Penance by David Housewright Page B

“Beauty versus the Beasts,” one columnist called it.
    Still, no one had expected her to win, least of all C. C. Monroe. It was merely hoped that her presence in the race would force the governor and the mayor to address women’s concerns. Only the governor’s popularity was at an all-time low. Even his most ardent supporters on the Iron Range where he grew up—the Slavs, the Czechs, the Poles who worked the taconite mines—freely conceded that the governor’s third term in office was probably one term too many and were loath to give him another. Then there were the allegations that he was too cozy with the construction industry, a major contributor to his campaign. Two days before C. C. entered the race, The Cities Reporter broke a story accusing the governor of having an affair with the construction industry’s comely chief lobbyist; it ran photographs of him leaving the woman’s townhouse, supposedly after midnight. The governor, his ever-patient wife at his side, denied the allegation, claiming it was a vicious lie, saying it was based on false and misleading information. Before she resigned from her job and disappeared from view, “The Other Woman,” as she became known, also denied the allegations—I love that word, “allegation.” What was it Jesse Jackson once said? “I not only deny the allegation, I deny the allegator.”
    In any case, the minority party quickly called for a formal investigation by the state senate, suggesting that impeachment might be in order. The senate, which was firmly controlled by the majority party, blocked the move. So, the minority party demanded a criminal investigation by the attorney general’s office. Only the AG was also a member of the majority party and he had political aspirations of his own. Rumor had it that he offered the governor a deal: He would squash the investigation if the governor would agree to withdraw from the race and allow the AG to replace him on the ballot. This raised questions not only of propriety, but also of finances. Who would get the cash in the governor’s well-funded campaign chest if he withdrew? The AG? The governor vowed no. Technically, the money was his to do with as he pleased once his campaign debts were paid, and he said he would sooner donate it to the Reverend Sun Myung Moon than give it to a backstabbing opportunist like the attorney general. Besides, he was the party’s nominated candidate and he was not going to withdraw.
    Meanwhile, the mayor’s popularity had dropped like a stone. This is Minnesota, after all. We don’t like tattletales and nearly everyone believed the mayor was responsible for the mud dripping from the governor’s face. As a result, squeaky-clean Carol Catherine Monroe picked up a quick twenty percent of the voters in the newspaper polls when she entered the race and after a month was running dead even with the major candidates—plus or minus three percent, of course. More importantly, money was pouring in. It started as a trickle: five-, ten-, twenty-dollar bills from her admirers. But when it became apparent that her candidacy was legitimate, the trickle became a flood. Well-heeled donors and national PACs thought nothing of writing out sixty-thousand-dollar checks—the state limit for individual campaign contributions. And they bothered little over C. C.’s position on the issues. They cared only that she win and remember them afterward.
    The receptionist was right, I decided after listening to the update. Carol Catherine Monroe could very well become the first woman governor in the history of Minnesota. Unless she, too, made a mistake. A mistake of biblical proportions.

    “I had a boyfriend,” she began.
    C. C. started pacing the office, reading her own campaign slogans off the posters on the walls. Marion continued to sit behind the desk, looking down, shaking her head.
    “His name was—is—Dennis Thoreau,” C. C. added, casting a furtive glance at Marion. “We were in love. At least I