The List (46 page)

Her voice trailed off and she looked toward the open door of the apartment, at the
furniture inside, the window over the gingham bench and the view of the horse fields.

“What I wanted more than anything was for him to become fixated on
me
. Obsessed with me. He had controlled my entire life—my childhood, college, even this
move. He had this inescapable hold over me and I knew the only way I could finally
shake it was if I could turn it around. It was my turn.”

I stood in silence listening to her. This, then, was how she justified it. Not because
he had won her over with his passion for foster care, not even because she had fallen
in love. The first time she had seen Stanton, talked to him and finally slept with
him, these were the thoughts going through her angry, frustrated mind.

“It worked,” she said firmly. “That look on my face—the one you described so inarticulately
in your article—wasn’t love. That was peace.”

“You know I could write a story about this,” I said, breaking her out of her so-called
peace. “Especially about the fact that you wrote legislation while you were a
Capitolist
employee and having sex with a senator.”

“But you won’t,” said Olivia. She smiled at me presumptuously. “You’re nothing like
me. You printed the first story because you wanted the
List
to acknowledge your presence. And now you’ve made your little splash. But you can’t
handle a beat like this one. You can’t smear people’s lives and not have it eat away
at you. That’s why you work for the Style section. It’s not
because you love writing about celebrities or politicians’ wives. It’s because you’re
too scared to do anything else.”

Too scared? I had followed her in the middle of the night and photographed her naked
with a U.S. senator. If she needed evidence of my backbone, she just needed to turn
to page one of every newspaper in the country. She and Stanton had graced them all.

Olivia moved closer to me, her eyes flashing.

“You wanted attention and you found it by bringing me down. But I’ve already lost
everything—my job, Hoyt, my reputation, even my family isn’t speaking to me. If you
write about the bill—the fact that I birthed it and made Hoyt push it to Pennsylvania
Avenue the way I wanted it—you won’t hurt me. But you will keep thousands of kids
from having better lives. And I know your type. You don’t want that on your conscience.”

I couldn’t believe she was admitting to ghosting Stanton’s legislation. Olivia—a journalist
and a senator’s mistress—had written something that the president was poised to sign
in a few weeks. I had to write a follow-up on that. It would be huge.

Olivia turned toward me and gave me her classic newsroom smirk.

“Sometimes in life, Adrienne, it all comes down to motivation.” She looked at me,
my yellow dress damp around the neck from sweat. “Two people can want the same thing,
but the one who’s more motivated will get it. When I close my eyes before bed every
night, I see my mother shooting herself in the head. I have Technicolor memories of
finding her lifeless, bloody body folded over on the shower floor.”

She gazed at my parents’ beautiful house, the horses, the sprawling green fields,
then looked back at me and smiled.

“What, I wonder, motivates you?”

I watched Olivia walk down the steps and climb into Sandro’s black car. She drove
out the gate and turned left, not toward the Goodstone Inn, but toward home, toward
her husband.

Inside my apartment the phone started ringing but I didn’t rush inside to get it.
Instead, I walked down the wooden barn steps, through the unfenced field, and headed
alone toward my parents’ house. The world around me made the distinct sounds of summer
and the heavy, humid air suddenly felt good against my hot skin. When I was a few
yards in front of the house, Jenny from the media team called me for the fifth time
that day. I answered my BlackBerry and listened as she said, “Lawrence O’Donnell’s
bookers want you back on. Tonight. Live. I know you’re doing
Hardball,
but it’s in the same building. Can you? I already gave them a tentative yes.” I gave
Jenny a firm no and kept walking.

The Foster Care Empowerment Act, what the pundits had taken to calling Stanton’s only
redeeming legacy. Olivia had written it, not the senator or his staff or a group of
lobbyists—an actual girl who had gone through it, had first been abused, then been
cared for, and finally, found her way out. I remembered reading the details of the
bill in the newsroom. Hundreds of thousands of kids would get federal funding for
three more years of their lives. Right now, the day they turned eighteen, they stopped
getting financial support. This bill would extend aid until they turned twenty-one.
I thought of myself at eighteen, wearing a pink sundress with boxes of brand-new things,
dropped off at Wellesley for my freshman fall by my two adoring parents. They paid
hundreds of thousands of dollars for me to go there—my full tuition. And when I moved
to New York City after graduation, they paid my rent for the first year, came up to
the city, and helped me get settled in. I had depended on them then. And at twenty-eight,
living on their property, I still needed their help now. How many kids weren’t so
lucky?

But this story was huge. If I told Upton he would remind me that I was ruthless—journalism’s
new pit bull—and we would sit down and put it to press. And for what? The ones who
were at fault had already lost their jobs. So Olivia had pushed the bill on Stanton—manipulated
him to get what she wanted. Wrote it, even. Once Congress passed it, she probably
had Stanton nudging the West Wing staff to make it a priority. Then she had ensured
it front-page
List
coverage. But did it matter? It was a good bill. It was an important cause. It had
already been approved by both the Senate and the House. Olivia wasn’t exactly inviting
terrorists onto our shores.

I shook out my hair, pinned my bangs back so they weren’t falling into my eyes, and
started walking faster. I headed up the long hill, turned left behind the house, took
three steps into the woods, and started sweating, my cotton dress sticking to me like
medical gauze. I didn’t have stealth rubber shoes on, nor did I have a bag filled
with camera equipment and a change of clothes. But I started walking toward the Goodstone
Inn anyway.

The trees above me were full and green. The only sound I could hear were my feet against
the dirt.

I did love Middleburg. It was beautiful and silent and only filled with secrets if
you looked for them.

