The Hopefuls (30 page)

“I can't make these decisions without you? Why not? I do everything else without you. Do you know how hard it is to care for a baby out of a hotel room? No, you don't, because I do it all.”

“You're her mother,” Jimmy said. “Isn't that your job?”

Ash turned then and walked up the stairs and Beverly followed quickly behind. Jimmy still hadn't acknowledged us—honestly, it was like he didn't see us—and he stood there, shaking his head. Finally, he said softly, “Jesus fucking Christ,” and went up the stairs after them.

I couldn't believe what I'd just seen, the way that Jimmy talked to Ash in front of Beverly. I was also shocked that Ash hadn't told Jimmy about her plans to leave Viv at home. While I knew the two of them weren't exactly communicating in a great way these days, there was no chance it was an accident. She must've known he'd argue, that it would be easier to wait until the last second to deal with it.

We were still standing in the doorway, our bags at our feet, and Matt was looking down at his BlackBerry. I knew he was purposely not meeting my eyes, that he could feel me staring at him but was pretending he didn't notice, and I felt anger rise in my throat. “Matt,” I said, sharply.

“What?” he asked, giving me a blank expression. It might have seemed like it wasn't such a big deal, Matt's refusal to look at me, but it was. We used to be a couple who could have whole conversations without speaking—just one look could've conveyed how we both felt about witnessing this fight, how uncomfortable it would make our trip. And now Matt was ignoring me, finding one more way to shut me out.

“You're ridiculous,” I said, placing my bag by the door and walking out of the room.

“What?” he said, having the gall to sound surprised. “What did I do?”

By the time the four of us got in the car, no one was talking. I never got the full story of how the Viv situation was resolved, but Beverly left with her and we resumed getting ready for the trip. Jimmy loaded our bags as the rest of us did last-minute things, grabbed bottles of water and phone chargers, went to the bathroom one more time.

As we pulled out of the driveway, everyone was silent. Jimmy was driving, Matt sat shotgun, and Ash and I were in the second row. I wished that Viv were there, just so I'd have a reason to sit in the way back, to be as far away from everyone as possible. Ash wasn't mad at me—or at least I didn't think she was—but both of us were ignoring each other; she was looking at her phone and I stared out the window, imagining what would happen if I just jumped out of the car and ran back to the house. Would they even try to stop me? Would anyone be surprised?

We pulled onto the expressway, and I closed my eyes and said a makeshift prayer, asking whoever was listening to please let us make it through this week unscathed; or at least, no worse off than we were now.

It was Jimmy who spoke first, about an hour into the drive, when he asked if anyone was hungry and wanted to stop at Chick-fil-A. “I could eat,” Matt said, and Ash and I echoed him. Jimmy pulled off the expressway and went right to the drive-thru window. Usually, we only ate in the car if we were trying to get somewhere quickly, but I guess he knew we weren't interested in sitting around a table and staring at each other. Jimmy placed the order and pulled up to the pickup window. None of us spoke as we waited. Once we got our order, Matt took charge and handed everyone their food, parceling out fries and milk shakes and chicken sandwiches.

The lunch put everyone in a better mood, like we were cranky toddlers who needed to be fed. Things seemed more normal as we ate—Matt started to go over the schedule with Jimmy, telling him about the potluck we'd be at that night, reminding him who would be there. Ash turned to me and started showing me pictures from Facebook on her phone. Some girl she'd disliked in college had gotten married the weekend before, and Ash was busy judging the wedding. “Do you believe her dress?” she asked, flicking her finger across the screen to show me the pictures, acting like we hadn't just been sitting in silence for the past two hours.

But this moment of peace didn't last: At the potluck in Galveston that night, Ash fawned over a baby and said to the mother, “Mine's at home and I miss her so much I could burst.” Jimmy stood to the side smiling and said, “Then you shouldn't have left her there.” In Austin, I mentioned something about going to the Salt Lick for lunch one day, and Matt said irritably, “This isn't a vacation,” to which I replied, “No kidding.”

