The List (15 page)

“Will you be dining with us tonight?” she asked as she pointed me to the staircase.

“I’m afraid not,” I said. “I think I’ll try room service. This is more of a getaway
trip for me.”

“Of course,” she said, bowing her head. “Then here is your key. I hope you enjoy your
stay.”

I hoped I would, too.

I had chosen the Hayloft suite for one reason, and it wasn’t because it was a favorite
with honeymooners, as the website advertised. It happened to have a huge private terrace
overlooking the entire property, including the dirt road that led to the Bull Barn.
My plan was to spend the day on the terrace with my fingers crossed for a white BMW
to drive up the road.

I sprinted up to the room, dropped my bag on a small pouf of an armchair, and opened
the door onto the roof terrace. It was huge. I could have thrown a kegger on it. And,
more important, I could see the road that swerved toward the little red barn. The
cabin itself was hidden behind a hill, but if any car was headed that way, I would
be able to spot it before it rounded the bend. I settled in.

One black SUV, one blue sports car, and two silver sedans drove onto the grounds between
2 and 7
P.M.
None headed toward the Bull Barn, and I was starting to freeze. Late March in Virginia
was not quite spring and when you sit outside for hours, it feels more like January.
I was ready to give up, order ten waffles for dinner, and watch myself grow cellulite,
but just as the sun was setting, I heard the rumbling of another car. It
wasn’t the white BMW I had grown used to checking around every corner for, but it
was on the road that went to the Bull Barn. I quickly pulled my camera up to my eye
and zoomed in on a dark blue SUV. Just before it disappeared down the road, I saw
that it was a Ford Explorer with Arizona plates.

It had to be him, I told myself. My palms started to clam up. I had no idea what kind
of car he drove, but how many tourists from Arizona drove to the Goodstone Inn? And
yes, it was absolutely stupid to drive your own car if you were having an affair and
didn’t want to get caught, but lawmakers having affairs did stupid things all the
time. Weiner and the twit pics? Bathroom foot tapping? Driving your own car was nothing
compared to the idiotic behavior of many of our other esteemed leaders.

On the roof with my camera in my lap, I considered possibilities. If that navy blue
Ford Explorer was the senator’s, then Olivia could be in it. Or she could be driving
up later that night in her own swanky car. Or he could be alone. Or even with his
wife. I decided to sit and wait for her white car until the sun set. I couldn’t go
crawling around the place until it was dark anyway, so until then, I would just sit
outside with an eight-pound camera glued to my right eye.

My phone buzzed with a text message. Birds made annoyingly happy cawing noises. And
I just sat on a wooden chaise longue trying to figure out what to do next. I needed
it to be pitch black out. Then I would dare to creep out toward the Bull Barn. If
anyone asked, I would be taking a midnight stroll. I could pretend to be a nature
photographer captivated by nightscapes. Plus, I had my get-out-of-jail-free card:
the expensive room key.

As I sat on the terrace with my heavy camera hoisted up, I wondered about other people’s
sex lives. When did old people have sex? If I was going to catch Stanton and Olivia
in the act,
would I have to do it before he passed out at 10
P.M.
? I often passed out before 10
P.M.
, and I was still in my twenties. God, I wanted a sex life. I wanted to have sex with
ice-skating guy eight times in one day. I wanted us to have to wear water pouches
filled with electrolytes while we did it just to keep from fainting. But I couldn’t
muster up the courage to call his Canadian friend so I wasn’t even allowed to think
about it.

I needed to calm down. I called downstairs for a bottle of not-too-expensive sparkling
wine, and when it came up I stuck my hand and a five-dollar bill out a crack in the
door. “Please leave it outside, I’m not presentable,” I said, handing the anonymous
hotel staffer the tip. I popped the cork off the cool bottle and immediately downed
a third of it, no glass necessary. Drinking Prosecco out of a bottle: how elegant.
I should be the one having an affair.

