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I.
Cosimo has avoided actually looking at himself in the mirror until this very moment, but as he finishes knotting his tie he knows he can’t postpone it.
He takes a deep breath and faces his own reflection, at last.
He’s the perfect picture of what a proper presidential candidate should be. His charcoal suit (black is for funerals, that’s not the image we want to give people, Lorenzo had said, and he was probably right – there’s a reason his brother is his campaign manager and isn’t running for the position himself) is perfectly tailored and ironed, and bless Maddalena – his tailor – for having made it comfortable, at least.
(He hates suits. Always has, always will. If he wins this damned election, the first thing he’s going to do will be to never wear a suit in public again, and everyone else will deal with it. He almost envies Marco for having dodged that particularly bullet, but then again he has another image to project.)
The dark red tie (matches the hair, Lorenzo had said approvingly) is likewise perfectly tied – then again, he learned to knot ties at the same time he learned to knot his shoes. Right now, he’s wearing a pair that needs no laces, shiny black and obviously new. His feet hurt, he hasn’t broken them in, but not grimacing openly at it will just be part of the fucking act. His shirt is pristine white, so much that it almost hurts his eyes if he stares at it for too long.
The make-up professional has already worked her magic on him and he hates the unnatural color his face has right now, but he’s been told it’s so that he doesn’t look like a corpse on screen and it probably won’t look unnatural, to people watching.
As if there’s anything natural about politics.
He checks his wristwatch – he has to leave. The debate starts in twenty minutes tops and he has just this one chance at a direct confrontation with Albizzi – he’d better not waste it.
He breathes in once, twice.
Don’t let him get to you, make sure he knows that you have as much dirt on him as he thinks he has on you, smile all the time, be charming and keep to the script.
The more he repeats in his head the advice his father dished at him before having the bad taste of dying two weeks before the damned debate and leaving him in this bloody mess the less he feels it, but then again his father did get as far as State Secretary, didn’t he?
Except that Cosimo wishes he hadn’t. Maybe if his father had managed to run for President, he wouldn’t be here when it’s the last thing he wants, but – yeah, nothing to be done about that for now. At least they did give him some leeway when it came to choosing his VP and his staff, or this damned election would have been even more of a pain. Damn it, his program is half of what he personally would have liked to accomplish in case he actually ran a country, even as small as the former Florence principality (and now Republic) is, but never mind. He can do those things later when he wins, if he wins, but honestly, half of the reasons he’s doing this is that he’s known Rinaldo since they both were in the same classes in their university days and Cosimo knows he’d be a complete disaster as a president. Especially given that there isn’t one part of his programme that explains how he intends to take their tiny country out of the current economic crisis that has stalled their growth for years by now.
He gasps when he hears a firm knock on the door.
“I’m in,” he says.
Lorenzo opens the door and comes in without many ceremonies.
“Man, you’ve got to go already, it’s starting in fifteen. Wait, let me check – yeah, okay, you’re good to go. Don’t keep those hands inside your pockets, it makes you look like you have a stick so far up your ass, it’d be even higher than Rinaldo’s.”
Cosimo lets out a small laugh – yeah, at least his brother does know how to break tension. “Fine, fine. I’m going then. Anything I need to know before I step on that stage?”
“Well, no one in between our or his sponsors was arrested in the last hour or so. You’re good to go. Ah, wait – Mother called.”
“What?”
“She said she wanted to talk to you before the debate. Should I call her back?”
--
“No,” Cosimo says.
“Watch your tongue,” his mother replies, and the stern look on her face is enough to show how much she’s not joking.
“I did – no,” he goes on. “I’ve done everything you asked of me.” From not enrolling to study art in order to succeed his father in administrating the family’s business, to breaking it off with his then-girlfriend in university when they deemed her too low-class for them, to accepting the engagement with the one they chose even if the middle ages have been long over. He’s not going to –
“I am not doing this,” he says. “Business is fine, managing the family’s money will be fine, but not politics.”
“This isn’t your choice,” his mother goes on, looking at him the way she always used to when he was five and he had disappointed her in some way – which happened to be, most of the time.
“How it’s not? I hate politics. I always hated them. I don’t want to –”
“Your father’s health hasn’t been the best lately,” Piccarda interrupts. “Never mind that even if he was acquitted from that ridiculous money laundering accusation Pazzi threw at him, running after that might end up harming his chances in the long run. You’re the oldest son and your brother doesn’t have the mind for a presidential run. You have to.”
Cosimo would really like to ask and why does someone named Medici have to be the next president of this damned Republic, but he knows better to. Everything his father’s done has been in order to get there some day and of course if he cannot, then one of his sons has to.
“I –” He starts, hoping to at least negotiate.
“Of course,” Piccarda goes on, utterly ignoring him, “that hair will have to go.”
“What?”
“Of course, you will have to run with a slightly more liberal program than Albizzi if you ever want to win, but that ridiculous hair is entirely too liberal. You’re young, which is actually a good thing, young faces get young voters, but you have to look respectable. That’s not respectable.”
“Mother –”
“You have an appointment to cut it tomorrow morning at ten AM sharp, and that’s definitive.”
Sometimes –
Sometimes Cosimo hates how much he can’t ever manage to say no to her.
Or maybe fuck you, but that would be too much. He stands there, petrified and wishing he could just stop being the terrified five-year old who couldn’t stand to see her disapproving eyes turned on him, and the next morning he resolutely doesn’t look as the hairdresser cuts off his hair leaving him with a short cut he hates on sight.
--
“No,” Cosimo says. “She can wait.”
“Are you sure –”
“Lorenzo, if any of you wants me to actually come out on top during this farce, you don’t want me to talk to her first.”
Lorenzo shrugs and pockets his phone. “Fair enough. Come on, they’ll want you for a last behind the scenes check.”
