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

he’s inevitably going to announce a bid for the presidency.”

“Oh, sure, sure, they all do,” Meredith says, unimpressed, whisking away the smoke between them. “But congratulations, my dear, that is so exciting.” She tries to form a smile, sound enthusiastic, but the congratulations feels moot. The shifts of power among the family feel too threatening for Meredith, her whole identity wrapped up in what was given to her rather than what she created for herself. She crosses her arms, holding her cigarette up in the air.

Cate quietly sips her coffee. She feels hatred toward Doug, toward this city, toward her aunt. Once hopeful of a better future for herself, she’s starting to fear an endless power game of Whac-A-Mole.

Suddenly the smell of burning. “Aunt Meredith!” Cate says, panicked. “Your cigarette!”

The end of Meredith’s cigarette is touching the red toile wallpaper behind her, burning a hole in the head of a colonial family member.

“Oh, shit,” Meredith says.

Later that afternoon Cate knocks on Bunny’s door. “Come in,” Bunny says, propped up by another frayed decorative pillow, a silk eye mask the color of a ruby shielding her eyes from the sunlight. Cate tiptoes toward her nightstand. Bunny’s phone rests atop a pile of books—Notes of a Native Son, To Kill a Mockingbird, Song of Solomon—her MacBook Air on the floor beside her bed, plugged into its charger. Bunny pulls her comforter to her chin. As Cate moves closer, Bunny pulls a hand out from under the covers and lifts her mask up over one eye. “What? What is it?”

“I just came in to check on you—your head any better?” Cate asks.

“If feeling like you’re perpetually having an aneurysm is better, then, yeah, sure.”

Cate laughs and sits at the foot of Bunny’s bed. Bunny adjusts the mask back over her eyes, indicating a boundary she refuses to cross. She doesn’t want to look at Cate.

“I heard about what happened,” Cate says with trepidation, fully understanding that she’s not part of the family, even though it hurts. The resentment creeps up again when she thinks about the time Bunny came to visit her in San Diego, before she moved to Washington. Chuck had taken Bunny on a trip to SeaWorld. At the time, Cate had received an internship at McDonald’s. And when Bunny heard, she’d figured Cate was flipping burgers in the kitchen. It wasn’t until Cate moved to Washington, and her internship came up in a conversation about her interview with a lobbyist friend of Chuck’s, that Bunny had realized Cate had interned in their corporate office—not in the kitchen of the local Mickey D’s. It gave a level of insight into Bunny’s sheltered upbringing that Cate found both revealing and shameful.

“Honestly, she deserved it,” Bunny says.

“I thought violence wasn’t the answer, look at the shirt you’re wearing.”

“I threw a plate with fucking birds on it, hardly the same as an AK-forty-seven. The owners should thank me.” Bunny leans her head into the pillow. Rubs her temples.

Cate can’t help but laugh, thinking about smashed plates in some wealthy Georgetown home.

Bunny smiles when she hears her laughter. “See! You think they deserved it too! Greedy bastards.”

“I’m not saying anyone deserved anything—we’re living in complicated times. How’s life at school?”

“It’s fine.”

“Heard you’re hangin’ with the boss’s daughter?”

“Who? Oh, Mack—yeah, she’s all right.”

“Yeah?”

“Speaking of racist—I wasn’t going to tell you, but your boss is one,” Bunny says, adjusting her head into her pillow, satisfied with herself.

“What?” Cate asks, shock spiking through her at the quick change in tone. She shifts into work mode.

“Yep,” Bunny says.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean—I heard him being one.”

“When?” Cate asks, concerned, skeptical.

“The other day.”

“How? Bunny, don’t be preposterous.”

“Where’s my phone?” Bunny gropes aimlessly around her bedside table. Cate grabs the phone and puts it in her hand.

Bunny lifts her mask to scroll through her text messages. “Aha!” She presses Play on the recording and holds up the phone. Cate reaches for it.

“Don’t touch my phone,” Bunny says. “Just listen.”

Mackenzie and her father’s voices are heard as Bunny turns the volume up—: “African American.… Running down the street like an idiot for all the neighbors to see… You had a young African American boy in our home who gave you drugs. Is that right? NO, he did not give me drugs!… Does this African American boy feel like home to you? Or does he feel different from home?… it feels complicated, Mackenzie. You wouldn’t want to put yourself in any challenging position, would you?”

Cate stays composed, taking this in. “Why do you have this? Who—who sent this to you? Did Mackenzie send this to you?”

Bunny smiles.

Cate reaches for the phone. “Let me see it, I need to verify this is even real.”

“Ah-ah-ah!” Bunny yanks her hand away, still holding the phone. “My head hurts, and now yours must too.”

Threatened, Cate feels her ambition catching fire, enough to make her want to grab Bunny by the neck, to push her out of the window.

Bunny pulls the mask back over her eyes. “You can get out now,” she says. “Oh, and just because my mother told you to come up here doesn’t mean you actually have to do it.”

A punch to Cate’s gut. She stands up, walks to the door, turns around and whispers, “Ungrateful bitch.”

The Alibi Club

The oldest and most secret gentlemen’s club in all of Washington, the club is located in an antebellum town house between two unsightly office buildings, just blocks away from the White House. Founded in 1884, it serves as a bipartisan gathering place for powerful politicians, lobbyists, judges, and businessmen where an alibi for their whereabouts will always be provided. For example, if a member’s wife calls looking for her husband, someone will provide him an alibi. Only fifty men are members at any given time, and one must die in order for another to be admitted. No journalist has ever stepped foot inside. An air of mystery lingers outside as a government vacancy sign is often posted in the