The Hopefuls(18)

“I like the manners on this one,” she said. “I’ve never lived anywhere but Texas, and I have to say, the people up north are not what I’m used to.”

It was weird to hear Ashleigh say “up north.” We were still below the Mason-Dixon Line, a fact that I swear I could feel in the air. DC seemed so southern to me, mostly because it was hot and everyone moved slowly. The first time we went to a deli here, the man behind the counter took so long to assemble the sandwiches, I wanted to jump over the counter and do it myself. DC made me feel so impatient, so fidgety. More than once—when we got annoyed waiting at a restaurant, or speed-walked past a group of people—Matt would say, “Maybe we lived in New York too long.”

“Jimmy works across the hall from me,” Matt explained. “Ashleigh came in last week to visit and we started talking.”

“Correction,” Ashleigh said. “Jimmy works across the hall when he’s in town, which is almost never.” She squeezed my arm. “Girl, I can just tell we’re going to be best friends. We’re in the same boat—we both moved here kicking and screaming, am I right?” She winked at Jimmy and the four of us laughed.

“Something like that,” I said.

Ashleigh corrected me when I said her name. “It’s actually ‘Ash-lay,’ not ‘Ash-lee.’?” I tried again and she shook her head, although I couldn’t hear any difference in how I was saying it. “Don’t feel bad, people get it wrong all the time. That’s what my mother gets for trying to be all fancy with my name. You can just call me Ash.”

Ash was twenty-eight but seemed younger. She was sweet—I hadn’t had anyone claim me as a best friend since Deborah Long on the first day of kindergarten, and I was pretty sure that was only because she wanted the Fruit Roll-Up in my lunch. But Ash was almost too sweet. It took me off guard. She was nothing like my other friends—the fact that she kept calling me girl was weird enough. My initial reaction was that we’d have nothing in common, but as the four of us stood there, the conversation flowed easily.

It took me a while to notice that we were talking about regular things. (That is, things other than the campaign and the President.) We talked about the Dillons’ place, which wasn’t too far from ours, about the neighborhood in between us and which restaurants we’d tried. There was never a lull or a beat of silence when everyone looked around and tried to think of something else to say. Matt and Jimmy left to get us more drinks, and when they got back, Jimmy asked where I was from. When I told him Wisconsin, Ash gasped. “Oh, Wisconsin! I’ve never been, but I’ve heard it’s lovely.” I sort of wondered if she was full of shit—I’d never heard someone talk about Wisconsin in such a way. But she looked completely sincere.

“It’s nice,” I said. “But maybe I only think that because it’s where I’m from.”

“Do you miss it?” she asked.

“I do, sometimes. I haven’t lived there in a while.”

“Is your family still there?” she asked.

“My parents are. I’m an only child.”

“So is Jimmy,” Ash said, turning to him like this was the most delightful coincidence.

“But it’s interesting,” Jimmy said, “because it’s this one who acts like she was raised an only child.” He reached out and cupped Ash’s chin. “You should see our bathroom—she has all her potions laid out, taking up the whole counter. I can barely find a place for my toothbrush in there. And she took all the closets in the house for herself, leaving me with just a half of one.”

“It’s more than half,” Ash said. She rolled her eyes at him, but you could tell she was amused.

“Listen,” Jimmy said. “Do you guys want to try to sneak out of here and get something to eat? This one will be three sheets to the wind if we don’t get her some food soon.” As if on cue, Ash teetered a little on her heels.

We all looked across the room at Alan, who was talking intently to another White House staffer that I recognized but didn’t know. The guy looked bored, probably because it wasn’t really a back-and-forth conversation. Alan just kept talking at him. I felt Matt look over at me, like he was sure I was going to make an excuse for why we couldn’t go. But I answered so quickly that I surprised even myself. “That sounds great.”

—

Jimmy suggested we go to a wine bar on Fourteenth Street called Cork. It wasn’t that far away, but Ash insisted we take a cab. “I won’t make it one block in these heels,” she said.

Cork was crowded, but there was one open table in the corner and we were seated right away. “Thanks, Chloe,” Jimmy said to the hostess.

Ash turned to me. “Jimmy knows every hostess in every restaurant on this block. Before I moved here, I’m pretty sure he went out to eat every night.”

“I put on fifteen pounds,” Jimmy said, and then he smiled at me. “And I also know all the bartenders.”

“This looks great,” I said, looking at the menu. “We haven’t really been over this way.”

“To be honest, Fourteenth Street is still a little sketchy,” Ash said in a low voice. She put her napkin on her lap. “I don’t love walking around here at night.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Jimmy said. “It’s changing quickly. Mark my words, in another year, you won’t even recognize this street.”