Chapter 3
three
Alex
I have three sisters and a mother who are always cold, which is why I recognize the signs: the subtle shift of legs rubbing, the arm-brushing, and, while I’d pretended to not notice, Congresswoman Wight’s furtive glances at the front of her dress. Beneath the precise lines of her bright red lipstick, her lips are practically turning blue.
That’s why I end up suggesting we pop into the briefing room to talk to the press rather than inviting the media into the Cabinet Room as planned. I can tell from the way one of my communications aides reacts that I’m creating a nightmare PR scenario, but I’ve spent my whole political career listening to my gut and I’m not going to stop now. My instincts say Rep. Cindy Wight and I can help each other. Might as well start now.
I pause at the Cabinet Room door, allowing the lawmakers to proceed before me and giving my own people time to put their heads together for a last-minute strategy. As I do, I catch the congresswoman folding herself in half to reach under the table for her shoes. Her skirt is riding up her thigh and one long, shapely leg is sticking out at an angle, her toes pointed on a bare foot with red toenail polish. It’s not a typical sight in a meeting with Congress, nor is the stirring it ignites in my stomach. I smile involuntarily, but suspect the lawmaker would not appreciate being witnessed in this moment, so I step outside the room with the others.
“OK, brief statement to the effect of ‘we’re working toward a compromise; this is important to everybody,’ but no questions, period,” says Kaylee, the White House press secretary, hurrying alongside me toward the west terrace. Her two clearance badges are bouncing around her chest in the rush and she’s talking while typing away on her government phone, a secured BlackBerry.
“The congresswoman can take two questions, on topic, from the wire services,” Cindy Wight’s chief of staff says, keeping step with me and my people.
“Just because your member has never been behind the White House podium before doesn’t mean she gets to take over the bully pulpit,” Kaylee hisses back, without missing a step.
My mouth curves as I recognize that I’ve frazzled the staff.
“We don’t need the bully pulpit. We’re the ones writing the legislation your White House wants to pass, remember?” Wight’s aide snaps. She glances at me, remembering they’re bickering across the vice president. “Sir.”
“They can take a couple questions, I think, Kaylee,” I offer, giving her a weighted look. I don’t want to be the face of this particular issue. It’s too easy to turn me into an one-issue candidate.
As we’re walking, I turn back to Cindy Wight. Her arms are folded around her body and she’s obviously still freezing. Her expression makes it clear she wouldn’t appreciate me offering her my jacket, however. It would be controlling in this context.
I get it. Power is a precious commodity in Washington and no one can afford to appear weak. My job isn’t immune from that. In fact, I’m not entirely sure my use of the briefing room is authorized, but I’m not going to stop now and ask for permission. I’ll tell the president I was trying to impress a woman. Tim will understand. Cindy Wight is unexpectedly compelling. Something about her unapproachability makes me want to climb past her barriers.
We walk in through the side doors and I see my team did their jobs even at short notice and rounded up the press already, likely creating a scramble in the basement. Even now, correspondents on campus are rushing to inform their editors, colleagues and followers of the addition to the daily White House schedule as they are racing to their seats in the room.
The blue stadium seats in the small briefing room are filled with reporters, all with badges on lanyards around their necks, all typing away on their phones. Most likely ginning up buzz for the unusual briefing on social media. The broadcast cameras in the back row are all manned and likely ready to livestream.
“No news for you all today, just an update,” Kaylee tells the room immediately upon taking the podium, setting the tone for the briefing. “The vice president and representatives from Capitol Hill had a productive meeting. They are moving forward toward a compromise on cannabis legislation,” she continues. “The vice president has the president’s full support to reach a deal that would best benefit the American people.” She gestures for me and the others to step up to the podium. “We’re going to take a couple questions.”
Glancing down at the seating chart that’s on the podium, I point at the first person I recognize on the front row.
“What is the sticking point for the bill, Mr. Vice President?”
I smile a smile that gives nothing to Josh from the Associated Press. “It will surprise no one to hear that this White House wants to take meaningful action on this issue. But we are committed to listening to all ideas, whether more conservative ones from members of the opposite party or more progressive ones from within our own. And I’m sure we’ll achieve a deal that addresses the wrongs of the past as well as the promise of the future.”
The reporters in front of me all raise their hands for another question, but I don’t want to offer them more specifics or veer into the wrong territory. So I turn to Cindy, gesturing her toward the podium. “Congresswoman Wight has agreed to be an important partner in this process.”
She steps toward me and catches her heel on the fraying carpet. The James S. Brady Press Room, unchanged for years, is nearing hazardous conditions. She’s barely started to stumble before I grab her by the elbow and draw her up to the podium in one motion, releasing her once she’s regained her footing. She smells like vanilla.
She pauses. I meet her blue eyes and try hard not to smile. We are, after all, surrounded by cameras. But there’s a hint in her eyes that she wants to smile back.
“This White House has pledged to compromise,” she says, her eyes still on mine. She turns away, before it starts to become obvious we’re having some kind of moment. “We plan to hold them to that. I want to bring this bill to the Floor in two months, on 4/20. I plan on making sure we have a deal by that time.”
Damn, this woman plays hard ball. Walking into my house as a freshman representative and throwing her weight around. Tim’s popularity as president is a rising tide that lifts all boats in the party. But in the House, this woman fragmented an otherwise comfortable majority, splitting the conference between the senior establishment and a younger, more progressive freshman class. Her group wants to push the party to change laws—more laws, and faster. The leader of that movement is taking no prisoners right now from a podium marked with a White House seal. My staff must want to kill me for putting her up here.
