Authors: Emma McLaughlin
The Democratic Convention was in Boston that year, which was experiencing an unexpected heat wave. From their box Lindsay, the twins, and Tom’s parents, all of them dressed in the same royal blue as Tom’s tie, waved to the cameras with glowing smiles. I watched with pride as Tom finally introduced the world to the vision I’d heard in that South Beach ballroom. When he was done the building shook with cheers for four solid minutes. Standing backstage with the rest of the team, I couldn’t help cry.
I was sending Billy a picture of my view of the crowd when my phone buzzed with a text.
“Are you here?”
I stared at the number I’d never let myself add to my contacts.
“Here, where?”
I typed.
“Earth. Boston. Convention Center.”
I didn’t think I had any adrenaline left after the last few months, but I was wrong.
“Backstage.”
I wrote him.
“I believe you owe me a dinner.”
I smiled despite myself.
“Who is this?”
“Meet me by the fountain across from the entrance.”
I bit my lip.
“If you can get away.”
My phone buzzed once more
. “And also, please.”
Tom was done for the night and when I told Lindsay Pax was in the vicinity she shooed me out, saying that all she could think about was getting herself and the kids into bed. I smoothed the red dress from her that I’d had altered, and dug in my purse for lip-gloss. Outside the air was heavy, forcing me to slow as I cleared the vendors and news trailers.
I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would he be bitter and miserable like he was the last time I saw him? And then I spotted him as he stood from where he’d been waiting by the spraying water. He was in jeans and a white t-shirt, his Oxford draped over his arm. Our eyes made contact and he lit up like the dance floor under our feet that first night. I didn’t think I could take having to let go of the idea of him a second time. That was my thought.
He strolled over and I saw that his face was perceptibly thinner than it had been a year ago. His eyes were clearer. “Wow, are you speaking at this thing?”
I put a hand self-consciously to my stomach. “I’m a little overdressed for . . .”
“This,” he finished for me.
“Yes.”
“Thanks for stealing away.”
“Sure.” I reminded myself to drop my hand to my side.
“So you game for dinner?”
“Well, apparently, I owe you.”
He looked down at his tennis shoes. “Honestly, I would have left myself that night if the laws of physics permitted.” He raised his gaze under his thatch of lashes. “I was thinking maybe we could get some food?”
“I need to get back soon.” I gave myself an out.
“Yes, ma’am. Well, let’s just walk. There’s a few restaurants not far.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, falling into step with him. “I mean, other than your obvious patriotic and civic duty as president of your local chapter of Hedge Funds for Merrick.”
“I, uh, got out of the business.” He pointed me across the street.
“Really?”
His cell buzzed and he checked it as we strolled. “I got a job. Working for someone who is neither my step-father, nor has ever seen my step-father naked.”
I turned my face to him. “Are you implying your father and Russell are lovers?”
“Golf buddies. I wanted to stay out of the locker room nepotism.”
“Wow,” I said as we turned a corner and the crowd thinned.
“I’m working for the financial reform lobby.”
I stopped. “You’re kidding.”
“I am not.”
“That is downright Shakespearean of you, Paxton Westerbrook.”
“I know.” He smiled.
“How’s Taggart taking it?”
He tic-tocked his head like a metronome. “Mom says he’s trying to be proud. How about Ethiopian?” He pointed at a place up ahead as his phone dinged with another email. He took it out and typed a quick replay. “Always wanted to try that. Can you imagine any of my parents’ guests eating with their hands? They even have designated utensils for corn. Maybe Indian?”
We wound our way up to the cobblestone streets of Beacon Hill, stopping for pizza, as it was the safest date food he volleyed. We started talking and, like that afternoon on Worth Avenue, I don’t remember what we said, only that it was hard, even though the check had been sitting for an hour, to stop. We arrived at a narrow brownstone, his Airbnb digs for the weekend. We climbed to the top floor in the stultifying stairwell. I was starting to sweat. The convention center had been arctic—and the street had a breeze, but now my dress was just—confining.
