Since becoming a mother, Charlotte had never experienced life with just one kid. The bright side of Max’s journey to the West Coast with the twins was getting to know Annie as an only child, one who basked in the singular attention of her mom. The relative quiet of their home on the first night Max and the twins were gone was deafening. Being without her husband felt okay, normal even. Still, being without two of her daughters caused her entire body to ache.
Leila organized a steady stream of babysitters for Annie and they brought her along to events when it was appropriate. She particularly enjoyed a visit to an alpaca farm in Lower Milford, where Charlotte met with artisan yarn makers and took in a felting demonstration. The week went by in a blur. Rubber-chicken dinners in Philly, fundraiser at the art museum, pancake breakfast in DelCo, registration event at the YWCA in Reading where too many people thought registering to vote was the same as actually voting, retirement home talent show in West Chester, ribbon cutting at a car dealership, another tractor ride at another small-town carnival.
The places changed and the words stayed mostly the same. It was the constant repetition that wore Charlotte down the fastest. Every day at Humanity had been different, had brought on some new challenge—one day she’d be negotiating a deal with the CEO of Apple, the next she’d be arguing with the Chinese government about digital protectionism, a week later she’d be brainstorming with the founders about where Humanity fit in the Internet of Things. Each day on the campaign trail was like a scene from Groundhog Day—the same stock speeches, the same requests for cash, the same smile for every photo op. Even her best days on the trail felt like running in place.
Charlotte left Annie at home while she went to visit St. Mary’s Hospital near Altoona to hold babies addicted to opioids one morning. That’s what it actually said on the schedule:
9 a.m.—CW to hold babies addicted to opioids_limited press_video
Her original plan had been to give a speech on the multiplier effect the opioid crisis was having on the Pennsylvania economy. She’d stayed up for three nights reading an in-depth analysis prepared for her by the chair of the Harvard economics department on the billions lost in productivity to the overprescription and subsequent abuse of the drugs and prepared what she considered to be her most significant policy speech yet. It was Josh who nixed the idea and told her all those facts and figures were too hard to turn into a sound bite.
“More voters will watch a video of you soothing a drug-addicted baby. Good optics. Great for sharing. Unless, of course, you want to talk about your mom—suicide by opioids?”
Charlotte turned away from him then. “Let’s go to the hospital.”
Cradling the screaming, twitchy, crimson-cheeked, too-tiny newborns in her arms reminded her of Annie’s first weeks in the NICU. This ward for babies born dependent on drugs was new, due to the tripling of cases in the past two years. It looked like something out of a science fiction movie, the whole space taken up with glass incubators with barely any room to walk. A handful of mothers, many of them still strung out and broken, stared through mesh-caged windows with vacant expressions.
Real tears streamed down Charlotte’s cheeks while a local television news crew caught it all on tape. The feet of a little boy named Kevin, no bigger than her thumb, shook uncontrollably. She tried her best to hold them tightly in her hand. It always worked to soothe Annie; maybe it would soothe him. I’m sorry, baby. You deserve better than a photo op. Leila rubbed her back as she touched up her mascara in the harsh light of the hospital bathroom. “I think you should have given the speech. Who cares if anyone picked it up? It was a good speech. It was a smart speech.”
Before the sun set Charlotte drove another couple hundred miles, raised a few hundred thousand at a young professionals’ happy hour, and posed for a picture with the largest pig in the state. I’ll do anything to seem likable.
“It was a great shot. Perfect optics,” Josh said.
Charlotte didn’t mask her disgust. “Because that’s what poor white people really need. A photo of me clutching an overfed swine.”
He shrugged. “They’ll all share it on Facebook.”
*
With the exception of downtown San Francisco, where the fog creeps into your bones and turns everything gray, Charlotte was quickly reminded when she stepped out of the airport that the world appeared brighter in California than it did in Pennsylvania, as if life on the West Coast were crisper, more alive, more like an Instagrammed photo with the perfect filter.
Charlotte felt like she’d been away from her children for months instead of just over a week. The five of them had FaceTimed every night they were gone, the twins always eager to recount every detail of their days. Max sat with them but rarely spoke, and Charlotte didn’t know what to expect from him when he picked her and Annie up.
