by Karin Tanabe
Oh good Christ, I had forgotten about Payton’s decapitated snowman eating. Maybe I should have come up with a different excuse, but I was too far into it now.
“Elsa wants to go,” I explained. “She’s dating some guy who lobbies for the NRA.” This lie was getting worse and worse. Elsa would never date a card-carrying member of the NRA. Her last boyfriend was a sculptor with a heart tattooed on his thumb.
“Doesn’t he have a car?” asked my father.
“Of course he does, but no one will pick me up out here, and I don’t trust the Volvo to make it up those hills.”
My practical dad relented when I made it a safety issue. He ran his left hand through his dark gray hair while he thought about his daughter doing her best Calamity Jane with her artsy friends. Like Payton, my dad was about as athletic as they come. At sixty years old, he was still built like a much younger man, thanks to all his time trying to break his South American horses, but his skin was tan, worn, and a little leathery from the sun. His skin crinkled into deep creases around his green eyes and his mouth twitched slightly under his five-day beard as he imagined me using the wrong end of the gun to chase a charging buck.
“Don’t shoot anyone,” he finally declared. “It’s March. All the fat white men you see will be real, not made of snow.” Convinced I was going to both crash his enormous car and shoot either myself or an overweight Caucasian, he walked down to the car with me to show me how the truck brake worked. I loaded my Goyard bag (clothes, computer equipment, camera) into the pickup and gave him room to adjust the driver’s seat and mirrors.
“Adrienne, hunting,” he muttered as he moved some horse blankets from the passenger seat to the jump seats in the back.
“I’ll be fine, Dad,” I insisted. “Payton and I used to shoot stuff all the time when you weren’t paying attention. I’m actually pretty good.” This was also a lie. I was having trouble opening my mouth and saying anything laced with a shred of truth.
“Well, Payton, she’s a different story,” he said. “I would let her pack heat in a kindergarten classroom. She’s a hell of a shot.” Like most people who met her, my parents were in awe of Payton. I remember being at a field hockey tournament with her and overhearing my mom and dad saying, “How can one person be so good at everything she does?” They were not talking about me.
“I thought Payton was crazy when she said she was going to breed racehorses in Argentina with Buck,” said my dad, momentarily sidetracked by thoughts of his far-off daughter and her husband. “I said, ‘What’s wrong with Virginia? We have horses right here. This is the state that created Secretariat. Is a Triple Crown winner not good enough for you?’ She could have just moved in with her old mom and dad and helped with our little family business, but she said living at home would be an act so pathet—”
He stopped talking when he saw my face.
“Addy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”
“No! It’s fine,” I said brightly. “We didn’t all go into lucrative professions like Payton’s horse torturing.”
“Horse torturing . . .” He laughed under his breath and then looked at me standing awkwardly outside the car door. “Payton did have that spread in the Robb Report. Did you see it? Four pages, with pictures and everything.”
He looked at me clutching my heart and smiled.
“Oh Addy. The little things like that don’t really matter. You’re the one with the great career,” he said, climbing out of the truck. “You’ve always worked so hard. Your sister’s just doing what she watched me do her whole life.”
“But I’m just doing what Mom did!” I countered. “Oh God, that’s depressing. You’ve raised two totally unoriginal children. We’re mimics unable to forge our own paths.”
My dad laughed a low, rolling baritone laugh. His chuckle was like a good bottle of booze—mellower and better with age.
“I don’t think anyone would dare call you two unoriginal. I certainly wouldn’t. You and Payton are just a bit different . . . like the sun and the moon.” He smiled, clearly happy with his attempt at diplomacy.
“Which one am I?” I asked, climbing into the front seat and buckling the tried and tested seat belt.
My dad flashed me a knowing smile.
“I’m the moon! I knew it. Payton is the lovely hot orb that keeps us all alive and I’m some lump of rock that looks like it’s made of molten blubber and doesn’t do anything. You’re a swell father. Thanks for the pep talk.”
“Adrienne,” he said, closing the door. “Don’t be so dramatic. People are different. Maybe I should have used the no-two-snowflakes-are-alike comparison instead.”
