by Mary Whitney
“Nick—”
I only wanted to say hello—or anything that might give me some insight into her—but I was interrupted by Matthew as he said, “Nicole, we need to move on.”
And then everything changed.
Nicki stopped for the briefest moment and peered over her shoulder, wrenching my heart again with another indifferent stare. But this time, her mouth twitched ever so slightly, just like it always had when she was anxious. A shy smile crossed her face, and without a word, she turned back around and quickly exited the room.
Late that evening, I arrived at the expat pub inside the British Embassy. It was easy to spot David sitting at the bar, engrossed in a rerun of Sunday’s Liverpool-versus-Manchester United match on the TV. Since the bar was filled with mostly government types, David stood out like a sore thumb. His designer suits were noteworthy, but it was his thick Cockney accent that made him most noticeable.
Whilst the rest of the room cheered and booed with some decorum at the match, David was apoplectic over a decision the ref had made. “A fucking yellow card? Jesus H. Christ, bloody referee! Do you have shite for brains?”
David was never one to completely forget his surroundings. Sitting next to him was an older expat. The genteel-looking, tweedy man obviously wasn’t accustomed to such pro-Liverpudlian outbursts. He looked at my cousin like David was a hooligan who had escaped from the terraces at Millwall and now terrorized America. The poor old guy appeared to be in fear for his life.
Noticing the uneasy expression on the face of the man beside him, David’s entire demeanor changed. He saw me walking toward him and smiled. Then he began to smooth things over with the old gent using the extra reserve of Cockney charm he kept for moments just like this.
“I do beg your pardon, sir. I know I was being an arse. Sorry about that. I got a little carried away.” He extended his hand, “My name is David Bates.”
The older man shook David’s hand and hesitantly smiled. “Hello. Malcolm Fields. I work in the archives here at the embassy. Pleased to meet you.”
David gestured to me. “This is my cousin Adam Kincaid. He works for the BBC.”
“Hello. It’s nice to meet you.” I offered my hand to the wary man. “Please excuse my cousin. He’s quite a vocal fan.”
Shaking my hand, Mr. Fields said something I heard almost daily. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve seen you on the telly.”
“Thank you. It comes with the territory.”
Still not quite understanding David’s combined appearance of expensive suit and foul mouth, Mr. Fields turned to him. “And what is it that you do, Mr. Bates?”
“I work in international finance at Barclays,” said David with mirthful pride. He loved that no one could ever decide what to make of him. “I sometimes help with the regulatory work. I’m based in New York, but I quite often find myself in Washington.”
“Lovely. Ah, well, I’ll let you spend time with your cousin.” Mr. Fields rose, offering me his barstool. “Please, take my seat.”
When I objected, he pointed to an empty table. “I’ll sit over there. It’s better, really.” With a grin, he added, “I’m a Man U fan, after all.”
As soon as Mr. Fields was out of hearing range, David turned his full attention back to the match and muttered, “Poor deluded old bastard.”
“Can you keep it down? I’d like to keep my invitation here.” I was pleased to see they had a guest bitter I loved, Adnams Broadside, on tap. As I ordered my pint, I became as engrossed in the match as David, albeit in a much more orderly manner. When Liverpool was two up with six minutes to go, David rightly sensed that I was ready to talk. He briefly looked away from the screen and said, “So, you saw her.”
“Yes.” I took a long swig to ease the conversation.
David gave me a side-eye. “How did she look?”
Images of my morning encounter with Nicki flooded my mind. There she was, gorgeous and poised, simultaneously looking both everything and nothing like I’d imagined. I was matter-of-fact. “Beautiful.”
Usually, I had a blurred vision of Nicki. There were a few snippets of memories stored in the back of my mind that I’d go to on occasion when I wanted to think of her. The first mental picture that always appeared was one of Nicki with her head turned toward me. The angle of her face showed the pretty architecture of her cheeks, with her eyes meeting mine and her smile beginning to bloom. I always felt like I’d earned those smiles. After all, I’d made a great effort coaxing them out of her, especially in the beginning when she was so sad and I was such an arse.
The memory made me sigh. “Just like she used to.”
“Were you able to speak to her?”
“Not really.”
“What the hell does that mean?” David’s usual frustration with me about Nicki was showing.
“It means I tried, but she appeared to be busy and walked away.” I frowned. “I think she did it on purpose.”
“Well, of course she did.” David rolled his eyes. “She’s the White House deputy press secretary. She hasn’t seen you for almost sixteen years, and you just show up—”
“I know…believe me, I know. I turn up out of the blue on one of the most important days of her career.” I shook my head and laughed aloud at my stupidity. “In the fucking White House with the entire Washington press corps around us. I’m an arse.”
“You are, but it is what it is,” David said with a shrug. “You need to make the most of it. So tell me, did she acknowledge you at all? Or just ignore you?”
“She sort of nodded at me. Then she…” Fuck. Do I tell him all of this? Oh, why the fuck not? He knows everything anyway. I pointed to my lip for a second and said, “She bit her lip like she used to do when she was anxious. God, I remember that so well.” But the more I spoke, the more I realized how ridiculous I sounded. “Oh, hell. I’m a fool. I sound like a silly girl. Why am I doing this? It’s ridiculous.”
