“I get paid five thousand a month,” she said sheepishly. “Plus I get a win bonus.”
“A win bonus?”
“Yeah, if we win I get an extra ten thousand.”
Yanni looked at her as if for the first time he was trying to figure out who she was.
“Let me get this straight: they are skimping on five thousand dollars? That’s absurd.”
“Well, it comes to more. I mean, there are a few of us who are doing it.” She lied, knowing full well only she and Jacob had agreed to do it. “It’s okay, Yanni, really. I’ll be totally fine.”
“Of course you will.” He got up and went to his desk, shaking his head. “Okay, let me make two more calls to finish my master plan.” He moved his hand like Vanna White over his desk, which was covered in neon green Post-it notes.
“What is all that?” She felt relieved just by his calm.
“I call it the Post-it Plan, but you can call it the Yanni Is a Genius Plan.” He laughed out loud. “I’m starved. You want dinner?” Without waiting for an answer he screamed for his assistant. “Robin!”
The petite blonde woman who seemed to be on constant call to his screams showed up instantly in the doorway.
“Let’s order dinner! How about Philippe? That work for you, O? Will you grab us a menu?”
These were the times when Olivia loved people who didn’t wait for an answer. Philippe was one of the best restaurants in the city. She had gone once for an event and had never forgotten the taste of the crunchy seaweed salad and the velvet chicken, which literally tasted like velvet in food form. Delicious food form.
“That sounds amazing. Thank you. I’m just going to run to the bathroom.”
Breathing steadily for the first time all day, she knew she needed to compose herself, a good thing since her hair was just as messy as she had imagined. She splashed water on her eyes, which drooped from the lack of sleep and the wealth of tears. Robin stopped her on her way back to Yanni’s with a printed-out Philippe menu. There were circles and checks around nearly every dish.
“I brought it around to everyone, so we’ve got almost all of them,” she said, confirming the thought, “but make sure we have what you want.”
Olivia smiled, even more grateful that she didn’t have to make a decision. “I’m good with all of this.”
“Great, I’m ordering a few extras of the velvet chicken and stuff, so there will be plenty. We have drinks in the kitchen.”
“You are my hero right now.”
“Hey, do you want a coffee or anything? We just got this amazing Italian version of a Keurig. It makes sick mochas.”
“Um, yes! Seriously heroic. Do you want me to make it?”
“No! I love doing it! Plus”—she lowered her voice a little and leaned in—“you’re the only one around here who has said thank you to me all day.” She smiled, but Olivia could see the disappointment in her face, especially as the clock ticked to six p.m. on the day before New Year’s Eve.
Olivia walked back into Yanni’s office and sat down, watching him pace, back on the phone.
“I just need the number.” He spoke quickly, with an agitated tone. Then he listened, scribbling down on one more of the green Post-its that were covering his desk.
The mocha, delivered to Olivia within minutes, was as good as Robyn promised. As Olivia sipped the chocolate coffee, she hoped for a moment that Yanni would never get off the phone and she could sit there, melted into the couch, forever. When he hung up, he sat down with a self-satisfied grin.
“You look better.”
“Your office is better than a day spa.”
Yanni smiled, again pleased with himself.
“Okay, okay, so what’s your plan?” she asked. With all the comfort she had almost forgotten the disastrous situation she was in.
“Check out the Post-its.”
Olivia got up and walked over to his desk, scanning his chicken-scratch scribble. There were at least eighteen Post-its, each of them with tons of numbers and a few initials.
“Ummm, are you going to turn all Rain Man on me and win us the lottery?”
“So much better than that. Each of these Post-its is someone’s credit card and the amount we can charge up to on it.”
Olivia’s eyes shot open in disbelief. “What?! Seriously?”
“Seriously.” Yanni was overflowing with pride. “It’s no big deal.”
“Yanni. This is such. A. Big. Deal. This is a huge deal. This is . . . I mean . . . you did it.” She was almost overwhelmed with relief.
