by Claire Adams
A few weeks after our initial lunch, we sat together in that same room off from the kitchen. Again, the light filled it. But the light was different, illustrating a different time: the coming of late summer, the coming of fall. By this time, the waiter had learned my name and my tastes. He made me a beautiful green salad with strawberries, blueberries, and spinach. “For the lady,” he said, winking at me once more.
I pierced my fork through a strawberry and lifted it to my mouth. I looked up at Xavier, who hadn’t touched his food yet. His eyebrows furrowed into his eyes. He was thinking about something that troubled him.
“Are you all right, Xavier?” I asked him softly. I’d grown to understand that he liked a soft touch, sometimes—that the stresses of his presidential lifestyle didn’t allow for simple, easy conversation. He was always concerned with the state of the world, and he wasn’t allowed to look inwardly. Not often, at least.
He shook his head, trying to push beyond the muddled nature of his brain. “Of course,” he said. “Of course.” He smiled at me, shifting in his chair. “Can I ask you a personal question, Amanda?”
I raised my eyebrow at him, sensing a serious issue fueling from his lips. “Sure.”
“I just. I wondered about your love life. If you’re—if you’re seeing anyone.”
My face burned, suddenly. I shifted my gaze out the window, where I saw a small, white bird floating through the easy, late-summer breeze. The question felt innapropriate—as though it was leading to something more. I instantly told myself I was silly; had I not asked him questions of a similar nature? But I told myself that I had reason—his personal life is his professional life, as far as the public is concerned. What interest should he have in mine?
Though I was beginning to suspect that I knew.
“I’m not seeing anyone,” I said, disallowing myself from giving him another response, telling myself to not let things go there/
He hung his head. “I shouldn’t be talking about this, of course. I just feel like we’ve grown close over the weeks—that you understand me, in a lot of ways.”
I nodded, biting my lip. God, I was usually confident and commanding but every time I was around him he made me nervous. “I feel the same way,” I said quietly and with more sincerity than I had anticipated. “I don’t have many people to talk to.”
I still gazed out the window, uncertain about the ways in which my words would affect our relationship, the very beautiful friendship we had cultivated. And while I knew my feelings were growing, surely it could go no further.
He cleared his throat for a moment. He looked so gorgeous in the light. His dark hair curled perfectly on his head, and his trimmed beard made him look so suave, so mysterious. I swallowed in the tension.
“I need to ask your advice,” he said in a humble tone.
“Relationship advice?” I asked him, then.
He nodded. “I need advice on how to fix things with my wife. You see, I can’t tell anyone that we’re having problems. We can’t even go see a counselor. This would be reported to the public. The opposition would jump on it as a sign of weakness in my character—a moral flaw. And I just can’t—I can’t have it. I can’t have them thinking I have a single weakness that they can exploit.”
“For the polls’ sake, please don’t,” I said, smiling at him. I knew how it would look, however. The American people wanted a firm marriage at the helm of their great country. They almost didn’t trust that this president didn’t have children; it was a topic we often had to deal with on the re-election campaign team. “But in terms of advice, I’m honored that you came to me,” I began. “I honestly don’t know a great deal about your situation. But I do know that women love to be treated like they’re the only parts of your life you care about, you know? It’s just you and your wife, against the world. If you make her feel like she’s the only woman you’ve ever dreamed of—“
“And if that’s not true?” the president asked me, then. His dark eyes forced mine toward him. The gaze caught me off-guard. I dropped my fork onto the white tablecloth.
“Everyone has needs. Perhaps yours are simply—not found in your relationship with your wife,” I said, knowing that I was overstepping my boundaries. Could I come back from this? He continued to gaze at me. I didn’t know what else to say; I certainly wanted to dissipate that terrifying, completely passionate moment between us.
