The First Affair (20 page)

Paul’s eyes swerved to Rachelle.

“She’s not going to tell. Am I just another—am I that stupid?”

“You’re not stupid. And you’re not just another. Not that I know of. Not for years as far as I’ve heard.” I was simultaneously heartened and heartsick. I squeezed my fingers over my eyes as the tears returned.

“Fuck this.” Rachelle shook her head. “He owes you.”

“What?” Distracted by the pain slashing my chest, I couldn’t follow her logic.

“A job,” she stated.

“At the least,” Paul agreed. “If not for him you would’ve had a paying
position at the White House, instead of playing Dungeons and Dragons over at the Department of Bullshit Hysteria—”

“I don’t care about that. I just need to crash for awhile and—”

“No!” Rachelle pounded the couch cushion. “Nonono. We’re writing a letter.”

“A letter?” I asked.

“Telling him he owes you. Remind him so he can’t ignore it.”

“Yes!” Paul slammed his empty glass on the coffee table. “Stand up for yourself. Somebody should fucking stand up for themselves in this cesspool of a town where everyone just gets to do whatever the fuck they want—fuck the moral consequences, fuck decency.”

Rachelle touched his hand. “Okay, first we’ll write Greg, then we write Tom.”

I threw on some clothes and then stared at my laptop while they stared at me. “This is pathetic. If Greg wanted to help me, he would. What he wants is for me to go away. I have to face that.”

“You talk, I type.” Rachelle bumped me over and pulled the computer onto her lap. “ ‘Dear Smoothie King.’ ”

“Just ‘Greg.’ ”

“Dear Mr. President,” Paul dictated from the bar. “I’m writing to you because you said I should reach out to you if I ever needed anything—”

“He didn’t say that.”

Rachelle folded a Twizzler in her mouth. “Could he think he said that? Is it close enough?”

“I guess so, maybe.”

“While I respect your decision,” Paul continued as she typed, “our situation notwithstanding, I am now stranded as a DOHS intern, far from my career path. Working at the White House was supposed to be a stepping-stone to a larger professional stage.”

“Furthermore,” Rachelle picked up, “I had been accepted into a position on my own merit and then was summarily transferred. We both know why that happened. I am relying on your sense of honor to rectify this wrong.”

“A little strident, isn’t it?” I asked.

“You think Chancellor Merkel calls him and pussyfoots around?”

“Or his
wife
?” Rachelle went there.

I winced. “So much happened today. I just need to—”

“You’ll psych yourself out,” Paul said firmly.

“I’m hitting ‘Print,’ ” Rachelle informed us. “And then we’re gonna messenger that shit.”

“Like I have a messenger.”

“We can use my work account—it’s the least they can do.” She called it in while I made a pot of coffee for Paul.

“I’m going outside for a cigarette.” My parka was still sopping, so I grabbed my wool coat from the closet.

“You’ve got a little . . .” Paul gestured at his own chest.

I looked down at the smattering of white flecks.

“What?” Rachelle asked me. “You just went other-side-of-the-aisle red.”

“It’s—it’s.” I couldn’t say.

“Shit!” Rachelle lunged, her face practically planting against my boob. “Holy fuck, it is!” She pulled back. “What, did you not even have time to disrobe?”

“It wasn’t like that.” It was. “Let me get a damp paper towel.”

“Are you kidding? You should frame it,” Rachelle quipped. “Or make a throw pillow. They do that on Etsy—”

“Give it to me.” Paul stepped in front of her.

“Give it to you?” Rachelle repeated.

“It should be destroyed.” He swerved for a second, extending a steadying hand to the wall.

“She doesn’t need to give it to you,” Rachelle said, her protective edge surprising us. She hung the coat back in the closet.

Paul took us both in. “Yes, right. Well, I think I should get home. Shall I take the envelope down?”

“We’ve got it,” Rachelle said. “Thanks.”

“Paul, thank you.” I turned to him.

“It’s nothing.”

“No, really, thank you,” I threw my arms around him. “No one’s ever done for me what you did today. I just—really appreciate it.”

He looked awkward, embarrassed and, for a moment, deflated. “Appreciation,” he snorted to himself as he pulled on his duffel. “A rare and wondrous thing.”

