Off the Record

Then he appeared and Liz’s breath caught. There was no way Brady could see her over the crowd of reporters, and he wasn’t expecting her to be backstage. It was like witnessing a private moment.

He was all business today. He wore a stern expression, and his campaign mask was in place. His black suit was crisp and tailored to his build. She could tell that he was worried about something even from the distance. She didn’t know how. Had she really been spending that much time with him that she could tell something like that? Or was she making it up?

Brady kept walking past the sea of reporters and into the holding room without looking up once. Liz was disappointed she didn’t get to see more of his handsome face, but he had to work today. She could understand that.

A few minutes later, the elder Brady Maxwell was announced, and he walked onstage. His speech was as customary as it went for him. Liz hadn’t looked through most of his work, but she knew the gist of his campaign. He ran on family values. He always had. It won hearts very easily. Add his personal charisma onstage and he was a guaranteed shoo-in each time he ran for election.

He ended his speech, which had been light and generally emphasized his son’s campaign efforts. They wouldn’t want to talk policy on a day like today, when everyone was having such a good time. They thanked everyone for coming out and encouraged them to do their civic duty by registering to vote and going to the polls in August for the primary, and November for the general election. The crowd cheered as he thanked them and then walked offstage.

Liz sighed when she heard Heather announce Brady, and she watched from her privileged vantage point as he walked onstage. Her eyes were glued to him, and she forgot that she was even standing next to Calleigh or that they were in public. All she saw was her man about to charm a crowd.

He started talking with that radiant energy that seemed to flow out of him whenever he started discussing something he cared about. He easily wove in a story about a Fourth of July celebration at the lake house when he was a kid that had all of the families in attendance laughing along. Liz’s cheeks colored at the thought of the lake house, and she wondered if he had picked it on purpose, knowing that she would be in the audience.

She listened as the story moved away from his childhood and on to a similar values speech as his father. He talked about wanting to raise children in a world where they could access the American Dream, and fighting for human rights. He related his speech to the battle that the country faced fighting for independence, and how the nation as a people grew and rebuilt from that foundation. He invoked the thoughts of the Founding Fathers and urged the crowd to listen to their testaments.

Liz found herself nodding along with him about halfway through and couldn’t seem to stop the longer he spoke. What was he doing to her? She didn’t agree with him. Not that she had always disagreed with everything he stood for. There were points she approved of in his policies, but giving the tax incentives to donors instead of funding education had irked her. Yet standing there on a historic holiday and listening to him pour out his heart to an audience moved her.

Brady wanted the country to work, and not many people she knew actually cared enough to pursue that. Not many people would give up everything to help get the country back on the right track. And he cared about that desperately. He wanted to be there to fight for the people who couldn’t fight for themselves and help those who needed the most help. She could feel his words that day as she never had felt them before. He wasn’t doing this for the money or to get bigger donors or even to be in the spotlight. He was doing it for Liz, for the people there today, and for every other person he could help. He was speaking to her of his sincerity, and she heard him loud and clear.

It felt as though the world had stopped all around her. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. It felt as if it had all shifted. When had she stopped seeing the world in black and white? Where had all the gray crept up from? She was a journalist! She was a reporter! There was no gray in her world. There were the facts and that was all that mattered. Why was she suddenly seeing things that she had never seen before in the one person she had never thought she could accept gray from?

Liz’s heart beat harder in her chest at the realization, and she felt like crying. She had never wanted this. She had never wanted any of this. But it seemed that he had been right all along. When they had been dancing, Brady had pleaded with her to just get to know him. If she got to know him, then she could find out that knowing how he voted didn’t mean she could judge his character. The more she got to know Brady, the less his voting record seemed to matter. The more…he seemed to matter. Just him. All of him.

She wanted to reach out to him then, and at the same time run far, far away. What was she even feeling right now? Sick. She felt sick. Her world was tilting off balance, and she was afraid that she would never be able to regain her footing again.

“I, uh…suddenly don’t feel well,” Liz said, touching Calleigh’s arm, who was enraptured with Brady’s speech. “I’m going to go.”

“All right. Feel better,” Calleigh said, barely glancing at Liz as she rushed away from the press box.

Liz catapulted herself away from the crowds. She couldn’t be near crowds right now. She needed a minute to herself. She needed to breathe.

She walked around the press area to the side of a small building and breathed in and out as slowly as she could muster. Everything was crashing down on her all at once. Despite his politics and despite his voting record, Brady was still a good person. He made some choices she didn’t agree with, but that didn’t mean that he was a bad politician or greedy or selfish. It just meant he did what he had to do, that he had compromised in office to get what he wanted. Now she saw him for who he really was, and it was like the floodgates opened. Brady Maxwell was giving her a panic attack.

