Domestic Affairs

by Bridget Siegel

“Yeah. That senator I told you about, Morris, offered me a job.”

  “You’re not seriously considering it, are you?” Olivia knew the situation between Jacob and the governor had gotten bad, but the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind that Jacob would quit. That was the thing in campaigns, the thing she thought she and Jacob shared completely, loyalty. Once you were part of a team you didn’t drop your candidate even if he or she were going down in flames. Loyalty was Campaign Lesson #1.

  “Yeah, I guess not,” he said with less-than-convincing sincerity.

  “I can’t be here without you, Jacob. I mean, screw me, no one can be here without you. You are this campaign.”

  Jacob was quiet, a rare occurrence.

  “You pulling a Landon on me?” she asked. “All quiet over there?”

  “I’m just not sure this campaign is who I want to be anymore.”

  Holy shit. I did this. I’ve crushed Jacob. The campaign. Me. I should have never let the governor kiss me. I should never have kissed him. “Jacob, I’m so sorry.”

  “Liv, it’s not your fault.”

  “Some of it is.” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words even though she was dying to get them out.

  “It’s not.”

  He knows. He knows it’s me. I’m going to fix this. “Okay. Jacob, tomorrow will be better. I’ll get the money in, we’ll get through this filing, and it will be okay.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then we go to the White House!” She tried to muster excitement, but even the thought of the presidency seemed less thrilling. She was too disappointed in Landon. And in herself.

  “Yeah.” He shared her attempt to make an effort. “Okay, we should definitely get some sleep.”

  “You think?” She laughed. “Sorry about my breakdown.”

  “Please. Like you always say, tomorrow will be better.”

  “Good night, J.”

  “Good night, O.”

  SEVENTEEN

  The tears welled up in Olivia’s eyes as she read the email from the governor: How could we be 30k down? Olivia, you have to find this money by tonight. We’ve bought the media. It’s unacceptable.

  She scrolled up and saw the cc’s. Jacob, Peter, even Addie, and on and on. People she worked with, she worked for, she was friends with. Her head fell down to the desk.

  Find this money? Jerk. Where would I be finding him money? She screamed into her arm, but the truth was she wasn’t mad. She was sad. She had let everyone down. Even him.

  She stared at the money-out spreadsheet in front of her, the names stacked on top of each other with the promises these people had made and never kept: 5K, 10K, 2,500. They told me they’d have the money in. They lied. But as she berated the donors, the tears came streaming. How did this become her responsibility? How did the fault fall solely on her shoulders?

  She stared at the draft filing on her desk. The day of the filing they always printed it out to look over and catch any errors. She had distributed hard copies to four people, the only four trusted to be a last vet. $1,968,056 for this quarter. She pushed the hair out of her face and started typing.

  “We’re almost there,” she wrote with the “To:” box filled with donor emails. “We need your help.”

  She could have written this plea in her sleep.

  “If all of you could give one more time, we would be there.”

  Billy called to “touch base,” which she knew was Billy’s way of making sure she was okay. She kept up the façade while talking to him. “I’ll get there, Billy,” she promised.

  When she hung up, she looked through the names one more time and felt the tears coming back. Stop it, she told herself. There’s a little dignity left. Hold tight. That thought just made her cry more. She stared at the wall.

  Jacob stared at his computer and then at the wall. As glad as he was to not be the one getting hit on that email, it was almost as awkward for it to be Olivia. It was like when his wrestling coach used to berate his good friend for running too slow. He looked back at his computer. Six new pins from Landon. When he got in this mode, it was like gun spray. One by one Jacob answered them.

  Yes, the meeting with Mayor DePasto is set. His crazy daughter will not be with him.

  Yes, I made sure Amanda, Dylan, and Ryan were invited.

  No, Samantha and Julia can’t make tomorrow’s event, and yes, I made sure they knew you wanted them there—they’re out of town.

  Yes, I called Luke from the Merrick Times back. He’s running the story.

  Playing phone tag with Rachel and Mike.