As someone whose position on issues is endlessly polled and vetted, watching Cindy take a fearless stand is like breathing fresh air.
Kaylee steps up to the podium, neatly cutting off the shouted questions from the other side of the room. “One more question, please. Emily?”
“Mr. Vice President, do you have a date for Valentine’s Day?”
Of course. They couldn’t possibly stay focused on my job when I’m the first single VP since 1933. Wonder if anyone also speculated Charles Curtis was closeted, despite his dead wife.
Smiling my most friendly grin, the one that shows all my teeth, I say, “I have about 300 dates, Emily. I’m hosting a private fundraiser this evening.”
Then I escape the raised hands as quickly as I can.
Cindy
I’ve had many conversations with mentors on gaining control of my short-fuse temper. In the few seconds after the briefing ends, I realize I failed in the briefing room. The rush of gratitude for the vice president conferring authority with that “partner” comment and smoothing over my stumble came with worry that he saw me as soft and needy. And so I snapped— how dare he think I needed his help? —and set a deadline we can only hit if everything goes smoothly from here on with the bill. Which it won’t. This is a historically fraught issue with a significant party split.
But I can’t admit to anyone else that I got carried away.
“You set a completely arbitrary deadline that means nothing to the rest of the party,” the Judiciary chairman says the moment we are out of earshot of the press. But not out of range from the rest of our colleagues or the vice president. “We won’t stand by it.”
I seek to ground myself by looking around where we’re standing in the back of the press building. There’s a sliding door leading into the briefing room and the offices of the deputy press secretaries in this end of the communications wing. Everything is rundown in here, especially compared to the rest of the west wing of the White House. The media is treated a little like I am: Mostly irrelevant but loud at inopportune moments.
“The deadline I set is not unreasonable. This is a priority for the conference,” I raise my voice to continue before the chairman does. “I want to introduce it by 4/20, not get it through the committee and to a Floor vote.”
“The White House is willing to make some accommodations within that time frame,” the vice president says, which is hardly a commitment but comes at the right moment to halt this public scolding.
Because I resent that I need the assistance at all, I can’t quite feel grateful. I spent 12 years as a community organizer before ultimately realizing I needed an elected office to get the legislation I’d been working for my entire career into law. As a female, freshman lawmaker with ideas that are more ambitious than the rest of my party, my opinion is always less respected than my majority-male colleagues, most of whom have been in office for years. My priorities, and those of the diverse freshman group I’ve assembled who have similar views, are easy to dismiss. But I can fight my own battles and don’t need the vice president to step in.
The vice president waves me toward him. “Congresswoman, a sidebar?”
Kaylee opens the door of a nearby office and we step inside. There are newspapers on the floor stacked as high as the desk and the desktop is covered in sticky notes and a pile of granola bars. But it smells like sandalwood, a scent I realize must be coming from the vice president. My gaze flickers to his wrists, wondering if he puts a little scent there in the mornings on the pulse points. I have a brief vision of the vice president getting ready for work, putting on that gold watch and buttoning up his shirt over some dark hair on his chest. I’d already noticed his long fingers and I can see delicate veins in his wrist as he raises it to run those fingers through his short hair. His presence, so close to me in this little room, is suddenly very physical. He’s more than his office, he’s…a man.
“Let me give you my personal phone number,” he says. “Or about as personal as it gets for me. I can’t text and rarely answer my own phone, but whoever answers, you can tell them to put me on the line.”
I’m very aware that Kaylee is standing within earshot and the office door is open. Everything is moving so fast, but I need to keep this man on my side, if that’s where he is. I still can’t quite believe he wants to help me. “Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I appreciate the access. And the time. Your schedule must be tight.”
“I have a fundraiser this evening that I need to get to, unfortunately.” He swipes his hand through his hair again. I bet it’s a habit when he’s—what is he? Irritated? Tired? Frustrated?—something. I don’t know him well enough to guess. “I hope your plans are more fun.”
“I’ll just be looking over the revised bill at home with my heels off over a glass of wine.” The words are out before I think about them, too caught up in evaluating whether the whirlwind of the last few hours made real progress.
He pauses with his hand in his hair and his chin on his chest, his eyes turned up at me beneath dense eyelashes. I try to backpedal from the accidental intimacy. “Working, I mean. I’ll be working. Like you. But from home. ”
“Well, I sincerely hope my ideas improve your evening,” he says with a smile. “And that you do your reading some place warm. That room was chilly.”
I run a quick visual check down my front again to make sure my body is behaving. “It was cold,” I admit. “Don’t worry, I have lots of blankets at home. Even a fuzzy onesie.”
My mouth is like a snowball rolling downhill. I clench my jaw to remind myself to shut up.
He smiles briefly without looking up. “Sounds like a nice evening.”
Then he nods once and his gaze shifts away, toward the door. Our meeting is over and I’ve accomplished nothing concrete with the time. I had a private, face-to-face with the vice president and used it to reveal a fondness for barefooted wine consumption and the mortifying ownership of something furry. I try to summon parting words to remind him I’m his counterpart in this process, not his secretary.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he adds, as he steps toward the door. The words throw me off and my mind goes blank. I cannot come up with anything to say that would assure the vice president I’m a competent professional who doesn’t only think about getting out of uncomfortable clothes.
“Same to you, Mr. Vice President,” I murmur. Then he’s gone and I’m no longer cold. My entire body is flushed, a cross between embarrassment and adrenaline.