by Karin Tanabe
The senator was easier to stalk than Olivia or Sandro. His life was public knowledge, and so was his job. When I got sick of watching him jabber on C-SPAN, I started looking up his hearing schedule and heading to the Hill so I could listen to him speak in person. The first two times I went, it was just a study in the motions of the man, his physicality, the things that made him tick. But the third time I saw him, he took to the Senate floor for half an hour.
Walking up the long hill, past tourists in comfortable shoes, I flashed my Congress pass to the security guards at the door of the Capitol and put my bag through the X-ray machine. Once it had been established that I was not a threat to national security, my possessions were returned, and I walked through the marble building.
“Pass?” a handsome security guard asked as I opened the door of the press gallery in the Senate chamber. I untangled it from my hair and showed him a picture where I looked like a corpse. “Proceed,” he instructed me. I walked toward the front row.
Placed high above the Senate floor, too high for effective heckling or accurate spitballs, the press gallery was occupied, as usual, by a handful of reporters reclining in their horrific outfits, scribbling on creased notepads, and punching furiously away on their BlackBerrys like they were instant-messaging Deep Throat. I recognized a girl from the Associated Press who was wearing a mint green oversize polo shirt with a pair of stained khakis and canvas sneakers. She looked like she was ready to depart for spring break in Orlando. Another girl was in a too-loose skirt suit, huge plastic bubblegum pearls, and a pair of ballerina flats with rubber soles.
That was the thing about female print journalists. Dressing up, grooming, having two angular eyebrows—all frowned upon. It was still that archaic mentality of trying to blend in with the boys. But I refused. I just couldn’t look like I dressed out of a “take me” bin.
I took out my writing pad (Nepalese paper encased in a pink ostrich leather cover embossed with a quote from Balzac, in French) and settled into a dark wooden seat. I was scrolling through news on my BlackBerry, hoping I could file something while I waited, when a reporter from Scripps started barking in my general direction.
In a tone that sounded appropriate for bootleggers and criminals, he hollered, “Hey blondie, you got an extra pen?” I turned to him and pointed at my chest quizzically.
“Yes, you. Do you see any other blondes sitting here? Do you have a pen I could borrow?”
I reached into my bag, walked up the stairs, and handed him my backup. He inspected it like I had just handed him a lit stick of dynamite.
“This is shaped like a tiger,” he said, examining the exotic writing utensil.
“It’s the only extra one I have,” I said with a smile, not mentioning that it was actually a panther, it was made by Cartier, and it cost over a grand. “Nah, I’m gonna break this thing,” he said, handing it back. “I’ll go inside and grab a Bic.” He was getting up to leave when a girl unearthed a pen from her messy, mousy brown ponytail and threw it at him.
“Hey, thanks,” he said. She raised her hand in acknowledgment while she continued to type, but she didn’t say a thing.
Of course. Who would want to write with an enamel and gold pen when you could scribble with a dandruff-covered white plastic stick? What a sound choice. I looked at the Scripps reporter, silently wished him a lifetime of unhappiness and lice, and watched as senators started to file into the formal room.
Stanton was chairman of the Judiciary Committee and was talking today about immigration and the Freedom Fence Act, which would double the length of the existing border fence between Mexico and the United States. Since hearing Olivia say she was writing about the fence and discovering that she had reported on it in depth in the past, I was beginning to think that it wasn’t just the issue that brought them together, it was the issue that was keeping them together. Olivia was from Texas, which is where one hundred miles of the fence would go. He was from Arizona and her perfect husband was definitely from Mexico or Central America. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
“I can think of nothing more important than protecting our borders, which will in turn protect our freedoms and our families,” Stanton declared once he had the floor. Pacing in front of the Senate president, he paused, lifted his left hand, and dropped it again with the elegance of a symphony conductor. “Terrorism is a very real threat. Those of us who see the fence as nothing but a means to keep out illegal immigrants are asleep at the wheel. It’s a safety concern. The way the fence stands right now, it’s like a catwalk straight into our country.”
There were some chuckles from a few in the room. The senator turned and looked at his colleagues. “The American people deserve to tuck their children in at night without fear. I think, especially, of the Americans living in border towns, in El Paso, in San Diego and San Luis. Democrats say the numbers are already going in the right direction and that we should stop making a fuss. But the pace is too slow.”
He opened the bottom button of his gray blazer and straightened his navy and maroon tie. It reminded me of the one my college boyfriend wore to the boat races on the Charles River. Stanton’s probably smelled a lot less like beer.
“We need more vehicle barriers,” he said, his body straight and tall. “We need more pedestrian fence. Seven hundred miles is nothing. I was in the army with men who could run seven hundred miles in a week.”
As Stanton finished his address, I held up my BlackBerry and zoomed in on him with the phone’s video camera. His body looked much younger than his years. His tan face was covered with fine lines but showed a youthful vigor as he spoke. I thought about the photos I had of him having sex with Olivia. What would his colleagues, sitting here intimidated now, say when they saw those? All his arguments, all this passion would be reduced to nothing if I decided to splash those photos around the world. Few politicians ever recovered from sex scandals and when physical evidence was involved, it was always game over.
