Chapter Eight
A few days passed. I hardly saw the president at all, but it didn’t seem to matter. I was caught up in the poll counting, in the re-election procedure. It seemed strange. While the president continued with his various meetings—one, I saw on the news, with the president of France—I was working tirelessly to ensure that he would remain in office, able to do these things year after year once more.
“I wondered if you’d go to dinner with me.”
The words still haunted me a bit, even as I stood in front of the television, watching Xavier and the president of France walk together by the monuments. Xavier gestured toward Abraham Lincoln’s statue and made a small joke, making the French president scoff in a very Parisian way. I longed to hear the joke; I longed to hear his voice.
That evening, I learned on the news, Xavier and Camille were meant to have dinner with the French president and his fiancé. I looked down, hearing the words. It bothered me how much the words got to me—how much they altered the perception of my day. As the lead of his re-election campaign, I knew it was the right move. Still, it stung. I skirted back from the television and swept back to my desk, ready to busy myself with anything and everything else.
Each night of that week, I returned to my home in the back of Dimitri’s car, feeling the sadness creep up around my neck. Sadness at losing my opportunity with him. In the front, Dimitri continued to ramble on, cracking jokes. Why can’t I just love him, I thought to myself. God, wouldn’t it be so much easier to be with Dimitri? Couldn’t I just want something that was actually in my reach? I hadn’t wanted something and not gotten it during my entire life. And now, here I was, faced with my ultimate desire. And I couldn’t force myself to reach out and grab it. It went against everything.
The following evening was a Friday night. I’d wrangled together a long meeting, one that swept into the evening. All around me, my employees were yawning, upset at the length of time I was keeping them into the weekend. Of course, their first few weeks of flurry had slowed down. They couldn’t keep up that endless activity for so long.
I tapped my heel slowly, gazing at them. “Okay. Okay. You can all go home,” I finally said, slapping my portfolio down on the desk before me. “I know we won’t get anything done here, anyway.”
The people before me erupted into the air, all of a sudden talking like a group of elementary kids. Their smiles were broad. They were eager to get down the Hill, back to their bars and their wives and their boyfriends. I shook my head as they went, wondering about the life I was missing elsewhere.
I sat at my desk, then, tipping back a bit. I reached into the bottom drawer and pulled out a bottle of wine and a small paper cup. I poured the wine, allowing the sound to echo throughout the room. I tipped it back, allowing the flavor of it to pulse over my tongue, to my throat. I sighed evenly, feeling relaxed for the first time in many days—at least since the president had pushed me against the stairwell wall and asked me to go to dinner with him. That wasn’t something you could just shake off.
Suddenly, my phone began to buzz on my desk. I leaned forward, holding my cup high in the air. There, on the buzzing phone, I noted that the number was the president’s. I swallowed, realizing that the president was down the hall, lingering on in his office. I didn’t answer the phone. Rather, I stood up, still holding the wine bottle in my hand. I brought it with me down the hall, hearing my shoes as they tapped in the empty West Wing. What was the president doing there, all alone on a Friday night? Wouldn’t his wife be wondering about him?
Another Secret Service officer—someone named Dave—stood outside the door. His eyes were alert. I nodded to him. “The president and I have a meeting,” I offered as an explanation.
The man nodded. He swung open the door, allowing me entrance. I tapped in, closing the door behind me. I stood in the shell of it. “You rang,” I chirped.
Xavier was sitting in his great chair, peering out the window. He was faced away from me. I moved forward, placing the bottle of wine on his desk. “Mr. President?”
Finally, he spun around, his eyes looking so hollow in his head. He reached toward the bottle of wine and he tipped it down his throat, looking so comical, even in his desperation.
I clutched my heart, suddenly worried about him. “Xavier? What’s going on?”
He placed the bottle of wine back down with a clunk. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You know. Last night, as we spoke with the French president and his fiancé, I realized something: that my wife is the most boring person in the world.” He allowed his chair to tip left, then right, beneath him.
I wasn’t sure what to say. I felt my throat grow dry.
He continued. “I feel no joy when she says anything. The last time we made love, I was so far away. So far away.” He snapped his finger next to his face. Something in his eyes told me he was already drunk—perhaps a few glasses of scotch into the night.
“Do you—do you want my advice?” I asked him in a timid whisper, unsure of how to handle the situation. I felt the words hang between us like a cloud.
He shook his head. “I just—I don’t fucking know what to do.” He picked up the wine bottle once more and pummeled it to his mouth, guzzling it.
I felt nervous, a bit frustrated. I felt like the president was acting like some sort of inane child. He couldn’t fucking fix his own problems. What was I meant to do?
I stood up tall and I grabbed the wine bottle from his hand, tugging it back. I shook my head vehemently. “What the fuck are you doing? Get your shit together,” I hissed at him. “Do you even want to have a good relationship with your wife?” I asked the question, surprising him. It was clearly not one he had asked himself yet. He wasn’t trying to create a good relationship with her; and yet here he was, complaining about her once more to me. I couldn’t take it. It wasn’t fair to her or to me
He stood up then. He was a bit woozy on his feet, but his eyes were sure and passionate. His dark eyebrows were furrowed. He reached his hand over the desk and allowed it to grip my cheek, my ear. His face came toward me. My heart was beating so fast in my chest. I placed the wine bottle back on the desk between us. It landed too hard.
His whisper came with such warmth, such passion. “No. I don’t want to have a good relationship with her. I don’t.” He shook his head until suddenly, his lips met mine in a moment of frustration, of anger.
In this moment, as our lips met over the great presidential desk, I let go of everything in my mind. Everything that had been holding me back from this beautiful, passionate feeling was let loose, finally—allowing me to feel so free in this moment. I brought my arms around his body, and I pushed closer to him, folding my lips into his more firmly, feeling the vibrancy, the lust for him deep in my soul.
God, that moment. It was the very answer to my searching heart.