I ripped my eyes away, then. I formed the statement easily, with precision: “You have to know that I am so envious of your professional success,” I began, bringing my hands to my forehead. “It’s an eternal burden to me. I am always searching for ways to get ahead, for ways to enhance my relationship to my career. But I don’t know how, you know?”
Xavier looked down, toward his plate. He’d hardly eaten anything. I knew what sadness did to the appetite. “Sure. Well. You know all about success, after all.”
“Not like you, Mr. President—“ I began, a bit of laughter laced on my tongue.
But he stopped me, his hand high in the air. He shook his head vehemently. “It’s Xavier, Amanda. You know that.”
I bit my tongue in those moments, nearly frightened of him and his sudden desire to tell me things, to make an intimate connection with me. I didn’t know how to fit this information into my head; I didn’t know how to comprehend it.
I swallowed and pulled myself back from the table, tapping at my mouth with my napkin. My nearly uneaten salad sat before me, gleaming in the light from the window. “I’m stuffed,” I said, even as my stomach ate at me. “I think I’ll—I’ll head back up to the office. See what those goons have messed up, now.”
I stood up and flung myself toward the door, still feeling his eyes on me. The door to the kitchen swung back behind me, delivering a real-life boundary between Xavier and me. I hustled up the steps and found myself in a sea of work, of questions, of emails. Downstairs, in that breakfast nook, Xavier and I were safe from the rest of the world. But out here, in the madness, it was just a cacophony.
That evening, I gathered my supplies for the night. It was strange; after our lunch, I hadn’t seen Xavier anywhere throughout the west wing. I’d asked Jason about him, of course, but he’d been far too busy to answer—flying from one end of the room to the other with a phone strapped to his ear. He was a dutiful worker, this second in command. I knew he hadn’t even noticed the tension between the president and I, despite our many late-night drinks, despite our intimate sneak-aways during lunch time.
I shook my head over and over, trying to refute these thoughts from my head. The president wasn’t anything to me; we didn’t have anything intimate. We didn’t.
I followed my shadow away from the well-lit room. I saw Dimitri off to the side, guarding the Oval Office once more. I nodded to him. “Good night, Dimitri!”
Dimitri took a slight step forward, his eyes eager. “If you wait a few moments, I can give you a ride home!”
But I shook my head, not wanting to alert Xavier that I was leaving. I could nearly feel his presence in the other room—such a continuous shadow. “No. I’ll catch a taxi, Dimitri. You shouldn’t have to drive to Trinidad every day.” I winked at him and swung back around, back toward the stairwell.
But suddenly, I heard a door spring open behind me. The Oval Office. I kept walking, pretending I didn’t sense anything; that I couldn’t hear his footfalls behind me. Keep walking, I thought to myself. Keep going. No one can know about your attraction to him—especially not him.
But suddenly, as I reached the steps, I felt his hand on my shoulder. I looked up, feeling my heart rattle in my chest. His fingers were strong, and he swung me around, forcing me to look at him. The President of the United States was breathing heavily. A small vein pulsed in his forehead.
“What is it?” I asked him in a whisper. My eyes lurched left, noting that Dimitri was no longer in the hallway. What was going on?
Xavier licked his lips for a moment, visibly trying to calm himself down. He closed his eyes, shaking hi
s head. “I wondered if you’d go to dinner with me. Sometime. Tonight, even.” His eyes pleaded with me.
My head spun for a moment. I could almost hear myself saying yes. It was all I wanted in the world. But then I shook myself out of it. This man—this man before me. He couldn’t be mine. He was another woman’s already. He and Camille had married, for better or for worse. He was just a stressed man with the entire nation at his feet, looking for relief. It wouldn’t come from me. I had too much to do.
I couldn’t jeopardize my career.
Slowly but surely, I shook my head no. I watched as his eyes sunk into his head with the realization. For the first time in perhaps his entire life, someone had told him no. I bit my lip, trying to make up for my decline. “Xavier. You know you’re a wonderful friend. But I just can’t allow people to get the wrong impression about us; it would bring you far too many problems.” I tipped my head to the right, trying to make him understand with huge, glowing eyes. “Please. Your friendship means so much to me and your presidency too much to this country.”
