Domestic Affairs (32 page)

Jacob glanced over Yanni's shoulder as the governor followed Olivia out of the hold room. He couldn't help but grin. The governor looked happy. It had been genius of Jacob to hire Olivia for the campaign.
Genius
. She threw him a thumbs-up, which he knew meant his calls got made. The governor was reaching out to the donors he needed to, endorsements were rolling in, and the fundraising goal that had seemed so outrageous four months ago had been surpassed. Senator Kramer was now their only real challenge and his numbers had been steadily dropping due to his botched appearance on
Meet the Press
. Kramer had made an analogy that did not go over well with the viewers and it had gone viral in minutes. Jacob had even heard from a friend that Kramer would file with only five hundred thousand. It was perfect, and Jacob, though still young, was seasoned enough to feel it.

Campaigns, with all their chaos and ambiguity, were strangely black and white in one way; they either had the magic or they didn't. Like someone in a bad relationship, staffers could convince themselves that it would change, that they could change it, but the truth, Jacob
surmised, was that the breaks either went your way, or broke you. It wasn't a luck thing, it was the right candidate surrounded by the right people at the right time. He had been on both types of campaigns.

He thought back to the congressional run he'd worked on years back. No one thought his candidate, a Democrat running in a Republican district with no experience and no name recognition, had a shot in hell. There was a feeling, though, in that campaign office, a feeling of humble invincibility. They couldn't
not
win it. Sure enough, they got every break they could, ending with their opponent getting caught drinking at a college keg party. Other campaigns just didn't have the winning edge, and no matter how much you tried or pretended, you wound up with that looming feeling of impending loss. Jacob stood in the middle of the ballroom feeling almost suspended in time, sure that this was a good-feeling campaign. He inhaled such a breath of self-satisfaction that he reached to email Sophie. Things with her might be good. She had even agreed to come stay with him at the hotel.

[email protected]
:
It's all falling into place.

He felt more confident writing the words than he was when he thought them. He skimmed through the rest of the twenty-two emails that had come in since he last checked. Sophie wrote right back.

[email protected]
:
Really? What happened?

He could almost hear her innocence in the words and felt bad that his reaction to the questions was almost annoyance that he would have to explain himself. He started to type an answer back, trying to put into words the feeling of being in that room and of knowing they would win.
Today we
was all he got out before Alek tugged on his arm.

“Jay-cohbe!” he bellowed.

Jacob felt a pang of guilty relief at the opportunity to procrastinate instead of trying to tell a layperson how important surpassing fundraising goals was. He knew it wasn't fair to not write her back immediately, but he wanted to be able to talk about the filing with someone who just got it, even Alek.

Alek pulled Jacob toward the bar and a beautiful young Russian woman, Marina, who looked entirely out of place. She wore a tight bright blue dress and sipped on a pink drink. Jacob looked at it, hoping Olivia had not ordered an open bar. They talked for ten minutes while
Jacob stood nodding his head in affirmation, pretending to understand what they were saying in their heavy accents. He glanced down periodically as new emails filled his inbox. The unfinished email to Sophie sat in draft mode offscreen. He might have remembered to finish it deep down, but that thought was covered up with the fear of accepting that she didn't understand his life.

“Thesse people,” Alek was saying to Marina, “they are my fahmlee.”

“You're our family, Alek.” He grinned as Alek began telling the story about meeting Stephen Colbert with the governor at a NASCAR race, a story everyone on the campaign knew by heart. Jacob looked to his side and caught sight of Olivia across the room. She was emphatically explaining something to the catering manager of the Sheraton, pointing to one of the bars as if it were on fire. He smirked, watching her start out speaking at a hushed yell and then, as donors passed, instantly transforming her furrowed brows into a perfectly joyous smile.

All campaign staff had been schooled in that loss of natural reaction, forcing responses as they were needed, and he wondered if he looked as stupid from afar when he was doing it. He was in the middle of reminding himself to make fun of her for it when she caught his glance and looked over at him sympathetically, knowing he was about to be stuck, as all people got, with Alek. She winked at Jacob while excusing herself from the catering manager and headed toward the bar.

“Hey, Alek. Hey, Marina.” She gave arm squeezes to both of them. “Hey, Jacob. I am so sorry to interrupt.”
Brilliant! Not making fun of her for anything now!
Jacob started to move to her, ready to bolt for whatever emergency she “needed” him for.

“But, Alek,” she said, “the governor wanted me to introduce Yanni to you. He told Yanni no one joins this campaign without meeting his oldest friend in the game!”

Spectacular.
Jacob graciously bid them good-bye, thrilled to be out of the conversation without having to give up his place leaning across the bar. As Olivia pushed Alek away, she turned back to Jacob, who bowed his head and hands in a manner befitting a royal.
Thank you
, he mouthed. She smiled and led them off.

As the room started to clear, Olivia shook hands as if she were on her own receiving line. She scanned the thinning crowd with more intent than usual, keeping an eye always on Taylor. In the brief moments she got between conversations she would remember his words.
He loves the way I look at him.
She fidgeted with her white bra strap, wishing she had worn something less plain. Jacob came up behind her while she was saying good-bye to Yanni.

“Alek just agreed to put twenty-five million in my hedge fund. You are officially my golden child.” Yanni gave her a huge hug.

Jacob leaned into Olivia as Yanni walked away. “What was that about?”

