She just had to get through this presentation. Then she could freak out. She could hold it together until then.
Liz cleared her throat and looked back up at her audience. “As I was saying, our education policy as it stands needs to be revamped. Students are skimming by, learning only to take a test, not to think for themselves. Several studies have shown that previous generations performed better in college when the emphasis was on forward thinking and not test taking.”
She went through the next few slides, detailing the work of political scientists and journalists who had looked at education policy more closely. Then she outlined her own findings and conclusions about the role of social media and how journalism could improve and refocus the political agenda.
“These changes, with the aid of political journalists in the field as well as the support of politicians, could create major improvements not just in secondary education, but on up through the university system.”
Liz concluded her presentation and then took a seat. She felt like a towel that had just been wrung out.
Besides her mishap when Brady had walked into the room, she didn’t think the presentation had gone poorly. But Brady hadn’t taken his eyes off of her the entire time. In fact, she had felt like those chocolate-brown eyes that had once made her entire body warm with desire were drilling a hole straight through her body. And she was talking about education policy, of all things. She had always been passionate about it.
How many times had she argued with Brady about pushing aside education policies that could have benefited the university for some budgetary measure? And she had thought for a long time that he was favoring the donors he so heavily relied on . . . that he was doing this for money . . . that he just wanted to be in the spotlight. It was a sentiment she had never been able to understand, because she had never wanted those things for herself. But then over time she had realized how wrong she was about Brady.
Too late now. She had left. He was with someone else. She was with Hayden.
She didn’t hear the next three presenters as each took up his or her own fifteen-minute slot. She knew what they were discussing because of her assistant work for the colloquium, but the words coming out of their mouths might as well have been gibberish. The only thing she could concentrate on was the person standing stoically in the back of the room.
“Thank you so much to all of the presenters,” Professor Mires said as the last person finished. The crowd applauded and she waited for the room to quiet down before speaking again. “All the students have worked tremendously hard, and we appreciate the effort. Since we have a little extra time, I’d like to open up the floor for questions.”
A few hands were raised and Dr. Mires called on people. Liz answered one or two questions, as did everyone else. Answering questions definitely wasn’t as hard as giving her speech, though as a reporter she was used to firing them off.
Then she saw a hand rise in the back of the room and her heart stopped beating. What could Brady possibly have to ask? Was it even kosher for him to ask a question?
“Congressman Maxwell,” Professor Mires called. She sounded surprised. Liz doubted she had been expecting a politician to ask a question.
All eyes turned to stare at him. If they were all as surprised as Dr. Mires was then they didn’t show it.
“Yes, I have a question for Miss Dougherty,” Brady said formally.
“By all means.”
“As I’m a current member of the Education Committee in Congress,” Brady began, his voice smooth and strong, “what would you personally say from your research is the most important factor for me to take back to D.C. regarding education?”
Liz’s stomach dropped out. He was on the education committee? She hadn’t been following his progression in Congress at all. She had been purposely avoiding it at all costs. She didn’t want to know what he was up to and torture herself any more than she already was.
But what would a man who had balanced the budget in the North Carolina State Legislature, whose father was head of the budget committee in the Senate, be doing sitting on an education board? She knew that freshman Congressmen were placed wherever more senior members chose, but this was Brady. His father’s name alone would have moved him up the ranks.
And it certainly wasn’t his specialty. He hadn’t even run on education reform. He worked in real estate, ran his family business, budgeted properties. He wasn’t an educator in the slightest. So then . . . why was he working in education?
It made her want to run back to her computer and look up every single bill that he had been working on to find out what the hell he was up to.
But first she had to get through his scrutiny.
What would she tell Brady to take back to D.C.? Christ, what a question!
Oh, how a part of her wanted to spit back at him not to favor big donor money for budget reforms in place of education policy. Education was a positive speaking point, but it wasn’t something a politician could run on. It didn’t distinguish them. It didn’t make them stand out . . . not like balancing a budget in the current fiduciary climate.
If only Congress would make education a priority instead of a backdrop, then they could begin to see improvements to the system. But she couldn’t say that to him. She couldn’t throw words she had spoken to him last summer back in his face like this in public. She couldn’t let her answer to the question be personal. Wasn’t that what Dr. Mires had been trying to instill into Liz’s work all last summer?
“Thank you for that question, Congressman Maxwell,” Liz said formally.
They were staring at each other across the room, and she felt her cheeks heating. His face was a mask of indifference, and she was dying to know what he was thinking right now.
“I believe there are probably several answers to this question. Education policy, as you know, is multifaceted and should be addressed as such. So I believe that the strongest thing you should take back to D.C. would be to focus on policy that treats students as individuals. So often they are lost in the standardized tests and labeled as a number, a score; you lose the individual. Finding a way to treat education reform both systematically as well as on an individual level would be a step in the right direction, in my opinion.”
Her voice wasn’t even shaky when she finished. Because by the end it felt as if it were only she and Brady in the room and she was telling him all over again why this was important to her. The faintest of smiles crossed his gorgeous face before it fell away.