by Karin Tanabe
Celebrities of print and screen came, and wonks said wonky things. Upton and Cushing gave speeches about the List’s dominance over stodgy, tired old media, and the employees got mildly trashed and poked around on their BlackBerrys the entire time.
It was my first List anniversary party, but Isabelle, Julia, Libby, and Alison had spent our bathroom break yesterday giving me a minute-to-minute timeline of last year’s.
“Rochelle Mitzner danced like she was in a Michael Bolton video. Hands up to the sky and everything. It looked like she was being reborn,” said Alison, laughing.
“And Upton had us all raise our glasses and salute ourselves,” said Isabelle. “It was so awkward. I saw more humility at the Olympic Games.”
“Everyone wears navy. Or black. The occasional dash of olive green. They dress like Goths, but without the flair,” said Libby, examining her bright J. McLaughlin skirt in the bathroom mirror.
“And all these people who would never be caught dead wasting their breath on us in the newsroom babble endlessly to us in the cocktail lines, as if they respect our intellects. But they’re really just drunk,” said Julia. “They still think we’re idiots. Don’t be fooled.”
“I went to Stanford,” Alison chimed in, reapplying her lip gloss.
“But you wear Chanel lip gloss,” said Julia, “so they don’t care.”
“Well, that all sounds like a real good time,” I said, Purelling my hands.
The good news about the real good time was that it was always held in the Freer and Sackler Galleries, one of the most beautiful buildings in Washington. I loved the courtyard. I loved the ethereal green Thomas Dewing paintings that hung from the walls and Whistler’s famous Peacock Room. So what if the building was going to be bursting at the seams with egos? Good art, free booze. I would just chain myself to Julia, Isabelle, Libby, and Alison. I needed a little legitimized frivolity after my smooching idiocy of ten days ago.
Julia assured me that no one brought their spouses to the List’s parties because it “humanized” them in the eyes of Upton and Cushing, so I wasn’t concerned about seeing Sandro—but I was petrified to see Olivia.
Luckily, it was a big museum and there was an outdoor area so if I paid attention, I could stay out of her way. I was going to have to see her at some point, and it might as well be in a building that I knew better than she did. If she tried to decapitate me with a Chinese butterfly knife, I’d know which way to run. I had to be prepared for anything.
An hour into the evening, I hadn’t laid eyes on Olivia. The party, full of Capitolist employees and the sources and power players we were courting, spilled over from the inside of the museum onto the stone courtyard, which was covered in heavy black iron tables. Tiny white lights were strung in the trees, and with the right amount of booze, you could almost forget where you were. Until Upton had the mic.
“Hey, team!” His voice bounced off the century-old outer walls. “Four years in, Capitolist fever has taken over the city, the nation, and the world!”
With that statement Tucker Cliff actually started to jump up and down in his gray dress shirt as if he had just OD’d on laughing gas.
“Capitolist originals, old-timers, and newbies, let’s give ourselves a round of applause! Unless you’re on deadline, that is, in which case keep typing and stop drinking.” The courtyard erupted with laughter and clapping.
When Upton’s ode to narcissism was finished, Isabelle and I went inside to look at a collection of Whistler paintings.
We stopped in front of an image of a girl in a periwinkle and pink dress sitting on a bed, reading a book. Isabelle leaned in and read the title: Pink Note: The Novelette.
“I remember when I had time to read,” she said, looking longingly at the framed image.
“When was that?” I asked.
“Before I decided to become a journalist.”
“But you were an Olympian,” I pointed out. “Didn’t you have to stay in constant motion? Run and jump and lift things every hour of the day?”
Isabelle laughed out loud and covered her mouth out of habit because she was in a museum.
“It’s a party,” I reminded her. “The party. It’s okay to laugh.”
“Right,” she said, laughing again. “I really used to read all the time. I’m a James Joyce addict. I’ve read every word he ever published. Him and Graham Greene. But now, I never have time to pick up a book. Do you?”
