Authors: Claire Adams
Never in a million years.
The light swept in from those familiar,
three, grand windows behind the desk. I oriented myself toward the sunshine,
smiling with as much confidence as I could manage. “Hello, Mr. President,” I
called to him.
Xavier Callway stood up from his desk, a
pen still in his hand. He was alone, which was unexpected. So often, I’d seen
him in the midst of swarms of government employees, of voters. But never by
himself. Alone, he looked different, more striking somehow. I breathed an easy
sigh, unsure of what to say next. I tried to rev my brain, to propel myself
into the interview. I needed to be succinct and professional. I needed to allow
him to understand that I knew what I was doing.
I tapped forward and reached my hand
across the desk, shaking hands firmly—like a man. Something about his grip made
me jump in my skin, but I didn’t allow him to see it. “Thank you for seeing me
today,” I stated, nodding.
The president brought his hands out.
“Well, I certainly want to hear your ideas about the re-election,” he said. His
voice was so powerful, nearly echoing from the grand room.
I tried to keep myself from peering around
me, eyeing everything in the place—the desk before me, the history draped in
every corner. I sat in the chair, bringing my portfolio up to my knees. The
president sat across from me and folded his hands beneath his chin, gazing at
me with dark, penetrating eyes. I felt something stirring in me.
“Well. What are your ideas for the
re-election campaign?” the president finally asked, cutting through the tension
between us.
Straight to the point.
I cleared my throat, realizing I had
forgotten to speak. “I’ve prepared an essential list of the various places
throughout Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois we must visit for the upcoming
re-election. Thinking we’ll prepare speeches about your basis in education
during the upcoming four years, and we’ll need to quell everyone’s belief that
you’re raising taxes.”
“But I plan to raise taxes,” the president
said, a smile creeping over his face.
I tapped my pencil against my chin,
catching myself matching his smile. “It’s not good for a re-election speech,” I
said.
The president brought his fingers together
in front of his face. “You’re the expert,” he laughed.
I continued on, listing out all my
preparations for the following few months. “I know that your last campaign
manager had you hit these states heavy, but they’ve been some of your greatest
supporters throughout your presidency. I say we hit the big cities, but we
don’t mess around with any of the smaller ones.”
“Here in California, Washington, and
Oregon?” he asked me, tracing the states on the map I showed him with a long,
firm finger. I quivered, leaning towards him.
“Yes, those states. What do you think?”
He blinked up at me. “Where is it you’re
from, Miss—“
“Amanda. Amanda Martin,” I finally said,
sort of annoyed with him for not knowing my name, even as we conducted the
interview together.
“Amanda. Miss Martin. My apologies. Where
is it you’re from?”
“I’m from Pennsylvania,” I answered him,
bringing my fingers through my brunette hair. I felt a bit self-conscious in
those moments. I knew I needed to rule the room. But this man—the President of
the United States—wasn’t giving me much room to breathe. “Philadelphia.”
He tipped his head to the right. “I’m from
LA, as you probably know. Would it be possible that we arrange a few speeches
in the greater LA area? I need to make sure I polish my relations with them.
Make sure they don’t feel abandoned.”
“Of course,” I said, bringing my pencil
back to the paper and writing this down. “We’ll have you make appearances
throughout the Mid-West, and then—if you’re for it—I was thinking you could
make a sort of YouTube special with a famous comedian. Something to highlight
the important issues with your education campaign. What are your thoughts?”
Xavier raised his eyebrow. “Sort of for
the younger crowd, huh?”
His masculinity struck me. I swallowed,
feeling this unarticulated sense of emotion, of vibrancy course through me. “I
suppose so.”
“I suppose at forty-four I need to begin
catching up with the younger crowd. I was always the youngest, you know.
Youngest Governor of California. Youngest man in Congress. And now—the youngest
president. But I suppose that doesn’t really illustrate itself to the rest of
the American people.”
“It’s tough keeping up,” I admitted,
trying to joke with him. “I’m already twenty-nine.”
“And already interviewing for the position
to be my personal re-election organizer? Hmm. Please. Tell me why you—and you
alone—fit the role.”
I felt nervous once more, nearly
stuttering into the words. “Well. I was very much involved with your first
election. I worked closely with your manager—Rick Selman—to create the perfect
campaign for you. He will tell you that I contributed many ideas—ideas that
ultimately created a fruitful campaign. In many ways, you wouldn’t be sitting
in that chair without me.” I raised my left eyebrow toward him, creating a
sense of sass that I knew was probably one or two steps over the line.
He brought his hand to his bearded,
handsome face. The first president to have a beard in many years; it had
created quite a frenzy throughout much of the United States. But honestly, it
was stunning.
“You’ve brought up some interesting
points. I think I remember you.” He stood, then. He swung his long, strong legs
out from his body, tapping around to the side of the desk. He leaned on it
easily, gazing down at me. I wasn’t sure what to do; his gaze was so
penetrating.
“I feel very confident in this role,” I
continued then. “You must know that I have the relevant experience, I can speak
to the younger audience, as well as traditional voters. I know how to create a
campaign that will be even better than the one before.”
He nodded toward me. A tension had risen
around us, making me feel so strange. I brought my hand to my ear, bringing my
hair behind it. I averted my eyes toward the desk, where I saw a pleasant photo
of the president and his beautiful, blonde wife. They were gazing at each other
with such passion. I wondered what their actual relationship was like. I knew
that often, during the most previous campaign, the men and women on the
campaign trail with me had mentioned that she was mean, always making sly
remarks about the women on the team. She was jealous, sure. And maybe she
should have been. The women on the campaign team were young and vibrant,
swinging around the soon-to-be president with fine, twenty-year-old asses and
breasts, without a thought of the soon-to-be first lady. Why would anyone think
of her? Why should we care what she thinks of us?
