Page 66 of Notorious

I snort. “How did you get ‘There’s no shame in quitting’ from that?”

“Some things just ain’t what you want, no matter how much you wish they were,” Johnny says.

“Wow. Isn’t that the truth?”

“But I don’t mean to discourage you. Is there some way I can help?”

“You just focus on getting better,” I say. “That’s your only job right now. Promise me you’ll stay alive until I see you again?”

He nods. “Yeah, all right. I promise. And if you need to post something about us, you have my permission to say whatever you need to that will help your career.”

My throat grows thick. “While I’m grateful for that, I care more about helping you get better.”

“You’re already doin’ that. And thank you.” He gives me another look. “You sure divorcing me won’t help your campaign?”

I shake my head. “I have no idea, but I don’t care anymore what people think about it. And my mom’s election is still two years away. I don’t want to divorce you. Do you wanna divorce me?”

“No,” he says quietly. “I don’t.”

I’m sitting in my campaign headquarters, which is a nondescript office space in the San Fernando Valley, with Paige. She’s an energetic twenty-nine-year-old who interned for my mother and worked on several other campaigns before becoming my campaign manager. But she’s still grouchy at me for going off script with Johnny.

“Should I post something about the wedding on Ad/VICE?” I ask. “Or other social media? The hubbub’s not going away.”

“Yes, we need to talk about that.” She stares at the ceiling and seems to mutter a prayer. “The way I see it, you have several choices of how to respond—not react, respond. Let’s evaluate which one works best. First, there’s always the no-action alternative.”

“Meaning no comment?” I shift in my seat. “I kind of like the no-action alternative. It’s none of their fucking business, and I like being married to Johnny. Let’s leave it at that.”

She raises an eyebrow. “The advantage of saying nothing is that you imply it doesn’t matter. The disadvantage is that you don’t get to make the narrative go the way you want it to.”

“Okay. And I assume you want to control the narrative.”

“I always want to do that. So if we throw out the no-action alternative, the question is what kind of public statement you want to make. Are you acknowledging the marriage? Saying that you’re getting a divorce or annulment?”

“No divorce. No annulment. He and I agreed.”

“Okay, I thought we were evaluating alternatives, not rejecting them out of hand, but this is your campaign.”

“We’re evaluating alternatives for what we say. Not alternatives for what I do. I’m not leaving Johnny, so you need to give me possible statements that work in that reality.”

“Fine,” she says unconvincingly. “Then your statement should be along the lines of you’re pleased to announce your surprise wedding to John Haskell, and that you were dating a long time but decided to formalize the relationship recently.”

That makes my stomach dip in a really unpleasant way. “I don’t want to lie, either. I was required to lie about Sam for years. And I don’t like playing into the idea that a relationship isn’t legitimate if we haven’t been together a long time.”

She stares at me. “You don’t make my job easy.”

“You’re good at your job. You don’t need easy,” I say. “Can’t we just keep it simple?”

“What, like, ‘The Kurt Delmont campaign congratulates Mr. Delmont on his marriage to John Haskell last weekend. Mr. Delmont is looking forward to a long life of happiness with his new husband’?”

Her words make warmth and happiness bloom in my chest. “Yeah,” I say huskily. “That works for me.”

Paige puts her face in her hands for a few seconds, then sits up with a sharp breath. “Okay, then let’s not waste any more time.” She pulls up my official account, then pauses. “Do you have any photos of you two where you don’t look wasted?”

I roll my eyes and forward her the email from the wedding chapel.

She scrolls through the images. “Good lord, you did indulge last weekend, didn’t you?”

“No comment.”

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