Did I? The last non-work-related things I had read were a health warning on the back of a bottle of Campari and Photography for Dummies.
“Sadly, no,” I replied.
“It’s too bad this job makes you so one-dimensional. If I had time for anything else but work, I might actually like my job,” said Isabelle, smiling at me. “I’m glad you came to the paper,” she added. “It’s nice with you here.”
Before I could thank her, she clinked her empty glass against my half-full one and headed outside to the wine bar.
Without Isabelle by my side, I felt very alone in the formal gallery room. I smoothed down my purple dress, the brocade fabric still starched and tight, and tried to look busy. It didn’t work. I headed out of the room and into the next, larger gallery room, where the martini bar was located, hoping to find another Style section girl. The room had a few dozen guests walking stiffly around, but none of my preferred colleagues. I pulled my phone out of my clutch and texted Alison. “Where are you?” I asked. “Don’t want to be seen drinking a blue martini alone.”
“Stay where you are. I’m with Libby. We’ll come to you,” she texted back, explaining that she had to fetch a source a glass of white wine fermented prior to 1996 before she could join me.
The room with the martini bar was quickly filling up. People were getting drunker and, paradoxically, seeking out stronger booze. Two of those people coming in search of martinis in Capitolist colors were Olivia Campo and Emily Baumgarten.
It had to happen at some point, I told myself. Even if Olivia knew I kissed her perfect husband, I still had the upper hand. I had photographic evidence of her unthinkable acts. I could ruin her. I had to act cheerful and confident and not start crying. I kept my face locked on the woman in the watercolor across from me.
I imagined Olivia coming over and slashing both the watercolor and my face with a pizza cutter. But I stood tall, just like Madame Beaujolais used to scream in ballet class. “The plight of the tall girl is that she wants to bend over like a candy cane. Don’t be a candy cane!” she used to trill as she pushed my shoulders back with the strength of a wrestler.
Tonight, I would not be a candy cane. Olivia was a tiny girl. Maybe I could beat her down by virtue of my height when she lunged at me with death in her eyes.
She and Emily walked over to a painting next to the one I was in front of. I slid my eyes over at them. They were looking at Harmony in Green and Rose: The Music Room, a far more famous painting.
“That little girl looks like you,” said Emily, staring at a young girl in the center of the painting. She was all in white, except for shiny black shoes, seated on a couch, reading a book. “Her hair, it’s red like yours,” she said, pointing out the obvious. I wanted to remind her that Olivia was not eight years old, but Emily was too engaged in Olivia worship to pay attention to me.
“It’s a beautiful painting,” said Olivia dryly, barely looking at it. “Claustrophobic and flat, but beautiful.”
“I spent my childhood with my face in a book, just like that,” chirped Emily. “I was always reading. That’s why I skipped the fourth and fifth grades. You must have read all the time, too, you do everything so fast.”
“When I was a kid, no, not so much,” replied Olivia, coolly. “I read a lot later in life.”
She expressed her boredom by turning and smiling at me. I was still standing tall as a string, staring like a possessed art student at the watercolor.
“You,” said Olivia as flatly as the painting she resembled. I prepared for the worst.
“I haven’t seen you in a while. I
figured you got fired.”
She thought that I got fired! I wanted to pull her hair out strand by strand.
“You’re Adrienne Brown,” said Emily, looking at me with an expression that could only be described as a frown. “Isn’t your mother Caroline Cleves Brown? That heartless gossip columnist?”
“Indeed,” I replied, ignoring her rude turn of phrase. “She worked for the Post for a long time.”
“Must have been fun,” chimed in Olivia. “Those softer beats really do seem amusing,” she said. “If you like that kind of thing.”
“I do happen to like that kind of thing,” I replied stiffly. I wanted to choke her and steal her husband away forever.
“What do you two write about?” I asked.
“White House,” replied Olivia. “The president of the United States of America.”
“Me too,” chimed in Emily, “but you already knew that.”
