Never, page 23
“I was there! I didn’t see you—ah. But you saw me, with Léonie.”
“She’s attractive and single, and you’re clearly intimate with her. I could tell, anyone could tell just by looking at the two of you together. She even held your hand at one moment.”
He nodded, saying nothing. Any second now, she thought, he will break out into indignant denials.
But he did not.
She went on: “I happened to be with someone who told me who she is and explained that you’ve been having an affair with her for months.”
He gave a deep sigh. “This is my fault. I should have told you about her.”
“Told me what, exactly?”
“I had an affair with Léonie for six months. I’m not ashamed of it. She’s intelligent and charming and I still like her. But the affair ended a month before you and I took that trip to Lake Chad.”
“A whole month! My goodness. What made you wait so long?”
He smiled wryly. “You’re entitled to be sarcastic. I’ve never lied to you or cheated, but I didn’t tell you everything, and that counts as deception, doesn’t it? The truth is, I was embarrassed that I fell for you so soon and got serious so quickly. I’m still embarrassed. It makes me feel like a Casanova, which I’m not, and really, I don’t respect those men I know who count up their conquests like goals in the soccer season. All the same, I should have confessed.”
“Who ended the affair, you or her?”
“I did.”
“Why? You liked her, and you still do.”
“She told me a lie, and when I found out I felt betrayed.”
“What lie?”
“She told me she was single. She’s not, she has a husband in Paris, and two boys at boarding school—the one I went to, Ermitage International. She goes home in the summer to be with them.”
“That’s why you broke up—because she’s married.”
“I can’t feel good about sleeping with a married woman. I don’t condemn other people who do it, but it’s not for me. I don’t want to have a shameful secret.”
She remembered how he had been concerned to establish that she and Jonathan were definitely divorced, that first time she had talked to him about her past.
If this was all an elaborate lie, it was a very plausible one.
She said: “So you finished the affair two months ago. Why were you holding hands today?” She immediately regretted saying that. It was a cheap shot, for they had not really been holding hands.
But Tab was too mature to quibble about that. “Léonie asked to see me. She wanted to talk.” He shrugged. “It would have been unkind to refuse.”
“What did she want?”
“To resume our affair. I said no, of course. But I tried to be gentle.”
“So that’s what I saw. You being gentle.”
“I can’t honestly say I regret that. But I sure as hell regret not telling you everything beforehand. Too late now.”
“Did she say she loved you?”
He hesitated. “I’ll tell you anything,” he said. “But are you sure you want me to answer that?”
“Oh, God,” she said. “You’re so decent you should have a fucking halo.”
He chuckled. “Even when you’re breaking up with me you can make me laugh.”
“I’m not breaking up with you,” she said, and she felt warm tears on her face. “I love you too much.”
He reached across and took her hands. “I love you too,” he said. “In case you haven’t already guessed. In fact . . .” He paused. “Look, you and I have both loved people before. But I’d like you to know that I have never felt this way about anyone. Never. Ever.”
“Would you just come here and hug me?”
He did as she asked and she held him hard.
She said: “Don’t scare me like that again, okay?”
“I swear to God.”
“Thank you.”
Chapter 13
Saturday was not a day off for the American president, but it was different from other days. The White House was a little quieter than usual, and the phone did not ring quite so often. Pauline welcomed the chance to deal with documents that demanded time and concentration: long international reports from the State Department, pages of tax numbers from the Treasury, technical specifications for billion-dollar weapons systems from the Pentagon. Late on Saturday afternoons she liked to work in the Treaty Room, an elegant traditional space in the Residence, much older than the Oval Office. She sat at Ulysses Grant’s massive Treaty Table, with the tall grandfather clock ticking loudly over her shoulder, like the spirit of a previous president reminding her that there was not much time for all she wanted to do.
But she was never alone for very long, and today her peace was interrupted by Jacqueline Brody, her chief of staff. Jacqueline laughed a lot and never seemed tense, but she had a steel core. Her thin, muscular body came from a disciplined combination of a strict diet and regular hard workouts. She was a divorcée with grown-up children and seemed to have no romantic life, indeed no life at all outside the White House.
Jacqueline sat down and said: “Ben Riley came to see me this morning.”
Benedict Riley was director of the Secret Service, the agency responsible for bodyguarding the president and other senior figures thought to be at risk. Pauline said: “What did Ben have to say?”
“The people guarding the vice president have reported a problem.”
Pauline took off her reading glasses and put them down on the ancient table. She sighed. “Go on.”
“They think Milt is having an affair.”
Pauline gave a so-what shrug. “He’s a single man, I guess he’s entitled. It doesn’t sound like a problem. Who’s he sleeping with?”
“That’s the problem. Her name is Rita Cross, and she’s sixteen.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“Exactly.”
“How the hell old is Milt?”
“Sixty-two.”
“Dear Christ, he ought to know better.”
“The age of consent is sixteen in DC, so at least he’s not committing a crime.”
