by Claire Adams
“It was easier for her?” Rachel whispered. “What does that even—“
I shrugged my shoulders, unsure of what to say. “I know. I know. But—she wants to give us this freedom. To do what we want. As long as we don’t ruin her life as first lady. She wants to hold onto the position, even if he is re-elected.”
“And live a lie?” Rachel asked.
I nodded. “I suppose people have been through worse for much less power.” I allowed the silence to filter around us once more. “Anyway. I don’t know how long I can allow all this to go on, before I go crazy. I mean. I’ve worked so fucking hard to get to where I am today. Long, sleepless nights working; sucking up to so many members of Congress just to gain experience as a young person—a woman on the road to something greater.” I bit my nail for a moment, feeling infantile. “I know you can understand that.”
Rachel nodded. “Again. Part of the reason I got out,” she breathed.
“And now. With Jason all over me—suspecting that things are getting worse, suspecting that he’s not going to get his end of the deal, I feel like things need to change. Perhaps Xavier and I should be together. Perhaps this was all too good to be true.” I bit my lip once more, tasting a tang of blood.
“What do you mean, he’s all over you?” Rachel breathed.
I bowed my head, looking toward my fingers. I wondered how to phrase what had happened to me earlier that day. “Well. He had me—against a tree. He was yelling at me. Threatening me.” I shuddered, feeling the tremors of the day’s attack all throughout my body. “I think it’s getting worse.”
But Rachel had risen up from her chair. Her face had grown hot, red. “What do you mean, he threatened you? He had his hand around your throat? What the fuck do you mean?” She scowled, so angry at the mere thought of this. My heart seemed to pump rapidly with too much blood, too much happiness. Someone cared about me. Someone worried about me. Such a strange sensation.
I shook my head. “It’s okay—“
“No, it’s not,” Rachel scolded me. “He threatened you. I think it’s finally time to go to the police.”
My face looked stricken. I shook my head. “No. You know I can’t do that. You know that he has so much information about the president and I—that this would ruin the deal we have with the president’s wife.” I swallowed, knowing that none of these elements affected Rachel’s comprehension. I tried once more. “And Rachel. If you do this, you know that I will not go far in my career. I’ll constantly be known as the girl who slept her way to the top.” I uttered the words once more, bringing Rachel back to the coffee table. She sighed.
We sat in a stunned silence for a few moments. I was terribly overjoyed at the sheer passion Rachel had for me; the passion she had just to help me. I wanted to tell her that I would do my best to get out of the situation on my own. I wanted to assure her that I wouldn’t be stupid.
But she interrupted my words. “I think you should press Xavier to help you,” she began. I wanted to interrupt her—to explain to her that I did everything on my own. But she held up her hand, shaking her head. None of her past glory, her post-date gleam remained on her face. “I know that you don’t want to bother him. But this is getting serious. The threats are becoming violent. You can’t trust a crazy man like Jason. And he’s at your workplace, in the goddamned White House. You have to take steps.” She shrugged her shoulders, placing her fingers over my knee. I felt a single tear waft down my cheek. I knew she was right.
My voice croaked as I spoke to her. “I know you’re right,” I whispered.
Rachel and I went to bed after that. Just before we ducked into our separate rooms, we exchanged a serious hug—one that allowed me to feel safe, feel whole again, even after the strain of the previous day. I sighed into her, trying to remember a time in which I’d felt completely full, completely sure. But I couldn’t.
“Good luck tomorrow,” she whispered into my ear, just as she swarmed into her bedroom—in which, I knew, she would fold back into her self-made daydream about her new date, Michael.
I nodded back to her and shook the door closed, feeling the weight of the day crash around me. I fell fast asleep, blinking my eyes only a few times before falling away.
Chapter Six
But the next morning, I knew that I wasn’t ready to press the president for his assistance. God, not yet. Too much was riding on the next week’s campaign processes. I had to put my head down, to root myself in this cause.
