by Violet Paige
“I’d rather show you.”
“All right.” I was ok reveling in the closeness we had on the Metro. How his body almost touched mine. How there was a current running from him to me with invisible wires. And I could stand here and inhale the intoxicating scent from his skin.
Each time the car stopped at another station I looked to Vaughn for a signal that we were going to hop off, but he stood tall, shielding me from anyone who boarded or exited. He was like some kind of body guard, making sure the only person who touched me was him.
Eventually, he pulled my hand from the rod, led me to the sliding doors, and tugged me behind him onto the platform as the bell dinged and the train charged on to the next stop.
I looked at the station. “Smithsonian?”
“This way.”
We took the escalator to the street level. It was quiet.
“Now will you tell me where we are going?” I urged.
“Let’s walk.” Vaughn led me along the sidewalk.
The Washington Monument emerged on our right, towering silently straight into the night. I paused for a moment to take it in, but we turned our backs to it and continued at an easy pace for several blocks. I also realized that we were putting more distance between us and the White House. That had been my first guess for Vaughn’s mysterious night stroll.
As we neared the water, Vaughn’s grip tightened around my palm. The lights from the memorial shimmered on the dark calm of the rippling waves. There was almost no movement at all on the water.
It was dark under the canopy of trees, but as we rounded the circle and made our way to the front columns, I realized why Vaughn had brought me on this route. It was breathtaking.
When we finally stopped walking, he stood back and crossed his arms. “What do you think?”
“I’ve never been here. I’ve seen it fifty times from the road or in pictures, but I’ve never actually been here. It’s beautiful.”
He winked. “It’s my favorite spot.”
We walked together toward the stone steps. “Why the Jefferson Memorial?” I asked. “Not Lincoln? Not the Washington Monument?”
He shook his head with confidence. “One reason—the quiet.”
He was right. There was no one else here.
He took the steps and I followed after him, trying to pick up on every detail of why this place was special to him. Why he had chosen to bring me here instead of trying to impress me with high-end dinner reservations.
“Everyone thinks Lincoln is the place you want to go if you need to think. If you need the wisdom of a man faced with the greatest challenges and adversity. That’s where people go to wade through their moral conscience.”
“It’s not the right one?” I questioned.
“No. Lincoln’s sculpture mastered that on its own. If you look at him, he is already posed to think for you. To take dilemmas of morality from you. This one … this one is different.”
I spun slowly on my heels, rotating just like the rotunda we were standing inside. “And this is where you come to think?”
“Maybe.” He smirked.
“I like it. It’s really beautiful.” I moved toward one of the stone markings on the wall that was inscribed with Jefferson’s quotes. The carvings stretched several feet above my head.
There was a romantic eeriness wrapping us. Vaughn watched as I moved along the walls, absorbing the words.
“I thought with your appreciation for law it might be meaningful to you.”
I whipped around. “You did?”
“Aren’t you the girl who’s going to change the world around here?”
I closed my eyes. “I’m the girl who used to think that.”
“What happened to her?” The deepness in his voice held me.
“She’s trying to figure things out,” I admitted. “Trying to start over.”
He shoved his hands in the front of his pockets. “Then maybe you need a place here where you can think in silence.”
I smiled. “Maybe I do.”
“Let me show you something else. You’ll like this story.” He tugged my hand.
I followed him down the steps to the water’s edge. We were across from the White House. It looked tiny from this spot.
“Have you ever heard of the Cherry Tree Rebellion?”
“No. What is it?”
He wrapped his arms around my waist, locking them in place firmly against my body. I leaned into him.
“When they started to build the memorial some of the cherry trees needed to be sacrificed for construction.”
I glanced at the trees bordering the park. “But they’re so beautiful.”
“That’s what 150 other women thought too. They chained themselves to the trees and refused to move until the president agreed to have them transplanted instead of destroyed.”
“Really? I’ve never heard that story.”
“Really.”
He pressed his lips to my ear.
“Are you some kind of historian?” I teased.
“Just thought you’d like the story.”
“I do.”
“But?”
“Well, did it work? What happened with the trees?”
He chuckled. “The trees were dug up and moved to a new location. But don’t ask me where.”
I smiled.
We stood in silence. Our bodies melting into each other. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to break the spell.
“Emily, you will find your way in this town. It takes time being the new fish in an ocean of sharks.”
I sighed. “All my problems aren’t sharks.” I didn’t want to tell him my brother’s cycle had cracked through the protective bubble I created here. I didn’t want to talk about Garrett at all.
Garrett was a pain I carried with me. At times it was so deep, I didn’t think I could breathe. And the guilt I had for leaving him behind crippled me. I didn’t know how to move past it. I didn’t know how to move inside it. It was with me, hovering on the outer edges of my thoughts.
And he was here again in this moment. A moment that should be mine.
Vaughn rotated me toward his chest. I looked at his face in the shadows. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek.
A new fire started under my skin. It was the way Vaughn looked at me. The anticipation was like a drug.
