“But don’t you see? Already, your thoughts have diverged back into thoughts of only yourself,” Rachel whispered. She swallowed, knowing how she came off. My heart burned, but only because I knew that she was my only friend—that she was trying to help me, not to hurt me. “I’m not trying to reprimand you,” Rachel whispered. “It’s just that after everything you’ve been through, I don’t think you can blame Xavier for being upset with you, just the first time you tell him that he’s this close from allowing everything to fall apart. Can you imagine, living on a precipice like that—and also being the most powerful man in the entire world?” Her voice was breathless, almost pleading with me.
I nodded, feeling a bit ashamed. “I just wanted everything to be perfect,” I whispered.
“I just think you have to give him a bit more time to comprehend something as big as this,” Rachel whispered. “You kept this from him for many, many weeks. Perhaps, in many ways, he feels betrayed by you? He has told you so much about himself, about his marriage. And you’ve kept your troubles on the sidelines.” She shrugged, peering down at the untouched cheese plate. “Perhaps you could talk to him once more. Perhaps you could give him a chance.”
I cleared my throat, taking a small piece of Brie into my mouth. The creamy cheese glided across my tongue. So savory, it made my eyes water. “Perhaps you’re right,” I whispered. I began to understand that perhaps not all was lost, that perhaps I could still have the man I loved, I could still have the career I’d always dreamed of. Everything could fall into place, if I just worked for it. If I just gave Xavier time to come to reason.
“You know that I envy you,” Rachel began again, pouring another layer of wine into my wine glass. “I admire the way you take action, the way you get what you want, no matter what.” She shrugged. “When the President of the United States gave you grief, you essentially told him to fuck off. That is powerful, Amanda. That is more than many of us can ever say we’ve done.”
I looked down at the cheese platter once more, my mind spinning. I had quit the White House that day, and I needed to find a way back in—a way back in to see if I could reason with Xavier, to needle my way back into the position. Only if I did it appropriately, with a sense of tact, would I feel right about it. “I’m never going to be stupid about anything ever again,” I whispered toward Rachel, laughing a bit. A slight jazz had begun over the loudspeaker, making me speak in time with the music.
Rachel nodded. “If only we could all say that and truly mean it. But alas: I’ll definitely make a mistake today, tomorrow, the next day. I’ll look stupid at least three more times this evening. That’s life, isn’t it? No preparing for it, I suppose. We trip. We fall. We get back up.”
“I’m just lucky I had you there to catch me when I fell down, down, down—all the way,” I said to her. We clinked our glasses once more, feeling the camaraderie initiated with this true, effortless friendship.
But I knew I would take the weekend off, to fume, to understand what was going on inside my mind. I couldn’t go rushing back to the presiden
t’s arms. Not yet. Perhaps if I spent enough days away from the White House, they’d pull me back to help them. I was the only one with any clue back on the campaign team. Jason’s actions during my last absence had been orchestrated to him by a series of notes he’d found in my desk—notes that I had meant to involve a long-term strategy, not a one-year-before-the-election strategy. But all was not lost. I had ideas brimming up to my ears.
After another bottle of wine, after allowing drunkenness to pummel through us, Rachel and I both stood up, woozily. We sauntered toward the door and gave a hearty goodbye to the bartender. The bartender pointed, telling us that a taxi was waiting outside. We rustled into it and cackled, bringing the window open so that we could see the glinting stars from the October night sky. It seemed like things were both beginning and ending, all at once. Everything was up in the air.
Chapter Seven
The taxi swept us back to Rachel’s apartment. We cackled all the way up the steps, feeling no strained anger toward each other for the previous conversation. She was watching out for me, and I knew it. The anger for Xavier was dissipating, as well. I felt calm, cool. Ready to take on the following few weeks.
I collapsed into my bed that evening, still wearing that slim, black dress. I laid on my side, feeling the way my body dipped into the mattress. The moon gleamed outside my window, and I brought my hand in front of it, noting the way the light made my fingers just shadowed outlines before my face. I wondered, in that moment, what Xavier was doing, whether or not Camille was with him. I wondered if he was thinking about me, as well.
I’d never stayed up at night, thinking about boys. I’d never kept my eyes open, staring ever out into the darkness, wondering about the man of my dreams. I’d never before assumed there was any one person out there for me. In many ways, I wished that my one person could have been anyone else.
With the anger dissipating from my body—leaving me with a shell of off-white sadness and interior loneliness, rather than madness—I now understood Rachel’s point wholly. I knew that Xavier’s reaction was warranted. But I still didn’t think that my reaction to his reaction WASN’T warranted.
Thus, I wasn’t ready to go back to work yet. I was happy to be away from the rushing office, so happy to be away from the prying eyes of the other campaign workers. I was ready to remain calm and cool before approaching Xavier, before apologizing to him for all that had happened.
I had spent the previous few weeks so resigned, so unhappy, so confused about everything. Xavier and I—for all intents and purposes—had broken up. He’d kicked me from his bed like a sad, tired dog, and I’d grown angry, filled with emotion. This emotion had blocked me from truly understanding what my next steps should be. I’d disappeared from work so often; I’d halted my work completely. And now, I was slowly but surely finding my way back toward an appropriate path.
I brought myself from the bed and removed my black dress, finally. I brought my hands over my breasts, closing my eyes and thinking only of Xavier. I wanted his arms around me once more. I wanted him to rip my tired clothes from my back, from my breasts. I wanted his hands on my pussy. I wanted to forget all the terror that had come between us.
I tapped toward the window and peered out, still naked. Washington D.C.’s Friday night was still in full swing, all these hours after midnight. I knew that every single one of the people, rushing to and fro in one of the many taxis that pulsed over the great expanse of the city, had worries akin with mine. We were all working toward greater understanding. We were all reaching toward final decisions.
As I lay back down, still naked in the bed, I knew that I was growing closer and closer to the decision that worked best for me. And that, beyond anything else, was beautiful.
The following morning was Saturday. I lifted my body from the bed, feeling the hangover rally against my brain. I sighed, feeling the aches and pains emanate throughout my torso. “Not so young anymore,” I murmured to myself. I brought a borrowed robe around my slim frame and wafted toward the kitchen, where I found Rachel sitting at the table, her own head in her hands.
“What happened last night,” she whispered to the table.
I felt the laughter bubbling in my stomach. But soon, those bubbles turned sour. I felt sick and collapsed in the chair beside her. I sighed into the words. “God. I don’t even know! I woke up naked!”
Rachel brought her hands over her mouth. “I would laugh,” she murmured. “But I don’t think it would result in anything good.”
“We need hangover food,” I muttered. I reached toward my cell phone, thinking of the greasy spoon down the road. “Do you think they deliver grilled cheese sandwiches?”
“Ugh,” Rachel said, flopping to her side on the table. Her legs cranked out from her on the wooden floor. She looked minutes from death.
Moments later, we’d both sprawled out on the floor before her living room television, ready to soak in whatever terrible Saturday mid-morning programs were running, full-color and full-scale. We had very low expectations for our day.
As a talk show host blared on about celebrity gossip, Rachel suddenly rolled toward me. She closed her eyes, working through her headache. “I’m sorry if anything I said last night touched any sort of nerve,” she murmured. “Oi.”
I shook my head into the carpet, closing my eyes as well. “Everything you said was honestly warranted. It made me realize another perspective of my situation. That, beyond anything else, is what I needed the most.”