I rolled my eyes and waved at him as he yelled some marksmanship advice in my general direction.
It was just after 1 P.M. when I checked into the inn. Before I went to the desk, I drove through the field to see if the white BMW was there. It wasn’t. The Bull Barn looked empty. I swerved around the property and drove back down the hill, parking my dad’s truck at the far end of the parking lot.
“Brown. Adrienne Brown,” I said, handing the young woman at the front desk my driver’s license.
“Brown, yes, you’re in the Hayloft suite,” she said, smiling up at me. As she punched in my credit card information, she looked at my license. “New York City. Did you drive in from there?”
Perfect. I knew I hadn’t gotten around to changing my license yet for a reason. If she saw my real address she would most likely ask me if I was Caroline Cleves Brown’s daughter, because everyone knew my mother, or she would question my extremely local vacation. Instead I just made small talk about escaping the noise of city living.
“Well, you won’t hear a sound out here,” she said, handing back my cards. “Total peace and total privacy, that’s our motto.” Yes, privacy. Unless you had a newspaper reporter with a telephoto lens in her purse checking in with the sole purpose of spying.
“Do you need help with your bag?” she asked, looking at my small tote. “Your room is on the very top floor.”
“Oh no. I’ll be fine,” I said, clutching the bag to my side like it was full of blood diamonds.
“Will you be dining with us tonight?” she asked as she pointed me to the staircase.
“I’m afraid not,” I said. “I think I’ll try room service. This is more of a getaway trip for me.”
“Of course,” she said, bowing her head. “Then here is your key. I hope you enjoy your stay.”
I hoped I would, too.
I had chosen the Hayloft suite for one reason, and it wasn’t because it was a favorite with honeymooners, as the website advertised. It happened to have a huge private terrace overlooking the entire property, including the dirt road that led to the Bull Barn. My plan was to spend the day on the terrace with my fingers crossed for a white BMW to drive up the road.
I sprinted up to the room, dropped my bag on a small pouf of an armchair, and opened the door onto the roof terrace. It was huge. I could have thrown a kegger on it. And, more important, I could see the road that swerved toward the little red barn. The cabin itself was hidden behind a hill, but if any car was headed that way, I would be able to spot it before it rounded the bend. I settled in.
One black SUV, one blue sports car, and two silver sedans drove onto the grounds between 2 and 7 P.M. None headed toward the Bull Barn, and I was starting to freeze. Late March in Virginia was not quite spring and when you sit outside for hours, it feels more like January. I was ready to give up, order ten waffles for dinner, and watch myself grow cellulite, but just as the sun was setting, I heard the rumbling of another car. It wasn’t the white BMW I had grown used to checking around every corner for, but it was on the road that went to the Bull Barn. I quickly pulled my camera up to my eye and zoomed in on a dark blue SUV. Just before it disappeared down the road, I saw that it was a Ford Explorer with Arizona plates.
It had to be him, I told myself. My palms started to clam up. I had no idea what kind of car he drove, but how many tourists from
Arizona drove to the Goodstone Inn? And yes, it was absolutely stupid to drive your own car if you were having an affair and didn’t want to get caught, but lawmakers having affairs did stupid things all the time. Weiner and the twit pics? Bathroom foot tapping? Driving your own car was nothing compared to the idiotic behavior of many of our other esteemed leaders.
On the roof with my camera in my lap, I considered possibilities. If that navy blue Ford Explorer was the senator’s, then Olivia could be in it. Or she could be driving up later that night in her own swanky car. Or he could be alone. Or even with his wife. I decided to sit and wait for her white car until the sun set. I couldn’t go crawling around the place until it was dark anyway, so until then, I would just sit outside with an eight-pound camera glued to my right eye.
My phone buzzed with a text message. Birds made annoyingly happy cawing noises. And I just sat on a wooden chaise longue trying to figure out what to do next. I needed it to be pitch black out. Then I would dare to creep out toward the Bull Barn. If anyone asked, I would be taking a midnight stroll. I could pretend to be a nature photographer captivated by nightscapes. Plus, I had my get-out-of-jail-free card: the expensive room key.