David was quiet as he seemed to assess my predicament. Glancing at the screen once more to make sure that Liverpool was still ahead, he finally said, “I think that’s a good sign. You know…like she still feels something. If she didn’t care anymore, she might try and chat you up because she wouldn’t feel awkward at all. Or if she’s spent the last sixteen years hating you, she’d stomp off or give you the evil eye.” Then he smiled. “I think a nod and a little bite of the lip is good. Pretty hot, too.”
His words rang true. “Well, to be honest, that was my gut reaction as well. That there’s something still there—although I suppose it could still be hate.”
“Hate? Nah. If she hated you, she’d never have kept in touch with Sylvia.”
I’d always wondered if Nicki’s correspondence with Sylvia was her odd way of communicating with me. For years it hadn’t made sense to me that she never wrote me, but she always responded to Sylvia, letting her know her whereabouts. As time passed, I began to hold a pathetic hope that she was signaling to me that she was keeping up her end of bargain—we wouldn’t talk, but if we were ever in the same city again, then maybe…
David had always had a way with women, so I humbly asked for direction. “So what do you think I should do next?”
“Oh, you’ve got to take this one slowly. This is delicate. But not too slow. Not like last time.” Puffing his chest up and sitting a little straighter in his seat, he acted like the cocky bastard he was. “Don’t make me have to step in again and get things going for you. I can’t guarantee I’d stop this time. I remember she was a little minx and—”
I punched his arm hard. “Don’t even think about it.”
“It was a bloody joke,” he said, rubbing his bicep.
“It wasn’t funny.”
“Come on, Adam.” He shook his head. “You should be prepared that she’s probably seeing someone else. Pretty little thing that she is, she’s probably got a boyfriend. Someone like her isn’t going to be single.”
“I know.” I looked at my beer, contemplating the thought I hated.
“And you’ve got Felicity. Whatever the status is of that relationship.”
“On hold while I’m out of the country.”
“You haven’t lived in the UK for three years.”
“It works for us right now. She can date whomever she wants.”
“But when you’re in London, you fuck like rabbits.”
“We see each other sometimes.” I tried to say it with a straight face, but a smile betrayed me.
“Sometimes?”
“I try not to let that happen too often. It makes things messy.”
“There’s a reason why we’re cousins,” he said with a laugh. Then he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Back to Nicki. If I were in this situation, I’d play it cool but not cold.”
“How does that work?”
“You need to approach her casually…take the pressure off. You’ll be seeing her every day, right?”
“Professionally, yes. Every day. And when the president travels, we’ll be on the same trips.”
“All that time together makes it even more important that you don’t rush things.”
“Rush things? I can’t rush things.” I lowered my voice. “Remember, it isn’t ethical that I’m even thinking of doing this.”
“Thinking of doing this? You are doing it.”
“Maybe so,” I grumbled.
He acknowledged the gravity of the situation by lowering his own voice. “But isn’t it an ethical issue for both of you?”
I nodded. As usual, David saw through it all, and a wave of guilt hit me as I reconsidered the dilemma of pursuing Nicki. I was romancing a source—or at least I wanted to. My producers would deem it a breach of the journalists’ code, as I could easily go soft on my reporting of President Logan in an effort to win Nicki’s favor. And for Nicki, it was an issue with the president because she might pass on information to me that she wouldn’t give to others.
David continued, “So you’ve downplayed your relationship with her to your boss. Doesn’t she have to do the same? What if she tells her boss about how close you were?”
“She could. It’s a gamble on my part.” Jesus Christ. I was risking my career, and for what? Forgiveness? A clear conscience? A rekindled love? Everything seemed so far-fetched, at least for an innately pessimistic English journalist like me. What was I doing? Maybe I had been in America too long.
Sighing, I tried to put the topic to rest. “I just don’t want to worry about it until something happens…if something happens.”
Taking pity on me, David gently slapped my back. “Something will happen.”
“How do you know?”
“I couldn’t tell you. The conditions seem right—too many things converging not to notice.” He grinned. “If you two were corporations, I’d buy your stock because it looks like you might merge.”
I gave him a half-hearted smile. “So I should be cool, but not cold, and above all, it can’t be obvious to anyone or I’ll get sacked. Not an easy task.”
“No. Not easy, but it can be done. I think in a few days…whenever it feels right…you should ask her out to lunch. Reporters take long lunches, right?”
I liked the idea. “A perfectly acceptable request on my part. It’s something I eventually would do anyway—regardless of who had her job.”
“Just make me a promise.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t turn into serious and moody Adam on her. Keep it light. Don’t scare her off.” He winked. “And tell her I said hello.”
The next morning, the White House briefing room had the same air of excitement as the very first day. There was a cordial atmosphere as everyone was still getting to know one another. The questioning remained tough during the actual briefing, but the jokes were plentiful, which eased any tensions.
Except for me. I was still tense. I tried not to be obvious as I stared at Nicki—hopefully not noticeable to her or anyone else. Fortunately, as his deputy, Nicki stood off to the side as the White House press secretary, Matthew Foster, fielded questions. I doubted she could see me, although I could see her perfectly. Most of the time she was in silent communication with the other White House staff as they quietly assessed how their spin was playing with the crowd of reporters.