• • •

Not three hours later my phone rang. It was the secretary to Lewis Franklin, entrepreneur, CEO, who sat on the board of the Shoah Foundation and multiple others, was a major Super PAC funder for Greg in both elections, and who personally wanted to meet me in his midtown Manhattan office the next morning.

Rachelle lent me her MK bag, I steamed my good suit in the shower and boarded a predawn Amtrak.

The skyscraper had been designed to be the corporate equivalent of the White House, humbling all who entered. Passing through the cavernous lobby, riding in his private elevator, and crossing an office bigger than Gail’s apartment to lay my paltry résumé on his desk left me feeling like some circa-1900s urchin by the time I shook Mr. Franklin’s hand.

He was distinguished the way Greg was, but where Greg’s eyes were warm, his were wary. “Please, have a seat.” I didn’t know what he knew.

“Thank you so much for meeting me.”

“Greg tells me you’re looking for a job.” He slipped on his wire-rims to peruse my résumé, the snow-bleached skyline stretching behind him.

“Yes.”

“You apparently made quite an impression during the furlough.” He said it straight.

“Well,” I answered quickly, “we all worked very hard.”

“And now he’s recommending you for a job in our New York office.”

I swallowed. Of course New York. Greg would not be summoning me next Sunday. “Yes, that would be amazing. I’m not looking for special favors.” His eyebrow shot up. “I mean, this is a recommendation, a commendation. But I don’t expect anything. I’m just hoping for an opportunity where I can prove myself. I’m a hard worker. There were
eighty interns and only two were offered permanent positions.” Again the eyebrow. “That had nothing to do with Gr—with the President.”

He continued to read while I stared out the fiftieth-story window at the vertiginous drop. He seemed to hold the page for longer than it should have taken. “It was helpful to meet you in person.” He stood. “I will pass this along.”

“Thank you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

He walked me the yards to his tiger-maple door in silence. I had zero sense of where I stood.

“And I’m just glad we can all be adults about this,” I preemptively tossed out—and instantly regretted it. If our indiscretion was going to come up, I’d wanted to control it.

He paused, his hand not yet on the knob. “Yes,” he said to the carpet that looked like the hair of an Irish setter. Then he opened the door and let me pass through.

People on the sidewalk moved briskly through their lunch hours, collars held secure with gloved hands against the bracing cold. Fearful that I’d flubbed this, demeaned myself in Lewis’s eyes, and confirmed to Greg that I couldn’t be trusted, I scurried down Madison, hunting for the perfect gesture to cement my appreciation. Not just for the job, but for the relationship, to let Greg know I would always be in his corner. Where I would shut the fuck up. I stopped in Brooks Brothers, but I didn’t know his shirt size, and he didn’t need a key chain since he didn’t carry keys, nor would he probably ever again, and nothing else I looked at felt quite personal enough. I walked blocks out of my way, through heavy revolving doors, looping through the heat and then back out into the freeze. Cold, hot. Cold, hot. I was almost late for the train, my toes blistering in my boots, when I spotted the antique shaving kit.

I held it in my lap on the ride back, surrounded by businessmen and women typing on their laptops. I kept picturing the open view from Lewis’s office as the gray landscape chugged by. I’d get a room in some share with people who watched
Mad Men
. I’d ride the subway. Go to things—openings—walk the High Line. Let myself be kissed and kiss back. With a dry prickle of hurt in my throat, I vowed to be fully and completely there without waiting for his call.

I texted Gail:
“Good news: job and departure imminent. Thank you again.”

To my surprise, she texted back immediately:
“No, please stay. There’s no need to rush.”
Had Lena made her change her mind?

When we arrived at Union Station I stepped onto the platform, into the crush of dress coats jockeying to dinners and receptions. I realized that I recognized the guy stepping off a few cars ahead of me. “Paul!” I called as the train on the opposite side of the platform started to pull out, its engine hissing. “Paul!” I tried again, but he couldn’t hear me. Inside the shuffle slowed to a standstill and I saw that people were clustered under the televisions.

“. . . no date set as of yet, but sources say the prosecutor will be moving swiftly, with depositions expected to begin almost immediately.” Wolf Blitzer held everyone’s attention. “We’ll be talking in just a moment to our correspondent, who’s standing by on the steps of the Supreme Court. Again the ruling has come down. President Rutland
will
now stand trial for the civil suit brought by Brianne Rice. The first time in history that a sitting President has been tried for an action allegedly committed before taking oath. Let’s go to Jeremy.”

