by Leigh Himes
Just like Collier, I was living in a world where I was tolerated but not really wanted. And funny, he was the only one who seemed to be able to see me. When I passed by him, he took my arm and whispered, “Don’t look so glum, Abigail. Sometimes being the black sheep has its advantages!” I smiled and sat down beside him, watching his hands shake as he placed one card after another on the deck.
My eyes found Alex again, and I studied his face. He was the only one in this group whose opinion mattered to me, the only person whose forgiveness it would be impossible to live without. And though he had been polite to me these past few hours—he was always polite—I knew he was still trying to process the day’s events. As well as the current state of our marriage.
But, honestly, so was I. Was he still angry with me? When would we move on? Would I even know? And where would we go from here? With Jimmy, I always knew where I stood. With Alex, it was infinitely more confusing. I sighed and continued to move around the party like a ghost.
Never in my life had I felt more alone.
“Precinct six is in,” announced Frank. “Bullock took it.” There was a collective groan, but this was no surprise, precinct six—the opponent’s own neighborhood—never really being in play for us.
When Gloria walked by, I attempted to pull her into a hug, but she wriggled out of my grasp, too busy exploring the suite. Faithful Sam took her place, toddling up with a smile when I beckoned to him. We played horsey and tickle spider, and for a short time, I forgot the election. But then suddenly Frank, leaning over Calvin’s laptop and squinting, barked out more updates: “Precincts two and ten are all in. Eleven too. This is it, folks.”
A hush fell. Even Sam went silent. Beneath his glasses, Frank’s eyes moved left and right as he read the screen. Finally, he dropped his head and closed his eyes. Exhaled loudly. Then spun around to look at Alex.
And grinned. “Congratulations, Congressman.”
The room exploded in cheers. Then hugs, laughter, sighs all around. Aubyn offered a rare smile, Mirabelle threw up her hands to the heavens, and Collier beamed. Calvin, usually so reserved, stood up on a sofa and fist pumped while he shouted, “Fuck, yes!” before remembering the children. I stood awkwardly, clapping, then knelt down to check Sam’s diaper for the thousandth time that evening.
When I stood again, Alex was there, pulling me into a stiff hug and giving me a perfunctory kiss, then whispering a quiet “It’s over.” It was the first contact I’d had with him since we left Holy Trinity, and to have him acknowledge me physically, even if it was just for show, made me want to cry with relief. Then he was on the phone, fielding a string of congratulatory calls—from the party leaders, the mayor, the governor—as well as a concession call from Amanda Bullock.
Someone popped champagne and Frank walked over to me with a glass.
“A peace offering?” He looked at me with a hangdog expression, his eyes peeking out above his glasses.
“Sure.” I took a small sip, then put the glass down, aware of Mirabelle watching from the corner of my eye.
“I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong,” he continued. “It was better to face the issue. And as it turns out, your little speech at Holy Trinity gave us the bump we needed. Delaware County came in strong. Record numbers.”
“Really?”
“Really.” I couldn’t believe it. Finally, I had done something right. And it just may have given Alex the edge over Amanda.
Frank lifted his glass in a toast, took a sip, then cocked his head to one side. “But from now on, can you please be a little more careful?”
“Sure.” I gave him a genuine smile. He smiled too, then returned to Alex. I knew he didn’t really care for me, but at least now we weren’t at each other’s throats.
Behind me, I heard another champagne cork pop. Then another. The party had officially begun. And one by one, people started talking to me again, greeting me as if I had just arrived. With Alex’s win—and, more important, his show of affection—I was visible again. Even Mirabelle managed to acknowledge me, offering a stiff “Excuse me, Abigail,” as she passed to pick up a plate.
I shuddered to think what would have happened if he had lost.
Feeling as if I had just been let out of purgatory, I relented on my “no jumping on the furniture” policy and let the kids bounce away. As I watched them chase each other through the apartment-sized suite, I was glad to see they were oblivious to what the night meant. There would be time later to discuss the changes coming; tonight was supposed to be about celebrating. I forced a smile on my face and began to circulate through the room, thanking supporters.
