Chapter 21
twenty-one
Cindy
I have a lot awaiting me at home, so it shouldn’t be so hard to leave this bubble we’ve created outside the real world. But late on Monday afternoon after Sasha leaves and I’m packing, I have to sit down on the bed—our bed—for a moment and stare at the wall.
This was never going to last, but we’d established a routine over the last few days that felt natural. I’ve never had that with someone I dated. “If it’s meant to be, it’ll feel easy,” my mom told me my whole life. But nothing I wanted has ever been easy . I’m used to fighting hard for everything. This is different. I can’t achieve a relationship with the vice president. I shouldn’t even want to.
What am I doing here, moping about change? I am the champion of change. Usually. I push myself up and finish packing.
When I leave the bedroom, carrying my weekend bag and with my monster purse slung over my shoulder, Alex is still sitting at the table where I left him working on a speech about roads, bridges and broadband networks that he has to give the day before the release of an important jobs report. “The sword of Damocles is hanging over Infrastructure Week yet again,” he’d said.
But his tablet is closed and he’s staring at it, dark on the table.
“Still feel a little high?” I tease him, pausing. I see some of the same softness in him I did earlier, the lazy movements so unlike Alex. He’d let me shotgun some smoke into his lungs—“plausible deniability,” he’d joked—and then admitted, after Sasha left, that he always felt held to a higher standard, his motives for everything from serving in the military to staying single scrutinized.
He stands. “All set?” he asks. His voice is casual, but his eyes are shadowed. I nod, and walk toward the door to drop my bag there.
“Cindy…” He’s coming after me. I drop my bag and turn around and he stops.
The Secret Service is taking me to town, where I’ll order a rideshare car. We’re trying to avoid using government resources for personal errands like taking the vice president’s girlfriend to the airport. Not girlfriend. Mistress? The available labels don’t fit me in this situation.
I should concentrate on the ones that do. Congresswoman. Activist. Thorn-in-the-White-House’s-side.
“I shouldn’t make them wait,” I say.
Alex fidgets his hands in front of him, looking down at his fingers as he stretches them backward one by one. “I’m glad you came.”
“Me too,” I reply. “It’s been really nice.” Nice? “It’s been an escape,” I try again.
He looks up. “It’s been more than that.”
He’s right. Even though I don’t have a label for it. And although I’m scared to kiss him goodbye—it’s too final—I drop my purse by my bag and step toward him.
He enfolds me in his arms and the way his body fits mine, the heat of it and the smell of the soap we used in our shared shower this morning, triggers sharp nostalgia. I’m already missing something I only had for a few days.
This goodbye is going to get soggy if it drags on. I kiss him hard, holding his chin in one hand, the other clutching his bicep. The next time I see him will probably be in public. I won’t be able to touch him.
Stepping away is one of the harder things I’ve done in my life, among laying back at my Lasik appointment or that first mammogram. But I nod and keep my voice brisk, like I did on both of those occasions.
“See you back in reality,” I say.
Alex
I’m trying to focus on work, but Cindy is on my mind on the way back to Washington. I wish she’d flown home on Air Force Two with me. I can’t shake the sense I’m failing her by forcing her to travel alone.
I call Toby and Deena in. “Can we make sure Cindy is on the guest list for the state dinner in June? She’s on the House Foreign Affairs committee, it’ll be fine,” I add, before Toby can object.
“Of course,” Deena agrees, taking the easy road and leaving me alone to face my chief of staff.
Trying to jump ahead of Toby’s wrath, I tell him, “I want to make a plan to go public.” I come around my desk to perch on the side nearest the other man. I’m momentarily distracted remembering using this desk with Cindy, but Toby is glowering .
“Can we do some testing first?”
I didn’t become vice president by rushing into things, but I also didn’t become vice president by tiptoeing around. And anyway, haven’t I always been careful? Haven’t I done everything the “right” way? I snap: “This is not a political strategy, Toby, this is my real life.”
