Domestic Affairs

by Bridget Siegel

  Plus, Jacob thought to himself, the last thing he needed right now was anyone gossiping about Landon Taylor being in a bar with a young girl. Hmpf, he thought, laughing to himself, if any of those idiot gossip columns actually sat with Landon and Olivia during one of their list meetings they’d never write another story about the governor.

  The thought of the grind of the actual work hit Jacob, and he had to hand it to Olivia for remaining so Hallmark upbeat when most of her job was tedium crossed with mind-blowing pressure. Olivia really is a trouper.

  He thought about her quickly turning to stare out the window stoically when the governor asked if they could go over lists yet again. Jacob knew she appreciated the extra fundraising time, but even she had to be tired of it by now. She must have had a million things she would rather do than be alone with the governor in a hotel hold room, their lists all over the table.

  Jacob darted back out to stop Olivia and the governor before they got near the paparazzi. He needed to brief them on the situation. “Major crowd in there and lots of photogs.”

  “Is there another way in?” the governor asked impatiently.

  Olivia took a few steps back, as if Jacob had just told them the reporters had guns rather than cameras.

  “Yes. We can go around the rear of the building. If you guys want to head back to the car and drive around, I’ll meet you and open the back door. It leads right to the side elevators.”

  Taylor flexed his jaw in annoyance. “Fine. We should’ve just gone that way in the first place.”

  As the governor headed to the car, Jacob turned and hustled back into the hotel to meet them at the back entrance, feeling stung. Why is he so annoyed with me all the time these days? He didn’t even pass off his BlackBerry to me during the fundraisers this week. What the hell did I do?

  Jacob’s distress wasn’t lessened when the governor slid by the open rear door with a muffled “Thanks,” but Jacob chalked the rudeness up to exhaustion. He carefully ushered Taylor and Olivia to the club room he had reserved for working. Billy would disapprove of the added expense, but it was inappropriate for any of them to work in the governor’s room, or for him to be in theirs. Jacob thought about the possible consequences of misperceptions in a hotel filled with paparazzi and congratulated himself on avoiding them.

  FOURTEEN

  The bitter cold somehow made Jacob’s dingy New Hampshire motel room seem even worse than it should have, especially after spending the last three days in L.A. Jacob was in room 201 and Taylor in 203, but oddly enough, they were on opposite sides of the floor. That was strange, but not as strange as the waffle maker in the room. Especially given that there was no kitchenette, or even an iron. There was a Bible, and not even in the drawer, as normal hotel etiquette would dictate. It was sitting smack-dab in the middle of the nightstand. Do you think Jesus loved waffles? Jacob started to text to Olivia.

  He had a habit of texting things to Olivia as if she were standing in the room beside him witnessing the absurdity. Of course, he knew it made no sense out of context, but she always understood. Plus he needed to amuse himself somehow.

  The trips seemed to be longer and longer these days, and they moved from state to state so quickly, he barely knew where he was anymore. The campaign was surging—they now led Senator Kramer by at least six points in all the Iowa polls—but Jacob couldn’t help but feel more and more defeated personally. The governor had changed. There was no other way to view the problem. He was constantly insisting on being on the Sunday-morning shows. Taylor’s charm made it okay and probably even helped with the short-term bump in the poll numbers. But Jacob saw it eating into his long-term strategy. The path to the White House that he and Billy had so meticulously plotted seemed to have been rerouted by an increasingly reckless Taylor. And then there was Taylor’s snobbishness. He had become so close with donors like Yanni and Alek that he was losing perspective.

  Unfortunately, Jacob’s advice to the governor, particularly when combined with the edge of exhaustion, had not been coming across kindly. Like last week, when Jacob had suggested taking a commercial flight to Iowa. The governor had scoffed at him angrily, “Just call Yanni and get his jet.” Taylor had given the order as if instructing Jacob on something as simple as picking up a coffee. “And don’t go complaining to Olivia about it either.” Their once joke-filled, fun relationship was beginning to show cracks of tension.

