Campaign Widows

by Aimee Agresti

  She unwrapped the seal, popped the cork neatly and poured a generous amount into a Best Day DC coffee mug. She settled in on the sofa, draining her mug, keeping her shoes and dress on: whenever he came home she would tell him she had only just gotten home herself. She was busy and important too, and had been out having fun and living her life, and look at all that he would be missing by leaving her. Just look.

  * * *

  When she woke up, Seth Meyers was on TV, the apartment still desolate. “Hello?” she called out. She almost expected her voice to echo back, it was that empty and lonely. Her phone showed no signs of life, save for Reagan two hours earlier: how’s it going????? Cady wrote back, blood boiling: I’ve been stood up. To get dumped. But my hair and nails are on point. Great.

  * * *

  She didn’t sleep well, in fits and starts, tossing, turning, thinking too much. Cady’s anticlimactic night brought one bit of clarity: she really liked the idea of not being around when Jackson arrived. At six in the morning, she was already dressed and shoving things into a bag. She wasn’t sure where she would go or how long she would be away, just that she wanted to be in control. To be the one that he had to put effort into seeing if he wanted to “talk.” She didn’t want to be the one here, waiting around.

  Ted was home for a few days, so she wouldn’t burden Reagan. But Sky was probably still on the trail with Rocky Haze, and Jay might be up for company. She’d wait until a decent hour and call. In the meantime, she collected her most frequently worn items into a suitcase, her makeup, hair dryer, the essentials. As she began tackling the shoes, the door rustled. That can’t be him, he would never come home this early. He never could get himself anywhere before seven on a weekend.

  He pushed open the door, suitcase wheeling in first. “Cady?” he called out, his voice deflated.

  She didn’t speak, just sped up her packing as though this movie had been put on fast-forward. The very sound of his voice made her furious, brought her back to that hotel room, that hideous, beautiful Willa creature that he had probably been shagging nonstop for the duration of the convention.

  She had had a plan. Why had ALL of her plans been completely upended lately? She had planned to be gone, or at the very least here, looking amazing, Rocky Haze’s “Notes from the Underdog” cranked up, bags packed. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. In her ripped jeans and old white T-shirt, that stain from her iced coffee. She knew she shouldn’t’ve made that morning Starbucks run. Where were her talking points? Why had she only printed them and not emailed them to herself? Why were they on her computer at work?

  “Cady?” he said again; it sounded like he was in the kitchen.

  The anger couldn’t be absorbed anymore, it bubbled up, seeped out.

  “Yeah, still here, but on my way out so you’ll be free to hook up or whatever.” Her voice came out like a toxic spill. “Hey, leave a tie on the door so I know if it’s not cool for me come back for the rest of my stuff, okay?”

  He appeared in the doorway of the closet in jeans, a sport coat and a button-down shirt open at the collar. She hated how attractive he was. She wished he had somehow become instantly repugnant-looking the moment he’d cheated on her, completing the metamorphosis from prince to horny toad.

  “Hey,” he said cautiously, as though waiting to be stabbed with the stiletto in her hands.

  Madison’s words came to her first. She took a deep breath, looked away, her heart spoke. “I can’t talk to you right now.” She said it firmly, zipped up her suitcase. Hopped up to her feet, slipped on the first pair of flip-flops she saw, worn-out and beat-up, not her best, oh well.

  “Are you going somewhere? Now?” he asked, confused.

  She pushed past him. “I can’t do this now.”

  He followed her through the living room. “I had been wanting to talk to you, but there wasn’t a good time,” he said to her back as she kept walking to the door.

  “That’s because there’s never a good time to talk about bad stuff, so you fucking make time,” she said, more controlled than she had expected, proud of herself. She pulled open the door. “Or else I guess you just find someone else and figure it’ll work itself out. Look, I gotta go, I can’t—” Without finishing, she walked out, started down the hall. She meant she couldn’t handle this right now. She didn’t want to do this. At all. She didn’t even care about anything he had to say; looking at him now she realized she couldn’t be with him anymore. She just kept seeing that hotel room.

  He followed her down the corridor.

  “I didn’t mean for it to go this way,” he said, passing their neighbors coming back from a jog, glistening and cheery. “Don’t go, let’s just talk for a minute.”

  She kept walking to the stairwell; she always hated that there was no elevator here. She didn’t want him to watch her struggle with her suitcase so ungracefully on the stairs, so she distracted him with a question: “We were apart for thirteen months. What was going on then?”

  “Nothing, just you,” he said. “This other thing was just the one time... Willa.”

  “I don’t want to hear her name,” she blurted out.

  They’d reached the bottom of the staircase.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “So why was it so hard to be with me when I was here if you could be with me when I wasn’t?” she said almost to herself, thinking out loud as she shoved open the front door. It closed on him.

  “I don’t know,” he said, pushing through the door a second later.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” she asked, sweating from the stairs. She stopped at the corner, hand in the air for a cab.

  He stood in front of her, tried to look in her eyes, but she kept turning away, searching for a cab. “I don’t know, maybe it’s because I proposed.”