All of the events went smoothly, despite the friction between us. There was a subdued air around Jimmy, and while he still smiled and laughed, he was quieter and a little more serious. When he shook people's hands, he'd just say, “Don't forget to vote,” not bothering anymore to talk about turning Texas blue.

Our last stop was San Antonio, and we arrived just a few hours before the event. Ash and Jimmy dropped us off at the hotel and went shopping to get Jimmy a new button-down, since over the course of our trip, he'd spilled barbecue sauce on one shirt and gotten mustard on another at a picnic. “Sweet Lord, Jimmy,” Ash said. “You're worse than Viv.” You could tell she was trying to make a joke out of it, but it came out sounding unfriendly.

Matt went down to the lobby to work, because he couldn't get a good Wi-Fi signal in our room. I was reading, but had the television on mute, which was something I'd started doing after spending so much time alone in hotel rooms. It made me feel less lonely. My brain felt cloudy from not sleeping well all week, and I kept getting to the end of a page only to realize that I had no idea what I'd just read. Finally, I gave up and turned the sound back up on the TV, watching a rerun of
Friends
that I'd seen a hundred times before.

When Matt returned about an hour later, he was carrying a sandwich and a large Coke. “Hey,” he said as he sat down at the little table in our room. I watched him in disbelief as he unwrapped his food and started to eat.

“You got lunch?” I asked. He turned to me while chewing, as if confused by such an obvious question, and nodded. And then I continued, “And you didn't think to ask if I wanted anything?”

He swallowed, and a guilty look flashed across his face. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn't think about it.”

Maybe it's ridiculous how much this upset me, considering all of the other fights we'd had, but immediately I felt tears come to my eyes. This situation perfectly summed up what was happening with me and Matt—how rarely he thought about me, how little I mattered.

“You didn't think of it?” I asked. “You knew I was in the hotel room, knew that I hadn't eaten lunch, and it didn't even cross your mind to send me a text and see if I wanted anything?”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I can run and get you a sandwich. It's right across the street.”

“That's not the point.”

“Then what is the point?”

“It's just—” My voice caught here and I took a deep breath to keep from crying. “It's like you don't even think about me anymore. It's thoughtless. It's worse than if you did it on purpose.”

“Beth, come on. It's not a big deal. It just slipped my mind. Don't you think you're overreacting?”

“No,” I said. “I don't.” I did start crying then, hard, and while Matt didn't get up and try to comfort me, he did at least stop eating his sandwich.

The event that night was a small cocktail party in the home of one of Jimmy's supporters. It was a nice get-together, and I got some good pictures of Jimmy chatting with the guests, looking handsome and put together in his new shirt. At the end, he gave a short speech, thanked everyone for coming, and reminded them to vote. “Not that you would forget,” he said, laughing. “I think this crowd knows how important it is. But let's spread the word, let's get people out there.”

Everyone clapped in a polite and respectful way, and I could see the effort in Jimmy's smile, saw his shoulders collapse when a well-meaning guest said, “You gave it a great run. You should be proud of that,” like he'd already lost.

Matt had apologized to me several times that afternoon, and finally I'd just told him it was okay, because he really did look sorry and it wasn't like we were going to solve anything by arguing that night. We still needed to get through the next week.

Jimmy looked relieved when we got in the car, happy that he didn't have to talk to strangers anymore. He sighed and loosened his tie, looked like he could breathe easier as we drove away. “Should we get dinner?” he asked. “We can go to the Applebee's connected to our hotel. You know, really treat ourselves.”

“I think you secretly love Applebee's,” I said, and then Matt must have been in a generous mood because he laughed and said, “You are always pushing it on us.”

“America's best kept secret,” Jimmy said, grinning. “Let's do it.”

As the four of us sat and had dinner at Applebee's, something surprising happened—we were pleasant to each other, almost kind. “Do you believe this is our last trip?” Matt asked, and Jimmy clapped him on the back. “It's been a good ride,” he said. We must have all been feeling nostalgic (and had just enough to drink) because we started talking about the funniest moments from the campaign. Ash talked about the trip when Viv got the stomach flu, threw up on her so many times that she was forced to stop at Target to buy new clothes.