  Jacob’s BlackBerry buzzed. It was the governor. “There’s only a bottle of Chardonnay in here, and it’s room temp,” the governor complained.

  Asshole. “Hey, just be glad it’s not in a box!” Jacob shot back, unable to control his exasperation.

  The governor didn’t miss a beat. “That’s the difference between you and Eric,” he said, comparing Jacob to his lackey and all-around houseboy. Jacob hated that comparison most of all, probably because somewhere inside, Jacob was frightened of becoming like Eric—so far into the Kool-Aid he didn’t even realize he was drinking it anymore. “Eric would have already hung up the phone and been halfway to a liquor store by—”

  Before the governor could finish his jab, Jacob let himself go too far. “That’s only one difference between me and Eric. For the record, I don’t plan to come over and wipe your ass after you take a shit tonight, either.” As the words left his mouth, Jacob threw his head back, wishing he hadn’t let them slip. Jesus! What was I thinking? DANGER, DANGER! That was the kind of joke he might have made to a guy from college, and even then, it would have meant he hated the guy.

  The governor stayed silent on the other end of the line. Jacob immediately backpedaled. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I apologize, Governor. I was just—I don’t know how to explain. I was just in an argument with Sophie and I let my emotions carry over.” Lie. It was true he had endured a fight with Sophie but that was two days ago. His ever-expanding ability to stretch the truth was exactly why she had yelled at him that way. Not calling her back was the other. He grunted as he remembered he had again forgotten to call her.

  “Man, you guys are hard on Eric,” the governor said, deflecting the apology and, with it, the first insult. “What’s that nickname you call him again? Little Prancer or something?”

  Jacob exhaled. The governor might not have even paid attention to that last rant, assuming it was all about Eric, or he might just be demonstrating his desire to not confront the reality of their fraying friendship.

  “We call him Lieutenant Proctor, sir.” Jacob didn’t grow up saying “sir”—he was a damn Yankee after all—but maybe the Southern style, he thought, would help mute the annoyance he was feeling. Unfortunately, as it almost always did, his conveyed respect instantly turned to sarcasm. “You know, Lieutenant Proctor from the Police Academy movies. The kiss-ass who can’t get out of his own way.”

  “What?” The governor groaned.

  “The movie. Police Academy. Steve Guttenberg. Bubba Smith. The whole series is classic. Please tell me you’ve seen them.”

  “Nope, never seen nor heard of it.”

  “You mean to tell me you know who won the last three seasons of American Idol and who was going to be the next Bachelorette, but you’ve never seen any of the Police Academy movies?” It was another example of Jacob’s going too far in this strange impulse he felt lately toward familiarity and contempt, but he was too tired to care.

  “Put it in my briefing tomorrow, and next time you bring it up, I can pretend to know what you’re talking about,” the governor said. “But last I checked, I didn’t call you to hear about the movies I should watch. You’re walking a fine line, Jacob.”

  “Oh right, the wine. That’s what you want. I’ll go down to the lobby and see if I can get you a few pieces of ice.”

  Down in the lobby, Jacob tried to ignore the voice in his head telling him he was becoming more and more like Eric every day. Running around a dingy motel in . . . where the hell are we anyway? . . . for pieces of ice to cool down the candidate’s freakin’ wine. What real man drinks white
wine anyway?

  “Please, ma’am, I just need a small cup of ice.” He pleaded with the woman at the reception desk for the fourth time, unsure of why ice seemed to be such a difficult request in random states. When she finally reappeared with a small plastic cup containing two ice cubes, Jacob looked down and rolled his eyes. He quickly remembered people would see him with the governor tomorrow, and ever-conscious of the campaign’s reputation on all fronts, he looked up and thanked her profusely.

