we're not the same inside
"Fuck this," she mutters. Amy sets her empty champagne glass on the table and her fingers are around your wrist. "Let's get out of here."
You are a wife. You have two small children. You love your husband.
"Sounds good to me," you reply.
You leave with unsigned copies of Sam Seaborn's memoir tucked under your arms.
"I'm not--"
Amy pushes your tank top up around your breasts and kisses the skin just above your belly button. Your back arches into her. Your bottom lip catches in your teeth, almost drawing blood. The sound you make makes her smile.
You forget whatever it was you were saying.
You're two has-beens, drinking expensive champagne at a party for a book you'll never read by a man you both know. She said, "Come here often?" and you just smiled, because you hate Los Angeles. So does she.
"Hey, you know, did stuff ever fall off your walls?"
You stare at Amy for a moment. She looks serious.
"No, not that I can remember."
The strange thing is, she doesnít look surprised.
You lay there together in your hotel room for almost twenty minutes. Silence.
"I don't...do...this..."
Her face is blank. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
She shrugs a little.
"What I mean is--" You don't know why this is such a big deal, why you have to get this out. Why you feel like you need to justify yourself to her. "I'm not a...you know."
She looks at you with soft eyes. You think it feels good, that she understands. And then suddenly you're alone in bed - she's putting her clothes back on, searching for her other shoe. You sit up in bed, sheet tucked modestly around your chest; you don't understand.
"Have a nice life," she spits.
The door slams on the way out.
You both had your crises: you had Roslyn and she had Zoey. Incidentally, neither of you really survived either one.
"He and Josh had a thing," she said.
You nearly choke on your champagne.
She tilts her head at the men standing across the room. "He told me once, when we were drunk and things were bad."
"Josh told you this?"
"Yes."
"That he and Sam had a...a thing?"
"He probably doesn't remember telling me."
This is a very strange conversation. You're not sure how it started. "I see," you reply, swallowing your drink.
She finally looks you in the eye. "You don't believe me."
"I..." But it's true.
She only shrugs. "Whatever." You think, someday, when she writes a book - because you know she will - she'll say the same thing and get the same reaction. Only then she'll be on every late-night talk show.
"I slept with him."
Amy stares at you. For a moment, she's almost territorial. "Josh?"
"Sam."
Is that relief you see? She smiles.
"Once, during the campaign." Actually, it was twice. You don't know why you just lied there.
She finishes her glass of champagne and has another in her hands before you can say anything else. She's already beginning to look restless.
In the morning, you pack up your suitcase and fly back to New Hampshire.
A week later, your husband is in the den, thumbing through the book you had tossed on the kitchen table that evening and never touched. You come in for a book off the shelf, and he says, "You're in this thing, you know."
Your heart beats faster: oh, God.
The moment he says Ron Erlich, it feels odd. You don't know whether to be glad you're only a footnote, or upset.
Josh brought that blonde - you know her face from CNN as The American Almost-Martyr, but can't recall her name. A second later, you wonder if that's why Amy is so quick on the champagne.
"So, how did it feel?"
All night, she's been doing this: surprising you with questions, pumping you for information in some vain attempt at conversation. It would be annoying, except you realize that you're just as active a participant as she is.
You glance at her. "How did what feel?"
"The MS. When you found out."
You sigh. You think. "I felt betrayed. So did the entire country." What you don't say is: I kicked and screamed and punched a hole in the wall. I wanted to kill something. I was lied to, and Abbey knew it. I saw her inject the President on more than one occasion.
"Is that why you left?"
You look at Amy like she has three heads. For a moment, you consider biting her head off, snapping at her that she knows exactly when you left. Instead, you manage to smile politely. "I was gone almost a year before that."
Her smile says that you were a lucky bitch, but you don't feel like it.
During the campaign, you wrote some remarks for the then-governor's wife, and accidentally referred to the event as a crock of shit. "I've always liked you," Abbey had said, a month after the election. "I'm going to hire you, Lilly, and don't let Toby Ziegler get in your way." As it turned out, Toby barely noticed.
You stand in your office with a fresh change of clothes in your arms. Your assistant, Mona, is the only person to have seen the inside of your apartment in a week. Your boyfriend called, but you hung up on him when he said she worked too much. "This is fucking important," you rationalize.
Abbey spends most of the day in the residence, inspecting the President's bandages and pretending not to be worried out of her mind. Zoey came down to your office yesterday, to apologize for the way her mother had dismissed you on the phone. You suspect she was there at Abbey's request. It would have made you smile, if there wasn't this thing hanging between you and your boss.
This "thing" -- you wish you could describe it better, but you can't.
You keep it locked inside you until you can't anymore. You are in the private study adjoining the First Couple's bedroom.
"Ma'am?"
She doesn't look up when she says your name.
"You talked to the doctor at the hospital."
And she doesn't breathe when she answers. "Today? Yes. Josh should be starting physical therapy in about a week."
"I meant--" And suddenly, this is harder than you expected. "I meant, the, um, the anesthesiologist."
The First Lady blinks once, twice, and then it is two years ago all over again, and she's explaining that she was only giving her husband a vitamin shot. "I was merely educating myself on my husband's procedure, Lilly."
You know it's a lie. You're looking straight into her eyes and you know what she says is untrue.
You say nothing at first. Is this the time? Is this the place?
"Is that all, Lilly?"
She is prompting you. Daring you to move.
"Yes, Ma'am."
You hate yourself already.
Your daughter wants to see the Washington Monument. It is summer, sweltering in lines for tourist attractions only because she is your daughter and you want her to experience this. What you never expect is to see Amy at a Starbucks near the Hill.
She peels off her large designer glasses when you call her name. The barista places her venti frappuccino on the counter. Your eyes flicker to her stomach, silently rounder than you last remember. "Decaf, I swear," she remarks.
You trade awkward how-have-you-been answers.
Amy looks into your daughter's eyes. "My God, Lilly. It's eerie." You smile, because you know it's just a show. Merrin looks more like her father these days.
You say goodbye very quickly. On the way out, you notice Amy's not wearing a ring.
At night, your daughter sleeps, and you watch her, hoping she'll forget all about this.