The sun was low on the lake house lawn. The Brights were one week into their campaign.
Patty clinked a fork against her champagne flute and the party quieted. “Pardon the interruption! We’re cutting the cake on the east patio if you’d like to join us.”
Heads nodded approvingly. The music came back up, and the well-dressed crowd went back to mingling among themselves.
Ian ignored the directive and went to the kitchen to refresh his gin and tonic, wading through smiling faces along the way.
Spencer was already there, doing the same. He put his glass down and his arms around his husband’s neck. “How’re you holding up?”
Ian smiled weakly. “I couldn’t do it without my friends G and T here.”
They were halfway through one of Patty Bright’s fabulous garden parties. This particular event was a fund-raiser masquerading as a double birthday for Lucas and Cameron, whose actual birthday was two weeks away. John and Patty had manufactured a plausible enough reason to invite nearly one hundred wealthy (and very wealthy) residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, along with some big names from Democratic super PACs, on the promise of fine food, high profile socializing and A-plus ass-kissing. Among them were also socialite bloggers and political gossip columnists, a photographer from Town & Country, and two tabloid reporters waiting just outside the front gate.
If Cameron and Lucas were offended by the sham of a birthday party, they didn’t show it. The boys seemed content to canoodle as the semicelebrity spokespeople of the Footy Fifteen, all while making videos for their expanding social media fame. The campaign life suited those boys just fine.
A woman in a flowy dress breezed into the kitchen, pulled a bottle of white wine from a tin bucket and gave Spencer a little squeeze on his arm on her way back out.
Ian leaned against the kitchen counter and waited until she was gone again. “So is this working? Are you going to get some big donations from this?”
Spencer poured vodka over ice. “I think so. Most of it will come later, if they feel adequately flattered. But we might get a few big checks today.”
“Well, happy birthday to Cam and Luke!”
Spencer frowned. “Oh, c’mon. You know how this works. It’s just what you have to do.”
“I know, I know.”
Ian did. And he didn’t really care about the party, which was undeniably lovely. He wasn’t thrilled, however, with the ease with which Spencer had manipulated his father’s admission of infidelity for their political gain. He wasn’t attracted to the apparent pleasure his husband took in this victory. They were making lemonade out of lemons, but they didn’t need to enjoy it so much.
No one in the family had spoken of John’s infidelity since it came out several days earlier. Every day now was a new whirlwind of activity, leaving no room for what Ian’s therapist would call “processing.” And, although he wanted to be happy for Spencer, for his resilience in the face of this devastating family news, he couldn’t. What the Bright brothers were demonstrating didn’t look like resilience so much as avoidance. That’s what it had always been with them.
Ian reached for the Tanqueray. “Are you really okay with all this? Don’t you want to talk about your dad?”
Spencer rolled his eyes. “We’ve been over this. I really am fine. We’re all fine.”
“I don’t know if Philip is fine.”
They looked through the window at Philip, who was sitting in a lawn chair down by the water. He’d been there for the duration of the party.
“Maybe you should talk to him, Spencer.”
“I will. Listen, I’ve gotta get back out there and introduce myself to the new DNC chair before she goes.” He leaned in and kissed Ian. “After that, I’m all yours.”
“Fine. Get your drink and meet me down at the water in five minutes.”
“Deal. Five minutes.”
Five minutes would probably be ten, which is why Ian had said five. He put a cube in his glass and walked back outside, through a scrum at the cake table, past a game of croquet and two men arguing about the latest Fed chairman appointment.
Ian usually liked parties like this. He liked being among the educated and concerned, people who cared about things and knew what was going on in the world. But not today. Today, he was a bored extra, wholly unnecessary.
He found Mary-Beth collecting dirty plates from the grass, and he whispered in her ear. “Drinks on the water in five.”
She smiled and nodded.
He continued to the lake.
“What’s up, Phil.” Ian dragged a beach chair up next to his brother-in-law’s chair.
“Just reading.” It was unclear whether the book in his lap had been cracked. “Perfect day, right?”
“Indeed. Hey, um, are you okay, Philip? You seem kind of distant.”
Philip turned to him. “I’m fine, but thank you for asking. I guess I’m not in a party mood.”
“I understand that.”
Philip paused. “It just feels like something has changed here. Or like it should feel like something has changed. It’s weird that nothing has. You know what I mean?”
“I absolutely do.”
Mary-Beth came up behind them with her own beach chair. “Hey guys. Are we officially done being polite to strangers?”
“Yup, I’m calling it.” Ian reached his glass out to clink with hers.
