Imperative Fate (7 page)

The only reason I think Ellie’s pro-Anthony argument struck Mr. Moss is because it came directly from his daughter’s mouth and no one else’s. He owes her for time copped out.

“Oh, we’re just joshing,” Ellie told me, shaking Mr. Moss’s knee, gleeful as a rich American girl should be. “Daddy’s over the violence, but a few jabs here in private are harmless. He used to be a boxer, you know.”

Her father shook his head, cutting his meat. “No one cares about that, love,” he insisted, jutted chin and other sharp features—his bell-ish locks—swaying back and forth. 

“Stop
pretending
you’re modest!” Ellie giggled, forthright changed: “Oh, Papa, but you can be generous. We can help them, the Connors, can’t we? I know you don’t believe in too much stumping for others, but it’d be a sin not to. We have so much, they have so little, and, well, I have such a little list of friends,” she lured, utilizing those Tweety Bird eyelashes.

Even masculine Mr. Moss was powerless to the charms of her fresh-cut countenance, her fun and drive.

My cheeks rouged. Again, they spoke of the misfortunate and the left as if they didn’t sit before them.

It was as though Ellie wiped all the make-up from my face and gazed through me, the capillaries of poverty evident before I’d ever given my fraudulent name.

Anthony and I aren’t fancy people, but I thought we could fool the far-sighted.

Mr. Moss sealed his lips around his child’s overzealous cheeks as swiftly as she sealed the fiscal arrangement. “Anything for my only girl,” the lion succumbed, picking her up.

Scarfing her nimble arms about him, she squeezed well her best but rare confidant, none at all embarrassed to initiate an Eskimo kiss. “Ow, thank you, Papa! Regret, you’ll never have! Everyone’ll be so happy!
Dahlia
,” she was fast to accuse, “gosh, don’t act so coy! You’ll be good as family soon, you hear?”

Stacking the blocks of my lover’s career like an igloo, I didn’t wholly like the sound of that. Her family seems to be where all her issues come from. Her family seems pretty
pretty, but pretty loose-knit by the same coin.

I forced a smile. “Great!”

2/14

Darling Harold,

I hope this letter finds you soon and absent of company. If not, I’d advise you to excuse yourself. Those Congressional hens you surround yourself with can be too shrewd of facial expression. Tell them you have to phone the Speaker or the President and lock the door. Burn this when you’re done. We know too well the detriment of evidence. We’ve seen negative press dislodge families and mutate men.

Remember that time you caught a glimpse of a note my friend sent? It wasn’t meant for you, but you and I joined hands and lips afterwards, and I wouldn’t want anything as nasty as that to happen to you again; I can be such a handful. But as you know, I’m in a much better place than what that note detailed: I’m not drinking anymore; I’ve detached from liquor. I’m not sad anymore; I’ve split from any self-deprecating notions.

Because of you. Because you held my hand sticky with malt and kissed my forehead burning with resentment and embarrassment as I was contemplating what the world would be like without me.

But what I want to know is, when are
you
going to divorce something, some
body
? When are
you
going to unfasten your golden wedding shackles? When are
you
going to accost my lips without yours sopping with guilt?

Isn’t it about time you stop playing politics and run for
me
, negotiate for
me
, stump for
me?

I realize it’s harder to do than ignore the silver in your blond hair or tie the hundred-dollar silk around your neck, but I thought you promised me. I think you love me.
But now I’m not so sure if I’m just scavenging for reason, setting myself up for failure.

When my father died, you were the only one who wasn’t merely entertaining me. You didn’t just tousle my blonde bangs and feed me the anemic placebo “It’ll get better.” You didn’t cling to one extreme or the other—ignore me until I wanted to kiss Death or irk me until I wanted to choke you. You ardently wanted to spend time with me and hold me in your lap and teach me about politics and history and life . . . but only when I wanted to do that.

You wanted to emulate the man I lost and still love: Daddy. You wanted to be this quasi acceptable replacement. And I needed that; I
need
to retain that tourniquet, Harold.

But now I need something a little more. I need another facet filled. I need a savior, a long-term moderator.
A lover.

You said in that sweet, slow, exhausted accent that I’m “the most enjoyable company around Congress despite the hundreds—the
thousands
—of allegedly cultured people,” that you hate being locked in a loveless marriage, and that we’re a “good mix.”

Well, I’m Catherine and you’re Hareton. I’m Lolita and you’re Humbert.

Or maybe we would be, but you’re tied to an ill-begotten commitment to your wife and to America. You’re supposed to be a hearty family man, and I’m just a girl, a daughter of a colleague you barely liked.

And those things are true, yes, but they’re not as clear as imported Cristal. They’re not sedentary or inflexible.

I don’t want to push you off the Statue of Liberty or out of Congress, but I
do
want to see if you’re pulling for me. Do you
really
want to see me get better? Do you
really
want to see me happy? Or do you want to spend the rest of your life with a woman you gave a ring to a decade ago, who you barely recognize?

Then stop dragging the corpse of your marriage along the rocks before you’re infected with complete atrophy too, Harold. I love you. Your wife does not. She fills up her heart with pretty friends, prestige, and blood diamonds instead. I may not be as tall, charming, or as exotic as your wife, but I love you and isn’t that the point?

I don’t care that I’m a sweet sixteen and you’re an experienced thirty-six. I don’t care that I’ve been made an orphan, or that you’ve always been a politician. I like the way you roll your words because you’re a California cowboy. I like how you tighten the bows in my hair, compliment the white stocking on my legs, and silently ogle the short, frilly dresses I wear. I like when you put your slightly wind-chapped hands on my elbows when I’m fixing myself in the mirror before we go to a Senate party. And I’d love to see you sacrifice for me, to see you cut the (dis)cord today.

