Georgetown Academy, Season One

by Schwartz, Alyssa Embree

  “Yeah, sure. See you around,” he answered, peeling his eyes off Evan and Luke and already headed in the opposite direction.

  “Hey, Mom,” she said, pushing the double doors open. The fresh, crisp air was welcoming after the stifling claustrophobia of the school hallway and she pulled her jacket a little tighter as she walked toward the parking lot.

  “How was your day, honey?” After a week of giving Ellie the cold shoulder when the Gabe photo came out, her mother had finally called a truce. Ellie knew it was only because her mom had been overcome with guilt when she found out Ellie had been treated like a political pawn by Hunter at her expense. But she didn’t really care why her mother had decided to bury the hatchet. Ellie was just thankful her mom was speaking to her in more than one-word sentences.

  “The usual. How about you?”

  “Busy. The president officially announced Gail Morris as the Supreme Court nominee today,” Marilyn answered, a note of pride in her voice.

  “Yeah, I heard that. Congrats,” Ellie said. As a member of the high-powered Senate Judiciary Committee, Ellie’s mother had been pushing for Gail as the nominee. She’d been a fan since Gail’s time on the First Circuit Court of Appeals when she upheld Marilyn’s Maternity Leave Access Act five years ago.

  “Do you have plans tonight?” her mother asked.

  “Nope.” With no Hunter, Gabe, Evan or Brinley, Ellie’s schedule was unfortunately wide open.

  “Perfect. We’re having a congratulatory dinner with Gail at Proof. I’ll meet you there at 7:30.”

  It wasn’t exactly an exciting invitation, but at least it got her out of the house. After a school day filled with seeing her exes, she could use a distraction.

  Ellie arrived a few minutes early to the restaurant in the heart of the Penn Quarter district. Proof was a D.C. staple with exposed brick walls and European light fixtures, simultaneously giving it a feel of rustic old-world charm and modern panache. And instead of playing endless CNN coverage, the television screens in the bar displayed the presidential portraits from the National Gallery across the street.

  As the smell of red wine and filet mignon wafted past her, Ellie ordered a club soda and took a seat on one of the high-backed leather chairs at the crowded bar. She looked up at the pensive face of Thomas Jefferson on the screen. Now that’s a guy who had some scandalous affairs.

  She twirled her chestnut hair around her finger as she watched the door for her mother, the strain of yet another horrible day at school seeping into every muscle in her body until even her eyeballs ached.

  “Whatever it is can’t be that bad, can it?” A male voice came from the chair next to her. She turned to see it belonged to an incredibly good-looking guy around her age. He had dark, tanned skin and the kind of unconventional facial features that came together perfectly, but made it difficult to pinpoint what exactly made him so attractive. He was wearing faded jeans, a light grey T-shirt and a charcoal hoodie covering his muscular-looking arms. A few dark brown strands of hair peeked out from underneath his striped beanie, but didn’t hide his eyes, which were the same shade of green as Ellie’s.

  “I’m just not having the best week. Weeks actually,” she answered.

  She figured that was the end of the exchange, but he continued, “Then look on the bright side. It can only get better, right?” She didn’t want to tell him she was having a hard time lately seeing the bright side to anything, but he was giving her an easy, contagious smile that was difficult not to return. “I’m Weston.”

  “Ellie.”

  A portrait of Abraham Lincoln flashed on the screen and he nodded toward it. “So, Ellie, on a scale from one to that guy’s problems, what are we dealing with here?”

  She genuinely laughed, the sound almost foreign since it had been so long. “I guess when you compare it to the Civil War, it’s not so bad.”

  He winked. “Always helps to put it in perspective. So you go to G.A.?”

  “What gave it away?”

  “I may have seen a photograph a few weeks ago…”

  She reddened. He knew her from the infamous photograph of her and Gabe. Great.

  “Is that what’s got you down?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Do you blame me?”

  “I was actually impressed by that whole thing,” he said with a shrug.

  She instinctively felt defensive. Was he being sarcastic? “I don’t think that’s the word anyone would use to describe it.”