  He headed to the second floor. As he walked down the long, freezing-cold, and yet incongruously musty hallway, he sighed, troubled by the tone of his last conversation. He felt as though the friendship, the bond, he had with the governor was tearing beyond repair. It was those damn TV shows. They had been arguing about them for weeks. And now, the sarcasm that used to leave the governor in stitches was turning into something only heard as disrespect. Maybe it was Jacob’s fault. Maybe he had gotten too close, become too casual. After all, the governor was his boss, not his friend. He knocked on the door and hung his head remorsefully. The door opened slowly.

  “Hi, Governor.”

  “Hey.”

  “Here’s the ice. And, Gov?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Sorry about before.”

  “Don’t worry. We’re all tired.”

  Jacob looked at the governor’s haggard glare. Taylor was disappointed. Jacob realized the cause: the two measly half-melted ice cubes.

  “Thanks for the ice.”

  The door closed swiftly and Jacob walked back down the hall, not quite sure if his discontent was aimed at the governor or at himself.

  Among the emails that he had ignored while searching out ice cubes were four from Maggie, the New York Post political reporter, the last two of which read Urgent but with no other message. Jacob forwarded one of the early ones to the campaign press secretary, asking if he knew anything about it. Nada, Peter had pinned back.

  I’m sure it’s nothing. Maggie’s a friend. If it were something truly awful, she would give me a bit of detail. Well, Jacob thought to himself, realizing that he hadn’t called her back in quite some time, she was a friend. Shit. Sophie. Also haven’t called her back. He remembered his last fight with Sophie, when she had yelled at him, “You always choose the campaign before me.” A grand gesture was required to soothe that girl, so he called her before Maggie.

  “Hello?” The fact that she’d answered with a questioning hello when her caller ID definitely informed her who was calling was a tell-tale sign she was still mad.

  “Hey, Soph.”

  “Nice of you to call.”

  “I just left the governor! I called you before I even called the New York Post back.” The grand gesture had sounded so much more grand in his head.

  “Wow. Thanks.”

  “Sorry.” He didn’t really have the energy to explain his point, much less argue it. Asking for the slack he needed seemed like a sure-fire way to start another fight, which he didn’t have time for.

  “How’s New Hampshire?” she asked with somewhat feigned interest.

  “Good, good. Polls are looking good. People seem to really be responding to the message.” He realized he had reflexively fallen into talking points. These days they seemed to come to him so much more intuitively than normal conversation. “Hey, and I had the most amazing apple cider. One day I’ll have to bring you here for it.”

  “Yeah,” she said, unenthused.

  “How about you? What’s going on there?”

  He tried to focus as she started talking, but he couldn’t bear just idly listening. He threw her on speakerphone and started replying to emails while attempting to catch the vital parts of Sophie’s story about the start of school. As she spoke, he couldn’t help but get more nervous about Maggie’s messages.

  “You falling asleep yet?” Sophie asked.

  “No, sorry, Soph. Just tired.”

  “You should go to sleep.”

  He didn’t tell her there was no chance he was going to sleep any time soon. “I probably should.” It wasn’t a lie, he assured himself; he was tired as shit. “It’s so good to hear your voice though.”

  “You too.” She said it with less enthusiasm than usual, but he didn’t really have the time to analyze it. He had to get on the next call. He stopped for a second and then dialed Maggie.

  “Hey, Maggie.”

  “Jacob! I thought you’d never call.”

  What is with every girl saying passive-aggressive shit like that tonight? He was almost at his apology quota. He had said sorry so many times he felt like Olivia. He begrudgingly apologized. “Sorry, long day in New Hampshire.”

  “Ohh, good times. You staying warm?”

  “You know, it went up to thirty today, but the good news is I’ll be back soon so hopefully I can catch some real cold weather.”

  Maggie chuckled and Jacob smiled, remembering that he loved Maggie’s ability to still think all of this was interesting and funny.

  “So what’s up?”

  “I need to run something by you. I didn’t mention anything to Peter because it’s offhand and I didn’t want something turning into a story because of me.”

  “Okay, I’m braced. Hit me with it. We’re off the record, right?”

