“Can’t you just hang in for, like, two more hours?”
“Honestly? No. I can’t.”
“One more hour? Just something. A little longer.”
“I wish I—”
“This is a make or break night. We need you here. You’ve gotta understand that.”
“I do understand that,” she snapped, then reminded herself it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know she had a baby on board.
“Then come on, help me here.” His voice grew louder than it should have, his tone harsh.
A dozen young donors still in line to get in pretended not to watch them. She ordered her car.
“What’s going on with you?”
“We can talk about it later,” she said in a whisper, hoping he would lower his voice too. “Now’s not the time. I’ve just gotta go, okay? See you at home.”
“This is RIDICULOUS.” He was angry now. “All I’m ASKING is to not have to explain to Arnold where you are when—”
He caught her arm before she could get away, and by then it was too late to stop it: she vomited, all over his shoes. A handful of the guests in line noticed and then looked away.
“I’m pregnant,” she said, depleted. “Yay.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Yeah,” she said flatly. “This is all an elaborate ruse designed to get me home early on one of the rare nights I’m out of the house after 5:00 p.m. and dressed like an adult.”
A black SUV pulled up to the curb. She thought it was hers and walked over as fast as she could manage, but when the door opened, a woman floated out in a sparkling emerald dress beneath a luscious black coat. She breezed right by them, an air of importance and urgency, past the guests waiting in line, past the doorkeepers.
Ted froze. “What is Madison Goodfellow doing at an Arnold fund-raiser?” he said out loud, watching her disappear into Preamble.
But Reagan was already storming away into her own arriving sedan.
* * *
Enraged and unable to hear a damn thing over the music, Cady stomped toward the door, barking into the phone. “Why are you doing this now? Can’t we fight about this later? I don’t call you in the middle of Cedar Rapids to yell at you for being no help planning this engagement party we’re supposed to be having in six weeks.” Jackson’s parents had set the date for June and put them in charge of finding a location, which she had yet to secure. It just kept falling to the bottom of her list below so much work—work that she actually preferred over party planning.
“Well, maybe that is more important than what you’re doing.” He threw down the gauntlet.
“Ohhhh, okay, right...” She tried to sound tough but felt ill. They didn’t usually fight, so when they did it cut deeply, unmooring her. “Look, I’m not appreciating—” she started. Not paying attention to where she was going, she ran up the steps to the building’s front door and collided with a tall, sequined, late-arriving guest. Cady stumbled backward but caught her balance.
“I’m so sorry, all my fault,” Madison Goodfellow said, beaming.
“No, no problem at all, my apologies, hi.” Realizing her good fortune, Cady hung up on Jackson immediately.
15
YOU’RE MY KIND OF GIRL
So far the only good thing that had come of Hank running for president—besides Madison getting to meet so many truly nice people, who continued to send her cards and bring her flowers—was the condo Hank had bought at the Ritz. Tucked in a neighborhood called the West End, it was near Georgetown but quieter and had a lovely gym (with an instructor who taught her parkour, which she liked so much better than yoga or pilates) and a delicious restaurant on the ground floor that used to be their friend Eric Ripert’s but was still quite good. Hank knew she loved it there, so she felt confident he wouldn’t be suspicious when she said she’d be spending a long weekend there. “I just need a break from the campaigning. It doesn’t come as naturally to me as it does to you.” She knew the Machine would be glad not to have to babysit her during their visit to Pennsylvania.
Over the past few months, Birdie Brandywine had invited her to three bipartisan events but not this John Arnold fund-raiser—obviously—which was why it made the most sense to Madison that this would actually be the one to attend. A switch had flipped in her after Super Tuesday, and she wondered what she might be able to get away with. She couldn’t avoid hearing the campaign press and had the feeling that people liked her.