Senators were scrawling notes as Stanton spoke. Senator Dianne Feinstein and her perfect hairdo and well-cut St. John suit looked like she was going to explode. But no one’s ire was going to prevent Stanton from finishing his eloquent roar.
The reporter from the Huffington Post picked up his phone and called his editor. “I’m running late. I’ll be in when this fucker decides to shut up. Do we have a stand-alone immigration page? We do? We have a what page? A wedding page? When did that launch? Okay, well, this asshole isn’t proposing to anyone, he’s just ranting about the border fence, so I think immigration is a better landing page, don’t you? Yeah, it should be the lead. I’ll file quick. Have someone get a photo off the AP wire of his fists flying. He’s like a prizefighter out here.”
Shaking his head at the liberal take on the matter, the reporter from the Daily Caller smirked and busied himself with his own reporting.
My own notes were nothing but questions. Before I knew she was married to Sandro, I was convinced that Olivia was sleeping with the senator because she was addicted to power. But now I wasn’t so sure. Why would she risk her rapidly rising career and her marriage to gorgeous Sandro? Did she have no morals whatsoever? Couldn’t she see how great her life was? Or was it something else? Her awfully expensive car and writing implement were definitely red flags. But a desire for cash seemed too simple. She didn’t care about strutting around the world in Manolo Blahniks, she cared about leaping over the competition in her Banana Republic flats.
Maybe Stanton was feeding her scoops while she shook her milk shake in Middleburg, helping to push her to the top of the Capitolist ladder. But that would mean that their relationship was serious—that they had seen each other more than a handful of times at the Goodstone. If so, what I witnessed outside the Bull Barn was not just the peak of a short affair, but merely a routine encounter—and Olivia really was a reprehensible human being. Then again, it might be all over now. I had seen them fighting in the car only ten days ago, and I could be obsessing over something that was in the past.
I listened to Stanton’s words and thought about all those articles Olivia wrote on immigration. They were detailed and frequently quoted by other reporters trying to catch up to her scoops. It seemed unusual considering she was a White House reporter, not covering Congress.
I tried to imagine how a relationship could start between a senator and a woman in her twenties. Had they met in the Capitol? The White House? Was she already writing an immigration story, having established that as part of her beat, or had all those articles come later? I found it difficult to talk to members of Congress about anything but the task at hand. I couldn’t imagine making small talk, or flirting with them. There was something about their demeanor, those intimidating pins on their lapels that screamed, “I am not like you.” And in Stanton’s case, there was also that whole marriage, family values, six-children thing.
The senator seemed very far away from thoughts of family while he spoke on the floor. I knew he lived alone in a large town house on Capitol Hill when he was not in Arizona. I had easily found the address and walked by it one night when I finished covering a hearing in the Rayburn building. It was brick, painted over with thick white paint, and had a red front door with a brass knocker in the shape of an eagle. Next to the door was a black metal mailbox with a gold pear-shaped latch. It looked like any other handsome house on C Street, but it was the only one I paused in front of. Had Olivia been inside? Had she put her wedding vows down the garbage disposal and kicked off her clothes? Maybe recited the Constitution in a thong? Even more difficult than imagining Olivia doing the Charleston in her birthday suit was imagining this man, currently commanding the Senate floor like it was his living room, going home to a normal house, a normal life. After what I had seen him do with Olivia, I couldn’t imagine him with a wife and children. How could he share a bed with someone and fill that elegant white house with lies? But, then again, maybe his wife just stayed in Arizona, happily unaware of it all.
I put down my pen and sat back in my seat to listen to the end of his speech.
He delivered his closing remarks in a lawyerly way, threw his notes on his desk, and stood there while some of the blood drained out of his face. When he looked up at the press gallery he was smiling like his opponent was pinned to the floor, down for the count and gasping for air.
Already behind on my story count for the day, I drove back to the office, sat at my small desk, and refreshed the Capitolist home page to see which one of Upton’s favorite reporters had the Web lead. Olivia’s name popped onto my screen. No surprise there; she had a lead at some point almost every day.
I wasn’t surprised to see her name at the top of the site. It was the foster care piece Upton had assigned to her that day. But I was surprised to see Stanton’s name liberally sprinkled throughout the article.
I read and reread. The president was about to pass the Foster Care Empowerment Act, Stanton’s brainchild, and Olivia had him quoted all over the piece, talking about his own children, adopted from the foster care system. When, I wondered, had she talked to him about foster care? Between countryside sex sessions? Or did she actually make an appointment with his scheduler and go interview him in his office?
This bill, according to Stanton’s quotes, was going to change the lives of thousands of teens. A half-million kids were currently in foster care and two hundred thousand had aged out in the last decade. The Foster Care Empowerment Act would help find permanent families for older kids by promoting relative guardianship and expanding federal support by moving the age limit for funding from eighteen to twenty-one. Senators from both sides of the aisle were applauding his work, and the president was set to formally approve the legislation this summer. I read the piece slowly, making sure to mask Olivia’s byline behind my Twitter feed in case Julia glanced at my computer. The piece was actually quite moving. I even had to choke back tears at a line about Martha Brinkley being adopted by her music teacher at age seventeen so she didn’t have to deal with being still very much a child but an adult in the eyes of the law. I hated that something Olivia wrote was having this impact on me, but considering I cried during the opening scene of The Notebook, I didn’t give her too much credit. Upton had asked for warm and fuzzy, and the suck-up had delivered.
