The Washingtonienne (13 page)
T
he next morning, I woke up with puke in my hair. But at least I was in my own bed.
I couldn’t remember anything about last night, except that I had dropped my cell phone in a toilet. A men’s room toilet. It was on my nightstand, right next to my hairbrush. Disgusting.
It was 9:15 in the morning. I was already late, but there was still time to get myself together and put in an appearance at work.
Eighty percent of success is showing up
.
I SAT AT MY DESK AND
shuffled papers around, trying to look busy and important. After getting dissed yesterday, I was determined to get promoted to LC by the end of the year. Obviously, I was meant for bigger and better things than sorting the mail.
I looked at the pile of mail on my desk and resolved to put all of my energy into my job. Starting tomorrow.
Suddenly, Janet burst into the room, shouting, “I need someone to take a meeting!”
I was the only one sitting in the Locker Room, since all of my officemates were at the four-hour fire extinguisher training course today.
“Jacqueline, you’re not busy, are you?” she asked.
I supposed this was an opportunity to prove that I could do more than just open letters and look cute, so I agreed to take the meeting.
“Great! Just act like you agree with everything they say and you’ll be fine,” she told me. “Oh, and don’t tell them you’re a staff assistant! Tell them you’re a legislative assistant or something, so they’ll think that you’re important.”
“Who am I meeting with?” I asked.
“The Right-to-Life Educational Committee from the Catholic Diocese. Thanks so much for doing this! They’re waiting in the front office.”
Fuck.
Social issues usually don’t affect me either way (which is probably why I’m a Republican), but the abortion thing . . .
What can I say? I needed one. Twice.
The first was during my “when-I-was-young-and-crazy-and-lived-in-New-York” phase. I was high or drunk most of the time, I didn’t always use condoms, and I was always forgetting to take my Pill. Yes, I was fucking irresponsible (literally), and I wasn’t exactly sure how long I had been pregnant because I had stopped menstruating during the months previous. I thought that all of the drugs and nonstop dancing had transformed my body into some sort of hyperthin, toxic fucking machine that could no longer carry on reproductive functions. Like I said, I was high or drunk most of the time, which also meant that I had probably done a lot of damage to the fetus. Obviously, I was not fit for motherhood.
The second one was under very different circumstances, when I was still with Mike. (And I was monogamous back then, so I can be certain that it was his, fuck you very much.)
We went on vacation and I forgot to pack my birth control. We got drunk on frozen drinks and I got pregnant. And that’s when he proposed, but he didn’t really want
me,
he wanted a family. So I pulled a Kay Corleone and told Mike that I had miscarried.
People like me just shouldn’t have children. (We probably shouldn’t be allowed to date, either.) If not for the freedom of choice, I would be raising a child somewhere, and how scary is that? A woman’s right to choose is a right I hold as dearly as a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.
Plus, I had no experience taking meetings with lobbyists, especially with nuns. I wasn’t sure how to start.
“So . . . you guys are pro-life?” I asked.
“Why, yes, aren’t you, dear?” one of them asked.
Should I represent the senator’s office as a fraud or a baby murderer? If I wanted to keep my job, I would have to lie. I would have to lie to a nun.
Wasn’t
everyone
in politics a goddamn fucking liar anyway? Perhaps this was my niche. I told lies all the time. Hell, I was
good
at it, a real bullshit artist. But part of me really wanted to tell these nuns to shove it. What did they know about abortions? Nuns didn’t even fuck.
Marcus, a senior aide in my office, broke into the meeting.
“I’ll take over from here,” he said, much to my relief.
“Thank you!” I whispered as I gave him my seat at the table.
He smiled as he shooed me away.
Nice guy,
I thought.
Too bad he’s gay.
I wondered if Marcus was “out” at work, or one of those right-wing closet cases. Not that it was any of my business. We all had our secrets, didn’t we?