So she poured herself into her most vivacious dress—it had to be the sparkly green, always the green, if that one could talk, the stories it would tell!—and took a car to someplace on Capitol Hill that looked a little rough around the edges for such a function, but what did she know. Her goal: to be noticed. But if she met a donor or two, with the right open-mindedness, that could also be enormously useful to her.
She breezed in the door, red-lipped smile plastered on her face, ready to charm.
* * *
Cady launched into Cheerful Crisis Mode. She flagged down Abbie at the door—“Hey! Wanna grab Birdie?”—then made use of the seconds before Birdie’s arrival.
“Cady Davenport. I’m a producer with the fastest-growing local show in DC,” she said, figuring it could possibly be true. “We’d love to have you on, hear about your unique perspective on the campaign trail. I reached out to Mike—” She pulled out her business card.
“You know what,” Madison cut her off. “I’ll give you this back.” She took the card and plucked a monogrammed gold pen from her tiny gold envelope purse. “This is my email address,” she said, scribbling on the back of the card: [email protected]. “My regular account was hacked.” She shook her head.
Cady nodded, sensing there was a story there.
In seconds, Birdie appeared. “Darling! What a totally delightful surprise. And I do mean surprise!” Birdie looked as though she were trying to control the deer-in-the-headlights reflex sweeping her face. “Birdie Brandywine,” she introduced herself. “Thrilled to meet at last.”
The women shook hands, traded air-kisses, looked as though they might be sisters: same tall, lean figures, long legs, aura of glamour.
“Maddy Goodfellow,” she said.
“I had no idea you were—”
“Hope you don’t mind. I was in town with nothing to do.”
“You do realize you’re at a fund-raiser for Vice President Arnold,” Birdie said through her smile, barely moving her lips.
Madison laughed. “Oh, yes, details, details.”
Birdie seemed concerned, perplexed. “Did you pay the $20K entry, or are you merely crashing?”
“I’m on a fact-finding mission?” Madison said it as a question, as though she was unsure of the terminology.
“Sure, okay, what facts are you finding?” Birdie asked.
“On the record or off?” Madison laughed.
“I think you’re my kind of girl!” Birdie threw her arm around Madison.
As Cady slunk away, Birdie gave her a look of appreciation. She had caught an enormous fish and graciously turned it over to someone more skilled at reeling it in.
* * *
After trying, unsuccessfully, to find Reagan and getting no answer on her cell, Cady yanked Parker away from a conversation with a group of young, hot female donors.
“I need to talk to you!” she blurted, grabbing his arm.
“Ow! Other arm, at least, okay?”
“Sorry!” She glanced at the group he had just left. “Ohhh! Really sorry. Rebound prospects?”
“Not anymore,” he said.
“You’ll thank me—look who’s about to put your bar on the map?” she said into his ear, pointing so he could follow her line of vision.
“No fucking way,” he said. “Shouldn’t she be in like Pennsylvania or something right now?”
“Go!
Talk to her!” she said, giving him a shove.
He started nodding uncontrollably, looking nervous.
“I’ll send the photographer over,” she said, with another shove. “Go! GO!”
* * *
Reagan was already in bed asleep by the time Ted got home.
He curled up beside her and placed his hand softly on her swollen belly, whispering, “Please tell me we’re due after the election.”
“November 19,” she said groggily, appreciating the “we.”
“Cutting it close, but when have we ever been early?”
* * *
Cole hung around even after everyone had left, offering to drive Birdie home. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and said it had been such a long night, they would have to catch up another time, and he was too polite to push. She’d considered going home with him—anyone would, he was young and beautiful—but tonight she would be returning alone, to her own house. Besides, she had too much else on her mind: she still hadn’t fully processed what she had heard tonight. It wasn’t often that someone could completely surprise her. She had thought she’d seen it all. But Madison Goodfellow, Birdie had sensed she had a spark, and she had been right.
Birdie hadn’t been able to resist asking, feeling that she may not get another chance. She’d thought she’d read something in Madison’s eyes, that it hadn’t been a mistake that she had chosen this event of Birdie’s to attend.
