The First Affair (12 page)

A harried Dana handed me a binder without even looking up. “Get the proposal hammered out and then get a copy to Security for vetting. And then get a meeting scheduled with FLOTUS—”

“Sorry?”

“A meeting with the First Lady and the kids—”

“Kids?”

“To make final itinerary tweaks.” My feet struck the ground—below ground. Feet lapped by hell flames. “Don’t tell me you’re going to be all star-struck and tongue-tied. I asked for you because you seemed the least maintenance.”

“You asked for me?”

She dropped her head. This conversation was taking so much longer than she’d anticipated.

“Yes, no maintenance.” I saluted, and returned to my desk with the binder, which contained the plans for a weeklong trip for Adam to check out colleges before they were back in session. Meetings with professors, private campus tours. Most important, trying to simultaneously stay off TMZ and under the radar of “elitism” accusations. (From Partridge. Who went to Yale.) I stared at one of the notes scrawled in the margin of a spreadsheet.
“POTUS to join?”

• • •

For two weeks I plotted every mile of the pending tour, while trying to resist absorbing any information that colored the President’s family
into the people they were from the silhouettes I needed them to be. Alison was a vegetarian. Adam wanted to meet with the biology and chemistry professors. Susan traveled with her own pillow. That was the one I couldn’t deflect. Did she have only the one? Did Greg lie in bed and stare at the empty space? Did he miss her?

So those were my days.

My nights were spent sitting in the tub for too long, the phone stretched to the bath mat—even though it was always much later when it rang, two, three in the morning. He called—the records show he called—at least every other night, keeping me on the phone for hours sometimes. To tell me jokes, ask about my life and my day, and yes, believe it or not, seek my advice.

I want to make that point about the calls, because I know that’s not what people remember.

• • •

When the scheduled day arrived and everyone but those the trip was for had vetted the itinerary, I contemplated feigning food poisoning. But I couldn’t allow myself to wuss out, couldn’t live with the idea that I couldn’t even face her—them. Which made zero sense compared with what I apparently could live with, but that’s what it was.

I’d been informed POTUS would join “if able,” but I didn’t imagine he’d see my name on the agenda and come. But then, I had no idea what mental box he’d put me—or them—into. I wanted him to join us so I could finally know. And I deeply didn’t.

Utterly unaware of all this, Dana had taken the time to blow-dry her hair and appeared to have gone all out with the tinted ChapStick. She repeatedly cleared her throat on the way up to the First Lady’s office, then, as we were about to walk in, lost color when she realized she’d forgotten her binder. “Make small talk,” she instructed as she flapped off in her Bally slingbacks.

I was ushered through the waiting area into a butter-yellow room, the same color as the swimsuit Susan wore in that photo, and I wondered if it was her favorite. The linen shades were drawn against the morning light, preventing the subdued floral on the settee from fading.

“Hi, I’m Alison.” The President’s daughter put down her phone to come over and shake my hand, the mature gesture incongruous with her shorts and tank top. She wore a dirty string anklet—the kind we made for each other in middle school—that many swims and showers ago was pink and purple. I wondered if there was another girl out there wearing its match. If its dogged permanence had been a point of contention for the campaign stylist; if her parents cared.

I found my voice. “Hi, I’m Jamie. Dana will be here in a minute.”

“I think it’s just going to be us, anyway.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, my mom’s secretary and Adam and mine’s. Adam’s working and my mom’s got another thing.”

“But isn’t this trip for Adam?” I asked.

Her eyebrows lifted as she shrugged, to telegraph that she was accustomed to the absurdity. “Ten meetings per half-step taken, right?” she quoted her father.

Small talk, small talk. “Adam has a job?” I asked what I already knew.

“Yeah, some research study at American U. A premed thing.” She stayed standing, and I’m uncertain which of us sat first.

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, Alison.” Dana sailed back in, perspiration beading her nose while Abigail and another woman trailed her. “We’re eager to get your feedback. We want to be sure you have an
awesome
time!”

Alison’s eyes flickered to mine. “Yes, me too, thanks,” she offered, waiting for them to continue. I was mostly aware of her poise, her manners. Of how many rooms she’d sat in listening to places she would go and things she would do that were not remotely of her own choosing. As they briefed, she occasionally eyed her phone buzzing with texts she didn’t read. “What about Vassar?” she interjected, sending me into a small coughing fit.