Cosimo sighs and leaves the dressing room, standing straight and smiling at everyone he sees as he walks past them. No reason in looking as gloomy as he feels right now.
If there’s something that he hates, is doing things halfway. He’s never wanted to run and he hates going on television and he loathes everything about politics and its scene, but if he has to run, then he’s going to do it the right way. No one will say that he has half-assed his way through this fucking election, that’s for sure.
“Ah, wait” Lorenzo whispers as they approach the backstage area – one of the network PRs waves at them and motions for them to come over. His phone is beeping. “Let me check this. Hopefully nothing’s happened – ah, good.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing, just your VP wishing you the best of luck. Want to see?”
“Thanks,” Cosimo says, in relief. He takes the phone. There’s just one text.
Tell your brother to show that asshole what he’s made of.
Cosimo smiles in spite of himself.
“Careful,” Lorenzo says, “people might understand that the grin you give them is fake, if you keep on doing that.”
“What – oh, shut up.”
“As if. Come on, they’re getting antsy.”
Indeed they are.
Cosimo breathes in once, twice, thrice, and then leaves Lorenzo behind and heads for the backstage area.
Oh, he will show the what he’s made of.
Every last one of them.
II.
“And how, Mr. De’ Medici, would you answer to the accusations of, shall we say, nepotism, that have been sent your way since you announced your future staff, should you win these elections?”
Right. Cosimo knew that was coming, and Guadagni is a fair host – he did ask Albizzi about his family’s involvement in corrupting some judge whose name escapes Cosimo right now in order to absolve them from a tax evasion accusation they were officially charged with. Only stands to reason he’d address the thing he’s gotten more flack for in the newspapers lately.
“I can see why people would jump to that specific conclusion,” Cosimo replies, trying to look as charming as he can. The heat is suffocating, his tie is strangling him and he hates lights pointed at him. “However, I value competency when it comes to putting a team together. Now, when it comes to my brother, he’s merely my campaign manager and I doubt he would even want to have a place in my eventual government. He always had a gift for communication and he’s taken two masters in international relations, never mind that during his studies he’s successfully completed three different internships as social media manager of a number of important societies, as you can see from his CV on our campaign website. I also trust my brother and I know him, so I think it’s no surprise that when I decided to run, I would want him handling that aspect of my campaign.”
“Fair,” Guadagni agrees. “But I am sure that the electorate is more worried about your wife than your brother.”
Right. He did try to stall on that, but he knew Contessina was the sore spot they would try to prod.
Thing is, he was told that it was a risky choice to say openly he wanted his wife as Secretary of State and not as first lady or whatever the hell she should have been.
But still –
He had his reasons.
--
“Jesus,” Cosimo says, slamming his palm on the desk, “none of them has a bloody clue.”
“How so?” Contessina is sitting on the bed, undoing her braid – Cosimo wishes he could go to bed already himself, but he knows he wouldn’t sleep if he followed her.
“I spent an entire day talking to my father’s bloody friends or former acquaintances, and the entire evening dealing with every-fucking-person in the party who wants a spot in my government should I win, and – it’s all complete idiots,” he sighs. “Or at least, if it was up to most of them, we’d end up solving our problems going to war to restore our old greatness. Fuck’s sake, Florence hasn’t been great at wars since the Middle Ages, and now we’re supposed to do it? How stupid can you be?”
“Well,” Contessina says, “given whose primaries you won, you can’t complain.”
Right. Because in Florence there are two parties, but one is basically old nobles who are of the conservative kind and aren’t still too keen on this whole republic thing, even if this country’s been one for centuries, and the other is the one his father supported which is still conservatives, but rich and not born noble. None of them is too… liberal, to put it mildly, and Cosimo’s one hundred per cent sure that they think he won the primaries because of his good looks. And since he’s young they can make him do what they want, and that’s why no one protested his win.
Yeah, they wish.
“Fine, but I’m not taking as Secretary of State someone who honestly just wants to go back to the fifteenth century.”
“As if,” Contessina says. “We have barely had interactions with anyone else since then. I mean, we’re so isolated for a reason. Going to war won’t help, but maybe re-opening the embassies and stopping this ridiculous self-embargo wouldn’t hurt.”
“Exactly the fucking point,” Cosimo says, but then – “Wait a moment. Go over that again.”
“Sorry?”
“Just – tell me what it is that you think we should to do when it comes to foreign relations.”
Contessina shrugs and tells him.
Stopping the self-inflicted isolation, of course. Reopening the embassies. Forgetting or at least pretending to forget the reasons why Florence has stopped interacting with all the nearby Italian republics and forge new alliances, at least economical. Absolutely not being aggressive while doing it.
Cosimo thinks of what he had envisioned.
He thinks of it, and he realizes that what his wife is saying is exactly what would help his cause, if he had a chance to do what he actually wanted.
Then he thinks – why the fuck not?
Thing is, she wasn’t too happy with the arranged marriage either. He knows she was in love with someone else when they went through with it, and she knows he hadn’t exactly been happy to marry someone their parents chose after pretty much being forced to break it off with a girl he actually liked. She knows that right now he has – well, she knows. Anyway, he’s always felt bad about this arrangement, especially because she had a stellar CV when it came to international relations – graduation before the rest of her class, internships at ten different embassies, an experimental PhD and a very promising diplomatic career in front of her. And she had to throw it away when she got married because both their set of parents agree that she couldn’t overshadow him, not when he was going to run for President.
“You know what,” he says, “fuck it all. You can be my secretary of State.”
“Excuse me, what?” Contessina had definitely not expected it.
“Why the hell not? You just told me everything I’d want out of a secretary that would agree with my – with my ideas. We’re on the exact same length. None of those other idiots in the party or outside it even came close to it. You have the skills, you have the training and you’d probably be better at it than any of them.”
“Cosimo, I’m your wife,” she replies, but she doesn’t say no.
Good.
