p.m., I got a room at a motel up the road from campus—a place called the Mustang Inn. An orange horseshoe-shaped sign marked it from the road, and it had a reputation, which is how I knew it would be the one place I could afford to stay. I kicked off my sneakers and stretched out on the bed, had a cigarette and mulled some things over. I was back, finally, but I was an outsider now. In my absence this place had kept moving, and if I wanted my membership back I was going to have to fight my way back in.
Next morning, I cleaned up as best as I could under the lukewarm shower and took the Metro down to Capitol Hill, carrying my messenger bag full of résumés. All morning I talked to front-desk people and managers, and all morning I fought frustration that my game seemed off somehow. Before, it had been easy to talk my way into meeting with people much higher up the food chain than these. Lunchtime rolled around, and I ducked into a fast-food place to take a leak. While I washed my hands I stole glances at myself in the mirror, trying to figure out the problem. I was all ready to blame the usual things—lack of a tan, small-town haircut—when I realized what it was: I looked desperate. They could see it in my body language and in my eyes, hear it in my voice. Realizing that, I felt disgusted. How many times had I snickered at people like that myself—men talking to the candidate, trying to sound cocksure but coming off hopeful and needy; women who sidled up acting flirtatious but showing the wrong kind of hunger in their eyes. I couldn’t stand thinking that had been me all morning.
I bought a cup of coffee and was about to walk back out when I saw a group of people heading into the deli across the street. There were five of them: a guy from my old street hockey group, a campaign volunteer named Kelly I’d hooked up with after I drove her home from the office one night, a guy and girl I didn’t know, and Drew Fielder. It was the deli where we normally got lunch most days, all of us on Bylina’s staff. I watched them all walk in and gradually sit down at a big table by the window, leaving two of the guys up front to order. Fielder sat down with the girls, who were laughing and chatting together about who knows what. The hollow feeling I’d fended off the night before came back full-bore. The old-Cade part of me itched to walk across the street and say hello—schmooze and network, ask about job openings, establish connections. But I couldn’t do it. I’d just seen what I looked like right then, and I didn’t want them to see it, too, Fielder especially. He’d give me shit about where’d my tan go, was that cow barn he smelled, how was the little woman these days and had I heard how Stan was doing lately.
My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten since the drive down and knew I had to be hungry, but I didn’t feel like eating, and anyway I barely had enough cash to get a cheeseburger. So I just watched them through the window for a couple minutes, then slid out the door and hurried back up the street to the offices I hadn’t hit yet. I tried to psych myself up to project confidence, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. And after another hour of that I got back in my car and headed back toward 295 North. God knows I didn’t want to go back to New Hampshire, but it was obvious enough I didn’t have a life in D.C. anymore. Everyone I knew had moved on, and here I’d vanished from their minds without a trace, as if I’d never even mattered to begin with.
* * *
It wasn’t any mystery how I’d gotten to this point, and it didn’t all have to do with Elias. Even after Jill and I moved in with my folks, even after TJ was born, I was completely bound and determined to come back to school the next year. And then TJ got the first ear infection. And the second. And the third. Every time it happened we had to throw another wheelbarrow full of money onto it, as if it wasn’t bad enough already that