  “Well, who told you to go and do that? Not me. Not. ME,” she said, seething. A taxi pulled up, but she was so fired up she forgot to open the door and get in.

  “We’re good,” he said, smacking the back door and the cab took off.

  “Fuck,” she said. “Why won’t you let me just get the hell away from you?” She set off walking, no clear destination. “What I need is a cab. Not a ring.” She had worn it to work to avoid having to talk to anyone about what had happened but had taken it off last night, leaving it on top of Jackson’s pristine dresser. She had already made the teary calls to her parents and brother during the week, which she tried to cap at ten minutes per call, but had still somehow amounted to a full-on ugly-cry festival that had left her feeling emotionally spent. She would just email her friends the news, at some point when she could do so without a modicum of emotion.

  “I thought you wanted that.”

  “I didn’t need that to happen the minute I got here. Especially if it was under duress like you were some kind of hostage,” she said, eyes straight ahead as she walked toward Dupont Circle. The morning sun already blazing, her T-shirt sticking like flypaper in the thick humidity. Her pulse raced. She wasn’t going to let this go. “I never said a word about getting engaged,” she spat. Early-morning joggers began to notice their quarrel, glance at them and look away. Sure, she had hoped one day they would get engaged, you could be an independent woman and still hope for stuff like that. But it wasn’t as if she had harassed him about it.

  “Maybe I thought I would be a better boyfriend if I proposed?” he said.

  “How’d that work out for you?”

  “I don’t know, maybe it’s not my fault. Maybe there should just be term limits or something.”

  “What?”

  “For relationships. Term limits.”

  “That’s great. You’re an actual caveman. That’s basically just a fancy way of saying you don’t believe in monogamy. Which, aside from being a totally boring excuse for what you did, is also a conversation we should’ve maybe had before you asked me to move in. And ma
rry you. You didn’t run on an antimonogamy platform.”

  He shook his head. “Can we just talk?”

  She crossed the street, running into the park at the center of Dupont Circle. The wheels on her suitcase squeaking like they might fall off. He followed her, cars honking and almost hitting him.

  “We’re talking now. We’ve been talking for like, half a mile, while I walk in fucking circles. And I’m enjoying this even less than I enjoyed surprising you in Philadelphia.” She still didn’t know where she was going. She just cut through the center of the circle past the fountain, its mist cooling her down, past where people lay on blankets reading, where they did yoga, walked dogs, sipped coffee, all trying to politely ignore this traveling soap opera.

  “Don’t you want to, like, sit for a minute?”

  She glanced back and was pleased to see he was sweating. She kept on.

  “I just don’t even know what I’m doing here,” she said.

  “I don’t either. Where are you going?”

  “No. Here here. Why am I even here, in Washington? Why did I fucking move here if we’re not together?”

  “What? You said you didn’t move here just for me.”

  “I was lying! Of course I fucking moved here for you.”

  “Well, why’d you do that?”

  She closed her eyes, squeezed her fists; it was all she could do not to scream in the middle of Dupont Circle. “I should’ve known it was a bad sign, like, cosmically, when you dropped the ring.”

  “Well, I guess,” he said, hesitating. “I mean...I never actually dropped it.”

  She stopped walking finally, faced him, sure she had misheard. “What?”

  His eyes shifted, looking everywhere but at her. “No, I mean, I was having, I guess, second thoughts? Before you got there? And—”

  “Then why did you propose?” she yelled. “Why didn’t you just not do that?”

  “I... I don’t know... I...don’t...know... I just...maybe I thought the cold feet would go away or something? I mean, I was there and I had planned it out and all, but then all of a sudden I was dry heaving—”

  “Gross—”

  “And leaning over the edge, and I thought if there was no ring, then maybe it wasn’t so much like a real, official proposal and I could just ease into the idea and then give you the ring later.”

  “You’re insane, certifiably.” She could barely contain herself.

  “So I just put it back in my pocket.”

  “The ring. In your pocket,” she repeated. She couldn’t believe this.

  “But then those guys made it into this whole thing at Rose’s Luxury that night—”

  “Jay and Sky. This is so not their fault—”

  “No, but then it seemed okay again. It was exciting and I was good with it.”

  “With being engaged.” She shook her head.

  “So I hired a guy on Craig’s List to walk the ring into the office.”

  “Into your office? Are you—I mean, you’re, like, a sociopath basically.” She realized she was still standing there on the street corner and crossed Connecticut Avenue. The sign for the Metro, an oasis.

  “I just wasn’t ready, and, and, and, I guess,” he said, flailing as though understanding time was running out to make his case. “And I was working a lot. And then I guess you were working a lot too, which made things kind of hard, like when you just had to go to that fund-raiser and other things and I kind of was spending a lot of time with Willa, you know, as a source for her articles, but we were just friends until Air Force Two and—”

  “Whoa.” She stopped just before that endless escalator down to the Metro platform. A couple behind her wove around them with a nasty look. But Cady couldn’t move. She thought back to how hot and cold he had been these past months, the Arnold fund-raiser he hadn’t wanted her to cover, all the times he had belittled her work.