I brushed my teeth ravenously at the bathroom sink, listening as Rachel sang in her own shower, down the hall. I felt like we were growing apart, in a way: simply because she found herself rooted in a sort of happiness, even as I swept along, floating in a sea of misunderstanding and sadness and threats.
I brought my arms through my blazer and sniffed up toward the ceiling, smelling someone baking bread, somewhere far off in the building. It could be a plain, uneventful day, if I worked for it. I could make this day work to my favor. If only I kept my head down. If only I asked only the appropriate questions and didn’t push any topics further than they needed to go. If only I kept my clothes on my body this time around, rather than falling into Xavier’s naked arms. I could do this. I could be strong.
I stood in the shadow of the White House, my heart beating only for Xavier—the powerful man who had claimed this house as his own. In the back, I knew that the Rose Garden continued to squirm in its brown and grey colors on this near-November day. God, in just a year, we’d be weeks away from the election. In just a year, I knew that so much would have changed.
But where would our relationship be? What would we be to each other?
I lifted myself into the shell of the White House, preparing myself for the 10 o’ clock meeting, at which I knew I would be faced with both Jason and Xavier. I could get through it. I had my notes, my critiques for the way the entire campaign was being handled. I knew how to work a room. I’d been doing so since the age of eight, after all. However, something about having both of them in the room at the same time—both of them with different utilizations for me, for my body—made me queasy.
I sat at my desk in the West Wing, casually making notes and dreaming about a different kind of future—a future in which I would make political strides, without worrying about anything that anybody held above my head.
But being a woman, I knew, this would be an eternal struggle. Every woman I knew of in Congress had struggled on their path to the top. Without masculinity, without grey hair and those twinkling, age-old eyes, it was difficult to find the trust of the American people. I knew I would have trouble as well.
Suddenly, a girl appeared before my desk, leaning down toward me and meeting my eyes. She broke my reverie. I erupted up, bouncing in my chair. “Yes. What is it?” I asked her, my eyes large.
She blinked back. “I’m sorry to—um—interrupt you.” She peered down at the papers before me, at the fact that I’d been gazing off into space. “I just wanted to remind you that you have your meeting with both Jason and the President of the United States in a mere—well. Five minutes ago.” She swallowed, blinking toward me.
I shook my head, unable to comprehend what she was saying. I grabbed my notebook, realizing that two hours had passed, during which I hadn’t done a single thing but glide on my thoughts, on my dreams. I didn’t have time to prepare myself any longer. It was just me and the boys: me and my archenemy, and me and the man I loved—who was also, incidentally, another man who could ruin my life and my career, completely.
I pushed into the room, appearing before a long, wooden table. There, sitting on either side of the table, I found both Jason and Xavier. I blinked toward them, bringing my hand in the air. I held a pen, and it jolted starkly vertical. “I’m so sorry,” I murmured then. “I was caught up in a phone call.” My lie hung in the air, but neither of the men before me seemed to notice it. Instead, they seemed to be glaring at each other. Xavier’s eyes were especially penetrating, making Jason move this way, then that in his chair. He looked
queasy.
“You didn’t start without me, I hope?” I asked them, trying to make my voice bright. I gulped as they didn’t say anything, as they allowed my sentence to die away.
Finally, Xavier turned his head toward me. The awkwardness was building. “Jason here was just telling me the great strides he’s been making with several congressmen. Including some of the Republicans.”
I nodded, knowing about Jason’s friendliness with some of the men we’d formerly not counted on as allies. My eyes drifted toward Jason. “That’s essential, Jason. Thank you.” I made a small note on my notepad, trying to waltz through the tension without falling away.
But suddenly, Xavier had begun to glare at Jason once more. This one, single comment had paved the road toward nothing at all. I peered down at my notes, trying to create a dialogue. We were meant to be in this meeting for a full hour. I knew the press would be waiting outside—that they usually liked to know how long each meeting lasted, for their records. If a meeting ran long or short, they generally speculated about the issue at hand. Was someone disagreeing? Were plans changed? Thus, we would have to remain there, in the tension, for another 55 minutes.