The suite became cluttered with crumpled napkins, water bottles, half-smoked cigars, and discarded newspapers. Every few minutes, Ritz employees swept through to clear glasses and plates and check with me to make sure everything was “satisfactory.” “Fine,” I told them the seven times they asked. I guess these were the types of stimulating questions I’d have to answer in my new role as congressional wife.
It was getting late, and I was worried the kids might melt down, but Frank assured me we would leave for the victory party very soon. I told the kids they could each get a cookie from the dessert buffet, hoping some sugar might pep them up for the home stretch. Gloria picked a sugar cookie, but Sam went right for the chocolate éclairs. He grabbed two, grinning at his good fortune, then escaped under the table before I could check the chocolate topping for nuts.
Mirabelle ran up and dropped to her knees on the other side, trying to reason with him. But the more she begged, the harder he gripped his éclairs, the cream and chocolate running down his arms and dangerously close to his navy-and-white sailor suit. She stood and flashed me a look of disgust. “I don’t know why you let him have things like that. Now what are we to do?”
I ignored her and rushed around to the other side of the table to cut Sam off, only to see him slip out under a chair and take off toward the bedroom. He ducked past Calvin and Sunita—busy flirting over beers—then breezed by Aubyn and Collier, still hard at their card game.
“Run, Van, run!” cheered Frank from across the room.
“Look at the little stallion go!” slurred Collier. Aubyn looked up from her cards and tried not to laugh.
I followed Mirabelle, surprisingly nimble in her kitten heels, as she cornered Sam in the bedroom. “My tweat!” he shrieked in outrage. “My tweat!”
“Give them to Grandmère,” she said menacingly. He shook his head and retreated farther into his corner, clutching his gooey prizes but, luckily, not yet putting them to his lips.
Finally, Mirabelle, who was closer, grabbed him hard by the shoulder. But he wrestled free and escaped. As he made a break for the door, I crouched to catch him. But at 122 pounds and in four-inch heels, I didn’t stand a chance. He barreled into me, knocking me backward off my feet and onto the carpet.
Mirabelle, ever the lady, offered her hand. I pulled down the hem of my dress and pushed the hair out of my face, hot with embarrassment. Around me, a few onlookers, curious to see who would win the battle of the éclairs, stood motionless and stared. I noticed they weren’t looking at my face, but farther down. My eyes followed theirs.
Across the front of my beautiful blue dress were two perfect little ganache handprints.
As I stood in my bra and underwear in the bathroom, Mirabelle and a woman from the Ritz housekeeping staff tried their best to clean the dress with club soda. They dabbed and rinsed and dabbed and rinsed, but the stains only got bigger and darker, happy to make their home in the finely napped wool.
“I should have known something like this would happen,” said Mirabelle.
I knew what she was thinking—that I was drunk again—but I said nothing in rebuttal. By now, I knew she was going to believe what she wanted to believe.
Still scrubbing, she continued her tirade: “The Baccos told me about earlier. Your little moments ‘alone.’ The closet all torn apart.”
Though I had just fired Bobby and Fra
ncis and would probably never see them again, her words stung. I was in fact not their favorite client… Mirabelle was. I shivered in my slip, then wrapped my arms around my waist.
“So I have a messy closet and sometimes I need a few moments alone. That doesn’t mean I’m a drunk.”
Ignoring me, she threw the stained dress onto the ground in disgust. “This is ruined.”
“I’ll just run back to the apartment. Or send Sunita.”
“There’s no time,” she said. “Frank says they need you downstairs now.”
“Well, I guess this will have to do, then,” I said, irritated. I picked the dress up from the floor.
“No,” said Mirabelle, snatching it back from me. “It won’t do. I’ve worked too hard—” She caught herself. “You represent our family. I won’t have us be laughed at anymore today.”