  “Hells to the yeah. Way off on this one. So, they’re thinking about running a blind item about a married presidential hopeful sleeping with his fundraiser.”

  Jacob gasped. “What?! And you think it’s my guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh my God, that’s hilarious!” “Hilarious” was the wrong word. “Totally ridiculous. That man is twisted tight around Aubrey’s finger. And Olivia. She’s not—No way. Believe me, I would know if she was.”

  “Jacob Harriston! Are you telling me the story should be about you, not Governor Taylor?”

  Jacob laughed and then decided to purposely not deny it. Let her think he and Olivia were sleeping together. It was a lot better than having any rumors about the governor out there, and he knew Maggie would tell others on the down low if even a question arose.

  “Maggie, I’m telling you this is not a story!” He said it in gentle-enough protest to suffice as an admittance.

  “Wow, I’m glad to hear this. On many levels. I mean I’m glad you’re happy. Are you happy?”

  “I’m happy,” Jacob said. I’m not lying, he told himself yet again.

  “Plus, well, the truth is,” she said, almost whispering, “I really didn’t want to believe he was one of those guys.”

  “He’s not, Maggie. He really is better than that.”

  “Cool. Thanks for calling back. Sorry to stalk you.”

  As Jacob hung up the phone, he sat back thinking about the conversation and wondering why he had instinctively steered Maggie into thinking he was sleeping with Olivia. He dismissed it quickly.

  Two cups of hotel coffee, a.k.a. sludge, later, Jacob picked up a pin from the press secretary, Peter, asking if everything was okay with the New York Post. Jacob flashed back to his conversation with Maggie. All fine, it was nothing, he wrote back with a weird feeling that it wasn’t completely true. Where the hell does this insecurity come from? There couldn’t be any truth to the rumor, could there?

  No, there could not. He scolded himself for even the thought. Still, he couldn’t help but muse a little. They do really get along well. And Olivia has been on every trip, even the ones she didn’t really need to be on. That’s just because she’s a control freak. She’s a control freak! He continued to yell back and forth to himself in his head. She would never let go enough to take a risk like having an affair with anyone, much less the governor. She yelled at me when I wanted to sneak into a second movie on the same ticket that one time. She hates when I cut lines. She doesn’t break rules. And Landon. He is one of the good guys. He tried to reassure himself, with more than a hint of doubt. Sure, he’s changing. How could he not? He’s steps away from being president of the United States. It’s okay that he likes better wine. Who cares? Rea
lly. He is not sleeping with Olivia.

  His head then swerved into a tailspin about letting Maggie think he himself was hooking up with Olivia. What if she put something in the paper about Olivia sleeping with him? That would definitely be the last nail in the nice coffin he was building himself where Sophie was concerned. Fortunately, the campaign’s pollster, a known insomniac, called, putting an end to the inner tailspin.

  “New poll numbers,” Richard yelled through the phone, not bothering to say hello.

  Pollsters were a bizarrely unique breed—with few exceptions, brilliant, almost mad scientists. Their lives were spent studying people’s hearts and heads. They interrogated people, evaluated them, and formulated strategies to sway them. One would think this obsession with human thought and behavior would give them an above-average ability to read people, maybe even relate to them. But that theory had a huge margin of error.

  The Taylor campaign’s pollster was an extreme specimen of the breed. He was heavyset, with a comb-over of white hair that was usually plastered with the sweat that rolled down his rounded, bespectacled face. For Jacob, talking to him was a learned skill, as Richard was completely impervious to sarcasm and repeated himself in almost an autistic fashion.

  Despite being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by campaigns worldwide, he dressed like a homeless man, always in a suit that was too big, with his dirty white shirt half-tucked-in, the tail hanging out over his pants. In fact, one time, while Richard was on a corner in New York, waiting for one of his billionaire corporate clients, a family walked by him, stopped, turned around, and gave him a dollar. Richard barely noticed them and took the dollar.

  “How we looking?” Jacob inquired.

  “We’re good, good. It’s really looking good.”