"Feeling better?", asked Marilyn.
I glanced and saw the girls were outside still, and replied, "Still looking forward to a few more treatments."
My wife blushed and grinned. The twins came in and she said lowly, "Later." The she raised her voice some, and asked, "Want some dinner? We heated up some canned beef stew."
"That's fine. I'm not ready for anything big. Anything's got to be better than broth and Jell-O!" Marilyn laughed at that and headed for the kitchen. "How about some booze, too!"
"Are you taking those pain pills?"
"Advils only." I reacted well to ibuprofen. Most people can take one pill an hour, or up to 24 a day, before their liver explodes. I had popped half a dozen when I woke up. I was good at the moment.
When the girls returned with the pup, I played with her for a bit, and taught the twins how to housebreak her. It was going to be their responsibility. If they saw her heading behind the furniture or looking for a place to squat, grab her and get her outside. If you catch her too late, rub her nose in it and swat her with a newspaper. Praise her when she goes outside. All the standard stuff that people having been doing for millennia to housebreak dogs. Most importantly, don't listen to your mother about what to do; she thinks Stormy can speak English and will understand without rubbing her nose in it or smacking her.
"I heard that!", came from the kitchen. That just made us speak a little more quietly.
It's not hard to housebreak a dog. It just requires some patience and vigilance. I remember hearing somewhere that the bigger the dog the easier it is to housebreak them. I have no idea if that was true or just an old wives' tale, but if so, I expected Stormy to be incredibly easy to train. She had all the earmarks of being a really big dog, much bigger than I was used to. All of my dogs, this life and last, had been some form of hound mix, in the 30-40 pound range. At barely three months, this thing was already about 10 pounds, and seemed to be growing just in the few days we already had her! She was sure devouring Puppy Chow, that was clear!
By now Stormy was snoring in my lap, so when Marilyn brought me some stew and a gin and tonic, we traded. After dinner, I read Scully's speech while Marilyn watched television. I hadn't known what I was going to say, but while listening to the late news, everything sort of crystallized. I would spend the next couple of days working on it.
We put some newspapers down in the laundry room and I let Stormy out on a leash before we put her in the room and went to bed. I was ready for another treatment, so Marilyn stripped me naked, and then pulled off her dress, and we made love – carefully! I had to stay on my back, and I only had one hand to work on her with, but we figured it out, and finished with her riding me while playing with her clit, and with my fiddling with her nipples. My ribs were aching afterwards, but I could live with that.
Frank Stouffer showed up the next morning while we were eating breakfast, so I invited him in and made him some eggs and bacon. He had managed to get some hotel rooms for himself and some of the other staff in Parkton, and had rented a car. I hadn't expected him that morning, which was a Sunday, but I shouldn't have been surprised. Until Election Day, there were no days off. I gave him orders to get in touch with Matt Scully and have him come on out here. At the minimum, if he couldn't make it out here today, I needed the speech in a digital format, Word or a text file, something I could begin changing. He would complain, like any good author would, but he would feel better about it if he was involved.
After that, we all headed into the living room to watch the Sunday morning talk shows. The primary topic was the upcoming Republican convention in Philadelphia, along with reports and summaries of what the Governor and I were up to. The Democratic convention was two weeks after ours, and Al Gore still hadn't named a running mate. Would he stick with Joe Lieberman, or pick somebody different? Had I changed things so that a different calculus was needed?
By lunchtime, I sent Frank off and checked my email. The speech file had arrived, along with a note that Matt would be here Monday morning, and requested we get him a room. I forwarded it to Frank and followed up with a phone call. Then I went to work.
The Vice Presidential candidate has a specific job in that he is often called on to be the Presidential candidate's attack dog. He was supposed to be rude and mean and go after the other side, while the Presidential candidate stayed away from it all, looking, well, Presidential. The speech was very much in this line, with me going tooth and nail against Bill Clinton. We were painting Al Gore as Clinton 2.0, which was a pretty accurate description. If anything, he was even more liberal than Slick Willie, who had an instinctive feel for how hard he could push and get away with things. Al was more dogmatic and hard core.
I could do the attack dog role if I needed, but I was more comfortable doing a positive message than a negative one. In this regard, I planned to milk my current 'hero' status. The planned format was for my nomination would take place late Tuesday night, so that when I spoke on Wednesday, I would already be the official nominee. Then, Wednesday evening, John Boehner would give my official introduction, and then we would segue into the biographical video that Marilyn was working on. (She still had more work to do, and Monday morning would leave me with the girls, while she flew to Hollywood to finalize her stuff.) Then, after the video ended, somewhere between nine and ten, and still in prime time, I would come out, along with the family. We would wave and smile, and then they would leave and I would do the speech. Afterwards, the family would come back out, to thunderous applause and balloons and confetti, and for all I knew, doves flying and angels singing.
Thursday night, the last night of the convention, we would repeat the process, with Governor Bush. At the end of that speech, my family and I would join the Bush family on stage. Then we would begin three months of hell until the night of the election.
This week the priorities were to write the speech, and do so early enough to get it to the technical people who would put it on the teleprompter and get the necessary placards and signs printed up. I was going to work from home, though I planned to take one day to travel to the Westminster and Washington offices, to show the flag, thank everybody for caring and helping, and prove I was recuperating. Otherwise, I really did need to recuperate. The convention was going to be a tough physical grind, and the last thing I could afford – that any of us could afford! – was to have me collapse on stage during my speech.
I was delayed working on the speech for a good reason. I had a chance to talk to Charlie that afternoon. A call came in around half past twelve, and I was in the kitchen when the phone rang. I grabbed it and said, "Hello?" I just hoped security was screening our calls properly. I didn't need to talk to any reporters today.
"Dad? You're home!"
"Charlie! How are you?"
"Dad! How are you?! You made the news on the ship!"
Huh! I suppose that made sense. They probably got some sort of canned national news from the Armed Forces Network. "Does anybody know who you are yet?", I asked.
"Nah! Not that I can tell anyway. The rest of the guys don't know, and if any of the officers know, they haven't said anything.", he replied.
"So where are you calling from? You on the ship? Where are you?"