Liz hung her head forward, trying to block out the rest of the world that was going on around her. It was loud and she could still hear Brady, though he was muffled because the speakers were facing away from her.

“Ma’am, are you all right?” a man drawled, coming around the corner.

She glanced up at him. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Do you need me to get medical assistance?” he asked. His cheeks dimpled when he talked.

“Fine. Really. Just a bit claustrophobic,” she told him.

“I’m the opposite. Wide-open spaces kill me. So, I can understand. I usually just need to breathe and not think about it. I can get you some water if you want.”

“No, that’s all right,” she said, trying to do as he said. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. The longer she stood there the easier it was to think about Brady.

“Thanks for checking on me,” Liz said.

He took the hint, nodded, and left. Liz felt better being alone and not having her panic attack in front of anyone. The only person she wanted to see was Brady, and the only person she shouldn’t see when she was like this was Brady. And yet she had to see him. She needed him to talk to him and let him know about her realization regarding his career. In that moment, it felt like if she didn’t get it out now…then maybe she never would.

Liz heard the crowd cheer, announcing the end of his speech, and knew that she was going to have only a short window in which she could see Brady. So she had to make up her mind right then and there.

When the applause died down, Liz moved into the crowd that was waiting to greet the politicians. They appeared together, shaking hands and kissing babies, as per usual. The press might get a few moments with them before they left, but Liz wasn’t going to wait that long. She wanted to see him. She needed to see him.

He found her in the crowd almost immediately. He shook her hand with his campaign smile intact and said, “Pleasure to meet you. I hope I can win your vote.”

“I enjoyed your speech very much, Senator,” she replied. “I’d love to talk with you about it some more. I do have some questions, though I’d hate to take up all of your time.” She was playing a risky game if anyone picked up on what she was saying.

“I’d be interested in discussing it with you after?” he said, like he was offering him the opportunity to speak with him about political matters.

“I would appreciate you taking the time to do that,” she said, smiling brightly.

He spent the next twenty or thirty minutes smiling and taking pictures before the crowd started to thin. His father announced that he had another engagement and quickly extracted himself. “Brady, five minutes,” he called to his son.

“Looks as if I have a couple minutes,” he said to Liz. She smiled as he walked her far enough away from the crowd that their voices wouldn’t carry. She could tell that he was anxious that they were together in public. She didn’t blame him. She was antsy, but she tried hard not to show it.

“What are you doing?” Brady demanded as soon as they were out of earshot.

“I had to talk to you,” she said, wanting to reach out and touch him but knowing better.

“This isn’t a good idea,” he said simply. Compared to the warmth he was showing onstage and before his audience, to her he seemed frigid. She didn’t know what that was about.

“I just…liked your speech. I…”

“Can we talk about this later? Somewhere not public?” he asked frostily.

“Um…all right.” She wanted nothing more than to wash away whatever was holding him back. He seemed so distant. She had thought they had connected during his speech, even if it hadn’t been directly for her. It had felt as if it was for her. This couldn’t just be because they were in public. He wasn’t like this with her. Even that one time he had given her cold eyes at the town hall, he had apologized for being an ass and hadn’t done it since. “What’s wrong?” she couldn’t help asking.

“What do you mean?”

“Brady…what’s wrong?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Why do you think something is wrong?” He checked his watch as if he was bored with her. Where was the man who had only a week and a half ago told her he could never be bored with her?

“I know you too well.”

“You put out your article,” he stated, as if that explained it.

“This is about my article?” she asked, confused. “I thought you didn’t care what I wrote?”

“That’s just it. I don’t give a shit what you write about. I’ve always liked that you wrote whatever the hell you wanted and didn’t back down. But if you didn’t like my suggestion for your paper, why did you agree with me?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly agree with it,” she said, backtracking. Liz hadn’t been able to make up her mind about the article, so she had sat down and written both versions. The one about basketball was sitting on her computer, waiting to be fed into the printer. But it felt wrong taking the idea that Hayden had and then using Brady’s example. She had put Brady’s take on the back burner and gone with her gut. Standing in front of Brady now, she was doubting her own decision.

Brady just stared. “You said you saw what I meant; that was enough for me. You don’t have to use my suggestion, but if you didn’t want to, then why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. She didn’t want to upset him. That was why.

“You’re a reporter; aren’t you supposed to be honest and unbiased?” he scoffed. “I thought you would tell me if you thought it was a bad idea.”

“I did think it was a good idea,” she said hastily.

“You write what you want to write, and I’ve always liked that about you. It’s why I thought you were different in the beginning. If you can’t be honest with me…” He trailed off.

Liz didn’t think she could strike a nerve with Brady. He seemed so solid inside and out. He didn’t get irritated that she cut down his political views, or when she freaked out when she thought that he was seeing someone else. He didn’t get irritated about much, aside from whether or not she was seeing someone else. He just wanted her to be up front with him.