Chapter 4
four
Alex
I hand out what must be hundreds of roses, creating a lot of smiles from women of every age group at the fundraiser. I keep recycling the joke about having 300 dates for the evening to everyone who asks, the people who tease about my bachelor status and how I could be the bachelor on a reality TV show with these flowers. Better than joking that another man’s wife is my date.
One of my sisters texted me—Sasha, the one who argues “this made-up Hallmark holiday should at least be equal opportunity torture”—and so did my mother, both telling me “happy Valentine’s Day” and sending love. The texts were filtered through staff members to the point that they became generic well-wishes, even though I know my family meant well. None of it is quite the same as having someone of my own to give flowers to today.
Marguerite Clayton, wife of Dan, mother of Chelsea, is hovering nearby. She has fulfilled her duty to hang on my arm every moment I had one free tonight. She’s the perfect hostess. But her attitude is so possessive that it can’t help but rub me the wrong way.
“Alex, dear, the ladies will understand if you don’t hand out all the flowers yourself,” she says, resting one bejeweled hand on my back. “As sweet as it is of you.”
“Wanted to offer the personal touch,” I say with a friendly smile, not wanting to admit I have ulterior motives for hiding behind the flowers during the reception part of the event. I step forward so that her hand falls off my back.
Dan Clayton swoops in. “I bet Alex’s flowers open pocketbooks at least 10 percent wider tonight, if you know what I mean,” he says, jostling me with an elbow to the side. I do know what he means and he’s probably right. If nothing else, the Claytons definitely know money. “Could open up something else, too, not that you need any help in that area, eh, Alex?”
I offer a painful grimace that might pass for a smile. When I’m president—and I will be president—I’ll have to deal with many more of these inane, mildly offensive conversations for the sake of raising money. Something to look forward to. My stomach churns.
“Oh, Dan,” Marguerite says, her jewelry clacking as she gathers her arms across her chest. “You know we want Alex to save himself for Chelsea. Good heavens.”
Fortunately, Chelsea, who is busy getting her MBA, can’t hear her parents transparently scheming about her romantic prospects. Not that she and I haven’t heard it all before to our faces. I keep grimace-smiling.
“Can’t expect the most eligible man in the world to be a monk, Marguerite,” Dan says, hooking both fingers in his belt loops like he’s settling in for a conversation on the subject.
Since I’m not enjoying having my love life mapped out nearby, I decide the flowers are no longer working as a hideout. But first for some diplomacy. “Dan, Marguerite, both of you know Chelsea and I are just friends,” I say, sliding in the hard truth before cushioning it with a compliment. “Your house makes such a wonderful event site. We couldn’t have had such a successful evening without you. Now we’d all better stop ignoring our guests or we won’t do your home justice.” I give them both a friendly tap on the back with an open palm and move away, giving a subtle signal that draws an aide rushing to my side. I’m not proud of it, but when the situation warrants, yes, I’ll use my staff as a distraction.
“Have we heard anything from Cindy Wight yet?” I ask in an undertone. I don’t really need to know, but I want to. I’m curious whether she’s at home, reading legislation with a glass of wine and thinking of me. Well, of my input. And if she’s donned that oddly intriguing fuzzy onesie. I’d had an aide Google them before the event. Now I can’t stop imagining her in one.
Most likely, she’s cursing my name under her breath over what is, I’ll admit inside my own head, a genuinely “toothless” bill draft. But I have more constituents to please than Cindy Wight does.
The aide fumbles in one of their pockets for my phone. “No, sir, I don’t believe so.”
“OK, thanks,” I nod and move on. No distraction there, either, which means it must be time to face the crowd of tinkling silverware on hors d'oeuvres plates and crystal cocktail glasses.
Marguerite catches up with me, taking her place at my side. I smile at her, because I can’t help but appreciate how seriously she takes her job even if she’s in no way who I’d choose for the permanent position.
“Well, here we go,” I say, and step forward to do my duty.
Cind y
I don’t get out much. And when I do, I prefer dive bars or breweries where I’m rarely recognized out of my Capitol Hill power suits. Tonight, sitting at the circle-shaped bar at the Willard InterContinental hotel, I’m still wearing my outfit from the White House and my feet are killing me. So I order a stiff drink and prop them up against the metal bar running around the bottom of this bar stool so my weight is off my toes.
A short clip taken outside the White House that morning is playing on a loop on my phone, where I opened it after a member of my staff sent me the link. The captured moment is the one I pledged not to vote for the president’s ticket if he doesn’t move my direction. The video is embedded in a news piece discussing whether I can “radicalize” my party. My staff has warned me to never read the comments, but I take a peek—just a quick one, like looking for 10 seconds doesn’t count.
The first comment calls me a “mouthy bitch who should go back to her hippie commune.” Unsurprised, I close the browser window.
