worry. I’m not going to let you ruin this evening. I’m in a happy mood and I’m going to—’
‘OK, just tell me one thing.’
‘No.’
‘Does it affect the mayor in any way at all?’
‘No.’
‘Do I need to worry about it in any way at all?’
‘No.’ She paused. ‘Not really.’
‘Not really? And I’m supposed to be reassured by that?’
‘I mean, only in the sense that it’s happening in this city. And,’ she tilted her chin towards her chest and dropped her voice two octaves, ‘“Everything that happens in this city concerns—”’
‘“—concerns the mayor.” You see, Maddy, you do remember me.’
She said nothing but kept her eyes trained on his, brown and warm as a logfire. Seeing his pleasure, his tickled vanity, the thought came out of her mouth before she was even fully aware of it. ‘You’re such an asshole, Leo.’
‘Let me get you a drink.’
He turned and headed towards the bar, leaving Maddy to the gaze of Katharine, simultaneously quizzical and reproachful. Her friend and colleague, shorter, older and always wiser in such matters, was wordlessly asking her what the hell she was doing. By means of her eyes alone, she said, I thought we’d talked about this.
Leo was back, handing Maddy a glass. Whisky, not wine. I know you. She downed it in one gulp.
‘So,’ he began again, as if drawing a line under the previous topic. ‘I tell you what would win an instant Huawei.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Inside the campaign of the next Governor of the great state of California. Unprecedented access, fly on the wall. In the room.’
‘Are you offering me access to Berger’s campaign?’
‘No. I’m telling you what you could’ve had if you hadn’t broken up with me.’
‘Leo.’
‘All right. If you hadn’t decided we should have a “break”.’
‘We decided.’
‘Whatever. The point is, the mayor’s going to win, Maddy. He’s the most popular mayor in the history of Los Angeles.’
‘Well, I’ll just have to live with that, won’t I?’
He shrugged. Your loss.
They were joined just then by an improbably tall, slender woman perched on four-inch heels, wearing a dress which appeared to be slashed to the waist. Her skin was tanned and flawless. She was, Maddy decided, either a professional model or twenty-three years old. Or possibly both. When she spoke, it was with an accent that suggested an expensive education.
‘Aren’t you going to introduce me, Leo?’ The woman’s smile was wide and white. She gave Maddy a look of unambiguous warmth, as if they were destined to be friends for life.
‘This is Jade,’ Leo mumbled.
A long moment passed before Madison extended her hand and, realizing Leo was not going to do it for her, offered her own name. The three smiled at each other mutely before Madison finally turned and said under her breath, ‘Goodnight, Leo.’
He whispered back, ‘Don’t break my balls, Maddy.’
‘I don’t want to go anywhere near your balls, Leo. Have a good night.’
It was after midnight when Enrica announced that it was past her bedtime and that, unless Katharine wanted to deal with a woman no longer responsible for her actions, she needed to take her home. As Maddy followed them down the two flights of stairs, Katharine steadying her wife as she negotiated each step, she imagined what Leo would make of this sight: the lesbian couple, one Chinese-American, the other Latina, both committed Angelenos. It was a wonder he hadn’t cast them in a Berger campaign ad ages ago.
Now, in the dead of night, Maddy was experiencing what was, to her, the rare sensation of having done what she had been told. She had gone out and gone back home and not phoned the desk once. She had not bothered Howard or complained. She had not tried to tweak the odd sentence here and there. Nor had she exploited the fact that she knew all the relevant codes to go online and make the changes herself – an action that would squarely fall into the category defined by Goldstein as ‘her usual tricks’. Sure, she had looked at the website a dozen times, she had checked Weibo, which was now humming with the story. But, by her standards, she had exercised remarkable restraint.
She stood in the shower, unmoving, not washing, letting the water envelop her. Prompted, perhaps, by the sensation of warmth on her skin, she found herself tingling, her hands’ movements turning to caresses. Unbidden, came Leo – not the look of him so much as the sense of him, his presence. And the memory of his touch when he had been close to her, right here, in this shower, his body next to hers.
And yet she lacked the energy for what would ordinarily come next. What she wanted most of all was to fall into a deep, restoring sleep. But what else was new?
The water was turning cold. She stepped out, grabbed a towel and wandered into the living room. Or ‘living room’ as she would put it, in heavy quotes, were she writing a profile of somebody whose apartment looked like this. She assessed it now, with the detached eye of an observer. Outside lay the neighbourhood of Echo City, one part funky to two parts rundown. Inside, a large table, big enough to seat six or eight, entirely covered with paper, two laptops and a stack of filled notebooks, none arranged in any order except the one known exclusively to her. A couch, both ends taken up by piles of magazines and more papers, narrowing it into a seat for one.
Off to one side, through an open archway, the kitchen area, deceptively clean – not through fastidiousness so much as underuse. Even from here she could see there was a veneer of dust on the stove. The explanation lay in the trash can, filled almost exclusively by take-out cartons, deposited in a daily stream since she’d been on this story – and, she conceded to herself, long before.
For a moment Madison pictured how this place looked when she and Leo lived together. No tidier, but busier. Fuller. She enjoyed the memory, interrupted by that cut-glass accent. This is Jade.
She glanced down at her phone. So busy writing all afternoon and into the evening, she’d repeatedly ignored it when it rang. She’d not even checked her missed calls. But here they were: two from Howard, one from Katharine, both now obsolete, six from her older sister, Quincy, and one from her younger sister, Abigail.
She instantly thumbed Abigail’s name and hovered over the ‘Call’ button. It was late and Abigail was no night owl. On the other hand, she was a teacher at elementary school: blessed with a job that allowed her to turn off her cell when she went to bed. No risk of waking her up, no matter how late. Maddy perched on the end of the couch, still in her towel, and pressed the button. It rang six times and then voicemail, her sister’s voice so much younger, so much lighter, than her own.
No one