He threaded his fingers through mine. “Come on, I think I owe you dinner.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything again, but I am starving.” We strolled along the path next to the cherry trees. I would never look at them the same way again. “Thanks for showing me your secret spot.”
“It’s not so secret.”
“You know what I mean.” I stopped him at the bridge. The rotunda rose behind us, illuminated like a jack-o-lantern. “I do need a place. Everything has been frantic and chaotic since I moved. I didn’t know how much I missed the quiet. This kind of quiet.”
I hadn’t meant to turn somber. Maybe it was the heaviness of the monument, or the darkness falling on our shoulders. I was spending the evening with a gorgeous man and yet the weight of the day was still on me. I was letting it sink into my skin and ruin the romance of what Vaughn tried to accomplish.
I looked into his eyes just as his palm caught the softness of my cheek.
“Come here,” he whispered, dragging his lips across mine.
I inhaled deeply. It was what I needed. What I sought.
The perfect way his mouth moved over mine, while his hands tangled in my hair. I couldn’t help the tiny whimper that escaped from my throat. His kisses had quickly become everything. They stopped the loneliness. They stopped the unavoidable feeling of panic and uncertainty. When he kissed me the only thing I felt was the path to escape. The way out of chaos. I sighed lightly as his lips fell on mine, raking over me as if he was trying to memorize the lines of my mouth.
The kiss burned my tongue.
“You make it hard to remember what I’m doing, Emily.”
I nod
ded. I wanted the kiss to continue. I wanted to forget everything else that had happened today. The only thing worth remembering was this. Vaughn’s mouth devouring me under a dark D.C. sky.
5
I needed a strong cup of coffee the next morning at the clinic. Meg brought in two cups and sat one in front of my desk.
“Rough night?” she asked.
I greedily sipped the hot liquid. I didn’t care that she hadn’t bothered to add cream or sugar. My body craved the caffeine. By the time Vaughn had dropped me off at the apartment, it was close to one.
I yawned. “Not rough, but late.”
“Well, drink up because you are double booked today.”
My eyes widened. “Why?”
Meg nodded toward the empty desk adjacent to me. “She’s not coming in today. She called in sick.”
“Addie’s sick? But it’s only the second day.” I hadn’t stopped long enough yesterday to pay any attention to her. If she had a cold or any symptoms, I didn’t notice. We saw one client after another.
Meg shrugged and carried her cup out to the reception area. “I would cancel lunch plans if I were you. You have three waiting outside.”
“Already? Oh shit,” I whispered.
My head was in the wrong place.
“Give me just a minute, Meg. Or maybe five?” I pleaded.
“Sure thing.” She closed the door so I could collect myself.
I scrambled to find my writing tablet. I powered up my laptop and kicked off my Keds under my desk. I slipped into a pair of flats. I had a great plan to unpack a few boxes last night. I wanted to go through my clothes and organize my closet, but instead I walked the city with Vaughn. We talked. We held hands. We kissed under every monument constructed in this town.
It was like some kind of romantic walking tour.
I tried to wipe the plastered look of lust off my face before Meg tapped on the door with my first client.
“This is Mrs. Foley.”
“Thanks, Meg.”
I rose from the desk and skirted around to shake the woman’s hand. I guessed she was in her mid-twenties. She was dressed in a suit and carried a leather messenger bag.
“Have a seat,” I instructed her.
“Thank you.” She planted herself in front of me.
“I’m Emily Charles. Before we get started, I want to explain a few things about how this process works. As you know this is a clinic run by attorneys to help women in the community who may not otherwise be able to seek legal advice.” I said the same speech I had repeated yesterday to the women I saw. “Everything we discuss is confidential.”
She nodded. “I understand. I didn’t know where else to go. I-I need someone who isn’t … isn’t already bought.”
“This is a free service. There are no fees.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“All right. What brings you to the clinic, Mrs. Foley? Tell me.”
“I was fired from my job yesterday.” Her eyes were hard and her lips formed a thin line. She didn’t weep, and her voice didn’t crack.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I started taking notes. “I assume you are here because you believe it was a wrongful termination?”
She nodded. “It is. One of my co-worker’s found out I was pregnant and told my boss.”
“And you were let go immediately?” I asked.
“Yes. Immediately.” She pressed her palms into the pleats of her skirt.
“Did you have any prior written warnings, any kind of verbal indication that your job was in jeopardy?”
“No.” She was crisp. “I haven’t even told my husband about the baby.” Her eyes locked on mine.
“Oh.” I placed my pen on the desk and stopped writing. “Did you tell him last night after you were let go?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t.” She spun the solitaire diamond on her left ring finger.
The conversation was becoming delicate. “Mrs. Foley, if you are asking me to provide legal advice and possible representation for you, then I need to know the factors that led to your release. The first would be how someone at work would know about your pregnancy and not your husband.”
She looked me straight in my eye. “Because my boss is the baby’s father.”