I flopped back on the wooden chair and looked at my text messages. There was one from
my father asking if I had shot anyone. “No,” I texted back. “You can stop worrying.”
Then I checked my BlackBerry. I ignored the note from Hardy reminding me that my Sunday
shift started at 8
A.M.
I was most likely going to work that shift with no sleep and, considering the size
of my first sip of Prosecco, an insane hangover.

By 10
P.M.
all the world was dark. Well, the world surrounding the Goodstone Inn, anyway. The
dirt roads out to the guesthouses were completely unlit. My plan was to put my camera
and a few Cliff bars in a running backpack that I had brought and walk toward the
Bull Barn. I didn’t have to get too close to it, considering I had rented the Bentley
of cameras, but I did need something to hide behind. And all I could think of from
my strolls around the place, and the informational brochure I read in the bar, were
a few short trees and a large muddy pig.

It was go time.

Once outside, instead of walking, I ran. I tried to make my legs slow down, but it
was so dark, I figured no one could see me anyway. So I kept running, I ran over the
hill where the car had disappeared and threw myself underneath a pine tree. I felt
ridiculous. I was dressed like a poor man’s version of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. But
what choice did I have? It’s not like Richard Nixon just walked over and professed
wrongdoing to those
Washington Post
boys. Good reporters had to dig, right? This was when I wanted a real editor instead
of a twenty-two-year-old who was only good at slave-driving. I wanted someone I could
email and ask, “cool or uncool to be hiding under a pine tree with a telephoto lens
pointed at the hotel room of a United States senator?” But I had no one to ask. If
anyone at the
Capitolist
found out I was spying on the nocturnal activities of one of Upton’s favorite reporters,
they would find a way to rally behind her. I was not a chosen one in the office; Olivia
was.

I crouched on the ground and peered into the darkness. I was already elbow deep in
their mess; I wasn’t going to wade out now.

Lying on my belly like a sloth, I took the camera out of my backpack, wrapped the
thick rubber strap around my neck, pointed it toward the room, and looked through
the viewfinder. Through one of the only uncurtained windows I could see wooden walls
and a stone fireplace with a thick wrought-iron railing next to it. For the next hour,
that’s all I saw. A family of ants was feasting on the skin I had left exposed, and
I had sap dripping down my ankle. I felt like a CIA agent stuck at Girl Scout camp.

Fifteen more minutes went by, then thirty. I remained motionless even as the chill
of the dirt crept through my shirt to my stomach. I kept the camera lens high and
my eye against the viewfinder and listened to the minutes tick by on my big men’s
watch. Half an hour. Then an hour. I stared through the lens at the empty room, learning
every crease in the couch and crevice in the wall. It felt like an exercise in hopelessness.

Just past midnight, Senator Stanton walked through the room with the wooden walls.
Right after him came Olivia.

I was right.

I had been right about so few things in my life! I wasn’t right about men, ever. Moving
back to Middleburg felt all wrong most of the time, and my
Capitolist
gig seemed like a never-ending mistake. Until this moment.

Though there was just enough moonlight for me to see my hands in front of me, and
maybe for someone walking in the fields to see my silhouette, a camera flash would
have torn through the dark countryside like lightning. I would have to shoot without
flash.

I looked through the viewfinder again. They were standing in the living room, talking,
laughing. My right index finger shook with hesitation and then pressed down the shutter.
As it flicked open and closed six times, I felt my entire life changing. Olivia wasn’t
exactly naked doing the reverse cowgirl, but they were in a hotel room together. I
doubted they were going to spend the night playing Wii tennis.

He got a fire started, and then they were out of my sight. For what felt like hours,
all I could see were his penny-loafer-covered feet up on a coffee table. I was not
going to make the front page of any newspaper with pictures of senatorial feet. Even
a picture of Olivia and Stanton sharing a bed and sleeping next to each other wasn’t
enough to make the kind of claim I was now sure was true. I needed skin, sweat, lust.
I needed porn.

There was a light on in the back of the little red house; eventually I realized it
had to be the bedroom. That was where I needed to point my camera if I wanted to capture
anything the
least bit incriminating. Otherwise it would be all hot toddies in the living room,
and only
Better Homes and Gardens
would want my exclusive.

