WE’RE IN FUCKING SIBERIA
The ballroom of the Washington Hilton, all abuzz on this warm evening in late April, seemed roughly the size of a football field, and Cady and Jeff were in the equivalent of the nosebleeds. They sat in a dark, dank corner, light-years from the dais where POTUS, FLOTUS and VPOTUS would sit.
“This is unacceptable,” Cady said. When they had finally secured a guest, all Cady’s doing (“I don’t know how the hell you pulled this thing off, but if we ever have any money, I’ll give you a raise and a better desk chair,” Jeff had promised), it had been far too late to lobby for better placement in the ballroom. How bad could it be? they’d figured. But this was bad. Some sort of air-conditioning machinery could be heard buzzing directly overhead.
“We’re in fucking Siberia,” Jeff moaned. “We should’ve just gotten a suite and watched it on TV with her.”
“Is it too late for that?” Cady joked, scanning the room, hundreds of black-tie-attired politicos and journalists milling about, shaking hands, gabbing spiritedly.
Jeff checked his phone. “Fuuuuck, they’re here, waiting in the red carpet line.”
Cady stood up on her chair in her stilettos and her off-the-shoulder (rented) Carolina Herrera gown, hand over her eyes as though seeking a ship on the horizon.
“I’m not crazy,” she said. “That table upfront is still totally empty. There should at least be some activity this close to showtime, no?” It got her thinking.
“This sucks,” Jeff said. “We can’t even see the jumbotrons. It’s like we’re at the party but we’re, like, serving the punch.”
“Come! I have an idea!” Cady hopped down, grabbed the number “95” at the center of their table and set off to the front of the room. “There has got to be someone to bribe.”
* * *
“All I know is Bloomberg is sitting there,” a server named Angela told them.
Apparently, as Angela had heard it, there had been some sort of backup on Connecticut Avenue, and on top of that, the Kardashians had been running epically late. Everyone at the news network’s table would be arriving en masse, if they ever got through the traffic. For a sum of $250, all the cash that Jeff and Cady had on them, Angela agreed to look the other way while Cady swapped the table numbers. Bloomberg’s table “5” would now be located at the very back of the room. Not the most genius switch of all time, but worth a try.
Cady ran out to the red carpet to intercept their bosses and the advertisers, who were all traveling as a pack. At the center of their group was Madison, who shimmered in a gold chain-mail column dress, collecting all the light in the room, so many cameras trained on her, snapping away. When she saw Cady, she stopped midinterview with Access Hollywood to give her a hug.
“I’m so excited to be here, and this is the woman who was kind enough to bring me,” she said, linking arms with Cady.
“And how did you get Madison Goodfellow to be your guest?” the interviewer asked as though Cady was a nerd who had managed to bring the quarterback to prom.
Cady laughed. She still didn’t quite know the answer to that question. “Well, I guess, I just asked nicely.”
“And where is your husband tonight, Mrs. Goodfellow?”
Cady was prepared to step in, but Madison simply piped up, with that killer smile, “Oh, well, he has very serious and important things to do, meeting with voters to help secure his nomination. He felt he would be too busy for a frivolous night like this.”
* * *
Reagan, seated beside Ted at a table up front, typed furiously on her phone, adding a last minute tip from Cady—involving the Kardashians, of all people—and sending her updated speech to Arnold’s communications team. Then she took a deep breath to settle the butterflies she felt. It had been a long time since she had heard anyone deliver one of her speeches, and Ted wasn’t exactly helping to ease her nerves. “You’re sure Goodfellow is on board with all this?” he asked Reagan for the millionth time.
“You’re insulting me right now. I told you, Cady has it all set with her.” Reagan sighed. Cady had said Madison was surprisingly overjoyed at being included in the speech, and fully down to take a ribbing, and that she had refused to let her husband’s press secretary review the speech at any point. “Oooh,” Reagan had said then. “That means this is going to be even better.”
The night had already gotten off to a somewhat inauspicious start from a social standpoint, though. She and Ted were guests of MSNBC (he appeared enough on the network to warrant the invitation), and she had been seated beside Buck Brandywine. Buck informed Reagan that Birdie was too busy overseeing the Vanity Fair afterparty at the French ambassador’s residence, but when he grabbed his brandy she noticed his ring missing. She audibly gasped, then began coughing to cover. “Uhhhh, reflux, pregnant lady thing, sorry,” she said.