I kept busy, scribbling away on my notepad, but I found myself often forgetting where I was. After gazing at her for a while, my pen would twitch, wanting to draw her profile. It was like I was seventeen again, with an enormous crush on a girl who wouldn’t even talk to me.
Even if I hadn’t been stuck in Texas the year we’d met, I would’ve found Nicki interesting. She was quietly pretty and very clever with a wicked sense of humor. What I had really admired, though, was this strength she’d had about her. She had lived through a hellish accident and lost her only sister, but she’d remained stoic and moved about her day like anyone else.
We’d become friends, yet sometimes through our flirting, I would catch a glimpse of how broken she actually was—like a beautiful but cracked china doll you want to pick up but don’t because you’re afraid you might break it even more. No wonder that when we had finally got together I’d eventually bollocksed the whole thing up.
In a lot of ways, she was the same girl as back then. She was attractive but mercurial, and as much as I was drawn to her, she also scared me. But now I had a job to do. We were much older now and in a professional setting. Yet we never made eye contact. In fact, it seemed like Nicki looked everywhere but at me.
Later that morning, I finally got through to her. Calling upon the Univision reporter, Antonio De La Fuente, for the first time, Matthew listened to his heavily accented and testy question about when President Logan would visit Mexico. It was plain that the question was designed to elicit the relative importance of Mexico and the rest of Latin America to the foreign policy of the new administration. Everyone in the room knew the reporter wouldn’t like the answer. Whilst the previous president had made Mexico his first international trip, President Logan planned on mending fences with “old Europe” first, and he wasn’t traveling at all until the American economy was on better footing.
After hearing the Univision reporter’s loaded request, Matthew pleasantly dismissed him, using Nicki as a diversion. “Antonio, I think I’ll let Nicole answer that one.”
Nicki took to the podium with a smile and began rapidly speaking her fluent Spanish. I didn’t need to understand the words—which was good, because I didn’t. Between their facial expressions and body language, I could fully comprehend what was going on. Nicki easily wooed the fierce reporter into submission with her looks and command of his mother tongue. Wearing a dark red wide-collared shirt with a black jacket and trousers, Nicki looked gorgeous and in control, and with the Spanish rolling off her tongue, she was sexy as hell. I glanced over at Matthew, who was grinning with satisfaction at what was bound to be great coverage of the White House in the Spanish-speaking media.
Even with my ten-word Spanish vocabulary, I understood the final words they exchanged. It was quite apparent that Antonio was fully satisfied with her answer and gushed over her accent. She gave him a professional nod and thank you, but not before I saw the old Nicki I knew come out from hiding. All of his compliments made her cheeks blush the color of her shirt, and she wore a sheepish smile.
She then spoke to the rest of the room. “Antonio can fill you in on the details, but in general, President Logan considers Mexico to be both a good neighbor and friend of the United States, and one of our closest trading partners.”
A practiced public speaker, Nicki made eye contact with the entire audience when she spoke. After two days of nothing from her, I didn’t expect her to look at me, but she did. Whether it was on purpose or not, she ended her remarks with her eyes on mine, saying, “We also share many pressing issues. As soon as his schedule allows, the president will visit the country.”
Did she mean that for me? Was it code? I studied her, looking for a clue. As she moved back to her place with the rest of t
he White House staff, I considered the eye contact. Something told me the time was right to talk with her. We’d connected visually, and I needed to make my move.
After the briefing ended, I couldn’t get to the front of the room fast enough, but Antonio had already cornered her. They were speaking in Spanish again, and for all I knew he was inviting her for a weekend in Paris. The only thing that tempered my jealousy was the wedding ring I noticed on his left hand. His wedding ring might not mean anything to him, but I knew that Nicki—at least the Nicki I had known—would never cross one. Despite that reassurance, I didn’t like her talking to him for so long. I made myself less conspicuous by grabbing another Logan staffer and asking a follow-up question that I already knew the answer to.
As soon as Nicki began to extricate herself from Antonio, I placed myself about five feet away from her. She said goodbye to him, turned around, and our eyes met. Still smiling from her conversation with Antonio, she held her expression but softly exhaled in surprise.
I hadn’t really thought of what I might say to her when we finally talked. If I had, I would’ve probably botched it anyway. The nervous knots in my stomach were in full force. I needed to break the ice for both of us, so I tried a roundabout approach of self-deprecating humor.
“I only speak English.”
“Really?” she asked, her smile growing.
“Maybe a bit of French.”
“I think I remember that.” Her voice was almost coy.
Nicki had done it. She’d brought back our past and put it in our present—right in the middle of the fucking White House. And she’d done it with a smile. I was encouraged.
“Hello, Nicki. It’s so good to see you again.”
“You, too, Adam.”
“Your Spanish sounds lovely. Where did you learn to speak it so well?”
“Over the years, and then I…and also my…” She glanced down for a moment, looking as if she was debating her words. When she lifted her head again, she said, “We should probably go for coffee one day, don’t you think?”
