The Switch

21

The shirt was tight at the neck. When Will tried to button the top button, he pinched the loose neck skin and could barely breathe. Was it possible he’d gained half a shirt size in the three weeks since his last formal event? Couldn’t be. Though, come to think of it, he’d probably gained fifteen pounds in the last half a year. Probably gained twenty, twenty-five pounds in the three years since he’d become Susan Robbins’s chief of staff. Maybe more; he’d stopped weighing himself. He had a definite potbelly now. He was looking more and more like his father every day. It was terrifying.

Jen was lying in bed, watching him dress. They were speaking quietly. Travis was asleep in his bassinet, in the bedroom, and they both wanted him to stay asleep.

Will gave up on the top button, for now, and started inserting the fake-onyx studs into the little holes in the shirt placket, or at least trying to. He kept fumbling. His fingers felt too fat. He hated formal wear, thought tuxedos — or, excuse me, dinner jackets — were ridiculous relics out of Downton Abbey, and was dreading tonight’s event, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which was being held at the Washington Hilton. The only reason he was going was because the boss was going, and he had to escort her. Which meant he had to schmooze and smile at his fellow Senate staffers and senators. And he was a lousy schmoozer.

And there was the goddamned laptop, that disaster in the making. He was totally preoccupied with it. The Russian guy had called a few hours ago to say that the break-in hadn’t yielded anything. When Will had heard that, his stomach sank. But at the same time — and this was the weird thing — he was secretly almost happy to hear it. Because the arrogant Russian (he thought of him as Igor, though his name was Yevgeniy) had screwed up.

“Let me help you with those,” Jen said, getting up.

“Thanks.”

“Such a stud,” she said as she deftly pushed a stud through the shirt hole. For some reason that made him think about sex. He could feel her hot breath on his chest, which turned him on. He’d forgotten when the last time was they’d had sex, but it was during her pregnancy. Now she was uninterested. She spent most of the day in pajamas, and her hair made her look like a madwoman chained up in the attic, but he knew better than to complain about that. She had by far the harder job, spending all day with Travis.

Jen knew about the missing laptop — she’d been there when Susan had called — but he hadn’t told her anything about his retrieval efforts. It was better that way; the fewer who knew, the better. The efforts had already crossed the line into illegality.

“Hey, someday can you take me?”

“To Nerd Prom?” That was what all the insiders called the Correspondents’ Dinner.

“Yeah.”

“Sure,” he said, though he didn’t mean it. Tickets cost three hundred dollars each, and they were hellishly hard to get.

“And while you’re gliding around in your tux like James Bond, I’ll be watching Law and Order reruns.”

“Believe me, I’d much rather be at home watching Law and Order. Or House of Cards.”

“Oh, loosen up, Will. It’ll be fun. Now, where’s your cummerbund?”

“It was on the hanger. Ah, there it is, on the floor of the closet.”

“Shh.”

“Sorry,” he said in a much quieter voice.

He flipped his collar up and tried once more to fasten the top button. Jen retrieved the cummerbund from the closet floor and put it on the bed. “Let me try.”

Just then Travis started fussing, crescendoing quickly to a loud bellow. She went right to the bassinet and lifted him out. “Someone has a poopy diaper,” she said. “Oh, you poor thing.”

She swung the little baby up to her shoulder, and as the two of them passed by, Will caught a foul whiff.

“Thanks,” he said, meaning Thanks for doing what I know is normally my job.

He struggled a bit more with the collar button and managed to cinch it closed. It pinched at his neck and he felt the blood pool in his face. Then he grabbed the cummerbund from the bed. “Do the pleats go up or down? I always forget.”

“Think I know?” she called from the changing table in the next room, where Travis would have his bedroom when he was a little older. “My daddy didn’t exactly wear black tie or anything.” Her father had recently retired after forty-five years as an auto mechanic.

“I think it’s up, to catch the crumbs,” he said. He put it around his belly, fastening it at the back. He turned and looked at himself in the mirror. It sort of concealed his potbelly.

“You look good,” Jen said.

“Everyone looks good in black tie.”

“Let me take a picture.”

He looked at his watch. “Jerry’s going to be here any second.” Jerry, Susan’s driver, was always punctual. “We’ve gotta go pick up the boss and then head over to the Hilton.”

“Oh, come on, Will. Just one picture.”

He hated having his picture taken. He was always the guy who stood to the side when pictures were taken.

They drove in silence. Will couldn’t think of anything to talk about with Jerry. He realized that there were guys who were skilled at making idle conversation, equally adept with senators and limo drivers. Schmoozers. But Will wasn’t one of those guys. He wasn’t a schmoozer. Jerry probably thought he was arrogant, another snot-nosed Hill staffer who was full of himself.

They pulled up before Susan Robbins’s Georgetown house, a redbrick Georgian town house on N Street, and they waited.

The boss came out ten minutes later and entered the Suburban in a cloud of L’Air du Temps. She was wearing her ruby gown and her Tahitian pearl necklace, the strand of marble-sized cream and gray pearls she was so often photographed wearing.

She asked Jerry about his daughter’s confirmation, and they chatted for a few minutes. Then she turned to Will. “Morty said he’s not going to be here tonight.”

“One less ring to kiss.”

She smiled.

He thought about telling her that she looked great, because she did, but that felt too personal. “Remember to shake Tim O’Connor’s hand.” O’Connor was the junior senator from New York.

“My new best friend.” In a lower voice, she said, “Do we have it?”

Will glanced to the side, at Jerry.

“Jerry, could you raise the... thing?” she said, and immediately the glass partition powered up between his compartment and theirs. Will remembered hearing somewhere that the president’s limousine, the Beast, had a powered glass partition with a videoconference screen built into it.

“Is it handled?”

“It’s a work in progress.”

“What does that mean?”

“The Russki’s plan flamed out, but don’t—”

“Flamed out? What do you mean? No, don’t tell me.”

“Not to worry. We’re done with him.” He enjoyed saying that. She had foisted Igor, or Yevgeniy, on him, and the Russian had screwed up.

“The longer this thing is out there...”

“I’m running... this thing... myself, and it will be taken care of. So long as I have full operational control.” He paused, and the senator nodded. “This will be handled.”

“It can’t get back to me.”

“It won’t. Trust me.”

She nodded again. “I do,” she said. “I know you won’t let me down.”

He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling with pleasure. The ball was in his hands again, and he knew just what to do.

The Suburban pulled up in front of the Hilton. C-SPAN’s cameras were there for the “red carpet” arrivals. Susan was kind of a celebrity, in Washington circles anyway, but a bunch of real Hollywood celebrities were supposed to be attending. Harrison Ford and Morgan Freeman, a Kardashian, the great singer Judy Collins, whom Will was hoping to meet. The chief presenter was to be a woman from Comedy Central.

But most important, he had to get the senior senator from Massachusetts alone for a minute. He needed to ask for a very confidential favor.