Blair nodded toward the senator’s office. “Yep, she’s back, and he’s in there.” She lowered her eyes. “I’m not sure if you want to go in.”
Ignoring her, I spun on my black pumps and opened the door just in time to catch the senator mid-diatribe.
“We are getting annihilated from this, goddamn it! His wife is a sympathetic figure, and people know that it came from us!” She stopped, startled when I joined them. “Natalie, what are you doing here? This isn’t the best time. Too much going on right now. I assume that you saw the papers?”
My mouth dropped, and I looked over at Kyle, but he was strangely fascinated with his hands in his lap. He glanced over at me and mouthed, “Nice work,” then continued staring at the floor.
“I saw the papers, yes, which is why I came in. No one would return my calls.” I suddenly felt much dizzier and more nauseated than just a moment before, so I steadied myself on the empty chair beside Kyle.
“I think you should go home,” Dupris said tersely, folding her arms across her chest. She couldn’t have stood more than five foot three, but she made so much of those sixty-three inches that she towered as if she were eight feet tall. Even from behind her desk, Dupris conveyed the sense of power. Of drive. Of being someone whom you could only aspire to be because her aura made you well-aware that you weren’t quite there yet. She was arguably the prettiest of the female senators: She was meticulous about her blond highlights at the salon, and in six years, I’d only seen her twice without makeup. Even so, she’d been blessed with sharp bone structure, so she didn’t need the spatulaed layers to begin with.
“What’s the problem?” I asked, befuddled. “This is a good news day. The tide is turning in our direction.”
“Did you leak this? The stuff about Taylor? Because the phones have not stopped ringing, and frankly, I’m furious. You should have informed me.” She paced back and forth behind the very hand-carved desk that had gotten her in trouble.
“You said you didn’t want to know. And you told me to do what I needed to.” I paused to let that sink in. “And besides, I still don’t see the problem! We needed to make Taylor look like the bad guy. We did. End of story. We win.”
“No, Natalie, we don’t win,” Dupris snapped back and pointed to a chair, which I immediately sank into. “This? Is a major fuckup. This? I would have wanted to know. Totally unacceptable. True, I don’t give a flying fuck that Taylor’s favorite pastime is sleeping with prostitutes, but I do care about the fact that his wife is one of the leading faces of cancer right now and people want to champion her. Do you know how many calls I’ve had this morning from people who now think that if Taylor loses, Susanna will lose the will to live? Because she has nothing else to live for. That’s actually what three of them said.”
My glory, I thought. There it goes. Right down the shitter.
“That didn’t occur to me,” I said with less assurance than I’d have liked to. I felt my stomach rise up into my throat. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, so I wasn’t sure what, if anything, I had in me to throw up. A cool layer of sweat began to form on my neck, and my fingers felt tingly, as if they were about to detach themselves from my hands.
“Damn right, it didn’t!” The senator tossed her arms up in the air and stopped pacing. She pointed at us. “Kyle, I want you to clean this up. Natalie, I want you to go home. Kyle will call you if he needs you, but for now, I suggest that you stay out of it. Enough damage has been done.” I saw Kyle shake his head and watched his hands clench into fists of rage.
“No,” I said firmly and stood up. “This is my doing, this is my idea, I’m going to get us out of it. I started it, and I want to be the one to finish it.”
“Absolutely not,” Dupris seethed. “Go home. Now. Stay. Out. Of it.” As if I were ten, and she was sending me to my room for bad behavior.
I started to protest, to tell her that I’d finessed her out of larger jams in the past, and that we were still seventeen percentage points ahead, and that when the dust settles, frequenting hookers really can sink a political career, but before I could say any of that, I went to move toward her desk, and, instead, made a mad reach for her bamboo wastebasket. But I didn’t make it in time. So I lurched over and vomited on my too-pricey Joan and David pumps.
“I couldn’t have said it any better myself,” Kyle said, and he went to get paper towels from the kitchen.
