“I’m sorry,” he says. “I attract all kinds of attention because of the business. And the whole thing with Anna has made things exponentially worse.”
“Has Anna seen this?” Leland asks. “Was that her calling this morning?”
Fray nods.
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” Leland says. “I know who took this picture. There were two women on my plane who asked for a selfie, and then when we were walking out of the terminal they were behind me and I overheard them recognizing you.”
“So they took our picture and sold it to the Post,” Fray says.
“I’m sure they think they won the internet jackpot,” Leland says. She picks up the paper. “Does ‘feminist icon’ make me sound old?”
“Icon is better than mogul,” Fray says. “Mogul is such an ugly, hobbity word.”
“I can’t believe this,” Leland whispers. “I mean, it wouldn’t be funny except it’s true. I am your weekend paramour.”
“Will you get…canceled?” Fray says. “Will you be hounded by trolls? Do your readers think you sleep with women?”
“My sexuality is considered fluid,” Leland says. “It’s 2023. Everyone’s sexuality is considered fluid, Fray.”
“Oh,” Fray says. His sexuality doesn’t feel fluid; it feel very Leland-specific. “So this isn’t necessarily bad for you, then?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Leland says. “I’ve been happier the past twenty-four hours than I’ve been…maybe ever.”
This statement nearly brings Fray to tears. He hasn’t been this happy maybe ever, either. He thinks back to his much younger self, glaring at the pay phone in his freshman dorm after just having hung up on Leland, who was back in her bedroom on Deepdene Road in Baltimore. What had they been arguing about? Who knows—maybe Fray told her he was pledging a fraternity, maybe she told him she and Mallory were going to a party with boys from Gilman. He then pictures himself in the back of Mallory’s Blazer, calling Leland every swear word he knew under his breath after she strolled off to 21 Federal with Kip Sudbury.
He had no idea then that all he needed for things to finally be perfect between him and Leland was patience. A lot of patience.
Bess
Everything about her Friday evening improves all at once. Not only has she traded up in the date department—she bumped into Link Dooley, a boy she has thought about ever since she met him on Nantucket three years earlier—but she is also leaving behind the Drake-and-buffalo-wings scene at Roofers Union for Lapis, her favorite restaurant in the District.
Lapis is quiet and elegant; it gives off strong bistro vibes, only with sitar music. The owner, Shamin, gives Bess a smile when she sees her enter with Link. Shamin leads them to one of the tables in the window. Bess thanks her profusely even though, because of the conversation she’s about to have, she would prefer a table tucked behind one of the latticed wooden screens.
“Wow,” Link says. “You get star treatment.”
“I come here a lot,” Bess says. She doesn’t mention that this was the one place in DC where Ursula would eat in public while she was campaigning. Shamin made every accommodation to ensure that Ursula, Jake, and Bess were comfortable.
“I love bolani,” Link says. “And qabuli palau.”
“The palau here is off the chain,” Bess says. “It’s made with cinnamon rice.”
“We have to get the halwa for dessert,” Link says.
Bess beams. Link really does like Afghan food. All she can imagine is the lobbyist looking at the menu and ordering a chicken kebab and French fries.
“Let’s get the pakoras to start,” she says. She wants to pinch herself. How did she get so lucky?
Once they’re settled with a glass of Albari?o for Bess and a beer for Link, Bess realizes this happiness comes with a price: She has promised to tell Link what was going on between her father and his mother.
Link tears a piece off his flat oval of bolani and dips it in yogurt sauce, then raises his eyes to Bess. He’s better-looking than any lobbyist, she decides. She loves his shaggy blond hair and his bluish-green eyes that remind her of the ocean the day she first met him.
“So your dad told you what was going on?” Link says.
“He told me on the way back to St. Louis after we saw you,” Bess says. She busies herself with her own bolani. Her father made her solemnly swear never to tell a soul, and she had promised. She understood the gravity of the situation at the time: Her mother was running for president and there could be no scandalous family secrets floating to the surface. If Bess told her best friend, Pageant, or Kasie, the campaign manager, in a moment of weakness, it would be all over. Her father was entrusting her with a secret he’d kept longer than she’d been alive. She realized that he was telling her because she was the one who had made the trip to Nantucket with him, because she’d asked him what the whole thing meant, because he loved her, because he was sodden with emotions when he left Mallory’s bedside holding the rented guitar, because Mallory was a day or two from death and by telling Bess what had happened between them, he was keeping Mallory alive.