“But still . . .”
“I know.”
Pauline suffered an unpleasant vision of the portly Milt on top of a slender teenager. She shook her head to get rid of it. “She’s not . . . Milt doesn’t pay her for sex, does he?”
“Not exactly. . . .”
“What does that mean?”
“He gives her presents.”
“Such as?”
“He bought her a ten-thousand-dollar bicycle.”
“Oh, dear. This is bad. I can just see it in the New York fucking Mail. Could Milt be persuaded to end the relationship, I wonder?”
“Probably not: Milt’s bodyguards say he’s infatuated. But I doubt if it would help. One way or another she’ll probably end up selling her story.”
“So a scandal is more or less inevitable.”
“And that could happen early next year, just as the primaries are starting.”
“So we have to get out in front of it.”
“I agree.”
“Which means I have to fire Milt.”
“As soon as possible.”
Pauline put her glasses back on, a sign that the meeting was coming to an end. “Find out where Milt is, please, Jacqueline. Ask him to come in and see me—” Pauline turned and looked at the grandfather clock “—first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Will do.” Jacqueline stood up.
“And brief Sandip. We’ll have to do a press release. It will say that Milt has resigned for personal reasons.”
“With a quote from you, thanking him for his years of service to the people of the United States and to the president—”
“And we need to choose a new veep. Make me a list of names, please.”
“I’m on it.” Jacqueline left the room.
Pauline had read only a few more pages about the shortcomings of inner-city schools when she heard a sound in the hall. Her parents were visiting Washington and spending the night at the White House, and it seemed they had arrived. The voice she heard was that of her mother, reedy and pathetic, saying: “Pauline? Where are you?”
Pauline got up and went outside.
Her mother was in the Center Hall, a big, pointless space with furniture that was never used: an octagonal desk in the middle, a grand piano with a locked lid, sofas and chairs that no one sat on. Mother looked lost.
Christine Wagner was seventy-five. She wore a tweed skirt and a pink cardigan. Pauline remembered her half a lifetime ago: she had been briskly competent, making breakfast while at the same time ironing a clean white shirt, finding Pauline’s homework, brushing the shoulders of Daddy’s gray flannel suit as he headed out the door, and listening for the honk of the school bus. Once a smart and strong-willed woman, she had become timid and anxious in the last few years. “So there you are,” she said, as if Pauline must have been hiding.
Pauline kissed her. “Hello, Mother. Welcome. It’s good to see you.”
Her father appeared. Keith Wagner’s hair was white but his neat mustache was black. A businessman who had worn navy and gray suits for half a century, he had taken to shades of brown. He had on a new-looking outfit, a tan sport coat with chocolate-colored pants and a matching tie. Pauline kissed his cheek, and they moved into the East Sitting Hall. Gerry joined them.
They talked about the parents’ hobbies. Keith was on the board of the Commercial Club, Chicago’s elite business group, and Christine was a volunteer reader at two local schools.
Pippa came in and kissed her grandparents.
Keith said: “So, Pauline, what global crisis have you resolved lately?”
“I’ve been trying to get the Chinese to be more careful who they sell guns to.”
Pauline was ready to explain the problem, but her father was more interested in his own reminiscences. “I did business with the Chinese, now and again, back in the day. Bought millions of polythene bags from them and sold them to hospitals. A very clever race, the Chinese. When they decide to do something, they get it done. There’s something to be said for authoritarian governments.”
Pauline said: “They make the trains run on time.”
Gerry said pedantically: “Actually, that’s a myth: Mussolini never did get Italian trains to run on time.”
Keith was not listening. “They don’t have to pander to every little group that stands in the way of progress because they want to protect the nesting grounds of the lesser spotted tit warbler—” Her mother said: “Keith!” and Pippa sniggered but Keith ignored them both. “—or they think the ground is holy because that’s where the spirits of their ancestors gather under the full moon.”
Pippa said: “And the other amazing thing about authoritarian governments is that if they want to murder six million Jewish people, no one can stop them.”
Pauline considered whether to silence Pippa and decided that her father had asked for it.
But Keith was untroubled. “I recall, Pippa, that your mother also knew all the smart answers when she was just fourteen years old.”
Christine said: “Don’t pay attention to your grandfather, Pippa. Over the next three or four years you’ll do things you’ll remember later with deep embarrassment. But when you’re old you’ll wish you’d done all of them twice.”
Pauline laughed happily. It was a flash of her mother as she used to be, feisty and funny.
Keith said grumpily: “Pearls of wisdom from the geriatric ward.”
The conversation was becoming too combative. Pauline stood up. “Let’s have dinner,” she said, and they all walked along the Center Hall to the Dining Room.
Pauline no longer regarded her parents as people she could lean on for support. This had happened gradually. Their horizons had narrowed, they had lost touch with the modern world, and their judgment had deteriorated. One day Pippa will feel like that about me, Pauline mused as they sat down to eat. How far ahead was that moment? Ten years? Twenty? She found the thought unsettling: Pippa out in the world, making decisions for herself, and Pauline sidelined as incapable.