  “That’s because they’re all too narrow-minded. The second I saw it, I thought, now there’s the one girl in D.C. who has the balls not to care what everyone else thinks.”

  The tension in her body released on its own as she considered his shift in perspective. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it.” It was actually much better than the alternative. She’d been wavering between guilt and shame for the past three weeks. She was about to tell him as much, but something stopped her. She liked that this guy was impressed by her. If anything, at least he was providing the distraction she desperately needed. She smoothed down her white cotton mini-dress and suddenly felt relieved she hadn’t phoned it in with her outfit. Brinley was her default stylist and had convinced her a few weeks ago to buy it, instructing her to pair the dress with sheer black tights and four inch black lace-up booties. She would have to remember to thank her tomorrow.

  “So where do you go to school?” she asked him.

  “I’m a senior at Landon.” The all-boys school in Bethesda. Ellie had a few friends there, but she definitely would have remembered if she had ever met Weston.

  She was about to play the name game to see if they had any friends in common when she saw her mother and Gail Morris breeze through the doorway, approaching her. Marilyn Walker donned her favorite wool flared Stella McCartney pants, a light yellow blouse tucked into them and a chunky turquoise necklace visible underneath her collar. If they had a vote for best-dressed senator on the Hill, her mother would win in a landslide. Gail Morris was a bit dowdier in her tapered-leg black pantsuit, her shoulder-length wavy brown hair not as sleek and perfectly blown-out as Marilyn’s. Ellie had briefly met Gail once before and found her warm and engaging, especially compared to some of her mother’s other colleagues, who had a hard time making conversation if it wasn’t about an upcoming bill or how their party was getting screwed by the other party.

  “Looks like you two already met,” Gail said, looking between Ellie and Weston.

  Wait…what?

  “Guess I failed to mention my last name is Morris,” Weston grinned. Then he leaned into Ellie and whispered, “I guess the rest of our date is going to be chaperoned.”

  Ellie tried to play down her smile.

  She sat next to Weston in one of the cozy leather booths, their mothers across from them, the table crowded with an overflowing cheese plate, tuna tartare and a stack of flatbread.

  “I’ve been trying to prepare Weston for how intense the nomination process is going to be,” Gail said, cutting into a slab of goat cheese.

  “The process is tough, but it’ll be over before you know it,” Marilyn answered reassuringly. Tough was an understatement. The other side would be investigating and picking apart every case Gail ever worked on from the second she graduated law school.

  “Just don’t read the blogs,” Ellie whispered to Weston as the waiter refilled their mothers’ wine glasses. “Or the papers. Actually, just cut yourself off from all forms of technology.”

  “I never read that crap. None of it’s ever true anyway. The only way I’m in trouble is if ESPN starts blogging about Chris Christie instead of Chris Paul,” he whispered back.

  Marilyn turned to Gail with a frown. “So I heard Richard Mills is already on the war path claiming your work on the Kerry campaign proves you’ll have a bias against conservatives.”

  Ellie’s ears instinctively perked up at the mention of Gabe’s dad. No doubt he had decided to wage a war on Gail simply because Marilyn stood in her corner. And once he got star
ted, there was no telling how far below the belt he’d strike.

  “Have you thought about hiring a strategist to help temper some of the media onslaught?” Marilyn asked.

  “Yes, I actually just hired Thomas Madison.”

  Brinley’s father. The Madison family was staunchly Republican, but as one of the most powerful strategists in the city, Thomas would play ball for whomever was the highest bidder, no matter their political affiliation.

  Suddenly, there was a flurry of commotion at the door and the Secretary of State entered, flanked by her usual team of ripped Secret Service guards. She was a close acquaintance of Ellie’s mother and Marilyn waved from her seat.

  “I’m going to say hello. Let me introduce you, Gail,” her mother said. Gail made a failed attempt to mask her excitement over this prospect, then followed Marilyn to the door.

  “Has your mom given you the speech yet about how everything you do now is a reflection on her?” Ellie asked, taking a sip of her club soda.