Her face was white with anger.
“It’s not a big deal,” I assured her. “Alex won. There’s no more—”
“Quiet,” she said. “Let me think.”
She sighed and took off her jacket—a beautifully tailored peacock-colored wool—and handed it to me. “Here. Take this.”
She slipped off her white silk blouse and the matching blue-green skirt and handed those to me as well. Against her knee-length beige slip, her body was pale, the flesh clinging on tiny bones, as if she was about to be mummified.
“Put them on,” she hissed. “For heaven’s sake, just put them on.”
I slid on the blouse and skirt, then the jacket. The skirt was shorter on me and the blouse strained over my breasts, but they would do.
“Thank you.”
She waved away my words imperiously as she pulled on a robe from the back of the door. “And whatever you do, don’t throw those into the wash. Dry. Clean. Only.” As if I was an idiot.
I sighed and rolled my eyes, then noticed that her hands were clenched in tight balls. She was so tense, and shaking, she could barely tie the robe.
“Can I help you?” I asked as she struggled with the fuzzy fabric. She might have hated me, wanted me locked up, but looking at her—so flustered and overwrought—I couldn’t help but feel for her.
Why couldn’t she just enjoy what was happening? Her son had done it. He had won.
“Don’t touch me,” she barked, jumping back as I reached out to her. “You… you… almost ruined it all.”
“But I didn’t,” I told her. “Alex is a congressman. Aren’t you happy?”
She looked up at me, and for just an instant, and for the first time, I saw confusion in her eyes. Vulnerability, even. I saw the young woman she used to be, one full of soft white hopes and red-hot exuberance. The person who existed before all her dreams—and her honest affections—hardened into glass.
I realized the answer to my own question. She wasn’t happy. She could never be happy. She was holding on to this family so tightly, she was past emotion. And after today, and all the added stress I had caused, she was this close to shattering.
I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her like a small child. Tell her there was still a chance for her, if she would just take her hands off the wheel. If she would just let herself, and the people around her, coast for a little while. But before I could, she was gone.
“Do you need anything else, miss?” I had forgotten the maid was still in the bathroom. I looked up and told her, “No, thank you,” then turned toward the mirror. The woman slipped out quietly, leaving me alone. I washed my hands and patted them on the thick white hand towel. I looked at my engagement ring, one that might have even been Mirabelle’s, and felt its heaviness more than ever.
Mirabelle had planned for this moment her entire life. But what she didn’t know, what she probably wouldn’t realize until later, was that Alex’s win—the thing she so desperately wanted, the thing she thought would tie him to her and her money forever—might also be his escape. Our escape. Living in Washington, DC, would put 150 miles between us and Bloemveld. Between us and her toxic, smothering kind of love.
But then I looked up to check myself one final time and shuddered. In the mirror, I realized Mirabelle might always be close, closer than I would have liked.
In her suit, and with my razor-sharp bob and heavy jewelry, I looked just like her.
A plainclothes security guard escorted us down a dark hallway, through a service area, and into a blanket-lined freight elevator that would take us—Alex holding Gloria, me holding Sam—to the celebration below. The guard listened to chatter on his earpiece and the kids giggled with excitement while Alex and I rode in silence, still overwhelmed by what had just happened. My husband had become the next congressman representing the second district of Philadelphia, a post that could be traced all the way back to 1791.
“Wow,” said Alex, breaking the silence. “We did it.”
“Congratulations,” I told him. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks.”
We were speaking again. Perhaps now was the time to clear the air. I decided to go first.
“Alex. I’m sorry again about yesterday. I promised Frank from now on I’d be careful. Check with you guys whenever I do anything that might be taken the wrong way.”
I waited for him to tell me he was still mad, I was officially forgiven, or somewhere in between—anything—but instead he waved his hand in the air and said, “Forget it.”
