“Second thoughts on the location. Sorry, Birdie,” he told her before she’d even finished her morning coffee. “Think outside the box.”
“Oh you, flip-flopping again,” she joked of his indecision. She didn’t ask what prompted the switch: when people like him, used to getting their way, changed their minds on something, it didn’t matter why. You just had to find a way to give them whatever it was they did want.
So she begrudgingly began amassing a new list of potential party locations. But, still, she couldn’t stop thinking about tomorrow. About Buck’s return.
* * *
Reagan was certain that if Dante Alighieri had been a woman, one of the circles of hell would have involved being trapped at a lady-doctor appointment with two wild toddlers. But there she was, an unfortunate detour on the way to My Gym. She had strapped them firmly into their Bugaboo double stroller as they arched their backs and kicked their legs and screamed, both always preferring to be running than sitting still, and gave them her iPhone and iPad, immediately inciting a grabbing-tugging match as each battled to secure whichever device the other had. Then she managed to shove the wide stroller through the narrow lavatory doorway so she could pee in a cup and confirm what the three sticks at home and her intense nausea had already told her. Afterward, she piled them back into the car: “Okay, mommy had her fun and now you guys get to have your fun,” she promised, as they squealed.
Having to follow traffic laws felt overwhelming at a time like this, her mind already working so hard to wrap itself around this latest development. Like when they had just moved to the house, before the kids, back when they needed to establish residency in a nearby district with a potentially competitive congressional race, and she had accidentally run over a squirrel. It had been her first day of work at the speechwriting firm, the Dream Job, and she was too focused on her excitement to notice the little fucker dart into the driveway as she backed out.
She ran a stop sign now, a car swerving around her, honking. “Motherfucker. Focus,” she said aloud. Then with her bounciest pep, “Sorry, babies!” She looked in the mirror to view yet another mirror, this one reflecting those two smiling faces in their rear-facing car seats. She patted her belly, hand shaking.
It was amazing knock-you-out sort of news, a kind of off-the-charts sublime surprise. But also, totally not part of The Plan. She hoped the twins would be okay. She suspected they would love having someone tiny and new to let into their circle and boss around, another competitor to wrestle with in the manner of the baby mixed-martial-arts games they already played, rolling and jumping and tackling each other. They’d adapt fine, she knew in her heart. But Ted. He was the wild card. She would tell him tonight if they won New Hampshire. And if not, well...she just wouldn’t think about that yet.
At the gym, she took a rare deep breath and vowed to enjoy the relative nirvana that came with being able to let her two little animals loose. Stacy sat at the center of the circle of children, singing some song about animals that called for hand motions. Reagan was relieved it was a Stacy class. She claimed to enjoy the twins’ “energy,” as she called it, and never minded if they ran off midclass to climb up the slide or jump off some cushioned structure not intended as a launch pad.
Luckily it was hard to get hurt there, so Reagan zoned out, even managing to ignore the occasional side-eye from other moms seemingly wondering when she would step in and control her kids. Never, she wanted to tell these women. It’s called being a free spirit. Which, despite what you may have heard, is actually a good thing. Good luck to you when your perfectly regimented and repressed little angels turn into drug dealers in ten years. She hated other moms sometimes. Then she hated herself for feeling that way. But it seemed the vast majority were judgy at best and self-righteous at worst. Maybe I’m just some kind of misanthrope? she wondered. Or more likely, just severely sleep-deprived.
But, Ted. Fuck, she thought. He had threatened to get a vasectomy during one particularly bad night several months earlier with two screaming children, four teeth being cut and no one sleeping. His schedule ultimately had been too packed, and he hadn’t gotten around to rescheduling his appointment.
As Daisy and Natasha bonked each other on the head with foam jousting spears, she typed: Hey T! How’s NH? I’m knocked up! Talk soon! then erased it, shook her head and started a new message, this one for Cady. Thanks again for the help the other night. Can the girls and I repay the favor and treat you to milk and cookies? She pressed Send and opened her Notes app, keying in some thoughts for her next column, grateful for these blissful thirty minutes of freedom.
