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

tell anyone, though, out of respect for the family and all that. People just want to feel like justice has been served even if only on the surface. They got a face for the crime? Makes ’em feel safer even if it isn’t true—but that’s what my parents say, anyway.”

Bunny looks at the snow collecting on the toes of her boots. “Yeah, that makes sense.” She looks out into the woods toward Billy’s house twinkling in the distance, too afraid to ask more.

Another awkward moment passes between them.

“Come on, let’s get outta here,” Marty says, “or we’re going to get buried in the snow.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Cate walks along the East Colonnade of the White House gazing out at the decorative Christmas trees, which have been spray-painted a menacing red, as if she’s entering the gates of hell. The annual Christmas party is filled with members of Congress, foreign dignitaries, business leaders including Jeff Bezos, and country music stars just out of rehab. There are flying midgets (they prefer the term midget because the president said so) swinging from trapeze lines in the East Room delivering bags of sugar cookies embossed with the gold presidential seal to guests. The midgets were flown in from Las Vegas’s MGM Grand Hotel.

Cate wanders along the red felt carpet in a black-and-white Rent the Runway gown and her late great-aunt’s pearls, feeling antsy about Doug, when her work cell rings.

“Senator Wallace’s office.”

“Hi, Cate?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Anne from the Washington Post. We spoke—”

“Yes, I remember,” Cate says, turning her body away from clusters of cabinet members’ wives and families, little boys in suspenders and girls with silk ribbons in their hair.

“Right, well, I’m just calling to let you know that our piece will be going live in a few days, and I wanted to give you one more opportunity to come forward with any sensitive information you might have about the senator’s history of any sexual misconduct.”

“Glad you got your corroborating evidence,” Cate says, a smirk across her face as she gazes out the window at Doug on the White House’s South Lawn walking an alpaca with bells around its neck. Haley and Mackenzie stroll next to him in their coordinating holiday dresses.

“I did,” Anne replies. “It’s not pretty, Cate.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Cate says. “He’s clean, what can I tell you?”

Doug hands Mackenzie the alpaca leash, then pulls on his crotch. Cate squints her eyes.

“You have until ten o’clock tonight to call me back,” Anne says.

“Merry Christmas, Anne.” Cate hangs up, then calls Doug as she spies on him and his daughters behind one of the red Christmas trees. She sees him look at his phone and then press Ignore as she hears it go to his voice mail. Before Cate can call him back, she sees Betsy approach him on the lawn wearing one of her signature red capes. Holding a flute glass of champagne, she goes in to cheers him, puckering her lips as Doug leans in for a kiss. Cate drops her phone. A woman who seems about seven feet tall, in a sequined dress with feathers poking out of it à la vaudeville, reaches down and hands Cate her cell phone.

“Thank you,” Cate says.

“Sure thing, honey.”

The sound of a helicopter startles guests before they realize that Marine One, the president’s helicopter, is descending from the sky preparing for a surprise landing.

“Haley, Mackenzie, look!” Doug shouts. The alpaca leaps from the deafening chopping sound, the rope yanked from Mackenzie’s hand as the furry animal hops across the lawn in sheer panic. Two other alpacas run wild as well, having escaped the grips of bratty children.

“Come back!” Mackenzie screams above Marine One’s engine, clutching her wig as she runs after it. Her heels catch in the wet grass.

Betsy sips her champagne, still as a posturing peacock. She points to a secret service agent and mouths, Could you handle that? Thanks, shooing him off to chase the alpaca.

“Haley, come on!” Doug motions for her to catch up to him as he jogs toward the helicopter like a kid at LEGOLAND, other scattered guests fleeing for a good view.

Haley slumps over in boredom, moans, “Dad, I already saw this. It landed on our soccer field last week, remember? I told youuuu.”

“Is that true?” Doug asks.

“We watched it land during PE.” Haley rolls her eyes, cradling a special kind of apathy for an eleven-year-old.

From inside the Blue Room, Cate texts the senator: I saw you ignore my call, meet me in the Blue Room. She’s standing in front of President Bill Clinton’s portrait. The Marine Corps band plays swing-style Christmas music.

Doug enters, flustered, stressed. “Jesus, Cate, my family is here.”

“That didn’t stop you at a funeral. You assume I called you in here to fuck like Marilyn Monroe, but seeing as we’re not fucking anymore, I thought I’d just relay the news that the allegations will be going live in the coming days.”

“Okay, whoa, easy, easy,” Doug whispers, looking around the room. “First, I thought we settled this—”

“Well, the reporter called me again, very, very sure this time that I had information about your office—your history of sexual misconduct. She was giving me a second chance to give her something.”

Doug feels Cate’s tone shifting from team player to threatening. His shame is so deep inside of him his cheeks don’t even flush anymore. “Everything that’s happened between the two of us has been consensual. I don’t understand… what are you doing?”

A man dressed as a golden nutcracker walks by and offers them champagne. Doug waves him away.

“Oh, I know, Doug. But rumor is that you’ve been, and I quote, ‘sticking your dick around town,’ and not just in me—”

“Okay, Jesus, keep your voice down,” he says, practically begging.

“You are my boss, and a friend of my uncle’s, and, well, this isn’t gonna look so good.”

“I’m listening, I’m listening,” he says. His eyes dart left, then right.

“I think everyone around here has always been