Except I’m no better, right? Part of me is still trying to atone for lying broken on a mountainside and silently wishing Brad would die and be out of pain, while hating myself for the thought, and hating that I couldn’t do anything to help him.
At least, for a while, I had Jordan. He balanced me, gave me the strength I needed to give myself to Elliot.
I think about the plane ticket I’ve purchased.
I think about a lot of things.
I lean in and kiss Elliot, who now wears that sweetly glazed look in his eyes I know is subspace. I get us both washed and dried and don’t bother unpacking anything tonight. All I do is set alarms on our phones and put them on their chargers and then crawl into bed with him after locking the bedroom door. It’s doubtful any of his detail would enter the house without notice but it makes Elliot feel safer.
He’s already deeply asleep a few minutes later.
Lying there with him in my arms, I realize how helpless I feel.
Helpless tofixElliot, and helpless to heal Jordan.
Worst of all, I feel helpless to do anything about any of it. I think I hate myself most of all for that.
Because maybe if I’d done something—anything—different at any point in our past, maybe none of us would be where we are now.
The problem is, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Then
We don’t have time to savor Shae and Elliot’s election victory because the transition is even crazier than the campaign. It’s like trying to jump on a treadmill spinning at five hundred miles an hour, in the dark, while you’re drunk off your ass and suffering from a wicked case of vertigo.
While a lot of decisions were made on a contingency basis before the election—such as potential staffing for certain posts—plenty of decisions couldn’t be finalized until the actual election results were in.
Since I’m still employed by the campaign, I find myself running everywhere at once, doing whatever tasks Kev or Shae or Elliot require me to handle for them. Shae and Elliot both need to wrap up their respective tenures in the Senate and House. Other than Kev and Chris, I’m the only person they can fully trust with every part of their lives, personal and professional, without reservation.
Add to all this that Shae and Elliot now get NatSec briefings early every morning. Not as detailed as the PDB President Fullmer receives, but they’re far more detailed than the ones they received during the campaign once they were the official nominees.
If all that weren’t enough, one of the items that must be dealt with is the crazy choreography for move-in day, which also means hiring someone to coordinate that and to handle decorating the residence, East Wing, West Wing, and Elliot’s residence.
It doesn’t mean completely redecorating the entirety of those spaces. It’s customary for the First Family, POTUS, and FLOTUS, or in this case, FSOTUS—the First Spouse—to personalize certain rooms and common areas. Among them, the Oval Office, the president’s personal study, the First Spouse’s office in the East Wing, the master bedroom, and the adjacent living room.
Chris handles that staffing decision. By the Monday after the election, after input from Kev, he’s hired Jordan Walsh, a design grad student from FSU in Tallahassee who’s working on his master’s degree. The campaign will pay him and put him up in a hotel during his stay in DC, which will last at least through Inauguration Day in January, and possibly a couple of weeks after that.
That part’s still up in the air, because it depends on what’s left to finish after Inauguration Day.
Jordan’s twenty-two and the online portfolio Chris and Kev show me blows me away. Jordan is a talented artist and has a flair for making an impression in a subtle, low-key kind of way. He makes use of the space and light and works with it to enhance it, not to simply go in and make a loud statement. Some designers have a specific style that takes over regardless of what they’re doing, like it’s an extension of their ego. Jordan’s design choices are impactful because of the delicate subtlety he uses to work with the space.
After I go home for the night, I find myself paging through his portfolio with my laptop. Even his pencil drawings and other artwork are breathtaking, before you begin discussing his interior design work. I’m shocked he’s only a grad student and not working for a design firm already. Apparently, he’s interned with a firm but a guy this talented should already be working.
Jordan will fly into DC late Thursday. I’m scheduled to meet with him on Friday morning. Normally, the transition team isn’t allowed inside the White House before Inauguration Day, not even to look around.
Fortunately, Chris and I have enough contacts there, and the timing works out perfectly, that we can finagle Jordan a quick site visit while all the residents are out of town so he can walk it in person. I haven’t met Jordan yet but while Chris made the initial calls to nail down the short-list of candidates, Kev met with Jordan in person and interviewed him. Chris, Shae, and Elliot have spoken with him on the phone. Kev’s already sent the guy a buttload of information to get him started. All reports are that Jordan seems very nice and is eager to work with us.
I tamp down my simmering resentment that it’s notmehandling the decisions for decorating what will be Elliot’s residence, because it’s not me living there with him.
Except I’m so busy, it’s not like I’d have the time to do it, anyway.
One thing Elliot’s already decided—not to utilize the four third-floor attic bedrooms. They’re to be used for storage, not outfitted as guest rooms, meaning they can save a little money by not needing to heat those rooms in the winter. He’ll have one designated guest room on the second floor. He’ll use the master suite, of course, but the other two rooms on that floor will be outfitted as his home office and a workout room.
Also meaning he’s got a prime excuse not to have many overnight guests. Shae’s already told him he can utilize Blair House for that.
We’re all busy. I barely have time to so much as catch a quick dinner at the campaign headquarters with Elliot on occasion. Which literally is the only time we have alone together right now. Because the campaign headquarters are the only place we can strictly control press and public access and not worry about unwanted candid photos. Plus, it makes sense we’d both be there at the same time, and working in close proximity to each other.