* * *
HAZE TAKES NEW HAMPSHIRE, SETS SIGHTS ON SUPER TUESDAY
By Sky Vasquez, Staff Writer, The Queue
“Even I’m in shock,” Rocky Haze says as her mother sets a cup of hot chocolate, extra marshmallows, before her. She’s seated in the kitchen of her parents’ home in the suburbs of Manchester at four in the morning after clinching her first primary win just a week after entering the race for the White House. “I am humbled and grateful that the people of New Hampshire can feel my fire, that they are willing to take a chance on me. Man, tonight I just needed to reflect on this, you know?” she says, shaking her head, a tear in her eye as her love, Alchemy, perched on the arm of her chair, pats her back. “Needed to rest my head on the pillow where my dreams began.”
It’s been a busy night for the Grammy-winning candidate. After watching the confetti fall and delivering a stirring speech at her victory party attended by Governor Frank Fisher and Senator Shep Bishop, where she thanked voters for “their open-mindedness, their ability to recognize passion and to see that the change our country needs could come in a form they didn’t expect,” she made an appearance at her campaign headquarters here—a bed-and-breakfast where she spent summers busing dishes—surprising volunteers who had gathered to watch election returns en masse. “Their support and faith in me gets me through my sleepless nights,” she says. Then she called up Mom and Dad.
“We were just honored to be celebrating at the party, but to have her here on such an important night.” Mom Nancy Hayes tears up. “She is already a winner.”
* * *
Helena materialized outside Jay’s door just as he arrived, his coat still on, cold fingers clutching his morning coffee—a Venti. He’d been up late, but he had the glow that emanated from the inside out whenever he felt he’d helped usher a good story into the world. Sky filed two that night, the one with the shocking basics—somehow Haze had actually won the New Hampshire Primary—and the other, when Haze’s assistant called Sky at 3:30 a.m. and told him to get in the Escalade.
“FUUUCK!!! Jay! Help!” Sky had called, frantic all over again. “What do I do with this?”
“You go and you make note of everything, and we file a follow-up with all the personal details. Text ASAP and let me know who else is there, media-wise.”
Half an hour later Jay received: OMG, just me here. At her parents’ house, Alchemy, Harmony, her bro.
On the ride back to the hotel, Sky typed up the email that Jay helped shape into the story, and an hour later it posted and had been firmly atop The Queue ever since.
“I’m kind of in love with this family,” Helena said by way of greeting as she opened Jay’s door herself, flipped on the light and plunked down in Jay’s chair. “The mom is so cute. Haze actually might be the most normal, least fucked-up of all these clowns running.”
“Democracy at work is a beautiful thing,” Jay said, firing up his laptop.
“Just emailed you guys. Sky has hits on Bloomberg, Fox and CNN at 9:30, 10:15 and 11:00. They’ll come to him. And tell him to keep the exclusives coming. Let’s get some more on the nuclear family, Alchemy, the kid—”
“Alchemy seems to be on hiatus. Sky said he’s pushing back his next album release.”
“Fascinating. He’s clearing the decks for her.”
; “I know, right? Not how he usually rolls,” Jay said. But then his impression, from what he’d read and observed purely as a fan, was that Haze was a diva in the greatest, take-no-prisoners sense.
“She’s in it at least through Super Tuesday now. We’ll keep Sky on the trail till then,” she said, typing on her phone as she rose to leave. “Keep him filing as much as he can.”
Jay nodded and flipped on the TV to catch Sky’s latest spot, but they were still showing a roundup of the previous night. Jay found it equal parts puzzling and hilarious that Madison Goodfellow looked so happy after watching her husband lose. She stood by his side at a podium in New Hampshire, grinning as broadly as she should have after they’d won Iowa.
Jay shook his head. He just didn’t get these Goodfellow folks.
* * *
Cady had to say something; she couldn’t just let this go, so she cornered Jeff in his office before the morning meeting. No greeting, just a knock on the open door.