“This place was free last minute, but I think I’m the only person who overlooked the no AC thing,” he said, unlocking the door. It was decorated sparsely—micro suede couch—Ikea table—a few text books on financial theory—I guessed an MBA student away for the summer was trying to turn some quick cash on their home.
“You want a beer?” Pax stepped into the sleek galley kitchen and opened the refrigerator.
I walked over. “Beer’s great, thanks.” We both stood for a moment too long before the open door, letting ourselves cool.
He handed it to me and grabbed a water for himself.
I looked at him questioningly.
“Given my Dad’s predilections I have imposed some strict cut-offs for myself,” he answered.
I nodded and pressed the chilled bottle to my chest. He watched. I wanted to take my dress off—ask if I could borrow some boxers. Clearing his throat, he pulled out his buzzing phone. “I’m turning this thing off.” He placed it on the counter. “Way too much going on—” he caught himself. “I mean, I’m sure it’s nothing like what you’ve been doing.”
“I’m so inside Tom’s schedule—it’s like there are certain things I’m just trying to hold at bay.”
“Such as?”
“Like.” I dropped my head back. “He disappears for ten minutes every day around eleven.” Pax laughed. “It’s just TMI. I have bought that man foot powder, but I do not want to start holding his digestive schedule in my head like it’s the associated press briefing run-down.”
He handed the opener to me, but I decided not to pop the top off. “I’ll just use it as an ice pack if you don’t mind?”
“Music?” He opened his iPad. His screen saver was a sunset picture of him with his arm around a blonde who looked like Pym, who looked like Allison who would one day look like Cricket.
“So, are you seeing anyone? Not that I would follow a guy with a girlfriend to his fourth-floor convection oven.”
He looked down the picture as if noticing it for the first time. One side of his mouth turned up. “No, Amanda. I’m not.”
“Just taking a poll,” I said feebly.
“That’s my cousin.” He pulled out the carton if ice cream I’d lost the appetite for and two bowls.
“Oh God, don’t bother—let’s just eat it out of the carton.”
“I would never have texted you if I was,” he said, passing it over with a spoon.
“Well, you seem to be doing many things you’d never do.”
Again the half-grin. “It’s too hot to talk.”
“It’s too hot for a lot of things,” I countered.
He took another long sip and then placed his water on the granite before walking toward me. “We can fix that.” My breath grew shallow. He slid his hand into my hand and led me down the hallway. “So . . . Amanda, Amanda, Amanda. Why is it that when I quit Taggart’s firm last year you were the person I pictured telling.” He pushed open the door to the bathroom. It was tiled entirely in black with a shower that ran the width of the room. He stood in front of me. I didn’t move, didn’t avert my eyes. A bead of sweat made it’s way down his collarbone. “Why is that?”
Having been haunted by the same need from him, the answer came suddenly clear. “Because you want my respect.” I set the spoon down on the sink.
He let out the tiniest ‘ha’ of recognition, a borderline exhale. “That’s what I want,” he confirmed. His expression was serious. Intent. “And this.” He reached out and turned on the water, then he spun me away from him, raising my hands overhead to the cool tile wall. He ran his fingers down my arms and arrived at the dress’s zipper. He tugged it gently as his lips grazed the nape of my neck.
I dropped my arms and my dress fell away to the floor. I tried to reach behind me to touch him. “Uh, uh, uh,” he admonished, replacing my palms to the tile. His fingers traced my arms once more before sliding around my ribs to cup my breasts. I groaned. He turned me around, taking my hand, and leading me right into the shower, the cold water instantly soaking his shirt. It was there, under the spray, as I unbuttoned him, that our mouths finally found each other, equally hungry, equally desperate. “Please,” he implored, staring into me. “Please get out of my head.”
“Nope,” I said into his mouth, my hands moving into his wet hair. His lips sank into my skin, the edge of his teeth grazing me as his warm tongue found its way inside the lace of my bra. He sunk down onto the floor, at long last pulling me on top of him.
