Page 19 of The Takeaway

“Are you sure?” he asked, putting a hand in the pocket of his pants as he put the other to his cheek. “I can put all of this aside for a bit while we have a nice afternoon together. I don’t want to show up here and just start dumping on you—“

“Jack,” Ruby interrupted. She said nothing more, but shifted Athena in her arms and waited.

“It’s Doug Porter,” he said, rubbing his unshaven cheek with the hand he’d placed there. “Senator from Florida.”

“I know who he is,” Ruby assured him, frowning. “I had lunch with his wife, Bridget, last time they were in town.”

“Right.” Jack paced the kitchen, just like Ruby had known he would. “There was a girl.”

“Ah,” Ruby said. They’d been in D.C. long enough now for her to know that there was almost always a girl.

“They found her dead behind a hotel in Bethesda at one o’clock this morning.”

“What?” Ruby gripped the baby tighter. “What do you mean?”

“She was a college intern, and they found her body next to a dumpster,” Jack said carefully, watching his wife’s face. “She’d been there the night before for an event with Senator Porter’s team.”

Ruby chewed on her bottom lip. This was big news, and she imagined that if she turned on the television, which she rarely did, she’d see it splashed on every news station. “What’s Porter’s take on it?”

“He hasn’t been interviewed yet, but within hours there were people willing to speak anonymously about the relationship that Porter and the girl had.”

“What’s her name?” Ruby asked, then corrected herself: “What was her name? She deserves to have a name.”

“Jenny,” Jack said. “Jennifer Rodriguez.”

Ruby nodded grimly. “This is going to be big.”

“Absolutely. The minute I heard about it I decided to come out here.” Jack looked apologetic. “I need you, Ruby,” he said, putting his other hand into his pocket and looking at her ruefully. “I need you and Athena back at home—I miss you both terribly.”

Ruby took this at face value, but also understood that Jack needed her for myriad other reasons. Being a senator in D.C. in the middle of a scandal like this meant that eyebrows would raise if word got out that his wife had fled to the opposite coast with their newborn daughter. Every interaction Jack had with his own assistants and interns would be looked at skeptically. People would talk. And maybe most importantly, the stress of the situation meant that he simply wanted to come home at the end of the day, take off his shoes, talk to Ruby, and hold the baby. And she couldn’t blame him for that.

“I’m going to see a therapist,” she said without preamble. “Dr. Angelo wants me to do talk therapy.”

Jack took this in. “That’s fine,” he said. “Of course that’s fine.”

“And I’d like to be more active with some projects, like literacy initiatives,” Ruby said, rocking back and forth gently tosoothe Athena, who had started to make noise. “I want to hire a nanny a few mornings a week so that I can be more involved.”

“I understand,” Jack said, giving her a single nod. “Of course.”

Having all of her requests out there on the table and having Jack agree to them so easily took a little of the edge off of her nerves. She leaned her head forward and kissed Athena’s velvety head. “I want your record to be unimpeachable,” she said softly, looking right at her husband. “If we’re ever going to make a run for the White House, then we need a history of doing good works—both of us. And, of course, Iwantto be more involved. And I’m passionate about children’s literacy, so that’s a natural fit.”

“Definitely,” Jack agreed readily. He looked right at his wife, holding her eyes with his as he silently asked the question.

“Yes,” Ruby answered, as if she could read his mind. “I’m on board. Everything we do from this point forward we do as a team. We aim for the Oval Office. I want us to make a difference—together.”

Jack’s face collapsed with relief and he crossed the kitchen in three long strides, enveloping Ruby and Athena with his arms. “I love you, Ruby,” he said into her ear. “I love you so much, and I never want you to leave again.”

Ruby hugged him back, her eyes focused on a spot over his shoulder as she tried not to squish Athena between them. She was doing it: she was making a conscious decision to feel a certain way, and she was putting her life back on its rightful course. This would happen—all of it. And she’d make sure of it.

Dexter

The Jennifer Rodriguez situation had been big news in D.C. The fact that it all happened when Dexter was still a teenager hadn’t stopped him from hearing snippets of it on the evening news. He remembers now feeling horrified that a girl barely older than him could have been strangled and left in a cold, dirty alley behind a hotel. A girl who had been going to college, reaching for her dreams, and trying to make something of herself. Who knew if she’d mistakenly fallen under the spell of an older, powerful politician? Who could imagine what it might feel like to be a girl from Miami, trying to elevate herself and be the first in her family to do something big? And to possibly have a man in his forties whispering in her ear seductively about the things she could do…the things she could have…if only she acquiesced and made herself available to his advice. His suggestions. His hands.

This image makes Dexter angry, and he starts to type faster. He’s sitting inside The Scuttlebutt that morning, typing up some thoughts after another late night with Ruby. As promised, they’d kept the journals out of bed, but doing so meant that they’d sit around on the couch together until one or two in the morning sometimes, dissecting and parsing Jack’s words for meaning.

The night before, after Ruby’s admission on the beach that she’d taken Athena to Santa Barbara, made the intentional decision to feel a certain way about Jack and her marriage, and then gone back to D.C. with details of Jennifer Rodriguez’s death playing on a loop on every twenty-four-hour news station in the world, Dexter had stayed up late and typed up some of his notions about the way Ruby had affected Jack’s political career. Realizing that she’d put her own feelings and needs aside in order to help him stay the course more than a decade before he’d gotten elected to the Oval Office had been an important piece of the puzzle. Dexter is well aware that most successful politicians don’t make it to the top without a lot of people doing spin control, public relations, and giving solid advice, but a vast majority of them truly don’t make it without a strong, unwavering spouse. And Jack had certainly had that in Ruby.

“More coffee, Ace?” Molly asks, walking by with a pot and nodding at the mug on the table.

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