I cleared my throat, trying to slice
through the tension and still create a good interview for myself. “How is the
first lady?” I asked him.
He tipped his head to the right, looking
at me curiously. “She’s wonderful, thank you for asking.” His tone had
switched. Before, it had been almost intimate, talking to me like we’d been
friends for ages. But now: his voice was dominate, presidential. He removed
himself from the side of the desk and collapsed into his chair once more,
picking up his pen. He began making notes on a white piece of paper before him.
He didn’t say anything or glance in my direction.
The silence stretched.
I felt so strange. Was I supposed to leave?
“So. I have a great deal of experience, and working as lead of your next
campaign team would be a supreme pleasure,” I muttered. I stood from my chair,
realizing that he’d lost interest in me. “Have a good afternoon.” I then spun
around, back toward the door that camouflaged itself into the wall.
Still, only the scratches from his pen
were brought back to my ear. I shuddered.
The door opened and I stepped into the
hallway where I found Dimitri holding the doorknob and nodding toward me. I
didn’t’ realize that I was visibly shaking. Dimitri closed the door and placed
his hand on the small of my back. “You okay?” he whispered, jostling his
microphone from his face for a moment.
I nodded, still feeling the waves of panic
as they rushed over me. “Of course,” I whispered. “Now get me the hell out of
here!”
Dimitri laughed and led me back down that
illustrious stairwell, back into the air. I felt unsteady the entire way down
those stairs.
I grasped on his arm in
the free air, looking up at the sky. “That was rough,” I confided him. “I don’t
think I got it.” I hadn’t ever felt that way before—that I’d completely failed
at something. Every word I’d said in the beginning had felt perfectly
orchestrated. I’d felt like I was on track until—until I’d felt something between
us. Something that I couldn’t readily speak about.
“I’m sure it went better than you think,”
Dimitri said, nearly laughing.
But I shook my head vehemently. “No,
Dimitri. No. But thanks for saying so. You’re a good friend.” I said these
words to him and watched as his eyes winced at the word—friend. But I couldn’t
be anything else to him.
“We should get coffee sometime, Amanda,”
he said, then. His words were broad and vague. “As friends, of course.”
I nodded, stepping back from him. I
smiled. I didn’t have many friends, and I think he knew that. “We’re both
married to our work, aren’t we?” I asked him.
“I don’t see how the president can have a
wife; I don’t even have time to watch football,” Dimitri said.
I laughed appreciatively. I reached into
my pocket and grabbed my phone, making a quick call for a taxi. “You’ll be
around?” I asked him as I hung up the phone.
Dimitri nodded. “You know I’m always
around.”
The taxi arrived quickly.
I leaped into the yellow cab and we revved
toward my home in Trinidad. I folded my hands in my lap, still feeling the
shakes coursing through me. I tried to steady my head, to tell myself it was
all going to be fine—it was all going to be fine. I would keep my job with
Carlman; I’d work my way up steadily. So, I didn’t get the job.
So what?
Chapter
3
It was growing dark outside the taxi as we
pulled up to my apartment building. I leafed through my billfold and paid the
driver in cash. “Thank you, beautiful lady,” the man said. Part of me balked at
this. Truth be told, I wasn’t always so proud of my looks. But I thanked the
foreign man anyway. “Have a good night,” he returned.
I sauntered up my steps, feeling the glow
of the moonlight on my back. It was a hazy summer evening, one I knew was best
spent with friends, with lovers. But I didn’t have those people in my life.
Work friends, sure. They’d all been friendly enough over the years, always
inviting me out to events, to the bar. But I never readily agreed to go out
with them, always assuming that my desires, my needs, were far more important
than anything they could create for me: laughs over a drink, inside jokes. I
didn’t need them. I only needed my career, my intelligence—my success.
I reached my apartment and removed my keys
from my coat. I entered the apartment—it had been an upgrade for me a few years
back, this one with much more square feet. I flung my stuff on a chair and
began unbuttoning my shirt one button at a time, gazing around the room. The
wine bottle I’d opened the previous evening was still resting on the counter. I
reached my hand up to grab a wine glass from the top shelf, feeling my bra
tighten against my breasts with the stretch. I poured the glass of wine,
remembering all the long-lost nights of college and post-college, drinking my
red wine by myself in the shadows of my living room.
I took in the first sip of wine slowly,
easily, tasting every morsel of it. I walked toward the chair by the window,
still removing each button from my shirt. I tapped the wine on the table and
removed the rest of my clothes, standing in only my tights and my gray bra,
feeling the warm air emanating from the window. I felt relaxed for the first
time all day.
I peeled off my tights and then collapsed
into the chair, continuing to drink the wine slowly, tapping the remote control
to my side to create tip-tapping jazz music in the background. I allowed my
mind to ease a bit as I sat there, lost in thought. I’d been so consumed with
thoughts of the interview all week, I hadn’t had time to do anything else.
Of course, this wasn’t strange. The past
year and a half, I hadn’t thought about much beyond work. I’d been consumed
with it, truly. Working beneath George Carlman was a continuous struggle. He
wanted the best of everything, of course, and I gave it to him. I stayed up countless
nights making phone calls, assuring his re-election—everything. He trusted me
to do good by him, and goddammit, I did. But at what cost? I already felt like
I was aging far too quickly. And in many ways, I wanted to be old: to have
those wrinkles that George Carlman dripped onto your face, making you look wise
beyond your years. I knew that those wrinkles made you formidable in office.
Of course, because of this continuous
struggle, I’d lost my interest in men, in relationships. I’d had a boyfriend in
college, certainly, but he’d been a passing fad. He’d moved to New York to make
millions on Wall Street—and I didn’t miss him. I knew we were both driven by
our goals. I respected this.