“So I can’t help but notice that Rocky Haze—Rocky. Haze!—has won New Hampshire.” She dropped her jaw for effect. “We’ve gotta do something, anything, maybe talk to the Foreign Policy editors who’ve worked with her? Or I’ve been doing some digging, and there’s a guy in the UN office here who accompanied her on a trip to Darfur once,” she said, selling it, though he was giving her that kind smile and head nod that said, Love your attitude but the answer’s still no. “It’s kind of a big deal.”
“Cady, Cady, Cady...” Jeff smiled, shaking his head as he leaned back in his chair. “What did I tell you on your first day?”
“Right, know your audience, I know, but—”
“The trick here is less politics,” he said, perfectly jovial. “Remember? No religion or politics, like at any good party, am I right?”
“Good one,” she said, unconvinced.
“We’ve been over this. We let the big dogs do that, plenty of national news shows with national-news-show resources.”
“I get that,” she said. “But, shouldn’t we be, if not a big dog, then some dog, or, like, at the dog park at least?”
“We’re really just a...a...” He struggled. “I had cats, I don’t know—a Shih Tzu? Or whatever dog is a little ball of fluff.”
“No bite, got it.” She exhaled in a grand, highly disappointed way.
“I know, I know, but trust me, we did focus groups. People aren’t coming to us for that. We rebranded to the point that we’re counterprogramming to all that news now. Like I mentioned in your interview, your sound bites at New in New York from Andrew Cuomo about Sandra Lee’s best meals at home? That was a winner.”
“And, also, vaguely political,” she pointed out cheekily.
“Almost too political.” He laughed. “No one wants you to be Woodward or Bernstein here. C’mon, meeting time.”
* * *
Much to Reagan’s chagrin, the twins, as though sensing daddy’s boss had lost in New Hampshire, had awakened at eleven o’clock last night and every two hours like clockwork until morning. After Arnold’s dulled concession speech (“We have only just begun our fight,” the vice president said, audibly sighing), she’d tried to call Ted but had to settle with a text: so sorry. i still say haze is flash in pan right? will all sort out super tuesday. meantime get them writing more upbeat stuff, he sounds so defeatist/old/status quo/blah. loosen his tie—metaphorical & literal. Tash and D awake, sending kisses. and crying bloody murder xo.
It was morning now, and Ted still hadn’t written back. She worried he was taking this hard, too hard. It was too early to be that upset.
MSNBC had a panel for morning-after quarterbacking, and she was about to switch to Grant Foxhall’s show on CNN when she spotted Buck. “I warned you all!” Buck laughed. “People on both sides—on both sides, mind you—are gonna need to take Haze seriously. As an antiestablishment candidate, she’s persuasive. But she’s got this loyal following. She knows how to tap into people’s emotions with her music. She’s already part of their lives, their good days and bad, comfort and joy. My wife listens to that song all day long.” The panel laughed. Reagan too, in spite of herself.
Buck and Birdie were such a team. Reagan knew bits of their history, the gossip. But they seemed so rock solid. Meanwhile, she felt like a barefoot, pregnant, bedraggled single mom. She tapped out an email to Birdie, in a Birdie-esque tone to be all the more pleasing, and copyedited it three times.
Dearest Birdie, Wonderful to see you last week, no one throws a Hawkeye State Soiree like you. Watching Buck on MSNBC now: nice shout-out! Full disclosure: I’m equally obsessed with that song. All in, Reagan
A cool stream of thick, organic mango yogurt squirted across her cheek. She looked up from her phone. “Who did that?” Natasha giggled wildly, kicking her legs against the high chair. Reagan wiggled her fingers and crept over. “You’re getting tickles for that! Gotcha gotcha gotcha!” She tickled her daughter’s chubby arms and belly and legs, and Daisy, seated beside her sister in her own high chair, burst into matching chuckles before shooting her yogurt pouch at Reagan too, this time missing. “Uh-oh, you’re next, lady!” Reagan said, lunging to give the same treatment while Natasha smacked her tray happily and swept bananas and Cheerios in every direction.
