The Means Page 14

  Probably she’ll just be honest with him about Helen and then maybe he’ll be honest with her about the affairs she knows he’s had. The openness would solidify the partnership and make them stronger.

  Until then she has a role to play that comes from only a part of her. To be tough and smart for him and to be tough and smart for herself. On the whole, she likes life in the White House very much.

  26

  The Secret Service is not only discreet about what they witness, they won’t let others see them witness the indiscretions. It’s very considerate behavior.

  Susan Fitzgerald walks into Mitchell Mason’s room at the Fairmont San Francisco at one a.m. They’re in town for a fund-raiser dinner, then another the next night in L.A. Mason’s wearing a puffy white hotel-issue bathrobe and sitting in a chair with his feet up on the ottoman.

  Susan waves hello and walks to the bathroom where she drops her black cocktail dress to the floor and puts on the other hotel robe. She doesn’t tie the belt and walks back out to Mason with the front of the robe open as far apart as her nipples.

  She straddles the ottoman in front of Mason and it all feels more erotic in silence. She massages the tops of his legs and parts his robe.

  “Finally,” she says. “That was a long night.”

  “Jesus, I know.” He pulls his legs back and puts his feet on the floor. He leans in and kisses her forehead, then holds her shoulders and guides her into his lap so they can both lean into the chair. They’re too tired for sex and prefer to enjoy a safe and comfortable moment.

  Susan’s cheek is on his chest and the top of her head touches the underside of his jaw. They both look out over the room and not at each other.

  The most thoughtful and honest conversations between lovers happen without eye contact. When one of the couple is driving the car or preparing a meal or staring at nothing in the hotel room. Sustained eye contact is too dominant a force for dialogue.

  “Thank God for this time with you, Susan,” says Mason. “I need you.”

  “That’s nice to hear.”

  “It’s true. I need you and I need this time with you. It does so much for me. There’s nowhere I can sneak away.”

  Susan swallows. This is less nice to hear. It sounds more like appreciation for a massage with a happy ending than for a spiritual connection. This thought comes to her now because it has come to her before. “Nowhere but here,” she says.

  “I’m trapped in my life. For the rest of my time on earth, I’m an historical figure. That’s a claustrophobic idea.”

  “A lot of men would be happy to be trapped in your life.”

  “Even though I have no real friends, no real relationships? Do you realize you’re the only relationship I have that’s not shrouded in deception? How’s that for irony? I deceive my wife. For Christ’s sake, I don’t even tell Ron Stark the whole truth of things, let alone anyone in Congress. They’re all adversaries with respect to one thing or another. You’re the only one. I trust you completely. There’s nobody else I can really talk to, but look at us. We’re a couple of cheaters.”

  Susan doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. She always tries to dress up the truth in something better but Mason has said it too plainly. She says, “This affair makes me happy and so unhappy. I don’t even remember a conscious decision about starting it. It somehow just started and seemed like the thing to do.”

  Mason does remember a conscious decision to get Susan into bed. “Well, it works for us.”

  “It’s amazing what works for us. No little girl dreams of growing up to have an affair, even with the president. But I’m doing it anyway.”

  “You know how to sweet-talk a guy.”

  “People see me as a power-hungry, or at least power-enthralled, soulless slut. Don’t you know that ninety-nine percent of the time I see myself the same way as they see me? The only one percent of the time that’s any good is when we’re together.”

  “Jesus, Susan, let the good times roll.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that sometimes I think about my husband, or when I hold my daughter I think, What am I doing?”

  “You’re doing what you need to do to take care of yourself, to give yourself what you need. And so am I.” He smooths her hair with his hand. “That’s what this is for both of us. It’s time away that we need. It’s an adventure outside our obligations, not just away from marriage but from the office and everything else. This is a secret place to go where we can be ourselves and there’s nobody to judge us or scrutinize us. It’s a chance to be someone else for a moment. That’s what this affair is. It’s not cheating on our spouse, it’s cheating on who we have set ourselves up to be.”

  Mason is happy with the analysis.

  It makes Susan feel better because she needs it to.

  PART TWO

  He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

  —Winston Churchill, 1874–1965

  SAMANTHA DAVIS

  27

  Samantha drives alone to the address in Palm Beach Gardens that Connor Marks gave her. She takes the Florida Turnpike to Military Trail then all the street names become words from golf. She turns on Fairway Drive to a traffic circle past the offices for PGA National. Roads with thirty-mile-an-hour speed limits and little bridges that exist only to make an underpass for golf carts run the perimeter of an eighteen-hole course. On either side she sees water hazards with fountains in the middle that cause the sun to glitter off the ripples that keep the mosquitoes from breeding.