  Barbara and Bruce will be at your speech. Their daughter, Dev, wants you at the fundraiser for her organization, Lil Ruggers. I sent it to scheduling.

  Yes, the policy piece was edited. Madrick was consulted.

  Yes, Scott and Jack have been called. Chase and Jordyn, Chris, Hanna, and Jared as well.

  He glanced at the sent messages, wondering if his quick responses would be understood or somehow be seen as wiseass. The other issue with this mode was that you were perennially in a lose-lose situation. If you didn’t respond immediately, you weren’t on your game and ran the risk of getting screamed at or, worse, replaced. Although, that might not be so bad right now. If you did write back as quickly as you received them, you’d be tagged as answering without thinking.

  Don’t placate me with yeses. This isn’t a damn dog-catcher race.

  Jacob looked at the wall again, feeling responsible for getting Olivia into this campaign. Maybe I should’ve warned her more before she took the job. Maybe I shouldn’t have had her take the job at all.

  Olivia kept typing. “We’re inches away from our goal.” Never list how much you need, never write your goal in an email. Those were sure-fire things to end up on a blog, even if you sent them to yourself. “I know you’ve already done so much.” Make sure they’re thanked before you ask. She scrolled through the rules Gabrielle had implanted in her mind, but didn’t stop the tears. She sent it to fifty-two people and then started to compile the next list while waiting for replies with bated breath. She needed fifteen people or eight couples. Or one really big miracle. She reached for the phone and dialed the only person she could think of.

  “Hey, Yanni.”

  “Hey, girly. What’s going on?”

  “You have a few minutes?”

  “Sure.” She could hear him covering the phone and yelling numbers out at an employee. Then he came back to her. That gave Olivia more time to compose her thoughts.

  “Okay, so the filing is tonight.”

  “I know this from your spam-like daily emails.”

  “Ha. Sorry about that. Here’s the thing though. My last one about being really close to the goal?”

  “Yep,” he said, distracted.

  “It was really true; we’re thirty thousand away from hitting two million.”

  “Thirty thousand? Shit.” He was suddenly at full attention. “Do you have it?”

  “Well, yeah, I have sixty pledged but they’re not coming in. I’m worried I’m not going to get there.”

  “Okay, come to my office. Bring the list of who’s left.”

  He hung up the phone before Olivia had a chance to ask for an explanation.

  As she gathered her stuff, she questioned the use of her time but then realized it was three p.m. already and anything would be better than waiting in her office. He wasn’t the finance chair, but she knew him better than Henley. He would help. He always came through. She glanced down at her hand, which trembled as it picked up her laptop. Didn’t eat breakfast, she rationalized, knowing that the stress was much more impactful than the lack of food. She bundled up in her big puffy jacket and a scarf that she felt like wrapping around her entire face.

  Her hands didn’t stop trembling even at Yanni’s, and as she walked past the rows of young men yelling toward Bloomberg Television, she felt her knees go weak. Her teeth hurt but she couldn’t get her jaw to loosen. Nervous breakdown. That must be what this is. It wa
sn’t a helpful diagnosis as it just seemed to worry her more, but it was the only thought she could hold on to. She knew there were tears welling up in her eyes but she couldn’t even deal with them. She kept walking, one foot after another. Get it together, she thought, berating herself, as she walked into Yanni’s office. This is your mess and you will fix it.

  “Ugh.” Yanni looked up from his screen and immediately his face went to pitiful. “You look more pale than normal.”

  “Ah. I knew coming in here would make me feel better.” She flopped down on the brown leather sofa, relieved not to have already fallen down.

  “I spoke to Landon. Apparently we really do need this money,” Yanni said.

  Thoughts rushed back through her head. He couldn’t call me but he called Yanni. Great. Nice love of my life. Swell. Super freakin’ swell.

  “Hey. Liv. You there?”

  “Yes. Sorry. Okay, yeah, so we are thirty K down. I have ten but I really don’t know where the other twenty is coming from.”

  “Okay, let me see your list.”