Despite the mayhem and destruction that came with each meal, Reagan still found these times peaceful, since the girls were strapped in and contained. She caught her breath, wiped her face and set to work cleaning the mess from the floor just as the phone rang. The girls squealed at each other, communicating in their own language, then chanting, “Da!-da!-da!-da!-da!” They always assumed every call was Dad, though they were wrong most of the time. Especially now that campaign season was under way.
“Hey, Jay! Great Sky piece. Did you get—” she started, but he jumped in.
“Um, is there something you want to tell me, Rea?” he asked. “Because I’m editing your column—”
Natasha began kicking and screaming, Daisy copying her a split second later; they hated when she was on the phone for longer than fifteen seconds.
“Ohhhh, yeah, I figured you might—” she said, unhooking Natasha from the chair.
“Mmm-hmm, one of these letters is very curious. Let’s just read it aloud, shall we?”
“Sure, okay.” She pulled a piece of smushed banana off Natasha’s plump thigh and ate it, then caught herself and shook her head in disgust, plopping the girl into the pack-and-play. Sometimes she made full meals of the food picked off her children’s bodies, and she wasn’t proud of it. She was so desocialized, she was practically a primate at this point.
“‘Question: Is it ever appropriate to email your husband—rather than tell him in person—that you’re expecting another child?’” Jay read in a flat tone.
Reagan unbuckled Daisy, who smiled sweetly and clung to her like a koala bear when she tried to put her beside her sister in the playard. She kissed her on the head as she peeled Daisy’s grippy limbs from her body, careful that the girl didn’t kick her belly.
Jay continued. “‘It’s his! Phew! No worries there, but he’s traveling on business for weeks, stressed out, it’s hard to catch him on the phone and he seldom has much privacy or time. We have two kids already, so this one is just a bonus (aka: surprise!) anyway. Please advise.’”
“Ohhhh, that. Right,” Reagan said, washing the dishes from last night’s meal while cradling the phone in her neck. “So what did you think of the answer?”
“You mean, ‘We live in modern times and what could be better than to receive such lovely news via email? Congrats?’” He read it all as a question.
“Yeah?”
“No.”
“Okay. So, I fucked up my birth control,” she launched in, shutting the water and wiping her hands. She tossed a few stray board books into the playard, then made her way upstairs to the hamper in the girls’ room. “I always wondered who the idiots w
ere who couldn’t remember to take a pill at the same damn time every day—but mystery solved, it’s me, I’m the idiot.”
“You and probably a lot of other extremely busy people. Not idiots at all,” Jay comforted.
“Not idiots at all,” she repeated. “Apologies all around. Clearing out any bad chakras here.”
“Oooh, can I be the godfather again?” Jay asked, doing his best Marlon Brando, which wasn’t good at all.
“Sure. You’re hired.” She hustled downstairs to the basement with the overflowing laundry basket.
“This is awesome, Rea! You guys make supercute kids. How’re you feeling? Need me to Uber you some pickles and ice cream?”
“Thanks. No, yeah, crazy and exhausted and overwhelmed. So the usual, except with someone else leasing office space in my body.” She laughed, pausing and pensive before tossing the laundry in, then said seriously, “But, you know what? Happy actually. Nauseous and happy.”
“Good! You should be! Happy, I mean. Despite the other stuff, you know?” he said, glossing over. He had been her confidant during the vasectomy talk; he knew it all.
“Right. So, any other edits?”
“Ted?” Jay asked gingerly.
“Yep,” she said knowingly.
“Sorry, but speaking as your editor, gotta change that answer, girl.”
“I know,” she said.
“Gotta do it in person or at least on the phone. At least.”
“Yep.”
“Give him a chance to have the right response. And then if he doesn’t, well—”
“We’ll do a follow-up column.”
They both laughed.
10
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Campaign Widows Page 7