I sat on the senator’s creamy white rug, the outline from my puke sinking deeper and deeper into the strands of the carpet, and peered up at her.
“Go home, Natalie,” she repeated firmly. “Take care of yourself. I think you’ve done enough.”
“I suppose this is a bad time to discuss the birth control bill?” I looked up at her and closed my eyes.
“That discussion is over. There is no discussion, in fact,” she said, as she walked out of the room.
By the time I had the stomach (literally) to turn on the TV that night, Taylor had eaten five percentage points into our lead.
SIX
Dear Diary,
This is shit, Diary. My life is shit. I know that I should feel guilty over outing Taylor, but guess what? I don’t. In this job, anything goes. Kyle knows that. Dupris certainly knows it. And how am I repaid? By being cast off and ignored. So you know what, Diary? F-them.
So it looks like it’s just the two of us, Diary. Ready to make a run for it? Well, maybe not just the two of us. Sally showed up last night to listen to me bitch, even though it was pretty clear that she didn’t agree with my tactics. I guess she’d interviewed Susanna Taylor once last year and thought she was a pretty okay broad. That’s what she said, “She’s an okay broad. She cares about making a difference. I think she’s helped a lot of women in her…” and then she paused and looked at me, “well, in your position.” Truth be told, Diary, I felt a pang of irritation because I hardly wanted to be compared to other cancer victims, but still, for the most part Sally listened, and I don’t even think she judged me too much. So I guess it’s just the three of us, Diary. Maybe that’s not so bad.
Anyway, the fact that work won’t call me back is actually working out just fine because I finally got this little endeavor of mine off the ground. I know that you’ll find this surprising, but my first manhunt went off without a hitch. Ha! See, now I told you not to worry!
I called up Colin the other day to get some answers. And, in fact, I plan on calling them all—no need for jokes, my list is not so long that I’ll be two breasts smaller by the time I’m done—until I’ve successfully come out on the other side.
Colin was, understandably, surprised to hear from me. We broke up just after graduation, our senior year in high school. Five months before that, he’d robbed me of my virginity, though, if I’m being totally honest and I guess I should be since I’m the only one reading this, I’d given it up pretty easily. He still lived in Bryn Mawr; actually, his wife answered the phone. God, I hope she didn’t get suspicious that some strange woman was calling their house around dinnertime. Colin was never the type to cheat; in fact he might have been the most loyal of the lot of them. He set the bar high and all of that.
When he asked why I was calling, I explained that I was trying to work some things out with myself, and I thought maybe he could provide one sliver of the answer. I didn’t mention the cancer, but I think he already knew—heard it in the hometown gossip cycle. So when Colin paused and asked, “How are you?” with the overemphasis on the “are,” I knew that he knew. I got that sort of emphasis all the time now…it was as if people thought that by stressing the “are” and casting their eyes downward and shaking their head, they were asking enough about my health without actually having to broach the subject. I know, I know, both Janice and Sally have told me that cancer makes people uncomfortable. So does death. But would it actually kill people (pardon the term) to address the overriding theme in my life now? For the first time, in like, ever, it’s surprisingly not work—the senator has ignored my calls and I haven’t heard from Kyle
in two days—it’s cancer, and no one seems to want to acknowledge, other than with the use of overexaggerated “ares,” that anything’s changed.
But I’ve digressed. Colin knew, but we didn’t speak of it. Instead, when I asked him why we didn’t stay together forever, as you think you might be able to do back in high school, back when you dry-humped in the back of your forest-green Volvo station wagon and believed that your SAT scores defined the rest of your life, he just said, “Natalie, we never planned to. I mean, I thought that we both understood that you were going off to Dartmouth, to the big time, and I was staying behind, doing my best to get decent grades at Penn State and then come back to join my dad’s business.”
“But weren’t we in love?” I pressed. “I remember loving you. Feeling like you would have done anything for me.”
