The List (23 page)

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 you 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.

But the woman now talking to Upton wasn’t his wife, whom I still hadn’t caught a glimpse
of, but Olivia Campo. What was she doing here? There were barely any reporters, just
a few senior editors. I hadn’t expected to see her. Was Upton that obvious with his
favoritism?

I watched her talking to him, completely comfortable, like she was always popping
by Upton’s house for a cozy chitchat. She was wearing a dress the color of an overcooked
steak. Not exactly brown, but not quite black. It was drab and badly ironed, but from
a distance, and in the soft porch lights, she looked almost pretty. And calm. Almost
like she had the night I photographed her with Stanton. I watched them for a couple
more seconds, but their intimacy started to nauseate me. I didn’t have that kind of
editor-reporter relationship with Hardy and I knew I would never have it with Upton.
Julia and Libby sure didn’t and they had been at the
List
for years.

I stood up to leave, crossed the garden, and got caught in a crowd in the living room.
It wasn’t until I had been standing there for a few minutes trying to escape without
being rude that I realized that the man blocking my path was Senator Stanton.

I couldn’t believe it. Had he been at this party for hours and I just hadn’t noticed?
Was I really that bad of a reporter? I shouldn’t have gotten so caught up examining
the nineteenth-century details of Upton’s house. I was crap at my job.

Stanton was tall, a good couple of inches above six feet, and held himself very straight.
Up close, I noticed he had a few extra pounds in his midsection, but his padding was
almost
fully concealed by a well-tailored pinstripe suit jacket. His dark brown hair had
a little gray around the temples. Not a white gray that makes one look terribly old
and destined to live out a life of backgammon and adult diapers. More like a silvery
“you can call me Clooney” kind of gray. And of course, he wore two small gold pins
on the left lapel of his jacket. One was a circular gold official Senate pin, and
the other, tucked right beneath, was a tiny enamel version of Old Glory. He was talking
to a shorter man whom I recognized but couldn’t place. He was wearing a seersucker
jacket and khakis and drinking something with a handful of mint in it. Now I had no
intention of leaving the party. I moved to the side so I was a little farther from
Stanton but could still listen to his conversation. I put my notepad back in my bag
and pretended to be absolutely enthralled with Upton’s ficus plant.