“I’ll just have Addie strike one of those lines on the drinks-I-owe-you poster I have on my wall.”
“Deal. Do you need help here? Anything I can do?” He was already consumed with his own emails. If they could keep this relatively short, it might actually be perfect for him to get an hour of work done and then get out to Sophie.
“I’m good. Thanks.”
“Okay. I’ll jump out and get us a table.”
“Cool. Be there in five.” She spoke without lifting her head from the screen.
Jacob strolled into the restaurant, happy to see it almost empty. A family with a three-year-old sat eating dinner at a table in the center of the room. Foreign. Alternate time-zone meal. Behind them, two people were huddled over almost-empty drinks in the corner couches. Definitely an affair. When the man stealthily put his hand on the woman’s knee after looking around, Jacob congratulated himself on his hypothesis, thinking he should be eligible for some sort of psychological degree in hotel personality assessment. He had spent enough time in them to be able to pick out every particular situation.
He walked straight over to his favorite corner table. It had four big leather chairs clustered together and a surface large enough to accommodate a good deal of spread-out papers. Plus the high and rounded backs of the chairs left them, as he liked to say, AHAP—as hidden as possible. He sat in one of the enormously comfortable, but not too mushy, just-right chairs. Marco, who really seemed to work the restaurant at all times, day and night, walked by.
“Hey, man. Just you tonight?”
“No, no, there’s going to be three. The boss is on his way.”
“Okay, okay, big-time.” Marco straightened up a little even at the mention of the governor. “You want to start on something?”
“I would like to start on a vodka immediately, but I think I better stick with a Coke for now.” Jacob smiled. “And actually lemme grab a menu from you, man. I’ll get us going on some snacks. My plan is to get this thing over and done with in under an hour.” One of the greatest parts of a place like the Brinmore and people like Marco was their ability to help Jacob stay within a time frame when he needed it.
“Hot date with the teacher?”
Jacob nodded. Marco knew more about his life than most of Jacob’s friends.
“Ten-four. We’ll have you out of here by nine fifty-eight. On it, man!” He handed Jacob a menu. Jacob knew the offerings by heart. He didn’t think twice about ordering for Taylor or Olivia. Chicken tenders; a thin-crust pizza; an order of sliders; Kobe beef, of course; and truffle fries. He threw on a tuna tartare for good measure, knowing the chances of its getting eaten were minimal. Thankfully, Billy didn’t get itemized bills from the Brinmore kitchen. He couldn’t imagine the response he would get for thirty-six-dollar sliders and tuna tartare. That would go over real well with voters, he thought with a grimace as he got back to his Iowa emails.
Joe Ottingly needed $225 for the rental van to transport fifteen volunteers every day for a month. Jacob started to think about the fact that the bill tonight would undoubtedly be more than that and then tried to remember Landon’s advice on compartmentalizing. “The worlds have to be kept separate in your mind,” Landon had explained once on a plane ride. They were on their way from a rural farming town that was slowly dying to Alek’s birthday party on a private Caribbean island that he had rented for a week.
“He rented the entire island?!” Jacob had asked incredulously.
The governor, newly elected, had taken the question and broadened it into an entire political theory, as he often liked to do. “You can’t possibly rationalize one world in the context of the other,” he told him. “It would drive you mad if you tried.”
Jacob looked up from his email just as Olivia hustled into the dining room, almost panting, and sat down as if she had just finished a marathon.
“Okay.” She exhaled the word as she dropped papers all over the table and started sorting them. “I brought a Florida list, a Democratic National Committee trustee list, and Institutional Investor’s top-paid hedge fund managers.”
“And I got you chicken fingers.”
“You’re a god.”
He laughed as she started to pull herself together, clearly nervous. “It’s easy, because you and the gov have the exact same palate—a three-year-old’s.”
“Touché. Actually you will be happy to hear I have acquired a taste for sushi.” She puffed out her chest.