The other man shifts, but he’s standing his ground. “I’m not saying you dump her if the polling is bad, I’m saying let’s be prepared. We’ll go public, but let’s find the best way to do that that sets us up for success.”
“Can we do it for the state dinner?” I ask eagerly. I imagine Cindy on my arm as we enter the East Room in the White House.
“We’d step on the message of the dinner,” Toby warns. His face is impassive, like a man who knows he’s right but also realizes no one believes him.
“Right.” I cross my arms and frown, reminded of my place. Am I getting too carried away? Toby is right, I need to think about optics. I have commitments to Tim and to the American public.
“Alright,” I say. I’m caving—it’s ruining my excitement about what Cindy and I built together on this trip—but listening to my staff rarely steers me wrong. “We’ll do it your way. Figure out the best way to announce it and let me know. We don’t have to be in a hurry.”
Toby sighs. His shoulders loosen, a sign of more concern than he let on. “Thank you, sir.”
I unfold and go back to my chair, but Toby doesn’t leave. “One other thing...”
“Yes?” I sit down and pull the print-out of my Tuesday schedule toward me, putting on reading glasses.
Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. Cindy is releasing the cannabis legislation and submitting it to the Clerk’s desk and I have to approve a statement. I’m also swearing in a new senator who won a run-off election. And attending the president’s Daily Brief and remarks in the afternoon on small businesses.
“You understand that the legislation you’re working on with Congresswoman Wight may be compromised.”
“What? Why?” I look up.
“Because of the relationship becoming public. It would be better to pass it before announcing, but that’s unlikely to happen. Congress will be in recess all August and there’s no way we can accomplish it before then. Plus, I don’t think we can wait until fall to go public.”
“Do you think our relationship will hurt the chances of the legislation passing?”
Toby hesitates. “Let me do some polling on that, as well.” He rocks on his feet a little, which is what Toby always does when he’s trying not to listen to his conscience.
“Say it, Toby,” I say, taking my glasses off. “Whatever you don’t want to say.”
“The negotiations over the bill are already tenuous and I’d imagine some party members would pull their support as a statement.” Toby, still standing in front of the desk, widens his stance like he’s already planning for a fight.
I frown, bracing myself. “What kind of statement?”
“I think you can imagine, sir.”
I can. We’re not married; we represent different political stances; she’s a junior member and I’m the party leader. There’s plenty to criticize about this relationship, and what people won’t say out loud, they will cloak with political reasons. “In the House or Senate?”
Toby shakes his head. “Both? Either. Worst case scenario, we fracture the party and lose any votes from the other side of the aisle. It’s not the sort of news that brings people together and it’s been years since Congress wanted to look like a big, happy family. Probably not since that State of the Union when the parties mixed seating.”
I grimace. “That’s so long ago, I forgot it ever happened.” I slap my hand on the desk. “Damn it! You just can’t win in this town.”
“I could be wrong.” My chief of staff never says stuff like that because he almost never is wrong.
I’m out of denials for the day. I should have thought about all this before, but I’d been so caught up in the delicate magic of finding the right woman at the right time. I breathe out slowly, as anxiety winds its way around my relaxed, post-vacation muscles. “Thanks, Toby.”
“We’ll find a way around it, sir. But I wanted you to be prepared for the possibility we have to sacrifice the legislation.”
My mind rebels against the words. I can’t lose this legislative win. I need it going into campaign season. It’s part of my big-picture strategy to prove I can unite the party. But I can’t lose Cindy, either. “You’re saying it’s either/or?”
“I could be wrong,” Toby repeats, softly. His face wears an expression I’ve never seen on it before. It looks like...sympathy.
I shove the papers in front of me out of frustration. “Well, aren’t you a blast of post-coital bliss.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Toby starts to back away. “I’ll start that research.”
“You do that.” I turn my chair toward the airplane windows. It’s blue sky for miles out there. But inside, a storm is building.
The truth is, given a choice, I’m not sure which one Cindy would choose: Me or the bill. She ran for office specifically to push this legislation through, after all. I don’t want her to ever be faced with such a decision.
So much for the afterglow.