I went back to my desk, pissed that my office had put me in such a compromising situation. Wasn’t it bad enough that I had all these abortions? Now I had to
lie
about it, too? I guess they just assumed that I wasn’t the “abortion type.”
I TOOK ALL OF THE
antiabortion letters on my desk and put them in the garbage and began flipping through our office’s copy of
Hustler
magazine. (Every office had a complimentary subscription.) I usually gave it to one of the Locker Room pervs, but only when I was done looking at it first.
A few minutes later, the door swung open and Janet walked in. She almost never came into the Locker Room unless it was to yell at somebody. I quickly threw the magazine into my desk drawer.
“Jacqueline, did you meet Marcus today?” she asked.
“He took the meeting with the nuns,” I told her. “Am I in trouble?”
“No,” she laughed. “He thinks you’re hot!”
“Marcus is
straight
?” I asked without thinking.
The guys in my office, who overheard this embarrassing exchange, pealed into laughter.
“Many people have asked that question,” Janet said, “myself included. But, yes, Marcus is straight and he thinks you’re hot.”
I glanced at my officemates, tittering to themselves at their desks.
“So this is what we’re going to do,” she continued, “after work today, the three of us are going to get a drink together. Does that sound good?”
“Sure, I’ll go,” I replied without hesitation.
I knew exactly what I was doing: gaining favor with Janet by entertaining her interest in playing matchmaker. Marcus didn’t really seem like my type; neither had Dan when I first met him, but I was an open-minded girl. Maybe we would hit it off.
“Great!” she said. “I’ll go tell him.”
Everyone in the Locker Room burst out laughing as soon as Janet was gone.
“Don’t you think that was weird?” one of my officemates asked me. “I can’t believe she did that!”
“We’re just getting a drink,” I said casually, but I was aware that this seemed like a case of office politics gone bad.
“I think it’s weird,” he repeated, “but I want to hear all about it first thing tomorrow!”
At six o’clock, the three of us walked down the Hill to Union Station, where Janet was catching a train home in half an hour.
Janet and I ordered martinis, and Marcus ordered club soda.
“Marcus doesn’t drink,” Janet told me.
“Really? I don’t know if this is going to work,” I said half-joking.
“I was in rehab for three years,” he told me.
“Three years?
For what?”
I was fascinated by this.
“I’m just kidding,” he said, laughing nervously.
Damn.
So he was just another boring Senate staffer. The rehab thing made him so much more interesting.
“Why don’t you drink?” I asked.
Perhaps it was a rude question, but I wanted to know.
“Alcohol isn’t good for you,” was his answer.
“Yeah, but it makes you
feel
good,” I argued.
Janet wanted to change the subject.
“So, Jacqueline, where are you from?” she asked.
“I just moved here from New York a few months ago,” I told them.
“Marcus is from New York!”
“Really? What part?” I asked. “I lived in Gramercy Park. Morningside Heights before that.”
“Williamsburg,” he told me.
“I shared an apartment on Bedford and North 7th one summer!” I told him.
So we had the Williamsburg thing in common. We were both pro-gentrification!
Pleased that Marcus and I had all that New York stuff to talk about, Janet left us to catch her train.
FIVE COCKTAILS
(
ALL ME
) and four club sodas later, Marcus was walking me to my door. He didn’t try to force himself inside my apartment like every other guy I had ever dated, nor did he ask if he could come in to use my bathroom. We worked together, so Marcus wanted to be careful with me. But I was too drunk to give a damn.
“Come in and see my apartment,” I said, holding the door open for him.
He didn’t hesitate once I had invited him inside.
“It’s nice,” he said, looking around, “but you need to get some furniture.”
“I have some in my room. Do you want to see it?” I asked, beckoning him down the hall.
There was nowhere to sit, except for on the bed. (A decorating concept inspired by Dan’s apartment.) I turned on my new television and flipped through the channels, looking for something appropriate to watch. Something that might showcase my good taste in television, but nothing too suggestive or anything that might distract us during a makeout session. I settled on a
Law & Order
rerun, for lack of anything better.