People in the murmuring crowd whipped out their phones. Stunned, I craned to look for Paul—but he was gone.

Chapter Nine

January 28

I spent the weekend alone, filling Rachelle’s voicemail while she was stuck at home with food poisoning. Between the pending trial, what the anxiety must have been doing to Greg, my gaffe with Lewis, and the fact that there was nothing I could do about any of it, I was nearly as sick.

Brianne’s legal team blanketed the news, as if their mandate was to say “Here is a President who has
lied
to the American people” as many times as possible. In retrospect it must have reminded Greg, Amar, and Lewis what I could have been capable of doing, had I been like Brianne. But I wasn’t—and Greg had to know that.

I wanted him to help me with a job because he loved me and wished me to succeed. Not because he was nervous.

At three a.m. all I could see was the ceiling of the Oval Office as I lay nestled beside Greg by the Christmas tree. All I could feel were his fingers stroking my bare back. How his chest vibrated under me as he spoke of needing to take me to Europe, to be with me the first time I saw Venice, to introduce me to a little restaurant behind the Guggenheim that he loved. He kissed the top of my head as I told him I could imagine finally holing up with him in some hotel, getting to be completely naked on an actual bed. He squeezed me so tight I had to breathe in sips. As if he were afraid none of that would ever happen.

Monday morning Paul hesitated for a second when he saw me waiting at his desk. I’d been worried about him as well, knowing that this thing he’d been dreading was actually in process. And he looked worthy of my concern: his shirt collar was only half-tucked under his
coat, and the gray tweed matched his pallor. He ducked his head under the strap of his bag before dropping it on the floor. “Did you get my voicemails? Are you okay?” I asked. He looked at me blankly. “About the trial?”

“Oh—that. Yes, well, it’ll still be months before they even get around to subpoenaing me. I just have some stuff going on—family stuff,” he hastened to add, and I realized that was the exact excuse I’d given him on my first day.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I’ll manage.”

“If there’s anything I can do.”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Okay. Well . . . I didn’t want to bother you, but I might have a job.”

He cocked his head, surprised.

“I had an interview with Lewis Franklin on Friday.” I lifted my eyebrows to underscore the enormity and waited for his response as he pulled off his coat.

“Lewis Franklin,” he confirmed.

I nodded, biting the side of my mouth. “The letter worked.”

“So the man’s best friend just called and made you his VP?”

“His office called and I went to Manhattan for an interview. I saw you, actually, on the train back—”

“So it’s an interview, not a job,” he cut me off.

“Right, but I’m praying nonstop.” I raised crossed fingers at the fluorescents, anxious bees breaking loose from the hive below my ribs.

Paul shook his head. “He could have pulled a favor
anywhere
.”

“I know. It’s big. But I’ll work my ass off—”

“I have a relationship, an honest-to-God
relationship
, with a joint lease and everything, and I’m fucking shunned like my nose fell off, but you blow a guy and step in shit.” Blood rushed to my face.

“I thought you wanted me to stand up for myself.”

“I said a lot of things. Half a bottle of Glenlivet will do that.” He picked up his satchel and withdrew a new bottle. “Here. For your landlord.”

“Did you have a good trip at least?” I tried with a smile as I took it.

“What?”

“Were you in New York, too?”

“Just a meeting. Did you get the spreadsheet finished?”

“Almost—”

“I can’t go into the meeting without reviewing it.”

“I just need another—”

“In my hands by two o’clock. Can we please just concentrate on that?”

“Yes—”

“Great,” he said to his desk, and then, dismissal issued, picked up his phone.

• • •

“That’s so assaholic—it’s not your fault he got dumped,” Rachelle said as she sat across from me that night in her tiny kitchen, dinner still untouched between us on the plastic patio table. “And why are we even spending time on Paul when you’re so out of there. Lewis. Franklin.” Her short bronze nails lifted to cup her cheeks. “I’m
so
jealous. That place is iconic. They did a challenge on
Celebrity Apprentice
there and it was
so
beneath him. You could tell his publicist had to
beg
him to do it. Did he say which company, which division? Are you going into marketing now?”