Party of Two

by Jasmine Guillory

  He sat down at his desk and picked up a pen.

  “Okay, what’s on the agenda?”

  Kara looked down at her notebook.

  “You asked me to check in with my contacts with leadership about your criminal justice reform bill, and . . . it’s not great news. Unfortunately—”

  He sighed.

  “In an election year, when some of the people who would vote for the bill are fighting tooth and nail for their seats, we don’t want to give their opponents ammunition,” he finished her sentence. “Is that it?”

  They both knew he was quoting her own words back to her. She’d said that to him months ago, when he’d told her he wanted to push this bill now, this year. She’d tried to get him to wait until the following January. But he hadn’t listened.

  “That’s certainly part of it, sir,” she said, her eyes firmly on her notepad. Kara never said “I told you so,” even when he knew she must be dying to.

  He let out a deep sigh. He knew what Kara wasn’t actually saying out loud was that his bill was close to dead. Damn it.

  “I’m not going to give up on this, I’m sure you already know that.”

  Kara stood up.

  “I did already know that, as a matter of fact.” She grinned at him. “That’s why I work for you.”

  After three more meetings with his staffers, Max gathered up his papers to walk home. It was already dark, and he was suddenly depressed. About being in this dark, cold, lonely city; about having this difficult, stressful, pointless job, where personalities and conflicts and elections and money mattered more than helping people; about not having anyone to talk to about any of that.

  He picked up his phone, but no, Olivia hadn’t texted. Instead he texted Wes, whom he hadn’t seen since the week before, because of their terrible schedules.

  Heading home now, and look at me, I’m going to order the pizza this time. What kind do you want?

  He walked out of his office and waved to his staff members who were still there. As he left the building, he looked back down at his phone, willing Olivia to contact him, right now, tonight, to turn this day around.

  Just then, a text flashed across his screen.

  Was this it? Did he finally have magical powers? If so, maybe there was hope for his criminal justice reform bill.

  Nope, not Olivia.

  Beat you to it; a pizza—and a SALAD—should arrive right when you do. But you can pick up more beer on the way home, we’re almost out.

  Damn it. There went the one victory he thought he’d get today.

  He took the food out of the hands of the delivery guy as he walked into their apartment building, and opened their apartment door to find Wes on the couch in his sweatpants.

  “Here’s the food and the beer.” He tossed everything on the table.

  Wes looked up at him and narrowed his eyes.

  “No ‘Hi, honey, I’m home’? No complaints about the salad? What happened to you? Where’s Normal Max tonight?”

  Max sat down and flipped open the pizza box.

  “Normal Max has been beaten down by the machinery of the United States Senate, that’s where Normal Max went. Kara thinks my criminal justice reform bill is on life support. That’s confidential, of course.”

  Wes patted him on the shoulder.

  “Oh man, that sucks,” he said. “But the machinery of the United States Senate has beaten you down before, and I haven’t seen you like this since . . . What else is wrong?” His eyes widened and he held up a finger. “The girl! I haven’t seen you since last week—what happened with the girl?”

  Max shrugged and looked away. Damn Wes for knowing him so well.

  “I told her how I felt, and that—fuck you for making me do this, by the way—that we couldn’t have sex, which . . . well, never mind. Anyway, she seemed taken aback, and said she’d ‘think about it.’ But that was Friday night, and I haven’t heard from her since then. I think I lost my chance with her. I never should have listened to you.”

  Wes dropped his head in his hands.

  “I didn’t tell you to tell her that; good God, Powell! I thought you were a better politician than that.”

  Yes, well, so had he.

  “I didn’t make a plan! I just blurted it all out! This is why I have people write my speeches and talking points for anything important; I’ve always been bad at shit like this when I don’t prepare! Anyway, that’s what happened with the girl.”

  Wes closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “Okay, well, there’s nothing we can do about that now. That was Friday night—have you texted her since then?”

  Thanks for the reminder.

  “I texted her on Sunday from the plane, just saying to have a good week. She said, ‘Thanks, you, too!’ and that was it.”

  Wes pushed the container of salad over to him.

  “Please eat some of this and come to your senses. That was Sunday, today is Wednesday. What are you waiting for? We’re too old for those games about when you should text a woman and when you shouldn’t. You like this woman, that’s obvious—don’t whine about it to me. Text her!”

  As much as Max hated to admit it, Wes was probably right. Well, not about the salad.

  “I was trying to give her space!” he said. “But you might be right. Plus, she’ll definitely tell me to go away if she doesn’t want to hear from me; she’s that type.”

  Wes grinned.

  “I like her even more now.”

  Max rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone.

  How’s your week going? Any more thoughts on Saturday? Maybe we could tick off some more of the items on your to-do in LA list?

  There. That was friendly and breezy but still interested. He hoped.

  He pressed send, and immediately realized exactly why he hadn’t done this earlier. Because now, it was going to be even worse waiting for her to text back.

