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

reminding him about the dinner he and his wife are hosting in a few hours. Send. He puts his phone in his lap. He waits. He breathes slowly, listening again to Jeff, but not really. He’s thinking about what Betsy is going to say to him when he arrives late, sweaty and smelling like a bottle of whatever floral fragrance Cate wears. Ping. Doug flips the switch to turn his ringer off, then refreshes his e-mail. His secretary did forward him an e-mail reminder an hour and a half ago. Goddamn it. He was with Cate.

“We will now take a ten-minute meditation. During this time, we encourage you to reflect on the issues that brought you here and how you want to live your life in recovery. The timer will sound when the meditation time has come to an end.”

Men around the room make adjustments in their seats, positioning themselves for meditation: arms resting on knees, legs spread with hands resting between them, chests inhaling then exhaling. For Christ’s sake.

Washington Life Magazine

Washington Life Magazine: The Insider’s Guide to Power, Philanthropy, and Society has been the leading DC magazine covering all of the most important social events since 1991. It often categorizes events by hierarchical rank depending on the guest list. There are wealth lists, social lists, gala lists, and power lists. Owned by a billionaire who resides in Kalorama and moved to Washington with a sense of social agency, the magazine is the ultimate symbol of Washington status, aimed at shining light on and preserving current power structures. Those who enter Washington with an ambitious appetite will avidly subscribe. Though largely unknown to those outside the nation’s capital, the magazine is important because it serves as a window into the financial funnels of the most powerful in politics and media, guided by the influence of where individuals are giving their money away, shaping politicians’, philanthropists’, and socialites’ personal and professional narratives. In an article published in the Daily Beast, it is noted that the forty-fifth president of the United States has “seen” (not read) every single issue.I

I. Asawin Suebsaeng, “Trump Is Oddly Obsessed with This DC Society Magazine,” Daily Beast (website), December 4, 2019, https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-is-oddly-obsessed-with-washington-life-a-dc-society-magazine.

CHAPTER TWO

Betsy Wallace stands in their new Artisan home in McLean, Virginia, pressing her French-manicured hands around her Peruvian housekeeper’s cheeks, and plants a wet kiss—“Gracias, cariño”—leaving a stain of lip gloss across Teresa’s sweet flesh. It’s so nice that she can speak to the help in their native language. With both children attending different campuses of the same private school, Haley at the lower school and Mackenzie at the upper school of St. Peter’s Academy, her life is just exhausting. She needs the silver polished while she goes to pick up the girls from their after-school activities. Their guests will be arriving in two and a half hours: two of Doug’s biggest donors, a venture capitalist, a tech entrepreneur, a private banker, a member of the Mars family, an attorney, a political affairs strategist (with a social media intern), and their wives. But, most important, a photographer from Washington Life Magazine: The Insider’s Guide to Power, Philanthropy, and Society. Doug, Betsy, and the girls will have their photographs taken in front of their limestone fireplace. It’s the kind of ostentatious spread Betsy has campaigned hard for in order to get just the right exposure as the new-to-town couple.

It’s been years since Betsy lived in the district. She has managed to keep it quiet that she was once married to a powerful lobbyist twenty years her senior in the early 1990s who, shortly thereafter, suddenly died of “cancer.” Following two years of infidelity on his part, she finally left him. After the divorce and on his deathbed, he’d confided in Betsy that he had been having sex with men for the duration of their marriage; she’d held his head as he took his last breath. He’d died of AIDS. It was a good thing he never wanted to sleep with her. By then, Betsy had moved back to her hometown of Raleigh and met Doug at a mutual friend’s cocktail party. A handsome and powerful attorney with political ambitions, he was perfect. Now in her midforties, Betsy knows this is her second chance at climbing the Washingtonian social ladder. Perhaps, she thinks, it’s fate.

Before leaving the house, Betsy places three country club applications with gold paper clips on her Kellogg Collection desk: the Washington Club for the white Protestant, Columbia Country Club for the good (probably Irish) Catholic, and the Kenwood Country Club as a backup since they were the first to allow Jews. It might be a stretch, she thinks, given that they don’t have any real history in Washington like most of the other families, but her husband’s current position of power should help their chances.

“Ciao, cariño!” Betsy takes one last look at herself in the antique gold-leafed mirror and purses her lips. Her blond hair has so much spray in it, if she were to quickly move her head from left to right, it would hold as still as a rock.

Betsy pulls up to the lower-school curb in her blue Jag and waits for Haley, her youngest. Also: the pretty one. Across the street young professionals sip on happy-hour frozen margaritas at Cactus Cantina; teenage girls in tight buns, ballet leotards, and windbreakers gallop with their Starbucks cappuccinos from the Washington School of Ballet nearby. Betsy is focused on the mothers in front of her in their Range Rovers and Mercedes SUVs with vanity plates like TENSTAR (Tennis Star) and BLU DVL1 (Blue Devil) and 1800-GD (1-800-GOD?). A few waving to each other and blowing kisses, reminding each other of “Lunch! The benefit dinner! Yoga class!” Democrat, Democrat, Democrat. Betsy is desperately trying to find the Republican moms she can power-walk with when she spots Linda Williams walking to her parked car ahead. Linda is the wife of the famous