I’ve been in this job for going on two years now—is that even when there’s food I almost never get the opportunity to actually eat it.” He laughed. “Today wasn’t so bad, because the food was just things like sandwiches and vegetables and dip, but a few months ago I went to something in the Central Valley and there was all of this amazing Mexican food and I kept putting food on a plate and taking one bite and then having to shake someone’s hand or take a picture with someone else and my plate would disappear and I would get a new one and it would happen all over again. I think I gave up after my fifth plate and just made my staff go out to an enormous Mexican meal with me after we left.”
Olivia handed him a piece of baguette, covered in that good, oozy cheese.
“Here, eat this. I can’t have a senator faint from hunger in my living room. That feels like a felony of some sort.”
He looked away from her and pretended to check the bag to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. He’d briefly forgotten why they were here on her living room floor instead of on their way to the Getty, but those jokey words of hers brought everything back.
He cleared his throat.
“I . . . the reason I was upset this afternoon . . .” He put his wineglass down and rubbed his temples. “It’s kind of a long story, we don’t have to go into all of that.”
She touched his arm gently.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I don’t mind long stories.”
He looked into her eyes and could tell she meant it.
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “You know I was a prosecutor before I was in the Senate, right? Well, I had this mentor early in my career, a family friend; he was the whole reason I became a prosecutor in the first place. He was an old-school prosecutor, very hard-line, all about safety and how kids especially need to learn what they did was wrong, and I listened to him. Far too much. People talk about prosecutorial discretion; well, at first, mine went in the ‘more jail, more punishment’ direction. This isn’t a defense, but I floated through most of my life as a privileged trust fund kid, not really paying attention to politics and all of the bad things that could happen to people—sure, I volunteered some in school, but I guess I bought into that whole ‘they didn’t work hard enough’ bullshit.” He sighed. “That job made me wake up. After a few years in, and a few years of seeing the hard situations these kids lived in, and the racism they dealt with every day, and listening to advocates who somehow never gave up on me, I realized how much I didn’t want to keep being that kind of prosecutor. Hell, that I didn’t want to be that kind of person. Throwing kids behind bars could, and often did, ruin their futures and cause so much harm to their families. I was the one causing that harm. I came very close to quitting my job then.”
He looked at the floor. He still remembered how angry at himself he’d been then, how he’d realized how wrong he’d been, how much pain he’d caused.
“Why didn’t you?” Olivia asked.
He looked at her, for the first time since he’d started this story. She was giving him that look again, like she really cared about the answer. Like she really cared about him.
“My friend Wes. I called him and told him I was going to quit and why, and he yelled at me.” Max smiled to himself. “I’d never heard him like that. He told me he was glad I’d finally woken up, but what a damn waste it would be if I woke up just in time to hand over the job to another clueless trust fund baby. He said we needed good prosecutors, that those kids needed me, now more than ever.” He looked down. “Until then, I think I really believed I deserved everything I got in life. That job made me realize . . . so much. About everything. Among other things, I still can’t believe my eyes were so closed to the way racism infects every part of the criminal justice system. There were just so many little things that I just didn’t see. Or worse, ignored.” He shook his