“Yeah, and you wanted it exactly as much as I did. You already lost too much in this arrangement and – who cares? You’d be good at it. You can be good at it. I wouldn’t be asking you just because we’re married.” And for that matter, better friends than a married couple – they’ve only ever had sex a few times and mostly when they were both in dire need of letting out some steam, but this isn’t a marriage based on passion or anything. They haven’t even tried for children, regardless of both their families’ pressure, but they hadn’t felt ready and they still don’t. They’re friends, good ones, and he’s glad that at least they don’t hate each other, but he doesn’t want her to be on the losing side in all of this.
“Jesus,” Contessina says, staring back at him in the eyes. “You’re serious.”
“Deadly,” he replies. “I’m making the announcement tomorrow.”
He’s very, very pleased when she grins back at him and says that she’ll be delighted.
--
“I understand,” Cosimo says, smiling. “But fact is… as I said before, I value competency. As you can see, since we took care to put my wife’s CV online for everyone to see, she might not have worked in politics before, but she has traveled a lot, she has met ambassadors from all over Italy and Europe and she has excellent credentials. And she happens to share my vision, when it comes to what I would wish for Florence and its foreign relations.”
“Do share,” Rinaldo interrupts with a grin Cosimo doesn’t like at all. “Since, as I recall, you have not properly explained your… vision, Mr. de’ Medici. And I should like to know how you plan to change something that has benefited us for the last few centuries.”
“Benefited? Oh, of course, we haven’t been touched by wars and we have more or less kept on going by, but at what cost? The economy is stale, we don’t have embassies in half of the continent and we have been brushed off as some kind of amusement park people visit because of our art and our cities and our food. But, Mr. Albizzi, we cannot just live on the tourism that we feel is owed to us. Admittedly, I know that some… important personalities feel like we should start again by getting involved in those wars we have kept out of until now. I do not agree. I think we should re-open embassies, I think we should aim for friendly relationships with our neighbors and the entire continent, I think that we shouldn’t be isolated as we lament our former greatness but we should think of the future. Contessina is the only person I know and trust who shares my opinions and I would have never proposed her for the job if I hadn’t known she could do it. I don’t need a first lady, Mr. Albizzi. I need a capable secretary, and I know for sure she will be a great fit for that role.”
“In the same way you know Mr. Bencini, the former head of your family’s bank, should be Treasure ministry?”
Cosimo smirks – he had expected this one, too, and Rinaldo hasn’t tried to keep on questioning him concerning Contessina, which means he has nothing else he can reasonably object to his speech. Good.
“Well, Mr. Bencini has been an excellent administrator. As records attest, he has run the biggest bank in the country for years, and every inspection showed that he has been honest, competent and reliable. And he certainly never asked for a loan in order to stop it from defaulting, differently from the one your uncle used to administer. Or should I remind you that without it the savings of thousands of people would have vanished into thin air?”
Rinaldo says nothing in return and a moment later Guadagni notices and goes on to ask him the next question.
Cosimo smiles ever so slightly and lets out a breath of relief.
He dodged the worst bullet. Nothing can be as bad as those three little insidious questions. If anything, from now on it should be a road going downwards, not upwards.
Or so he hopes.
III
“That’s all good and proper,” Rinaldo says after Cosimo explains for what he feels is the umpteenth time (maybe because he’s lost count of how many times he ran through it in the aforementioned campaign) his proposed renewal of a part of the taxation system, “but I cannot help worrying when it comes to Mr. Medici’s choice of a vice president.”
Oh, damn it, of course the asshole would go there. He most probably knows – hell, scratch that, he surely knows that his VP was the one thing he had to fight tooth and nail for. His sponsors and his parents and everyone involved in his campaign had less to complain when he said he wanted Contessina as Secretary of State.
Cosimo had hoped the topic would not be brought up because if he explained all the reasons why he went for this choice he should spill the beans about things not even his would-be delegates – if he gets elected – know, up to this point.
But if he has to discuss it, so be it.
“Worrying?” Cosimo replies, smiling again. “I fail to see what need is there to worry. Unless, Mr. Albizzi, your worry has to do with the fact that my vice president choice is a trade unionist?”
“That’s the least,” Rinaldo says. “Mr. Medici, anyone would be worried seeing that you want to bring to Palazzo Vecchio a man that not only is of very low birth, enough that we don’t even know who his parents are, who is indeed a trade unionist and always has been, and who has pretty much opposed every government this Republic has had since he became a public name. Honestly, I don’t even know how someone of relatively good birth such as yourself could accompany themselves with that kind of man.”
If only you had half a clue, Cosimo thinks and doesn’t say.
--
It’s late, it’s raining like the devil personally set a storm upon this earth and Cosimo is hurrying back to his dorm room from the library – he was late, again, and the librarian had to kick him out. Then again, he might have fallen asleep over the books he had to actually read while trying to resist the everlasting temptation of checking out tomes of entirely different nature. He hopes that his copies don’t get damaged – he has a leather bag but it’s raining so heavily, he can’t know if it’ll keep the papers safe.
Not that he’d personally cry to see them damaged, as if he gives a fuck about his upcoming statistics final. But he’d rather not go through the trouble of checking the books he photocopied out all over again. So, he speeds his pace, heading for the building on the other side of the road –
And then he hears a muffled scream.
He stops for a moment, figuring he had heard wrong, but then he hears another voice.
And he’s pretty sure it said, keep his fucking mouth closed.
Cosimo might have been born in a hard family, but he’s not the kind of person to leave something like this alone. He clutches his bag and runs towards the noise – there’s a small park in between the library and the dorms. Maybe –
He walks past the gate and – maybe, his ass. There are three people huddled around some poor bastard – one of them is keeping the man’s arms pinned on the ground and has a hand on his mouth so that he can’t scream any longer, the other two are kicking him in the stomach and saying something that to Cosimo’s ears definitely sounds like filthy commie scum.
