gotten nowhere taking this tack on the previous two occasions, Phyllis's ratings having continued to rise, most notably on the morning that followed each debate. So the target now became how her campaign was financed, a matter President Sloan too had questioned previously and into which he threatened to order an inquiry. She claimed to take contributions from only individuals at the grass roots, but could it be true that—as Charles Cookson Bly had suggested in his syndicated column, influential inside the Beltway and among his own colleagues—certain corporations had provided thousands of their employees with sub rosa funds with which to make small personal contributions?

Phyllis was asked different forms of the same question by everyone on the panel, a practice that was permitted by the moderator, the network anchor Chick McCarry, who, responding to criticism next day, said he did so because she never answered it on any occasion.

Of the ever-growing majority of the American people who liked and trusted Phyllis, many in man-on-the-street interviews and focus-group sessions were most impressed by her at least visible immunity not only to outright attack but also to irony, sarcasm, and innuendo on the part of a smart-ass media that they resented. Apparently nothing could throw her off her stride, cause her the least self-doubt, or occasion any excuse or even an explanation.

Yet such assurance was not seen as at all arrogant. Phyllis was a regular guy and genuine, unlike Sloan, who while still a novelty in his first campaign had called himself a “good Joe,” and very different from Ransome, whose efforts to relate to the average citizen by visiting discount stores and NASCAR races were as painful to watch as they obviously were for him to do. By doing little to curry popular favor, Phyllis gained it, as by saying little and making no specific promises, she was believed by a public that, contrary to the leading social theorists, had grown less rather than more cynical in the years following the establishment of a worldwide Pax Americana by Sloan's predecessor.

When at the close of the third debate Phyllis and Governor Ransome were each given five minutes for a general summing-up statement on why she/he wished to be President and what he/she would do if elected, Phyllis won the coin toss and chose to let Ransome speak first.

The governor talked for six minutes, despite the frequent sound of the buzzer throughout the sixth. Lack of sleep during the final weeks of the campaign had left its mark in the deep furrows of his gaunt cheeks; the right eyebrow, as if frozen in an arch; and his squinty grin, seemingly of pain. He commiserated with everyone who suffered discomfort or inconvenience of any kind. He denounced betrayers of the dream, “whatever their party,” and celebrated those for whom hope is ever fresh. He promised no military adventures but again warned any enemy that retaliation would be swift and devastating. He applauded the uncommon man or woman who each citizen was when the chips were down, when push came to shove, when the pedal meets the metal. He closed with a humble request to be granted the great privilege of serving as “your partner in the task before us.” That section of the audience which had come only to cheer him did so on its feet, resoundingly.

Phyllis wore a navy-blue skirt suit, a string of pearls, and only minimal makeup, but her hairdo was somewhat softer, fluffier than usual. Her lectern was a foot lower than that of Ransome, who by contrast seemed loutishly tall.

“I have waited till now to explain the phrase I have repeated throughout the campaign,” said she. “‘Everything will be all right.' What it means is simply that as President what I do will always make sense. Being more specific at this time would
not
make sense, as making any further promises would not. My study of history has revealed that the one element central to any presidency is chance. Crises inevitably appear as if from nowhere, sneak attacks, invasions, recessions, scandals. Finger-pointing follows for partisan motives, but the worst calamities could probably not have been foreseen. All that matters is what's done about them. In my case I have no party to serve, no debts to pay, no favors to return. My only cause is to make sense.