“Are you done?” I ask Mr. Finch, who says nothing, now embarrassed by his own outburst because he made the speaker speak louder than his inside voice. “I have a point of order before we continue,” I say.
“Go ahead,” the speaker says.
“I’d like Mr. Finch’s words to be taken down,” I say, turning my body to him and remembering to keep my voice calm and even but strong and effective. It’s always a balance for a woman in power. “You don’t have to like me, Mr. Finch, but I do expect a semblance of respect while we are both here representing the people of the United States.”
Mr. Finch glares at me, saying nothing. After a moment, he looks down at his lap. “It’s not necessary. I move to strike my words from the record.”
“And I’d like an apology,” I say, which is not in the congressional rule book, and I might be pushing my luck with our very orderly speaker, but I kind of just want to see if Finch will do it. I look to Marisol, Congresswoman Reyes, and she’s suppressing a smile. At 34, Marisol is the only other person on the committee born after the invention of the internet. And my congressional bestie. She gives me an emphatic fist pump which earns the eye rolls of several of our colleagues.
“Excuse me?” he says.
“Excuse me?” I say. “Excuse you. Do you understand where we are? We are in a hearing for systemic sexual harassment in the very government we serve, and you are here openly harassing one of your female colleagues.” I look around the room to make sure people are still with me; everyone is leaning forward in their seats to see what happens next, even Mr. Donaldson, so I think I’m good. “By interrupting my time, you showed that you have no respect for me, no respect for these proceedings, and no respect for the women of this country. I am asking for an apology before we move on.”
Finch looks to the speaker, but he does nothing. He waits another moment, like maybe I’ll take it back and run away like a scared little girl. That’s what men in these situations are hoping for, right? That us girls remember our place and choose to flee positions with agency and return to our rightful place in the home. If they make a powerful position uncomfortable for us, it’ll be our choice to leave it and they can skirt allblame. Not today. Not on my watch. “An apology,” I say again.
Finch audibly sighs into the microphone. “I apologize.”
“Good,” I say. I turn my attention back to the hearing. “Now, Mr. Donaldson—”
“That was great today,” Kate, my campaign manager, says as she escorts me out of the Capitol. “The team’s already working on splicing up the clips from the proceedings into a campaign ad. We aren’t worried about the female vote, obviously, but this will get the granola men who are passionate about virtue-signaling their support of women’s rights.”
“An important subset of my district,” I say, with zero irony. I represent one of the bougiest quadrants of Los Angeles: West Hollywood, Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silver Lake—I have to court the Sweetgreen vote. “We’re all set for the event tomorrow?” I ask. We’re only a few weeks out from the election, and despite the fact that the media is obsessed with me, I’m not as comfortably ahead in the polls as I’d like to be.
Kate nods. “Get ready to kiss some babies. We’re slightly behind on the stage mom vote.” Kate cracks a smile. This time she is joking.
We get into a car right outside the Capitol and go directly to a small, private airport in Virginia. I used to fly commercial back and forth from DC to Los Angeles, but the security risk became too great. My private security detail says I get at least one credibledeath threat a day. It used to terrify me, but now I find being constantly surrounded by people whose sole job is to keep me safe comforting. We board the jet, which technically belongs to Congressman Jennings, whose family owns half of LA and lets me hitch rides back and forth with him. He’s staying behind in DC this break, though, so my team and I get the plane to ourselves.
I change into my sweats once we’re onboard and curl up in one of the lush chairs, reading through the latest campaign data. We’re almost ready to land at Burbank Airport when I see one of my advisors, Mark, whisper something to Kate that makes concern splash across her face. It’s brief, because Kate has a great poker face, but it’s enough that my stomach drops. Kate makes her way over to me and sits down next to me. “Izzy,” she says. “Levi wants to meet with you when we land.”
My heart clenches and for a second I wonder if I’ll die from acute stress at 33. “What?” is all I can say. I haven’t seen Levi in months. Not in person anyway. Why did he go through my campaign instead of reaching out to me directly?
“He wants to meet you at your office,” Kate says. “Tonight.”
“Tonight?” I look out the window. It’s completely pitch black except for a few bundles of lights from the LA outskirts. It was well after 7 p.m. when we left DC and it’s a long flight. I was looking forward to going right to bed when I got home, not meeting Levi.
“Are you ok with this?” Kate asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, of course.”
We pull up to my district office 45 minutes later. The one advantage of the late hour is there’s no traffic, unusual for this part of Los Angeles. Other than a few drunk people wandering into the dive bar on the bottom floor of the building, the block is quiet.
There are still a few campaign staffers working in the office when we make it up the janky elevator. It’s an old industrial building in East Hollywood, a conscious parallel to the superstar status I’ve acquired since I beat out my incumbent in the primary. He was gracious when I won two years ago. He said he’d done all he could do, and it was time for someone younger with more energy to take the reins.
Kate whispers to the staffers and they clear out, so the office is completely empty. “Do you want me to stay?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I’m good, but thank you.” She smiles quickly then bows out. I check my face in my phone camera. My makeup from this morning has mostly rubbed off, but I don’t look too exhausted. I dot a little concealer under my eyes and run the mascara wand through my eyelashes. Richard, my head of security, catches me fixing my hair and applying a new layer of lip gloss.“Don’t judge me, Richard,”is what I want to say, but that’s not really our dynamic. He nods in my direction then posts himself outside the door, leaving the office for me and soon, Levi. My heart races at the thought of seeing him.
The elevator dings and through the frosted glass I see two heads bob out. One stays outside with Richard while the other reaches for the door. When he swings it open, the unmistakable smell of Tom Ford and two extra-dry martinis wafts through with him.
It takes every bit of energy left in my cells after this extremely long day to not get immediately turned on by the sight of him. He’s more polished than before, sharp in custom Armani and shiny shoes that click across the cement floors. When his ocean-blue eyes meet mine, I shiver. Even after everything, his energy alone makes a river of want swell in my gut. “Hi,” I say.
Levi nods, forcing out a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Hi.”
He walks over to me, and I take a step back instinctively. I haven’t talked to him like this, on a personal level, in months. There’s so much I want to say but so much I know I shouldn’t say, it’s hard to know where to begin. “I don’t know where to start,” I say.
Levi looks at me, surprised. “Pardon?” he asks. Genuinely confused.
“I mean, I feel like there’s so much we have to say to each other,” I say.