“Wow, how fair of you,” he says, without even asking himself how he’s going to deal with this if they decide to turn on him. He can defend himself, but not against three people.
Still, he thinks everyone around here knows who he is and maybe it’s going to be enough.
“Three against one? Admirable.”
“Shit,” one of the guys says. “Fucking Medici,” he goes on. “Not fucking worth it.”
Well, at least being singled out helped, for once. The three assholes scram at once and the poor guy on the ground lets out a relieved groan.
“Hey,” Cosimo tells him, kneeling downwards. He doesn’t recognize the guy at all, he’s definitely not studying Economics, and his face is a bloody bruise – two black eyes and a split lip and long hair plastered all over his forehead. “Anything broken?” Asking the guy if he’s all right would be just ridiculous. He’s obviously not.
“Don’t think so,” the guy replies. “Assholes. Jumped me from behind, on top of that, or like hell they’d have gotten the upper hand. Thank you, man, I really –”
“That’s fine,” Cosimo tells him. “I merely had to show my face. For once it was useful to something.”
The guy half-grins at him and – thing is, Cosimo hasn’t really made any friends so far, and he’s been here a year and a half. Most of the people in his courses are old nobility and hate him because his family really isn’t noble even if he’s richer than most of them put together. The others are on a scholarship and think he’s some rich stuck up asshole, and so they don’t talk to him either.
Maybe –
“Listen, my dorm room is on the third floor. If you want to clean up –”
The guy’s smile becomes wider. “Mine is also on the third,” he says, “but if you’re that nice, who am I to refuse?”
*
He throws his bag to the side before letting his guest in and heading for his small private bathroom. He grabs a few towels for the both of them and when he comes back to his living room to hand them over, his new acquaintance is staring in approval at Cosimo’s wall.
“Nice,” he says, nodding towards the mixture of sketches and posters covering it almost entirely. He accepts the towel and starts drying off his hair. “Did you make the sketches yourself?”
“Yeah,” Cosimo admits, not bothering to hide that he’s pleased someone noticed. “They’re not much, but –”
The other man moves closer to the wall and stares intently at the first one in front of him – it’s of the campus library.
“Are you serious? They’re – real good. I mean, I can’t draw for shit so what would I know, but it’s – very realistic. Nice. Art student?”
Cosimo laughs, and it’s not happy. “Did you miss the reason why your friends from before ran off?”
“Er, maybe,” the guy says. “Sorry, I didn’t exactly pay attention to the chatter.”
“That’s because they saw my face. I’m – uh. Cosimo. Cosimo de’ Medici. They recognized the family name.”
“Ah,” the guy says, and for a moment Cosimo’s deathly afraid he’ll start behaving demurely same as everyone else who doesn’t come from a nobler background than his own. “Well, tales of your apparent snobbishness have been greatly exaggerated, then.”
“Sorry?”
“Well, I study political science, so I really don’t hang around your part of campus. Everyone in the students’ rights group says that you’re some rich spoiled asshole but I see they didn’t even bother talking to you.”
“Why’s that?”
“We’ve been doing it for a good fifteen minutes and you don’t sound snobbish at all to me, never mind that you saved my hide just before. Uh, by the way, I’m without manners. I’m – Marco. Marco Bello.” He kind of blushes a bit at that.
“That’d be your surname?” Cosimo replies, sounding amused.
“Sadly, yes.”
“Hey, doesn’t seem to me like you’re wearing it wrong.”
“Yeah, imagine if I had turned out looking ugly,” Marco snorts, and Cosimo laughs at that, and he doesn’t remember the last time he’s ever laughed with someone who wasn’t Lorenzo.
“So, no art student?”
“I wish. But – the family didn’t want to hear it,” he sighs. “And how did you end up in that bloody situation?”
“Eh,” Marco says, shrugging, “I’m in the students’ union. Given that I’m here on a scholarship and I don’t exactly come from money, and those idiots definitely do and think their parents will bail them out if they ever get caught… well, they jumped to some quick conclusions about my politics. And they figured it was enough of an excuse.”
“Did they figure your politics right?”
Marco groans as he puts on his face a pack of ice Cosimo had gone to get from the refrigerator. “Communism is an utopia,” he says a moment later. “Can’t happen in the real world. That’d be excessive. Socialism is slightly more manageable. I’d ask if it’s a problem, but given your art choices, I don’t think it is.”
Oh. He’s staring at the copy of von Jawlensky’s Portrait of Alexander Sakharoff hung behind Cosimo’s shoulders.
“No, it’s really not,” he says, and he finds himself smiling wide enough to show his teeth. Sure as hell he doesn’t want to miss the chance to get to know someone who actually recognized that painting.
“Good,” Marco replies. “I’d hate to lose potential friends over politics.”
--
“My dear Mr. Albizzi,” Cosimo says, “I think you are approaching the question from the wrong angle. When you see Marco, you see a man of unclear origins who happens to also be of relatively low birth and belongs to a category you don’t trust. I see a man who in spite of growing up in a few different orphanages and being a victim of our rather horrid foster care system has managed to get high enough grades in school to win a full ride to the same… extremely exclusive school you and I both attended. I also see a man who having gained an education out of it, used it to help other people instead of mere personal gain. We have known each other for a long time and I know he’s trustworthy and knows most people in the Republic’s trade unions. Now, if I do get elected, I want to be everyone’s president, not just my peers’. Sadly, I have to admit I am not often in contact with people that aren’t my peers, and that’s why I want a vice who knows what people who are not my peers might need or want. Or both. Not counting,” Cosimo goes on, “that unless I am wrong, in last week’s vice-presidential debate, your chosen second in command has failed to provide a reply when mine asked him if he knew how much a pound of bread costs these days. I imagine Senator Pazzi hasn’t had many chances to buy his own groceries, recently.”
