The senator's silver Lincoln glided to a halt in a narrow side street between 5th and Broadway on Friday evening. To one side steam drifted from the open door to a hotel kitchen, on the other a tall brownstone cast its dark shadow onto the pavement. The senator's husband, Greg, gave her a wink and said "Thanks honey; the game's likely to be an all-nighter, I'll make my own way home." He gazed out for a moment at the rain pounding the sidewalk then he tightened his silk-wool blend scarf around his throat, turned up the collar of his cashmere coat, and stepped out into the storm, jogging across to glass double doors to the brownstone, which a liveried doorman opened to admit him to a brightly lit foyer.
The senator took a deep breath, released it as a sigh. Dragging her eyes from the apartment block entrance, she allowed them to fall on the rear-view mirror, to meet those of her chauffeur giving her a penetrating look. An edge of irritation in her voice, she asked tiredly, "What? What is it Troy?"
The big black man hesitated for a moment then, his eyes still locked on those of his employer, growled, "Why do you go on with it ma'am? The whole world knows you're too good for that bum."
Never before had he spoken the thoughts his eyes so often betrayed, and for a moment the senator felt as though she'd received a stinging slap in the face. She was unsure whether the tears which formed in her eyes were borne of fury or humiliation, but she snapped "How dare you say that to me? How dare you? Are you tired of your job or just plain insolent?" She sank back into her deep leather seat and, one hand shielding her eyes, muttered, "Oh for god's sake, drive."
They returned to Westchester in silence, the only sound the rhythmic whap-whap of the windshield wipers. Senator Jennifer Nordstrom gazed sightlessly into the night, lost in thought. From the day she was born she was marked out as special: her grandfather the legendary Justice O'Grady, daughter of a federal attorney general, a former president for a godparent...she'd graduated from Princeton summa cum laude, naturally, at 32 she gave up her successful legal career to take a seat in the Senate and now, ten years later she was a deputy chair of the influential Financial Services Committee and tipped as a future presidential running mate...maybe even more but for the snide comments in the press, the whispers she so often heard behind her back, or just before she entered a room, the whispers that said "Such a pity she has that no-good millstone around her neck."
Greg could hardly have had a more different start in life. The son of a hard-drinking Jersey longshoreman who'd attracted extended police interest after his downtrodden wife's mystery disappearance one dark night. Self-sufficient from the age of eight, Greg had left home for New York at 15 and worked his way through nightschool before finding a job as a runner with a Wall Street trading company. He'd displayed a remarkable ability with numbers and within a few years he'd worked his way up become the firm's star money man. Wily investments, some of them of dubious morality, had seen him bank his first million at 28. That was when 22-year old Jen had met him and, dazzled by his blond mop of hair, his big white smile and, she had to admit, his wealth and his rough edges, she had been putty in his hands. If her papa had still been alive Jen doubted it would have lasted long, but by 24 they were married and, with the help of a couple of puff pieces written by media friends, the Nordstroms were soon seen as one of the Big Apple's Power Couples.
It had taken Jen a few years to realise the kind of shark she'd married, and a few years more to fall out of love with him. By then it was too late, he had enough on her, the compromises she'd had to make to get where she was, the unguarded comments, the traded favors, to bring down her house of cards in a moment. So through the accusations of sharp trading, the SEC inquiries, the share scandals, the police inquiries, the swindled investors, the rumors of links with Mexican drug cartels, she stood by him; and then she stood by him again through the photos in the Times society pages and the Daily News of him dining out with his latest young, attractive personal assistant, relaxing by the pool with the wife of a friend, all the while insisting he was the innocent victim of jealous business rivals, the faithful and courtly spouse, each time knowing that, Jacob Marley-like, she was hanging another weight around the neck of her political career. There was a certain rich irony to Greg's straying from the marital bed, given that Jen had been voted GQ's Hottest on Capitol Hill for three years straight. The people trusted and admired her, her colleagues respected her, the media lauded her, but she knew that at the same time they all also pitied her.
And tonight she'd even driven Greg to his latest liaison with his latest mistress - a prominent charity campaigner and a personal friend of Jen's for several years, who she was scheduled to meet for a working lunch a few days from now. She swallowed hard as she tasted bile in her throat.
It was with surprise that she realised Troy was guiding the Lincoln along the gravelled drive of her mansion home. He pulled to a halt at the entrance door and positively leapt out of the driver's seat to open the senator's door, his gaze fixedly across the roof of the vehicle rather than on her. Feeling suddenly unaccountably exhausted, Jen rocked herself out of the car, the top of her head level with Troy's chin. She felt him actually flinch with surprise when she placed a hand lightly on his jacketed bicep and murmured "Thank you." Studying his face, she saw his eyes momentarily flare in shock as she reached up and touched his cheek, adding "Thank you Troy, for caring." She could feel his eyes on her back as she walked to the door, stepped through it and leant back against it, feeling so very tired.
It was on Monday, early afternoon, when Troy's cell next displayed an incoming text from the senator. As far as he could tell, from his cottage beside the garage, she hadn't left the house at all during the weekend, although the Mister had roared off that morning in his scarlet Ferrari, slamming every door that got in his way. Her message was brief and to the point: 'Troy, come over, I need your help with something.'
This was unusual. He quickly changed into the black business suit he wore for work and checked himself in the full-length mirror. At 32 Troy Jordan knew he was good-looking: six-three, 195 pounds, wide shoulders, gym-toned, kind eyes, regular face and neatly trimmed Denzel beard, he drew admiring female glances everywhere he went; but since he'd taken this job - since he'd first started driving Her - he found it hard to maintain interest in any other woman, and no girlfriend had lasted more than a couple of months. He sighed and, minutely adjusting the hang of his tie, made his way to the main house.
Once inside the three-storey entrance hall he called out. From the living room she called, "Troy? In here." A mellow jazz track was playing, he thought Courtney Pine, as he entered the big room for maybe only the third time in his life. The sun glinted through the room-height windows which formed the far wall; the senator was lounging, in a posed kind of way, on one of the couches. She was wearing a loose-fitting flowing knee-length white dress, pale arms and feet bare, toenails painted plum, maybe just a little too much cleavage exposed. Her auburn hair, usually arranged into a business-like bun, flowed loose around her shoulders. She rolled the stem of a cocktail glass between the fingers of one hand.