Her phone had died on the plane. It was the longest stretch she’d been away from the Internet in months. She’d forgotten to pack the plug portion of the charger and she itched to get online but stopped herself from asking Max for his phone when he greeted her with a full and surprising kiss on the lips in the parking lot of SFO. It was an extravagant kiss, the kind of kiss that only happens when you leave a person. Before she could put up her guard she parted her mouth slightly, feeling the tip of his tongue as she leaned her body into his. He pressed his forehead briefly into hers and squeezed the soft part of her hip. She didn’t squirm. She wanted to remember this simple welcome, this perfect kiss.
“Ewwwww,” Ella groaned. “Grossness. Kissyface! Ewwy!”
“Doesn’t it feel nice to be home?” Max said, breaking the spell of his greeting. She stopped herself from telling him that California wasn’t their home anymore. At least, California didn’t feel like her home anymore. His forehead and nose were sunburned and peeling, the skin around his eyes pale, making him look like a raccoon in reverse. He looked well rested, healthy, and happy.
“I just got here. How was the race yesterday?” It had gone well, she knew, because he’d posted pictures to Facebook of his early-morning half marathon over the Big Sur bridge, through the redwood forest, past Nepenthe, one of their favorite restaurants with a view of whitewashed cliffs and the indigo waves of the Pacific. He hadn’t texted any of them to her.
“My best time yet. I’m gonna kill this Ironman, Charlie. Just wait. Want In-N-Out? Animal style? Half-cooked fries.” Her stomach grumbled at the mention of fast food.
Once they’d settled into the red vinyl booth, the Formica table covered over in greasy buns and too many petite paper containers of ketchup and mustard, the twins burst into fluttery chatter, filling Charlotte and Annie in on every detail since they’d been separated.
Max brought up the campaign before she did.
“Crazy about Bonnie Slaughter, huh?”
Her ears burned and her mind spun like a top. The fries did a double flip in her stomach. “What about her?” She didn’t need to grab Max’s phone to know what he meant, but she stretched her hand out for it anyway. He handed it over reluctantly.
There it was. The number one story on CNN: “Pro-Life Senator’s Wife Had Secret Abortion.”
“Shit.”
“Charlie?”
Charlotte could see Max’s pleasant mood of the past hour evaporate.
“I need to make a call.”
Max rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Sorry I brought it up.”
Her fingers twitched with every second that went by without calling Leila. “It’ll be fast. I promise.”
“It’s never fast. Can we get home first? I want to make it to a barbecue at Travis’s place this afternoon. They’ve got a bouncy castle and a magician. The girls want to go.”
“Will Lucinda be there?” Charlotte asked.
“Travis has a new girl.” Max waved his hand as casually as if a new girl were a new laptop. “Divorce was final last month. Lucinda’s shacked up with some scientist or archaeologist who works at the Academy of Science. The girls want to go to the party. Can you cobble together a war room at our house and I’ll take them over there by myself?” His warm greeting now long forgotten, Max looked desperate to get away from her.
Be calm. Let him win. Do what you need to do to get to a computer and a phone and deal with this. She adjusted her tone.
“Let’s get home and I’ll make my calls from there. I’ll meet you later.”
*
Their sparse modern house, all blond wood, sharp angles, gleaming steel, and spotless glass, had the feeling of a posh hotel after living in her parents’ rundown place for nearly a year. Walking through the open kitchen with its eight-burner Wolf range and farmhouse sink as big as a bathtub, Charlotte felt embarrassed by how much they’d spent on this house and everything in it. Their home, which had once been featured in the “Tech Titan” issue of Architectural Digest, was too big, too fancy, too expensive—five million when they bought it and now worth nine, a not-so-subtle reminder of how easy it was for the rich to get richer. Their dining room table cost more than her father used to make in a year. A wall of windows overlooked rolling golden-brown hills. Olive trees dotted the top of the far ridge, and beyond that grapevines, mostly pinot noir and some cabernet. Why did you leave this? Because it didn’t feel real. Max liked sleek things, new things. Walking through it, she felt like she was trespassing in someone else’s home. Right now it was far too neat for her husband and two five-year-olds to have spent the week here. He must have hired someone to come clean this morning.
