The Best-Kept Secret

SOMETHING SMELLED good enough to get out of bed for.

“I smell morning,” Casey whispered from the other side of the bed. Sometime during the night, he’d padded into her bedroom complaining of a bad dream that only a dog or a little brother could protect him from.

Eyes still shut, Rosie rolled over and drank in the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. It was Friday. One more day until the weekend. An easy day. Casey was still on holiday from kindergarten.

No! She sat up and her head spun. It was the Friday, the day of her audience with Vivian McCloud. Rosie scrambled out of bed full of regret over agreeing to go in the first place. She was meeting Walter for breakfast at nine before their appointment at the Pyramid Center at eleven.

“Wake up, Case! We can’t be late today.”

Rosie dreaded what she had to do, but what choice did she have? To turn down Vivian McCloud outright was political suicide. So Rosie had done her homework. She had all the ammunition she needed to sink Hudson’s political aspirations. Walter would find someone more suitable for the race and the tension that had been sitting in Rosie’s stomach since Walter’s call would disappear.

The next hour was a blur of activity in between gulps of hazelnut-flavored coffee and making sure Casey ate all his cereal. There was a small ceremonial moment—a lull in the morning chaos—as Rosie unwrapped a pair of new Jimmy Choo pumps. They’d been incredibly expensive but when she’d seen them at lunch on Wednesday, she knew she had to have them, so she’d used the money her parents sent her for Christmas. This morning they felt like success as she slipped them on her feet.

One last perusal in the mirror confirmed her springy curls were still half-tamed, pulled back from her face and anchored simply by a clip just below her crown, and her clothes lacked major wrinkles or stains. Rosie loved the way her midnight-blue pantsuit projected confidence with a feminine touch provided by long, slightly belled sleeves.

Less than an hour after bolting from bed, keys jingling in one hand, her briefcase, umbrella and raincoat slung over her other arm, she was ready to leave.

“Case, let’s go.”

“Mommy, I can’t go to day care today ’cause I don’t have any shoes that match.” He lifted his pants legs to show a sneaker on one foot and a sock with a hole in the toe on the other. “It’s only a short day anyway.”

Rosie slid out of her heels, dropped her briefcase to the floor, tossed her raincoat and umbrella onto a kitchen chair and made a mad dash around their crowded apartment to find a match for a blue-and-red Spider-Man tennis shoe.

“Not by the door. Not in the kitchen. Not in the bathroom.” Rosie could feel herself starting to get sweaty. Could she send Casey in sandals? Unfortunately, no. The weatherman had predicted rain.

“Here it is,” Casey singsonged. “It was under the couch cushion.”

“What was it doing in there?” Rosie asked, setting a record for speedy shoe tying. She stuffed her feet back into her shoes, grabbed her briefcase and Casey’s hand, and then they were out the door.

Rosie tugged Casey along as fast as she could, down the stairs past Chin-Chin’s Pizzeria and Noodle House, spicy scents already wafting in the air, and along the familiar two-block walk to Rainbow Day Care. The wind swirled about them on the sidewalk and a glance up revealed heavy, gray clouds.

Predictably, the faster she tried to walk, the slower Casey became. “Mommy, can I have hot chocolate?”

Rosie glanced at her watch. “No.” At this rate, she’d miss the bus.

“I’m hungry. Can we stop at McDonald’s?”

“No, honey. You ate breakfast already.” Rosie tried to at least appear as if she wasn’t running a race, recognizing that Casey didn’t want to be hustled off.

“Mommy, you forgot your coat and umbrella,” Casey scolded her when they arrived at Rainbow Day Care. “Take mine.” Casey dug his Spider-Man umbrella out of his cluttered cubby.

“I’m sure I won’t need it.” Rosie dismissed the dark clouds outside. The city had only been getting intermittent showers as they blew over toward the peninsula. Besides, anything with Spider-Man was precious to her son. What if the wind blew it away?

“It’s going to get very messy later, Ms. DeWitt.” Ms. Phan leaned out the office window. “What is it we always say, Casey?”

“Be prepared and take care of your neighbor!” Casey punched the neon bright umbrella toward the ceiling, eliciting a smile from Rosie.

Ms. Phan nodded with approval, and then gave Rosie a significant look. The day-care principal always managed to make Rosie feel like the worst mother on the planet.

“Thank you for your kind offer, sir,” Rosie said as she took the umbrella, wondering if there was another day care in the neighborhood that offered after school services without persecution of its parents. This was just the impression Rosie wanted to make on Vivian McCloud when she rejected her son—a political strategist who liked Jimmy Choos…and Spider-Man.

