Five
Five
JULY 2021
As I open the front door, I hear the sound of a woman’s voice coming from my kitchen. “Slower. A little to the left. That’s perfect. Hold that position.”
My bag falls to the floor and I cautiously peer around the corner. I’m home earlier than expected, exhaustion finally taking its toll. Mara gave me the night off and I want to take a shower, shove food into my mouth, and collapse onto my bed. I’m too tired to deal with whatever is happening in my kitchen, though this doesn’t seem good. Dean’s car is parked in the driveway and he didn’t mention any plans tonight. Especially not plans involving additional women in my house.
When I walk into the kitchen, I see Dean is standing next to the stove, the sleeves of his button-down shirt rolled midway up his forearms. He’s holding a wooden spoon, stirring what I assume is batter. There’s an entire crew of people making microscopic adjustments to his hair, the flower arrangement on our countertops, the lighting. And there is one commanding female photographer suggesting that my husband “grip the spoon tighter.”
“What is happening?” I ask, unable to erase the humor from my question.
The manufactured smile on Dean’s face immediately disappears. “Ask Mara,” Dean mumbles.
Mara mentioned that Dean agreed to some interview she’d been pushing for, but I had no idea that was happening today, or that it involved a photo shoot.
I walk over and kiss Dean on the cheek and quietly ask, “How long has this been going on?”
“Hours,” he says.
A makeup artist quickly swoops in and applies powder to Dean’s cheek where my lips smudged her smooth canvas.
“What have you been doing that whole time?” I whisper.
“Cooking and talking. My two favorite things,” he says, his sarcasm oblivious to everyone in the room except me.
I hate cooking. Dean knows this. It’s not his favorite pastime either, but he’s mastered a few recipes. A survival tactic, most likely. A couple can live on only so much takeout.
I move back toward the hallway, but not before the photographer asks, “Can we get a few shots of you next to Dean? He could hold out the spoon while the candidate licks it?”
“Absolutely not,” Dean and I say at the same time.
“I haven’t had hair and makeup,” I explain. I also don’t think licking things is the way I want to win an election. I have no idea where Mara found this photographer, but I’m questioning her judgment.
“We could pop you in the chair,” the photographer quickly replies. “The glam squad we used for Dean is still here.”
I look over at Dean and mouth “glam squad.”
He rolls his eyes and mumbles, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I turn toward the crew, using my most professional campaign voice, and say, “It’s been a very long day. Any chance we can wrap this up? If you have other questions for Dean, please send them to Mara and she’ll make sure you get whatever you need.” I add on a giant smile and the message is conveyed. The crew starts packing up and I watch as Dean finally relaxes.
Once everyone is out of our house, I deadbolt the door and slump against the wall.
“I need a shower,” I say, as I slowly walk upstairs.
“I’m joining you.” He holds on to my hips and follows me into the bathroom. “I need to scrub this stuff off.” He runs his hand through his over-gelled hair and it stands straight up.
“I cannot believe you agreed to this.”
He shrugs and explains, “Mara is very scary when you say no.”
I nod in agreement.
Our shower is quick, both of us too spent for any extracurricular activities beyond washing. I want to be the woman who comes home from a long day and has sex with her husband in the shower. But I also want comfy clothes and Netflix on my one night off in the last three weeks.
My campaign schedule has been brutal, as we’ve tried to cover more ground than Grant’s camp. I have attended every county fair, eating my weight in funnel cake and placing ribbons on prized pigs. I’ve started the day at local diners, visited all the major agricultural processing plants that dot the southern tip of the state, and listened to teachers explain how budget cuts impact their classrooms. Nights are spent at town halls or dinners with donors.
We’ll see if it works, because it isn’t the typical Democratic strategy. Since I grew up in southwest Virginia, I’m hoping that the voters there will connect with me more than a hedge fund manager who spent most of his life in Washington, D.C. It’s impossible to predict the changing tides, the tiny connections that can domino into voter surges. But I’m going to squeeze every drop of my energy into trying.
For one night, I get to sit inside my house instead of churning through another meeting. There is no place I feel more myself than inside the home Dean and I made together. That’s why Mara sent me here instead of to the roadside motel where I was supposed to spend the night.