  Before she gets all the way to the PGA National Resort she turns right and into a gated community. It’s the kind of security gate that’s mostly for show because the condominiums behind the gate are almost all rentals to golfers and hardly anyone can produce identification with an address for the community. Samantha says she’s here to visit Monica Morris. The guard looks dazed from too much sunshine and waves her through and as an afterthought presses a button to lift the wooden beam of the gate. The road winds around as before except there is a series of six-unit condo buildings nestled into palm trees on either side. Each is two floors with three units per floor. It’s January, when most of the country’s golf is happening in Florida and Arizona, so the units look full.

  Samantha finds a spot in front of Monica’s building. She’s unannounced but it’s 8:30 a.m. so she hopes to find her in. The hedges and grass are kept up well and it’s a pretty high-end place for a retired waitress. Samantha’s still not sure what she’s doing here.

  She rings the doorbell and takes two steps back so she doesn’t seem confrontational. In seconds a chain latch slides and the door opens. A woman in a nightgown stands in the doorway looking friendly. She’s early fifties and about five foot five with hair colored blond. She’s had too much sun in her life, like everyone who lived in Florida in the seventies when they used baby oil instead of sunblock, but she’s very attractive for her age except for the onset of sun damage. “Hello? Can I help you?”

  “Hello. I’m Samantha Davis.”

  “Hello, Samantha.” Samantha is getting good at picking up on when people recognize her without acknowledging it. It’s just a flicker. Monica does not recognize her.

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Monica is pulled in opposing directions by loneliness and suspicion. “What kind of questions?” She holds the frame of the door.

  “It goes back a few years. It might take only a few minutes of your time.”

  Monica opens the door all the way and takes a step back into the apartment but doesn’t clear the entrance. It’s progress and Samantha takes it. She moves two steps forward. “I know you have a story to tell. A big one, from your past.”

  Monica’s eyes go wide but it’s not the kind of fear that freezes a person. It’s more. Monica can no longer make eye contact. It’s fear and shame. “Who are you? Who are you with?”

/>   “I’m a reporter.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to know what happened.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. What happened with what?” Monica’s shifting her weight between her feet. Samantha knows she’s about to get kicked out.

  “Monica, your boy is eighteen now. It’s time.”

  This stops the transfer of her weight. Monica plants her feet and meets Samantha’s eyes. Questions are running through her mind but she doesn’t ask any of them. “You need to leave, please.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Samantha takes a step backward. She tries Connor’s trigger. “Connor Marks sent me. I’d like to hear about Mitch.”

  This changes everything for Monica, as though the evil mask is removed to reveal a friend playing a goof the whole time. “Connor sent you?” She smiles a real smile and looks even prettier. “How is he? Oh my gosh. Come in, come in.” She takes Samantha by the back of the arm, which she had wanted to do from the beginning. “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “Coffee would be great, thank you. Black.”

  “Come sit down.” It looks like a two-bedroom condo with an open floor plan for the living room, dining room, and kitchen. There’s a round breakfast table with four chairs that must also be the dining table. Monica doesn’t entertain much.

  “Thank you.”

  “How is Connor?”

  “He’s doing well. His business is doing well. Lots of celebrity clients.”

  “Of course he’s doing well. He’s such a kind man and a smart man. He’ll do well because people love him and he deserves to be loved.” Monica has the energy of a person who is so excited to have company and so out of practice with it that she hardly knows what to do with herself. She gets out cream and sugar then remembers Samantha said black. Samantha watches and says nothing.

  Monica brings the coffee and sits next to Samantha. She looks right at Samantha and holds the gaze while forcing her energy to level. “Connor wants you to speak with me about Mitch.” It’s not a question.

  Samantha nods. She doesn’t need to ask for it now. It’s coming.

  “I’ve wanted to for years, you know. I wanted to right away, on the spot. Sean was only six at the time. He’s a freshman at Florida State.” She smiles to say, How ’bout that. “That’s when I met Connor. Twelve years ago. He told me to tuck it away, and God knows I’ve tried. Of course I would go to jail and I should but he told me Sean’s only six so I couldn’t be his mom. Someone else has to be mother to a six-year-old if a mother has to go to jail.” She pauses. “Now he’s eighteen and an adult, so I guess I can be mother from a jail cell. Connor might still be a father figure. He’s looked after me these years and always looked after Sean. Takes him to a Miami Dolphins game every year. And they always do preseason baseball. I wonder how long I’d go to jail for. I guess it is what it is.”

  “Why would you go to jail?”

  “Oh, he died, Samantha.”

  Samantha doesn’t want to disrupt things by revealing ignorance. “Can you take me through what happened in your own words?”

  Monica takes a breath and a sip of coffee. “Well, we had a lovely dinner on Palm Beach Island. Brazilian Court. It was a beautiful night; we sat outside in the courtyard. We had too much wine, I suppose, obviously. He was staying at a house in Jupiter, a friend’s house. He had meetings in Stuart the next day. We were driving north on US One from dinner. We hit a man on a bicycle. I hit him. I was driving. He went flying and I pulled off and we saw him all mangled up. It was awful. I started to get out of the car but he held my wrist and stopped me. Told me to go on to Jupiter, that there was nothing we could do.” Monica looks smaller and older than she did a few minutes ago. Her eyes fill with tears but don’t release any. “Of course I knew that was wrong but he persuaded me.” She says more firmly, “I let him persuade me. We were both so damned drunk. Anyway, we went to the house in Jupiter and we stayed around the house all the next day, both of us wrecks. Especially when we heard the news that the man on the bicycle died. That’s when I met Connor.”

