He went through his mantra. I’m really okay. Nothing has changed. I just have to watch my drinking and stay calm. I’ve done nothing wrong.
They went on board with their garment bags and found places to stuff them. Their seats were together. Dean Knightly took the window seat and seemed to enjoy the view of the Chicago skyline contrasted against the deep-blue waters of Lake Michigan. He could peer almost directly down into his beloved Wrigley Field, where the Cubs were being slaughtered by the Pirates.
After the flight attendants had come through with sandwiches, Knightly picked up where he’d left off. “Look, NAISS has all of these panels, luncheons, banquet speakers, and the like. You can go if you want to. You’ll either run into people like yourself, many of whom are just looking for a way to drink on someone else’s tab and get laid in someone else’s bed, or the NAISS gerontocracy, who want to have their hands shaken and get awards for their distinguished service. The real business will take place in the bars and hotel rooms. I like to watch the people work each other and to see my old friends—all two of them. So you won’t see anything more of me after we hit National.”
That was fine with Kevin, who wanted to see only one person in Washington. To his great delight Margaret had left a message at his hotel, saying that she would swing by after work so they could have a drink together. Kevin had every reason to think he could stretch the drink into dinner—and if he could, what was to prevent him from stretching dinner into something more intimate?
He took a shower and shaved for the second time that day, leaving his face hot and razor burned, then made dinner reservations in a funky Caribbean restaurant in Adams-Morgan.
He met Margaret in the lobby, and they took the elevator to the top floor of the hotel. She looked too good to be true—he couldn’t believe she’d just come off a long day at work. Betsy always looked blown and frazzled when she came back from work—maybe it was because she insisted on walking everywhere.
Margaret blew past the “Please Wait to Be Seated” sign and grabbed the choicest table in the bar, by a window looking down toward Roosevelt Island. Margaret ordered club soda; Kevin ordered Stoli straight up and hold the water. “And we need some finger food.”
“Finger food,” the waiter echoed, coolly mimicking Kevin’s country vowels. “Thumbs or pinkies?”
“Pretzels and nuts, asshole,” Kevin said. The waiter raised his eyebrows, turned, and walked away, punching keys on his electronic order pad.
“Not a good evening, huh?” Margaret said, resting her hand on his for a moment. The sensation ran up his arm and exploded in his brain. “What’s bothering you?”
Kevin sat back. He wanted to stare at Margaret’s face all night long, but she was looking back at him with a penetrating gaze that forced him to look away. Instead he looked out the window at the traffic jam on the parkway and the Roosevelt Bridge, the planes landing at National. “It’s a long way from Forks County, Iowa,” he said. “And Forks is a long way from the potato farm. A lot of people come here to D.C. like it’s nothing—they use the city like a public phone booth. To me this is a big deal.” He shook his head. “Shit. I’m so jealous of Betsy. The work she does. The access she has. She talked to the President!”
“Kevin, if you only knew…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know her job has a big downside, too. But so does mine. If you only knew about mydownside!” He laughed. “I put up with it because it gets me here. To D.C. Where I can look down the river every night to the Jefferson. And go out with incredibly beautiful women like you.”
“Women? You’ve got more than one?”
Kevin blushed, horrified to have made such a gaffe. But Margaret laughed—just teasing.
He’d never opened up to her this way before. Until tonight he’d been all pretense. He had done his best to make her think that he really was one of those beltway insiders. It felt wonderful to unburden himself. Margaret didn’t seem to mind—she hadn’t jumped up and stormed out of the place yet. In fact she was smiling at him warmly, eager to hear more. “Tell me about the downside,” she said. “What’s troubling you?”
“I’ve probably made some bad choices, Margaret. If I get out now, I can get a job as an untenured teacher at some dipshit four-year school in central Mississippi. If I ride this wave I’m on, I might get out okay.”
“Depends on where the wave is going,” she said.
“Okay,” Kevin said, and drained his glass. “I’ll tell you about it. Hell, you’re CIA, you’re firewalled from all domestic affairs, and this is domestic, so this shouldn’t interfere with your work—right?”