Furthermore, I’d love to leave hot pink kisses on your cheeks when I hear you at my door and leap into your strong, furred arms before you deliver a speech to thousands. I’d love to go with you to get your suits tailored and have an up-or-down vote on which tie looks the best against a blue dress shirt. To wake beside you every morning and dress up for you every evening to knock out that stress you carry from work. And, most of all, I’d love to see us shine together, shrug off our oppressors and denounce the hungry gossipers.

Do the words I used in this letter bolster your judgment? If my words aren’t enough, does the “Le Premier Parfum” I used in this letter tickle your nose? I heard you say it’s your favorite, but your wife never wears it for you.

If not even all that will tickle your fancy, I promise you this: I’ll hold you through the turbulence for all you’ve done for me and for all people have accused you of having done; I’ll comb your hair pretty for the press and diminish all of their lies. By the time you’re a silver fox, I’ll release you when/if you want to run. Remember, my daddy built an empire as Speaker that can serve you well if you choose. Together, we can resurrect sleeping bills and put to rest our self-restricting constitutions. Just untether your complications, your inhibitions like you showed me how to do.

You may think you’re a monster for considering the unthinkable, “running off” with me on a wide-eyed excursion called love & politics, but there’s no shame in honesty and self-expression.

I’m glitter in your hands. Blow me away. Set me in desire like the sunlight.

Awaiting,

Ellie Anne

             
                                                                                    2/16

Dear Ellie Anne,

I hope this letter stays as swift and discreet as our last encounter in my office. (Your stiletto imprints still speckle my carpet, and, when I’m alone, I think I can detect your floral scent by the window.)

Sincerest thanks for the portrait you gifted me in that short interval. Your rendering of Thomas Jefferson is uncanny. I had no idea you were so magnificent with oil pastels.

I received your letter that evening and must say I had a hard time setting your candied words aflame, as you requested. It was morose to do so, a bit of a shock in that, hours before, there was no trace of depressing urgency in your shamrock eyes or strawberry lips.

Your letter must’ve rested, crumpled, in my hand a good fifteen minutes after I read it—thrice to be sure I wasn’t making any rash delineations.

I’ll also have you know that the “Le Premier” flares like a sun once lit and its wafting vines of lily of the valley lingered just as perfectly in my nostrils as it had from envelope to pyre. Beautiful as Capitalism. Beautiful as you before I tuck you in on the rare nights I see you for longer than a peck goodnight.

Sweet Ellie Anne, I’m sorry to say you may loathe me like a Socialist in a second; so don’t grin at any of my compliments (as truthful as they are), don’t set your hopes too high, and collect your breath now.

If it may calm some carnivorous beast in your head before any bloodshed, let me remind you of a few things:

You know I admire and adore you, as shown by how much I parade you around the dance floor at those Senate parties you’ve developed such a strange taste for.

You know I love you and have tried my best to accommodate you in all hardship, as evidenced by all the dark dankness our first kiss was shrouded in.

Remember, love? You had on the palest blue nightie, too thin to conceal your pouted breasts or the bluest night of your life—as far as you knew. You begged me not to tell your father you snuck out to meet a girlfriend at Lincoln Memorial, glass bottle of ill repute in your shaking hand. You promised me you’d be “better” and “surprise” me if I obeyed you.

I said it was irresponsible to deprive your father of knowledge he had a right to know—especially since what he was explicitly trying to keep you from was this girlfriend and malt crushes while he was working.

You surprised me anyway; you kissed me like I’d just come home from war and made me swear I wouldn’t neglect you like your father. Otherwise, you’d “never dream again” because you’d destroy yourself in some wretched way . . . That threat has never come to pass because you know I want to see your dainty dreams made flesh
. You know I want to see you get better and make the right choices . . . But you also know that the stakes of your dreams are high-risk.

As passionate as we’ve been, I’ve never asked anything bawdy of you; it is ungentlemanly. As much as I’ve internally griped, I’ve never complained of your questionable friendships; it is ungrounded worry-work. As much as you’ve come to mean
to me, I couldn’t request that you sacrifice for me; it is unjustifiable,
unthinkable
.

Just the same, you cannot ask me or expect me to terminate a vow I made to a woman I dated before your very
existence
. Just the same, you cannot be blinded by a mirage of light; you must be far-sighted and practical in your aspirations, lest you leave
me
blind-sided, my career incapacitated, because of your tunnel vision.

As a Congressman, a Christian, a husband and a father, I have reservations about your advice, Ellie Anne. It comes from a good—albeit
an
academic
—place for when the sun sets and the stars rise, in the eyes of the law and in popular nomenclature, you are still a child. A fair-haired, Bambi-eyed child.

Of course, I see you as a miniature, sumptuous and wondrous woman, but that’s not what Congress sees you as. That’s not what a jury would see you as, if ever they wanted to impeach me or convict me of a worse crime than lying about an affair. I cannot let the number 16 destroy me, destroy
us
. We must speak softly; we must sleep separately; at least until you’re of age.

Listen here and quell your protests: Loving you is a Herculean task in itself so you needn’t ask me more than that. You still need to be taught what love
is
. You’re old enough to learn and just young enough to believe in it. But you also need to abandon this childish “resolve” to truly experience it. So far, you only appreciate; you only love what I can give you—not what I have.

Don’t misjudge me. Love is never all that is required and that does not diminish your gesture.

Know that marriage, like proper government, is an institution poorly served by drastic change. There are agendas, compromise, and work. There are checks and balances.