sat since she moved to Washington as a young congresswoman with her five-year-old son, and she turned off the lights to her office and went to find herself something to eat. Cleo had thought ahead and thawed some of Emily Godwin’s casserole from her freezer.
Her Senate office was a beehive on Tuesday. Veronica came for a sit-down, and she smelled as lovely as ever, and Cleo and Gaby were anxious but not nervous because it felt like with the three of them collectively, they were going to be invincible. At the news of her likely candidacy announcement, several of the men who had already declared their own quest for the office started making statements about her likability and her fitness and, of course, her stamina, but Cleo knew that if they wanted to come for her, they were going to have to come with more than that.
“Stamina?” Gaby had shouted self-righteously but also sarcastically. “Please! Three of these guys are nearly eighty! If they want to have a fight about stamina, let’s get in the ring.”
Cleo sat behind her desk and envisioned jumping into a boxing ring with the former governor of Minnesota, who was indeed seventy-eight and had been credibly accused of pinching his staffers’ asses yet still had the gall to run for president, and while she didn’t want to be responsible for knocking him unconscious, she also admitted that she wouldn’t have minded either. As it was, Senator William Parsons’s chief of staff was nervy enough to call Gaby and ask if he couldn’t be in the running for the VP nod. Gaby hung up on him.
“We’re not going to punch back,” Veronica said. “This isn’t going to be a campaign of tit for tat.”
Cleo placed her elbows on her desk and dropped her chin into her palms. “You don’t think we need to counter them?” she asked.
“No,” Veronica said with the authority of a woman who knew things. “This isn’t going to be about stooping to their level. This is going to be about them chasing you as you rise above.”
“I like that,” Cleo said.
“It’s genius,” Gaby echoed.
Cleo’s phone buzzed, and there was a text from Bowen. He had an unexpectedly free evening; could she meet for that drink tonight? Cleo had planned to spend the evening catching up on work because Lucas was going to a movie with Marley. But one drink, maybe two? Perhaps it might slide into three? Cleo grinned as she thought of it.
Then she typed in a simple answer: yes.
She dropped her phone into her top drawer.
“Everything OK?” Gaby asked.
“Perfect,” Cleo replied.
And then they raised their pens and put their heads down and got busy writing their future, which was much more gratifying than writing a list about their past. And as their staff came and went with ideas and statistics and polling, they stayed that way all day, the three of them, because no one was going to do the work if they didn’t do it for themselves. So they did. And they would. And already they knew they were changing the world, step by step, without apology. Exactly as it should be.
Only forward. No regrets.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am enormously grateful to my agent, Elisabeth Weed, who had the patience to bear with me as I recalibrated and reworked several other manuscripts until Cleo McDougal called out to me, and we both knew that I was finally writing the book I was meant to. Sometimes, like Cleo, I need to take a few side steps to figure out how to point myself forward, and Elisabeth has never once complained about my circuitous route. I’m similarly grateful to Danielle Marshall at Lake Union, who embraced the manuscript without pause or hesitation, proud to put the story of a complicated, powerful woman into the world. Thank you to the entire team at Lake Union for championing Cleo and all that she and I dreamed.
Tiffany Yates Martin, as always, took my early drafts and worked alongside me to hone them into something even better than I initially envisioned. Kathleen Carter is a wonderful cheerleader and an even better publicist.
I picked the brains of several DC insiders, who gave me their time and insights, both of which I know are extremely valuable. If any mistakes were made about the heady whirlwind of DC politics, they were my own or intentional—I was aware at all times that Cleo lived in a slightly fictitious bubble, and I tweaked certain elements of her world to reflect this. But I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Philippe Reines, Scott Mulhauser, and Lisa Beaubaire for answering questions both big and small (and possibly annoying—many of my emails or texts did indeed begin with “sorry to be annoying,” an attitude Cleo surely would loathe).
Thank you to my Twitter friend, BetsyBoo, who came to my rescue by suggesting the amazing Calamity Jane quote after I couldn’t use my initial epigraph by the legendary Leslie Knope.
I should also note that I grew up in Seattle and have nothing but the fondest of memories from my childhood. Nothing about this story or any of the characters is based on my own life or any of my friends there, who, unlike Cleo, I happily stay in touch with. MaryAnne and Esme and Oliver and Matty and Beth and Maureen and Susan. All of them and every situation and relationship sprung from my own imagination, nothing more.
I am so grateful to have wonderful parents—I write a lot about less-than-wonderful parents—but mine are examples of parenting done best: supportive, involved, and loving. My mom read this manuscript, as she has all of mine, with a red pencil and an eagle eye and copyedited the hell out of it. I love me a comma, and she put me in my place.
I have two teens, who deserve a lot of credit for helping me shape Lucas, my favorite character to write. Campbell and Amelia are the delights of my life, and my joy in parenting them is reflected on every page. Thanks to my husband, Adam, for doing so alongside me.
In the end, I wanted to write a book not about politics but about power, about the state of being a woman in this specific moment in history, about learning to take up space without apology. But I’d be remiss not to thank all the women who spoke their difficult truths these past few years; who stepped forward to seize their moments; who ran for office; who took their swing in 2016, in 2018, and beyond. Thank you all. Cleo McDougal is the better for it. We are all the better for it.
A New York Times bestselling author, Allison Winn Scotch has published Between You and Me, In Twenty Years (a Library Journal Best Books of 2016 selection), The Theory of Opposites, Time of My Life, The Department of Lost and Found, The One That I Want, and The Song Remains the Same. Her novels have been translated into twelve different languages. A freelance writer for many years, Allison has contributed to Brides, Family Circle, Fitness, Glamour, InStyle, Men’s Health, Parents, Redbook, Self, Shape, and Women’s Health. A cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied history and marketing, Winn Scotch now lives in Los Angeles, where she enjoys hiking, reading, running, yoga, and the company of her two dogs . . . when she’s not “serving as an Uber service” for her kids. For more about the author, visit www.allisonwinn.com.