  He shook his head. “Nah. She’s pretty cool with me making my own choices. Otherwise, I think I might wake up when I’m forty, very single and with some serious mommy issues.”

  “You’d probably have a really great relationship with your therapist, though.”

  He grinned and when he stabbed a piece of tuna, she saw a small tattoo on his wrist underneath his hoodie, but she couldn’t make out what it was. “We’re in high school. We’re supposed to screw up. Life’s too short for us to have to worry about whether the rest of the country finds it newsworthy.”

  She nodded, wishing she could adopt the same attitude. It was still refreshing to be around someone completely unfazed by the politics of it all. Weston seemed so different from Hunter, and unlike Gabe, too, for that matter. He was so relaxed, so carefree…so uncomplicated.

  “So you feeling any better?” he asked, leaning in a little closer. His spicy scent of cedar and spice almost made her blush.

  “I am actually.” It was hard to believe the difference in how she felt now from when she walked into the restaurant.

  “Good. Because yesterday is yesterday. Bill Clinton said that and you can’t argue with him.”

  “And here I thought you only listened to Bill Simmons.”

  He raised an impressed eyebrow at her ESPN reference. She was glad she’d spent so much time around Hunter’s basketball buddies. “Well, it’s definitely something you have to keep telling yourself if you’re a Redskins fan.”

  She laughed. “So are you going on the ski retreat?”

  “Yeah, can’t wait. You?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Even better,” he said with a playful glint in his eye.

  She had already been looking forward to getting out of the claustrophobia of D.C. for a few days, but Weston being in Stowe was an unexpected bonus. Brinley had a theory that it was always good to have a few “ingredients” in the guy mix. It would be a welcome change to add someone besides her exes to the recipe. Even if he was merely a fun distraction…

  Suddenly, having to watch Gabe and Taryn make out all over the mountain didn’t seem like such a big deal.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tuesday, 1:26 p.m.

  Brinley Madison looked out the picture window of Dr. Faucher’s office to the sprawling acres of Northern Virginia countryside, running a finger through her long, auburn hair. If she listened hard enough, she could almost hear the water trickling through the creek that meandered through the property, the current bolstered by last week’s rainstorms.

  “Brinley?” Dr. Faucher asked in her overly soft whisper voice that annoyed Brinley only days ago, reminding her of the ultra-liberal NPR hosts always reporting asinine stories about odd trinket collections or begging for donations. Though oddly, she had begun to find Dr. Faucher’s voice soothing, one of the many things that had changed since she’d entered the Sagebrush Rehabilitation Center two weeks ago. The biggest, of course, being that she was no longer taking copious amounts of Adderall to get through the day.

  Brinley curled her petite body into a ball, the Splendid thermal leggings she had practically been living in since arriving at Sagebrush clinging to her like a second skin, and returned her gaze to Dr. Faucher, who reclined slightly in her leather armchair. Her close-cropped, gray hair brought out the charcoal undertones in her blue eyes, and her fair skin remained unlined. But she was in one of her usual oversized earth-toned, double-layered tunics that always made Brinley shudder along with her hideous horn-rimmed glasses threatening to overtake half her face. Dr. Faucher actually had a perfect heart-shaped face and long, lean figure, and with Brinley’s help, she could probably be quite chic. In fact, Brinley had spent many therapy sessions mentally choosing outfits for Dr. Faucher, including accessories. Those crystal stone bracelets needed to go.

  “I was asking how you were feeling about going home today,” Dr. Faucher continued.

  “Excited,” Brinley replied instantly, the gold flecks in her brown eyes twinkling at the thought. She had been gone for almost two weeks and the homesickness for all things D.C. had reached epic proportions. Though the facilities at the luxurious Sagebrush rivaled any five-star hotel, there was still nothing like sleeping on your own goose-down pillows. And she could kill for a crab cake from Blue Duck Tavern. “But also nervous, you know?” she added. “Just about how everything’s going to be now.”

