Beauty Queen

together into something."
    "The last time I saw you," he said, "was four months ago. You didn't look so rested to me then. You looked very strained, very brittle, with an edge like a razor."
    "Do I look that way now?" she countered.
    "I don't know," said Winkler. "I'm trying to figure out if what I see is your PR, or the real you."
    She shot a hard look at him.
    "Now listen, Jeannie," he said. "You know as well as I do that I'm good at what I do because I never stick my head in the sand."
    She piled the ashtrays on the kitchen table and leaned on it, facing him, her arms crossed belligerently across her chest. It was a pose that state legislators would have recognized as the stance she always took when she was about to make a very heavy speech.
    "You're trying to make me feel insecure?" she said. "Trying to tear down what I achieved with myself in the last months?"
    He looked her right in the eye and adopted the same pose teasingly. "If you are well," he said, "you will be secure. Nothing I could do or say would shake you. I'd find you were like a rock. Are you a rock, Jeannie?"
    "We'll soon find out, won't we?" she said, slumping a little and dropping her arms.
    "Have you seen a psychiatrist?" he said.
    "No, of course not," she said.
    "Good. They can use that against you. Who have you seen?"
    "I've seen a lot of Reverend Irving, is about all," she said. "He's been very helpful. Dad doesn't like Reverend Irving, of course."
    He swirled the last of his soft drink in his glass. "I have to tell you that this religious business of yours worries me a little. The Rockefellers were church-oriented in their way, but they never paraded it."
    "You're going to tell me that I can't be upfront about faith? About believing, about being saved?"
    "Politically, it can be a tricky thing."
    "The Carters get away with it."
    "Yeah," he said, "but the Carters have got a special touch. They may be Baptists, but they have such a velvet touch with it that the conservative Baptists consider them to be heathen." Jeannie had opened her mouth, but he shook his head, cutting her off. "Ruth Carter may be a faith healer, but the biggest miracle she works is not looking like a religious nut. And Jimmy's beer-drinking brother provides just the right kind of counterweight."
    "You're saying I ought to have a beer-drinking brother?"
    "Wouldn't hurt," he said, throwing his soft drink down the sink. "Yuk," he said, "I can't understand how people can drink this sugary stuff. Speaking of relatives, where is your dad?"
    Her stomach sank a little. She had hoped that Winkler would not notice her father's absence. He had said he had an important meeting with a real-estate biggie. Frankly, it made her suspicious that he should choose to go to a meeting on such an important evening in her life when she had assembled her campaign workers for the first time. Her father had always been one of her best advisers, had always attended these meetings.
    "He had to meet with some real-estate guy," she said. "He's had a lot of deals going lately. He finally pulled off the South Street thing. I think if I hear 'South Street' one more time, I'll scream. It's all he can talk about."
    "Is he going to help with the campaign?"
    She sighed and slumped a little more. "I honestly don't know. I already approached him about it. I assumed he'd be very excited and say yes. But this time ... well, it was a little strange. I almost had the feeling that he was putting me off a little."
    Jeannie marched back into the living room, carrying the ashtrays. Winkler trailed after her.
    Shortly after that, they wrapped up the meeting.
    "Okay," said Winkler, "I'll write you this long memo about the strategies I think you should take." He looked her right in the eye. "And I expect you to pay attention to it."
    The other people were looking at them both, picking up on the slight tension between them.
    "Of course I'll listen to it," said Jeannie. "I'd be a fool not
    to."
    "Just remember, Jeannie," said Winkler. "Carter set the model for us all. He got where he is by sound organization and planning. Even when he made some bad mistakes, the planning saved his ass."
    "I'll remember that," said Jeannie, smiling sweetly, "if and when I make any mistakes. Can you have the memo to me in a few days?"
    "You'll have it by Friday."
    "Good," said Jeannie. "And John ..she looked at John Rice, the new pollster, a young man that Winkler had brought in, saying that he was brilliant.
    "I'll get going on the survey