Saturday 6 April 2013

How she waits

Sometimes, when she hasn't slept much, she forgets what she wants. Sometimes, on those days when the White House lurches from crisis to crisis (hostage taking, a dip in the job numbers, morally suspect actions on the part of a prominent member of the Administration), she forgets what she wants. Sometimes, when the survival seems the loftiest possible goal, she forgets.

She forgets that there are two things vying for her attention, for her heart, for her oxygen, like twins in a womb: she wants to make a difference, and she wants him.

She is lucky, she tells herself some days, that these two things, in theory at least, are not mutually exclusive. She can foresee a day when those twin desires will work together, reinforce each other, strengthen each other. When she would have him - so to speak; she smiles wryly to herself - and together they would change the world. They would shape policy, together. Together, they would put great men - and great women - in office. Some days she thinks one of those great men could be him; one of those great women could be her.

It should not be inconceivable that she could one day have both of these things. She has noticed the way his eyes linger over her bare shoulders when she wears a ball gown at state dinners. She has felt the air crackle with something akin to electricity and yet not exactly like it. But she does not know how they would get there from here. If she were writing a novel, and the novel were her life, it would be in two parts, and part II would begin "Five years later..." Or perhaps not even five. Perhaps two would be enough. Or one. Six months. But she does not know what comes between the parts.

She could see it as an adventure of course, a romantic thriller that keeps you turning pages because you know, roughly, what is going to happen, you just don't know how. Except there is no blueprint for this. Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing, in fact, could be less certain.It seems to her most days that these two desires of hers which should be profoundly compatible are in fact mutually exclusive. She has to choose, and she settles for changing the world; she settles for proximity, not intimacy.

She suspects, though she tries to quash the thought, that one day she will have to let go of one desire in order, perhaps, to see them both come to pass. In order, certainly, to not let them destroy her.She knows - tries at least to convince herself she knows - that there will be a Part II in this novel, and perhaps that is what will happen between the chapters.

Sometimes she lies awake - in itself ludicrous when there are only five or six available hours of sleep - thinking about him. Worrying about him. Loving him. Mentally composing her letter of resignation - not the official one, but the one that she will give him, the one which will explain everything, the one that will stop just short of saying I love you, Josh, marry me. And other times she tosses and turns and thinks about running for office. She thinks about co-sponsoring bills. She thinks about mitigating scandals. She thinks about job approval ratings and rousing speeches and those job figures. She prays to a God she is not sure she has ever believed in for the families of hostages.

But usually, usually this: during the day she wants to make a difference, at at night she wants him. Sometimes, in this way, she manages to forget that there are these two things, these two profoundly compatible and yet deeply incompatible things, and forgetting is how she survives it. How she is not torn apart.

How she waits for the space between chapters.