“I’m going to grab a drink,” I said, ignoring her. “Can I get you two anything?” Arsenic? Drano? Bleach?
“We’re fine; thanks though,” replied Olivia with her back already turned to me. “I have a plane to catch after this. Air Force One, actually.”
Unable to find Alison and Libby, I went outside and told Julia about the awkward encounter.
“Fuck that ho,” she said, feeling her hair to make sure it was still smooth and pinned in place despite the evening breeze. “You know, I’ve been here three months longer than she has. On her first day, Tucker asked her if she was a Style reporter, because she sits near us, and she said, ‘Oh no. I’m a real reporter.’ I almost stapled her hand to the desk.”
My endless wavering about what to do with everything I knew about Olivia—continue to dig, or bury it all?—was now leaning much closer to the former. Why should I care about her? She was horrible. If I took her out with a two-thousand-word article and a few artistic nude shots, her husband would likely be mine for the taking. I just knew there was something he liked about me. In fact, he had said it. I was adorable with cool hair.
I stood in the courtyard with Julia, who had started talking about her latest dating woes. “Stop dating Hill flacks,” I advised her.
“Whatever, you’re one to talk. I heard you went out with James Reddenhurst.”
She did? She’d heard that? Oh fantastic. She probably knew that I had slept with him in a car and then dumped him because I was infatuated with a married man. I hated Washington. It was like a never-ending high school prom.
“What else did you hear?” I asked her.
“That’s all. Just that you went out with him. He’s really cute. He used to date Senator Kirby’s daughter. You know, from Iowa. I think they were engaged. He’s a very serious guy. Hot, but serious.”
As the night wore on and our colleagues started to head home, I heard my BlackBerry ringing in my bag. Incredibly, it was James. I had missed three calls from him. I scrolled through messages to find one from him that read, “Are you at the Capitolist anniversary party? I assume you are. Just wanted to warn you that I am too. I’m not trying to invade your territory, but I escorted Senator Kirby here and was left with very little choice. I’m sorry. I’ll try my best not to run into you.”
James was here. And he had sent a courteous note to tell me so. I hadn’t seen him, but I had also downed three red, white, and blue martinis. He could be anywhere. I took his note and back-to-back warning calls as my hint to leave. I said a quick goodbye to the Style girls, nodded to Hardy, who had his laptop out at a patio table, and escaped out the door toward the Smithsonian castle.
I was parked on Independence Avenue, so I cut through the pretty Haupt garden to get there faster. I slipped into my car still fumbling for my keys in my oversize clutch. It wasn’t until I had fished them out that I spotted the masculine hand resting on the gearshift and started to scream.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. The door was open, and I knew it was your car. It’s a unique car.”
It was Sandro.
“The locks don’t really work anymore,” I replied, my heart racing with arousal and fear. “They haven’t for years.”
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
His hand was still on the gearshift. I looked down at it, wanting to put my hand over his and feel his skin, his pulse, just like in the kitchen.
“You scared me. Terrified me. But I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “I want to apologize to you about the other night. I’m so embarrassed. I’ve never—”
He interrupted. “Olivia knows,” he said coolly.
I felt my bottom lip start to tremble in fear.
“I had to tell her. I understand you two work together, and I apologize in advance if that makes things awkward for you, but she is my wife. I’ve been with her since I was nineteen years old. No one else. And then you come along, and you’re all gorgeous with these long legs and this blond hair, and your whole aura is so different. I don’t know what happened. I acted like an idiot. And I was lonely. Olivia is always traveling, I’m alone all the time, and I guess I just broke a little. You broke me.”
He stopped and looked at me, cleared his throat, and started speaking in a firmer voice. Olivia knew about me, but Sandro knew nothing about his wife.
“You kissed me, but I shouldn’t have let you. I shouldn’t have held your hand and said all those things to you. I was stupid to invite you in, to even talk to you that night at Oyamel. I was leading you on.”