  “Satisfied?” he said to Wes.

  Wes dished out some of the salad into a bowl and took a very pointed bite.

  “About that, at least. Now eat some damn vegetables; we both need some in this godforsaken town.”

  Just as Wes got up to go to the bathroom, Max’s phone buzzed.

  Thanks for giving me time to think about it—Saturday sounds great. Maybe the Getty?

  Max smiled, for maybe the first time that day. Finally, something went right.

  Chapter Seven

  Max wished he could spend all day Saturday with Olivia, but he had an event that afternoon to honor one of his old teachers who was about to retire. So he’d suggested they head up to the Getty in the late afternoon to see the art and walk around, and then they could picnic outside at sunset. As soon as Olivia agreed, he ordered a bunch of picnic supplies from his local, exorbitantly priced grocery store—they were supposed to have great pie, so he ordered one of those, too. He hoped the pie lived up to the rumors.

  Max slapped on a name tag from the front table when he walked into the event, and was immediately surrounded by people. He hadn’t brought any of his staff along with him today, because this felt more like a personal event than a political one, but now he suddenly appreciated everything they did for him. He shook what felt like hundreds of hands, tried to remember what everyone said to him, and took all their business cards with no idea of what to do with them. He laughed at himself—he’d gotten so used to having one to four extra brains working on his behalf at all times, it was like he didn’t remember how to do all this himself. This was probably a good exercise to go through every so often, just so he didn’t get too soft.

  Finally, he made his way over to Ms. Sussman and gave her a hug.

  “Congratulations on forty years as a teacher, and on your retirement,” he said. “Best teacher I ever had, even though you sent me to the principal’s office far too many times.”


  She blushed and hugged him back. And then scolded him gently, as he’d expected.

  “Now, Maxwell,” she said. Ms. Sussman was one of only two people in the world who called him Maxwell; the other was his grandmother. “That only happened twice, and I’m sure you agree with me that you deserved it both times.”

  He grinned.

  “I absolutely did,” he said.

  Max chatted with her for a while, until another of her former students came up to them. They’d had this event for her outside of school hours because so many of her former students wanted to come. She’d worked at his private high school early in her career, and then twenty years ago she’d surprised everyone by moving to a public school in East L.A., and had been there ever since.

  Soon, her daughter brought him up to the microphone for one of a handful of speeches. He talked about how much she’d taught him, most of which was about how to be a good person and how to treat other people well, told a self-deprecating story about himself that made people laugh, told one of his favorite stories about Ms. Sussman that made people cry, and managed to weave in his passion for criminal justice reform, especially as it related to kids. When he walked down from the podium, he was proud of that speech.

  At the end of the event, Ms. Sussman brought him around to meet some of her more recent former students. He went around the circle and shook hands with all of them, but one of them looked so familiar. Why couldn’t he place him?

  “Great speech, Senator,” they all said, and he smiled.

  He knew this kid. Who was he? He glanced down at the name tag to see if that would help. Mateo Ortega.

  Oh. It all came back to him now.

  Mateo’s brother Antonio had been a defendant, early in Max’s career as a prosecutor. He’d stolen stuff from a store, and knocked someone down on his way out. Max, full of his own importance, had thrown the book at the kid.

  He’d spent years regretting that. He still did. After he spent a few years prosecuting that kid and some of the others like him, and saw what his actions did to their lives, his feelings about the criminal justice system had fundamentally changed. He’d consulted advocates—many of whom he still consulted on a regular basis—changed his entire process, and after he’d become the district attorney, had changed policies in the office to try to keep kids, and everyone else, out of jail and prison as much as possible.

  But none of that had helped Antonio, who’d been incarcerated for two years because of Max.

  On the way out of the event, Max caught up with Mateo in the parking lot.

  “Hey, Mateo,” he said. “How’s your brother?”

  Mateo barely glanced at him.

  “Okay, I guess. I mean, I don’t really know. He’s back inside. Supposed to get out again in a few years, with good behavior and all.”

  Fuck.

  “Oh,” Max said. He pulled a card out of his pocket. “I’m very sorry to hear that. Well, if you ever need anything, or if he does, or you’re looking for a job in government, or anything . . . call my office, okay?”

  Mateo took the card and dropped it in his pocket, still without looking at Max.

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll get right on that.”

  Max didn’t blame the kid for his rudeness; hell, it had probably taken all of Mateo’s self-control to not punch Max in the face. And Max would have deserved it.

  He drove home on autopilot. He wished he hadn’t seen Mateo. He wished he didn’t have such good memories for faces and names. A normal person wouldn’t have seen a twentysomething who had been a preteen the last time he’d seen him and remember either the face or the name; why couldn’t he be a normal person? Then he wouldn’t be thinking about Antonio and his family right now. He’d instead just drive back home and remember how he’d brought tears to Ms. Sussman’s eyes with his speech, the laughter of the crowd, and that one baby who had the fattest cheeks he’d ever seen. He’d drive home and look forward to seeing Olivia later . . . fuck. Fuck, he’d almost forgotten his date with Olivia. He had to pull himself together and out of this funk before he got to her house.