“Madison, I hope you won’t find this rude, but I’m sincerely curious—do you want Hank to win the nomination? The election?” She had asked when they’d had relative privacy.
Birdie watched as a prism of possible responses filtered through Madison’s eyes, and then she settled on one that seemed to be the truth. A smile blooming, a secret freed. “How did I know you would understand?”
Birdie nodded. “I think I can help.”
* * *
By the time Cady hopped in a cab home, she was pretty pleased with herself. She had had a good night. After all the obligatory photos and enough time sequestered in one of the VIP rooms to meet with donors, Birdie had facilitated a quote from Madison.
“Madison Goodfellow, what brings you to an Arnold fund-raiser tonight?” Cady asked as Max recorded.
“Well, I came to see a new friend—” she gestured to Birdie “—but didn’t realize the purpose of the event. Oops.” She smiled winningly. “But I’m so glad I’m here because I need to start learning all these Washington hot spots if we’re going to be living here come January.” She winked into the camera.
It was enough of a coup that Cady had managed to forget all about that awful conversation with Jackson. But it came rushing back now as the taxi wound its way past the White House, lit up and gleaming in the night. She couldn’t gauge who was right and who was wrong on this, and wondered if she was just being terribly blockheaded. Had it really been a criminal offense to go to this event?
As she passed Lafayette Park and then the Hay-Adams Hotel, guilt smacked her in the face. Jackson had taken her there to celebrate her job offer in December. At her second interview, she had accepted on the spot, then called Jackson on her way out of the station’s headquarters. By the time she’d made it back to the apartment, he had already planned their evening. A drink at Off The Record, the Hay-Adams’s famous underground lounge with its sumptuous red décor, and then dinner at the hotel’s pricey and indulgent restaurant, The Lafayette, with those stunning views of the White House.
After dinner—where they polished off a bottle of wine—they had snuck up to the hotel’s private top-floor event space with access to the roof terrace, crashing a law firm’s holiday party. It was crowded enough—and they were dressed well-enough—that they could slink around, holding hands, without anyone questioning whether they belonged there. They’d slipped out to that glorious rooftop, gazed upon the city that would now be not just his but theirs, and he had wrapped his arms around her in the brisk December air, nestling his face into her neck. As if it wasn’t enough, while they were there, he had gotten a call that a room had become available. They had nothing with them, but stayed anyway, which made it all the more romantic and extravagant.
She had known then, of course, that every day wouldn’t be that way. That wasn’t real life, it was fantasy. But she had expected something...more, now that they were finally in the same city.
When Cady arrived home after midnight, she found Jackson asleep on the couch, a few empty beer bottles on the floor, TV still on.
* * *
Cady’s interview with Madison ran the following day and scored hundreds of thousands of YouTube hits.
Parker sent her an email first thing the next morning, a link to a blog post on the New York Times’ political portal. His subject line: “rebound material?” and the body of the message: Think this’ll make Hank Goodfellow jealous? Seriously though, how awesome was last night?
The post entitled “Girl About Town” opened with a photo of a smiling Madison Goodfellow beside a slightly dazed-looking Parker. She was at her most glamorous, poised and posed, clearly reveling in the attention, while he seemed like he had inadvertently wandered into her shot. Cady had to laugh. It probably wouldn’t spark any romance rumors.
PART II
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
16
WE’RE IN FUCKING SIBERIA
The ballroom of the Washington Hilton, all abuzz on this warm evening in late April, seemed roughly the size of a football field, and Cady and Jeff were in the equivalent of the nosebleeds. They sat in a dark, dank corner, light-years from the dais where POTUS, FLOTUS and VPOTUS would sit.
