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

to maintain the momentum, but it was the invitation to the private White House Christmas party that solidified the decision. Doug’s anxiety about Mackenzie’s behavior has kept him up into the night scrolling through Pornhub, in desperate need of some relief, someone other than Betsy to make him feel something other than dread, other than the rage still embedded from his mother and father.

The cold marble halls of the Russell Senate Office Building are empty and quiet on a Sunday morning except for the usual security detail. Doug walks holding his Compass Coffee cup, his head held high, hiding his spiral of internal shame. He unlocks his office door to find Cate waiting for him, sitting on his tufted leather sofa in a zip-back tweed skirt, her legs bare and locked together with goose bumps climbing her prickly thighs, her eternal sun-kissed highlights wavy down her chest, cheeks still rosy from the wind. She sniffles and straightens.

Doug closes the door behind him. A wooden sign on his shelf reads:

There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can’t remember what the second one is.

—1896, Mark Hanna, Chief Fundraiser for President McKinley

“Thanks for meeting me at the crack of dawn,” Doug says.

“What’s going on?” Cate asks, fearing she’s about to get fired. Thinking of all the people Uncle Chuck knows to help her lawyer up.

“It’s my daughter, Mackenzie… she’s becoming a liability. And the press is hounding Montgomery, we don’t need any external stress.”

“Okay,” Cate says, relieved. “Well, I’ll check in with Bunny. Was… was this why you had me come down here so early?” She looks up at him, hoping he can take a hint.

Doug rubs his eyes, exhausted. “Look, I think—I think we should just pause,” he says.

“Yeah, that’s obvious,” Cate says.

“I just… I want to make sure you’re—we’re not getting over our skis.”

“Over our skis?”

“Ahead of ourselves.”

“I know what getting over our skis means, Doug.… You want to stop seeing me.” She stands and steps away from him.

“No, no.” Doug takes a step toward her, afraid to ruffle her feathers. What have I done? “I just mean, people are looking closely at me now because of how well I’m doing.”

“We’re doing, Doug.”

Doug gives her a blank look. Cate isn’t sure if it’s disagreement or a black void in giving others credit for his rising success.

“Did you speak to the Washington Post?” Cate asks—oh, she’s going there, like pulling out a gun from the back of her skirt.

“What?” Doug shakes his head. “No. Why would I speak to the Washington Post? You released those statements.”

“I know,” she says casually.

“Why would you ask if I spoke with the Post?” Doug asks, paranoid.

“I—”

“Did they reach back out to you?” Doug steps backward into his desk, unzips his leather bomber jacket. He feels hot. The heat is on full-blast.

“I meant to tell you…”

“Meant to tell me?”

“An investigative reporter came by the office.”

“AN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER?!”

“She was asking about a man named Albert Rasmussen.”

Doug’s face goes ghost-white when he hears the name come out of Cate’s mouth, a sense of betrayal he hasn’t felt since the death of his brother.

“There’s a reporter who’s investigating accusations of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse on the Hill. She also showed me a picture of a man named Tim, but I can’t remember his last name. It doesn’t matter—”

“OH, Jesus Christ, Cate.” Doug swings his arm back as if to hold on to his desk and misses, nearly falling over. He stumbles and clears his throat, tries to stand up straight, wipes his forehead with the back of his hand.

“She said there were a few incidents with some political figures in your circle. So she came to me…”

“And? And? WHAT DID YOU TELL HER?”

“I had nothing to say to her, Doug. Everything has been one hundred percent consensual between us.”

“You told her that, you told her that we were—that you and I were—are—?” He’s starting to stutter.

“No,” Cate says calmly. “She has zero evidence or reason to suspect that we were ever together. Do you think I’m an idiot? But even if she did… it is consensual.” Cate eyes him, looking for validation, some expression of relief at knowing that she cares about him, because maybe he’ll say he cares about her too; she still wants him to want her, care for her—

But Doug—Doug isn’t thinking about her all. “Did you get her off your back? How did you get her off your back? How do you know she’s off your back?”

Increasingly annoyed by his selfishness, Cate says, “Because what evidence does she have?” Still trying to reassure him.

Doug wasn’t supposed to be like the men in that room, he thinks, he was supposed to be better than that—like the Corcorans and the Grahams!

“Nothing is going to happen. Who is she going to go to—human resources?” Cate laughs, not sure if she said that out loud for Doug or for herself.

“Does Walter know about this?” Doug asks.

“No.”

“Goddamn it, Cate.”

“Fine, I didn’t realize you wanted everyone at the office knowing,” she says.

“All right, all right. FUCK! Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Doug paces around his desk, rubs his palm over his bald head. “You have to tell him—he’s the fucking director of communications, for God’s sake.”

Cate stands in her power as best she can, which means she decides to sit, snuggle up on the couch, an air of indifference and detachment, an old-time power move she learned from Aunt Meredith. Act aloof and no one can touch you.

“When did this happen—how long have you been withholding this information?”

“I don’t know, Doug, a few weeks maybe.”

“A few WEEKS? Oh my God!”

Cate looks up at him with Bambi eyes, watches as he paces back and forth in front of his Michael Jordan bobblehead.

He begins laughing as if he’s drunk. “Well, we have a lot more to be concerned about than my daughter’s tits ending up on Wikipedia,” he says. “What about Betsy?”

“What about your wife?” Cate says.

“Will they go to her?” he asks, dropping to a