“DON’T LET HUD BAIT YOU.” The door to the Pyramid Center swung closed after Walter, almost hitting Rosie in the face. “He’ll try to test your knowledge of the issues. This is an excellent training ground for the presidential campaign.”

“Not a problem.” Presidential campaign. Rosie latched on to the idea like a lifeline. She was about to meet one of her idols—the woman who’d shaken hands with at least six presidents, a dozen heads of state and probably a Supreme Court justice or two.

The woman who could make her life unimaginably miserable if things didn’t go Rosie’s way.

Rosie spotted the Starbucks in the lobby immediately and clenched the strap of her briefcase against the urge to grab a cup. One of her curls escaped and fell onto her cheek.

“You’ll have to pass muster with his father’s campaign manager,” Walter continued, passing a hand over his bald head. “Stu Fenderson serves as Viv’s assistant now.”

She hadn’t admitted to Walter that she didn’t want the job. If Hudson turned out to be an ideal candidate—like that would happen—Rosie would recommend someone else work on his campaign.

“I’ve heard about Stu.” Old, crotchety, a womanizer in his day. Rosie knew how to deal with him—never waffle on an issue, speak loud enough for his hearing aid to pick up and never let him have the last word.

“But it’s most important that Viv approves of you. Make a bad impression and any chance you have at the national level will be slim to none. Everybody loves her and they’ll do anything she asks.” Walter pointed at Rosie. “Including blackball you. So, let’s not tell her you’re having lunch with another candidate.”

“She doesn’t know about Roger Bartholomew?” Rosie balked as she was about to pass a large modern sculpture in the lobby. When Walter confessed this morning that he was interested in a second candidate, Rosie’s grip on her coffee mug had turned white-knuckled. It was either that or let out a credibility-killing shout of relief. With another option, there was no way she’d get trapped into working on Hudson’s campaign.

“I don’t plan to tell Viv about Roger unless it’s absolutely necessary. That’s why I’m not going to lunch with you.”

“But—”

Walter gave Rosie an odd look over his shoulder as he handed the security guard his ID. “I trust your assessment.”

Rosie ignored the rush of excitement at the power he was giving her. “But you said Mrs. McCloud—”

“If you don’t play both sides of the coin, you’ll be empty-handed at the end of the day.” Meaning he wanted Rosie to do his dirty work so his friendship with Mrs. McCloud wouldn’t suffer.

She’d been planning to build a case against Hudson with Walter at her back, but now…

Certain she wore that deer in the headlights look, Rosie crossed the foyer and produced her ID.

They were followed into the elevator by a group of women each cradling a Starbucks cup. Trapped against the back wall, Rosie looked up at the small video screen playing news sound bites so she wouldn’t focus on the coffee. She’d had coffee this morning. She was prepared for the meeting—even if her hair was starting to unravel, Rosie would not. She didn’t need the prop of a coffee cup or the jolt of caffeine. But that didn’t stop Rosie from imagining the surprised look on the face of the woman next to her as Rosie plucked the cup from her hand.

Since Walter hadn’t given up his spot by the control buttons, he exited easily at the forty-second floor, while Rosie had to fight her way through the caffeine herd and was almost scrunched by the closing elevator doors. She trotted past several clear glass entryways, struggling on her short legs to catch up with Walter.

The doors to the McCloud offices had been replaced with paned, frosted ones so that no one in the hallway could see in. Walter marched through. Rosie’s hand hesitated on the cool, pebbled glass. Tension buzzed in her ears.

Rosie backed up a step, her fingertips almost a memory on the door. If she left, she’d lose a chance to influence the agenda of the next president of the United States. What would she tell Casey the next time he asked about what she wanted to be when she grew up? How could she encourage him not to abandon his dreams without putting forth the effort if she didn’t do the same? All she had to do was keep her mouth closed about Roger Bartholomew, not let Hudson get to her, control Stu and not even think about…

Don’t.

With a deep breath, Rosie pushed the door open and stepped into an opulent, hushed reception area decorated in muted grays and deep burgundies, coming face-to-face with a large oil portrait of Hamilton and Vivian McCloud, flanked by their two grown sons, Hudson and Samuel. The men all shared a strong cleft chin. No one smiled. It was an ominous portrait, no doubt created as a legacy marker. All the wild charm had been painted out of Samuel’s expression.

“There you are. I thought we’d lost you.” Walter stood next to an old man with a grizzled appearance, whose rumpled suit was a far cry from Walter’s fine wool one. “Rosie DeWitt, this is Stu Fenderson.”

Rosie learned a lot about a person by the way they shook hands. Stu’s hand latched on to hers like a tentacle, trapping Rosie’s until he found a weakness.