“You weren’t!” I said, getting upset. I could feel my eyes fill with tears. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I just, I—”
“You made a mistake,” he said in a hardened voice. “And so did I, but I couldn’t keep something from my wife and make it worse than it is.”
I nodded, wiping my eyes, humiliated.
“I assume you’re aware of Olivia’s character. She isn’t exactly an easy woman to please,” he said.
That was probably more obvious to me than it was to him.
“She was going to have Upton fire you when I told her. She was going to tell him what you did and declare that she couldn’t work in the same building with you. She’s absolutely right to think they would pick her over you. They always pick her. She’s the one that follows the president. She’s the one they’re grooming.”
The tears falling down my face stung my tired skin.
“I’m sorry to upset you, but she is my wife, Adrienne. As captivating as you are, she’s my wife. And I asked her not to talk to Upton. I said that instead, I would talk to you. That we could come to an understanding.”
“What is our understanding?” I said, looking at his tan, handsome face, hoping it would involve having his arms around me again.
“Our understanding is that within a month, you’ll give notice at the List. You’ll give Olivia room to breathe. You can’t expect her to keep working with you. You’ve made that unrealistic. If you agree, she won’t speak to Upton about your character flaws.”
“My character flaws!” Not to mention your wife’s, I barely bit back. I wanted to tell him everything I knew, show him the photos and have him grovel for my forgiveness. “You were the one who touched me and kept handing me beers and said I was adorable. This was a mutual thing, Sandro. You can’t just tell me to quit my job! It’s my job and despite what your horrible wife says, I’m very good at it. The paper has hundreds of employees, not just Olivia fucking Campo!” I hit the side of the car with my hand for emphasis and then let out another yell. I had gone from weepy to hysterical.
“Adrienne?” he asked me after a few seconds of my heavy breathing and grinding teeth.
“Yes,” I replied, my voice leaking sarcasm, my eyes fixed on the speedometer. “That’s what I’ll do, Sandro. I will quit my job. Don’t worry about a thing.”
I heard the passenger door open, and before I could calm down, try to make more excuses to keep him there, Sandro was gone.
I put my keys in the ignition of my old blue car, but I was too upset to drive. I was also too drunk
, and Middleburg felt very far away.
I took a cab home that night, the only sound decision I had made in weeks. As the driver headed down Route 50, I opened the two back windows and let the humidity soak me through. It was Tuesday, June 19. And for the first time since I had seen Olivia and Senator Stanton together, I was now under tremendous pressure to get my story to print. I was not going to be the one quitting my job. Olivia was. The Capitolist was all I had left, and now that little red-haired hag wanted to take it away from me.
CHAPTER 15
I wondered what unemployment would be like. Would I just go crazy and start eating pots of jam with my bare hands? Or would I stare at my old byline and cry? That’s what Olivia wanted: to knock me out of journalism altogether while she sailed to the top of the field. She wanted—no, demanded—this to happen within the next month. I was screwed—unless I could turn my Stanton story into something solid before Olivia begged Upton to have me sacked. My internal clock suddenly sounded like a gong counting down the days left in my journalism career.
I needed something to save me from slipping into career oblivion. If I couldn’t find anything incriminating enough about Olivia’s past, I needed something on Stanton. He was a public figure, had been for almost two decades—maybe Olivia wasn’t the first woman to grab his attention. Perhaps he had a thing for bitchy journalists. That Friday after work, I drove forty minutes east to George Mason University to use their library. I knew my press pass would let me in, and I was less worried about seeing someone I knew at GMU than at George Washington, Georgetown, or American. Plenty of Washingtonians viewed Virginia as the equivalent of Sheboygan in terms of proximity and sophistication, so I decided to play their game and hide out among my commonwealth brethren.
I parked my car in the busy lot and walked into the Fenwick Library. It had been years since I had been inside a college library, and all those happy memories came rushing over me. I was a devoted library studier in college, always choosing Wellesley’s Clapp Library over any other corner of campus. I loved the silence, the palpable energy of expanding intelligence, and the potential to procrastinate in the stacks with your peers.