“Oh, we didn’t know he wanted to—did Adam want to visit Vassar?” Dana asked, scrambling through her notes as if Diane Keaton were playing her.

“My dad’s suddenly all into it. For me. He says he thinks if I went
there, I’d turn out well.” She shrugged as a hot flush blasted up my neck. “I mean, I just thought if there’s time—”

“Oh, no, of course, we can make that happen!”

“There isn’t.” Abigail cut Dana off. “We have to bang this out before the convention. Next year.”

Alison’s eyes glazed. “Wow, if Dad gets reelected
and
Adam goes off to college—Adam’s what makes this bearable.” An embarrassed smile immediately broke and she hastily stood. We followed to our feet and she shook our hands again. This very real, lovely girl with her father’s eyes and mother’s mouth. “I mean, it’s all awesome,” she said, blushing from her admission. “Whatever. Thank you.”

And it was laid excruciatingly bare. My recent fantasies of First Ladydom, my debates over American designers versus foreign, were laughable, embarrassing. Wrong.

• • •

The next morning was a Saturday and I, marinating in self-loathing, with my twenty-second birthday just hours away, called Rachelle, herself marinating because Matt had posted pictures on Facebook with a girl hanging on him at what we couldn’t decide was a bar or a house party, which was akin to trying to decipher the caliber of bullet speeding toward you.

“And Geoffrey was extra wet sand in my bikini this week. We need out of Dodge,” she said. “Meet me in Chinatown.”

• • •

We arrived in Manhattan on the Fung Wah bus by lunch, without a destination or host. We had Facebooked our arrival, expecting immediate invitations, but instead walked for hours, wending north up Broadway. Rachelle shopped, I consulted. Dusk fell. I’d have thought Lena would have at least suggested a restaurant, but all she posted was, “Too hot for NY—yuck! Love from the beach!” I know she meant it to be funny, but it rankled.

“I could call Mathew,” Rachelle offered—any opportunity to reengage.

“To ask if we can crash on his couch? I’m not letting you do that.
I’ve been there.” I thought of all the times after Mike left that I reached out, the pretenses, the questions only he (and Wikipedia) could have answered, each one met with a silence that etched my humiliation deeper. “It does not lead to the sex.”

She narrowed her eyes. “If I just fucking lived here, we’d have sealed the deal this week and I’d be his girlfriend right now.”

“I’m so sorry. We can solve this,” I insisted. “We’re two adult women! With cell phones! Your other friend hasn’t called back yet?”

“She’s in the Hamptons—wait, we’ll surprise your sister!”

“My
sister
,” I repeated skeptically.

“She’ll love it.”

“She won’t.”

“Inside she’ll be doing a Snoopy dance. Don’t overthink it.”

If she was remotely close to dancing, Erica didn’t let on. Three women she was entertaining snacked around a white marble kitchen island while something with rosemary was cooking. “This is Sara, Megan, and Blair. Guys, this is Jamie and . . .”

“Rachelle,” she reminded her, stepping in around me. “So great to see you again! This place is in-
sane
. Do you rent or own?”

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said quickly as I joined Rachelle, who was taking in Peter’s Chelsea condo, the high-end everything, the floor-to-ceiling windows looking down Sixth Avenue. “We were just meeting some people and I thought we’d say hi before heading home.”

“But, oh my God,” Rachelle talked over me, “if we didn’t have to take the late-night Chinatown bus back that would be
amazing
. The drivers are so sketch.”

“Well then you should stay,” Erica said on an inhale, ribs visibly splaying.

“Carrot?” Megan offered. “Your sister forgot there are only four of us.”

“I’ll eat it all,” Blair said through a full mouth. “I was at the office all day, which kicked off with one optimistic wheatgrass shot and bottomed out with one four p.m. hot dog.”

“Whose Goldman bag is that?” Rachelle flung a finger at the tote by the door as if it were the face of Jesus in a bowl of Jell-O.

“Guilty.” Blair raised her hand.

“That’s so random.” Rachelle turned to her, full wattage. “Do you know Mathew McGeehan, in the associate program? Just started in June—”

“Blair isn’t working with associates at this point,” Erica said, putting a period on the inquiry.