  By the time he got back to his house, changed out of his suit and into jeans, collected all of the food into a tote bag, and drove back down to Olivia’s place, he’d gotten more of a hold on himself. For the rest of this night, he just had to forget that he’d seen Mateo, forget about all of this. He could do that—he’d done a fundraiser the day he and his last girlfriend broke up, and had made a floor speech the day after his grandfather died, and each time he’d shut his emotions away, put his big politician smile and his big politician voice on, and aced it each time. He could ace this, too.

  He knocked on Olivia’s door, and made sure a big smile was on his face when she opened it.

  “Hey! Ready to go?”

  She gave him a slightly weird look, but he brushed it off. Olivia always looked at him like she didn’t quite know what to make of him, but she kept going out with him anyway, didn’t she?

  “Almost,” she said. “Come in for a second while I grab a sweater? It’s warm now, but I want to be prepared for after the sun goes down.”

  Max nodded and followed her into the house. She walked through the kitchen and into her bedroom, and he stood just outside the doorway while she looked through her dresser drawers.

  “I’m really excited that you’re going to get to see the Getty!” he said. “You know, not only does it have a wonderful art exhibit, but it has some of the best views in all of Los Angeles. You don’t want to miss the sunset there! Also, fun fact: did you know that a number of the former curators were investigated for trafficking in stolen antiquities?”

  She walked out of her bedroom, heavy gray cardigan in hand, and gave him that look again.

  “Are you okay? You’re acting strange.”

  Apparently he wasn’t acing this yet.

  He shook his head.

  “No, no, everything’s great! Just excited for tonight.” He shot another big smile at her.

  She shrugged, then walked into the kitchen.

  “We can bring wine, right? I know you said you were taking care of the picnic supplies, but I bought this bottle of wine today; I thought it would be fun to bring it.”

  He took the bottle of wine from her and set it back down on the counter.

  “Unfortunately we can’t, but we can buy wine there. Whether you can bring wine to a location often has to do with the way their liquor license is set up, but sometimes it’s just about wanting to drive more wine and beer sales of their own.”

  Olivia steered him into the living room and sat down on the couch.

  “Okay. What’s going on? I know I don’t know you all that well, but you don’t seem like yourself.”

  How could she see right through him like this?

  He started to shake his head again, and she stopped him.

  “Please don’t say ‘Everything’s great!’ again in that weird voice, or spout another fun fact at me. You’re not on TV right now, you know. You don’t have to tell me what’s up, but . . . is something wrong?”

  He sat down on the couch next to her and took a deep breath.

  “Do you know, I can’t remember the last time someone asked me that,” he said.

  She put her hand on his shoulder. It felt really nice. Comforting. No one had comforted him in a really long time.

  “I’m guessing that means the answer is yes. Do . . . do you want to talk about it? We don’t have to rush off to the Getty just yet, you know.”

  He looked at his watch.

  “We do if we want to get to see any of the art before sunset. Sunset is at sevenish, and by the time we get there, and park and everything, it’ll be—”

  She moved her hand down his arm and covered up his watch.

  “We don’t have to go to the Getty tonight. It’s not going anywhere, we can go another time.”
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  Something in him thrilled at her implication that there would be another time, that they had a future together. But he still wanted to push on, to not admit defeat.

  “Oh, but I know you wanted to go up there, and I have all this stuff for the picnic in the car. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine!” He flashed a bright smile at her and stood up.

  She stayed on the couch.

  “You’re doing it again. It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me what’s up, but don’t pretend to me, okay?”

  He dropped back down next to her.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just been . . . a tough day today, for some unexpected reasons. I didn’t want to burden you with all of that.”

  She slid her hand in his.

  “I have an idea. How about you go back to the car and get all of that picnic stuff, and bring it right in here, and I can open up that bottle of wine without having to pay for it, and we can sit here and have our picnic and relax.” Her eyes twinkled at him. “Plus, your hair still has that Ken doll look; you might get recognized at the Getty.”

  He brushed his hand over his stiff hair, and shook his head.

  “I can’t believe I forgot about that. You sure that’s okay?” he asked.

  She stood up.

  “I’ll open the wine right now.”

  He went out to the car for the picnic supplies, and by the time he got back inside, she’d moved the coffee table to the far side of the living room and had spread a big blanket out on the floor, with the bottle of wine and two glasses in the middle of it.

  “See what a good picnic we can have indoors?” she said when he came inside.

  He dropped the bag down onto the blanket and unloaded it.

  “And we don’t have to worry about the wind coming up and blowing the blanket away, or ants,” she said. She uncorked the wine bottle and poured wine for both of them.