And then Chelsea came up behind her. “Do you mind if I join?”
“Please do!”
She dragged her chair next to Mary-Beth’s. Ian was struck by how the dynamic between the two women had changed in the past week, from quietly adversarial to almost conspiratorial. Ian liked the idea of having Chelsea in their court, maybe forever. She’d be a good one for Charlie to hold on to, if he was inclined to such a thing. It was difficult to tell where this relationship was headed.
“We’re glad you’re here, Chelsea,” Ian said.
She smiled and sipped from a beer bottle. “Thanks. To be honest, I’ve been trying to leave. But I don’t have any money, and now the place I was going to stay in London is falling through. No offense, but I’m kind of stuck here.”
“Well, I’m glad for it.”
“Me, too,” Philip said.
“Me, too,” Mary-Beth said.
Chelsea smiled sadly, and Ian realized she really was stuck. He’d been thinking that she was an extra-in-training, but she wasn’t. Chelsea could still get out.
Vivaldi’s third season was playing from the stereo, and someone had turned it up to match the rising, increasingly intoxicated voices of the party.
The caterers, who’d been walking around with trays of crudités and champagne, began collecting dishes around the partygoers. They had loosened their ties and sweated through their shirts. The sun was a low fireball glaring onto everyone’s overexposed skin just above the tree line. Abandoned shoes littered the grass. Everyone was so beautifully disheveled in the summer heat.
“It’s exactly like what people think it is,” Ian said.
Philip turned to him. “What is?”
He sighed. “People like this. Parties like this. This life.”
“No, it’s better,” Mary-Beth said. “Not because it’s more opulent or elegant than you might think...” She paused for a long time and they waited. “It just feels better. Before seeing it for myself, I could never have imagined how great it feels to be in this life. The ease of it all.”
“People would be so much angrier if they knew what it felt like,” Chelsea said.
Philip looked baffled. “Which people?”
“Everyone else,” Ian said. “Regular, working people.”
Philip nodded slowly, digesting. “Inequality is a reasonable thing to be angry about.”
Mary-Beth shook her head. “But what I’m saying is that it’s more different than just the scale. It’s the sureness, the sense of ownership. Those things were surprises to me when I met JJ years ago. I could picture bigger houses and better wine before I saw it for myself, but I didn’t have an imagination for this feeling. And it’s actually the best part.”
Philip said nothing.
It could be easy to forget that Philip was, in the end, entirely Bright. He was different from the rest of his family, but not so different to have grown up oblivious to his own luck. Even Philip couldn’t quite appreciate it.
“I wonder if it’s better not to know,” Chelsea said.
Mary-Beth closed her eyes.
Ian wondered if Mary-Beth and JJ were really broke. He wondered if she understood that John and Patty weren’t as wealthy as the old-money people who attended their parties—that they just blended in well. Not that any of this mattered. (But it did.) He’d never ask.
“I’m tired of this party,” Mary-Beth said.
“Me, too.”
“Me, too.”
“Me, too.”
No one moved.
Farah walked up and panned their row of chairs with her camera. Then she pressed a button and put the device in her bag. “Mind if I sit for a few?”
Philip stood. “Here, take my seat. I’ll grab another.”
“You sure?”
He nodded.
She sat down and pulled out her phone.
Ian dug his bare toes into the sand and felt the cool wetness just below the surface. He glanced at Mary-Beth to his right, who had her eyes closed and her head tipped back.
Then he looked to his left and caught an unintentional glimpse at Farah’s phone. Ian wasn’t snooping, but he couldn’t not see the text message that appeared at that moment on her screen.
We’re close, it said. Senator Bright is done.
Ian tried to stay steady and avoid looking directly at Farah, because whatever he was seeing, he felt sure she wouldn’t want him to. So he stared at the water while she typed a quick response into her phone, glancing back just in time to catch what she’d written. Leave me alone, it said.
Farah wiped her brow and put her phone into her pocket. She stood up abruptly, knocking Chelsea’s half-full beer bottle into the sand as she did.
“Oh God, I’m sorry! I’ll get you another.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ve had enough.”
“You sure? Ugh, sorry.” Farah gave one more apologetic smile and hurried off.
Ian watched her go, disappearing through the sea of seersucker and linen.