“Why,” Rinaldo hisses, “have you?”
“No,” Cosimo admits, serenely, “but that’s exactly why I wanted as my vice someone who does. Does my answer satisfy you?”
“Yes,” Rinaldo relents.
Good. Bullet almost dodged, if Guadagni doesn’t –
“Mr. Medici, at this point a question poses itself.”
“Please, do ask.”
“It’s all well and good that you would want a vice in touch with that part of the electorate, but reading your programme, I admittedly couldn’t find much that favored… unions, or that same electorate you say you want to know more about. Someone might assume that it’s all just for show and you will eventually not do anything for them at all.”
Well, damn it.
Someone did ask the question.
For a moment Cosimo honestly doesn’t know what to answer, and he feels as if the ground under his feet has swallowed him whole. He thinks of his parents’ unimpressed reactions when they read the program he had drafted and handed it back to him with the necessary corrections. He remembers –
He remembers a lot of things.
--
“So, what do you think?”
Lorenzo looks at Cosimo, then at the list, then back at him. He doesn’t even put his feet down from the coffee table where they had been resting when Cosimo found him and handed him the newly drafted program.
“I think,” he says, very slowly, “that if you pull this off you’ll run this country as some kinda enlightened dictator for the rest of your days. If you don’t you’ll drag the entire family into shame. But given how you become when you put your mind to something, I have a feeling it’ll be the first.”
“Flatterer,” Cosimo says, grabbing back the list, but he’s admittedly pleased about it. For a moment, he doesn’t even miss the feeling of his recently cut hair. It’s just, he hasn’t showed it to anyone else and it’s still a very rough draft, and he doesn’t want to do this, but if he has to, at least it should be – done well, right?
“Hey, it’s just the truth. I mean, if you really manage to have a union representative permanently in the Senate you’re going to start a revolution, and I’d like to be on your good side if that’s how it’s gonna go.”
“I wish,” he replies, dropping down next to Lorenzo on the sofa. “You really think I can pull this off?”
“Cosimo, if there’s a stubborn bastard in this country who’d pull that off, it’s you.”
He smiles. Maybe – maybe he can let himself think he won’t completely hate this.
*
“No one will let you do all of this,” Contessina sighs, looking at the list.
Well, he had asked for her honest opinion, after all. He has no right feeling disappointed.
“But,” she adds, “if it’s any consolation, it would be beautiful to see it happen.”
“Really?” He asks, not attempting to take it back.
“You have great ideas,” she replies. “Usually, though, great ideas stay on paper. But if I know anyone who’d manage to make something out of them, I think that’s you.”
“Then I suppose I should hope I will.”
“Cosimo,” she says, softly, “the only question is, how much of that they’ll let you even consider, let alone accept officially. But for what it’s worth, I would vote for that in a heartbeat.”
He’s come to trust her judgment even when they were pushed together against their will and he decides to keep on doing so as he grasps her hand and squeezes it. She squeezes back.
*
“You,” Marco tells him, “are a mad magnificent bastard and this country doesn’t deserve you.”
“Is that you speaking or the afterglow?”
Marco snorts and cuffs him on the shoulder slightly – given that they’re both naked and sort of sticky and absolutely not done yet, and that Marco’s bed is barely enough for two, maybe he chose the wrong moment to present the list to him, too, but – but he couldn’t wait any longer.
“As if the afterglow would change my mind,” Marco says, shaking his head. “Seriously, this is – I don’t think I ever voted for someone whose ideas I actually halfway liked. If you actually managed to go through with all of this it’d be more than halfway. But even one tenth would be good.”
“Good,” Cosimo says, “I couldn’t wait for your seal of approval.”
“As if,” Marco says, putting the list away on the nightstand. “Really, I know it’s unlikely those assholes in your party will ever let you go through with half of it, but even that would be more than enough for a lot of people who weren’t born with money growing out of trees in their own backyard.”
“It’s still nice to hear it,” Cosimo says, feeling unreasonably relieved. Or maybe – maybe it’s not unreasonably. Maybe he really just wanted everyone he cares for to approve of it.
And now that he does, maybe he feels better about this whole wretched politics business.
--
He clears his throat to bide some time and at the same time thinks, it’s so hot. The suit suddenly feels suffocating and the lights above him are making him feel as if the entirety of make-up on his face is melting at once and everyone might notice it.
He knows it’s not what’s going on, but still.
There’s not much to say. Either he comes up with some barely felt comeback that will suddenly make him look like a bloody fool, or he comes clean.
If he comes clean, he’s going to need a lot of luck in the upcoming two weeks.
But on the other side, he’s tired.
He thinks of the disappointed faces who suggested him the proper changes to his list of electoral promises and of the not-so-disappointed ones he trusted who actually liked the original version of it.
Well, he did win the damned primaries, didn’t he?
He smiles and takes off his suit jacket.
“You see,” he says, “I can understand why anyone would assume that. And – let me ask you before I answer. How many politicians promise the world during the elections and then deliver on maybe one promise every ten?”
“A lot,” Guadagni agrees. “Then again, it’s a common saying that when looking at an electoral program you should already assume half of it will never turn into reality.”
“Indeed. I don’t like to promise what I cannot deliver, and therefore I didn’t list everything I hoped to accomplish, once in office, because I didn’t want to give anyone false hopes. Also, as I am sure you can imagine, compromises have to be made behind the scenes.” He reaches for his tie’s knot and undoes it a bit, enough that he can breathe a bit more freely. “But if you want, I am entirely amenable to list everything I really want to accomplish. Regardless of whether it’s on my program or not.”
“Very well. We want to hear it,” Guadagni says.
“Yes,” Rinaldo snorts, “let’s hear what you didn’t put in there.”
“I said that I don’t want isolation. But that’s not the whole reality of it.” He breathes in. Here it goes. “I want us to stop asking for visas whenever someone wants to merely visit the country. I want us to join the EU.”
