“I think you made a good choice,” Rachel whispered. She brought her hand to my shoulder and helped me right myself, helped me come out of my lean. Her eyes affirmed: you must stand up straight. You must live strongly. I knew what she meant. She’d ducked out of the political field so long ago, and yet her eyes still spoke of the harsh reality of what that world truly was. She knew the reality, and she knew how to stand in the aftermath, an affirmed woman.
“Thanks for understanding,” I whispered. The park around us was eerily quiet. Everyone in D.C. had given up on summer officially, and wafted into their homes for the duration. We’d see them again in April.
“You know you always have a place to stay with me,” Rachel continued. “You don’t have to go back to your apartment ever again, as far as I’m concerned.” She swallowed. “I was ever so lonely without you, before you came. I didn’t have a friend in the world.”
I bowed my chin. “With everything going on at the White House—with everything falling apart in other aspects of my life, I couldn’t be happier to have a friend and a place to feel safe right now,” I admitted.
The tension between us was great. All too often, we’d been drinking buddies, just girls who got together and gabbed, gossiped, talked about boys and sex and getting ahead in the world. But we were getting older, then. We were discovering the wisdom of the world. We were discovering what kinds of friends we had to be in order to get each other through.
Rachel interrupted the tense silence, finally. She chortled before saying it. “Do you want to go grab a drink somewhere? I know this great wine bar.” She raised her eyebrow. “I think we should celebrate you making these active choices in your life. Don’t you?”
I brought my hand over my stomach, feeling the anxiety dissipate. “God. A drink. Yes.”
We stretched our legs and ran back to the apartment. We showered and changed quickly, feeling the vitality come back into our hearts, our muscles. I wore a slim, black dress, one I knew made my breasts grow so high on my chest. They seemed to glow beneath my chin. My hair coursed down over my shoulders, and my eyes blinked, big and wide. I half-heartedly thought about meeting a man at the bar that evening, but the only person I could think about was Xavier. I imagined meeting him with this look. How he would grab my waist and pull me on top of him, ready to kiss me, to make love to me. I shivered in the bathroom, finally hearing Rachel out in the kitchen.
“Amanda? You almost ready?”
We burst into the bar only 20 minutes later, both of us looking stunning, sensual. The wine bar was quite ritzy, with this suave-looking bartender leaning against the counter, a bow tie tied beneath his chin. “Ladies,” he began in a French accent. “Please. Zee corner table.”
The corner table was already well-lit with candles. The wine menus were draped over the fine wood. I eyed the wines: from France, from Argentina, from Australia, bringing my finger down the long list. I knew that Xavier knew the texture, the feel of each of these wines. But I was a bit lost on my own.
Rachel leaned toward me, a bit of gleam initiated in her eyes. “Argentina. 1977. You game?”
I raised my eyebrow. Aged wine had never been a part of my regime. “Do you remember college, when we’d buy the cheapest wine possible? I think I bought bottles for three, four dollars.” I laughed, taking a sip of water. The candlelight wafted from the glass.
She nodded, returning a giggle. “We’re high-class broads now.” She turned toward the waiter and pointed at the wine, unable to pronounce it.
“Very good, my lady,” he murmured, bowing his head. “And I suppose you ladies would enjoy a cheese plate, as well?”
I nodded voraciously, my stomach rumbling beneath my dress. “Oh, yes please,” I murmured. Rachel smiled at me across the table.
“You look happier,” she said as the man skirted back toward the wine cellar.
I shrugged. “Maybe just the endorphins from the run. Maybe just from quitting today. I don’t know!” I allowed my hands to fling back, blasé.
She shook her head. “I can’t believe you finally did it. Are you feeling—relieved in any way?”
I shrugged my shoulders, nodding a bit. “Falling in love was quite an experience. Perhaps it was wonderful, sometimes. But more often than not, it was stressful, far too much to handle while also trying to run the president’s campaign. I don’t know. Maybe I was far too young for the job.” I shrugged my shoulders, blinking up toward the sky.
Suddenly, the server was back, presenting the 1977 wine to us at the table. A different server placed the cheese plate before us, allowing the smell to emanate into our noses. I closed my eyes and nodded to the first server, who twisted the cork from the top and poured the deep red drink into my glass. Rachel and I turned toward each other and clinked our glasses, allowing the noise to flow throughout the near-empty wine bar.
The wine drizzled down our tongues, making our bodies warm and loose. I placed my hand on the table and peered at it, wondering what to say next. All this time, my mind was whirring with thoughts of Xavier, with thoughts of what I was meant to do next.
Rachel cleared her throat. “Listen, Amanda,” she began.
My eyes darted up, blinking toward her. I was removing myself from my tense thoughts.
“I was thinking about what you’ve said about everything, about your relationship with Xavier. And I just wanted to tell you that I think—I think that his reaction to what you told him about Jason really sucks, of course. It was completely unconventional, and you have every right to be upset. In fact, you know that I would have been upset, as well.”
I nodded, peering toward her. I didn’t know what was coming next. Her voice was so hesitant, like she didn’t want to hurt my feelings in any way. “Yeah?”
“But I have to say. This is a tricky situation, one that doesn’t warrant an appropriate response all the time. I think his reaction might make sense, in a way. Just like us, the president worked hard for his position. It’s not like he just sloughed into office, like so many of our other presidents with important daddies. He is a prestigious man with good ideas for this country. But he had to elbow his way to the top.”
I swirled the wine in my mouth, listening to the words. I nodded a bit. The taste was bitter.
“And he risked so much to be with you,” Rachel continued. “I know you risked a great deal to be with him, as well. But please consider his side.”
“I did, sometimes,” I murmured. “I didn’t want to tell his wife about us, for fear that she would leave him and create a presidential scandal. I didn’t want to be ‘that girl’ who became famous, only for sleeping with the president—“