“Holy crap, I never thought I’d see the day. How did that happen?”
“That art event at the Mastrimonicos’. Literally, Jacob,” she explained, still dazzled by it herself, “they had all of Nobu in the kitchen. At least twenty workers, all in their Nobu uniforms.”
“Oh! That’s right! Where Ashley Mastrimonico actually ate.” He laughed heartily. The Mastrimonicos were major Democratic donors. “Man, that stuff must have been really good.”
“It was insane.”
“Let me guess, to diiiiie for?” He said it with Ashley’s exact accent and a toss of his imaginary hair.
“Exactly. She was completely binge-eating in the kitchen during the speech. And get this—I compliment her on her dress and she says, ‘Oh, it’s just a little nothing! Bergdorf is right downstairs, so when I don’t have anything to wear—which is always—I just hop down in my robe, and they can always find the perfect thing. It’s like an extended closet!’ How crazy is that?”
“She goes to a store in her robe?”
“She goes to one of the most expensive stores in the world in her robe! And picks out clothes like it was her closet!” Olivia’s eyes opened wider. “Sometimes she gets two of the same dress because she forgets she already has it. How much fun would it be to have so many clothes you forget which ones you have?!”
“I’d like to forget some of the clothes you have. At what age do you think you’ll stop wearing sequins?”
Olivia reached over and mimed a punch at his arm, laughing loudly. Her cackle would have embarrassed Jacob if the room had been fuller. Olivia must have noticed his expression because she mugged a sheepish grin.
“Okay, okay, time to break up the party here,” the governor said lightly as he approached the table. “I mean we do have an election to win here.”
“Speaking of clothes I’d like to forget, hi, Gov. That was actually Olivia laughing, not a screaming cry for help.”
“Very funny, Jacob. Sorry about that.” Olivia looked more annoyed than she usually did at his jabs.
He smiled and mouthed, “What?” as the governor sat down.
“Hello there, Marco.” Taylor extended his arm to shake the waiter’s hand.
“Seriously, Governor.” Jacob appraised Taylor’s khaki Gap pants and striped shirt paired unsurprisingly with his favorite Great American Vending Machine Company baseball hat, the one he loved to wear because he thought it made him incognito. “I wasn’t aware there was a dysfunctional sailors’ event tonight. It must have fallen off my calendar.”
Olivia’s eyes opened wide at Jacob.
“What’s wrong with this?” Taylor tugged at his shirt like a young kid. “I got these at J.Crew!” He tried to defend the outfit. “We can’t all be fashion mavens like you.”
Jacob laughed. Casual clothes were feared among politicians more than election losses. All politicians, male and female, as far as Jacob could tell, were petrified of having to wear anything other than a suit. Wanting to seem real and approachable while not wanting to cross over to anything that could be criticized or would subconsciously turn voters off led all of them to the same ensemble: a shirt, usually polo, tucked into khakis, with an awkward leather belt. He noticed it first about Landon, but as the years went on, he realized it was what they all did, even the women. That and the T-shirts all politicians seemed to wear under their suit shirts seemed like the required fashion faux pas in politics.
“I think it looks nice. Comfortable,” Olivia said, eyes widened with every comment to send Jacob a back-off signal.
“Hallmark?” the governor asked.
“Yeah, Olivia’s like a greeting card store—she can find something nice to say about anything. If the city was on fire she’d tell you how pretty the red in the flame was.”
The governor smacked his hand down on the table with a hearty laugh.
Olivia smiled acceptingly.
“Okay, Wiseass and Hallmark,” the governor said, “let’s get this show on the road. What have we got?”
Olivia started explaining her lists. “I brought a few,” she said, and started telling him about their sources.
“Institutional Investor sounds interesting,” the governor said, reading over her shoulder. “Let’s start there.”
Olivia went through the names as if she had written historical biographies on each one. For each one there was a plan of action and a point of contact.