Honestly, Reagan almost hadn’t come at all. It had taken two failed shopping attempts and an emergency visit, with both children in tow, to Georgetown to secure a dress for the night. Her belly had popped, no mistaking it now, and she had crossed the line from looking like she’d possibly just stolen too many chicken fingers off her daughters’ high chairs to looking like a new baby was due any day. Her Badgley Mischka full-length empire gown had a bit more of a plunging neckline than she would’ve liked for an event with the commander in chief, but its full tulle skirt was so voluminous it might have been the only garment in existence capable of making her bump appear smaller. A winner for sure.
And she deserved to be there to watch Arnold read her words. This most coveted of speechwriting gigs had fallen into her lap just four days before the dinner. She had received a frantic text from Ted on the trail:
POTUS letting Arnold speak at nerd prom: HELP??????
She hadn’t wanted to let on how excited she was, even to her husband. But she had a feeling that if she was being asked—and SO late in the game—then Team Arnold had been pretty dissatisfied with the jokes provided by whichever ghostwriters they’d already hired. Ted had called immediately after receiving her response.
“Thanks,” he had launched in as soon as she picked up. “So Watkins was too soft—”
“And totally saved all the best material for POTUS,” she had finished his thought, knowing her former competitor firm well.
“Exactly. Arnold wants ‘edgy-ish.’ Safe edgy. Edgy lite.”
“No problem. I’ll write it at My Gym this afternoon. The girls have back-to-back classes.”
And so she had whipped up a few jokes and bits on her phone while Natasha and Daisy flung themselves around on the equipment for an hour and twenty minutes. She was so unexpectedly exhilarated to have a speechwriting gig after so long that she didn’t even notice when Natasha made a break for it, running out the gym’s front door only to be scooped up by Stacy and carried back in over her shoulder.
But the White House communications team had been pleased with her work. And all the moreso by Cady’s tip about Madison attending the festivities.
Now she just had to wait a little while longer.
Soon after a dinner that had made her nauseous (she couldn’t bear any kind of meat with this pregnancy; her baby must be a vegan), Arnold took his place at the podium. His wife, Alex, seated beside him on the dais—the slender beauty, nearly sixty, former Treasury secretary and Reagan’s favorite Georgetown professor—looked down at something in her lap just a moment, then set her eyes back on to her husband, her hands returning to the tabletop. As Arnold began with a few of Reagan’s easy jokes, earning chuckles, Reagan’s phone vibrated.
“ALEX” popped up on Reagan’s screen: never seen him so excited for a speech. thank u. fingers crossed.
glad to help, fingers dutifully crossed, she typed back. It had been nice to feel needed, in a professional capacity, again. She just hoped she had done the job well. Her ears pricked up now, listening for the part of the speech she hoped everyone would be talking about afterward: “…And Madison Goodfellow is here tonight.” Arnold, poised at the podium, paused for applause. “That’s right, definitely Hank Goodfellow’s better half. In fact, she’s here without her husband, proving that even she is sick of seeing so much of that guy.” Laughter swept the room. “Seriously, you all can stop covering him anytime now. Maybe Madison figured if all of you people were here, there’d be no one left to put Hank on every news network and in every paper.” More laughter. “But, you know, my sources tell me that Madison’s been making some news herself tonight, stirring things up. I even heard a turf war broke out over the Bloomberg table and can’t help but notice that Madison Goodfellow is now just a few feet away while the Kardashians are somewhere at the back of the room. Who’s keeping up with whom, now?” He paused again for laughter for the brand-new bit Reagan had written just before dinner. “Look, though, Madison, we’d all be happy to let you sit up here on the dais with us if you just promise that you and your husband won’t be sitting up here next year, if you know what I mean.”
The crowd roared.
Madison smiled and shrugged and said nonchalantly, in on the joke, “I’ll take that deal!”
“Madison says okay! All right, come on up, Mrs. Goodfellow!” Arnold called out. “See, I keep my campaign promises!”
And in her dazzling Versace gown, to considerable applause, she hoisted her chair above her head, walked up the steps on the side of the stage and wedged her seat between Arnold and Alex.
Reagan spotted Cady looking over at her, and winked in return.
A calm began to replace Reagan’s nerves. As she listened to the laughter in this room full of the most powerful people in media and government, she closed her eyes for a moment to take it all in. Yes. She was good at this. She could still do this; the muscle could still perform as it used to.
