The Cave Dwellers by Christina McDowell (readict books TXT) 📕

you look like a movie star, Fox really knows how to clean you up.” He goes to touch the top of Cate’s head.

“Don’t touch my hair,” she snaps.

Walter thrusts the envelope at her. Retaliation from Cate warrants a condescending signal that he’s in charge.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“Notes for you to review,” Walter says.

“But I have them on my phone.”

A PA steps in with a wire in her ear and a walkie-talkie. “Cate, Chris is ready for you.”

“Excuse me.” Cate walks around Walter and follows the PA down the hallway lined with photographs of former on-air guests—Reagan, both Bushes, Putin; she doesn’t see a single powerful woman in any of the frames. Cate clears her throat and approaches the double sliding glass doors to the set.

Walter follows. “I’m going to watch from the set, not the green room,” he says, asserting command. She can smell Walter’s bad breath behind her.

Cate stands at the entrance behind camera operators in jeans and hoodies checking their cell phones. The set has an eerie silence, unlike Hollywood. Muted televisions mounted along the back wall for the news show can only be heard by those with earpieces. The PA hooks up Cate’s microphone, connecting her to the control room and the audio of the broadcast when it becomes live for her.

Chris Williams, boring suit, caked-on makeup, and a gray comb-over, repositions himself at his desk, completely ignoring Cate until she is directed to take her seat next to him. The makeup artist and hair stylist run to him in between takes like crazed fans.

Cate takes her seat on the stool, crosses her legs, and assumes position. A voice sounds in her ear: “We need to check your levels, can you count backward from ten for us.”

“Ten, nine, eight, seven”—a bright light beams toward her; she frowns—“six, five, four”—before adjusting her eyes and summoning a confident smile—“three, two, one.”

“Cate we’re getting a muffling sound from you, can you unbutton the top button of your shirt?” a man’s voice says from the control room, a poignant reminder that he can see her but she can’t see him.

Cate, confused and not sure she heard him correctly, looks down, hesitating. Chris Williams looks up and over at her for the first time. “Your shirt,” he says, curt and to the point, “unbutton it.”

“Oh.” Cate unbuttons the top button of her blouse as fast as she can, her hand visibly shaking.

“Atta girl.” Chris winks at her.

“And we’re back in ten seconds.…”

Chris adjusts his tie, then turns to the camera. “Joining us tonight to discuss the crisis and shakeup in the White House administration stemming from the domestic violence probe into White House Chief of Staff Tom Derby is Cate Bartholomew, press secretary for North Carolina Senator Doug Wallace, who has openly condemned the behavior and called for Derby’s immediate resignation. Cate, thanks for joining us this evening.”

“Good to be here, Chris,” she says as if she’s been doing this her entire life.

“Fill us in on what’s been happening behind the scenes.”

“Well, Chris, as you can imagine, Senator Wallace and other colleagues in the Senate are shocked, and they have launched an investigation into what exactly happened during the background check of Chief of Staff Tom Derby, as it is highly unlikely that domestic violence would have been missed by the FBI at a top security clearance level unless someone, perhaps even the president, had him cleared anyway.”

“Are you suggesting the president would hire a wife-beater, Cate?”

“Well, Chris, I wouldn’t use the term wife-beater—it’s the twenty-first century, and you’re dating yourself to the Detroit case of the 1940s where and when that term came to prominence, but I digress—”

“Well, wait a minute…” Chris desperately tries to interrupt her, but Cate doesn’t allow it.

“I am suggesting that the president overlooked it in an effort to have the circle he wanted around him. And he’s going to pay a price now.”

“What kind of price, Cate?”

“Well, for one thing, he hasn’t said a word, hasn’t acknowledged the victim, Derby’s wife, and his party is beginning to turn on him. And things are looking pretty good for Senator Wallace regarding our plans to introduce an amendment to the domestic violence bill.”

Chris Williams suddenly notices what a knockout she is. Cate crosses her legs like they’re her weapons of choice, using whatever has been handed to her to fight right back. She lifts an eyebrow, ready for another question.

Chris looks down at his notes. “That’s right, Senator Wallace plans to introduce an amendment to the Violence against Women Act regarding psychological control. Can you explain to viewers exactly what psychological control means? Are you saying men have psychological powers over women?” He looks up from his notes. “Because if so, Cate, I’d really like to try that at home, ha-ha-ha, I mean, what kind of argument is this? The feminists aren’t gonna like it, I can tell you that!”

Maniacal in her focus, Cate leans over the table. “Well, let me explain it to you, Chris, you can learn something new every day.” Chris chuckles to hide his embarrassment. “Coercive control isn’t just about low-level or high-level violence occurring in a relationship. It begins as a psychological state meant to control the partner by instilling copious amounts of fear in them. In the case of Tom Derby and his wife, the photos of her black-and-blue eye and bloody lip are all over the Internet—that is very obvious abuse, but it should never have to escalate to that level. We are interested in catching abuse before it escalates as it begins with psychological control, which can come in different forms such as threatening a partner physically, financially, or emotionally—anything that instills fear and therefore compliance. Statistically speaking, if a woman ever thinks a partner might hit her—even if she reports it was only a fleeting thought—there’s a ninety-five percent chance he will hit her in the future. So, to save countless lives of American women, Senator Wallace plans to implement this amendment in the coming weeks, and we hope