“Of course.” Rachelle grabbed a Parmesan twist and cracked it in half. “He’s just a friend of mine. From boarding school. Had to ask. God, I can’t
wait
to get to my ‘at this point.’ My boss is a round hairbrush in my asshole.”

I pivoted to Erica. “It smells delicious—what did you cook?”

“Fresh Direct,” she corrected me.

“I’m shocked that guys are always asking me on dates if I can cook,” Blair said. “Apparently my distaste for it reveals a deep character flaw about me—worse than being an addict.”

“They really want a mommy,” Sara answered.

“Well,
I
cook,” Megan said proudly.

“I swallow.” Erica refilled her Perrier. “Ovens are for shoes. Ten-minute countdown. Plate up.” She handed me one, our eyes meeting for a second. “
Mad Men
season finale,” she explained.

“It gave me
chills
.” Rachelle was emphatic.

“Don’t say anything!” Megan plopped down on the cowhide rug.

“I’ve been chained to my desk, so no spoilers here,” I reassured them. I had no context for the world of AA, had to get subway directions to her apartment from a stranger, but I knew how to watch TV in a group.

“Best show about alcoholics ever made,” Erica said, making a spot for me next to her on the low couch.

Blair spun around from the floor. “Oh my God, how fucking sick is it they’re opening a Magnolia on the same block as our meetings? There’s going to be, like, a worn groove in the sidewalk.”

“We should just meet there,” Erica agreed. “Occupational therapy. Talk while we frost. So much better than church.”

“You go to church?” I couldn’t help asking.

“The basement,” she clarified, eliciting a laugh from her friends.

I considered this for a second. “Churches give me the willies.”

Suddenly she leaned over and kissed my forehead just like Mom. It was so unexpected I didn’t dare breathe.

So I thought Erica was happy we came, in her Erica way. And while Rachelle was already planning her Tumblr feed of the adventure, I quietly studied a sister I’d overheard on the phone and seen piling into cars, but never been invited to join.

• • •

A few hours later, having seen everyone off, Erica shuffled back to the kitchen where we were attempting to tidy up. “Blair’s a trader?” I asked. “Have you known each other a long time? I always wondered if the meetings put the friendship track on warp speed.”

“Yes.” She piled her hair into a makeshift bun as she took in the mess, dropping her head to the side. “What are you looking for?”

“Saran wrap. You want to save this stuff, right?” I continued searching drawers.

Erica reached into the back of a cabinet, placing the yellow box on the counter. “You don’t need to clean up.”

“Oh, we don’t mind. It’s only eleven, we were thinking we could—”

“I have a race tomorrow,” she informed us. “Check-in is at seven a.m.”

“Oh.”

“So you guys are welcome to stay, but you need to sleep now. Leave the door unchained for Peter.”

“Can I take a quick shower?” Rachelle asked.

Erica pointed her to the guest bath. “The fresh towels are rolled under the sink.”

We cleaned in silence, the only sound the running water until Erica’s cell rang. I was surprised to see my mother’s number at this hour. Since she wasn’t moving toward it, I answered. Erica crossed her arms, her jaw jutting abruptly to the side. I looked away. “Everything okay?”

“Jamie? Oh, I’m sorry, I meant to call Erica.”

“You did.”

“I’m confused.”

“I came up to see her.”

“You did?” Her voice brightened. “Oh, that’s great. Her roommate isn’t there, is she? She’s a pill.”

“Maureen’s away this weekend.” Erica watched me lie for her, expressionless. “That’s why she invited me up.”

“Well, I’m happy to hear it. That makes me feel better, actually.”

“Is everything okay?” I asked again.

“Yes,” Mom said too forcefully. “You guys have fun, just—have her call me, okay?”

“Sure.” I hung up and felt the vague downward pull of insecurity. “She wants you to call her.”

“Okay.”

“Why’s Mom calling you at eleven at night?”

“To talk,” Erica said with annoyance, picking up the sponge and rubbing at the counter.

“How often is she calling you to talk?”

“More often than I have time for.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know, Jamie. Dad, life, work. What difference does it make?” She threw the sponge in the sink.

“Are you mad that I came?”

“No! It’s fine, just . . . for starters your friend is—she takes up a lot of space. And it’s weird! It’s
weird
that you just showed up. A call would have been—whatever, it doesn’t matter.”