“Excuse –” Rinaldo starts, but Guadagni raises a hand and he shuts up. Good.
“I want us to stop having guarded borders. I want our students to be free to move within Europe as much as they want without having to worry about paperback. I want us to be in the common market, because we might be a small country but we do have a lot to offer. I want – I want our tourism to thrive not because some foreigners want to see our country so much they go through all that bothersome visa procedure we have not changed in at least a century. I want our art and restoration students to have the funding they need so our museums aren’t understaffed and our treasures are well-kept and not left there unattended because people will come to visit anyway. I want us to live in the real world, not in a bubble. I want to tear down all most of those monster buildings that were built half a century ago and ruined the outskirts and the countryside and rebuild those areas better and more environment-friendly, and that will create jobs and help money circulate. And if we stop living in our own bubble, foreign investors will come, and we will finally be out of this horribly stagnant situation. But,” he raises a hand as he sees Rinaldo ready to object, “I know I cannot do all of this without help and without everyone’s support. That means people who have a trade union card or students on scolarships or people who barely get by. And that means I cannot afford to surround myself with people who don’t know how much you pay for a pound of bread, and that’s why I picked a trade-unionist for my vice and someone who has traveled and has diplomatic experience in other countries for my Secretary of State.” He wonders if he should just go for the entire thing or stop here, but he supposes his sponsors are all tearing their hair out already, so he might as well. “Which is why, when I get elected, if I do, I am not going to surround myself with the same old. I might pick people I personally know and trust, which will reek of… maybe nepotism to some of you, I imagine, but you can be assured I will only ask someone that I know will do the job the way I had envisioned it. And that’s also why I want trade unions representatives in the Parliament on a permanent basis. Of course, putting this on my list might have looked too daring, and so I did not. But now you know.”
Guadagni looks at him as if he suddenly finds Cosimo extremely interesting. “And how do we know it’s the truth?”
Cosimo smiles, taking off his tie entirely. Finally. He couldn’t breathe anymore, damn it.
“You don’t,” he replies, “because everyone knows politicians lie all the time. You will just have to decide whether you trust me better than most of the people who advised me to keep all of that from the official program, who – by the way – have been in the Parliament for years in most cases. I, on the other hand, have never had anything to do with politics until I chose to run myself in order to really make Florence great again. You only can decide who you trust most.”
He glances at Rinaldo, whose forehead is covered in cold sweat.
Guadagni nods in satisfaction and says that they can move on to the next, and last, question.
Cosimo had imagined that he’d feel like fainting.
Instead – instead, he thinks he feels calm. Or calmer than he was before coming here tonight.
Well, here it goes, he thinks. In fifteen minutes he’ll know if has just doomed himself or won the entire jackpot.
--
“You, Cosimo, are a complete asshole,” Lorenzo almost shouts in his face as he walks out of the studio. He doesn’t look too angry, though.
“How so? Because –”
“Because if you were planning to do that, maybe you could have warned?”
“I – wasn’t planning to do that, though.”
“Of course you weren’t. Well, good for you I am a pro and I am on top of this, and by the way, you’re a fucking genius.”
“Sorry? You mean, that wasn’t the worst thing anyone could have done in my situation?”
“Are you insane? Sweet Jesus, you – okay, so, your sponsors are angry as fuck, of course, same as most of Father’s friends, and I think Mother would disown you if only she could afford to, but I think that’s a price you should be all too willing to pay.”
Then he thrusts a phone into Cosimo’s hands. It’s – a list of Twitter trends, and –
“Lorenzo, Christ, you know I’m shit at this whole thing, the hell does that mean?”
“That means that you and your speech are, like, the whole of the trending topics in this entire bloody country. Look at that.”
Cosimo does, paying more attention.
#cosimodemedici
#cosimo4president2k20
#florencepresidentialdebate
#albizzigohome
#gomedici
#imwithcosimo
#medici2020
#medicibello2020
#idvotethoseeyesanywhere
#downwiththeold
“The hell is up with my eyes?”
“People finding you hotter than Albizzi, of course. The hell of a question is that. Anyway, all of a sudden, everyone in the smaller parties that have zero shots at winning is apparently supporting you and you have a bunch of potential new sponsors – people who can’t wait to see those foreign investments facilitated. You have every trade union in Florence backing you up when before it was just Marco’s because no one believed you were the real thing. So even if our parents’ rich asshole friends dump you, you have gained, like, triple the support. Actually, it’s even better if they dump you, because you won’t be attached to them anymore and people who disliked them but not you will go vote for you even more willingly. Ah, wait –” Lorenzo’s other phone beeps and he takes it out, obviously checking an e-mail or something, and then he laughs. “Bro, you so hit the jackpot.”
“What’s that?”
“Every single women’s rights organization in this country is also backing you up because you’re the first candidate in years who’s sponsoring a government with a woman in a prominent role and they much appreciated your reasoning behind wanting Contessina at all costs. Of course,” Lorenzo adds, more somberly, “every other conservative media is slamming you, but I imagined you’d know that.”
“I wouldn’t expect any less,” Cosimo agrees, and he hadn’t, but honestly? Good fucking riddance. He doesn’t want any of that to saddle him.
“Good,” Lorenzo says, clapping him on the back. “Then I think we should drive back to headquarters very fast. We need a plan. You know, you could have fucking warned. Then again, I wouldn’t have expected you to not give me ten heart attacks before this election is over.”
“You’re younger than me, I’m sure you can survive them.”
“I wish. Come on, there’s a car outside. Shit, my twitter feed is exploding.” Lorenzo turns back to check his phone and Cosimo follows him out of the building and into the car – thankfully they’re using the back entrance and not many journalists thought to camp there, so he doesn’t have to deflect further questions or hide his face from flashes.
Good. He thinks he might actually want to set foot at headquarters for the first damned time since this whole campaign started.
