WASHINGTON, D.C.
Julia Racine juggled a tray with two coffees, two chocolate doughnuts, one glazed cruller, and one container of chocolate milk while pinning a copy of The Washington Post under one arm and a stuffed koala bear under the other. A nurse helped her push open the door.
“Thanks,” Julia said and bounded down the hall.
By now she was getting used to the smell of disinfectant and the ding of monitors inside dimly lit rooms. She kept herself from glancing into the rooms. She didn’t want to see any other patients except CariAnne.
She found the girl and her mother mesmerized by yet another cable news show blaring the current events of the day. The anchor was discussing an impending press conference about the contaminated food in schools.
“Yah! Doughnuts!” both daughter and mother squealed, raising their arms.
“And you brought my bear.”
CariAnne reached for the ragged stuffed animal but her left arm was still connected to a monitor. She stopped, readjusted, and tried again.
They were told all of the gizmos were only for precaution. So far the little girl was testing negative for all the salmonella strains they had been tracking. The antibiotic cocktail that Colonel Benjamin Platt had ordered seemed to be working, though CariAnne would need to take it for another ten days.
“Nice column today,” Julia said, setting aside the folded Washington Post and grabbing her cruller.
“Careful, you’re starting to sound like a fan.”
Julia stopped short of telling her that she intended to be a fan for a very long time.
A news alert came over the television screen and both mother and daughter shushed her even though Julia wasn’t talking. She smiled and simply took her seat.
Julia saw Mary Ellen Wychulis take the podium. She didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable replacing her boss. Her new title appeared in a graphic below: Undersecretary of the Food Safety and Inspection Service. If Julia didn’t know better she would have thought the woman had been in this position for years.
Wychulis explained what they believed had happened in last week’s outbreaks at two separate schools. A supplier for the National School Lunch Program had not reported an internal contamination before shipping out ground beef. She insisted that all the ground-beef products were being recalled and to be on the safe side, no ground beef would be used in school lunches for the next several weeks.
Julia was impressed, although she thought the tall, willowy woman who used to be Benjamin Platt’s wife sounded too much like an easily manipulated government employee. An opportunist who was ready to step up, maybe even step over whomever she needed to, all in the name of business as usual.
Remembering that late-night meeting with the USDA, Julia wondered if everything really would be taken care of. Had the real person responsible been caught or would Irene Baldwin be blamed for a contamination that had been in the making long before she even showed up. But that was politics. If Julia remembered correctly, the secretary of agriculture was a crony of the president. Just several days ago the man was more than happy to erroneously blame a poor kitchen worker for this entire mess.
Julia tried to concentrate on the press conference. Wychulis was saying that she wouldn’t take any questions.
Of course, they won’t take any questions.
But then Wychulis told the crowd of reporters that she would introduce the person who would. The administration’s newest cabinet member. The president had just made the appointment official this morning to replace his longtime friend, who was suddenly retiring.
“No,” Wychulis insisted, it had nothing to do with this latest recall effort. The timing was totally coincidental.
Then she waved to someone at her left and introduced the new secretary of agriculture: Irene Baldwin.