She was able to dial Leila’s number from memory from their house phone while her cell charged.
Charlotte gulped. “Why’d you do it?” In some ways, the weight of Leila’s current betrayal felt worse than Max’s so many years ago.
Silence crushed her. The custom-designed bamboo blinds in Charlotte’s living room quivered in the soft breeze drifting over the hills from the sea just a few miles away. She could see the digital thermometer outside the window, a perfect seventy-two degrees. It was nearly always a perfect seventy-two degrees in this valley.
“Charlie . . .” Leila stuttered. “Yes. I may have told Josh about it last week. I just . . .” she began again and faltered. “I just mentioned it. Floated it in passing.” Leila said the same thing three different ways, possibly in the hopes that it would be taken differently each time.
“After I told you not to.” Charlotte hated that she’d taken on the same tone she used when she reprimanded her daughters.
“I wanted his opinion.”
Charlotte repeated herself. “After I told you not to.”
“Josh said there are some things you’re better off not knowing. He said it’s better if you’re able to tell the truth about whether we leaked this.”
“I never technically lied to you. I did it to protect you.”
It wasn’t the first time Charlotte recognized the lack of control she had over how her senior staff managed this campaign. Josh was often her brain, and her staff was her nervous system. Many days she felt like just a mouth.
Part of her expected Leila to beg her for forgiveness. Part of her wanted that. But the voice on the other end of the line only grew more resolute.
“I did what I thought was right. Look at the conversation this started. He’s finally getting called out on years of hypocrisy.”
Why couldn’t Leila see that wasn’t the point? That it didn’t justify going behind her back, directly disobeying her, doing something she should have immediately recognized was wrong.
Charlotte slumped down as far as their stiff mid-century Scandinavian couch would allow her to slump. She straightened her legs and pushed the ottoman away so that just her heels were touching it.
“It’s not personal, Charlie. It’s politics.”
“Don’t quote Josh to me. Don’t do that.”
The line went silent. Charlotte’s phone beeped with another call. Since she was calling from the house phone she had no way of knowing who was on the other line without getting up and walking to the receiver in the kitchen, but she knew without looking that it was Josh.
When Leila spoke her voice took on a frightening blankness. “Do you want me to resign? I’ll resign if that’s what you want.” Charlotte pictured her back in the office, her features settled into a defiant look.
She wanted to tell her no, to tell her that she couldn’t imagine doing this or any job without her support, to say that she attributed much of her success as both an executive and as a mom to Leila simplifying what should have been an incredibly complicated life.
“I don’t know. I need to think about it.”
The phone beeped again. When she didn’t pick it up the second time, her cell began ringing from the other room. “I have to go. We aren’t done talking about this.”
Leila hung up without responding.
Charlotte didn’t bother with pleasantries when she picked up her cell. “What the hell, Josh?”
“Don’t be mad at Leila.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Mad wasn’t the right word, anyway.
“I can’t tell you enough times not to let these things get to you. I need you to let the news cycle have its way with this. It’s a Sunday. You’re with your family in California. Come back Tuesday and we’ll start from there. This is good for you, Charlotte. Takes some of the pressure off. It will definitely get those Bible-thumping protesters out of your hair. No one will ask you if you’re pregnant anymore. Slaughter’s campaign is spinning.”
There wasn’t much else to say to Josh right then, so she cut the call short. After she hung up the phone, Charlotte read every story she could find about Bonnie Slaughter. With few exceptions, the photographs that accompanied the story were ancient, probably fifteen years old. Bonnie had been a different woman then. Today’s Bonnie favored Eileen Fisher twinsets, pink oxfords, and sensibly low heels. But the old Bonnie, the twentysomething who’d worked as a fundraiser for Slaughter back when he was already a sexagenarian married father of six, favored tight black pencil skirts, low-cut blouses, and stilletos. She was beautiful, the kind of woman who looked like she smelled incredible, like something spicy laced with vanilla and clove cigarette smoke. Charlotte imagined photo editors combing the archives for a picture that looked like she was “the kind of woman who would have an abortion.”