When I got to the stone fence where I had first approached the hotel, that night I
saw Olivia’s car parked in front of the Bull Barn, I stepped over it easily.

I wanted to walk up to the barn. I felt like I had to see inside the tiny little place
that catapulted my career forward. I had never looked at it without being crippled
by suspicion and fear.

There was no breeze as I walked toward the little red house. The back of my neck felt
wet and stiff.

The scenery reminded me of my childhood. I thought of sitting on the back of Payton’s
horse, when I was too small to
ride on my own. We had trotted together on these same hills, before they became a
place for the rich to disappear in style. Everything had been so easy then. Before
I understood what my mother did for a living, newspapers were nothing more than recyclable
words on a page, good for making papier-mâché and wrapping homemade presents.

I was almost at the top of the hill, the one where the navy Ford Explorer with the
Arizona plates had driven up the night I photographed Stanton and Olivia. There was
so much space to walk through, so much land. Sandro, the loyal Texan, would have liked
it.

It was a shame. The whole thing. So many people got hurt, and the only ones who came
out better for it so far were me and the new junior senator from Arizona. The
New York Times
called Taylor Miles the most openly racist politician since Georgia’s Lester Maddox.
But if the foster care bill became law, perhaps more good could come.

I was still about a hundred yards away from the barn when I spotted someone walking
toward me. It was a young man, dressed for the outdoors, not taking a stroll for the
sake of walking. He was heading directly to me.

“Can I help you?” he said when he got into earshot. He smiled and kept heading my
way. “Are you staying with us?” I looked down at his shirt. It was getting almost
too dark to see, but when he got closer, I read his small, elegant brass name tag.
Roger Pippin. Goodstone Inn Security.

My article may have left the state of Arizona in the hands of a xenophobic leader,
but it had certainly heightened guest protection services at the Goodstone Inn. This
guy probably had my mug shot and a Taser in his pocket.

I looked out toward the Bull Barn. There were no lights on inside, no cars parked
out front. The sun, minutes from sinking
behind the hotel’s rolling hills, was spreading its rays on the red walls.

It was a far cry from the Oval Office or the Mayflower hotel, where other political
affairs had gone down, but there was no such thing as privacy anymore. Everywhere
was the wrong place at the wrong time, even out here in Middleburg.

“I can help show you to your room, if you’re staying with us,” said the polite Goodstone
guard again. He had dark shaggy hair and tan arms. He was stocky, and looked more
like a Bard College grad with a love of organic farming than security enforcement.
But he clearly didn’t want me loitering in the fields in the early evening, looking
lost.

“Are you staying in the main house? Or in one of our separate suites?”

Still avoiding his gaze, I watched as the sun finally disappeared below the horizon.
In minutes, the sky would be covered in dark pink rays of dying light and the temperature
would drop a few degrees. But the humidity would stick. Some things about the idyllic
area I had called home for so long never changed.

I smiled at the guard, still waiting patiently for my response, and shook my head
slowly back and forth, feeling my hair move against my bare shoulders. “Staying. No,”
I said. “I’m afraid I won’t be staying here after all.”

I’m forever indebted to . . .

My brilliant, generous parents. Mom and Dad, without your love and support I would
still be in the backyard chatting to an imaginary cat and eating mud. Thanks for buying
me books, reading me books, and encouraging me to live, live, live!

My big bro. Ken, your creativity is addictive, and with every word I write I’m just
trying to keep up with your production line of great ideas.

Craig Fischer,
l’homme de ma vie
. I can’t live without you and this book wouldn’t be here without your patience and
(manly) cheerleading. I’m so thankful; I might even go to another Nebraska football
game . . . and wear flats.

Bridget Wagner Matzie, also known as the best agent a girl could ask for. You’re professional
and hilarious, and your faith in me over the years has been caviar for the soul.

My editor at Atria, Sarah Cantin. If I could handpick anyone to work with, Sarah,
it would be you. From the first time we chatted, I knew how lucky I was. Thank you
for your warmth, encouragement, and editing prowess. Every time your name pops up
in my inbox, I smile, and every time your edits come my way, I become a better writer.

Judith Curr, Greer Hendricks, Tom Pitoniak, Carole Schwindeller, Diana Franco, Anne
Spieth, and the rest of the Atria dream team.

Robin Bellinger for her superb early edits.

My wonderful friends—the Outdoor Ed girls, my Vassar family, the Sisters of the Crisis—you’re
a hilarious bunch, and I blame you for my future Botox needs.

And lastly,
The List
is very much a book about friendships formed in and around a newsroom. Thanks to
my work wife Amie Parnes, Beth Frerking, Stacey Pfarr, Rebecca Frankel, the CLICK
girls, the POLITICO crew, the glamorous Washington Life team, and the ITP gals for
making the written word so much fun.

THE LIST

Karin Tanabe

A Readers Club Guide

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

1. As a group, discuss how you consume political news. What is the first type of source
that you turn to—websites? Blogs? Television? Radio? Facebook or Twitter? Did reading
The List
change how you think about the media, particularly the way that American political
stories are reported?

2. Despite the intense atmosphere at the
Capitolist,
Adrienne soon discovers,
“The paper chewed employees up and spat them out in a matter of months, sometimes
weeks. But the ones who made it past the breaking point loved it beyond all reason.”
Why do you think this is? Do you think Adrienne reaches this level of loyalty to
it by the end of the novel?

3. On the surface, Adrienne and Payton are very different, but in what ways are they
also similar? How do you think Adrienne’s relationship with her sister shapes her
personality?