As I sat on the terrace with my heavy camera hoisted up, I wondered about other people’s sex lives. When did old people have sex? If I was going to catch Stanton and Olivia in the act, would I have to do it before he passed out at 10 P.M.? I often passed out before 10 P.M., and I was still in my twenties. God, I wanted a sex life. I wanted to have sex with ice-skating guy eight times in one day. I wanted us to have to wear water pouches filled with electrolytes while we did it just to keep from fainting. But I couldn’t muster up the courage to call his Canadian friend so I wasn’t even allowed to think about it.
I needed to calm down. I called downstairs for a bottle of not-too-expensive sparkling wine, and when it came up I stuck my hand and a five-dollar bill out a crack in the door. “Please leave it outside, I’m not presentable,” I said, handing the anonymous hotel staffer the tip. I popped the cork off the cool bottle and immediately downed a third of it, no glass necessary. Drinking Prosecco out of a bottle: how elegant. I should be the one having an affair.
I flopped back on the wooden chair and looked at my text messages. There was one from my father asking if I had shot anyone. “No,” I texted back. “You can stop worrying.” Then I checked my BlackBerry. I ignored the note from Hardy reminding me that my Sunday shift started at 8 A.M. I was most likely going to work that shift with no sleep and, considering the size of my first sip of Prosecco, an insane hangover.
By 10 P.M. all the world was dark. Well, the world surrounding the Goodstone Inn, anyway. The dirt roads out to the guesthouses were completely unlit. My plan was to put my camera and a few Cliff bars in a running backpack that I had brought and walk toward the Bull Barn. I didn’t have to get too close to it, considering I had rented the Bentley of cameras, but I did need something to hide behind. And all I could think of from my strolls around the place, and the informational brochure I read in the bar, were a few short trees and a large muddy pig.
It was go time.
Once outside, instead of walking, I ran. I tried to make my legs slow down, but it was so dark, I figured no one could see me anyway. So I kept running, I ran over the hill where the car had disappeared and threw myself underneath a pine tree. I felt ridiculous. I was dressed like a poor man’s version of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. But what choice did I have? It’s not like Richard Nixon just walked over and professed wrongdoing to those Washington Post boys. Good reporters had to dig, right? This was when I wanted a real editor instead of a twenty-two-year-old who was only good at slave-driving. I wanted someone I could email and ask, “cool or uncool to be hiding under a pine tree with a telephoto lens pointed at the hotel room of a United States senator?” But I had no one to ask. If anyone at the Capitolist found out I was spying on the nocturnal activities of one of Upton’s favorite reporters, they would find a way to rally behind her. I was not a chosen one in the office; Olivia was.
I crouched on the ground and peered into the darkness. I was already elbow deep in their mess; I wasn’t going to wade out now.
Lying on my belly like a sloth, I took the camera out of my backpack, wrapped the thick rubber strap around my neck, pointed it toward the room, and looked through the viewfinder. Through one of the only uncurtained windows I could see wooden walls and a stone fireplace with a thick wrought-iron railing next to it. For the next hour, that’s all I saw. A family of ants was feasting on the skin I had left exposed, and I had sap dripping down my ankle. I felt like a CIA agent stuck at Girl Scout camp.
Fifteen more minutes went by, then thirty. I remained motionless even as the chill of the dirt crept through my shirt to my stomach. I kept the camera lens high and my eye against the viewfinder and listened to the minutes tick by on my big men’s watch. Half an hour. Then an hour. I stared through the lens at the empty room, learning every crease in the couch and crevice in the wall. It felt like an exercise in hopelessness.
Just past midnight, Senator Stanton walked through the room with the wooden walls. Right after him came Olivia.
I was right.
I had been right about so few things in my life! I wasn’t right about men, ever. Moving back to Middleburg felt all wrong most of the time, and my Capitolist gig seemed like a never-ending mistake. Until this moment.
Though there was just enough moonlight for me to see my hands in front of me, and maybe for someone walking in the fields to see my silhouette, a camera flash would have torn through the dark countryside like lightning. I would have to shoot without flash.