“We were,” he answered. “But you were bigger than me, bigger than what I wanted. And I was smaller than what you dreamed. And besides, high school relationships never last. They’re all about idealism: no screaming babies, no bills to pay, no jobs to get in the way. So we just enjoyed ourselves and let it run its course.” He paused. “Natalie, really, there’s no dark secret here. Sometimes, the relationship is just supposed to be a stop along the way, not the one you end up with.”
This was true, I thought. And then I remembered that he left out some of the details: that our last summer together, he tried to preserve our bond, stoke our love, as if to reassure himself that I wouldn’t forget him as soon as I hit Hanover. Truth is, the more he pushed, the more I pulled. We danced like magnets around each other. By August, when we snuck into my parents’ swimming pool well past midnight to burn off the oppressive humidity and make out under the iridescent glow of the patio lights, I was already thinking, I don’t feel a thing. I didn’t have to go to Hanover to stop loving Colin. I was already gone. Bigger than him, he said now. Maybe I thought that I was.
So when his two-year-old started crying, and I heard his wife calling for him, I thanked him for his honesty, and he told me to take care of myself, and that was all of Colin that I got.
From: Miller, Natalie
To: Richardson, Kyle
Re: What’s going on?
K—
I haven’t heard back from you. Left you four messages in the past two days. I’ve been watching the polls—Taylor is only 8 points back. Why haven’t you done any damage control? This is fixable, but you’re letting it sink us.
—Nat
From: Miller, Natalie
To: Richardson, Kyle
Re: Please call me
K—
Still no word from you. Please don’t make me come down there again—I don’t think anyone wants that. We’re ten days out—why the hell aren’t you guys being more proactive? I’ll tell you what needs to be done: You need to promote Dupris’s generous donations to cancer charities. She made some, right? If not, pretend that she did. On this short notice, the press won’t be able to dig up any records anyway. Compared to Susanna Taylor, she’s coming off like Satan.
—Nat
From: Miller, Natalie
To: Richardson, Kyle
Re: I’m coming into the office
K—
At the risk of sounding condescending, you still work for me. Why the hell am I being ignored? We have just over a week left, and something has to be done. Fine. If you don’t want to fabricate cancer donations, you need to launch a full-scale attack on Taylor’s record. Call Larry Davis: Get anything you can (other than the hooker stuff ) and put it out there to demonstrate that he’s a shit decision maker. Once people see that the hookers are just one of his many bad choices, the polls will swing back in our favor. If I don’t hear back from you by this afternoon, I’ll be in the office tomorrow. Don’t make me come down there.
—Nat
From: Richardson, Kyle
To: Miller, Natalie
Re: I heard you the first time
Natalie,
Chill out. Your incessant messages and e-mails aren’t helping. I’m under a bit of pressure here, you know. The senator told me directly not to retaliate to Taylor, despite his increasing numbers. She thinks that we botched the hooker thing so badly—and thanks so much, it’s been a lovely few weeks here dealing with the fallout—that she doesn’t want to touch another thing.
Btw, I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I’m truly sorry to hear about your diagnosis. So really, shouldn’t you be focused on something other than this right now?
KR
I sat at my desk, struck by his comment. I remembered that Janice had not so subtly intimated something similar to Kyle’s remarks at our last session.
“Being kind to yourself and taking time to enjoy that kindness is very important right now,” she said, lacing her hands in front of her and leaning forward toward me as if to make her point.
I rubbed my temples and told her that I wasn’t sure if I were cut out for this therapy thing; that the only reason I was there to begin with was that I’d checked the “counseling” box on my forms (when I was clearly not in my right mind), then answered her introductory phone call at the precise moment when I felt like throwing myself out the window, not because I really gave any thought to the counseling or even believed in it much.
She nodded the way that I assume all therapists do—it must be something they teach them when they get their degree—and told me that anything I chose to do with myself during this ailing time was acceptable. “As long as it’s done out of a kind place,” she added. And then she urged me once again to find someone else to be kind to me: a survivor’s group (as if ), a website (I’d rather watch TV), my mom (ha!).
