Off the Record

Something came up. Can we reschedule? Liz jotted out to Justin.

We were supposed to meet in ten minutes…

Liz grumbled. She knew when they were supposed to meet. Yeah, sorry. It was an emergency. Same time tomorrow?

Just come to the party at Frat Court tonight, and we’ll talk there.

Liz rolled her eyes. How many more times could he ask her to go to his stupid parties before he got the hint?

I don’t know if I can make it. I’m swamped with work for the paper, but I’ll try. Tomorrow same place, same time, if I can’t make it?

Yeah. Whatever, Liz.

Liz sighed heavily. She could not lose her best AV person just because she didn’t go to his party. She knew that she was neglecting her work a bit to go see Brady, but Brady was also technically work, wasn’t he? Was she just rationalizing? This was ridiculous, and she couldn’t deal with it right now.

She put her phone away and tried not to think about it.

Liz parked across the street from Carrboro Town Hall, walked through the crosswalk, and rushed up the stairs into the building. A large group of people were still milling around the room, but it was obvious that whatever had been going on inside was over.

She sighed, disappointed, and searched the room for Brady. She didn’t see him and started circling, looking for someone familiar. Standing in a corner was a woman she recognized from Chapel Hill News. The local newspaper didn’t think very highly of the university paper, largely because of the editorial and opinion columns that took up the majority of the space. Liz didn’t blame them for it.

“Hey,” Liz said with an awkward wave as she broke into the conversation the woman was having with her photographer.

The woman looked at Liz as if she was trying to place her, then gave her a fake smile. “Hey, how are you?”

She clearly didn’t remember who Liz was. “I’m doing all right. I got the memo about this too late. I’m with the university press. What did I miss?”

She saw the recognition shine in her eyes.

“State Senator Maxwell is running for Congress.”

“Right. I know. I was at his press conference when he announced,” Liz said with a smile. She hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder.

“Oh,” she said, turning her head back to her photographer. “Well, he gave a speech about community outreach. It was pretty short and he didn’t allow any questions.”

“Is he still here?” Liz asked, glancing around the room again. Why hadn’t he told her about this earlier? It must have been scheduled in advance. She could have been there on time or at least seen him. Granted, she couldn’t miss Professor Mires’s class, but Liz might have gotten out of it if she told the professor it was for her project.

“Yeah. He went into a back room after the speech.”

“How long has he been scheduled here?” Liz asked.

“Rescheduled to Maxwell this morning after the other guy canceled,” Deb said, then turned away from Liz as if the conversation was over.

At least that made her feel a bit better. If it had been rescheduled this morning, then it made sense why his text came last-minute.

A flurry of activity on the other side of the room drew her attention. Brady materialized in the doorway, and Liz sighed softly to herself when she saw him. He was wearing a crisp navy suit with a gray button-down and his signature blue tie. The suit was clearly tailored, because it fit him better than she had ever seen a suit on someone else. It was just too perfect. And all she could think was how she wanted to get him out of it.

She automatically walked toward him and wished that they were the only ones in the room in that moment. He hadn’t seen her yet, and she waited for him to look up and feel her eyes on him. She stood at the periphery of the crowd as others shook his hand and some took pictures. He was as smooth as ever, his campaign mask firmly in place as he was introduced to person after person.

Knowing it would be a little while before she got any closer to him, she let her eyes roam. Heather was standing to his right, keeping a watchful eye on everything that was going on. Standing close behind her was that same man from the club who had been a total ass to Liz after Brady had sent a drink. He had been with Heather at the last event. Did he work for the campaign? They hadn’t met again since that night, and she wanted to keep it that way.

Maybe she would ask Brady about him next time they were alone…if she remembered anything at all when they were alone.

Brady moved through the crowd as much as he could, and then Heather whispered into his ear. He nodded and then addressed the crowd. “Thank you all so much for coming out. I can’t wait to come back and speak with you all again, but unfortunately, I’m being told that it’s my time to leave.”

The crowd dispersed almost immediately as Brady turned to go. Liz took this as her opportunity to get to talk him. “Senator, mind if I ask one question?” she asked, butting around a few people to get to him. She was already pulling her voice recorder out of her bag.

When his eyes found hers, she stopped moving. She couldn’t remember him ever looking at her like that. He hadn’t even dropped his campaign mask. He was looking at her as if she were another questioning constituent.

She didn’t expect him to look at her as though he had been sleeping with her for a couple weeks, but still she had expected something. But she didn’t even see a flicker of recognition cross his face. How was he capable of that?

“Sorry, we told the press no questions,” Heather said, stepping in between them. “Senator Maxwell’s time is very limited.”

“I understand,” she said with more emotion in her voice than she would have liked.

He turned his back on her without a word and walked through the doors. Heather smiled as brightly as ever and followed him, closing the door. Liz stood there for a minute with mixed feelings warring inside of her. She knew that he couldn’t act as if he knew her in public. She knew he was running for office and that he had made it plain what he wanted. First and foremost, he wanted to win the campaign.

