Farah lay back in her bed and let her freshly washed hair soak into the pillow. She scrolled through the messages on her phone while late-night comedians made jokes about the day’s headlines. John Senior featured in each of their monologues. It was low-hanging fruit: an unfaithful politician and the contradictions of his life.
Farah couldn’t shake the feeling that she was a living cell in this sick media organism now. She hadn’t intended to be. Documentary filmmaking had always afforded her a certain distance from popular culture and gossip. But as a function of luck and location, she was in it now. The best possible outcome at this point—to make a searing documentary about a beloved public figure—would implicate her in all the muck.
“I can’t believe the Brights haven’t asked you to leave,” Chelsea had said to Farah three days before. “I just can’t believe they’re still allowing the cameras to roll, as all this terrible stuff comes out.” She’d shaken her head and looked at the lake, astonished that sane people would ever allow for such a thing.
But Farah could believe it. Her presence at the Bright house was the least surprising thing about this project. Because in her experience, people—not all, but most people—would still rather be filmed than not, even in the face of humiliation. The camera becomes a sort of oxygen once you’ve been breathing it, and taking it away can induce existential death.
She flipped from one network to the next, her phone still in her hand. Farah couldn’t turn her mind off, and it wasn’t only the work. It was Philip. It seemed that the more she observed him, the more she found herself wanting more. She wanted to know more about him, what went on in that inscrutable head. But she also wanted to know what he smelled like first thing in the morning, what the fuzzy hair below his navel felt like to the touch and what the little hollow between his pectorals would taste like if she put her tongue in it. All of which made her feel foolish and unprofessional and perpetually distracted by her own physical wantings. This was work and Philip was unavailable. Farah kept flipping through the channels.
Bzzzt. Her phone vibrated beside her, and she looked down. It was Jeff, the reporter. Farah watched her phone ring over and over as she contemplated what to do.
She should answer it. Jeff had been right about the last scoop, and he might have something new to share. But she didn’t want to hear his voice, and she didn’t want to get pulled into his murky world. She was still a documentary filmmaker, not a Jeff.
Finally, it stopped. No voice mail. Then a text message.
Farah, things are happening. Turn on the news RIGHT NOW. This one’s a freebie.—Jeff
She found the remote in the sheets and started flipping. There it was: on the first cable news network she crossed, a picture of John Senior. At the bottom of the screen, it read: “More revelations for former senator John Bright?”
It was a question, not a statement. And when Farah turned up the volume, the newscaster merely said that one of the previous women he had already admitted to sleeping with was talking now. She suggested there were further secrets to come out.
After that, the camera cut away from John’s face, to shaky footage of a woman holding a grocery bag at her front door. She was trying to unlock it and get inside, away from the TV cameras.
The woman looked as old as John. She had white hair and was wearing a velour tracksuit—not the mistress image Farah had been picturing. She was shaking her head and trying to ignore the questions being hammered at her by reporters. Then, finally, the door opened and she slipped inside. And, just before she closed it again, the woman yelled back: “Why don’t you go bother Patty Bright! Ask her the real story! It’s not as simple as you think!” Then she slammed the door and closed the curtains.
When it was clear that the anchorperson had nothing more to report, Farah turned off the television and sat still for a moment.
This one’s a freebie. That’s what Jeff had said. Surely, he was chasing this story—whatever it was—along with every other political reporter in America right now. Someone would find whatever this woman was alluding to, and it would probably be sooner than later. All of which meant that this night was not over for Farah. Things could still happen tonight.
So she pulled her leaden body out of bed and searched for her jeans. She tucked a pillow under her arm and grabbed the smallest camera she had. This was the moment that Wayne was talking about, the time not to fall asleep. And despite all the ways in which she hated this project, she liked the tingle of excitement that these events stirred in her. She wanted to be there for the thing. She didn’t always know what the thing was, but she had a good sense of when it was coming.
Farah padded down the back stairs of the garage, into the clear black night, then along the driveway to the front door of the house. Gravel crunched beneath her unlaced sneakers. She knew the door would be open—they kept it that way for her—but she’d forgotten about the fussy latch on the screen, which required some jiggling and tugging. Every sound she made seemed to echo above her and across the surface of the lake.
When finally it opened, Farah stepped into the dark house and slipped out of her shoes. She walked slowly up the stairs, past the boys’ room and Philip’s room, past Charlie and Chelsea’s room, Spencer and Ian’s room, and then JJ and Mary-Beth’s room, until finally she was outside the master bedroom, John and Patty’s. Farah was struck by how cavernous the house felt now, illuminated by a bar of moonlight from the window at the other end of the hall.
She could hear someone snoring from a distant room. There was a sneeze from a different location and the ruffling of bed sheets. Farah held still for a full minute to be sure that everyone was really asleep. When it was quiet again, she placed her pillow on the floor, just to the left of John and Patty’s door. She checked that her camera was charged and set it to rest mode. Then she curled up on the floor with her head on the pillow and waited.
In the hours that passed before dawn, it wasn’t sleep that claimed Farah’s body, but a sort of semi-alert recharging mode. Her eyes were closed and she hardly moved, but there were no dreams that night, just the blurry melding of subconscious thoughts with the real-life sounds of a creaking house and sleeping family.
When Patty Bright gasped the next morning, Farah was already on her feet.