Jacob wrote away on his BlackBerry, answering emails and devising the new scheduling-management program he had been working on for weeks. A system where things were scheduled in a meaningful, logical, and unemotional manner was unheard-of in political campaigns, especially presidential ones, but Jacob was determined to do it. He wasn’t sure how exactly he would do it, but he knew with more work, he could get it done. He thought for sure it would be the lasting mark he would leave on campaign life and imagined himself in his corner office years from now hearing from political staffers that he had revolutionized scheduling.
Between emails, and sometimes during them, he would zone back into the conversation. Whoever said men don’t multitask would do well to spend a little time at this table.
Aside from throwing in a comment or an anecdote here and there, or filling in history with one donor or another, he really didn’t need to be in the list conversation. Usually feeling superfluous around the governor left him with an embarrassing dose of insecurity, but with Olivia, it was different. She was his pick, his bet, his long-shot bet to be exact, so when she was on her game, Jacob actually felt self-satisfied. He looked up and smiled as she explained how one CEO actually used to date the wife of another CEO, which was the reason they weren’t friends, even though everyone else thought it was just because their businesses were competitors.
“How do you know all this?” the governor asked.
“I memorized a book of useless donor facts!” Olivia said brightly.
The governor gaped at the sliders as Marco placed them on the table. “Perfect.” He grabbed a small burger, his earlier desire for a steak completely forgotten. “Marco, could I get a beer too? You guys want one?”
“Sure, I’m in.” Jacob jumped on board, surprised at how long it had been since he and the governor had sat down for a beer. When Jacob first landed the job, a beer or paper cup full of boxed white zinfandel would have done the trick. “Just something to take the edge off,” Taylor routinely used to quip to Jacob with a smile. But soon, it turned into two cups of Chardonnay, then nearly a bottle of pinot grigio. Now standard protocol dictated two bottles of sauvignon blanc per evening. Jacob hadn’t really noticed it until now, but things had become more formal. Sharing a beer, like buddies, had become a rare occurrence.
“Olivia?” the governor asked.
“I think . . . ummm . . . I’ll just have a coffee, please.”
“Super cool, Liv.” Jacob shot her two thumbs up.
She shrugged her shoulders and lifted her hands in a self-conscious fashion.
As the governor and Olivia ate and talked, Jacob typed away, almost in awe of the fact that he was getting time to just sit and answer his emails, not to mention do it all with a beer in hand. For the first time since he could remember—No, the first time ever—he would be able to meet Sophie without sixty unanswered e-mails lingering over his head. He thought back to the last time he had slept at her house, when he had ducked into the bathroom to catch up on work for two hours while she slept. Tonight, maybe, he’d actually be able to sleep next to her.
He brought his attention back to the governor and Olivia as they laughed through yet another story, and then Jacob stayed involved as the governor ordered up another round of beers.
“Could we get more of the truffle fries too?” Olivia added.
Marco took down the order, shooting Jacob a questioning and slyly concerned look.
Oh shit. Suddenly his well-planned evening was hitting a speed bump. Olivia’s ordering food? We’ll be here for hours. He looked down at his BlackBerry, which was free of unopened messages. Nine fifty-six. He looked around as if he might be able to find a Mission: Impossible way out. Sophie’s email came as if she were reading his mind.
[email protected]: Five minutes and counting. You close?
Well, at least she thinks it’s nine fifty-five. That’s one extra minute. He looked back up to the table almost without a choice. He needed to at least give her a time frame.
He started in slowly. “Hey, just so I can give the briefing guys a timeline of when you need your info for tomorrow, how long do you think this should take? They’re happy to use some more time if they have it.”
Olivia looked at him, stifling a laugh.
He stared her down. Lock it up. I know how pathetic that was. She read the look immediately and turned the laugh into an apologetic shrug.
“Bored already, Jacob?” the governor asked, deadpan.
“Never bored, sir.”
The governor flipped through the list. “Are you tired too, Olivia? I could go through some more if you wanted. I think this is helpful, no?”