He seemed nervous, and I still wasn’t convinced that he wasn’t homosexual. I pounced on him, straddling his lap area.
Oh, he was straight.
I wondered if he would do the smart, sober thing and tell me to stop. I was drunk, so I had an excuse for my impetuous behavior. (That’s why I drank so much in the first place.) But if Marcus wanted a boring girl, then I wasn’t for him.
“You’re trouble,” he said. “I can tell.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I just have a bad feeling about you. You’re trouble,” he repeated.
“No, I’m not! I’m a nice girl.”
“You’re such a liar,” he said, slapping my ass.
I giggled hysterically, so he started doing it really hard so it hurt. He rolled over so I could get him back, and I began waling on him mercilessly until he begged me to stop.
I leaned in to kiss him and he stopped me.
“Did I give you permission to kiss me?” he asked, spanking me superhard.
I was stunned. This wasn’t your usual boring office fuck. This was far more intimate than regular sex: This was like blackmail material, and I loved it.
He left my apartment around one in the morning, leaving me to wonder why he didn’t leave earlier, while he still had the chance.
“H
ow was your date with Marcus?” everyone in the Locker Room wanted to know.
I wasn’t sure why I felt compelled to tell them, but everything that happened in the Locker Room stayed in the Locker Room, right?
If I had heard that two of my coworkers were spanking each other, I would have filed it under TMI—too much information—and left it at that. Not that I wouldn’t have found it
interesting,
I just didn’t believe in giving anyone free publicity.
I guess I gave my colleagues too much credit, because it was a staffwide joke by the end of the day.
People on the Hill were the biggest gossips I had ever encountered: It was junior high with BlackBerries and Instant Messenger. I learned my lesson that day: Do not talk about your sex life at work. (Unless you want to become extremely popular.)
Writing
about my sex life was much more fun anyway, especially now that I had a new character—I mean,
person
—to write about in my blog.
I had just finished writing my first post of the day when Janet stopped by the Locker Room to speak with me.
“How did it go with Marcus after I left?” she asked.
I had a feeling that she had probably heard the spanking rumors.
“Good,” I replied. “I really like him.”
“Do you?” she asked. “Because if you
do
start dating him, you should know that when it comes to his personal life, Marcus is very discreet.”
I nodded. This was obviously a warning to keep quiet from now on.
“And just so you know,” Janet added, “the next time we have an opening for an LC position, I will certainly consider you.”
This sounded promising: Instead of working harder, maybe I could sleep my way to the top.
“So would you go out with him again if he asked you?” Janet wanted to know.
“Of course!” I replied, and Janet went back to her desk.
About ten minutes later, Marcus sent me an e-mail, asking me out to dinner after work next week. Obviously, Janet had told him that I was receptive to a second date.
“OOH, HE LIKES YOU!”
April said over lunch in the cafeteria that day. “And you like him, too, I can tell!”
“I do not!” I said, blushing. “He is
so
not my type! I mean, I thought he was
gay,
April.”
“Why? Because he’s good-looking? Because he’s well-dressed? I’m surprised that you would be so prejudiced.”
“I don’t know. There’s just something strange about him. Maybe he’s bi.”
“Oh, stop it, Jackie. Marcus likes women. He obviously likes
you,
at least.”
“Yeah, because I’m
hot,
” I chortled. “Sort of shallow, don’t you think?”
April shrugged.
“No more so than anyone else we know,” she replied. “Why are you being so judgmental anyway? There’s nothing wrong with liking someone, Jackie.”
I wasn’t so sure if this was true.
“Yeah, but I don’t
want
to like anyone,” I admitted. “Marcus doesn’t even drink, April. What am I supposed to do with him?”
“He wasn’t drunk last night?” she asked.
“No,” I replied, “he was totally sober.”
