Her eyes settled briefly at Table Four, where her campaign director was staring at her, quietly fuming. He’d obviously done the calculations too. “Every dollar you pull in for Triple-B is one less for the campaign,” Gregory Samson had whined to her earlier in the evening. And he ran the same script at last week’s fundraiser, and last month’s.
But to Isabel this wasn’t a zero-sum game. Running for president certainly gave her foundation a boost, but it was hardly to her campaign’s detriment, as she’d insisted countless times to Gregory, reminding him that it wasn’t just her policies that had shot her popularity to record levels, nor even his masterful campaign strategies. It was also her rags-to-riches success story and the philanthropy it had inspired: her charitable foundation for runaway kids.
A Triple-B graduate always delivered the after-dinner speech at these events, and as Mary Dimitri drove to her emotive conclusion up at the lectern, Isabel guessed tonight’s might possibly squeeze out an extra half-million in donations.
“Without Triple-B,” said Mary, her dark eyes scanning the crowd, “I wouldn’t be here tonight. I wouldn’t be a pediatrician either. Simply, I’d be dead… from drugs, from disease, from a bullet.”
A hush smothered the crowd as they tried to absorb what she’d just said.
“But Triple-B is not just a get-out-of-jail card,” she continued. “It’s not just counselling or financial support through college and med school. As you’ve heard tonight, it’s also Isabel Diaz. She is an extraordinary role model, a runaway herself who through hard work achieved so much yet is giving, and has already given, so much back. Ladies and gentlemen, your generosity tonight will help Triple-B continue this amazing woman’s work and get even more kids off the streets and into productive lives. Like mine. And like hers.”
As Isabel mouthed Mary a thankyou from her table just below the lectern, a yawn insisted itself on her and she quickly covered it with her table napkin. The months of relentless campaigning day and night were catching up.
Tonight, she’d spent the entire evening conjuring up her stock of old-style diner service tricks. Pasting on her best smile, she’d popped around to most of the taffeta pink tables, thanking as many of the guests as she could for coming, lightly touching an arm, pressing a bejewelled hand, squeezing a shoulder or just picking lint off it as a dear friend would. Flattery worked when raising money, especially if it came from someone who could be sitting in the Oval Office in a few short months.
No matter how beat she was, she knew she’d keep the formula going right up to the finale. She pushed back her chair to continue her rounds, and as she straightened out the wrinkles in her snug black sequined dress, the band struck up Bésame Mucho, stupidly dedicating the old favourite to her.
It was a bad omen.
A few minutes later, only two tables away, a waiter tripped on a diamante-studded handbag strap and crashed a tray of wine glasses to the floor. Isabel was mid-sentence with a stockbroker when she heard the glass shattering behind her. And with her being so tired… and with that damn song playing… the darkness started flooding back.
Gripping the back of a chair, she tried to stop herself swaying, and struggled to visualise her father’s photo. His face… his calming eyes… his…
“You okay?” the broker asked, concerned and reaching for a glass of water to give her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, blinking open her eyes. “It’s a… a sudden migraine,” she lied, and rushed for the ladies room to wait out her ghosts.
ISABEL was hunched over in the toilet stall pressing a wet napkin against her eyes. Her other hand was flicking nervously at the old scar that crossed her throat.
At her feet was an empty Clip’n’Drip pack. Thank God for her husband Ed’s miracle drug delivery device, she thought yet again. The brilliant, under-skin implant always kicked in the relaxant much faster than any pill or liquid could, and it was less risky than a syringe, which would really get people talking if anyone saw it. Sure, Clip’n’Drip hadn’t yet got government approval, so this was her and Ed’s little secret. Or one of them.
So far, no one had seriously objected that she suffered occasional migraines. The research helped. It wasn’t just the 25 percent of women who got them at least once, yet still lived a normal life. It was more Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Thomas Jefferson, both Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, and John F. Kennedy… all extraordinary leaders, despite their migraines. If they could, so could she.
Even if hers weren’t really migraines at all.