I walked out of the office at just past 7 P.M. I was very happy about having an early night and turned down an invitation to have drinks with Isabelle and her glamorous athletic posse, so I could sit at home and try to sort my jumble of thoughts into something I could understand.
I reached for my keys and checked my BlackBerry to make sure I didn’t have to write another article from the parking garage. I didn’t. But I did have a message from Hardy telling me I had an important emergency assignment and not to fuck it up. Upton was having a cocktail party in honor of Capitolist reporter David Bush’s general world domination and I was tasked with covering it. Nothing like covering a party at your editor in chief’s house for your own paper. Not awkward at all. I was exhausted and didn’t want to do anything but drive straight home and collapse into bed. But I had no choice. I looked at the address and headed toward the highway to drive north to Maryland instead of south to Middleburg.
I couldn’t believe that out of all the Style girls I had been handpicked by Hardy to cover our own party. Was that even journalism? Wasn’t that just a press release about how great we were with my byline shoved on it? When I texted Isabelle about my demeaning assignment she said that I had to do it because I was the newest one on the team and that she’d covered a party at Upton’s last year so it was my turn to deal.
The only plus was that there was a chance Stanton could be there. David Bush wrote about Stanton pretty often and as Julia had pointed out to me when I started, everyone loved David.
It turns out that people not only loved David, they worshipped David. At the entrance to Upton’s large, elegant yellow clapboard house was a picture of David shaking hands with the president. On the other side was one of David playing Ping-Pong with the Speaker of the House. Just in case a party guest didn’t know that David was the most powerful reporter in town, here was a quick picture show to point out the obvious. How handy.
I walked in the door and gave my name to one of the paper’s event planners and then pushed into the house past a secret service agent. That was a good sign. Maybe the Senate majority leader was here and if he was, there was a good chance Stanton was, too. The two voted in a perfect line with each other and everyone said that if Stanton didn’t run for president, he would at least be the next majority leader if the Senate stayed in GOP hands.
I didn’t recognize anyone in the living room, so I pulled out a notepad and walked over to look at a few family pictures on the mantel. The Uptons looked so normal. I didn’t know what I expected. Maybe framed photos of BlackBerrys and Capitolist time stamps.
A few minutes of that and I felt even more awkward and out of place. I headed to the backyard, opened the door to the large brick patio, and leaned against a white pillar. Maybe I could just blend in with the pillar. I was suddenly thrilled that I had worn an ecru-colored dress. My mother always said ecru was just white but dirty, but what did she know? It was actually a yuppie version of camouflage. I stood there until two people bumped into me because I clearly was blending in with the pillar, and then I dug up some courage and went to ask a few guests why they loved David Bush.
I checked the Congress info book on my phone to make sure I was approaching the right people and made a beeline for a congressman I recognized from watching too much C-SPAN.
“Congressman Ward. How are you?” I said after weaving through guests on the perfectly manicured lawn. Shoving aside Ward’s wife as politely as I could, I stuck out my hand and said, “I’m Adrienne Brown, a reporter for the Capitolist. Do you have a few minutes to talk about David Bush?”
“A reporter for the Capitolist, are you?” replied the portly lawmaker. Up close, he looked like a scoop of Crisco hired to pen our nation’s laws. “Well then you’ve come to the right place! I hear yo
u people are throwing this party.”
“Yes!” I replied. “That’s just how we roll.” I was turning pink. This beach ball with a head was making me blush. I had reached a new low.
Luckily, Ward was also happy to gush about David Bush, and considering that my face was bright red, I kept my eyes on my notepad and wrote it all down.
When I was done talking to Congressman Ward, I walked across the garden toward a large grove of hydrangeas and took a glass of water off the outdoor bar. When I stepped back toward the house, I saw Upton talking to one of the policy editors. It was strange to see him outside of the newsroom, not locked inside his intimidating glass office. He still looked like he was about to jump on his speakerphone and blast the whole party with some news of the Capitolist conquering the world.
I got five more sound bites from lawmakers about David, spoke to a few TV reporters about why they loved the king of print, and tried to make my way to the door. I mustered up a weak smile for a few of the editors I recognized from the paper and tried not to bump into the waiters making their way through the crowd in the garden with huge trays of canapés. I almost had a run-in with a man holding shrimp tempura and sat down on a wooden folding chair to steady myself before I was covered in fried Japanese food.
I watched as people came out the back door and into the garden for a few minutes. It really was a beautiful house. It was probably built in the late nineteenth century, but the inside had to have been gutted and updated a few times since. The outside still looked original. I somehow had not expected Upton, the leader of new media, to live in an old house. I saw him more in a McMansion or a shiny new condo overlooking the Potomac River. This house, elegant and old, was something I would have chosen if I made ten times my salary. I shivered at the thought that we had similar taste in architecture and assured myself that it was always the wife who chose the real estate.