Ted Slaughter denied any knowledge of his wife’s “procedure.” He always used the word procedure and reinforced his pro-life platform. “This is so petty. I remain committed to the belief that life begins at conception and must be protected by the good men and women in our government,” Slaughter said. “We’ve discussed the matter with our pastor, and Bonnie has sought to rectify the wrongs she committed through prayer and service to other women.”
Slaughter’s team pivoted quickly and used the story as an opportunity for fundraising, sending an email to supporters begging for funds to shut down the evil machine at work against him.
“Together we can stand up to the forces of evil that are attacking the good and honest values of Pennsylvania’s hardworking citizens,” the email read. “Take a stand by donating to our campaign today.”
Progressive pundits on MSNBC came right out and speculated the child was Ted Slaughter’s. Both the Times and the Post ran op-eds pointing out the Slaughter family’s intense hypocrisy on women’s issues. Bustle accused Slaughter of slut-shaming his own wife. Conservative talking heads attacked Bonnie and turned Ted into the victim of a wanton woman who’d hidden her dirty past. There was video of the Slaughter family going to church—Bonnie wearing a conservative khaki shirtdress and taupe heels, striding into the building with one of her step-grandchildren strapped to her chest in a sling, holding the hands of two of her own girls, using the children as shields to keep the press at bay, a tactic Charlotte knew all too well. In one photograph Bonnie crossed her Pilates-toned legs and glared at her husband as he stared ahead at the pastor. Charlotte imagined a thought bubble suspended over her head bearing the words You fucking owe me.
It was nearly 4 p.m. before Charlotte could tear herself away from the computer and the relentless comments on every story branding Bonnie a liar, a traitor, a whore . . . and sometimes, a hero.
*
The party should have been winding down by the time Charlotte arrived at Travis’s house, but one of the ePay executives began mixing mai tais that gave everyone a second wind and Travis paid the bouncy castle rental guy another grand in cash to stick around for a couple of hours to keep the kids out of their hair.
Charlotte exchanged the requisite air kisses with the women and stiff hugs with the men as she searched the palatial grounds of the estate for Max. Everyone at this party had just the right amount of color—not a tan, just a healthy glow. They were properly fit. Being fat in Silicon Valley was considered far worse than being addicted to cocaine or abusing a dog. She weaved through a sea of khaki and earth tones, flowing skirts, ironic straw gardening hats, and large statement jewelry made with unvarnished wood—outfits meant to convey a sense of simplicity, ease, and lack of attention to flashy things, despite costing what most Americans paid in rent.
This group of their friends and acquaintances was populated with imperfect marriages and arrangements that no one would dare criticize as absurd or abnormal for fear of not seeming open-minded. Just past the bar Charlotte spied David and Tess Gallagher, a Facebooker and a Googler, respectively, who had been separated for two years and yet continued to live under the same roof so they could successfully coparent their triplets while Tess had a serious relationship with a cardiac surgeon named Jill.
Roasting artisanal s’mores over the fire pit was multi-time entrepreneur Astrid Andrews, who’d once been Andrew Andrews before transitioning last spring with the full support of his wife, Anne, who worked in the biz dev department of Humanity. Mike and Sara Matthews had an open marriage and couldn’t stop talking about it after they’d had two glasses of wine. Sara was a brassy blonde, a head taller than her petite Asian husband, an ear, nose, and throat doctor who exclusively wore scrubs or too-short running shorts to most occasions. They called their arrangement monagamish, which sounded like emotionally immature verbal vomit to Charlotte after she’d had two glasses of wine.
Bits and pieces of conversations wafted through the air, talk of graceful exits, cryptocurrencies, and unicorns. They all blazed with the certainty that technology and money would save the world. She caught a snippet of an exchange about whether a billion-dollar investment in technology to extend human life would pay dividends in the next ten years. This crowd talked about how to solve death while her neighbors in Elk Hollow talked about how to pay a single medical bill. Only wildly rich people, the kind of people who knew they could order room service every day for the rest of their lives, believed life was too short.
Two men standing at the bar spoke loudly and joyfully about whether they should buy land in Wyoming or Idaho, something “off the grid,” in preparation for the end of the civilized world. A certain breed of Silicon Valley man fancied himself a rugged survivalist.