“This is unacceptable,” Cady said. When they had finally secured a guest, all Cady’s doing (“I don’t know how the hell you pulled this thing off, but if we ever have any money, I’ll give you a raise and a better desk chair,” Jeff had promised), it had been far too late to lobby for better placement in the ballroom. How bad could it be? they’d figured. But this was bad. Some sort of air-conditioning machinery could be heard buzzing directly overhead.
“We’re in fucking Siberia,” Jeff moaned. “We should’ve just gotten a suite and watched it on TV with her.”
“Is it too late for that?” Cady joked, scanning the room, hundreds of black-tie-attired politicos and journalists milling about, shaking hands, gabbing spiritedly.
Jeff checked his phone. “Fuuuuck, they’re here, waiting in the red carpet line.”
Cady stood up on her chair in her stilettos and her off-the-shoulder (rented) Carolina Herrera gown, hand over her eyes as though seeking a ship on the horizon.
“I’m not crazy,” she said. “That table upfront is still totally empty. There should at least be some activity this close to showtime, no?” It got her thinking.
“This sucks,” Jeff said. “We can’t even see the jumbotrons. It’s like we’re at the party but we’re, like, serving the punch.”
“Come! I have an idea!” Cady hopped down, grabbed the number “95” at the center of their table and set off to the front of the room. “There has got to be someone to bribe.”
* * *
“All I know is Bloomberg is sitting there,” a server named Angela told them.
Apparently, as Angela had heard it, there had been some sort of backup on Connecticut Avenue, and on top of that, the Kardashians had been running epically late. Everyone at the news network’s table would be arriving en masse, if they ever got through the traffic. For a sum of $250, all the cash that Jeff and Cady had on them, Angela agreed to look the other way while Cady swapped the table numbers. Bloomberg’s table “5” would now be located at the very back of the room. Not the most genius switch of all time, but worth a try.
Cady ran out to the red carpet to intercept their bosses and the advertisers, who were all traveling as a pack. At the center of their group was Madison, who shimmered in a gold chain-mail column dress, colle
cting all the light in the room, so many cameras trained on her, snapping away. When she saw Cady, she stopped midinterview with Access Hollywood to give her a hug.
“I’m so excited to be here, and this is the woman who was kind enough to bring me,” she said, linking arms with Cady.
“And how did you get Madison Goodfellow to be your guest?” the interviewer asked as though Cady was a nerd who had managed to bring the quarterback to prom.
Cady laughed. She still didn’t quite know the answer to that question. “Well, I guess, I just asked nicely.”
“And where is your husband tonight, Mrs. Goodfellow?”
Cady was prepared to step in, but Madison simply piped up, with that killer smile, “Oh, well, he has very serious and important things to do, meeting with voters to help secure his nomination. He felt he would be too busy for a frivolous night like this.”
* * *
Reagan, seated beside Ted at a table up front, typed furiously on her phone, adding a last minute tip from Cady—involving the Kardashians, of all people—and sending her updated speech to Arnold’s communications team. Then she took a deep breath to settle the butterflies she felt. It had been a long time since she had heard anyone deliver one of her speeches, and Ted wasn’t exactly helping to ease her nerves. “You’re sure Goodfellow is on board with all this?” he asked Reagan for the millionth time.
“You’re insulting me right now. I told you, Cady has it all set with her.” Reagan sighed. Cady had said Madison was surprisingly overjoyed at being included in the speech, and fully down to take a ribbing, and that she had refused to let her husband’s press secretary review the speech at any point. “Oooh,” Reagan had said then. “That means this is going to be even better.”
The night had already gotten off to a somewhat inauspicious start from a social standpoint, though. She and Ted were guests of MSNBC (he appeared enough on the network to warrant the invitation), and she had been seated beside Buck Brandywine. Buck informed Reagan that Birdie was too busy overseeing the Vanity Fair afterparty at the French ambassador’s residence, but when he grabbed his brandy she noticed his ring missing. She audibly gasped, then began coughing to cover. “Uhhhh, reflux, pregnant lady thing, sorry,” she said.
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