  Olivia pulled out the spreadsheet. She knew the money on it wasn’t coming in. It was bullshit. People who always promised and didn’t come through were on there. People she had been chasing for weeks. Still, when Yanni took the sheet and started crossing off names, labeling each one bullshit, it hit Olivia like a bat to the stomach. As much as she felt like doing the same thing, having Yanni do it seemed like a teacher failing her on exam after exam after exam.

  “You thought Vince was actually going to come through with five thousand?”

  No. He’s an asshole and I never thought I’d really get it. “He promised me,” she said weakly. “He came through last time and Senator Farkas’s people said he’s been writing checks lately.” Campaign Lesson #27: When looking for fundraising validation, always refer to Senator Farkas. Olivia found herself in a run of defenses that wouldn’t end. She had to have had reasons for keeping these people on the list; otherwise she would be thirty short. “I’m sorry.” Now she could feel the tears.

  Yanni looked up and shot his head right back down, like all hedge fund managers would do. Shouting he could take, but tears were not in his game book. “Kiddo,” he said, “don’t worry. We’ll do this.”

  Embarrassingly, the crying began in earnest. “Sorry.” She wiped the tears more quickly than they fell. “I just—thank you.”

  For the first time in days she didn’t feel completely alone.

  “Listen, you go to Vince’s office. Just tell him you’re there for the check and don’t leave till you get it and then come right back here.”

  “Okay.” She pulled together her stuff, not even thinking about what he had just said. There wasn’t a thought left in her brain, so being told what to do was a relief.

  She walked out, head down so no one would see the red in her eyes, glad that she never put on makeup so at least there was no chance that black mascara would be running down her face. The cold air woke her up a bit, but it wasn’t until she saw Vince’s assistant Amy’s horrified look that she realized how totally inappropriate it was that she had just shown up at their office to collect a check.

  “It’s filing day,” she said, knowing full well that the term meant nothing at all to anyone who didn’t have a candidate breathing down her neck. The assistant disappeared for fifteen minutes while Olivia fired off emails asking other people to help. Begging them actually. In the middle she emailed her old boss, Gabrielle, for reassurance.

  LivGreenley@gmail.com: How crazy is it that I just showed up at Vince Tilewitz’s office to collect his check for the filing?

  Even though she knew what Gabrielle’s response would be, some small part of her hoped she would respond with reassurance, but instead she got the expected dose of reality.

  Gabrielle@aol.com: What? Why???

  LivGreenley@gmail.com: Yanni told me to.

  She wrote knowing exactly how stupid it sounded and laughing to herself at the ridiculousness of it all. Then she stopped and wrote the words that it pained her to type.

  LivGreenley@gmail.com: I’m 30K down.

  Her jaw started to hurt again. Twenty-two minutes had passed. She wondered how many minutes she should let pass before leaving. Then she thought of getting back to Yanni’s without a check. How did I become such a failure? Maybe I could be like Nora in A Doll’s House. Just disappear. Leave. Where did Nora go? I could go to Massachusetts. How would I even get there? Where would I live? It would be a great Kate Hudson movie. Live in my car, find a job in a restaurant, meet the local ski instructor, and live happily ever after. Hmmm. She didn’t even have enough money in her bank account to rent a car, much less buy one.

  Her bank account. She thought about the twenty-six dollars in her savings account and the thirteen in her checking account. She had never been good with her own money, but this was a low point. Her next paycheck wasn’t for two weeks. How could she live on thirty-nine dollars for two weeks? She desperately didn’t want to ask her parents. Just then, Vince’s assistant came out like a much-needed end-of-day school bell, stopping the downward spiral of thoughts. Olivia glanced up at the envelope in the assistant’s hands with a spark of hope.

  “Here you go,” the woman said with a touch of kindness.

  “Oh, thank you, thank you so much.”

  “He’s sorry he was late with it.”

  Olivia tripped over the assistant’s words. “No, no, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry to just show up like this. It’s just that we’re so close to our goal. And it means so much. Thank you.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, “I understand.”