  When Brinley first entered Sagebrush, she’d found opening up about her true feelings almost impossible, resulting in many frustrating and ultimately fruitless sessions with Dr. Faucher. Her family’s motto that a Madison never show a vulnerability publicly (for fear that an enemy could exploit it) remained deeply ingrained in her. The mandatory group sessions had been even more excruciating, and for days, Brinley had remained in the antique chaise in the corner of the group therapy room, the ever-present headache from quitting Adderall cold-turkey still dully throbbing at her temples, as she listened to other people’s rambling stories, inwardly feeling massively superior to them.

  But about halfway into her stay, she had heard a story that sounded oddly familiar. Another patient, a few years older than Brinley, talking about how she couldn’t get through a day of classes at Vanderbilt without taking shots of whiskey. About how deep the craving would go and how satisfying it felt when it was filled, if only temporarily. About how, at the end, almost nothing filled that hole, even ten shots of whiskey. It all sounded so desperately nouveau that Brinley wanted to laugh at her. Except she knew she had become the same person. And it needed to stop.

  An hour later, Brinley had started talking to Dr. Faucher. Really talking. She finally understood that if she didn’t want to relapse like one of those trashy faux-celebrities Dr. Drew was always pretending to care about on his television show, she’d have to start being honest with herself.

  “I don’t blame you for being nervous,” Dr. Faucher said. “It’s difficult going back to the real world with all of its triggers. We’ve talked a lot about the fact that your addiction started from a pressure you felt to keep up. That you needed that energy burst in order to survive.”

  Brinley nodded, thinking back to the first time she had taken Adderall, a night in which she needed to whip up an English essay and mingle at one of her mother’s fundraising events at the Kennedy Center.

  “And that as you kept taking it, it helped mask any emotions you didn’t want to acknowledge. For instance, in your relationship with Graham,” Dr. Faucher said, referring to Brinley’s ex-boyfriend, Graham Wells, the son of the former Vice President of the United States. The one who cheated incessantly on her, even after she lost her virginity to him in an effort to save the relationship.

  “Right,” Brinley responded. She had never quite seen that connection before Dr. Faucher pointed it out last week, but it was true. Any time she had felt the burning humiliation over his dalliances or had to face him in school after they broke up, she had merely popped an Adderall and waited for the speedy buzz to propel her forward, molding her fac
e into a mask of indifference.

  “I only bring this up because you’re going to be thrust back into similar situations and how you choose to handle them will dictate how effective this rehabilitation process will be.”

  Brinley licked her lips apprehensively. “But how do I do that?”

  “It’s everything we’ve talked about. You’ve made so much progress since your last Adderall episode.” At the height of her addiction, Brinley had passed out right in the middle of the Follow the Stars charity gala, an event attended by almost every student in the D.C. area, and her parents had whisked her straight from the ER to Sagebrush. However, rather than face the embarrassment that came with admitting to a drug problem, the Madisons had felt it best to spin Brinley’s fainting spell (as well as her ensuing extended absence) into a story that she had come down with mono. Though Brinley was relieved the truth would not come out about her little secret, she wished they could have conjured up a slightly less tacky illness to give her. Mono? Seriously? It made it seem like she had been French kissing a sewer.

  “You just need to keep doing what you’re doing,” Dr. Faucher continued. “Which means following your instincts and taking things easier. I want you to keep yourself out of high-stress situations. Avoid the pressure of D.C. as much as you can.”

  “That sounds nice,” Brinley replied, almost hypnotized by the calming rhythm of her voice. Returning home, laying low and taking on nothing more than she could handle… Maybe she would even spend the weekend reading in front of the fireplace of her family’s study, snuggled into her favorite spot on the overstuffed couch.

  “Great,” Dr. Faucher said, rising from her leather chair. “Good luck, Brinley.” She pulled Brinley into a warm hug that she found herself returning with a squeeze. After all this, she might even miss Dr. Faucher.

  “Oh, I ordered you a present,” Brinley said, holding up the small gift bag at her feet. “To say thank you for everything.”

  “Completely unnecessary. But thank you.” Dr. Faucher opened up the bag, unwrapping the layers of cream tissue paper to find a pair of sleek, black eyeglasses. She looked up, puzzled.