Charlotte briefly calculated how much money her campaign had raised from the guests at this party, at least three million. They called themselves angel investors in her campaign and she didn’t bother to correct them that they wouldn’t be seeing a cash money return. They probably knew that, they were smart people, but they enjoyed the opportunity to say “angel investor.” It sounded beatific. These were the new rulers of the free world, the ones who made change happen. And right now the people who shaped the universe were drunk on organic mai tais.
Travis snuck up behind her carrying a large pink drink perfectly rimmed with sharp red rock salt. Travis was keenly aware he wasn’t a handsome man and overcompensated for the deficiency with his imposing vitality. He’d practically pioneered the lunchtime workout blast where he led a group of employees, mostly male, on twenty-mile bike rides three times a week through the hills of Menlo Park. He dropped a lei of live orchids around her neck. “Charlotte! How’s life in Ohio treating you? Is it as dismal as Max lets on?” She noticed pity in his eyes. What had Max said to him? That life with her was dismal? That their marriage was dismal? Smile Charlotte. Keep smiling. Her cheeks trembled.
“It’s Pennsylvania, actually. The campaign’s great. It’s been an amazing experience.” A petite Asian girl, no older than twenty-five and wearing an ensemble that looked like men’s pajamas, slinked behind Travis and placed her arm around his waist.
“What I want to know is, what happens if you win? Do you really have to live in Pennsylvania, or do you go to DC? I can’t stand DC myself. I go wheels up for a day or so on my PJ and then I’m out.” It had been more than half a year since she’d heard someone refer to a private jet as a PJ and it was an abbreviation she hadn’t missed.
The last thing she wanted to do was explain their postelection living arrangements. “The plan is to split time between DC and Pennsylvania when I’m elected. That’s usually how the Senate works.”
“Whoa boy. Poor Max. I’ll have to find reasons to let him come out here for a break. Great to have him on the board now. We’re launching a bunch of new AI initiatives, smart programming that anticipates how you want to spend your money; then we help you spend all that money . . . with your face,” Travis said with the kind of smirk only rich or handsome men could get away with. When he paused in anticipation of her laughter she provided the obligatory titter necessary to facilitate a swift exit.
“Have you met Coco yet?” He gestured toward the Asian girl with his cocktail, a few drops splashing down the front of his shirt.
“Hey.” Coco jutted a pointy chin in Charlotte’s general direction and blinked rapidly behind thick, clear-rimmed glasses. “I read a kick-ass post about you on Pussy Power. Keep it up, girlfriend. I’m obsessed with Max’s idea for the new app.”
Max and Travis were the kind of men who wrote a dozen new app and start-up ideas on napkins during breakfast. “Which new app?”
“The one that will let people seamlessly donate to candidates through ePay,” Travis said. “I think I can roll it out in the next month. Might be useful for you.”
Charlotte knew nothing about it.
“I think it’s really going to change the way people do democracy.”
Do I tell him democracy isn’t really a thing you do?
She patted his shoulder and pretended she knew all about the fruits of her husband’s creativity. “So do I. Do you know where Max is? I haven’t seen him yet.”
“He’s with Abby by the pool.” Travis slapped her on the back like she was a fellow bro. “Good to see you, Charlotte. You’ve got my vote. I gave Max another check for you. A big one.” You can’t vote for me from California, asshole, but I will take your money.
“Vote early and often, Trav.” Charlotte took off for the other side of the pool, where Max stood with three twentysomething girls, maybe half a football field of drought-resistant plants and well-manicured stone paths away. Their heads were close together, one woman’s hand on his arm. She wore a Mexican sundress covered in embroidered flowers, probably picked up on a whim during a weekend in Sayulita, paired with worn brown leather huarache sandals.
One of the other young women exclaimed enthusiastically about something with her hands, her gestures almost spastic. Charlotte couldn’t remember how long it had been since Max had been able to hold her in that kind of thrall with his idle chatter.
Max caught her eye before she could round the pool.
“Oh, Charlie, get over here!” he said. He was drunk, his legs slightly splayed like those of a man relaxed and completely at ease in a thirty-million-dollar home. “I want you to meet Abby.”
