The Phoenix Campaign (Grace Colton Book 2) by Heidi Joy Tretheway

words. How do you expect to keep your cool during a debate?”
    I close my eyes and force a slow breath out my nose. She’s right. Of course she’s right. I’ve had little experience in debates beyond some bland Portland City Club-hosted events for my congressional campaigns.
    Like just about everything, competing on a national stage is night and day from my grassroots campaign experience.
    “You’re right,” I whisper.
    “You need to prep. Trey gave me your sheets of rude questions and they’re good, but they’re not enough. I set up a screen test for you this afternoon.”
    “Screen test?” I’ve done dozens of on-camera interviews. “Like an audition?”
    “Do you know that during the Nixon-Kennedy debate for the 1960 election, the people who listened to it on the radio thought Nixon won, but the people who watched it on TV thought Kennedy won?”
    I shake my head. Of course I don’t know that. Jared’s the one who studied public policy in grad school, while I was busy digging into Supreme Court rulings in law school. My required reading rarely ventured into political history or communications.
    “What’s your point?” I ask her.
    “The point is that you’ve got to be brilliant on camera. Not just good. You made a couple of faces during the Alton interview that weren’t your best look. I want to show them to you, coach you out of them. I want to work on your timing. We’re going to nail your body language so you look like the most natural person in the room.”

    ***

    “It feels like acting lessons.” I’m frustrated, watching Sasha play back tape. The screen is paused on a particularly unflattering expression as my brows knit and a deep wrinkle creases my forehead.
    Why have I never seen that wrinkle in the mirror in the morning? Next thing I know I’ll be sprouting a dozen more gray hairs.
    “It’s only to help you act more natural. Help you connect with people.”
    I bite back a strong dose of cranky and keep listening. Off-camera, Sasha’s voice asks me a pointed question on health-care reform and offers two negative options. I see myself pause a beat, then use a bridging statement.
    Sasha clicks the pause button. “Did you see what you just did there?”
    “Reframe? I changed the context of the question.” My face betrays my confusion, because that’s what I’ve been taught to do.
    “Stop listening to the words. Use your eyes. Use your sense of rhythm.” She rewinds a few seconds, then presses play again.
    I hear the question, then see my neck move slightly before I reply. “Is it the pause when I swallow?”
    “That’s part of it. There’s a cadence you’ve got to listen for,” she says, then plays the clip again. “When you’re asked a question with a positive response, you need to give a longer beat, draw out the suspense of the moment so the audience listens more closely. Smile, or step slightly to the side of the lectern. But if you’re asked a negative question, you want to dropkick it. Just plow right in and keep your words as short and boring as possible.”
    “Short and boring. Got it.”
    Sasha holds up a finger to indicate a caveat. “But no soundbites. Short words, but ramble a bit. Make your sentence structure longer. Interrupt the thought with a side comment. That makes for rotten replays.”
    We go through the rest of the tape, take by painful take, question by question, and I scribble on the notecards she used to grill me. This time, most of my notes are style and not substance. I feel like I’m selling out.
    But I want this. Oh, hell yes, I want this. And the person growing inside me is even more reason that I want to change the world for good.
    Sasha finally lets up with her play, pause, critique cycle when it’s close to dinnertime and flips off the monitor.
    “Are we done?”
    “For now.” She eyes her phone, looking at the time. “I’ve got a dinner tonight and you’ve got the rest of a speech to write.”
    My mouth drops open. “How do you