  “I hope for your sake you don’t,” Olivia said with a smile. “Thank you again.”

  She looked down at the envelope. Both twenty-five-hundred-dollar checks. One-sixth of what she needed, and yet it wasn’t lost on her that this amount of money could cover all of her personal expenses for a good, long while.

  She trudged the eight blocks through the remnants of the snow back to Yanni’s office, making calls so continuously that she barely had time to even consider trying to hail a cab. Inside the lobby she stopped at the newsstand and picked up a bag of Doritos. She fished through her bag for change to see if she could add in a soda. One dollar and thirteen cents.

  “Just the Doritos, please. Thank you.”

  Yanni’s office seemed the same as when she’d walked out of it that afternoon. It hadn’t emptied even a little, like most of the offices in Manhattan would at this hour. Actually, she realized, Yanni’s money management firm always looked the same. Always the same amount of busy buzz. The stark white walls reflected the same amount of light whether morning, noon, or night, and the brightness of the neon paintings, the best and newest in modern art, of course, kept it always looking like a sharp day. It was much louder than the offices she worked in. A long row of young guys and a few girls sat in clear glass cubicles utterly focused on their changing computer screens. They seemed like Goldman kids in training to her, with their knees bouncing against the bottoms of their desks and their loosened ties, even at the start of the day. She wondered if some of them actually put them on already loosened.

  As she walked back to Yanni’s office she noticed two men yelling back and forth to each other while also on their Bluetooths. What’s the plural of “Bluetooth”? “Blueteeth”? Just walking through gave her a little boost of energy and she thought, as she often did, it would have been much more fun to work in these offices. Maybe Yanni will give me a job since I’ll clearly lose mine tomorrow. I will lose my job on New Year’s Eve.

  “Hey, Yanni.” She flopped down on his couch as if she had just returned home. “Got ‘em.”

  Yanni looked up, putting his hand over the microphone part of his headset. “You look like shit.”

  “Thank you,” she mouthed back. Usually this would have made her feel worse, but she couldn’t have cared less at this point. She opened her bag of Doritos and threw her head back while Yanni screamed numbers over the phone. His k
nee against the desk was almost like a metronome too. She tried to breathe along with it. Finally Yanni pulled off his headset and stood up.

  “Are you okay?” He looked as if he really wanted an answer.

  “Hell no!” she said uncharacteristically. “I’ve got this, plus the five hundred and eight dollars that came in the mail today. No one has responded to my begging emails, my boss is about to kill me, and the campaign hasn’t paid me in four weeks, which means this bag of Doritos needs to last me until I get my impending severance pay.” Oh, and, she added in her own train of thought, the boss who is killing me is also the love of my life.

  “What do you mean the campaign hasn’t paid you in four weeks?”

  Olivia looked up at him, knowing she should not have just spilled her guts like that.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Sorry, I’m just being a drama queen.” She sat up and bit into a Dorito. “It will all be fine. Provided you have a plan!” She laughed, trying to turn the conversation from where she had brought it.

  “I do have a plan,” he said calmly, not laughing and uncharacteristically focused, “but I want to hear about this. Have they really not paid you?”

  “Yeah,” she admitted, but then tried to cover up what she knew was a totally skewed but completely normal practice of all campaigns. “But it’s totally fine. All campaigns do it. They want to show lower expenses for the quarter, especially when we’re so close on our numbers, so they hold off on staff pay for the last few weeks and then pay them out after. It’s not a big deal. We volunteer to do it. And,” she said in a self-deprecating fashion, “if I didn’t have us so close to the numbers, it wouldn’t be necessary.”

  “Bullshit!” Yanni hit his hand on the table incredulously. “How much do you make a month?”

  Olivia thought about not telling him. It wasn’t such a small salary, but for living in New York City it was minute. With her $2,000 rent and the taxes she owed from last year, it was just barely keeping her out of debt. She hated the idea of anyone knowing the financial strain her life was constantly in, but she was already in too far.