“Okay, don’t start that crying thing again.”
Olivia laughed. “I promise. No more crying.”
“Good. Then take this too.” He handed her an envelope.
“What is it?”
“Just take it.”
Olivia took the envelope and looked in. It was a check for five thousand dollars. Then she looked closer. It was a check for five thousand dollars written out to her.
“Ohmygod. Yanni, what is this?”
“It’s a bonus.”
“Yanni, you can’t pay me!”
“Fine, it’s a gift.”
“Yanni, I can’t take this.”
“You can too and you will. It’s offensive what they pay you and it’s unbearable that they’re holding out payment on you. I’m going to talk to Landon about that.”
“No, no, Yanni, please don’t. He’d kill me if he knew I told you. Actually there will be a line to kill me if anyone finds out. I so should not have said that aloud. And this is way too much. It’s so kind of you but really, I can’t take it.” She held out the envelope across his desk.
“Fine, I won’t tell a soul. It’ll stay between us, but it’s a gift. It’s rude to give it back.”
Olivia hesitated, thinking about her thirty-nine-dollar account balance.
“Plus your introductions have brought more money into this firm than most of my employees, and they get paid much more than you. Actually, if I knew you were this cheap, I would have tried to hire you away months ago.”
Olivia started to protest.
“Liv. I’m not talking about this anymore. I spent more than that on dinner last night.”
Olivia looked down at the envelope, knowing that was true. Knowing that this check that could pay her bills for two months would not even be a blip on his screen. Literally.
“Wouldn’t you do the same for me if the roles were reversed?”
“I . . . Yes.”
“So stop being a little bitch and take the money. Consider it me taking you out to dinner.”
Robyn popped into the doorway. “Philippe is here!”
Yanni laughed. “Okay, consider it me taking you to dinner twice.”
“Thank you, Yanni.” Olivia went over to give him a hug.
“Sure thing, kid. Come on, let’s get some food and pick out who’s gonna pay what.”
EIGHTEEN
When Olivia had told a donor, Jason Sackton, she worked twenty-four/seven, she was exaggerating. And when Jason said he would “max out,” give the maximum amount allowable—twenty-five hundred dollars—if she was at her job at midnight on New Year’s Eve, he was joking. But it was a joke they had taken farther than it should have ever gone. At 11:59 on December 31, as promised, Jason Sackton called the office, and as promised, Olivia sat waiting for the call. She didn’t need the twenty-five hundred dollars and she didn’t have, as she had told her friends and family, piles of work to climb out from under. The truth was she just wanted to be alone. She was never one for New Year’s celebrations but this year it seemed simply intolerable. She was exhausted, sick of people in general, and with her secret relationship in shambles, she had a broken heart that she couldn’t share with anyone. She talked with Jason as he gave her his credit card information in bewildered amusement at her insistence on staying in the office.
“You should come down here to St. Barths! Everyone’s here. You could stay on our boat—we have three extra rooms. I saw Addie on the bea
ch today. You wouldn’t have to pay for a thing. We’re going from here to Ibiza, but I’m sure you could bum a ride home on someone’s private plane.”
“Bum” and “private plane” just don’t seem like they belong in the same sentence, Olivia thought. She laughed as he went on, describing the beaches, restaurants, and of course, shopping, thinking that fabulously posh place was her worst nightmare. Just the thought of having to be around all those people made her grateful that she had been able to convince everyone that the office was where she wanted to be. She pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head and sat back in the silence. She looked down at her BlackBerry.
[email protected]: Happy New Year! Miss you!
She wrote back, thinking of what Marcy would say if she knew Olivia had scoffed at a paid trip to St. Barths. It was stupid. I mean, who wouldn’t want to go to St. Barths? Me. She looked at the clock and then down at her BlackBerry, wondering if he would text her. As the clock turned to 12:06 she swallowed her pride and pinned him.
Happy New Year, Landon.
The response pin came back quickly and was painfully innocuous.
You too, babe.
