Meredith has always had an uncanny way of making Cate feel both validated and small at the same time. “You know, I have tried to mention it, well, once before, on her birthday. I’m not sure she was feeling so receptive.” Cate pauses; Meredith inhales her cigarette, doesn’t say anything. “Maybe keep her away from the news for a while, you know? I know you like CNN, Aunt Meredith.”
“Oh, stop it. Besides, I’ve already told her that.”
“I’m teasing. Don’t worry, I’ll… try again. I’ll have a chat with her when she’s feeling better.”
“Thank you. Let’s change the subject—how are you? Senator Wallace seems to be turning the tide, are you the one behind this?” Meredith asks, pouring herself another cup of coffee, cigarette still in hand.
“I’m behind all of it,” Cate replies, unabashedly confident.
“Oh, really—I’m so proud of you.” Meredith places a hand on her cheek and takes a seat across from her in the breakfast nook.
“What do you know about his wife?” Cate asks.
Meredith squints out the window. “I can’t stand that woman. I do have a little pity for her though.”
“Why is that?”
“Why is what? Why don’t I like her, or why do I take pity on her?”
“Both?”
“She’s the most wretched social climber I’ve ever encountered in my life, and she’s married to a politician, what could be worse? It’s like being married to a used-car salesman, if you’ve never heard that one before.” Meredith stops herself, realizing she might offend her poor little niece. “You know I’m very proud of you, but you must never trust a politician, especially when he sticks his dick around town, excuse my French.” Meredith lights another cigarette. “Don’t go falling in love with one, that’s my only advice. You can take over the world if you like, run for president for all I care, just don’t fall in love.”
Cate, trying not to blush, takes a large sip of her coffee before she musters up the courage to ask, “Aunt Meredith, is… who… how do you know the senator is”—she can’t bring herself to say “dick” in front of Aunt Meredith—“sleeping around town?”
“I don’t,” Meredith says, matter-of-fact. Cate feels like she can breathe again. “I just know the weaselly type. Sorry, dear, I know he’s your boss, but I have psychic intuition about this one.”
Cate, always feeling slighted, tries—politely, of course—to stand up for him, but really for herself. “Well, I’m being promoted to communications director, the announcement hasn’t been released yet—but you know, Aunt Meredith, he’s inevitably going to announce a bid for the presidency.”
“Oh, sure, sure, they all do,” Meredith says, unimpressed, whisking away the smoke between them. “But congratulations, my dear, that is so exciting.” She tries to form a smile, sound enthusiastic, but the congratulations feels moot. The shifts of power among the family feel too threatening for Meredith, her whole identity wrapped up in what was given to her rather than what she created for herself. She crosses her arms, holding her cigarette up in the air.
Cate quietly sips her coffee. She feels hatred toward Doug, toward this city, toward her aunt. Once hopeful of a better future for herself, she’s starting to fear an endless power game of Whac-A-Mole.
Suddenly the smell of burning. “Aunt Meredith!” Cate says, panicked. “Your cigarette!”
The end of Meredith’s cigarette is touching the red toile wallpaper behind her, burning a hole in the head of a colonial family member.
“Oh, shit,” Meredith says.
* * *
Later that afternoon Cate knocks on Bunny’s door. “Come in,” Bunny says, propped up by another frayed decorative pillow, a silk eye mask the color of a ruby shielding her eyes from the sunlight. Cate tiptoes toward her nightstand. Bunny’s phone rests atop a pile of books—Notes of a Native Son, To Kill a Mockingbird, Song of Solomon—her MacBook Air on the floor beside her bed, plugged into its charger. Bunny pulls her comforter to her chin. As Cate moves closer, Bunny pulls a hand out from under the covers and lifts her mask up over one eye. “What? What is it?”
“I just came in to check on you—your head any better?” Cate asks.
“If feeling like you’re perpetually having an aneurysm is better, then, yeah, sure.”
Cate laughs and sits at the foot of Bunny’s bed. Bunny adjusts the mask back over her eyes, indicating a boundary she refuses to cross. She doesn’t want to look at Cate.
“I heard about what happened,” Cate says with trepidation, fully understanding that she’s not part of the family, even though it hurts. The resentment creeps up again when she thinks about the time Bunny came to visit her in San Diego, before she moved to Washington. Chuck had taken Bunny on a trip to SeaWorld. At the time, Cate had received an internship at McDonald’s. And when Bunny heard, she’d figured Cate was flipping burgers in the kitchen. It wasn’t until Cate moved to Washington, and her internship came up in a conversation about her interview with a lobbyist friend of Chuck’s, that Bunny had realized Cate had interned in their corporate office—not in the kitchen of the local Mickey D’s. It gave a level of insight into Bunny’s sheltered upbringing that Cate found both revealing and shameful.
“Honestly, she deserved it,” Bunny says.
“I thought violence wasn’t the answer, look at the shirt you’re wearing.”
“I threw a plate with fucking birds on it, hardly the same as an AK-forty-seven. The owners should thank me.” Bunny leans her head into the pillow. Rubs her temples.
Cate can’t help but laugh, thinking about smashed plates in some wealthy Georgetown home.