“Wow,” April said, “I thought people only did freaky stuff like that when they were buzzed.”
“Yeah, me too,” I agreed. “I wouldn’t do half of the stuff that I do if I wasn’t drinking.”
“He must really like you.”
“Oh, please! He was horny and I was drunk—end of story!”
“What if you guys got married? Do you think your senator would come to your wedding?”
“I’ve only known the guy for, like, five minutes, April! And what makes you think I would marry a guy like Marcus? Just because we both like spanking? Oh, that’s another thing: He’ll probably stop talking to me when he finds out about the rumor I started in the office.”
“Yeah, that was a big mistake,” April agreed. “I don’t understand why you told anyone about that in the first place. Were you
trying
to start trouble or what?”
“Maybe I was,” I admitted. “You know what he said to me last night? He said that he
knew
I was trouble, that he had a bad feeling about me.”
“Maybe he’s psychic,” April surmised, “or maybe he loves drama just as much as you do.”
“But I’m no femme fatale, I’m just the mailgirl! It’s not like I can do anything to him except misplace his copy of
Roll Call
if I get pissed off at him.”
“You could start an office sex scandal!” April reminded me. “Maybe that was just your passive-aggressive, messed-up way of sticking up for yourself.”
“I guess that’s what’s bothering me about this whole thing. I feel like Janet was pimping me out and there was nothing I could do about it. But now I might actually like Marcus, so now I have nothing to complain about!”
“All’s well that ends well, right?” April asked. “You’ll probably have to make her a bridesmaid when you get married, though.”
“I’m not sure if Marcus makes enough money for me. I mean, he works
here,
after all. No offense,” I said re April’s boyfriend Tom.
“None taken. Maybe Marcus comes from a wealthy family like Tom does,” she boasted. “Tom’s father is a major contributor to the senator’s campaign.”
That explained how Tom got such a big job in his senator’s office, and why April hung on to him all this time: He was the son of a rich campaign donor. In Washington, that practically made him
royalty.
IF YOU HAD TO GET
married, you should marry well, or else why bother? I thought Phillip was my most pragmatic choice for marriage at the time: He had the big house, the big dick, and millions of dollars. Why wasn’t I all over it? It’s not as if I could do any better than him. I mean, Phillip had it all.
That night, he was taking me to a fund-raiser. Since I was going as his date, no one had to know I was broke: When you were on the arm of a wealthy man,
you
looked like money.
But what to wear? I called up Laura for advice. Her new job took her to a lot of these Georgetown dinner thingies.
“Phillip is taking
you
?” she asked incredulously. “No offense, but people are supposed to take their
wives
to these things, not their young hottie girlfriends.”
“That’s bullshit,” I argued. “I see older men with younger girls all the time!”
“Oh yeah? Where?”
“In New York.”
“New York is different. People in Washington don’t like gold diggers.”
“Not true! What about all of those hookers at Café Milano?”
“Whatever, Jackie. You’re going to a dinner at some rich old biddy’s house. Just try to dress conservatively.”
I put on my pearls and a black Diane von Furstenberg dress: a totally normal outfit, perfect for any occasion.
But I felt self-conscious standing next to Phillip in that room full of old people. I didn’t like the way that people looked at us, passing silent judgment on our relationship.
“Would you mind if I leave you alone here for a few minutes?” Phillip asked me. “I saw someone that I need to talk to on the other side of the room.”
Perhaps he felt as uncomfortable as I did, so I let him go. The bartender felt sorry for me, the stranded girl who was too young for this party. He kept my glass full, and I kept on drinking out of boredom.
I eventually gave up the patient girlfriend act and marched across the room to claim my date. I found him chatting up some drunk woman who looked like a goblin up close. She had a beak of a nose, funny lips, and bad skin. The thick layer of makeup she was wearing did nothing to cover the horrible craters all over her cheeks.
She was laughing at something Phillip had just said, putting her veiny hand on his shoulder.
