reached toward the mini fridge and grabbed a second green juice, sliding it across Cleo’s desk, which, despite its organization, had too many folders and too many papers for a clear path from A to B. Thus, Cleo did not reach for the bottle when it became moored behind a stack of files.
“Come on, you need your energy. This might be the only healthy thing you eat all day.”
Gabrielle, marathon trainee, was practically lit from within. Her skin glowed, her energy was boundless, and her teeth—which had little to do with nutrition and more to do with a wonderful Dallas-based orthodontist—were as white and as straight as those of all the celebrities in the photos in her office.
“Fine,” Cleo acquiesced. “I’ll try it, but I won’t like it.”
“Welcome to Washington; that’s basically our motto.”
Gaby and her comms team had gotten out ahead of the story, true. But like it or not, that hadn’t quashed it entirely. The op-ed had over ten thousand retweets on Twitter, and Cleo was also trending, albeit not at number one, so that was a relief. It was nuts, Cleo thought, how this theoretically unimportant—and, more critically, unverified—gossip could take off so quickly. Sometimes politicians used this to their advantage. But today Cleo was playing cleanup. She did one interview: Gabrielle didn’t think that Cleo needed to give such a piece wall-to-wall coverage, and besides, she had to be on the Senate floor for votes, and she simply couldn’t devote all her time to an old high school dispute with her former best friend.
On CNN, her one interview with Wolf Blitzer, she’d come off as human, flawed (in a good way, which mattered in polling numbers), but not terribly contrite, which Cleo had thought was acceptable.
“Should we all apologize for being self-centered at seventeen?” Cleo had laughed when Wolf asked her if MaryAnne’s charges of selfishness had merit. “Because I have a fourteen-year-old, and I’m pretty sure that this comes with the territory of being a teenager.”
“Speaking of him—” Wolf didn’t have to finish his question.
“Wolf, I can say unequivocally that her lurid insinuation about my son’s father—which is our private family matter—is untrue. I don’t know who her source was, but her facts are wrong. And I don’t want to have to discuss this further.” Cleo didn’t mention that the accusation of an affair was indeed accurate. Because she didn’t want to have to waste any energy thinking about that man, that mistake, and besides, she felt confident that by batting down MaryAnne’s gossip with facts, she could bat down the rest of it too. On this, with Wolf, she proved correct.
“Also, Wolf, I should say that I’d rather not discuss my son.”
Lucas was going to be pissed that she’d mentioned him publicly, though technically this was MaryAnne’s fault—generally, he would have preferred that she ignore his existence in any capacity other than at home and/or when he needed money or food or a ride or whatever else he requested when he emerged from his room, and he certainly did not like her to mention him in interviews. But it was true: teenagers were assholes, and Cleo didn’t want to lose the chance at the presidential nomination because of that.
“Moody teenage years do have the right to be off-limits . . .” Wolf smiled.
“And no one gets out of those unscathed.” Cleo smiled.
Wolf chuckled but pressed her. “I have a grown daughter. I understand. But . . . why did your friend raise this at all, if it’s all untrue? Just a baseless smear?”
“You’d have to ask her about her intentions,” Cleo replied, and immediately she knew this was a mistake. Cleo rarely made mistakes, much less in public, much less with Wolf Blitzer. The last thing she wanted was CNN chasing down MaryAnne Newman and combing through Cleo’s childhood—or any of it. She knew some of this was inevitable with a presidential run; with her congressional campaigns—barring her first campaign against Martin Bridgewater, which had been a bit of a nail-biter—she’d easily triumphed, and any opposition research had been limited and squelched quickly, but she didn’t need to direct the cameras to MaryAnne’s doorstep.
Cleo followed up before Wolf could latch on to her slip. “What I mean, Wolf, is that of course there were petty disagreements. If memory serves, we both chased the coveted editor of the paper position and a junior-year summer internship, and we were both on the debate team. I was captain. Perhaps MaryAnne thought that she should have been instead.