Page 111 of Never

‘I thought you’d enjoy it.’

‘I know the woman who wrote it, Tamara Levit. She’s from Chicago. She volunteered in my congressional campaign.’ Pauline conjured a memory. ‘Dark-haired girl, well dressed, very attractive, all the boys fell for her. She was good, too – we made her an organizer.’

‘And now she’s an agent with the CIA station in N’Djamena.’

‘And not easily scared. Reading between the lines, Sudanese shells were exploding all around her while she was carrying her unconscious boss over her shoulder.’

‘I could have used her in Afghanistan.’

‘I’ll call her later.’

They arrived at the Residence. She left Gus and ran up the stairs to the family floor. Gerry was in the Dining Room, eating scrambled eggs and reading theWashington Post. Pauline sat down next to him and unfolded her napkin. She asked the cook for a plain omelette.

Pippa came in. She looked sleepy, but Pauline made no comment: she had read recently that teenagers needed a lot of sleep because they were growing so fast, and they were not just lazy. Pippa was wearing an oversize flannel shirt and distressed jeans. There was no uniform at Foggy Bottom Day School, but students were expected to wear clothes that were clean and reasonably neat. Pippa was clearly on the borderline, but Pauline remembered that she, at that age, had always tried to dress in a way that would offend the teachers without quite breaking the rules.

Pippa poured Lucky Charms into a bowl and added milk. Pauline thought of suggesting that she mix in a few blueberries, for the sake of the vitamins, then decided that that, too, was better left unsaid. Pippa’s diet was not ideal, but her immune system seemed to be working perfectly anyway.

What she did say was: ‘How’s school, my darling?’

Pippa looked surly. ‘I’m not smoking weed, don’t worry.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it, but I was thinking more about the lessons.’

‘Same shit, different day.’

Pauline thought: Do I really deserve this?

She said: ‘It’s only three years until you have to start applying to colleges. Do you have any ideas about where you might go and what you might study?’

‘I don’t know if I want to go to college. I don’t really see the point.’

Pauline was taken aback but she recovered quickly. ‘Apart from learning for its own sake, I guess the point is to widen the life choices available to you. I can’t imagine what kind of job you’d get at the age of eighteen with only a high-school diploma.’

‘I might be a poet. I like poetry.’

‘You could study poetry at college.’

‘Yeah, but then they want you to have what they call a “broad general education”, which means I’d have to study, like, chemistry and geography and shit.’

‘Which poets do you like?’

‘Modern ones, who experiment. I don’t care about rhyme and metre and all that stuff.’

Pauline thought: Why am I not surprised?

She was tempted to raise the question of how Pippa would earn a living as an eighteen-year-old experimental poet, but she restrained herself yet again. The point was really too obvious to make. Let Pippa come to that realization on her own.

Pauline’s omelette arrived, giving her an excuse to end the conversation, and she picked up her fork with relief. Soon afterwards Pippa finished her cereal, grabbed her bag, said: ‘Later,’ and disappeared.

Pauline waited for Gerry to say something about Pippa’s mood but he remained silent, turning to the business section. There had been a time when he and Pauline would have commiserated with one another, but that had not happened much lately.

They had always talked about having two children. Gerry had been keen. But after Pippa arrived he became less enthusiastic about a second child. Pauline was a congresswoman by then, and Gerry had seemed to resent his share of the childcare. Nevertheless, they had tried, even though Pauline was by then in her late thirties. She had become pregnant again but miscarried, and after that Gerry did not want to try again. He had said he was worried about Pauline’s health, but she wondered if the real reason was that he did not want any more arguments about who was going to take the baby to the doctor. She had felt this decision like a body blow, but she had not fought him: it was a mistake to have a child that one parent did not want.

She noticed that he was wearing suspenders and a dress shirt, and she asked him: ‘What’s on your calendar today?’

‘A board meeting. Nothing too taxing. You?’

‘I have to make sure war doesn’t break out in North Africa. Nothing too taxing.’