“Uch. Ew.” She was so irritated, she said it aloud to really get the effect, unsure of whether she was annoyed at the response or the fact that she knew that would be the response, the whole response, and had sent the pin anyway. It felt like she had just given him the upper hand in the emotional chess game she had worked up in her head. She felt totally helpless and did the only thing that made her feel better. She leaned forward to reach her iTunes and found Eminem’s “Not Afraid.” Turning the volume higher, she sat back deeper in her chair and tugged at her sweatshirt hood, trying to pull it farther down her forehead.
There was something about knowing all the words and being able to say them in time with him, barely breaking for breaths, that always turned her bitterness into some kind of empowered anger. Two minutes in, she was so lost in getting the words right and wondering who she was competing against, she didn’t even hear her door move from a bit open to completely open. The knock startled her into a scream.
“Whoa, Eminem. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Holy crap, Jacob!” In the seconds it took for her heartbeat to get back on track, she held her throat and looked at him. His floppy brown hair, longer than ever, hung over his eyes. Dressed in dark jeans, a vintage-looking T-shirt, and a heavy blazer, he looked almost adorable. He took some steps in and placed an open bottle of tequila on her desk.
She smiled. “What are you doing? Why are you here? You scared the living daylights out of me.”
“Sorry ’bout that. I was at a party having stupid conversations with stupid people. And then I went to get a drink and this bottle of Patrón was just sitting there, so I took it and left.”
Olivia laughed. “Why did you come up here? It’s New Year’s!”
“It’s so stupid . . .”
“Ummm, you did just walk in on me singing Eminem in a hooded sweatshirt at my desk on New Year’s. The bar for stupid is pretty low at the moment.”
“Seriously, you are gangster.”
“Okay, so lay it on me. What did you do?” She grabbed two mugs, looking into them to make sure they were clean—well, clean enough—and started pouring the tequila.
“Sophie and I had planned to go to this party for ages. I laid out the two hundred dollars in September or something and, yes, I am acutely aware of the fact that we broke up, but I don’t know, I just thought . . .”
“That’s not stupid, Jacob.”
“Liv, it’s moronic. Despite the teachings of The Secret, you can’t just visualize something and make it happen. Real life requires effort.”
“So she wasn’t there?”
“Worse! She was there with the new guy she’s dating. Josh. Ech. He works in the state treasurer’s office. They’ve been dating for a month! I hadn’t even realized it had been that long. I swear it’s like we’re in a time warp.”
“Oh, I am so sorry. That sucks. Cop a squat. I’ll start pouring.”
Jacob sat and threw his feet on the desk. “My goal was actually to drag you out to a bar. What the hell are you doing here anyway?”
“Well, Jason said he would max out if I was actually here at eleven fifty-nine . . .” She started in on the excuses like a broken record but stopped, knowing Jacob knew too much to believe any of it. “Okay, I couldn’t deal with people. That is the sad, sorry story. I just didn’t want to be around anyone. I should probably buy a few cats and call it a day.”
“Here’s to campaign life.” Jacob lifted the glass of tequila and swallowed it down in two gulps. “So did Jason even call?”
“Yup. Told me I should fly down to St. Barths immediately.”
“Gross.”
“Ha!” Olivia laughed out loud. “You think we are the only two people in the world who think an all-expenses-paid trip to St. Barths sounds terrible?”
Jacob laughed with her. “It’s pretty ridiculous. I’ve never been, but it sounds like the Hamptons on crack.”
“Totally.”
“So how are we looking for the filing?”
“Great. Over two, so we’re just super great.” She said it with the annoyed sarcasm she felt.
“That’s amazing, Liv. Really. It’s awesome.”
“Thanks. I know it’s good.” She then downgraded the compliment, as she had been doing all her life. “It feels shitty though.”
“I know.”
There wasn’t anything else to say, and Olivia appreciated that Jacob didn’t try to add to it, explain it, or defend it. It was what it was.
“I guess it just is what it is,” he said.
