Chapter 4 #2
Abigail can't hold on as long as she wants to — Eleanor knows her perfectly, knows exactly where to go and how — and the distinguished lawyer, after waiting two goddamn months for this, comes apart in her mouth, nearly stumbling.
Eleanor stands and runs her tongue over her own lips, gathering the slickness left there.
Abigail straightens her dress, and when she turns around, her eyes are fire.
They look at each other for a second, and before Eleanor can move, Abigail grabs her by the throat and slams her back against the wall.
They don't look at each other now — that's not part of the deal. The muffled voices from downstairs are still there, only now they're joined by Eleanor's ragged breathing and the sound of her belt coming undone.
Abigail lets out a furious sound low in her throat and tightens her grip around Eleanor's neck. Tonight Eleanor is wearing pants with several buttons that only get in the way and waste the little time they have.
"Stay still," Abigail growls, one of the few words they allow themselves.
Eleanor can be a professional orator, a flawless politician, a woman with a formidable edge — except when she's at Abigail Lawson's mercy, and when three fingers push into her as deep as they'll go, she can't stop herself from coming with her mouth open, desperate for what little air Abigail lets through her throat, just enough to keep her from blacking out.
They're too close; lately they always are when the last one finishes, and they both know they're already playing with fire without pouring gasoline on it.
They separate and put themselves back together in silence, each checking her own clothes in the same ritual they always follow.
Eleanor is ready first, and when she starts to move, Abigail stops her with a hand on her arm, the way she has so many times before.
She points to a strand of blond hair that's escaped the updo, and Eleanor turns to the mirror and fixes it with quick, steady hands.
Abigail leaves the room first. A few minutes later, Eleanor follows.
She comes down the stairs and walks into the garden carrying the box wrapped in blue tissue paper that she just pulled from her bag.
"Where were you two?" Carol asks when she sees her.
"Wrapping your gift," Eleanor says, with the smile she only ever gives her mother. "Getting that bow right was nearly impossible. You know how bad Abigail is at this kind of thing."
Carol looks at the package, then looks up at her daughter. There's something in that look Eleanor recognizes — it takes her back to every time she lied about those cigarettes her mother always found, insisting they weren't hers.
Carol always knew that pack hidden in Eleanor's clothes belonged to Eleanor.
"How thoughtful," Carol says, and takes the package.
Abigail appears at the far end of the yard, glass in hand, burgundy dress perfectly in place, and positions herself beside Richard as if she'd been standing there all afternoon.
"Did you wrap it properly?" Richard asks — not with suspicion, just with the blind faith of a man who believes that one day his two girls will find their way to getting along.
"Perfectly," Abigail says, and takes a sip from her glass.
Present. Chicago.
Eleanor's office in the state capitol has windows that face the lake. She had them cleared when she first took office because the curtains that came with them were hideous — not just ugly, but the kind that made the whole room feel like it was sunk in permanent darkness.
Her mother called to tell her that the bracelet she'd given her two years ago for her birthday had a broken clasp.
She sounded heartbroken, and Eleanor promised she'd take it to a jeweler herself to have a new one put on.
After she hung up, she stood at the largest window, and she's been there for half an hour, lost in memories — the ones that get her through the days that pass without the things she needs close to her.
"Congresswoman, Mr. Holt has been waiting twenty minutes." It's three in the afternoon when Erin pokes her head in and reminds her of the meeting she's been putting off.
"Send him in."
Thomas Holt is in his mid-fifties, completely bald, and insists on wearing a blue flat cap that never matches anything else he has on.
He radiates the confidence of a man who has bought enough favors to believe everything has a price.
He's been trying to get a meeting with Eleanor for months, and she's kept pushing it back until she decided she needed to know what the hell he wanted from her.
He comes in, shakes her hand, and smiles.
"Congresswoman Montgomery." His tone has the manufactured warmth of someone who's practiced it in front of a mirror. "An honor, at last."
"Sit down, Mr. Holt." For Eleanor, very few things are a pleasure.
He sits. She doesn't. Eleanor stays on her feet by the windows with the lake at her back, because that's a tactical decision too: whoever is standing controls the room.
"I've been following your career for some time," Holt begins. "What you've built in Illinois is extraordinary. And what you could build in the Senate…" He pauses. "It would be historic."
"Thank you," Eleanor says, and doesn't even look at him. She knows what's coming won't be pleasant.
"I have resources — contacts, as you know. People who believe in the kind of leadership you represent." Holt folds his hands over his knee. "I'd like to be able to support you. With the campaign, or with whatever you might need."
Eleanor looks at him for three full seconds without speaking. That's long enough for Holt to start wondering if he's said too much.
"Whatever I might need?" Eleanor repeats, with a calm that isn't real — it's the verbal equivalent of the floor giving out beneath your feet.
"Whatever might be useful," Holt clarifies, and there's caution in his voice now.
"Mr. Holt." Eleanor takes two steps toward the desk and rests her hands on the surface without sitting, looking down at him.
"I've been in politics for fifteen years.
I've gotten this kind of offer in different forms from different people, and every single one of them has regretted making it.
" Her voice is perfectly even, without a trace of warmth.
"If what you're implying is that your support comes with conditions that won't appear in any official document, I'd advise you to leave this office, seriously reconsider the meeting we just had, and never request another one. "
Holt opens his mouth.
"I'm not finished," Eleanor says. She doesn't raise her voice, but she sounds like a snake coiling to strike. "I have an excellent memory, Mr. Holt. And very good lawyers."
Holt understands the meeting is over, so he stands. The smile is gone. He walks out without another word, and Eleanor waits until she hears the door close before she turns back to the windows.
Erin appears ten seconds later.
"Everything okay?"
"Write down Holt's name. If he requests another meeting, he's not on my calendar."
"Done." Erin types something on her iPad. "Anything else?"
"No."
She gets home after nine. Amelia has left, the house smells like the dinner she left in the oven, and Daniel isn't there — just a note on the counter:
Dinner with Bennett, don't wait up, in Daniel's handwriting, which Eleanor doesn't even finish reading before she sets it back down.
She changes in the bedroom, puts on something comfortable, pours a glass of wine in the kitchen, and heads to the library.
The library is what convinced her to buy this house.
A whole room, walls covered floor to ceiling in shelves, one of those rolling ladders on a rail, two armchairs by the fireplace that Eleanor lit exactly twice last winter — because Daniel is always in the living room and the library is hers, only hers, the one space in this place she calls home where Eleanor Montgomery can be something close to what she actually is when no one is watching.
She runs her fingers slowly along the spines of the books, not looking for anything in particular, letting the pad of her index finger graze the cloth and cardboard and paper of their covers.
She has constitutional law books beside nineteenth-century novels, political essays beside collections of poetry she's never read, and two full shelves of history she's never opened.
She looks at them — every last one of those volumes — and then sighs.
Books are Abigail's absurd obsession, and Abigail is Eleanor's dark obsession, which is why they're here — because in some way they bring her closer, and make her feel the calm that she always seems to need now.