“Hmm. Is this what they’re teaching the interns these days?” Archie asks.
“I’m not an intern anymore,” you say. “By the way, no one even knew what a blog was when I got there. They’re all so old.”
“I know,” Archie says. “There’s this ancient lawyer in my office, and he’s asked me to show him how to turn on his computer five times. I’m like, dude, there’s a switch. It’s not that hard.”
Archie drops you off at your apartment. You’re living off campus this year. You’re about to unlock your front door when the congressman calls your cell phone. “I’m in your neighborhood,” he says.
“Why?” you say.
“I thought you could show me your new place,” he says.
If you invite him over.
If you make an excuse (“I’m in Boca” or “I’m tired”).
“Come on over,” you say. If you’re honest with yourself, one of the reasons you moved into an off-campus apartment and didn’t get any roommates is because you hoped something like this would happen. You set the stage, and you knew the player wouldn’t be able to resist the call of the theater.
“We missed you tonight,” he says.
The election is in a month, and there had been a town hall meeting that night and you hadn’t gone.
“I had a date,” you say.
“Oh yeah? Someone I should be jealous of?”
“No,” you say, as you take off your blouse.
“It’s good,” he says. “It’s good you should date. I want you to meet someone nice.”
You take off your skirt.
“You look pretty,” he says. He goes into your bathroom and he turns on the faucet.
You put your hair into a topknot. You had it blown out for your date with Archie, and you don’t want to mess it up.
“Your absence was noted tonight,” he calls.
You turn on the television. A rerun of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is on.
The question on the screen is:
Henry VIII split from the Roman Catholic Church after it refused to grant him an annulment so he could marry which woman?
a. Anne Boleyn
b. Jane Seymour
c. Anne of Cleves
d. Catherine of Aragon
“Anne of Cleves,” he says, as he leaves the bathroom.
The answer is Anne Boleyn.
“Darn,” he says. “I always get the Annes confused.”
You set a pillow on the floor. You lower yourself to your knees, and he unzips his pants.
If you continue seeing him.
If you tell him it’s over.
You slip back into seeing the congressman. Once a week. Sometimes, twice. It’s a bad habit, you know. You know, you know, you know. You end up feeling like the congressman’s garbage can or his suitcase. You feel functional, if not beloved.
You consider quitting your job even though you still love it, even though you’re good at it, even though you derive self-esteem from the fact that you’re good at it. You liked being Aviva, the girl who could find anything.
If you quit the job, maybe you’ll be able to quit him, too.
If you don’t quit the job.
If you quit the job.
You know you should quit your job, but you decide to wait until after the election. You start taking steps, though. You put together a new résumé; you put out feelers.
In November, he is reelected.
He doesn’t end his marriage, not that you ever thought he would.
Click here.
You don’t see him for a while, and you don’t even miss him.
You decide you will leave your job in January. It’s the last semester of your senior year. This seems as good a reason as any to leave.
You go to your supervisor. You tell her you’ll stay until the end of the month to train someone new. “I’m sad to see you go. We’ve really liked having you,” she says. “Is there anything I can say to convince you to stay?”
“No,” you say.
She takes you downstairs for a frozen yogurt. Farouk says, “Hello, Aviva!”
“She’s leaving us,” the supervisor says.
“No one works as hard as me, except Aviva and the congressman,” Farouk says. He brings you and the supervisor a plate of free baklava.
“I have to say,” your supervisor says, “I never thought you’d be such a success that first day. You’ve really opened my eyes about some of my own prejudices about interns.”
You feel irritated even though you know she’s trying to be nice. “Why?” you say. “Because you didn’t like my outfit?”
“Yeah. It sounds shitty when you put it that way. I guess so. We get a certain kind of girl, from time to time. Pretty girls who think it’ll be fun to have a political adventure, because they saw, like, Primary Colors or something. But once they find out how boring it is here, they don’t want to work.”
“Well, maybe they would want to work if you made them feel more welcome,” you say.
The supervisor nods. “I’m a douche. Officially, a douche.”
She holds up her iced tea, and you clink your Diet Coke to it.
Click here.
At the end of January, just before your last week, he is briefly back from D.C., and he asks you if you want to “hang,” which makes him sound like one of the kids from your old dorm. You don’t want to “hang,” but you go with him anyway.
You are in his car—the whole point of quitting your job was so you wouldn’t end up in his car—but there you are! You are in his car and you are thinking about Houdini. You have recently read a book about Houdini, and you are thinking how having an affair with your boss is kind of like being in a straitjacket and in chains and submerged in water. You feel like you will need to be an emotional Houdini if you are ever going to extricate yourself.
You did this to yourself.
You have only yourself to blame.
For argument’s sake, who else might you blame?
A. The Congressman
B. Your Father, Whom You Love and Who Thinks You Don’t Know About His Mistress
C. The Supervisor at the Congressman’s Office for Making You Cry That First Day
D. Your Mother for Interfering Too Much in Your Life
E. That Boyfriend You Had When You Were Fifteen
F. Your Boobs for Making Everything Look Slutty
No, you decide, none of the above. It’s me.
In the future, you will have interns of your own. And the thought of sleeping with any one of them will seem insane and wrong to you. But at this moment, you are in the passenger seat of the congressman’s car, and he is stopped at a traffic light, and you are thinking, Maybe I should just open the car door and get out. No one is stopping you, Aviva Grossman. You are a free person. You may be an adult, but you can still call your mother to come get you and no matter what she’s doing, she will come. You put your hand on the interior handle, and you’re about to jerk it open when the light changes to green and the congressman starts driving again.
“Why are you so quiet?” he asks.
Because, you want to say, I am a person with an interior world that you know nothing about. But to say such a thing would violate the terms of your relationship. That is not the key in which your relationship is played. If he wanted a person with an interior world, he could just deal with his wife. You are the garbage disposal. You are the golf bag.