“Oh, I am so out!” Olivia pursed her lips and nodded with a feigned severity. “Did you know there was a place where you could fundraise and people would stand a chance of getting their money back? And possibly make money? That has to be an easier sell.”

Jacob put on his best Godfather voice and said, “But I've always taken care of you, Fredo.”

Olivia laughed.

“The good news,” he continued, “is not only do we pay you incredibly well, but there are huge perks!” He pulled out a hotel room key.

“You wish!” She laughed out loud.

“
You
wish!” he yelled, and slapped her on the back, laughing and caught off guard at her joke, which he was more prone to have made than she.

“I have a much nicer suite,” he said, pulling out his own key and remembering that he'd never finished that email, “which I am hoping I can convince Sophie to join me in. But the hotel comped us two extra suites. I was thinking some of the out-of-towners might need them, but they're all set, so one's yours.”

“Wow, that is so much better than making millions raising money for funds.” Olivia happily grabbed the key from him. It could not possibly be this easy. This perfect. She hadn't even thought through how she would meet up with the governor, but now it would
be easy.
The governor. Landon. That kiss.
This night was getting better by the moment.

“Oh, please. I know you love the opportunity to stock up on hotel soap!”

Olivia hung her head and looked at him with a sarcastic glare. “You don't know me!”

Jacob snickered. “Okay, I'm gonna pull the gov out. You good closing down?”

“Yup, perfect.”
Perfect for you to take the governor to his room so I can go meet him there! I'm going to meet the governor. I'm not really.
She went back and forth in her head like she was twisting a Rubik's Cube. Could she really meet him after? It wouldn't be an accident. This time it would be premeditated.

Olivia looked around the room, having lost sight of the governor. She tried to watch Jacob as he walked away, but she was pulled into conversations and good-byes.
Maybe he came to his senses
, she thought, glancing down, hopeful the red blinking light of a new message would spark.

As she pushed out the last two people, young hedge fund brothers who, as always, had consumed too much alcohol, she stared around the empty room. It was quiet but for the clacking of glasses being cleared by the catering staff.
Who picks hotel ballroom carpeting? And why?
Her thoughts were completely useless questions, which she admittedly spent more time thinking about than anyone ever should. Nevertheless, every time she stood in a hotel event space before or after an event her mind was boggled. This one was a dark brown with blue, red, and purple circles.

She went over to a white-clothed corner table the staff had not yet gotten to and pushed the napkins and empty glasses to one side. She plugged in her BlackBerry, which had been beeping with a red low-battery sign for a while now. As she looked down, she realized the signal had switched off because of the battery. As the battery juiced up, the messages started to roll in. Twenty-six new messages. The red messages scrolled in at the top. Six to be exact, the first three with his room number and the last three asking where she was. She couldn't help but smile,
flattered. She typed back quickly:
Sorry, battery died while closing down event. Still awake?
She sent it with the bated breath of someone making a lottery pick. A response came in record time.

I'm up. Come here.

Okay
, she typed, and hurried toward the door of the ballroom, stopping quickly to thank the catering managers, Ed and Karen.

“You guys are the best!”

“Anytime.” Ed shook her hand. “Can we get you a drink or anything?”

“I'm good, thank you.” As the words came out of her mouth, she noted how much help a drink would probably be at this exact moment, but she didn't want to take the time.

Outside his door the thought doubled and tripled in her mind.
What am I doing? I'm not really going to do this. I can't. He can't. But then, how can I not? And maybe Jacob was right. Maybe Aubrey is having an affair. So why shouldn't he?
She heard her mother's voice:
“Two wrongs don't make a right.” But I'm not having an affair. It's just a kiss.
She double-checked his pin message to make sure she had the right room.
What if I knock on the wrong door? What if someone is in there with him? What if Jacob is in there?
She shuffled through her bag to pull out papers just in case she needed an excuse for being at the governor's door at this late hour, while trying to push the thought of Jacob out of her mind.

She stood staring at the brass numbers on the white door and tried, almost physically, not to ask the questions she didn't want to answer. She shifted her bag to one hand and then back to the other. She bit her lip and curled her fingers into a fist. Knocking on this door was a bad move on so many levels. There was definitely a Campaign Lesson here that she was forgetting.

She shook her head a bit, trying to get the thoughts out. It was too much to consider, too much to think about.
I want this
, she told herself in an almost pleading cry from her heart to her head. She gripped the lists and knocked her fist against the door. When it opened, he stood alone in the doorway—head cocked, the corners of his mouth slowly turning up. Her grip on the papers tightened, crinkling them. Bruce Springsteen's “Thunder Road” played quietly in the background.

“Hello, there,” he said in the sweetest Southern accent she had heard yet.

Her knees buckled like she had always heard knees could buckle, and all the problems outside the door disappeared in the fog-machine effect of his eyes.
His smile.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her gently inside, closing the door behind her. The room was all windows, and the glow of neon through the dark lit up the room.

“I've wanted to do this for so long.” He pulled her close and kissed her. There was more power to his kiss than before. She stood almost stationary, arms hanging awkwardly by her sides, her left hand gripping the lists even tighter.

He must have heard the sound of the pages rustling against her skirt. “Um, was there work you needed to do?” He reached down and took the lists slowly from her.

“No.” She laughed at her own gawkiness. “I just—They're nothing.” She pulled them back from him and stuffed them in her bag, embarrassed to have even thought through an excuse.
That's the part I thought through here?
she thought, mocking herself, while turning her face back up to kiss him.