Xavier nodded, coughing a bit. His face had reddened. His eyes skirted back down the hallway, where a few members from the campaign re-election committee were walking companionably, eagerly anticipating the comfort of their own homes. The president turned toward me once more, only for an instant. “You get to leave this place. Remember that,” he said. And then, he was gone. It happened so suddenly, leaving me in a sort of desolate haze.
I spun back around on my heels and darted down the steps, feeling my heart so fast in my chest. I thought surely I was having a heart attack—surely it was all over. But as I burst into the late-summer night, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had looked my destiny in the face, and I’d turned back, refuting it. This, beyond anything else, made me strong.
This is what I told myself, of course.
But as I tossed and turned throughout the night, dreaming only of the sheer need brimming in the president’s face, I didn’t know right from wrong. I didn’t care, either.
Chapter 8
A few days passed. I hardly saw the president at all, but it didn’t seem to matter. I was caught up in the poll counting, in the re-election procedure. It seemed strange. While the president continued with his various meetings—one, I saw on the news, with the president of France—I was working tirelessly to ensure that he would remain in office, able to do these things year after year once more.
“I wondered if you’d go to dinner with me.”
The words still haunted me a bit, even as I stood in front of the television, watching Xavier and the President of France walk together by the monuments. Xavier gestured toward Abraham Lincoln’s statue and made a small joke, making the French president scoff in a very Parisian way. I longed to hear the joke; I longed to hear his voice.
That evening, I learned on the news, Xavier and Camille were meant to have dinner with the French president and his fiancé. I looked down, hearing the words. It bothered me how much the words got to me—how much they altered the perception of my day. As the lead of his reelection campaign, I knew it was the right move. Still, it stung. I skirted back from the television and swept back to my desk, ready to busy myself with anything and everything else.
Each night of that week, I returned to my home in the back of Dimitris’ car, feeling the sadness creep up around my neck. Sadness at losing my opportunity with him. In the front, Dimitri continued to ramble on, cracking jokes. Why can’t I just love him, I thought to myself. God, wouldn’t it be so much easier to be with Dimitri? Couldn’t I just want something that was actually in my reach? I hadn’t wanted something and not gotten it during my entire life. And now: here I was, faced with my ultimate desire. And I couldn’t force myself to reach out and grab it. It went against everything.
The following evening was a Friday night. I’d wrangled together a long meeting, one that swept into the evening. All around me, my employees were yawning, upset at the length of time I was keeping them into the weekend. Of course: their first few weeks of flurry had slowed down. They couldn’t keep up that endless activity for so long.
I tapped my heel slowly, gazing at them. “Okay. Okay. You can all go home,” I finally said, slapping my portfolio down on the desk before me. “I know we won’t get anything done here, anyway.”
The people before me erupted into the air, all of a sudden talking like a group of elementary kids. Their smiles were broad. They were eager to get down the hill, back to their bars and their wives and their boyfriends. I shook my head as they went, wondering about the life I was missing elsewhere.
I sat at my desk, then, tipping back a bit. I reached into the bottom drawer and pulled out a bottle of wine and a small, paper cup. I poured the wine, allowing the sound to echo throughout the room. I tipped it back, allowing the flavor of it to pulse over my tongue, to my throat. I sighed evenly, feeling relaxed for the first time in many days—at least since the president had pushed me against the stairwell wall and asked me to go to dinner with him. That wasn’t something you could just shake off.
Suddenly, my phone began to buzz on my desk. I leaned forward, holding my cup high in the air. There, on the buzzing phone, I noted that the number was the president’s. I swallowed, realizing that the president was down the hall, lingering on in his office. I didn’t answer the phone. Rather, I stood up, still holding the wine bottle in my hand. I brought it with me down the hall, hearing my shoes as they tapped in the empty West Wing. What was the president doing there, all alone on a Friday night? Wouldn’t his wife be wondering about him?