IV
Headquarters is, unsurprisingly, in a complete chaos when they walk inside. Cosimo waves at the volunteers who are still at their computers monitoring the situation and answering calls (he made a point of learning the names, he should at least know the people manning the call center) before Lorenzo drags him to his office, where he finds Marco and Contessina huddled around Cosimo’s computer.
(He doesn’t know if he can put into words how relieved he feels that they’re friends and they like each other – it makes everything easier, it made his life less of a misery, and it’s made his silent agreement with Contessina easier to bear on both sides. He knows she doesn’t begrudge him when it comes to Marco and he knows that she occasionally still sees her ex. He’s never met the man, but he doesn’t bear him any ill will.
You don’t choose who you love and they haven’t chosen their marriage, but at least neither of them wanted the other to be miserable in it.)
“How – how is it going?” He asks. Marco looks about to answer but then his phone rings and he moves out of the room to take the call.
“It’s going great,” Contessina says, motioning for him to come over. She shows him his exploding Twitter feed, which is apparently all positive messages. His inbox is completely overblown – the moment Contessina shows it to him, twenty messages fill it up.
“Jesus,” Cosimo breathes, “how am I ever going to read all of that?”
“You won’t,” Lorenzo says. “I will, and everyone else who works for me, then we’re forwarding you the important ones.”
“God, thank you.”
“Your mother called,” Contessina says, and half of Cosimo’s good mood dwindles down at once.
“Christ. Who talked to her?”
“I did,” Contessina says. “She wasn’t too happy.”
“I can imagine. And how did that conversation go?”
“She asked to put you on immediately if you were around. I told her you weren’t. She informed me that I was to make sure you would call back the moment you arrived. I replied that you’re thirty and running for ruling a country, I don’t need to babysit you. She didn’t appreciate it.”
Cosimo snorts, imagining the conversation all too well. “She was probably regretting the day they arranged this marriage, wasn’t she?”
“Entirely possible,” Contessina agrees. “She asked if you had lost your mind and I replied that maybe you just found it, and she hung up on me. I guess she’s not going to talk to us until we give her heirs, will she?”
“Too bad she’s going to have to wait for that,” Cosimo says, not hiding his relief. He figures at some point they will have to have children, but it’s going to be at their own leisure. Given that they were both forced into this, they both agreed on not letting their families have everything they wanted out of this match at once. “Thanks, though. Now telling her to fuck off is going to feel a lot easier.”
“Well, you’re giving me the job of my dreams, it was the least. By the way, you should stop wearing ties in public. The moment you took that off, you sounded ten times more genuine.”
“Duly noted. Hell, I think I left it back at the studio, but I guess I won’t ask them for it.”
“Let them keep it. So, are we going home or we’re spending the night here holding the fort?”
“I can spend the night, I think,” he says, and suddenly he doesn’t feel tired anymore.
“Good. I was thinking the same.”
“Well,” Lorenzo interrupts, “you two will definitely fool the whole public when trying to sell them that you actually chose to get married to each other. With that, I have to go read some five hundred emails. Sayonara.”
He leaves and waves at Marco, who comes back in, pocketing his phone. “Good news,” he says. “Every last trade union of this country is backing you. Or at least that was the only union secretary I hadn’t talked to after your nice outburst.”
“Good,” Cosimo agrees. “If you want to arrange a meeting with any of them – or all – in the next week, I won’t be the one not agreeing to it.”
“Excellent. I will in the morning. Or well, later, if we’re all planning on staying here for the night.”
“We might be,” Contessina agrees.
“Right. Has any of you had dinner yet?”
Cosimo suddenly feels how exactly empty his stomach is.
“Actually, I haven’t eaten since this morning?”
“… You’re hopeless. I’ve been telling you to use an alarm when you have to get lunch for ten years,” Marco sighs. “Well, I’ll call for some food delivery.”
“No,” Contessina says, “I will. Actually, I might go grab some pizza at the place around the corner myself, I need to breathe some fresh air. Get him to relax, will you?”
“Sorry?” Cosimo asks as Marco smiles and nods back at Contessina.
“Your shoulders are so tense, just touching them before almost made me recoil.” She sounds more amused than anything, though – she leans down to kiss his cheek and grabs her bag from the nearby table. “I’ll be back in twenty. Don’t do anything no one might want to snap pictures of.”
She dashes out of the door after taking her coat from the hanger and Marco shakes his head fondly as he moves behind him, putting his hands on Cosimo’s shoulders.
“Wow,” he says, his thumbs pressing against the taut muscles right under his neck, “she wasn’t wrong.”
“I wasn’t – ah, I wasn’t particularly enjoying that debate.”
“Who’d have,” Marco agrees, and Cosimo has to bite down on his tongue in order not to moan out loud when he starts massaging his shoulders, his fingers digging against the knots he finds. “You need a day off,” he declares after maybe a minute of silent work.
“Yeah, maybe after the elections.”
“Fine, but if you aren’t spending it in bed I’m not going to let you hear the end of it.”
“Why, if it’s your bed I might be amenable.”
“Can be arranged,” Marco says, “and don’t worry, if your mother ever finds out where I live or my number I’m hanging up in her face.”
“Good,” Cosimo breathes, but it comes out almost garbled – damn, he really needed that massage, didn’t he?
He closes his eyes and lets himself enjoy it.
Whatever happens now, at least he’s not going towards damned election day with any regrets.
V.
“This,” Marco says, dumping a thick green folder in front of Cosimo, “is the briefing you need before meeting with the French ambassador this afternoon.” Then he places a thinner yellow one next to it. “This is for the union representatives meeting tomorrow morning. And this,” he adds, handing him directly a white one, which only has a few sheets in it, “are the notes Contessina sent yesterday from Berlin. Nothing you need to sign for the foreseeable future.”
“That being?”