“It’s really helpful.”
“I didn’t say I was tired!” Jacob interjected emphatically. “I just—”
“Kidding, kidding.” The governor threw his hand on Jacob’s back. “Seriously, why don’t you get out of here? Olivia and I can go through this stuff. It’s about time you took a little break. Plus, I think your grandma might stop liking me if I don’t get you married off soon. Tell Sophie we say hello.”
“Grandma Lee will never stop liking you!” Jacob declared. Part of him wanted to stay, but he knew this hashing of donor history could go on for hours. Plus, this might be a game-changing save for his newly forming relationship with Sophie: to be on time. “If you really don’t need me I’m going to take you up on that.”
“We always need you,” the governor said, less cheesily than that phrase could have sounded. “But if you’re gone, we can assign more calls to you.”
“Deal!” Jacob jumped up from the table like a high school kid who’d just successfully ditched second period. “Thanks.” As he raced out of the room, he doubled back to Marco. “Tab to the room? And thirty percent tip. Don’t bring them a bill.” He headed out the door as Marco waved him off. “Thank you!”
Olivia looked over at the television, surprised to find that an hour and a half had gone by since Jacob left. “Wow! It’s past eleven thirty!” It was the first time since the finance committee meeting that she and the governor had been alone together. And in a hotel, again. She tried not to think of it. She vowed to focus all her attention on her work.
The governor glanced up from the list he was surveying with a confused and surprised look. “Did a clock just show up somewhere?”
“No.” She laughed, realizing she had blurted that out rather bizarrely. “Stephen Colbert is doing his Spor’ Repor’.”
“The Spor’ Repor’! Hot damn. What’s better than sports and politics all at once? You want to call it a night?”
“No. I mean, whatever you want. This is great.” She needed to get through more lists. And she needed to prove to herself she could be alone with him. Just because her stomach rose and fell with every breath did not mean she could not do this.
“I don’t want to keep you working too late.”
Olivia laughed. “I’d just go back to the office.”
“Seriously?”
“Um, yeah. If I go home before one it’s kind of an early night.”
“Don’t you have friends?”
“Sure, but they’ve learned.”
“Learned?”
“About campaign life. You lose the first layer of them in your first campaign, which actually turns out to be a good thing anyway. The second layer drops out halfway through your third campaign when they realize you are going to cancel on every event. By the fourth, at least for me, what’s left is family and really good friends who understand and accept your schedule. Which really is all anyone needs anyway. I think.” She stopped, mulling over the matter more than she ever really had. “There’s too much to get done in this world for so many friendships.”
The governor leaned forward. The honesty didn’t seem to trouble him. He brought his hand up to his chin and looked up from under the brim of the baseball hat. She loved when he wore that. Jacob was crazy to make fun of his outfit. He looked so handsome in casual clothes. It showed a side of him that no one got to see. “You guys really do work hard.” He stared at her pensively.
“It’s so much more than work for all of us.” She felt almost helplessly earnest the minute she saw the governor’s grin. Damn it, Olivia. Business. “Oh, that sounded a lot more cheesy than I meant it. I just mean—”
“No, no.” He stopped her before she had to explain. “I know what you mean. And I appreciate it. Actually, I more than appreciate it. It’s really one of the vital things that gets me through the day—knowing that we are an army of people fighting for what we believe in.”
“You.”
“What?” He fixed his gaze on her, seemingly confused by that one word hanging between them.
“It’s you we believe in.” She couldn’t help herself. For two people who never spoke without thinking beforehand, the rare occasion of blunt conversation was immediately recognized and palpable. It left a raw quality in the air. Olivia remembered it from the night of the finance committee meeting. “I lose myself around you,” he had said. This is what he meant. At least that’s how she saw it. It was that momentary loss of control of your words that could only be comfortably shared with someone who valued restraint just as much.
Domestic Affairs Page 19