Before she knew what was happening, the girl in the sundress wrapped her in an overly enthusiastic hug. Thick Buddhist prayer beads on her wrist rubbed against Charlotte’s shoulder blades. As Charlotte stepped away, startled by the affection, she could see Abby’s eyes were a little soft, her face slack from the mai tais.
“I’m so indebted to Max and you for supporting me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Charlotte plucked the drink from Max’s hand and licked the salt from the rim.
“I’m glad Max could help.”
“This is my girlfriend, Tess, and my sister Jeannine. Jeannine’s visiting us from Omaha.” Abby and Tess were so squeaky-clean and sweet they looked like they should be starring in a tampon commercial. Jeannine was something else entirely—tattooed up and down her thin, taut arms. She had black hair that looked as though it hadn’t been washed in several days. Her elbow was linked through Max’s in a casual way. Jeannine was the kind of woman Max fantasized about, the kind he watched in Internet porn Charlotte had once found on his computer. In short video clips these pale, angry, snarling women had bushy pubic hair and gave the finger to the camera while using the other hand to pleasure themselves. Long ago Charlotte had let it worry her, had spent too much time wondering what it meant that her husband fetishized women who looked nothing like her.
Shortly after discovering the videos and a website called Inked Vixens bookmarked on Max’s laptop, Charlotte had gotten a tiny tattoo. She’d done it in Amsterdam during a conference for developers where she’d delivered a keynote speech on the future of cloud collaboration to a standing ovation. Max took her for dinner and absinthe and a stroll along the canals that culminated in the red-light district where bored women leaned inside windows advertising their bodies for sale, their C-section scars reflecting the fluorescent light.
Charlotte pulled Max into a well-lit tattoo parlor and asked for a small hummingbird on the convex ridge of her right shoulder blade. “Hummingbird” was one of Max’s many nicknames for her. “Because your heart beats faster than other people’s.” It hurt like hell, a youthful indiscretion at age forty. He told her it was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
“What do you do in Omaha, Jeannine?”
When Jeannine smiled she showed a gap between her two front teeth, her face softened, and she became pretty. “I work in an animal shelter. I’m a vet. Mostly spaying and neutering. I read your book. Twice, actually. I underlined almost everything you said.”
The muscles in Charlotte’s shoulder blades and back of her neck twitched then and she had the distinct feeling she was being watched. “Thank you. That’s so kind of you.” Her phone buzzed with a text message.
“Charlie’s always on call.” Max winked. “She’s very important, you know.”
Abby rolled her eyes to mock Max and not Charlotte. “Everyone knows that, Max. Charlotte’s the real deal.”
She pulled the phone from her pocket to see the screen. It was Leila: I will draft a resignation letter tonight.
The words stung like a slap across the face. Max must have noticed a change in her demeanor, because he reached over to touch her shoulder. Tears welled in her eyes as she met Max’s gaze and hoped he would understand she was telling him she needed him to get the girls and come home with her now. Right now. She wanted desperately to call Leila back then, but needed to get control of herself before they spoke again.
She gave a polite nod to Abby, Tess, and Jeannine and turned to look back toward the house. Hot, fat tears rolled down her cheeks. She swiped them angrily and noticed a blond girl standing strangely among the flowers taking a selfie. She wore jeans, a sweater, and black high-heeled boots and looked both familiar and vaguely out of place.
Charlotte walked back toward the house. Ahead of her Travis waved his arms in the air as he attempted to rap to an old-school Snoop Dogg song about smoking dope in your mother’s basement.
Nearing the porch, she came face-to-face with the blond girl with the black boots. Even in the dim light it was easy to make out the birthmark in the shape of Florida running down the girl’s jawline.
She was one of Ted Slaughter’s trackers.
At first Charlotte wondered how she had gotten in, but it was a ridiculous thing to question. It wasn’t like Travis had a guard checking off names from a list at the door. This girl had walked into the party just like anyone else. But how long had she been following her, watching her, watching Max, watching her daughters?
Max kept chastising her for her paranoia, but this proved it had been warranted. Here was an actual person stalking her, a person paid to search for ways to harm her.
The tracker hadn’t been taking a selfie at all. She’d been taking photographs of Charlotte’s husband. The girl with the oddly shaped birthmark held her gaze now and smiled at the tracks of tears that stained Charlotte’s cheeks.