March 1964
The cherry blossoms were in full bloom when he returned to Washington from Easter weekend, and the tourists were out in force. Hoards of identical-looking families and school groups and foreigners crowded the Mall and the Metro stations, standing where they should be walking and walking where they should be standing. The cherries were the first harbinger of summer, when the pedestrian situation would only worsen as schools let out and people began making their pilgrimages to the nation's capital.
Summer in DC was the worst, in his opinion. Their founding fathers had been wise in many respects, but picking a site for the capital in the middle of what was arguably a malarial swamp was not one of their finer moments. He could think of no worse time to trudge around the vast public spaces than in the fecund humidity punctuated by frequent thunderstorms.
But today it was still glorious spring, and the young senator dodged the tourists, cutting through the crowds with a pile of papers stuffed in his briefcase and his sunglasses firmly in place.
He loped into his office, loosening his tie after the day's session had ended. It was only 3:30 in the afternoon, leaving plenty of hours to work before he was due at his fellow New York senator's house for dinner. The elder statesman had invited him over several times, and while he'd always managed to avoid the invitation before, it seemed in poor taste now not to curry the favor of his home state's established officials.
That, and a backhanded call to his father during the holiday weekend to ask why the junior senator never had time to enjoy a meal with his colleague. His father had glared at him through the glass doors of his office as he spoke on the phone in tense, hushed tones and Ben had known immediately who it was. His father found the senator as tedious as he did. Half the fun of following his father into politics was being able to compare notes about their mutual acquaintances.
"Anything for me?" He stood in front of his secretary and waited patiently for her to stop typing. He'd handed her a stack of letters from constituents on his way out the door earlier in the morning. There'd been a huge batch from a grade school class doing a civics project requiring little more than the generic form letter in response.
Maz's gnarled fingers finally paused, hovering above the home row.
"The usual," she sighed, gathering a pile of pink phone message slips. Her chicken scratch never failed to make him squint and her pace was deliberate, but she was unflappable and reliable, and he liked that about her. He needed a steady influence, someone to calm his brusque demeanor and slow him down from the breakneck pace he defaulted to. She peered at them closely, holding them at a strange angle to her thick glasses to make out her own writing before thrusting them at him.
"Thanks," he replied, looking at the pile quickly. He turned away and was nearly to the door of his interior office when her voice stopped him.
"Wait."
He turned on his heel, eyebrows raised expectantly.
She fished one more pink slip from beneath the pile of completed letters. "This young woman called again."
Ben smiled. "A young woman?" Occasionally a woman was charmed enough to come looking for him after he lost their phone number. It had happened before.
Maz didn't smile back. "From the Times. Well-spoken. Very insistent, though. Says she needs to talk to you."
His smile dropped. He took the slip without comment and entered his office, closing the door behind him.
With his foot propped up on the edge of the desk, he leaned back in his chair, sorting the slips.
Yes-no-maybe-yes-maybe-maybe.
Yeses required a response. Nos did not. Maybes were confusing, vague, or otherwise probable timesucks that he simply didn't want to make time for. Maybe not now, maybe not ever. The latter pile was growing with each week of the campaign.
He stared at the last slip before crumpling it slowly and tossing it in the wastebasket beneath his desk. He picked up the phone and dialed the number by heart.
"What have you got for me about the girl?" He asked before Hux even had time to say hello.
"Good afternoon to you, too," Hux retorted. "I told you, I'm working on it."
"What is there to work on?" Ben shuffled a few folders with papers from committees he needed to review. "We need to act quickly."
Hux sighed. "I've got several people on her in the city, alright? They're just being… thorough."
"What's thorough cost?"
"We have enough to cover it."
Ben tapped the butt of his pen against the folders. "So a lot then?"
Hux sighed. "I'm doing what you asked. No sense in doing a half-assed job when it's your presidency to lose."
Hux was right, as usual. His methodical way sometimes irked Ben's sense of urgency, but Ben had to admit his steerage of the campaign had been spot-on to date.
"Of course," Ben changed his tone. "You know what to do."
"Thank you," Hux still sounded annoyed. "Now if that's all, I've got a few other things to attend to."
"Are you coming this evening?"
"No," Hux's tone was downright cross now. "Phas and I have plans. A class of some kind."
"A class?" Amusement warmed Ben's voice. "What kind of class."
"I don't really know," Hux's voice became quieter and Ben suspected he was trying to keep their other staffers from overhearing. "Some kind of meditation thing she heard about at the university." He said meditation as though it were a vulgar word.
Ben could barely contain his glee imagining the face Hux was making right now. His friend had always been openly derisive of a large swath of spiritual endeavors, beginning with their required chapel attendance during prep school and extending to the current craze for Eastern mysticism. He knew of no stronger critic of America's blurry lines between church and state than his friend, who in his fervent devotion to the idea, had become something of a zealot himself.
"Oh, I hope you enjoy yourself," Ben replied. "I wish you could be my date for this dinner instead."
"So do I, but I'm sure you'll manage. And behave yourself, please. I don't want to have to answer to the Post in the morning."
