Alicia and Peter made a deal. She would support him during the Presidential campaign while running for Senator, and after the elections they would file for a no-fault divorce by mutual consent, thus keeping the scandal to a minimum. Eli Gold believed that once Peter was re-elected there was nothing anyone could do to keep him from serving his term, even if not having a First Lady in the White House was quite unusual. There had previously been two unmarried Presidents after all (even if James Buchanan was probably gay) and who in the US could still boast about having been married only once nowadays?
Alicia honestly couldn't care less. In February, she rented an apartment in Manhattan and moved to New York to run her own campaign. One year, two months and three days had passed since the last time she had seen Kalinda. Alicia was now fully in charge of her own life again. She was no longer mad at Kalinda – and hadn't stopped thinking about her. She wondered if Kalinda had moved on with her life. Neither of them had tried to contact the other since the day Alicia had thrown her out of her office. Yet Alicia had never deleted Kalinda's number from her phone.
Taking a step back, Alicia realized that she had been mostly mad at herself for burying her head in the sand when it came to Peter, his sex life, and the anger and humiliation that were in it for her. She was also insanely jealous, even in retrospect, at the thought of Kalinda sleeping with Peter, and not the other way around. She was better off without Peter, but was she without Kalinda? Now that she didn't have to be the First Lady at all costs, she sometimes thought that she had been unfair to her. Kalinda had given her a lot and never asked a single thing in return. She had let Alicia come closer to her and see her more exposed than she had let anyone. She had cried when Alicia had given back some of her love and tenderness. And she had left without a word when she could easily have ended both Peter and Alicia's careers.
Alicia was also aware that what she had with Kalinda – an intimate, deeply satisfying and mutual relationship – couldn't compare to what Kalinda had probably shared with Peter, long before she even met her. Yet Alicia had simply discarded their whole patiently woven relationship, refusing to admit that she was partly responsible for letting such things happen within her own marriage in the first place. She had torn their connection apart so violently – was there anything left to salvage? Alicia had to make sure, if only for closure.
She wondered if Kalinda's phone number was still the same. She could only hope so. Not daring to call her, she texted her and offered a drink at a bar nearby the UN building where Kalinda was working. About to press "send", she suddenly felt like a nervous teenager all over again, her hands sweaty and fumbling and her heart threatening to beat out of her chest. Would Kalinda even bother answering? She sent the message anyway. Her heartbeat was not back to normal yet when her phone dinged again. "OK," Kalinda had replied, "Meet you there at 9."