“Two days at most. I’d start with the notes and move on to the green folder. Also, your brother says that once in a while you could do some Q&A on Twitter or Facebook, wouldn’t hurt you in the long run.”
“Duly noted,” Cosimo says, grabbing also the French ambassador’s briefing and thumbing through the contents. A great many things, but none of the documents is exceedingly long. Good. He puts it back on the desk, straightening his back. “I’ll get to it in a moment. You can tell my brother that I might consider the Q&A if I have nothing pressing to do next week. By the way, do you want any coffee or do I just make myself one?”
“No, I’ll take it.”
Cosimo nods and stands up, heading for the coffee machine in the corner of his office.
You’d think the President’s office would be larger. He was pleasurably surprised to find out that it was not and that it was actually sort of cozy, in its own way. He slips the coffee capsule into the right spot and prepares two cups, smiling to himself as the room becomes darker. Marco must have pulled the curtains. He knows he has when he feels an arm circle his waist as the coffee starts falling downwards into the cups.
He smiles as he leans back into it.
“You know,” Marco says, “you must be the first person in history who actually got healthier when coming into power.”
“Hm, how so?”
“Come on, everyone else’s hair starts to go gray, they lose weight and they can’t sleep at night. And I’m seeing all the contrary here.” Cosimo positively almost whimpers when Marco’s free hand runs through his hair – he’s trying to grow it back again. It’s nowhere near its old length but you can run your hand through it now, whilst it was impossible before.
“What can I say,” Cosimo says, entirely enjoying the feeling, “maybe even if I didn’t like it I was cut for this more than I thought.”
“For sure it suits you more than running a bank,” Marco agrees. “By the way, you know that the art department in our old university is seriously considering naming the biggest classroom after you?”
“Seriously?”
“Come on, they haven’t seen so many State funds in centuries. I might even have heard of honoris causa degrees.”
“Absolutely not. I want to earn that one myself the moment I’m done with this.”
“Duly noted. Should I also warn them to give you the marks you deserve?”
“Obviously. And when I’m done, don’t invite my mother to my graduation party.”
Shit, his first graduation party had been a complete nightmare. If he thinks about it he just wants to grimace.
“Fine, but I want the first invitation, since I couldn’t be at the last one.”
“As if, you were about the one person I wanted there,” Cosimo sighs, taking the coffee and handing one cup back to Marco. “And instead I had to invite Rinaldo out of all people. How’s he doing, by the way?”
“Licking his wounds,” Marco says. Cosimo can feel him shrugging as he downs the espresso cup in one go and and places it back on the table. Cosimo does the same, feeling more awake at once – he doesn’t mind getting up early in the morning, but it does catch up to you – and then he decides he can allow himself another five minutes of leisure.
“Good. I trust your debate opponent learned how much bread costs, meanwhile?”
“I should hope,” Marco replies as Cosimo turns without getting out of his hold and turns back to face him. “Surely he doesn’t like me being here, from his last interviews, but I suppose he will have to live with it. Ah, by the way, the British Vanity Fair website just put you in the list of best dressed politicians of the year.”
“What?”
“They have some ridiculous article where they inform us of who are the ten best-dressed young European politicians that became famous in the last twelve months or so.”
“Does someone even care about this stuff?”
“Apparently. You’re number one, actually.”
“What?”
Marco takes his phone from his pocket, scrolling by until he finds the article in question, but his other arm doesn’t move from Cosimo’s waist. “Apparently, the fact that you had… the courage of foregoing formal attire for something more suited to your age and at the same time equally stylish won you some points.”
Cosimo would like to know what’s stylish in jeans and laced shirts – of course, he still wears suits to formal meetings, but when it comes to everything else he’s gone back to what he used to wear in university and he hasn’t regretted it for a moment –, but he figures this isn’t the day he understands either fashion trends or that kind of journalism. Never mind that he doesn’t understand why people care about what he wears rather than about his politics, but whatever – he’s going to worry about running a country instead of fashion.
“And what’s your opinion?”
“My opinion is that I like you whatever you wear and even if you aren’t, in fact, wearing anything, but if you actually like it… that kind of shows, so please be on Vanity Fair more often.”
The curtains are drawn and the door is locked, and Cosimo doesn’t even think twice before moving in and closing the distance between them. He’s still irked that they can’t do this in the open same as they couldn’t back in university
(but he will always remember the first time they kissed, a few months after they met, just after an argument Cosimo had with his parents the one time they had come to visit him at the campus, just after they had made him understand they didn’t approve of his choices in girlfriends. At least Bianca had been understanding, but he had spent the next four weeks moving around feeling hollowed out and like a fraud who couldn’t stand up for himself. His parents never approved that he was friends with someone who grew up in foster care and didn’t even know his birth family, but he never quite budged on that, and if they hadn’t known the real reasons why – what they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them, could it? )
but maybe one day. Not this one, and not until both he and Contessina are public figures, but –
He figures he will just have to be patient. He feels Marco’s hands move upwards, cupping the back of his head and grasping at his growing hair, and he smiles into the kiss, thinking about the five messages from his mother that he deleted without a thought this morning.
Who’d have thought that he’d have come to enjoy this job as much as he is? Then again, now he actually has the power to improve things for the collectivity, he doesn’t have to worry about money or statistics or accounts all day long and he can put what he learned to good use. His wife is actually truly happy for the first time since they married because she’s doing something she loves and he gets to see the person he happens to be in love with every day instead of having to make time on week-ends which for some miracle the both of them happened to have free. On top of that, knowing that his mother, most of his father’s friends, most of his relatives and most of the people who refused to back him up any longer after his debate speech are hating every second of his political run – which is going swimmingly, given that his government has approval rates off the roof when it comes to every poll landing on his desk – just makes everything even better.
Yes, he decides, he will go on making his tiny country very much great again over the next three years, and he will enjoy every damned second of it.
End.