But the other, irrational side of her was screaming. Why couldn’t he have even smiled at her…given her some secret nod as though he was glad that she was there? She had canceled her plans with Justin, however tenuous they were, to come over here just to get shunned. She had a life of her own, and he needed to respect that. He couldn’t have her come to every function he was at and not get to spend any time with him. It would break her.

Liz turned on her heel and walked to the door. She wasn’t paying attention when a voice cut through her anger.

“Liz! What a surprise to find you here,” Leslie Chester said with her overly dimpled chipmunk-cheek smile.

“Hey, Leslie, what’s up?” Liz said, continuing her walk toward the exit.

Leslie fell into step beside her. She was short, so she took an extra step for every one of Liz’s. “Not much. Lobbying Senator Maxwell. I might take an internship with his campaign,” she said. Liz tried not to roll her eyes. “I was surprised to find that you didn’t get an interview again this time.”

“Why is that surprising, when he said no questions from the press at this event?” Liz asked blankly. She couldn’t let emotion show in her voice. She needed to channel Brady’s campaign mask.

“Oh, I thought you knew Senator Maxwell,” she said, a bit too chirpy.

“Why would you think that?”

“He knew your name last time. Didn’t he call you Ms. Dougherty?” Leslie asked, all doe-eyed.

Liz bit the inside of her cheek. Why did Leslie remember every single detail? If Leslie weren’t in law school, Liz would be wondering if she herself was going into investigative reporting. “Yes, his press secretary set it up before the event. I wasn’t even aware of this one.”

“Oh, well,” she said with a shrug. “Next time maybe.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Liz said through gritted teeth. “I have a prior commitment to make. I’ve got to dash. Good seeing you again, Leslie.”

“You too, Liz. And if you need any help with the facts in your column, please feel free to call me,” Leslie said, clicking her modest heels across the crosswalk and to her Prius.

Liz puffed air out of her mouth in frustration as she found her Accord. She took a seat and turned the ignition, letting the cool air blast into her face. She rubbed her eyes and tried to calm down. She knew that she and Brady weren’t open about their relationship and that they couldn’t be. But she couldn’t deny that what he had done had hurt. Even though she had agreed to do this with him, it didn’t mean that she had agreed to get her feelings stomped on. He needed to take them into consideration before acting so brashly. She hadn’t even had any forewarning that he was going to turn his feelings off like a light switch.

Her phone buzzed in her purse and she perked up. Maybe that was him! Maybe he was going to apologize for acting like a jerk.

She pulled her phone out and shook her head when she saw it was Justin.

Here are the deets for the party tonight. See ya then.

The rest of the message listed the time, location, and party theme—one she would likely never follow. Who chose tacky Hawaiian as a party theme?

She finally put the car into drive and started to pull out of her spot, when she saw people exit the side of the Town Hall. Liz’s eyes narrowed when she spotted Heather walking purposefully out in front. Even from here, Liz could tell she was talking a million miles a minute. Next came the chubby asshole and then a slew of other people that she didn’t recognize, who all piled into black vans.

Last was Brady with another girl she didn’t recognize, with superstraight dark brown hair to her shoulders. She was wearing a pink blouse tucked into a high-waisted black skirt with black pumps. She was thin too, and cute…really cute. Liz’s eyes narrowed as she and Brady talked to each other briefly. Then Brady leaned down and kissed the girl on the cheek.

Liz’s heart stopped. After all that stuff about her not seeing anyone else…that he wanted her all to himself. She knew they couldn’t be together in public, but that didn’t mean he could be with someone else in public!

She swallowed back the rising bile in her throat and tried to push back the hurt crushing her chest. She just wanted to be angry. Anger was easier to deal with than pain.

The girl hopped into the car before him and Brady followed, closing the door and zooming away. Liz watched the car leave, letting the anger fuel her rash decisions. She stared back down at her phone.

Actually, I think I will make it. See you tonight, Liz texted Justin before throwing her phone into the passenger seat and going home to see if she had anything that could possibly resemble a tacky Hawaiian outfit.

No.

That was her general consensus on whether or not she had anything remotely Hawaiian-looking. People were walking around in oversize Hawaiian button-downs, fake grass skirts, coconut bra tops, cut-off jean shorts, foam visors, bathing suits, and leis everywhere.

Liz didn’t own any jean shorts or even a jean skirt, which apparently would have been acceptable. She had opted for a white skirt, hot pink bikini top, and flip-flops. It wasn’t tacky, but at least it was themed. She had even taken the time to dry her hair, so that it had beachy waves to it. No one seemed to care as long as they got to come up to her and yell, “Do you want to get lei’d?” Then they would throw a lei over her head and laugh maniacally while chugging beer.

Justin dragged her around the party, introducing her to all of his fraternity brothers and some of the girls they were fooling around with, though he didn’t always know their names. She wondered briefly whether people thought that she was fooling around with Justin, and drowned herself in hunch punch at the thought.

Her phone was glued to her side, but she had never heard from Brady. After two glasses of the hunch punch, she wasn’t thinking straight about anything. She rested her hand on Justin’s arm and laughed at a joke some girl had made that she would have normally never found funny. But for some reason right now, it was hysterical.