That was all I would get. It wasn’t like I expected a big proclamation, but this wasn’t a small thing; I’d nearly ruined the campaign. I wished he could give me more, and if not in words, then in actions: a real kiss or a real hug. I swore then and there I would never take those three little words—“I forgive you”—for granted again. I would offer them whenever I got the chance.
The elevator stopped on a mid-level floor to reveal an older couple holding hands and about to step on. The security guard demanded they wait for the next car and the doors slid shut on their confused faces. I changed the subject. “Maybe this weekend, we can all get away for a few days, just the four of us,” I suggested. “Before things get crazy again.”
He lifted his brows and tilted his head as if considering it, but didn’t respond. He turned his attention to Gloria, tickling her until she squealed. Once she quieted, he turned back to me. “Abbey…”
“Yes?”
“I’ve been thinking that maybe it would be good for you to go back to work. Not full-time, but…”
“You sure?”
“I am. For starters, I know a freshmen congressman who could really use some help. With appointments and events, that kind of thing.”
It wasn’t really what I had in mind—I was a publicist, not an administrative assistant—but it was a start. “Will you put in a good word for me, then?”
“My highest recommendation.” He winked at me and I understood that he had put today’s events behind him and was ready to move on. We both exhaled heavily.
The baloop of his phone indicated a new text. He looked down and his brow furrowed. “That’s weird.”
“What?”
“Ariel Morganstern texted me. Says the Inquirer just posted a story linking him to East Falls. For the new headquarters.”
My face turned hot and the elevator walls seemed to close in, but I forced myself to sound nonchalant. “Really?”
“This isn’t good. Brindle is going to be pissed.”
“Well, it’s not your fault.”
“But someone tipped off the press. Who?”
“People talk. Things get out. That’s just the way it is.” I barely breathed, waiting for his response. But he said nothing, thinking, the static from the security guard’s earpiece and Sam’s strenuous thumb sucking the only sounds.
Alex looked over at me, at first suspicious but then somewhat bemused. “Is it?”
Watching his expression, I knew I could have confessed. But I was tired of explaining myself to this man. I returned his gaze with a blank stare and then asked, “What?” as if I had no idea what he was alluding to. As if insi
de I wasn’t doing a little happy dance, knowing I’d done something good for East Falls.
Alex opened his mouth to speak again but stopped himself. He was tired too. He shrugged, then pressed off his phone and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Whatever else was on that phone—whatever other fallout he would have to deal with—could wait until tomorrow.
The elevator doors opened and the roar that erupted from the supporters lining the hallway drowned out any further conversation. We began to walk, and soon the article on East Falls was forgotten in the beat-beat-beat of the professional sound system and the cheers and clapping of a party in full swing.
As we followed a few steps behind two rent-a-cops on the red-and-gold-carpeted hallway, people turned one by one to see us and then began to cheer, clap, and chant our name. The guards tried to maintain control, but soon we were engulfed by ecstatic supporters and well-wishers. Alex shook hands, waved, and gave a few hugs. A teenage boy threw confetti; a middle-aged lady in a “Van Holt for Congress” T-shirt started to cry; and two inebriated college girls giggled and hugged each other in excitement as Alex passed by. Flashes from iPhones blinked all around us. Sam tucked his head into my neck.
When we entered the ballroom, filled to capacity with people, tables, balloons, and servers, cheers rippled through the room. There must have been a thousand people there, all taking selfies, enjoying the free liquor and soft pretzels, and dancing to a five-piece band butchering a Van Morrison song. Disco lights swirled, and the entire room seemed to pulse to the music. It felt like a frat party, except for all the sports coats and stiletto heels. Everyone here was a supporter of the campaign, and from the looks of it, most supported with their checkbooks, not canvassing door to door.
We shook hands on the way to the stage and braced ourselves as animated faces came in close for hugs and kisses. I recognized some people from the week’s events, and some from that first Bloemveld cocktail party. Even Betsy and Ellen were there, both having seemingly forgotten the incident at lunch. Alex was only two minutes into being a congressman and already I was feeling the power.