“I see.” I took a deep breath. Complicated did not begin to describe the complexity of this case. There were going to be layers I needed to peel back.
“Mrs. Foley, wait just a second.” I walked around behind her and stuck my head out the door. Meg was writing down the name of the women as they walked into the lobby.
“Meg,” I called her toward me.
“What is it?”
“This is going to take a while.”
Her eyes darted with panic. “But we have all these clients and no Addie.”
“I know. I know. But I can’t rush through this. Will you please field these the best you can? Take as much information down for me and then I’ll have a brief prepared at least when I sit down with them.”
“We are never leaving today are we?”
“Do they have cots in this place?” I joked.
“Don’t ever say that out loud or someone will order them.”
“I’ll do my best, but you’re right. It’s going to be a long day.”
I closed the office door, thankful I had the office to myself today so I could discuss this case without other clients walking in and out.
I smiled at her. “Ok. Mrs. Foley, let’s get started from the beginning and I’ll see how I can help you get your job back.”
“You can call me Lana,” she said. “It seems strange for you to keep saying ‘Mrs. Foley’.”
I nodded. “All right, Lana.” I resumed taking notes.
“And I never said I wanted my job back.”
“But you want some kind of compensation?”
“Yes. Of course.” Her eyebrows pinched together.
“What is the name of the company?”
“Company?”
“Yes. Where did you work?”
She cleared her throat. “In the Senate.”
I blinked. “As in Congress? The U.S. Senate?”
“That’s right.”
I pressed my elbows into the planes of my desk. I felt my stomach turn as I asked the next question.
“And your boss? Who is it?”
Lana sighed. “Todd Mitcherson.”
“Senator Mitcherson?” My voice cracked.
“I take it you know him.” She stared at me blankly.
“He’s a U.S. senator.” I tried to keep my words steady. Keep the judgment off my lips. Keep it hidden that I knew exactly who he was. The man Preston worked for.
“Yes. He is. And he shouldn’t have fired me.”
“I think I need you to start at the beginning. The very beginning.”
There was a weariness that had settled into my shoulders. It ran deep between the tissue, twisting the tendons with snaps of fatigue. They ached from all angles. I lugged my messenger bag over my arm and started down the stairs outside the clinic. If I rushed, I could make the last shuttle back to the Metro.
I didn’t like walking on campus at night by myself, but I held my phone firmly in my hand and trudged forward. It reminded me of all the seminars I’d attended in college. The ones where safety officers would fill an auditorium with girls and tell us how to avoid an unwanted attack. As if there was any other kind. They would tell us to always walk together. Check in with your buddy. If you saw someone suspicious, don’t make eye contact. It was a freshman requirement for all girls to attend, but I didn’t remember any seminars for the guys. Something about how not to attack women. Keep you dicks in your pants and your hands to yourself. I scowled, marching forward. I didn’t want to miss that bus.
Mrs. Foley was the first of twenty women I saw today. Twenty. I used to go an entire week at the private practice without seeing that many clients.
I hustled toward the stop at the corner feeling part super woman and part exhausted
.
The driver nodded without smiling as I climbed onboard and took the first seat. I was a little nervous walking through the Metro station at night alone, but I was only one stop away from our neighborhood. Women in the city did this all the time.
I thought about the women today. What they dealt with. The decisions they made they had brought them to my office. The faith they had put in people who let them down. It was overwhelming and infuriating. There weren’t enough of us fighting to help them. Today I had worked with twenty, but if Addie had been there, we would have helped forty. And if one more attorney had been added to the clinic it would have been sixty. There was no stopping the hemorrhage.
My fingers touched the top of the metal bar, hanging from the train’s ceiling and I forgot about the women and remembered my ride with Vaughn last night. I smiled to myself. I liked how he steadied me with his strength.
He had the kind of presence I’d never seen in another man. He was comfortable in his own skin. He was confident in his decisions. That voice. Those eyes. He had me upside down.
I skirted off the Metro and scampered up the stairs quickly and onto the sidewalk. I liked being above ground and within sight of home.
Where did Vaughn get that confidence? How did he stroll through life, making his own wake?
I pulled my phone from my bag and tapped his number. I was completely sober and impulsive. It almost made me giggle.
I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to thank him for what he showed me last night. For talking. For living in the quiet with me. For everything.
I took the stairs to the third floor while I waited for him to answer. By the time I reached the top level it had gone to voicemail. I felt the frown crinkle on my face when I heard the rehearsed message.
“You’ve reached Vaughn. Leave a message.”
I hung up. I couldn’t think of putting anything together that didn’t sound lame. He also didn’t seem like the kind of man who bothered with voicemail.
I turned the key in the lock and dropped my bag on the floor.
“You’re home!” Greer squealed from the kitchen. She was stirring a pot of canned spaghetti sauce with a wooden spoon.
“You’re home.” I looked around for Preston. I didn’t know if I could hide the awkwardness I now felt, knowing his boss was involved in an unplanned pregnancy with my client. I couldn’t discuss it with him or Greer.