As students at the University of Virginia, Dean and I would wander the Belmont neighborhood of Charlottesville, eyeing our favorite houses, commenting on the best porch swings and arched doorways. We would invent stories about the families living inside. “A yard this neat makes me nervous. I bet they alphabetize their pantry,” Dean would joke. “Maybe they’re foreign spies trying to blend in. The level of perfection is concerning,” I agreed. Our stories became more and more elaborate, making it difficult to remember that we’d made it all up. When we eventually bought a bungalow in the neighborhood, we were disappointed by the mundanity of our neighbors. The truth is rarely as exciting as lies.
I step out of the shower and throw on my worn UVA sweatshirt. Sometimes I like to pretend I’m still that girl, the college student who fell for Dean. Two history majors debating whether Napoleon Bonaparte would defeat Julius Caesar. We’d spend hours after class nursing our beers and our mutual crushes, discussing hypothetical battles between world leaders. Dean continues to have these discussions with the high-schoolers he teaches each year. I wonder what my life would be like if I had followed a similar path, teaching kids about history instead of trying to make it.
Dean wraps a towel around his waist, finally looking like himself again, the makeup and gel rinsed down the drain. He tells me that there are leftovers from the photo shoot and we both head downstairs to eat.
“I do not deserve you,” I say to Dean.
“I know,” he replies, smirking. “At some point, when you aren’t so tired that you look ready to keel over, you will find a way to make it up to me.” Dean’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Did you have something particular in mind?” I ask.
“Since I had to sit in a makeup chair, I think it’s only fair you have to wear that costume I want.”
“Absolutely not,” I say, shaking my head back and forth.
“Oh, yes,” he says, drawing out each word.
“Dean, I’m not dressing up as Martha Washington for your AP history class.”
“Yes, you are. I spent four hours with that crew answering all kinds of bullshit questions about what a First Gentleman would cook for the governor. You can wear a wig for one afternoon.”
“Fine. But now we are both furious with Mara.”
“Yes, we are,” Dean says, pulling out two plates from the cabinet.
“Thank you for participating in the most humiliating and sexist interview of all time.” I hold his face between my hands and stand on my tiptoes as I kiss his lips. “Which is saying a lot, coming from a female candidate.”
“You are welcome,” Dean says, deepening our kiss. He pulls me into a tight hug. “You are going to eat and then you are going to sleep. Sit,” he orders.
I comply because I cannot think of anything better than eating dinner with my husband. He places a plate in front of me and I moan. Biscuits dripping in butter and drizzled with honey, a salty, pink slice of ham, and green beans flecked with bacon.
“Who made this?” I ask.
“I did. That was the whole point of this interview. Apparently, Cecilia Alexander made a quinoa salad with beets.”
“You win.”
“You’re damn right I win. I’m a one-trick pony. But it’s a good trick,” Dean says.
I take a bite of the meal Dean prepared, my favorite meal. It’s so familiar and comforting that it almost makes me forget the mention of Grant’s wife. Dean is too good for me.
When my mother was sick, she gave Dean a stack of handwritten recipes. “All of Tess’s favorites,” she had said. “My daughter will never sit still long enough to cook. But food is the way I’ve taken care of her my whole life. It’s your turn now.” My mother died before Dean and I got married, but when she gave him her prized recipes, that was more monumental than any giving away at the end of an aisle.
Dean sits beside me and we dig in. The room is mostly silent, except for the sounds of enjoyment escaping from my mouth.
I’ve made a significant dent in the plate when Dean says, “I don’t know where it all goes.”
“What?” I ask between bites.
“The food. I’ve watched you eat two breakfasts every morning this week so that you can meet with double the voters and I could still pick you up with one arm.”
I shrug. “It’s genetics. My mother was scrappy. So am I.”
“You’re like a mini garbage disposal,” he says.
I grab a bite of biscuit off his plate and say, “Yep.”
I lean back, looking around our kitchen and thinking about the comfortable life we’ve created. It’s all about to change if I win, when I win, and Dean has never once faltered. His support is the one constant in my life. I wrap my arms around his neck as I say, “Thank you for taking care of me, Dean.”
“It’s the first husband’s duty,” he says, feigning somberness. He grabs our plates and walks them over to the sink as he asks, “Are you okay? This schedule has been intense, even by your scrappy standards.”
“I’m okay. It’s important. The more people I meet, the better our chances.”
“I don’t know much about campaign strategy, but I wholeheartedly agree with that one. Everyone who meets you loves you.”
“Not everyone,” I say with a sideways smirk.
Dean laughs, knowing I’m referring to my failed speaking engagement at his high school. Half the audience was asleep. The only question I was asked was whether the lunch schedule was different because of the mandatory assembly.