He saw John Bright Senior holding court in a circle of men and women; Patty Bright topping off glasses with a bottle of Moët; and Spencer laughing with Charlie and JJ. Spencer looked so happy and confident at that moment. He was glowing. And although he’d forgotten to meet Ian at the water, as promised, Ian wasn’t angry. The setting sun and beautiful people, the bubbling spirits and fine food—Ian wasn’t capable of forgetting about the rest of the world and enjoying this rarified universe without complication, but neither was the pleasure of it lost on him. And Spencer couldn’t help where he’d come from.
From across the lawn, Spencer smiled at Ian, and they held each other’s gaze long enough for Mary-Beth to blush and look away. It was all worth that feeling.
Hours later, after drivers in black town cars had taken everyone away—back to Boston, and local inns and the airport—it was just the Brights again in the big lake house. The caterers clattered around as dishes were stacked and silverware organized. The residual vibrations of a party still echoed on the grounds, and it would be days before all the forgotten sunglasses and abandoned cardigans were found in the grass.
As a final curtain on the festivities, a dark cloud settled in above them around eleven. Fat rain drops saw the last guests out.
Ian and Spencer were in their bedroom upstairs, which was sandwiched between Mary-Beth and JJ’s room, and Charlie and Chelsea’s room. All three couples were talking in voices hushed just enough to maintain an illusion of privacy in their family dormitory.
Spencer moved excitedly around their room, pulling off his shirt, then pants, detailing the various commitments they’d gotten over the course of the night.
“The former attorney general gave us a soft yes, which means we need to do a little more wooing there. But I think we’ve got at least two of the House members on board.”
Ian was dead tired in bed. “That’s good.”
“And the Democratic Governors Association seems like they’re hedging right now. They want to make sure we’re really viable before they go all in, but I’m pretty confident. Ian, are you listening?”
“Kind of. Sorry. I’m so tired.”
“Yeah, me, too.” He didn’t seem tired.
“Hey, have you noticed anything weird about Farah?”
Spencer climbed into bed beside Ian. “No, why?”
“Because I accidentally oversaw a text message she got during the party that looked fairly ominous.”
“What did it say?”
Ian took a breath. “It said ‘Senator Bright is done.’ That’s all.”
Spencer froze. “Well, who was it from? What was the context?”
“I really couldn’t tell. And Farah left before I could say anything. It’s probably nothing at all. But she seemed rattled by it.”
“Senator Bright is done?”
“That’s what it said. Senator Bright is done.”
He frowned. “Maybe I’ll ask her about it.”
“I’m not sure you should. I definitely wasn’t supposed to see it.”
“Fine, then I’ll just poke around a little. I’m sure it’s nothing, though. There are plenty of people whose job it is to make sure my father loses this race. They are going to come at us from all angles, so it’s not impossible that someone has contacted Farah. I’ll remind her of the terms of this agreement.”
“Which are?”
“She can’t talk about anything she has seen here. All the footage is fair game once the documentary is out there, but she can’t leak anything about Dad in the meantime. It’s boilerplate language.”
Ian studied his husband’s face. “She seems like a professional. It’s probably nothing.”
“I agree. And anyway, the truth is out there now. There’s nothing left to uncover.”
“Right.”
“Oh, I forgot to mention the Petersons—the people who run the opera house—they were totally smitten with my mother and...”
Spencer continued on about the successes of their day—their “kills,” as the Bright men put it. And Ian was trying to listen, but he was overcome with irritation. It was a particular irritation he had only with his in-laws, usually after a few days among them all, when he started to feel adrift from his husband. He wanted to listen and care about this boring story about the opera-house people. But more than that, he wanted to take Spencer back from his family. He wanted to reclaim their time together, their identity apart from these people. Ian nodded along half-heartedly.
“What is it?” Spencer finally said. “You seem annoyed.”
“It’s nothing. I’m listening.”
Spencer moved in closer and put his arms around Ian’s body under the covers. “What is it?”
Ian kissed him. “I just miss you.”
Spencer softened to his lips, and it seemed for a moment that he was going to abandon this endless thread. But then he pulled away and plowed on. “So anyway, we’re thinking about testing some messages in south Boston...”
Ian put his hands firmly on Spencer’s shoulders. “No.”
“No?”
“No.” He pushed him down into the pillow and hovered over him. Ian was slighter than Spencer, and his force was only a performance, but they were both into it. “Stop talking.”
Spencer was instantly aroused with this order. He quieted and waited.
“No more talking,” Ian whispered into his ear.
Spencer moaned in anticipation, and Ian made love to him with the angry, possessive force he reserved only for those angry, possessive nights on Bright family vacations.
Surrounded on every side by kin, Spencer belonged only to Ian for ten furious minutes.