  “Is this really because—” she almost couldn’t say it, like she was giving herself too much credit. “Because I’m actually kind of doing well here?”

  He looked away, squinting in the sun. “No, that’s crazy, now you’re the crazy one,” he said. “Willa just was there and, you know, she respected my work and all the things that have been happening for me with this election.”

  “Oh, okay, sure.”

  “She was impressed, and you’ve just been too busy to—”

  “Too busy? You mean, busy doing my job well?”

  “Too busy to—” He seemed unable to find a single word to defend himself.

  “Too busy to what? To fawn over you like some kind of groupie? To stroke your ego? Is that what this relationship was supposed to be?”

  “I don’t know. You just didn’t look at me the same way. I wasn’t as big a deal or whatever, and she made me feel—”

  “I’m so not listening to this.” She had heard more than enough. She stepped onto the escalator, didn’t say goodbye or storm off, just one light step and it took her down. She closed her eyes to keep from checking to see if he was watching.

  28

  THERE’S A MOLE IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING?

  It wasn’t until after Monday’s show and subsequent planning meetings, that it occurred to Cady to tackle some of the many tasks she had let slide last week, what with all the inner turmoil. She began sorting through the slim stack of mail now, much of it duplicates of things already lurking in her email. Even though she had Metroed to the office, suitcase in tow, directly after her weekend fight with Jackson, she certainly hadn’t done anything resembling work that day. She’d had plenty else to keep her busy like reading through the list on her computer confirming that she had addressed several of her talking points with Jackson. (Even if she had failed to deliver the various zingers she had worked so hard to craft.)

  When she finally called Jay, he had extended the invitation instantly: “We are presently accepting emotionally wounded refugees,” he had said kindly. She insisted on buying him dinner as a thank-you, and when he dictated that they order in and watch movies instead, it was like he’d read her mind. She knew Sky would be returning the following week, so she would have to figure out somewhere else to stay then, but for the time being, she was grateful for the couch.

  Inbox cleared, desk in order, she finally got to that poster tube that had been hanging around. She popped open the top, slid out a rolled poster and found a note on Preamble stationery.

  Cady,

  You may or may not remember (probably not actually) dropping by Preamble the other night. Just a note to say that these words helped me when my world exploded. Independence can be a good thing. Pursue your happiness. The founding fathers had it right.

  Yours, Parker.

  PS: Okay, ulterior motive here: you still have my only tuxedo jacket. Not that I need it anytime soon. But it lives here at the bar, on the coatrack in my office. It’s like a pet or a plant that I’m just used to having around. Thanks.

  The jacket. She had forgotten all about it, but could picture it now, crumpled in the corner of the closet. She would have to go back to the apartment for it when Jackson was out. It was already too late today, she couldn’t risk it, but she could leave work early tomorrow on a rescue mission.

  She unrolled the poster: the Declaration of Independence, the kind they sold in so many of the museum gift shops, but with the words “pursuit of happiness” circled grandly in silver spray-paint. The same words she had seen as graffiti on the wall of Preamble. She grabbed a roll of tape from her desk, balanced on a chair and stuck it up on her office wall right above the TV so she would look at it all the time.

  * * *

  With your blessing, I shall leak this today. Conventions are over, this can dominate the news cycle, the email greeted Madison first thing that morning. It’s go time.

  I trust you. Let’s go for it, Madison typed back as she hopped on the
elliptical machine in the mirrored gym of their Upper East Side town house. I’m ready to do my part. It’ll be tough but I can get it done in time. She felt a little queasy, but she needed to put on her game face now. Like any fire baton twirler worth her weight in lighter fluid, Madison believed strongly in the mantra Go Big Or Go Home. Or, as it had been declared by one of her key donors the night she had crashed the Arnold fund-raiser: great risk brings the potential for history-making rewards. She also believed she might as well get paid handsomely for something she was already planning to do for free, challenging as it would be.

  As she finished her five miles on the machine, CNN already had it. The banner on the screen read: Anti-Goodfellow Super PAC: $7 million and Counting.

  She turned up the volume to hear Grant Foxhall. “There’s been plenty of talk surrounding the notion of an anti-Goodfellow movement, with little evidence of an organized effort,” the handsome anchor began. “Until now. Suddenly nonbelievers have put their money where their mouths are. A Super PAC called Up To No Goodfellow has surfaced claiming to already have accumulated $7 millon to invest in preventing Hank Goodfellow from becoming the next commander in chief. The group claims on its newly launched website, it may use donations to ‘support Goodfellow’s opponents, fund attack ads or find new and novel ways to chip away at the grossly underqualified candidate.’ It also boasts a mole inside the Goodfellow camp. In coming weeks we’ll be anxious to see if this has any impact on the candidate’s so far steady poll numbers.”

  Madison felt the guilt seep into her skin like a chemical peel gone bad, and switched channels to escape it. A sudden flurry of activity came from upstairs: conversation, stomping, something shattered, phones ringing. Members of the Machine, no doubt hearing the same news. She froze in place, turned down the volume: Hank’s voice, muffled by the distance but also ranting and raving. “There’s a goddamn mole in here? Who is it? Who’s the goddamn mole?”