Who was this monstrosity? And why did she look so familiar?
I stood next to Phillip, waiting to be noticed.
“It’s my beautiful Jacqueline!” Phillip exclaimed, brushing the woman’s hand away. “What are you doing over here?”
“I was looking for the powder room,” I lied, smiling adorably. “Won’t you introduce me to your friend?”
It turned out that this woman with a face for radio was actually a network news correspondent on
television:
Hollywood for the Ugly personified.
“Charmed,” I said, offering my hand so that she could kiss it.
“Isn’t she something?” Phillip chuckled. “Darling, let’s do lunch sometime,” he said to the woman as he pulled me into an adjoining room.
I assumed that he would scold me for “embarrassing” him or whatever, but instead, he kissed and groped me against the wall.
There were framed photos hanging next to my head, and the same man appeared in all of them. In one, he was fishing with the president. In another, he was golfing with the secretary of state. Whose house was this? Whosever it was, he had the ultimate Me Wall.
“Phillip! Are we supposed to be in here?” I asked.
He picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.
“Let’s fuck on this guy’s couch,” he said, carrying me across the room.
“What if we get caught?” I fretted. “Every VIP in Washington is in the very next room! Wouldn’t that be bad for your reputation?”
“That would be
good
for my reputation, actually. You know, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
We left the party drunk and giddy, skipping out on the dinner in favor of more drinking at the aforementioned Café Milano. When I saw all the gold diggers catching Phillip’s eye in their revealing cocktail dresses, I wished that I had worn something sexier after all.
“How did you like the party?” he asked.
“You call that a party? I can’t believe you thought I would have fun with all those old—” I stopped myself, realizing that I was referring to Phillip’s own peer group. “Except for those last fifteen minutes on the couch, I just had an awful time.”
“I probably shouldn’t have taken you there,” he admitted, “but don’t worry, we’ll have a great time in South Beach.”
Since I wasn’t going home for Easter this year, I had agreed to go away with Phillip for the weekend. Going on vacation with a stranger was always a risk, but it was impossible to have a bad time in Miami. At the very least, I could get a cheap thrill from going topless, and a gorgeous tan while I was at it.
“So how do you know that creepy woman you were talking to?” I asked as our drinks arrived.
“Ugh, she’s a horror show, isn’t she? I see her at parties all the time. She’s hot for me,” he chuckled.
“Have you ever . . . ?”
“Noo! Do you know who she’s married to?”
“Let’s not order any food,” I said, changing the subject. “Let’s get the check and go back to your place.”
No one really came to Café Milano for the food anyway. It was the place to see and be seen, “the cafeteria” for people who lived in Georgetown.
An aging brunette in a cleavage-baring dress stopped us as we made our way toward the exit.
“Is this the new one?” she asked Phillip, looking me up and down.
“Hello, Penelope,” he replied, hustling me away from her.
We rushed out of the restaurant and went back to his house a few blocks away.
“Who was that woman?” I asked when we got outside.
Phillip told me the story of how she got pregnant on purpose, how she never really loved him, how he married her to do the right thing, how she got the big estate in Virginia, how she sold the estate for ten million dollars, how she still gets ten grand a month in alimony, how she got rich off of his life’s hard work.
“I married a whore,” he admitted. “She’s the mother of my sons, but goddamn it, she’s a whore. And did you see what she was wearing? What a slut!”
I wasn’t sure what to say in response to that. Obviously, I didn’t know enough about the situation to comment. I mean, Phillip had
children
?
I was small-time compared to a woman like Penelope, but what was the real difference between us? Why hadn’t I been married and divorced yet?
Ah, yes: I had an abortion and she didn’t.
So we went upstairs and fucked as if nothing had happened. It was the only thing we could do to make ourselves feel better. Phillip knew that he had nothing to worry about with me. After all, what he liked me to do, I couldn’t get pregnant from.