I swallowed.
Xavier’s eyes continued their terrorizing glare toward Jason. And all the while, I felt Jason’s eyes toward me. They were creepy, strange—as they had been the previous day beneath the tree. The moments seemed to pass with surreal tension.
I remembered a different time—a time in which both of the men before me had pretended, at least, to like each other, to appreciate each other. I longed for that time once more. I cleared my throat, but this didn’t distract Xavier’s uneasy glare. This didn’t detract from Jason’s creepy, near grin that faced ever toward me.
I turned my face toward the clock. “Is there anything either of you would like to get out of the way, regarding the campaign?” I began, my voice mouse-like. “Personally, I believe it’s going rather well. Rather well indeed.”
But neither of them spoke. The clock ticked along, leaving us there together. I couldn’t believe that the man on the other side of the table was the man I was supposed to be in love with—the man I had supposedly devoted myself to. And all the while, it seemed that Jason challenged that love. His eyebrows were high, seemingly asking the question: “You’ll give it all up for this sucker?” At the same time, his belly protruded over his waist. His belt fell in around his crotch. He was a mess of a man, an evil man.
Finally, the clock struck. I jerked myself from the seat and thanked them both for their time. My words were icy. I wanted to tell Xavier exactly what I thought of him in that moment, but I knew that with Jason there, I couldn’t emit a single peep. I spun on my heels and roped myself out of the office. The press began to question us on both sides as we escalated from the room.
“How is the campaign coming along?”
“Mr. President, do you regret hiring someone so young and inexperienced?”
“Jason, how does it feel to be bypassed as campaign manager, and you having so much more experience?”
I snarled at most of the people as we passed them, wishing I was anywhere else. Just a few feet away from the West Wing offices, however, I suddenly felt a firm hand on my elbow. I wheeled around, noting that the cameramen had roped themselves around the president in the previous hallway. It was just Jason and I, then.
“What do you want?” I spat at him, my anger from the previous day growing in my chest.
He laughed for a moment, placing his hand on his stomach. “Oh, darling. I just want to talk to you. Just the two of us.” Suddenly, he shoved me into a small office, right off from the stairwell. I’d never been in the cruel, cold room—with only a single desk off to the side. I shivered and grabbed at my elbows, blinking up toward him.
“What do you want?” I hissed. I could still hear the gruff voice of the president down the hall, explaining his trajectory for education in the United States. In the back of my mind, I congratulated him—this was precisely right for the campaign. But God: if he could just come swiftly, come and save me!
Jason took a step closer to me. His breath was riding hot and solid on my nose, making me feel queasy. “I feel that we have an unfinished conversation from yesterday,” he murmured. “I’m sure you went running to your little boyfriend about it. I could just feel his hatred for me in that meeting. Couldn’t you feel it?” Jason brought his fingers up to my cheek then, and laced them down my skin, across my lips. I shivered, hating him with every element of my heart, my soul.
“Can’t you imagine a world in which everything isn’t about you?” I spat at him, shaking my head. I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck, to make him feel as frightened as he’d made me feel the previous day. But I knew it was impossible—that that kind of fear was personal.
Jason laughed, bringing his fat, sausage link fingers to his belly. He shook his head, wiping at the tears that protruded down his face. “I suppose not!” he answered, his voice so honest.
Suddenly, the door swung open, at the far end of the grey and stark room. I brought my hands around my chest, worrying, for a moment, that Jason had brought back up. However, my heart began to beat ravenously in my chest as I realized the truth.
There, standing in the light of the doorway, stood Xavier. He wore a grimace on his face; anger traced itself in his eyes. He turned his eyes toward me and didn’t reveal a hint of passion, of lust. And then, he turned toward Jason.
“Jason. I need to see you in the Oval Office.”
Jason nodded, his smile bright. “Just as soon as Miss Martin and I are finished with our meeting,” he said primly.
