—
I woke up one morning to find I was the only one in the house. Even with our new disjointed life, this was strange. I’d stopped setting my alarm, no longer caring how late I slept. (Not that it mattered much anymore.) But I realized that morning that Matt hadn’t bothered to say good-bye to me — surely I would’ve woken up if he had, I wasn’t that heavy a sleeper — and it made my stomach knot up, his indifference feeling worse, somehow, than an all-out fight.
The kitchen was empty as I made a pot of coffee and ate a banana. I peeked in the campaign office, just to be sure, but no one was there. Ash, I assumed, had taken Viv to her mom’s and wouldn’t be back all day. I could’ve texted Matt to see where he was, but because he hadn’t bothered to say good-bye or even leave me a note, I didn’t want to.
It was a little creepy being in that big house all alone, and I decided to take a book out to the patio. It was sunny and warm as I stretched out to read on the lounge chair, a glass of iced tea beside me. We’d been traveling so much that it felt nice to relax, and when I finally checked the time, I was surprised to see that two hours had passed.
I began to wonder when everyone would be back and also started to get annoyed at Matt for not bothering to be in touch when I was stranded at the house, stuck in Sugar Land — he’d taken our car and must have known I’d be alone there. The more time that went by, the angrier I got, and I was just worked up enough to give him a call, when Jimmy drove up. He was alone in the car, and held his hand up in greeting, but didn’t smile.
“Hey,” I called, as he walked over to me. “I was starting to think no one was ever coming home.”
“We had that minister breakfast,” Jimmy said, lying down on the lounge chair next to me and closing his eyes.
“Right,” I said. The event sounded vaguely familiar. “So clearly, it was a ton of fun.”
Jimmy smiled, but his eyes were still closed. “It was fine. I just didn’t sleep much last night.”
“Where’s Matt?”
“We drove separately. He said he had some stuff to do after.” He opened his eyes and looked over at me. “What are you up to? What are you reading?” I held up the book’s cover for him and he nodded. “I read the review,” he said. “It sounded good.”
“I’ll give it to you when I’m done.”
“I’m not allowed to read anything that’s not about fracking. I can’t be wasting my time — my campaign manager said so. At least for another month.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure Matt would think this was a waste of my time, too.”
“Oh yeah? What does he think you should be doing?”
“Writing, I guess. I think he had this idea that I’d write a novel while we were here. Or at least try to. That I’d do something worthwhile.”
“You should write,” Jimmy said. “You’re talented.”
I laughed. “The only things you’ve read of mine are the things I wrote for DCLOVE. Did you see a lot of talent in the ‘Ten Best Places to Meet a Man in DC’ article?”
“I certainly did,” Jimmy said, giving me a half smile. “But also, Matt’s always talking about how great your writing is.”
“Really?” I asked. It was weird to hear something nice that Matt said about me secondhand. It had been so long since I’d felt like his compliments were free of ulterior motives. He’d always told me he thought my fiction was great, but since we’d moved to DC it felt like he encouraged me to write because it seemed more serious; that it would be less embarrassing for me to spend my days writing blind items about presidential aides if I was also working on a novel.
“Also,” Jimmy said, “I googled you and read one of your short stories that was published on a website.” He had his face toward the sun and his eyes were closed again, which I was happy about because I could feel my cheeks get warm as he told me this.
“You did?” I asked. It wasn’t that I couldn’t imagine Jimmy taking enough of an interest in me to google my name — or maybe it was — but it surprised me that he’d never mentioned it before, like he was keeping it a secret.
“But that’s not how I know you’re a good writer,” he said. He opened his eyes then and turned on his side to face me. I was on my back on the chair next to him and our positioning felt strangely intimate, like we were lying in bed together. “It’s because you’re so observant,” he continued. “You’re always watching people and you notice these little things about them — what makes them tick, what they really want, what they’re afraid of. You can sum anyone up in two lines. Most people are too busy worrying about themselves, but you’re always paying attention to everything around you.”
“Thanks,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like my own and I hoped Jimmy couldn’t hear it. I was flattered that he’d bothered to notice this about me, but our whole conversation was a little odd, a little different from the way we normally talked to each other, though I couldn’t exactly pinpoint why. I was happy when Jimmy broke the silence and said, “How about we go to Torchy’s and stuff ourselves?”
“Sounds perfect,” I said. And by the time we were eating tacos, things were completely normal between us, back to the way they always were.
But that night, as I stared at the back of Matt’s head while he slept, I thought about Jimmy’s words and how nice it was to have someone say something kind to me; how nice to have someone think about me at all.
—
When Ash and I were together, we talked only of surface things: logistical parts of campaign trips, new clothes, reality TV. She must have noticed this, the tentativeness between us. I felt angry with her, but didn’t know why, exactly. One night, we passed each other in the hallway and she said, “Oh, I saved Parenthood for you on the DVR.”
“You watched it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “It was a sad one.” Since I’d been in Texas, it had been one of the shows we religiously watched together (Matt and Jimmy both refused), and this felt like a slight. But I just said, “Thank you,” and left it at that.
It seemed to me that Ash was stepping back from our friendship, that she was the one setting new boundaries, putting distance between us.
But also, there was one week I’d barely talked to her, when I almost couldn’t bring myself to meet her eyes. I’d had a dream about Jimmy, one where he climbed on top of me, his body heavy. It was just a dream, but it had felt so real as I woke up pulsing with pleasure, surprised to see he wasn’t there, disappointed, really, to see that Matt was.
So sure, maybe that was part of it too.
—
The last week in October, Jimmy’s schedule was completely packed. He and Matt had planned a full swing through Galveston County, Austin, Waco, and San Antonio; five days and four nights of travel, with multiple events in each city. After that, Jimmy would stay in Houston, do a few local appearances, and ride out the end of his campaign, waiting for Election Day.
When this trip arrived, I couldn’t remember how or why we’d all agreed to it. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but it certainly didn’t now. The night before we were supposed to leave, Ash whispered to me that she didn’t want to go. “I’m flat-out exhausted,” she said. She was folding Viv’s tiny clothes as she talked. “But I can’t say no — if I tell Jimmy I don’t want to go, he’ll take it personally, like I don’t believe he has a chance.” She paused and folded a little pink T-shirt that said DADDY’S LITTLE TEXAN on the front, ran her fingers over the sparkly cowboy hat. “But the thing is, it is over. He doesn’t have a chance. So why are we still pretending?”
She sounded angry as she whispered this last part, and her eyes filled with tears. This was the most substantial conversation we’d had in a while and I put my hand on her back to comfort her. “Hey, it’s okay,” I said. “Of course you’re tired. This has been hard on you.”