Her father was talking to Gerry about business, and the three women did not interrupt. Gerry had once been Pauline’s close confidant. When had that ceased? She could not tell exactly. It had petered out, but why? Was it just because of Pippa? Pauline knew, from observing other parents, that disagreements over child rearing created some of the worst marital conflicts. They involved people’s most deeply held convictions about morals, religion, and values. They brought out the truth about whether the couple was compatible or not.
Pauline thought young people should challenge established ideas. It was how the world made progress. She was a conservative because she knew that change had to be introduced cautiously and managed judiciously, but she was not the type who thought nothing needed changing. Nor was she the even worse kind who hankered after a golden age in the past when everything was so much better. She did not yearn for the good old days.
Gerry was different. He said that young people needed to achieve maturity and wisdom before they tried to change the world. Pauline knew that the world was never changed by people who waited for a more suitable moment.
People like Gerry.
Ouch.
What could she do? Gerry wanted her to spend more time with her family—which meant him—but she could not. A president was given everything she needed except time.
She had been committed to public service long before she married him: he could hardly have been surprised. And he had been keen for her to run for president. He had said frankly that it would be good for his career, win or lose. If she won he would retire for four years or eight, but after that he would be a legal superstar. But then, when she was elected, he had begun to resent how little time she had for him. Maybe he had thought that he would be more involved in her work, that as president she would consult him about decisions. Maybe he should not have retired. Maybe—
Maybe she should not have married him.
Why did she not share Gerry’s yearning for them to spend more time together? Some busy couples looked forward to a regular date night, when they devoted themselves to one another, and had a romantic dinner or went to a movie or listened to music together on the couch.
The thought depressed her.
Looking at Gerry as he agreed with her father about labor unions, she realized that the trouble with Gerry was that he was a bit dull.
She was being harsh now. But it was true. Gerry was boring. She did not find him sexy. And he was not very supportive of her.
So what was left?
Pauline always faced the facts.
Did all this mean she no longer loved him?
She was afraid it did.
* * *
Next morning she had breakfast with Dad, just as she had when he was working and she was at the University of Chicago. They were both larks, up early. Pauline had muesli and milk while Dad ate toast and drank coffee. They did not say much: now as then, he was deep in the business section of the newspaper. But it was a companionable silence. With a twinge of reluctance she left him and went to the West Wing.
Milt had suggested an early hour for their appointment so that he could come to the White House on his way to church. Pauline would see him in the Oval Office. Its formal air was suitable for firing someone.
Milt arrived in a brown tweed suit with a vest, looking like a country gentleman. “What has James Moore done now, to require a meeting early in the morning of the Lord’s Day?”
“This is not about James Moore,” Pauline said. “Sit down.”
“What is it about?”
“Our problem is Rita Cross.”
Milt sat up straighter, tilted his chin, and looked haughty. “What are you talking about?”
Pauline could not bear to listen to bullshit: life was too short. She said: “Don’t for Christ’s sake pretend you don’t know.”
“It sounds like something that’s no one’s business but mine.”
“When the vice president is fucking a sixteen-year-old it’s everyone’s business, Milt—stop acting dumber than you are.”
“Who’s to say it’s more than a friendship?”
“Spare me the crap.” Pauline was getting angry. She had thought that Milt would be realistic and mature about this, accept that he had been caught out breaking the rules and retire graciously. No such luck.
“She’s not underage,” Milt said, with the air of a card player who lays an ace.
“Tell the reporters that, when they call to ask you about your relationship with Rita Cross. Do you think they’ll say that in that case there’s no scandal? Or what?”
Milt was looking desperate. “We can keep this secret.”
“No, we can’t. Your bodyguards know, and they told Jacqueline, who told me and Sandip, all in the last twenty-four hours. And what about Rita? Doesn’t she have sixteen-year-old friends? What do they think she’s doing with a sixty-two-year-old man who gave her a ten-thousand-dollar bicycle? Playing Scrabble?”
“All right, Madam President, you’ve got a point.” Milt leaned forward, lowered his voice confidentially, and spoke as one colleague to another. “Leave this with me, please. I’ll work things out, I promise.”
The proposal was outrageous, and he should have known that. “Fuck you, Milt. I’m not going to leave anything with you. This is a scandal that will hurt every one of the people here who have been working so hard for a better America. The least I can do is minimize the damage, and to that I end I will control when and how the news comes out.”
Milt looked as if he was beginning to see that there was no hope for him. He said miserably: “What do you want me to do?”
“Go to church, confess your sin, and promise God you won’t do it again. Go home, call Rita, and tell her it’s all over. Then write me a resignation letter, citing personal reasons—don’t lie and invent health problems or anything else. Make sure that letter is on this desk by nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”
