reason, my pulse is racing, and my throat feels rough and dry.
“Game face, kiddo.” Daddy sends me what we sometimes call “the million-dollar wink.” It oozes confidence like warm honey, thick and irresistible.
If only I had half of my father’s charisma.
Leslie moves on with the briefing for the event. She’s still talking when we arrive at the hall. Unlike the nursing home appearance earlier, there’s security this time, including local DPS officers. I can hear the commotion out front, and a squad car sits at the end of the alleyway.
Leslie looks like she’s ready to punch someone’s lights out as we’re hustled from the limo. A nervous sweat beads under my conservative navy suit.
“Honor thy father and mother!” a protester shouts above the din.
I want to hang a right turn, march to the curb, and tell these people off. How dare they!
“No concentration camps for seniors!” That one follows us through the door.
“What are these people, nuts?” I mutter, and Leslie gives me a warning look, then shrugs covertly toward the police officers. I’m being told to keep my opinions to myself in public, unless they’re preapproved. But now I’m fighting mad…which may be a good thing. My pulse slows resolutely, and I feel my game face settling into place.
The minute the door closes, things calm down. We’re met by Andrew Moore, the program coordinator for the hosts of today’s forum—a seniors’ rights PAC. Andrew seems surprisingly young to be in such a position. He can’t be past his mid-twenties. The neatly pressed gray suit combined with slightly askew necktie and haphazardly bunched shirt collar make him seem like a boy whose clothes were laid out for him in the morning but who had to get into them himself. He tells us that he was raised by his grandparents, who made huge sacrifices to provide for him. This is his way of giving back. When someone mentions that I was a federal prosecutor, he eyes me and quips that the PAC could use a good attorney on staff.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I joke.
We make a bit more small talk while we wait. He seems likeable, honest, energetic, and committed. My confidence that this will be a fair discussion of the issues ratchets upward.
Other introductions quickly take place. We meet the local reporter who will act as our moderator. We slide microphones under our jackets, clip them to our lapels, and hook the transmitter boxes over our waistbands.
We wait in the wings while the host takes the stage, thanks the organizers, then reminds everyone of the format for today’s forum before finally introducing us. The crowd applauds, and we ascend the stage, waving cheerfully at the audience. Everyone is well behaved, though looking out at the group, I see quite a few faces that seem concerned, skeptical, and somewhat unfriendly. Others eye the senator with what could only be classified as hero worship.
My father does a reasonable job of responding to the simple questions and deflecting a few inquiries that can’t be answered in a soundbite. There are no easy solutions to the problem of funding retirement years that last much longer than in previous generations or the issue of fractured families and the cultural shift toward relying on professional care rather than tending to senior relatives at home.
Despite the well-thought-out replies, I can tell that he’s a little off the mark today. He’s a bit slow when a young man asks, “Sir, I’d like to hear your response to Cal Fortner’s accusation that the goal of corporate-owned senior care chains is to warehouse the elderly in the cheapest way possible so as to increase profits, and that your repeated acceptance of campaign contributions from L. R. Lawton and his investment partners indicates your support of this profits-over-people model. Do you acknowledge that in these facilities seniors were tended to by minimum-wage workers with little or no training, if they were seen to at all? Your opponent calls for federal legislation to hold anyone who profits from a care facility or its holding companies personally accountable for the care provided there, as well as any damages awarded in lawsuits. Fortner is also calling for taxes on wealthy individuals such as yourself to fund an increase in benefits for our poorest senior citizens. In view of recent events, would you support this in the Senate, and why or why not?”
I can almost hear Leslie gnashing her teeth behind the curtain. Those questions weren’t anywhere in the script, and no doubt they’re