Bunny smiles when she hears her laughter. “See! You think they deserved it too! Greedy bastards.”
“I’m not saying anyone deserved anything—we’re living in complicated times. How’s life at school?”
“It’s fine.”
“Heard you’re hangin’ with the boss’s daughter?”
“Who? Oh, Mack—yeah, she’s all right.”
“Yeah?”
“Speaking of racist—I wasn’t going to tell you, but your boss is one,” Bunny says, adjusting her head into her pillow, satisfied with herself.
“What?” Cate asks, shock spiking through her at the quick change in tone. She shifts into work mode.
“Yep,” Bunny says.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean—I heard him being one.”
“When?” Cate asks, concerned, skeptical.
“The other day.”
“How? Bunny, don’t be preposterous.”
“Where’s my phone?” Bunny gropes aimlessly around her bedside table. Cate grabs the phone and puts it in her hand.
Bunny lifts her mask to scroll through her text messages. “Aha!” She presses Play on the recording and holds up the phone. Cate reaches for it.
“Don’t touch my phone,” Bunny says. “Just listen.”
Mackenzie and her father’s voices are heard as Bunny turns the volume up—: “African American.… Running down the street like an idiot for all the neighbors to see… You had a young African American boy in our home who gave you drugs. Is that right? NO, he did not give me drugs!… Does this African American boy feel like home to you? Or does he feel different from home?… it feels complicated, Mackenzie. You wouldn’t want to put yourself in any challenging position, would you?”
Cate stays composed, taking this in. “Why do you have this? Who—who sent this to you? Did Mackenzie send this to you?”
Bunny smiles.
Cate reaches for the phone. “Let me see it, I need to verify this is even real.”
“Ah-ah-ah!” Bunny yanks her hand away, still holding the phone. “My head hurts, and now yours must too.”
Threatened, Cate feels her ambition catching fire, enough to make her want to grab Bunny by the neck, to push her out of the window.
Bunny pulls the mask back over her eyes. “You can get out now,” she says. “Oh, and jus
t because my mother told you to come up here doesn’t mean you actually have to do it.”
A punch to Cate’s gut. She stands up, walks to the door, turns around and whispers, “Ungrateful bitch.”
The Alibi Club
The oldest and most secret gentlemen’s club in all of Washington, the club is located in an antebellum town house between two unsightly office buildings, just blocks away from the White House. Founded in 1884, it serves as a bipartisan gathering place for powerful politicians, lobbyists, judges, and businessmen where an alibi for their whereabouts will always be provided. For example, if a member’s wife calls looking for her husband, someone will provide him an alibi. Only fifty men are members at any given time, and one must die in order for another to be admitted. No journalist has ever stepped foot inside. An air of mystery lingers outside as a government vacancy sign is often posted in the window—but this is just part of the game, to keep out those who are not welcome. Among the club’s most notable members are and have been President George H. W. Bush, Henry Roosevelt, Thomas Gardiner Corcoran, Senator Mark Warner, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth, and Senator Lamar Alexander—to name a few.I
I. Sarah Booth Conroy, “A Peek at Privilege: Inside the Alibi Club,” The Washington Post, June 22, 1992, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1992/06/22/a-peek-at-privilege-inside-the-alibi-club/e18847d4-49d6-4f1c-81ec-23b9149acba2/.
The Laws of the Alibi
Now these are the laws of the Alibi,
Unwritten, unpublished, unsung,
And he who is wise will observe them,
Ere at noon from the yardarm he’s hung.
Alibi-ites are a strange breed of cats
Whose origin is a marital mess,
So don’t bring up your fancy begats,
We don’t give a damn and care less…
Reserve the club for your private use.
Take care this privilege you not abuse,
And invite to your party whomever you wish,
Be it lady or woman or own private dish…
Don’t let your party spill into the street
And create a noisome hubbub,
But maintain the aura of a gentlemen’s retreat
Though we’re licensed as a “bottle club.”
Nothing will cause more trouble quicker
Than an angry woman loaded with likker
So remember that Shakespeare wisely warned
That “Hell hath no fury like a woman corned.”
Once, a lady was rejected by her lover was ejected
From the center window second floor.
Despite her description the police blotter inscription
Read, “attempted suicide,” but no more
But the facts of the case by the girl laid bare
That she was preceded by a bottle and followed by a chair.
So leave by the door no matter how tight.
Grasp firmly the handrails to left and right.
If the iron steps are out of place,
If the sidewalk comes up and slaps your face,
Don’t fight the problem when the cops come by
To ring in “A drunk from the Alibi.”
Go quietly with them to Number Three
Where Captain Pyle for a modest fee
Will provide you lodgings in good company.
Now these are the rules for the Alibi
Authentic, brief, and complete,
And he who is wise will observe them
Or land on his arse in the street.I
I. If I tell you how I obtained this, I might have to kill you.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Cate stands outside of a dilapidated antebellum town house: red brick, muddy green shutters, and an old streetlamp by the front door. A government VACANT sign sticks to the inside of a blurry glass window lined with velvet green curtains. The house is surrounded by modern glass high-rises.