I reclined in my desk chair and closed my eyes to try and ward off the oncoming chemo headache that I felt leaking into my cranium. Kind. I snorted out loud. Clearly Janice didn’t understand my line of work. Or what sort of armor you had to build to succeed in it. I mulled over what to say back to Kyle, whether or not to make the kind choice, the one over which Janice would award me a figurative gold star, much like the literal gold stars my mom tacked on the fridge when I’d bring home an A in elementary school. And then I decided, much like I suspected back when I was seven, gold stars are overrated.
From: Miller, Natalie
To: Richardson, Kyle
Re: Big mistake
K—
I appreciate your concern, but I’m doing just fine. With all due respect to Dupris, she’s acting like an idiot. What’s the first thing we learned on this job? Protect yourself above everything else. And what’s she doing? Leaving herself open to be shot. Taylor is within nipping range of the polling margin of error. Do something. Now.
—Nat
From: Richardson, Kyle
To: Miller, Natalie
Re: No go
Nat,
I agree. But this is the senator’s choice and I’m not going above her. Maybe you would: I wouldn’t put anything by you
(no offense…okay, maybe a little). But I won’t on something as important as this.
Just go vote, isn’t that the mantra—“use your voice to be heard at the polls” (or something ridiculous like that), and hopefully, we’ll all still be employed at this time next week.
KR
KYLE WAS RIGHT, of course. They were all right. Given my floundering health, I damn sure should have directed my energies elsewhere. So I tried to. At least for a day. Rather than harass him, I committed to an afternoon of pampering. I knew that there wasn’t much of a point of getting a haircut, but I booked one anyway. Along with a manicure, a pedicure, and a shiatsu massage.
I hadn’t seen Paul, my stylist, since my diagnosis, and when I walked through the glass doors and inhaled the peachy scent of shampoo and candles, I saw his eyes widen in the way that one’s might at the climax of a horror movie.
“Darling!” he said and gave me a hug. “Are we okay?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, and said, “Cancer. I have breast cancer.” I looked down. “I know, I know
. I’m going to lose my hair, but I’d like to do something with it, anyway. Even if it’s just for a few weeks.”
He waved his hands with a flourish. “Done! Consider it done! Can we finally make you the redhead I’ve always wanted to?”
I paused and thought of the reaction on the Hill. Flaming red was hardly professional: considered more stripper than senator, really. And I know that Dupris most certainly would not have approved. “It’s all in the presentation,” she once told me when I was just starting out. Still though, the tug of something fresh, of something new, of something that was entirely not me, pulled at me.
I opened my arms widely and smiled. “Do with me what you will.”
Paul led me over to the sink, and I arched my back, leaning my neck on the cool porcelain and closing my eyes as he massaged my scalp. Neither one of us commented on what I knew to be true: that as he ran his hands over my head, more strands of hair were coming undone than should have. And that when he was done with shampooing, surely, his fingers would be tangled with knotted, dying reminders of my ordeal.
He ushered me to his station and went to the back to mix up the perfect blend of color: less Little Orphan Annie, more Julianne Moore by way of Nicole Kidman. I was listlessly flipping through an old issue of Vogue when I noticed the background music. Of course. I thought.
Jake’s voice hummed out from the speakers that were built into the walls of my all-too-hip salon. I stared into the mirror, my limp and thinning hair strewn over my shoulders, and wondered how you ever escape someone who never left you in the first place.
Paul emerged from the back, and ninety minutes later, my hair, that which I would surely lose anyway, no longer looked like my own. I was gleaming, glamorous, and for a minute, underneath the flattering lights of my chichi salon, I didn’t look like who I was: namely, a cancer patient who wanted to pretend that she wasn’t. Paul kissed both of my cheeks good-bye, and I pulled my coat tight as I walked three blocks south to the nail salon. I should have felt relieved, reborn almost, even though I knew that it was fleeting. But the only thing I felt was heavy. Lonely, really, and achingly hungry for alpha dog. I stared down at my feet as I walked, unable to shake Jake’s latest song from my head, replaying it in beat with my steps.
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