Ben snorted as though it were a baseless insult. "You wound me, Armitage. When have I not behaved in a manner becoming of a future President?"
"Goodbye, Ben," Hux was pointed. "I won't waste my breath telling you things you already know."
Ben chuckled as the dial tone interrupted their connection.
Hux's report was waiting for him by the end of the next afternoon. The pile of pink slips was larger today, a result of the impending vote about a piece of tax legislation that was sure to have a negative impact on business owners. His yes pile was sizeable, and there was another slip from the girl. He pushed the report under the stack of bills, not wanting to look at it yet.
Days passed.
It was late Friday afternoon when his phone rang.
"Did you look at it?" Hux didn't bother with pleasantries.
"Not yet," Ben knew exactly what he meant. "Should I?"
There was a long pause. "Do you need me to come over there and read it to you, or what?" Hux sounded pissy.
Ben doodled on the edge of the folder where it protruded from beneath his pile. "How's the meditation working out for you? You seem tense," he teased.
"Fuck you," Hux said shortly. "I'm coming over to discuss it, and you better have read it by the time I get there."
Ben replaced the receiver in the cradle, standing up to stretch and pour himself a drink. He retrieved a second glass from the bar cabinet and poured a large one for Hux as well.
He sipped the whiskey before drawing the folder from its hiding place and opening the cover. It was thicker than he'd anticipated, filled with a sheaf of papers and a number of photos. He began reading.
His office door opened thirty minutes later without a knock. Hux slung his bag and overcoat over the extra chair and picked up the glass without comment, taking a long drink.
Ben's head rested heavily on his hands, elbows on the desk.
A minute or more passed and Ben could hear the buses passing on the street below.
Hux broke the silence first. "Well?"
Ben wasn't sure what to say. He held one of the photos in his hand and squinted at it. "Looks like you had more than a few people on her."
"It's what you asked for," Hux didn't waver. "She's… a tough girl to pin down."
"An orphan?" Ben squinted at his friend. "Really?"
Hux's gaze was level, but he looked tired. "She was. Adoptive parents are gone as of a few years ago."
"And young," Ben chewed the edge of his cuticle. "She must be a brain to be at the Times already, with so little experience?" Something caught his eye and he pulled a magnifying glass out of his drawer to examine the grainy photos of the girl. She stood waiting to cross the street in a throng of people, oblivious to her surveillance. He could make out the outline of a small cross necklace on her sternum. "Catholic?"
Hux shrugged. "The adoptive parents were, her birth certificate lists her father as unknown. It's not clear if she still is. She was an excellent student. Dean's list, all that."
"So…" Ben shut the folder with a slap. "What do you suggest? She's been calling here every day since last week."
"Well, she is your constituent," Hux pointed out. "You shouldn't ignore her."
Ben scowled. "I know that, thank you. I mean about the other thing."
"She had you pretty rattled last week," Hux narrowed his eyes, no doubt gauging his reaction to the information. "Do you view this Skywalker thing as a real threat?"
Ben scoffed and took a long swig of his drink, considering. "It's not my family's proudest moment, that's for sure."
"But you see how it looks, right?" Hux was using the same tone that had made them junior debate champions. He would get quiet, then work up to a point made unassailable by a mountain of carefully selected facts. "Even if Padme was right to leave him behind and come here, you're still connected to all that, and not very distantly. There are plenty of hardworking Americans whose boys didn't come home, and they vote. Your dad has his war record to stand on, but you don't."
"I'm not my grandfather," Ben protested.
"Of course not," Hux assuaged him. "I know that, but I know you. Think about how it sounds to… to a farmer in Nebraska," Hux rolled his eyes. "The Nazi stuff is hot again with the Eichmann trial and Arendt's reporting. It's in the wind, and you can't control everyone's opinion."
"I just don't get it," Ben picked up the folder again, staring blankly at the executive summary. "What's it to this girl? Her mom gets knocked up by some soldier, but she grows up a-ok here. Why go after this now?"
"Because she's a nosy, brainy reporter type, and even if it's not personal to her, it might be to someone else," Hux supplied. "People have the right to know who they're voting for. I know you believe that."
He was quiet for a moment, considering. "So are you suggesting I meet it head on? Meet with her, acknowledge what Grandfather believed, differentiate myself and hope it blows over before the polls in November?"
Hux looked away and shifted forwards with his elbows on his knee. "I have a suggestion, but I don't think you're going to like it." He sloshed his whiskey on the rocks in the glass.
"Way to sell me on it," Ben's sarcasm was palpable.
"Hire her."
Ben stared at Hux. "Excuse me?"
"Hire her. Have her work for the campaign."
"The orphan!?" Ben stood and braced his hands on the desk. "Get out of my office."
Hux didn't move.
Ben glowered at his friend. "You're right, I don't like it."
"Think about it," Hux opened his palm towards him. "We need more staff. I can't handle all the press stuff by myself any more. She could be the… the secretary. The press secretary. Officer. Whatever."
"Have you gone insane?"