I awoke a few hours later to the sound of his heart and his hand cradling my neck with a tenderness that made me feel unnervingly fragile. I tried to sit up in the bed without waking him, but he stirred as I stood. “Sorry.”
He lifted onto his elbows and inhaled, his eyes widening as he reached for my arm.
I stepped out of his reach. “I really have to get back. Davis has a union breakfast. And then a thousand events and we leave right after he introduces Merrick tomorrow night—tonight.”
“Where to?”
“Des Moines.”
He thought for a second. “I’m heading to Chicago on Tuesday.”
“We’ll be in Columbus by then.” It’d been so much more intense than I’d anticipated having him inside me. I’d stopped thinking about what should happen next.
He swung his feet to the floor. “You send me your schedule and I will get my ass to one of your stops.”
I stepped close enough that my breasts were in his face. “Just the ass? Because I’m growing pretty fond of the whole package.”
“Leave my package out of this.”
Laughing, I leaned down and kissed him. He slipped my hair behind my ear.
“Let’s do this!” Invoking the Merrick-Davis slogan, he swung a fist into the air—without completely clarifying what ‘this’ was. And I wasn’t ready to ask.
But when he said that incredible ass would be there—it was. Waiting to transform some God-awful stop-over in some God-awful hotel into something amazing. From Tulsa, Oklahoma to Bend, Oregon, we took each other with a fervor
that only seemed to compound with each pilfered night.
And it was so much better than a cookie.
Chapter Six
I was so awake. Despite not having slept for more than four hours at a time in weeks I was seeing the world around me in high def, fueled on caffeine, sugar, nicotine and unbearable hope. It was impossible to believe that for the first twenty four years of my life I hadn’t set foot on a plane—when only that day I’d woken in Iowa, flown with Davis to Jacksonville for him to cast his vote on camera, then finally up to Portland, Maine to wait with the Merricks for the election results to start coming in. In the hotel ballroom downstairs the ceiling was netted with three thousand balloons.
What would living in D.C. be like, I wondered? Would the transition team help us find apartments or would I move into Pax’s place, which, thanks to my crazed schedule, I still hadn’t even seen? The thought caught me off-guard and made me slosh the drink I was carrying to Tom over the back of my hand. It was the mocktail I mixed for him ten times a day. Half Coke, half Diet Coke, exactly three cubes of ice—and a cherry if I could hide it under the ice.
Well, why not?
I asked myself as I handed the cup off to Tom’s left hand—since the knuckles on his right were too bruised from being shaken for him to hold anything. “Mr. Vice President.” As had become our half-joking ritual I dipped my head—he saluted.
I was twenty-six, about to embark on the next phase of a career more exciting than anything I had ever remotely hoped for myself—and probably hardly home at all anyway. I went back to get Tom’s snack—he liked Deviled eggs, but scraped flat so the filling didn’t squirt upon biting—while the staff manically clicked through the suite’s cable news stations. As I fixed the eggs that Room Service had not prepared to his preferred white/yolk ratio I tried to picture living with Pax and realized I had no idea what that kind of commitment looked like—other than Mom’s revolving door, my examples were the late-night brawls in neighboring trailers that ended in black eyes.
“Amanda,” an aide summoned me from the doorway. I rushed past the secret service to find Billy, Delilah, Ray Lynne and Grammy waiting in the hall. I was so excited—for them to be here on this historic night—that I could afford to fly them up—that I was finally getting to see them after so many months. I threw my arms around Billy. “How was your flight? Did you like it?” I asked him. He’d had another growth spurt—at eleven he wasn’t going to be my ‘little’ brother much longer.
He pulled a gallon freezer bag containing a dirty shirt out of his backpack. “Ray Lynne barfed on me. Thanks for the heads-up about the Zip-locks.” I could have written a book on flying with toddlers by that point. Lindsay’s nanny and I had the routine so down a lesbian couple could not have done better.
“It’s so great to see you guys.”