Cate sits at her wooden desk wearing a mischievous, blushing smile, when her work phone lights up. A text message, Senator Wallace’s Phone. She opens it: Oh, I’m so embarrassed, that was meant for my wife Betsy, my sincere apologies.
No worries Cate replies.
Doug swivels a bit more in his seat, taps his fingers compulsively atop the leather on his desk. Picks up his phone. Puts it down, taps, then picks it up again, texting: I forgot something, can you come back in my office for a minute? He drops his phone again.
Cate looks over at her screen. Her heart pounds exceedingly hard when she sees that Doug has asked her to step back into his office.
Cate swoops her hair over to the side and knocks while opening the door, smiles. “You wanted to see me again?”
Doug gets up from his seat, puts his hands in his pockets, and walks around his desk as Cate steps in, closing the door behind her. Doug perches himself on the edge of his desk, crosses his arms and his ankles. “You know I have daughters…” he says.
“Yes. Two, right?”
“Fox has invited me to come on-air tonight to discuss the domestic violence issue, but I think you should do it in my place. Be the face of our team.”
Cate feigns simultaneous surprise and humility. “Oh, wow, thank you.… Yes, I would be happy to—honored to.”
“From a strategy standpoint as well, I think it looks good to show people that I work closely with women and will not tolerate abusive behavior—not just in the home, but in the office.”
“Oh, absolutely. Would you like me to reiterate that you have daughters as well? And God forbid this should ever happen to one of them?”
“Yes,” Doug says, then inhales, puffing up his chest. “And in the office…”
“Of course,” Cate says, smiling, confirming their little secret.
CHAPTER NINE
An army of black Suburbans with government tags is parked beneath the five American flags waving above the National Press Club building. Before Carol and Billy, the general’s wife and son, make it to the elevators, they are bombarded by a dozen television screens on the wall in the lobby, each with its volume turned up, a talking head debating another talking head, sometimes a third talking head, occasionally a fourth talking head, even a fifth talking head—a legion of heads, as if an art curator had come from the Met to do a television installation providing the sensation of disorientation complete with a warning label for those prone to seizures, panic attacks, and possible brain aneurysms. CNN, Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, C-SPAN: “The White House today / by the FBI, the attorney general, and / domestic violence found / the mass shooting yesterday / dozens dead including children/ good news for gun owners as gun stocks rise / more shakeups in the White House administration / Russian intelligence officials have not / the family murdered in a DC mansion…”
Inside the elevator, a security guard pulls a key fob out of his pocket and places it against the panel next to the thirteenth floor. Carol adjusts Billy’s navy striped tie, and he pushes her away. “Mom, it’s fine.”
“We’re going to be on-camera, just making sure it’s tight.” Carol’s hands are a little shaky. “Make your father proud.” She’s wearing a modest charcoal knee-length dress from Anne Klein she found on sale at Macy’s. Trailed by three security guards, they step out of the elevator onto a blue and gold carpet. A security desk stands in front of them with two more security guards.
“May I help you?” the receptionist asks.
“The Montgomery family,” the head of security replies.
“Come right through.” She motions to the clear glass doors, which open electronically. “They’re in the Zenger Room today.”
As Billy and Carol pass through the halls of this journalism bastion, it is rather evident that this is an old boys’ club that has gone sorely out of style. It is nothing but dull to Billy, who isn’t entirely sure what he and his mother are doing there. Where are the modern tech rooms with Ping-Pong tables and food trucks waiting outside? Instead, these halls are flooded by old white men, many now retired, yet still they show up each morning in a suit and tie, plant themselves in the exclusive bar area on the tufted oxblood leather couches, amid burgundy velvet pillows and matching curtains, burled wood, brass and silver trinkets on shelves laden with musty donated books, watching multiple television screens as bow-tied Black and Hispanic servers come to take their orders.
Passing several framed historical newspaper headlines—
TERRORISTS HIJACK FOUR AIRLINERS, DESTROY WORLD TRADE CENTER, HIT PENTAGON; HUNDREDS DEAD
UP TO 25 DIE IN COLORADO SCHOOL SHOOTING
JOHN LENNON SHOT!
—Billy and Carol arrive at the Zenger Room where a press coordinator and the president of the club descend upon them. All of the famous faces of prime-time television news are sitting in the front row; a few stand holding a microphone, sound-checking, in full makeup, scrolling their Slack channels. An empty podium before them stands in front of a backdrop declaring THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB in blue letters. Billy and Carol are led in by a woman wearing an earpiece, the beads of sweat on her forehead and her frantic gestures indicating that she is under extreme pressure to not fuck up one moment of her job. The nation is waiting. All eyes fix quickly on mother and son, particularly Billy, who is noticeably being groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Billy, seated, turns around to the back of the room to see a row of cameras, so many that they bleed into the aisle next to him. He notices one cameraman—slightly overweight, kind of burly, his beard hasn’t been trimmed