Hux pressed on. "Look, you keep saying you want change. What does that look like? She's young and obviously hungry and a good writer- let her manage your press stuff. She certainly knows more about it than we do-"
"You want me to hire a green, untried reporter with less than a year of experience to manage the press for a presidential campaign? Who is also a woman." Ben hoped that by repeating it, Hux would hear how crazy it sounded.
Hux sat back and crossed his legs prissily. "She has no family, nothing to distract her from doing the job. And she's definitely not your type, if that's your concern."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ben sat back down too, lacing his fingers over his head, widening his chest and taking a deep breath. "That I can't work with a woman?"
Hux stared at him. "You know what I mean."
"Maz is a woman, and I work with Maz!"
"Maz is about a thousand years old," Hux countered, sounding exasperated now. "You've never met a woman you wouldn't try to fuck, and it's charming that you're a rake now but think about how it's going to seem in ten or twenty years. Is that the kind of person the electorate see leading the country? No one wants to see their sad bachelor uncle trying to flirt with women half his age. You need to consider how it looks from the outside."
"Jesus, what is this?" Ben was genuinely annoyed now. "You shack up with Phas and I'm not allowed to chase a little skirt?" His friend had never been judgemental towards him in this regard before, and hardly less inclined towards the same behavior. A tide of anger was swelling in his midsection and he huffed against it.
Hux set his empty tumbler on the edge of Ben's desk with a pronounced thunk. "Lucky for us both, this one only wears pants, and I don't mean that metaphorically."
Ben was struck with a sudden urge to throw the sheaf of information at Hux for that. Instead, he clenched the folder into a roll and brandished it at him as if he were scolding one of his parents' insipid dogs. "Get out of my office."
Hux stood, knowing not to push his luck. "Think about it."
"There's nothing to think about," Ben fairly growled.
"You need to decide, and soon," Hux replied with his back to him. "I'll call you next week."
The weekend did little to take the edge of his agitation over it all. The folder went home with him but didn't make it out of his briefcase for further consideration. He had only to close his eyes to picture her in the back of the lecture hall, looking after him like he owed her something.
She was with him, nagging at him as he jogged, watched the college basketball tournament, tried to read something not related to work for a change. He had never been good at relaxing, and that made him good at his job, but it also made for many sleepless nights. The relief he had felt to sleep in his boyhood home for a few days had already evaporated.
Hire her.
Hux was out of goddamned mind if he thought a twenty-two year old should run press for his campaign. A twenty-two year old woman? She would be eaten alive. The political press were exclusively men, grizzled road dogs who lived on cigarettes and thin coffee from styrofoam cups. She was already out of her element. She looked, for lack of a more specific word, like a nice girl. She looked neat, sounded well-spoken and probably still crossed herself before she ate. He wondered what the editor was thinking, putting her on that beat at all. She was a childhood friend of his mother's, but he hadn't seen the woman in years. He barely remembered her, except that she was very tall and willowy, an elegant creature who spoke far above his head.
He did pushups before bed to take the edge off, counting the reasons not to take Hux's suggestion. The idea that he was incapable of working with a woman without being interested in bedding her warranted an extra twenty.
Really, though. The very notion caused an ember of irritation to flare in his low stomach and he paused midway down until his triceps burned before moving again. Hux was right about one thing: she wasn't his type. If anything, she was too like him to be of interest. A fellow only child, half-English but raised American, precocious and bookish.
He could work with a woman, if he had to. He simply preferred to work with men. Their perspectives were inherently more similar, and homogeneity bred efficiency. The government had too much to do for too many people to be bogged down arguing over petty differences.
He managed three pages of his book before falling asleep with the lamp on.
By Monday he had resolved to take matters into his own hands. He would meet this reporter and talk to her like he would any other. He would answer her questions and make her see that it wasn't worth digging into his family's past. After all, this was America. Everyone had come from somewhere else and had something to hide or run away from. It was nothing to be ashamed of; were they not all stronger for it? It was the idea of their country. You could start over.
"Good morning, Senator," Maz greeted him without pausing from her typing. A cigarette in need of ashing was pursed in the corner of her mouth, her bright pink lipstick staining the rolling paper.
"Morning, Maz," he smiled at her and picked up the envelopes she'd placed in his inbox. A thick stack of identical envelopes with postmarks from Buffalo were rubber banded together- another civics class, no doubt. "Good weekend?"
"Average." It was her standard answer. Never good, never bad. Just average.
"Excellent," he replied by wrote. She never asked him what he did on the weekends, or who he did it with, or if he'd enjoyed himself. They had, in his estimation, a perfect working relationship. "What's on the docket this week?"
"Joint committee at 10 today, hearings in the afternoons Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, dinner Wednesday with the bigwigs from one of the banks, and the usual all around that."
He nodded. "Thanks. When you get a chance, would you call the woman at the Times and give her my availability for next week?"
Maz's fingers still for a moment and the clatter of her keyboard ceased. "The girl? Rey-something-or-other?"
"That one," he confirmed. "Thank you."
The orphan, he thought, closing his office door behind him and putting her out of his mind.
A/N: Happy Passover/Easter weekend, if you're celebrating! Come say hi on Tumblr - I'm theafterglow-writes.