I looked through the viewfinder again. They were standing in the living room, talking, laughing. My right index finger shook with hesitation and then pressed down the shutter. As it flicked open and closed six times, I felt my entire life changing. Olivia wasn’t exactly naked doing the reverse cowgirl, but they were in a hotel room together. I doubted they were going to spend the night playing Wii tennis.
He got a fire started, and then they were out of my sight. For what felt like hours, all I could see were his penny-loafer-covered feet up on a coffee table. I was not going to make the front page of any newspaper with pictures of senatorial feet. Even a picture of Olivia and Stanton sharing a bed and sleeping next to each other wasn’t enough to make the kind of claim I was now sure was true. I needed skin, sweat, lust. I needed porn.
There was a light on in the back of the little red house; eventually I realized it had to be the bedroom. That was where I needed to point my camera if I wanted to capture anything the least bit incriminating. Otherwise it would be all hot toddies in the living room, and only Better Homes and Gardens would want my exclusive.
A few minutes past midnight, the senator’s feet disappeared from the table, and I steeled myself to abandon my relatively hidden position and dart into the open field on the bedroom side of the house. A small group of birds flew above me in no particular formation, black streaks in the moonlight. The lights of the hotel’s large main house glowed faintly in the distance; they felt very far away.
On my knees in the field of short wild grass, I felt completely visible, as if I were naked in Times Square, screaming for attention. But there were no eyes on me. The only attention I was getting was from my own conscience, screeching questions about how I went from sitting third row at fashion shows to crouching in a dark field late at night trying to take pictures of a senator having sex with my colleague.
I lifted the camera to my eye again. As the auto zoom whirled the world into focus, I saw a dark-stained oak dresser and, next to it, a bed with a carved headboard and a plaid quilt. There was a patterned rug on the floor and a small green plant on a heavy wooden end table. But there were no people.
I waited, the moisture from the earth soaking my thin black pants. I was much closer to the house now. I didn’t need to lift the camera until I saw people moving in the room. So I stayed pinned to the ground, trying to look like part
of the scenery. I looked at my watch again: 1 A.M. and still not a sign of life in the back of the house.
Just before 1:30 A.M., they walked past the window. They went too fast for me to lift my camera in time. With steady hands, I brought it up to my eye, not letting my nerves take over, preparing for their next pass. When they walked past the window together again, I should have been ready. But instead of continuing past, Olivia turned to look out of the window, pushing back the curtains and putting her elbows on the sill. I put my face to the ground in panic and dropped the camera. It was too dark, I told myself. There was no way. If you weren’t looking for me, you couldn’t see me. The light from inside would have made it impossible.
When I dared to look up again, she was still standing at the window.
She looked content. Peaceful. Totally different than she did at work. Her hair was tousled, not hanging static and lifeless around her face, and she was wrapped in a thick white robe. She was holding a drink and periodically turning her head around to say something. I looked through the viewfinder at her face. It was bare and scrubbed clean. She looked nothing like the girl who would happily escort you to the edge of a cliff if it meant she could have the lead in the paper.
When I looked at her face again—soft and smiling—I thought about the first time I heard Stanton’s voice in the bar in Middleburg. His voice sounded concerned, sweet, loving even. He had certainly fallen for her, and looking at her here, now, her feelings for him weren’t far behind.
I saw Senator Stanton move in behind her and put his arms around her neck. He was still wearing a buttoned-up work shirt. Without breathing, I started clicking the shutter release button again.
Together, they stood motionless for a few minutes. Their age gap was noticeable, and even kind of gross. But they looked like two normal people in love.
Or maybe just lust.
He pressed himself up against her body, and she half turned her head, looked up, and started to laugh. He laughed, too, his dark brown hair unmoving, his eyes filled with joy. I shot that, too. I sucked their privacy into my lens with every snap. He was kissing her neck while she kept smiling and saying things I could only imagine. Then, almost roughly, he turned her toward him. He leaned her back until her head was touching the window screen and started kissing her. Still holding my breath, I clicked and clicked, praying they couldn’t hear the noise of the shutter.