“It wasn't that bad,” Jimmy said, laughing. “I mean, you got new clothes out of it, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “All from Target. I also got a sweatshirt at Ross.” And this sent us into another fit of laughter, the idea of Ash in a discount clothing store too funny to even imagine.

I could see then how we'd remember the campaign in years to come, how we'd airbrush out all the shitty parts, the nasty things we said to each other, the rifts that were formed. You can imagine anything to be fun in retrospect—look at all those people who long for high school.

When the waitress came to take our plates away, Jimmy suggested we go sit at the bar for one more drink, and we agreed. Ash and I ran up to our rooms to get sweaters, because we were chilled from the air-conditioning blasting in the restaurant. We couldn't have been gone more than five minutes—Matt and Jimmy hadn't even left our table yet to go to the bar—but I knew as soon as we walked back in that things had turned.

Matt's back was rigid and his hands were in fists on the table. He and Jimmy weren't yelling—they weren't even talking—but it was clear that something had pissed him off. I knew Ash noticed the same thing, because both of us walked slowly to the table, knowing the fun was gone from the night. We should've left then, just turned and walked right back out of the restaurant. But instead we both sat down, glanced at each other, and waited.

For as long as we'd known him, Jimmy had always called women (even strangers) by generic nicknames—honey, sweetheart, babe, kiddo. When he first decided to run, Matt suggested that he stop this, told him it could come off sleazy to call a supporter darling. But Jimmy refused. “I'm from Texas,” he said. “That's how we talk.” It was just one of the many things they'd disagreed about. That night, as I sat down, I saw something flash in Jimmy's eyes, and he greeted me by saying, “Hey babe.” I knew immediately that he was only doing it to piss off Matt, that it was his own little way of saying, “Fuck off.”

Matt looked down at his drink and closed his eyes, like he was too mad to even look at anyone. “Can I ask you something?” he finally said to Jimmy. “Why do you bother hiring people to give you advice if you're just going to ignore it?”

“I don't ignore it all the time,” Jimmy said. He leaned back and tipped his glass up, let the ice fall in his mouth, took his time crunching it between his back teeth. “I only ignore it when it's shit advice.”

“Fuck you,” Matt said. He stood up, pushing his chair back, making it screech along the floor. There were only a few other people in the Applebee's, but they were all staring at us. Matt considered saying something more and then changed his mind and walked out, not looking back at me once. If he had, if he'd even glanced at me, I would've scrambled after him, talked to him about what a jackass Jimmy was being. But this was one more way he was going to ignore me, one more time he'd shut me out, and as I watched him walk away, I felt my chest burn with anger.

Jimmy turned to look at me and Ash then, shrugged his shoulders as if to say, What can you do? Ash pushed her chair back the same way Matt had just done and stood up and leaned close to Jimmy. “When are you going to realize you're acting like a world class a-hole?”

“An a-hole?” Jimmy smirked at her. “Watch your language! Someone here might hear you.”

And then Ash turned and walked out of the restaurant, leaving me and Jimmy alone at the table. What were the people around us thinking? We were at an Applebee's in Texas that I'd (God willing) never go to again, and still I was humiliated at the scene we'd caused.

“What the fuck was that?” Jimmy asked, laughing loudly, and it was only then that I noticed how drunk he was. He'd been drinking faster than the rest of us at dinner, ordering whiskey on the rocks, but until that moment I hadn't really noticed. His movements were slow and his voice was thick and he didn't seem particularly upset about getting yelled at by Matt and Ash. He turned to me, calmly. “So, should we go to the bar?”

“Sure,” I said. I wasn't in any hurry to get back to Matt, and it wasn't like he was going to notice or care.

“Might as well, right? Since those two couldn't handle it.”

The bar was at the front of the restaurant, and except for one very large man at the other end, we were the only ones there. Jimmy motioned to the bartender and ordered another whiskey, and I got a vodka soda. His arm brushed up against mine and the feeling of skin on skin gave me goose bumps. “Cold?” he asked, looking down, and I nodded and finally pulled on the sweater that I'd gotten from the room.