A few minutes past midnight, the senator’s feet disappeared from the table, and I
steeled myself to abandon my relatively hidden position and dart into the open field
on the bedroom side of the house. A small group of birds flew above me in no particular
formation, black streaks in the moonlight. The lights of the hotel’s large main house
glowed faintly in the distance; they felt very far away.

On my knees in the field of short wild grass, I felt completely visible, as if I were
naked in Times Square, screaming for attention. But there were no eyes on me. The
only attention I was getting was from my own conscience, screeching questions about
how I went from sitting third row at fashion shows to crouching in a dark field late
at night trying to take pictures of a senator having sex with my colleague.

I lifted the camera to my eye again. As the auto zoom whirled the world into focus,
I saw a dark-stained oak dresser and, next to it, a bed with a carved headboard and
a plaid quilt. There was a patterned rug on the floor and a small green plant on a
heavy wooden end table. But there were no people.

I waited, the moisture from the earth soaking my thin black pants. I was much closer
to the house now. I didn’t need to lift the camera until I saw people moving in the
room. So I stayed pinned to the ground, trying to look like part of the scenery. I
looked at my watch again: 1
A.M.
and still not a sign of life in the back of the house.

Just before 1:30
A.M.
, they walked past the window. They went too fast for me to lift my camera in time.
With steady hands, I brought it up to my eye, not letting my nerves take over, preparing
for their next pass. When they walked past the
window together again, I should have been ready. But instead of continuing past, Olivia
turned to look out of the window, pushing back the curtains and putting her elbows
on the sill. I put my face to the ground in panic and dropped the camera. It was too
dark, I told myself. There was no way. If you weren’t looking for me, you couldn’t
see me. The light from inside would have made it impossible.

When I dared to look up again, she was still standing at the window.

She looked content. Peaceful. Totally different than she did at work. Her hair was
tousled, not hanging static and lifeless around her face, and she was wrapped in a
thick white robe. She was holding a drink and periodically turning her head around
to say something. I looked through the viewfinder at her face. It was bare and scrubbed
clean. She looked nothing like the girl who would happily escort you to the edge of
a cliff if it meant she could have the lead in the paper.

When I looked at her face again—soft and smiling—I thought about the first time I
heard Stanton’s voice in the bar in Middleburg. His voice sounded concerned, sweet,
loving even. He had certainly fallen for her, and looking at her here, now, her feelings
for him weren’t far behind.

I saw Senator Stanton move in behind her and put his arms around her neck. He was
still wearing a buttoned-up work shirt. Without breathing, I started clicking the
shutter release button again.

Together, they stood motionless for a few minutes. Their age gap was noticeable, and
even kind of gross. But they looked like two normal people in love.

Or maybe just lust.

He pressed himself up against her body, and she half turned her head, looked up, and
started to laugh. He laughed, too, his
dark brown hair unmoving, his eyes filled with joy. I shot that, too. I sucked their
privacy into my lens with every snap. He was kissing her neck while she kept smiling
and saying things I could only imagine. Then, almost roughly, he turned her toward
him. He leaned her back until her head was touching the window screen and started
kissing her. Still holding my breath, I clicked and clicked, praying they couldn’t
hear the noise of the shutter.

He pulled her away from the window and pushed her playfully, presumably onto the bed.
Just like that, they were out of my line of sight. I cursed under my breath and let
the camera hang around my neck. My arms were shaking from nervousness, guilt, excitement,
and the weight of the long, heavy telephoto lens.

I waited twenty minutes for them to come back to the window, but no one came. Creeping
on all fours through the grass, my camera in the bag again, I made my way around to
the glass double doors that opened into the bedroom. They were covered in gauzy white
curtains, moving slightly in the breeze. Maybe, if I timed it just right, I could
snap while they moved and get something.

Stomach to the grass, I got out the camera and started snapping. I was afraid to check
the photos in the camera’s LCD screen, for fear of the bright light shining through
the darkness. With every rustle of the curtain, I took pictures in the largest format
I could. Somewhere in those images, there had to be something I could zoom into.