Another secret service officer—someone named Dave—stood outside the door. His eyes were alert. I nodded to him. “The president and I have a meeting,” I offered as an explanation.
The man nodded. He swung open the door, allowing me entrance. I tapped in, closing the door behind me. I stood in the shell of it. “You rang,” I chirped.
Xavier was sitting in his great chair, peering out the window. He was faced away from me. I moved forward, placing the bottle of wine on his desk. “Mr. President?”
Finally, he spun around, his eyes looking so hollow in his head. He reached toward the bottle of wine and he tipped it down his throat, looking so comical, even in his desperation.
I clutched my heart, suddenly worried about him. “Xavier? What’s going on?”
He placed the bottle of wine back down with a clunk. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You know. Last night, as we spoke with the French president and his fiancé, I realized something: that my wife is the most boring person in the world.” He allowed his chair to tip left, then right beneath him.
I wasn’t sure what to say. I felt my throat grow dry.
He continued. “I feel no joy when she says anything. The last time we made love, I was so far away. So far away.” He snapped his finger next to his face. Something in his eyes told me he was already drunk—perhaps a few glasses of Scotch into the night.
“Do you—do you want my advice?” I asked him in a timid whisper, unsure of how to handle the situation. I felt the words hang between us like a cloud.
He shook his head. “I just—I don’t fucking know what to do.” He picked up the wine bottle once more and pummeled it to his mouth, guzzling it.
I felt nervous, a bit frustrated. I felt like the president was acting like some sort of inane child. He couldn’t fucking fix his own problems. What was I meant to do?
I stood up tall and I grabbed the wine bottle from his hand, tugging it back. I shook my head vehemently. “What the fuck are you doing? Get your shit together,” I hissed at him. “Do you even want to have a good relationship with your wife?” I asked the question, surprising him. It was clearly not one he had asked himself, yet. He wasn’t trying to create a good relationship with her; and yet here he was, complaining about her once more to me. I couldn’t take it. It wasn’t fair to her or to me
He stood up, then. He was a bit woozy on his feet, but his eyes were sure and passionate. His dark eyebrows we
re furrowed. He reached his hand over the desk and allowed it to grip my cheek, my ear. His face came toward me. My heart was beating so fast in my chest. I placed the wine bottle back on the desk between us. It landed too hard.
His whisper came with such warmth, such passion. “No. I don’t want to have a good relationship with her. I don’t.” He shook his head until suddenly, his lips met mine in a moment of frustration, of anger.
In this moment, as our lips met over the great presidential desk, I let go of everything in my mind. Everything that had been holding me back from this beautiful, passionate feeling was let loose, finally—allowing me to feel so free in this moment. I brought my arms around his body, and I pushed closer to him, folding my lips into his more firmly, feeling the vibrancy, the lust for him deep in my soul.
God, that moment. It was the very answer to my searching heart.
Chapter 9
I pulled away from the President of the United States, my head spinning. I bit my lip and spun back, toward the door. I didn’t hear as much as a murmur from him—no sign of regret, no sign that he wanted me to stay. I needed to get out of there, to return to some sense of normalcy. I pushed into the hallway and began stomping back to the office to gather my things, hearing my heels clatter against the floor. What the hell was I going to do?
Suddenly, as I rounded the corner with my head down, I found myself pushing into Jason, my second in command. His wide eyes blinked at me with surprise. “Amanda! I thought you’d left for the day.” His eyes perused my red cheeks, my slim waist. I could feel the way he looked at me, and already it made me uncomfortable. But I couldn’t deal with a drunk second in command not tonight.
“Good night, Jason,” I said, trying to push past him.
But he tapped me on the shoulder, following me. “Actually, Amanda. I had a question about the proceedings from the day.”