Kari doesn’t make me wait long. She’s a journalist, but she doesn’t cover my beat, and she’s only in the District every once in a while between assignments. She covers campaigns and events, not regular old politicking. But I try to surround myself with other women who are in the arena, Doing Things, no matter what the arena is. I trust Kari. She doesn’t talk bullshit, unlike 99% of this town.
“Hi,” she says, unwrapping her scarf. She’s wearing jeans and boots, and I envy her intensely for a moment. Not only is she in comfortable clothes, she’s the only person in this place not wearing a suit. She attracts eyes like a magnet, and then there are second glances when I’m recognized. I sit up straighter on the backless stool.
“You look tired,” Kari says. See? No bullshit.
“I am tired,” I reply. “That’s my natural state these days. ”
A man in a cheap suit holding his cell phone in one hand is approaching us with an intent expression that makes me even more exhausted. I don’t recognize him, but he has the vibe of a never-off-duty reporter. Kari gives him a little wave with the back of one hand and says, “Buzz off, Dennis. Girls only.” She hoists herself up on the stool to my right. “I’m serious,” she adds, when Dennis only pauses, gaze darting between me and my bodyguard. Then she turns her back to him.
I keep my eyes on Kari as she gestures for the bartender, but can see out of the corner of my eye that Dennis takes a picture of our backs with his cell phone before he turns away. “You know there will be a 'Spotted' column tomorrow implying we were on a date,” I say, making a mental note to warn my staff.
“We both know you only care if it implies you were sleeping with me to gain power,” Kari replies. She orders a “very dirty, very dry, very cold gin martini.”
"Fair enough." Like most cishet women, I'd wished once or twice that I could be attracted elsewhere. Or at least interested in someone outside the industry. Male politicians and activists tend to be the worst at listening. But who else am I going to meet—a constituent?
“How did it go today?” she asks.
“Better than expected in some ways, worse in others.” I lower my voice. “My party hates me.”
Kari shrugs. “Better to be hated than forgotten.”
Laughing, I raise my glass at her just in time for the bartender to put a stemmed glass in her hand. She clinks with me. “To never being comforting,” I say.
“What do you want to hear, that the people who voted for you love you? Voters are fickle. I bet you get so much hate mail from people who loved you last year.”
That’s true, unfortunately. I don’t read it, but I get the reports. “If I can make progress in the next year, they’ll come around again.”
Kari nods. “That’s true, but watch out,” she says, taking a sip of the hazy liquid in her glass. “The vice president throws a big shadow. Be careful not to disappear.”
The headlines from earlier are everywhere, and they all lead with the vice president. “VP to work with…” and “VP makes an ally.” The only two stories to highlight my work today were the one making me out to be a radical and another piece headlined, “Ms. Wight Goes to the White House,” that analyzed my outfit.
But it isn’t Alexander Drake’s shadow that flashes through my head when I think of our meeting. It’s the way his eyes were steady on me when I spoke. And how he smelled spicy and sweet standing so close to me in that nook behind the White House briefing room. His presence much more real, much more masculine than a shadow.
“The only thing that matters is passing this bill,” I say, talking to myself as much as Kari. Even if I’m voted out of office next year, I want to have used my time on Capitol Hill well. “I don’t need the credit.”
"It's ok to want something for yourself." Kari raises her eyebrows at me. “It’s easy to get caught up in the work in this town. But you’re a person, too.”
Rejecting that instinctively, I shake my head. "It feels better to crusade for someone else." I don't say it, but it's also easier to ask for help on someone else's behalf. “But don’t worry, I’m not about to end up in a campaign ad for the vice president.”
Kari shrugs. “Famous last words.”
Firmly, I shake my head. “I’m not here to be a stepping stone for some male politician with a generic platform. I’m here to do real work that changes life for everyday Americans.”
She nods. “I know.” Kari has known me since before I took office. If she thought I’d caved—become establishment, something less than the activist who ran for office—she’d tell me.
“But,” she continues, and I brace myself. “What if your work changes you? What if that’s part of the work?”
I like being challenged, but usually, I’m the one posing philosophical questions that stump the listener. I frown at Kari.
“That’s a rhetorical question,” she adds with a smile. “Just remember, you’re not only one thing, Cindy. You’re an activist and you’re new to the job. Sure, you came to shake things up, but maybe you still have a few things to learn. Stay open to different ways of doing things.”
Taking the last sip of my Old Fashioned, I consider this. It sounds like the kind of advice I’d give someone else. Someone whose entire identity and life goals aren’t wrapped up in achieving this one thing: Justice at the federal level. There is already too much compromise in politics. I won’t be another weak link, another person who came to Congress promising one thing only to discover it’s too hard to accomplish once I’m here. One achievement won’t be enough for me.
And one man, even one of the most powerful ones in the country, won’t stand in my way.