Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win by Jo Piazza

Author:Jo Piazza
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Talk of the Town

DEPT. OF FRESH MEAT

* * *

On a rare morning off, Charlotte Walsh, tech executive, mom of three, and Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, is trying to decide between a deep maroon and a navy blue polish at a nail salon in downtown Altoona humorously named Nailed It.

“My daughters always want me to get purple with sparkles. Which I guess is a nice blend of both parties, right? Like wearing a donkey on the front of my shirt and an elephant on the other. It’s strange, but I get asked about my nail color at least once a day. Sometimes I think I shouldn’t wear nail polish at all, but that might make people ask me about it even more.” She decides on the maroon color named “Party on a Platform.”

Walsh speaks quickly and whiplashes from one idea to the next without pausing. When she’s not speaking she’s listening intently without interrupting.

As she settles into a large black leather armchair, she leans forward to make animated small talk with the nail technician, a petite Korean woman named Jen. They speak in hushed tones for a few minutes before Walsh turns to me to summarize.

“She told me she got health insurance for the first time last year, but now she can’t afford the premiums. Goddammit, I hear these stories every day. These are the things we need to fix.”

Jen asks Walsh if she wants a pedicure. The candidate shakes her head.

“No one ever sees my toes.”

On her feet Walsh is wearing black Nike sneakers with a bright pink swoosh. Following her announcement speech in March, an Instagram account was created documenting her daily choice of footwear. It currently had more than one hundred thousand followers.

Thirty minutes later we pile back into the Walsh family’s Chevy minivan.

“Excuse the mess,” Walsh says as she gets behind the wheel. “And don’t sit right behind the driver’s seat unless you want to get glitter all over your butt.” The Chevy minivan is a cobalt blue with six seats in the back and no television screens.

“I prefer to talk to people while I’m in the car. Don’t you think it’s a good place to talk?” she says as she turns on her blinker and checks the rearview mirror.

Charlotte Walsh considers herself an expert at the car game where you attempt to find the letters of the alphabet, in order, on road signs or nearby buildings.

“It’s how we taught my twins to read,” she says.

“She has an eagle eye,” her campaign manager Josh Pratt adds from the backseat. “She’s always going to find the X and the Z.”

Somewhere in between Altoona and State College, Walsh collects a T when she spies a sign for farm-fresh turkey eggs.

“Have you ever had a turkey egg?” she asks her assistant, Leila Kelly, with a gleam in her eye. “Why don’t we eat turkey eggs? Are they inedible or is there some kind of inherent prejudice against them?”

She pulls the minivan into the long driveway leading to the farm.

“It’s really hard to keep her on schedule,” Kelly says.

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