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"We have the ten o'clock meeting with the lawyers, and then after that, there's a luncheon at a steakhouse in Key Biscayne that you're scheduled to attend. You're not speaking at that one, but at three o'clock, we have you slated as a speaker at the teachers' union meeting in North Miami."
Peter takes a deep breath, filling his lungs. "Yes, that all sounds fine," he says, nodding. Actually, meeting with the lawyers isn't at the top of the list of things he wants to do, but he'll do it because he has to. And because Sunday is demanding it.
Seeing her makes him nervous, to be honest. The limo driver pulls up to a tall building in downtown Miami and Peter throws open the door and steps out. He's not one for taking a moment to prepare himself mentally for things--quite the opposite, in fact; Peter much prefers to go straight into battle, guns blazing, without giving himself time to second guess anything.
He stands on the sidewalk, looking at the buildings around him. They’re sleek, curved, made entirely of glass, and with just a hint of the Art Deco style that Miami and South Beach are known for. Behind him--if he were to turn around and look--he would see a gigantic billboard hovering over the street advertising the latest in Calvin Klein men's underwear. And the billboard wouldn't simply be of interest to Peter because there's a gorgeous man clad in nothing but a small patch of tight, white cotton, but because the man wearing that white cotton is the very same young, handsome man that Peter left in his hotel room not an hour before.
But so focused is he on his showdown with Sunday that he doesn't even clock the advertisement, and therefore has no clue that he spent the night before with a supermodel, and not with some random guy from a bar who needs his three hundred dollars in cash.
"We're on the twenty-first floor," Delia says, leading the way with her phone in hand. She walks confidently into the lobby of the building, her heels click-clacking against the marble floors.
Inside the designated meeting room on the twenty-first floor is a long table filled with both legal teams. Peter enters the room sandwiched between Delia and Umberto, and he chooses a seat at the end of the table, as far away from Sunday as he can possibly get.
At her end, Sunday sits calmly, looking tanned and confident. She has her hands folded on the table, and her hair has gotten longer and lighter from living full-time in the sun. Peter eyes her carefully, shrewdly taking note of each and every change. She's no longer wearing her wedding ring, and on each hand she wears a heavy stone on a gold band instead. Around her neck is a thick gold necklace with a tag on it that clearly marks it as Tiffany's. Sunday looks more relaxed than Peter ever remembers seeing her. She's dressed in a loose, flowing pink dress, just a touch of makeup, and a smile.
She looks at ease, and he doesn't like it.
"If we could get started here," Peter's head attorney says, calling the meeting to order.
Sunday lifts a glass of still water and sips it calmly.
"We'd like to begin with our first request, which is for non-disclosure," Sunday's attorney, a woman named Glenda Fine, says as she consults the file in front of her. "Mr. Bond will respect Mrs. Bond's request for privacy on all matters pertaining to their marriage and to her life prior to their marriage. He will not speak of her publicly unless it's to sing her praises as a mother, and as a former Second Lady."
Peter laughs out loud. "She can't do that," he says, tapping the polished mahogany table with one finger repeatedly. "It's not her place to muzzle me. If anything, I should be requesting thatshekeep her mouth shut about anything pertaining to our marriage or its dissolution. I have very good reasons for speaking up about the things that happened between me and Sunday, and I would venture to say that she does not."
"Peter," Sunday says, blinking slowly and looking bored of this discussion already, though he knows her well enough to know that she's putting on a show for everyone in the room; she's as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. "My life is my business. I do not exist solely to make you look good and then to let you wipe your feet on my back when you get tired of using me as the perfect wife and mother."
"I thinkperfectis a big stretch," Peter says, sitting back in his chair. He's amused to watch her negotiate with him in front of all these high-powered attorneys. Sunday, a woman with a two-year college degree, trying to talk her way out of a corner in a room filled with lawyers, college-educated advisors, and Peter, the former Vice President of the United States. It's almost laughable. "I might mention here that the issue at hand is a thorny one, given that you sent your only biological child away to be raised by strangers."
Every single person in the room finds something to look at or to occupy them as the tension between Peter and Sunday ratchets up several notches. Delia picks up her phone and scrolls through emails, and all of Sunday's attorneys consult the files on the table.