When she opened her eyes, she found Grant Foxhall gazing at her from the CNN table, directly in her sight line. One of those local celebrities you couldn’t help but know if you worked in politics long enough. He raised a brow at her as if to say, “Your handiwork?” She shrugged demurely as though replying, “Maybe. But you didn’t hear it from me.” Grant nodded in recognition of her good work. His hair had been darker when they had first met on that atrocious date eons ago. The surest sign she was getting older (an old 34) she now often found men with salt-and-pepper hair attractive. She hoped the lights were dim enough that he couldn’t see her blush.
* * *
The Vanity Fair afterparty was a zoo of beautiful, exotic beasts, its guest list a combination of Oscar nominees, Emmy winners and Victoria’s Secret runway-show models. Reagan ducked into room after room, all of them grand with sparkling chandeliers and lavish furnishings, weaving through the throngs of fabulous people. She had lost track of Ted early on, and Cady and Madison had only had time for quick victory high fives as they’d passed by. She finally wandered into the dimly lit Empire Salon, with its lush scarlet furniture, and leaned against the window seat, eyes set outside where the party had spilled onto the intricately landscaped grounds.
Her phone pinged, the answer to a text she’d sent Ted a long twenty minutes earlier: Heading to Politico party, bra bldg—the “Bra Building” was, of course, that charming nickname for the Institute for Peace building down on Constitution Avenue, which featured a curved overdesigned roof vaguely resembling an undergarment—Arnold wanted to make the rounds. couldn’t find you, meet there? It might’ve been helpful if he’d texted a little sooner.
Then another ping right after, this one from ALEX: you might have single-handedly resuscitated his campaign tonight and to thank you, we left you behind? they’re all idiots. so sorry, thought you had gone home, which you should. rest. you’re not missing anything here.
gladly taking your advice! Reagan texted back, dreaming of ditching her heels. She was firing up her Uber app when a familiar voice refocused her attention.
“Hey, how’d you get a Plus One to this thing?” Grant said, gesturing to her bump and greeting her with a kiss on the cheek, that TV smile, a hand on her bare bicep.
“I know people.” She shrugged.
“Apparently.” He stood beside her, shoulder against hers, and watched the room. “Word on the street is Arnold was even better than POTUS tonight.” Even with the party swirling around them, he spoke in the hushed tone of someone relaying classified information. “You might be too good.”
He smelled of cedar, some kind of expensive cologne. His jaw always looked so much more angular in person, in the way of soap opera actors.
“There are worse things to be,” she said, looking into her glass and then back at the room. She glanced at him a moment; his eyes were the palest blue, seawater that allowed you to see straight through to the bottom. “So what other scoops do you have?”
“A confession—security caught me looking around upstairs.”
“What were you looking for?”
“Come on, what’s the point of being here if you don’t look in all the rooms they’re trying to keep you out of?”
“You news guys, always after a story.” She shook her head.
“I have a story for you.” He took a swig of his drink, something amber. “‘Hero Speechwriter Ignites VP’s Otherwise Sluggish Campaign With Scene-stealing Nerd Prom Remarks.’”
“A little overblown, likely some factual errors there, check your reporting,” she said, wishing she could have a drink now.
“No place for modesty in this town,” he chided lightly. Music poured out from a piano in a nearby room, soft and sentimental, probably being played by a Grammy winner, and the salon began to clear, everyone flowing out toward the impromptu performance. “Seriously, if you want to be on the show anytime in the next couple days, you’ve got an open invitation.” He turned to look at her now.
“Thank you, though I wouldn’t be a very good ghost then, would I?” She smiled.
“You are tough, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know about that,” she said.
“I’d say so. I’ve been flirting with you for years,” he said, so sincerely that she almost didn’t recognize his voice. “Or maybe I’m not very good at it and you haven’t noticed.”
She hadn’t, actually. She’d just thought this was how some of these broadcaster types seemed to talk to everyone, a kind of high-octane intense charm. Before she could say a word, he turned to leave.
“Always good to see you, Reagan,” he said softly, then kissed her goodbye. This time though, he missed her cheek, his lips brushing against hers, landing there only a split second. It was all just rapid enough that, to anyone watching, it would look mostly friendly. Her glossed lips had remained perfectly still. But it didn’t matter; she still felt a charge that shouldn’t have been there.