The Cave Dwellers, Christina McDowell [ap literature book list .TXT] 📗

wearing a black Chanel sweater set and those dangly green ball earrings as she repeats, over… and over… and over, “Je voudrais un croissant, s’il vous plaît.” Betsy notices the location tag at the top of the photograph: Alliance Française, Kalorama, Washington, DC. Posted one week ago.

Betsy clicks open a separate tab, googles “Alliance Française,” and dials the number.

“Bonjour. Alliance Française, how may I help you today?” The voice pierces Betsy’s eardrums as if awakening her from a trance or emotional coma. Betsy clears her throat, covering the telephone speaker for a moment. “Yes, hello, this is Betsy Wallace calling. I’d like to take one of your classes—my husband, Senator Wallace of North Carolina, and I will be traveling to France again this summer, so I wanted to brush up.”

“Yes, of course, Mrs. Wallace, we would be delighted to have you join us.”

Betsy looks down at Linda’s hashtags to make sure she gives the right class, date, and time. “I’d like to join the Tuesday and Thursday evening class, please.”

“Not a problem, Mrs. Wallace. I’ll just need you to fill out a few forms with your credit card information and scan them back to us. Do you have an e-mail address I could send those to?”

“Oh actually, you know what, I’m going to be in the area this evening to pick up my girls—how about I just stop by and fill everything out there, easy-peasy.”

“Well, if it’s not an inconvenience for you, that’d be just fine.”

“Not at all, see you soon. Au revoir!” Betsy leans back against her newly bought Chippendale chair. If she can lock down Linda Williams to nominate her for the Washington Country Club, the family will be a shoo-in.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Russell Senate Office Building is filled with an unconscious bureaucracy of young staffers constipated on corporate chains and bad fashion: Chop’t! Cava! Potbelly! Oversize suits and Mother’s pearls, white tights and black patent leather shoes (YIKES). Most likely hired through a friend of a parent who’s a donor or does law work for a super PAC, they’re only there for the year before applying and getting into Georgetown or Harvard Law—their life: a factory of privilege. Their parents: churning out little replicas of who they used to be and who they have become.

But not Cate. Cate might be a Bartholomew, but her father is the bastard who left her, her mother, and her baby sister high and dry. A deadbeat alcoholic in prison for aggravated assault and tampering with the odometers of used cars. Cate was fourteen when he left. Her uncle Chuck stepped in to cover tuition costs and helped Cate secure her position on the Hill, a staunch donor to the Republican Party. No one speaks about her father; he’s been shut out of the family inheritance, left to rot in a desert state prison in central California.

Cate stomps around an intern, heels clopping along the concrete tunnel connecting all the Senate and House office buildings, where staffers travel like they’re in some kind of ant farm, the Capitol at its center. For security, they do not walk between the offices in the light of day, outside, with other people.

“Good morning.” Cate smiles, passing a security guard at a clearance checkpoint. She flashes the ID that’s dangling around her neck.

“Good morning, Ms. Bartholomew, ready for the day?”

“Putting on my rubber gloves for this one.” She winks. Her sass, she believes, is her asset. In a village so jammed with decorum, most don’t know who they are anymore.

Cate makes her way up the marble staircase, her Ann Taylor dress restricting her strides, forcing smaller steps. She passes the office intern, twenty, already has his master’s, about to sip from the water fountain.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Cate says. The intern lifts his head, gives her a quizzical look. “There’s lead in that water.”

Cate enters the senator’s office: vintage brown Kensington Chesterfield tufted sofa, the Washington Post resting, unopened, on the coffee table. Headlines read:

MASS SHOOTING AT MIDLANDS MUSIC FESTIVAL

WHITE HOUSE CAUGHT IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PROBE

Wealthy Washington family held hostage before slain and burned in DC Mansion

Cate stands holding a paper plate with a blueberry muffin while she waits for the coffee to finish brewing. As she picks up her muffin and takes a small bite, Walter Stevens, the senator’s top aide and lifelong friend, early fifties, fat, wearing a navy suit, swoops around her.

“Did you color your hair?” Walter asks, grabbing the muffin out of Cate’s hand.

“Um, no,” Cate replies, watching Walter take a bite, crumbs falling down his tie and onto the floor.

“Huh, looks more blond,” Walter says with his mouth full, then drops the muffin back on Cate’s plate and wipes his hands on the side of his pants. He pulls out his ringing cell phone and answers.

Cate stares at the enormous bite taken out of her muffin. Her face melts into repulsion before she turns and throws it into the trash can.

“Fox News wants a statement about the administration’s domestic violence case,” Walter says to Cate just as Doug walks through the office door. Cate side-eyes the senator, flipping her blond locks to the side as she listens to Walter give her direction, taking notes with her cell phone, knowing Doug will absolutely look at her, see her hand running through those sun-kissed strands as she serves this great nation and God will it turn him on.

Doug gives an extra formal “Good morning,” nods to his staff, trying not to acknowledge Cate out of utter fear someone will notice the undeniable chemistry between them. He walks into his office and closes the door.

Walter receives another call. “I have to take this, please handle Fox. I have to be in a committee meeting in ten minutes.”

“On it,” Cate replies delightedly, and heads for the senator’s office.

Doug leans back in his swivel chair with his arms folded above his head as Cate stands before him. They each take a deep