  Samantha nods. This poor woman has been wracked with guilt and the fear of losing her son for twelve years. Samantha would like to take notes of the interview but doesn’t want to spook Monica. And anyway, even though it’s an interesting human interest story, it’s not the kind of thing she’s likely to cover. More for local news. “So, Connor wasn’t your dinner partner. You met Connor the day following the incident?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, who was in the car with you?”

  Monica frowns. “Mitchell Mason, dear. The president of the United States.”

  TOM PAULEY

  28

  “Selling is at least half of what I do. For the first time I see the appropriateness of the election process. It’s the best preparation there is for this crazy job.” Tom Pauley sounds embattled but it’s the brawny talk of a man who’s winning.

  “You’re selling well,” says Peter Brand, who stayed on as Tom’s chief of staff after the election.

  “I’ve been selling for a lot of years. If you’re a trial attorney you need to sell the jury on your presentation of the facts. This is about the same thing, I just didn’t realize I’d be doing so much of it. You know, the big difference is that when I was trying cases, I’d make a hundred decisions a day about the case on all sorts of matters big and small. Now the staff handles anything small. I set a policy and they do all the blocking and tackling. Instead of a hundred decisions a day, I make about three decisions a month. But they’re big and I need to get them right.”

  Peter Brand nods. He’s come to know Tom and knows this kind of ruminating means he’s decided on a course for something. “What’s on your mind?”

  “The Republican base is firmly for what we’re doing. So we’re selling our plan to independents. That’s our target, but we need to expand that. I want to go talk to the core of the left.”

  “You want to speak in front of a teachers union meeting?”

  Tom nods. “Annual meetings are coming up. I may not win them over but maybe I can get them to view me as not evil. Maybe I can soften them. I know I just got in here, but maybe they’ll be less motivated to vote against me next time even if they don’t vote for me.”

  “They’re going to view you as evil no matter what. Your policy is to make them fireable and pinch their pensions. There’ll be some very bad TV footage—you getting booed and shouted down, possibly you getting some crap thrown at you.”

  “Who cares? If they treat me rough, that’ll just fire up Republicans and it may offend some independents enough to come my way. I have thick skin.”

  Brand thinks this over. Tom comes across as such a nice guy. He is a nice guy. “It could work. You want me to set something up?”

  “Show me a few options where we can do this. I’d like to do it in the next few weeks.”

  29

  Tom is only four months into his administration. Fixing the public school systems was always a top agenda item through the campaign and a month earlier he was delivered the crisis he needed to make bold moves.

  Three public schools in the Cumberland County system were exposed for cheating on standardized tests. Teachers had walked up and down the rows of students while giving the exam and announced that the answer to question number two was B, question number three was D. This was filmed by a student on an iPhone. The teachers released just enough answers to get a pass for the school without attracting unwanted attention.

  The teachers in Cumberland don’t feel guilt given the impossible task they have. The kids rarely show for class and when they do are either sedated by marijuana or are violent. A teacher doesn’t have the opportunity to teach so all is fair in love, war, and insurmountable problems.

  The states usually don’t police this problem heavily. If the schools fail the tests or get caught cheating trying
to pass, the state can lose the No Child Left Behind federal funding. If the state loses federal dollars, they need to raise the money somewhere else, usually by increasing property taxes. Nobody in North Carolina wants that.

  When the Cumberland scandal broke, Tom knew he had what he needed. Fix the problem or everyone in the state is going to get a bigger tax bill because North Carolina might lose its federal funding.

  Peter Brand enters Tom’s office. “Okay, I have options and a recommendation. There’s an American Federation of Teachers meeting in two months. I can get you on the speaker list for the AFT. But if you really want to go behind enemy lines, we should see the National Education Association next month. The AFT is teachers only. The NEA is more than teachers. It’s school bus drivers, janitors, administrators. They don’t care about the classroom so much, they just care about benefits, time off, work conditions for all the people paying them dues. They fight consolidation of schools even when it makes sense because that means fewer jobs for janitors and administrators. The NEA state chapter has an annual meeting in Raleigh next month. I called. They’ll put you on the speaker list.”

  “Do it.”

  “Good. Consider it done.” Brand writes a note and while still looking down says, “How are you going to address them?” It’s a question that is meant to lead to the opportunity to give his own opinion of the matter.

  “These kids need a fair start. They need the fundamentals, and once you get that, then all the bigger stuff happens after school. I had plenty of time in school and it doesn’t compare to getting out there and doing. I loved law school but I learned more in the first six months of practicing law.”