“Si. Soy fluido en espanol, pendejo,” I replied.
Grant chuckled. “Let me guess, you just used an expletive to describe me.”
“I most certainly did.”
“Call me crazy for doubting you, but didn’t you grow up in North Carolina?”
“Yes, I did. I also spent every summer in Central America. You tend to pick things up.”
“I see.”
“For future reference, pendejo is asshole. I could also call you a cabrón.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll never doubt your skills again.”
“You better not. Keep me posted on the translator.”
“You got it.”
“Adios pendejo.”
Grant laughed. “Bye Ads.”
After hanging up with Grant, I fielded a few more calls while downing my coffee and scarfing down the donut. Since my stomach was still rumbling, I decided my day from hell allowed me to throw calorie counting to the wind, so I snagged another cinnamon donut.
As I made my way back to my desk, I couldn’t help feeling so very blessed that I called the Callahan campaign home. Not only was it a total coup that I’d landed the job at just twenty-seven, it couldn’t have come at a better time for me both professionally and personally. I’d spent the first two years out of college working as the personal assistant to Representative Walter Gregson. While I spent my days with Walt Sr., my nights were spent with his son, Walt Jr., so yeah, you could say nepotism had landed me that job.
Walt and I met our senior year at Duke where we were both political science majors, and we started living together after just six months. Once we graduated, we moved to an apartment in Georgetown. While I started working for his father’s political office, Walt took a job with a lobbying firm.
Everything seemed perfect—like put a ring on it perfect. Looking back now, I realize how naïve I was about all the nights I went to bed alone. Walt assured me that his long days were being forced on him by his bosses. He was the new guy and had to earn his stripes, which meant working into the wee hours of the morning.
The truth was Walt had fallen victim to what I liked to call the DC Dick Curse. Something about the air is different in DC; it fans the flames of narcissism and inflated egos. Even the most committed man who would never dream of straying can get the wandering eye. It’s like they’re sucked into the Bermuda Triangle of Pussy.
It wasn’t just Walt’s eye that did the wandering; his dick ended up wandering into the vagina of one of the office interns. I had the pleasure of discovering this one night when I went to surprise him with his favorite Thai takeout. Instead of finding him toiling away at his computer, I found him nailing the intern doggy style over his desk.
After he had chased me down to the elevators with his semi-erect dick flapping in the wind, he begged me not to leave. He did the familiar song and dance that all men who get caught cheating do. He promised he would never do it again. It was only about sex. He loved me, never meant to hurt me. He even offered up all the heavy hitters like therapy and having the intern transferred.
But, in my heart of hearts, I knew I could never trust him again, so I broke up with him. What I would soon learn is when I broke up with Walt Jr., I also broke up with his father. I was unceremoniously let go the very next day—and by unceremoniously, I mean a security guard met me at the door with a box containing the contents of my desk and told me I didn’t work there anymore. Bad news obviously traveled from son to father quickly. Bastards.
In the span of a few days, I found myself jobless and homeless. I could have tucked my tail between my legs and gone home to my parents in North Carolina, but I was far too independent for that. My strength of character was both a blessing and a curse for my parents. They were the ones who raised me to be resilient and stand on my own two feet. During their time as missionaries in Central America, my sister, brother, and I had learned to be scrappy and resourceful, but I think now they wished I was a little less independent and self-reliant so I could take a nice job close to home and marry some youth minister at their church like my older sister, Amy, had.
Instead, I stayed with my older brother at his apartment in Arlington, Virginia, until I got the job with the Callahan campaign. After a few months with a steady paycheck, I moved into an overpriced yet extremely shitty one-bedroom apartment in the city—the very one I’d been running around in like a maniac when I woke up late that morning.
With a few free moments, I dug the super glue out of my desk drawer. As I lay the materials out on my desk, it felt like I was scrubbing up to go into surgery. Saving a beloved and necessary shoe was serious business. “Work with me, Choo. You still got life in you, bud,” I cajoled. Laying my hand on the toe of the shoe, I pinched my eyes shut and channeled my best televangelist impression as I cried dramatically, “Heal your heel, Choo!”
“Miss Monroe?”
My eyes snapped open as I jerked my gaze from my shoe into the eyes of Bernard George, the head of the campaign. My boss. The big cheese.
After swallowing hard, I squeaked, “Yes sir?”
“Might I have a word?”
Oh, fuckity, fuck, fuuuuck! No one had ever had just a word with Mr. George. You had to get through three staffers just to wave at him. His palatial office with a view of the Potomac appeared to have more guards around it than one of the security checkpoints at the airport. This was soooo bad.
I forced a bright smile to my face. “Yes sir, of course.”
After sliding on my gimpy shoe, I then proceeded to hobble off-kilter after Mr. George. The broken Choo seemed to fit what I could only anticipate was my break with the campaign, and my chin trembled as I dealt with the impending doom. You didn’t come back from being fired from a campaign—political staffers had a long memory when it came to people who fucked up. Four years down the road, there might be a new candidate, but you would forever have the word loser on your forehead like a biblical mark of the beast.