Cate texts, I’m at the address you sent and all I see is a creepy government vacancy sign. Where r u? She spins around; the White House is just a few blocks away, secret service officers with their bulletproof vests and AK-47s, tourists taking selfies.
Come to the door, Doug replies.
Cate turns around like she knows she’s being watched as the door of the town home creaks open. A strong whiff of mothballs fills the already polluted air—a sour, rusty smell like the breath of Thomas Jefferson risen from the dead.
As she walks in, a Black steward in a bow tie appears from behind the door like a ghost and closes it behind her. He says nothing, then lifts an old car horn to his lips and blows. Cate jumps from the penetrating noise—“Jesus!”—plugging her ears. The steward lowers the horn to his side and stares ahead as though Cate were invisible.
Cate pokes her head around the corner into the drawing room. A Victorian chaise and Welton dresser rest on a Persian rug fit for a king. What is this place? Leather-bound law books and old encyclopedia collections fill the built-in bookshelves. A crystal service bell waits on the antique burl-wood coffee table. Crossed swords hang on the opposite wall among other historical tchotchkes. It looks like an epic yard sale with American fairy tales hidden in every corner and crevice.
“Come upstairs,” Doug says from the top of the single staircase, which hugs a wall soaked in damask wallpaper dating back to the Middle Ages.
Established as a secret institution in the aftermath of the Civil War, the club guards the ghosts of men from the grounds of Oak Hill and Rock Creek cemeteries, who are commemorated in the upper hallway in gold-framed photos of CIA directors, Supreme Court justices, secretaries of state, and presidents. The round table in the dining hall is set with pewter plates and goblets and Windsor chairs—like their very own American Knights of the Round Table. General Robert E. Lee’s uniform hangs on a mannequin in the corner, still encrusted with his blood. The Alibi Club is the oldest, most secretive fraternity in all of America, where bipartisan power brokering is done and Saudi royals are entertained. Because the institutions of Washington live longer than the average male, the passing of the Alibi torch becomes the ultimate legacy.
Doug leads Cate into what is known as the poker room, filled with square tables, its walls covered in Japanese scrolls; legend has it that this is the room where General Eisenhower called for Operation Neptune—World War II’s invasion of Normandy.
“Why did you have me come meet you at a museum?” Cate asks, annoyed.
“It’s not a museum, it’s an exclusive club, Cate,” Doug says, defending himself and all of his choices in the history of his entire political career.
A workman enters carrying boxes of twinkle lights and several Christmas wreaths.
“Excuse me, we’d like to have some privacy,” Doug says, shooing him out of the room, then turns back to Cate. “What’s going on? Where’s Walter?”
“He resigned, did you not check your e-mail?”
“He RESIGNED?”
It’s no secret Cate’s fighting for a rise in status, and Doug knows it. “Jesus Christ, what did you say to him?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed since—since we haven’t been seeing each other”—she pauses—“he has had an affinity for grazing my nipples and other inappropriate behavior.… The press was onto him, so I gave him a choice: resign with dignity or—”
“Is this the fucking emergency?!” Doug panics. Never mind that his press secretary was being sexually harassed and assaulted. He walks to the other end of the room by a green couch where a skinned boar’s head heaves its snout. Cate looks away, tries not to gag.
“If you checked your e-mail, you would see that everything is fine. He’s going quietly. He’s ‘retiring early’ to spend more time with his family; he will not be moving forward on any future campaigns. That will be left to me. I’m being promoted in the meantime, which looks fucking great for you,” she says, but Doug’s not convinced.
“Christ, the press will catch on.” Doug runs his hand over his s
hiny head.
“They’ve already talked to me. It’s done.… But this isn’t the emergency, Doug.”
Doug flails his body, losing control over himself. “It all sounds like a fucking emergency—”
“The emergency is your daughter, and how she and Bunny both have a recording of you being blatantly racist—”
“That’s impossible.”
“—something about you needing your daughter to break up with her Black boyfriend because of the color of his skin.” Cate lets this sink in. “Mackenzie’s phone has it, she recorded it. Meaning: your voice is heard having a conversation with your daughter about how she had a person of color give her drugs, and something about if he doesn’t feel like home then he’s not love and basically that your parents would have been ashamed if she were ever to introduce him as part of the family. Believe me, I heard it.”
Sweat drips from Doug’s forehead, pit stains forming underneath his arms. He loosens his tie. “Well, I’m obviously not racist.…” Doug laughs manically, then pounds his fist into the air. “Betsy needs to get a grip on those girls. I knew it, I knew she shouldn’t be hanging out with that Bartholomew girl either.” Doug points his finger at Cate. “She’s the one responsible for General Montgomery’s son’s overdose, you know.”
“That’s my cousin you’re talking about.”
“Oh, right—sorry, but—”
“But you’re right, Bunny’s become a liability.”
Doug begins pacing across the room. “FUCK!”
“Look, we don’t have a lot of time. I have evidence of two devices with the video, and who knows who else Mackenzie sent it to—and if either girl decides to post it, I mean, we’re talkin’ viral.”
The Cave Dwellers Page 25