Xavier turned his head toward me. “Miss Martin. Have you sufficiently wrapped up what you want to say to Jason?”
I swallowed, knowing that the words I actually wanted to say to Jason were crude, were inspired by an inner anger that I’d never before seen. But I nodded my head slowly, knowing that I was sending Jason off to a different kind of punishment, to something that I—in my current, low status in the political realm—could never understand. “I’m all done, Mr. President,” I said sweetly. I blinked up at Jason, watching as his face fell before me.
Jason spun his head back toward the president. My heart was beating so fast, telling me alternately that I was doing the right thing, that I wasn’t doing the right thing. I was allowing Xavier to take over my problems—for the first time. But this entire situation had escalated out of my control. I couldn’t measure it anymore; I couldn’t read it the way I was meant to. And thus: I needed to hand it off to the man I loved, the only man I knew who was strong enough to take Jason and bend him back, till he snapped.
I tapped into the hallway and peered left, toward the Oval Office. Two Secret Service men held Jason’s arms behind his back as they swept toward the office. Xavier led the tide. A wave of emotion escalated over me, making me feel that—finally—Xavier could take care of me. Finally, he understood that my strength, my vitality only went so far. That this was what it meant to be in a couple. That you were meant to support each other, through thick and thin.
Perhaps, in a way, this rooted me further in my desire for him. Sure, my concerns for my future rang true. But I righted myself and flung my brunette hair around my shoulders, walking back into the West Wing office. I smashed my hand against the board at the helm of the room and announced to the great campaign team—the campaign team that I’d earned, that I was in charge of:
“Listen, team. We have one year to make this president stick. One solid year to make everything count.” I paused, breathing heavily. The moment had become all too much. “Make the President of the goddamned United States proud.”
Suddenly, I flung my papers, my folders, my binders into the air. They soared high. The entire campaign team skirted up from their desks and flung their hands together in an enormous applause. Their eyes were wide toward me.
Chapter Seven
In the moments after I knew that Jason was in the Oval Office, speaking with the pr
esident about God-knows-what, I sat at my desk, waiting. I clenched my hands together, dreaming about this future in which I didn’t have to feel that Jason was watching my every move, a camera in his hand. It all seemed too good to be true.
I attempted to work on the campaign. I brought my fingers to the keyboard, ready to send out email after email; ready to push forward, toward my dreams of becoming a successful campaign manager. However, my brain was dripping with other thoughts. How could I feel normal?
I left the White House and swept down to the Rose Garden then. I felt my feet tap-tap-tapping beneath me, and I felt my heart escalating when I passed the Oval Office. I knew that the walls were far too thick, that I would never hear the sounds of men screaming out presidential secrets.
I found myself once more in the grey of the once-Rose Garden. I wrapped myself in my coat and peered over the grounds, feeling a sense of solace. I wanted to do something with my hands then, and I turned toward the hallway, knowing that I would find a Secret Service agent there. This one, I knew.
“Benny,” I hissed. “Benny!”
The agent darted his head toward me, surprised. He raised one eyebrow toward me.
“Do you have a cigarette?” I asked him. I hadn’t smoked in years—not since college. But I needed something to calm me down, to keep me grounded.
Benny reached into his pocket and brought out a pack of Camels. He tossed them to me, and I caught them in my delicate fingers. I twirled a lighter. “Do you want one?” I asked him. I felt my words as they escalated—so sultry—from my mouth.
But Benny waved his hand. He couldn’t, he explained. This was his post. If he abandoned it, all hell could break loose.
I understood.
I twirled back to the Rose Garden and lit the stick in my mouth, taking a deep, penetrating drag. The nicotine seemed already to course through my body, to my fingers and my toes. It made me feel alive in a way I hadn’t felt in many, many months. In that moment, I knew that I wouldn’t have to worry about Jason again. Ever again. I started taking tiny jumps, even in my heels on that muddy terrain. Yes. Yes. I felt my knees bend with each jump. Yes.