Outside the window, twenty-one floors below, carefully planted palm trees wave on the street under the late October sun, and women walk around bare-legged, soaking up the warmth and catching the admiring gazes of men in business suits. Restaurants serve brunch at outdoor bistro tables to a mixed crowd of models, office-dwellers, and international travelers, everyone documenting their picturesque morning on social media, via FaceTime, or in photos of their Cuban coffees, mimosas decorated with flowers, and fluffy pastry filled with whipped salmon or artisanal jam.
But inside this building the rooms are frosty, kept chilled to sixty-eight degrees year-round, and the lighting is stark, diffused only by the sunlight filtering in through the windows. Peter wonders if anything happy ever goes on at this particular board room table, but ultimately he doesn't care, so long as he walks out of here and out onto the street with another win under his belt.
"Peter," Sunday says, pushing back from the table slightly and then standing. She walks over to the windows and looks at the street scene far below. "I took the girls to Tangier Island recently. We stayed there, and went to Minnie's house. I took them to meet my high school boyfriend's mother, and while we were there, they had the chance to hear the entire story--all of it. Nothing you could tell them would shock them now." She turns and faces him, the faraway look in her eyes as she'd gazed at the cars and people below now replaced by a fiery determination. "So you go ahead and say what you need to say about me. I want you to. I hope it works out in your favor to turn me into a villain--I really do."
Sunday's legal team visibly deflates, but no one stops her from speaking.
"I don't care what the rest of America thinks of me anymore," Sunday says, walking down the length of the table so that she's standing just three feet away from him, forcing him to look up at her like a little boy being scolded by his mother. He tries to retain his composure, but it's nearly impossible given her stance. "The two most important people in my life know the truth now, so you telling everyone else that I got pregnant too young and chose to give my baby to a loving family won't make me look bad. Me leaving a small town and trying to make something of my life won't make me look bad. And me leaving you when everyone--and I meaneveryone--knows what you've been doing behind my back for the entire length of our marriage won't reflect poorly on me. So you think about that before you sit down with Diane Sawyer and try to drag me through the mud."
"There are optics to this thing, Sunday, and how I look is important if I'm going to make a run for the Oval Office--"
"Listen," Sunday says, shaking her head. "Not that you're asking me to, but I've forgiven you. I truly have." Her face and her voice soften considerably as she looks down at the man who she'd clung to for decades--out of hope, out of security, out of a sense of duty, and sometimes even out of love--and she reaches out with one hand as if she might touch his face, but then pulls her hand back before she actually does. She looks terrifyingly calm. ”But maybe you need to think about this as an opportunity to be your true self. Maybe you should consider coming out publicly. You have no idea how impactful that could be."
Peter wants to shove back from the table, to shut her up, to make her stop talking this way in front of all these people. He's a sixty-year-old man! He's a famous politician! There's no way he can just be gay and live his life. There's no way people will vote for someone who they see as living an alternative lifestyle...or is there? Instead of stopping her, Peter's eyes linger on the face of his wife. She's no longer the young, fearful girl he married when she was twenty-two and he was twenty-eight. They've been through it all, way too much to be as innocent and unworldly as they once were. And while Sunday is angry and she no longer loves him (this he knows with full certainty), perhaps there's a part of her that wishes him well. This would be just like Sunday to put her own feelings aside in order to give him loving advice, and it stuns him that she could still be capable of kindness towards him after all he’s put her through.
"Think about it," Sunday says, finally reaching out with her hand and resting it on his shoulder. He doesn't flinch or look away. "And trust me, Peter, the truth can set you free."
With one final long, meaningful look, Sunday turns around and walks back to her seat at the other end of the table, her long, pink dress floating behind her. She sits, folds her hands again, and stares at Peter placidly.
"Okay," Peter's lead attorney says, passing a piece of paper across the table to Glenda Fine. Everyone behaves as if they haven’t just listened to Sunday tell the former Vice President to come out of the closet and run for President as an openly gay man. ”With that, I think we're prepared to negotiate the terms of this divorce. Here's what we're prepared to offer."
An hour later, Peter and Sunday exit the building from different sides--Sunday out the back and into a waiting Mercedes, and Peter out the front and into his limousine--with their signatures on the document. As far as Peter is concerned, his marriage is completely behind him, but he knows that the battle to make himself look presidential in the eyes of the public is all ahead of him. And he'll do whatever he has to do to make that happen.
The door to his limo shuts behind him and the sleek car pulls out into traffic, the reflection of the giant Calvin Klein billboard reflected on the shiny black hood of the car.
Ruby