“Teenagers are a tough crowd,” he says. “The career day speaker last year was a retired football player. You’re no pro athlete, Tess.”
“Obviously.”
Dean sits back at the table and pulls me onto his lap. “What’s bothering you?”
I look up, worry creasing my face. It has been weeks of packed schedules and lurking fears, and, if I’m honest, I don’t know if I’m pushing so hard to help the campaign or to occupy my mind. I needed this night off, but without the distraction of being Candidate Tess, my anxiety is boiling over.
“I’m afraid I’ll ruin everything,” I finally say.
His arms tighten around my waist. “Like what? Name one thing.”
“Us. What if this election ruins us?” I whisper, still unable to meet Dean’s eyes.
He shakes his head. “It’s not possible,” he says gently.
“You’re already doing things you don’t want to do. Like stupid interviews. This is just the beginning, Dean. Everything is going to change. And we have a good life.”
“You’re right,” he says. “We have a good life. But you are destined for greatness, Tess. I’d stand in front of a hundred stoves if it meant helping you get there. Besides, we’re stronger than this election.”
I swallow because Dean would do anything for me. And I can’t even tell him the truth. He doesn’t know about the girl I was that summer; he believes in the woman I pretend to be now.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I confess.
“We’ve been through tough spots before.” Dean’s voice softens, and I can tell he doesn’t want to revisit the fights that almost tore us apart. “If we got through that, we can get through anything.”
The problem with getting married young is that you assume too much and discuss too little. For us, it was the topic of children. Dean and I rehashed the same argument for years, often ending with one of us sleeping on the couch, the other becoming a silent-treatment expert. He wanted a family; kids weren’t part of my plan. He assumed I’d change my mind. We went around in circles, and eventually, Dean gave up. Maybe when I started approaching forty, he didn’t think it was a battle worth fighting anymore. Or maybe he loved me more than he desired a child. But I don’t want to think about the worst moments of my marriage as proof of its strength.
Dean’s trying to comfort me, but instead I’m even more unsettled. I nod and say, “You’re right,” trying to erase the tremble in my voice.
“Don’t let this guy rattle you.”
“What do you mean?” My eyes dart across the room.
“I can tell you’re worried about Grant Alexander.”
“You can?”
“When you first walked onstage at the debate. You almost seemed scared to shake his hand,” Dean says.
“Pre-debate jitters,” I lie.
“No. I’ve seen you before at a debate. This was different. He rattles you. I don’t know why. You’re smarter, more qualified, and—”
I cut Dean off. I can’t listen to him tell me I’m a good person when I know the opposite.
“It’s not him. It’s not Grant who rattles me. It’s the office. Governor is a big deal.”
“You are a big deal, Tess. You are the most impressive person I have ever met. You deserve this.”
I know I should tell Dean everything now. This is the time for me to come clean. But that’s the problem with lies. Their inertia pulls too strongly, and it becomes easier to continue down the same thorny path. In my experience, the truth often means losing love, not keeping it. And I can’t afford to lose Dean. I know it’s a mistake, but I do it anyway. I keep quiet.
Besides, the lie that Grant wasn’t a part of my life is almost impossible to unweave. If I’m honest and tell the real story, from the day I first met Grant until now, Dean will know how much of myself I hid away. Because when I first met Dean, I was too fragile to accept the truth of how my relationship with Grant altered everything about me.
“You need some rest,” Dean says. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”
I nod and stand up. As I walk toward the stairs, I turn back. Dean is still sitting. “Aren’t you coming up?”
He shakes his head. “I have some stuff to do in the garage.”
“Manly stuff?” I ask. “Something to compensate for all the makeup-wearing this afternoon?”
“You’re hilarious,” he deadpans. “The magazine wants to run some of your mother’s recipes alongside the article. I know her old cookbook is in a box out there somewhere. I’m going to dig through your hoarder’s paradise for the world’s worst magazine article.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I’ll come help.”
“No. You need to sleep. Plus, if you come, we’ll be there all night while you sift through the elementary school report cards your mother insisted on keeping. I’ll find the recipe for your mother’s Brunswick stew.”
“You’re sure you don’t need help?” I ask.
He nods and walks toward the garage.
“Thank you, Dean. I love you.”
“I know,” he says over his shoulder. “You’re one lucky woman.”
“The luckiest,” I whisper to myself, wondering how long that will last.