What a wicked way to treat the girl that loves you / Hold up, they don't love you like I love you
Beyonce, "Hold Up"
Arabelle Marsh finds a strand of long, dark hair on the inside of her husband's suit. It isn't hers.
She plucks it off without much thought, and it doesn't cross her mind again for weeks, until it does.
She goes to a congressional function on Vincent's arm. It's her first one since he's taken office. All the other senators are here too, most with their senior staff in tow.
Vince steers her around the room as he makes his pleasantries; he introduces her to everyone with whom he crosses paths, shows her off with distinct pride. There had been a look of awe in his eyes when she'd descended the stairs that evening. The dress was new, and "You look beautiful," is what he'd said.
He guides her toward a corner that contains all of his own staff and makes introductions. His policy guy, his speech guy, his press guy, his chief of staff. Now his chief of staff, Arabelle realizes, is a woman. With dark hair.
Arabelle doesn't think about it until she does.
"Darling, this is my chief of staff, Nadine Tolliver," Vincent is saying, but she barely hears him. She's too busy staring.
A genuine smile curves Nadine Tolliver's cherry red lips and lights her clear, dark eyes. A pretty black curl falls into her face from where it's freed itself of her updo. She loops it behind her ear and extends her hand. Arabelle forgets to take it, but Nadine reaches for it and saves them both from an awkward moment. "How do you do," she says pleasantly. Her voice is low and musical.
She's willowy and soft and, regrettably, beautiful. Arabelle is loathe to admit it. Tolliver moves with the poise and grace of a dancer, and Arabelle guesses it makes sense, because Tolliver is the prima donna of the office.
Arabelle watches as Nadine works the room. The woman commands attention with an easy sort of confidence, the kind that belongs to a woman who knows how to make herself seen by the players who often ignore and underestimate her power. Politics is a boys' club, and it appears that Nadine Tolliver knows how to play all the boys' games with ease.
And probably knows how to play Vincent, too. The homewrecking bitch.
But Arabelle can't get ahead of herself. She doesn't even know if it's true. How can it be true? She knows her husband.
Vincent approaches Nadine from the other side of the room, and then he's placing an innocuous hand at her elbow, gently pulling her away from her conversation with some other senator with that charmingly smile of his and walking her across the room. Arabelle follows them with her eyes, unable to tear her gaze away.
She watches as he brushes a hand over the back of Nadine's neck, and then settles it dangerously low against her lower back. And he's looking at Nadine in a way that makes Arabelle's stomach flip viciously. A look that Arabelle has always thought of as reserved for herself alone. And then she feels a wave of anger so hot and blinding it makes her breathless.
What does he see in her anyway?
Arabelle is standing by the bar with a flute of champagne and trying very hard not to gulp it all down like a shot as the Ohio senator tries to talk her half to death.
Suddenly there's a bare arm sliding through her own, linking her to someone else. "Excuse me, Senator Brown," Arabelle hears, warm and sweet. "Can I borrow the Secretary's wife from you? It'll just take a minute." And then Arabelle is being steered away before the Senator can even properly respond.
Arabelle turns to glance at her rescuer. "Thank you," she says.
"I would have rescued you sooner if I had known," Nadine replies apologetically. "Sherrod is the worst person with whom to get stuck in conversation. A tiny break ought to be on the agenda for—" she twists around to glance at the clock on the wall, "—right now. Don't you think?"
"Please," Arabelle agrees, though the thought of slipping away with no one but her husband's probably-mistress for company makes her want to vomit.
Nadine leads them down a side hallway off the anteroom to an empty little office, walking with purpose, like she knows exactly where she's taking them. The door is unlocked and opens easily; Nadine pulling Arabelle inside before closing the door and flipping on the lights. She exhales hard, all the poise seeming to leave her body with the breath. Her shoulders slump forward and she looks exhausted; she truly does.
"I hate these fucking events," Nadine breathes. "I can't think of a worse way to spend my evening." She walks over to the couch and slumps rather ungracefully into the corner of it. She kicks off one shiny black heel, flexing her toes in the air. She flashes Arabelle a guilty smile. "Sorry. Please don't tell the Secretary I said that."
With more grace (and feeling superior for it), Arabelle lowers herself into the leather armchair opposite the couch. The fabric of her dress slips and slides against the seat. "Your secret's safe with me."
And it's still the same thought that keeps cycling in Arabelle's head; that she still can't help but wonder: What does Vincent see in this woman anyway?
Nadine has kicked off her other shoe, and now she's flitting barefoot around this office that most certainly does not belong to her, opening cabinets and snooping through drawers.
"Um," Arabelle says. "What are you…?"
"I'm not entirely sure whose office this is," Nadine murmurs, elbow deep in the bottom drawer of the desk. She raps her knuckles against the wood in several places. "But I know they have to have… hah!" She looks up at Arabelle, grinning triumphantly, and lifts up a bottle of whiskey that she's pulled free by the neck. "We need a real drink."
She pulls out two glass tumblers from the same drawer and pours before Arabelle can decide whether or not she should protest. She won't. Nadine is right, after all — they need a real drink.
Nadine hands her the glass and clinks hers against it. "Cheers. To bread and circuses." But she doesn't say it snidely. She appraises Arabelle as she drinks deeply. "You look beautiful, by the way. I didn't get the chance to tell you that earlier."
That surprises Arabelle. "Oh. Thank you so much."
"We were so excited to meet you tonight," Nadine confides. "Vincent talks about you all the time."
"Does he."
"He's so in love with you," Nadine says, and her voice sounds odd when she says it, but Arabelle doesn't know the other woman nearly well enough to think what it means.
"If he really loved me, he might've thought to leave me at home tonight," Arabelle mutters, lightheartedly.
Nadine throws her head back and laughs. The whole room seems to brighten.
What does he see in her?
Arabelle understands.