They smiled in joint recognition.
“Let’s get out of here.” Jacob stood up and smacked her desk. “Call this year over.”
“That,” Olivia said, shutting down her computer, “is a great idea.”
As they stepped out into the street, Olivia felt like she was walking out of a dark movie theater, her eyes taking time to adjust. The lit-up sidewalks bustled like Christmas on Fifth Avenue, people walking in every direction, dressed in every which way, all of them with an intense (often drunkenly intense) mission. Get to the next party, find the next bar, find a cab. All of it seemed to be going on in a world Olivia wasn’t part of. It made her feel like she was walking in a hall of mirrors, where everyone around was a version of herself, a version she may have been once or might be next year but definitely wasn’t at that moment. She looked at the gaggle of girls on the corner dressed as if they were auditioning for Sex and the City. Tiptoeing to try to prevent their super-high heels from touching the snow, they flailed into the middle of the street, arms raised in an attempt to hail a cab.
“This is like soooo annoying,” one of them whined. “Why are there, like, no cabs?”
“Um, heh-lowww, because it’s New Year’s Eve!”
Then they all squealed together, “New Year’s Eve!”
Olivia couldn’t help but comment. “Uch. Why are people so annoying?”
Jacob laughed in agreement. “Want to walk a little? I’m staying at the Brinmore, obviously.”
“Yeah, that would be nice. I could go for some fresh air. Plus if I get home too early there’s a chance someone will try to convince me to go out. Hmm.” She smiled with self-degrading mockery. “It really is a mystery why I’m single!”
They started to walk up Park Avenue in a silence that seemed to please them both. People flanked them in festive clothes and hats, blowing noisemakers and having idiotic conversations, all of which reinforced for Olivia her choice of a quiet New Year’s. She looked up at Jacob, who seemed just as dazed as she felt.
“Hey, thank you for the tequila tonight. I’m sorry it came at the cost of a bad New Year’s.”
“Want the truth?”
“Rarely. But sure.”
“I think I probably came more for me than for you. I just needed to be around someone who didn’t need an explanati
on.”
“Yeah, I get that.”
“Why are you the only one who does?”
“I’m not. We just don’t get out much.”
Jacob laughed, tripping a little bit over his own feet.
“You okay there?” Olivia grabbed at his arm and he spun around into her. Their faces were together in that awkward place that left them too close to talk.
“Liv.” Jacob looked down at her, his eyes more puppy-dog than she had ever seen them. His hand reached down to hers.
Oh no, no, no. She shook her head and took a step back. “Jacob, I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Say it, Liv.”
“Say what?”
Jacob held his stare, scrutinizing her face, which was still way too close to his. “It’s him. Isn’t it? It’s true.”
“Yes.” The word fell out of her mouth. Guilt and relief.
“Liv. You can’t.” His response was more serious than she expected and reeked of desperation, as though hearing her say the words finally slammed the door on the excuses he had been trying to make for the governor. “Don’t do this, Olivia. Don’t do it to me. To him. To you! How do you think this is going to end?”
“I don’t know. I think it might have ended already.”
“Well, I do know how it will end, so let me fill you in. It’s going to end one of two ways: the first is you will be caught and this whole campaign plus both of your lives plus mine plus a million more will go up in a huge fiery blaze that you started.”
“It’s not going to.” She pushed out the words more to stop him than to actually say anything she thought had a bit of truth in it.
He continued with no regard for her protest. “The second way is he will be president and Aubrey will be first lady and you will not. You will be left in the dust of a campaign.”
He meant it as the lesser of the two evils, but the latter choice filled Olivia with a fearful sadness. She had been saying it to herself but she didn’t believe it.
“It’s not like that. You don’t understand.”
“Yes, Liv. I do. They made a deal. She gives up Tiwali and he gives up you. That’s why she’s been on the road with us. That’s why he hasn’t been to New York. They don’t care about people. It’s all about the campaign.”
Domestic Affairs Page 31
