Maudlin

The hallways are bare as she walks through them, meandering, taking her sweet time because she’s lost but she doesn’t want to look it, not in the marble and ceramic and many people who should pass these walls and floors that are far too spotless- only the walls aren’t, speckled with age and photos. There’s a bench, a tiny one soaked in light brown, without a bar in the middle, and a tiny table right next to it, the same color proving it stalwart as she taps her heels against the floor.

It’s crystal clear, glistening even though her chopped heels are dirty. Dirty and hitting against the clean floor of so many important people- her mother’s walked here, walked here and questioned so many folk, practiced her questions- practiced until a moment ago and now she’s- she’s in there- somewhere that she can’t remember how to find. She’s wearing something similar to her mother, a red pencil skirt and white blouse, similar red jacket a top her shoulder’s that’s now on Ginger’s. Ginger’s tense shoulders that hurt so much when she feels the breeze of her white silk dress. Something cheap, cheaper than her mother’s because she deserves good when she can be that good not only here, but there- there in her home that she finally found after years away, years of struggling and finally being able to buy takeout every day if they want. She has the money, and maybe the time too.

She’s trying to control her breathing, her clothes loose enough for an elephant to fit under her short frame, it feels like one is upon her chest, her heels scuffing against the floor. She hisses a breath, a cuss under her tongue as she moves to sit, her phone flip phone in her hand, holding the tiny oblong shape and flipping it open as she sits on the velvet red. There’s not been a call, and she’s heard no news so far, and her mother hasn’t noticed she’s gone, probably won’t admit it because she’s single, and she’s not built for the White House’s reproach of her parenting. She might not be done, Ginger knows she might still be questioning someone- the press secretary maybe someone higher up like the president, if she knew what maybe she could remember her civics class, the one she almost failed even though her mother uses her slippery tongue for few words in her reports, her big journalist reports for the NY Times. Her mother’s so important, and Ginger is here too.

“Mary Janes,” the woman offers, and before she looks up to her, she notes her appearance. Blackish-grey pants looped above her own white Mary Janes; flats compared to her heels -one now hanging on by a flimsy sheet of leather- and her pearlescent, long-sleeved blouse hanging on her olive, checkered skin of freckles. She smiles by the time Ginger reaches her brown eyes, blackish brown hair tied back into a low bun without any wisps frayed. “Circa 1920s. I just got a pair my-self” “S-Senator-” “Malory, darlin’, my husband’s last name is not for Senator, and, well, I’m the one who’s actually Senator.” She lips muse, thin yet matte with a nude-pink hue. “Now, I don’t mean any offence, but you don’t seem thirty, and I don’t think anyone in this buildin’ wears a dress like that in an atmosphere of frosty heat, and not the wea-ther, but the heat of reporters in ‘ere…”

She takes a breath, eyes flitting between Ginger’s as she asks, smooth in her voice, “So, who are you?” Her lips part, blinking up at the woman before collecting herself and moving to straighten the flow of her dress’s skirt. “I’m Ginger-” “Gin!” Her voice is louder than her thundering heels somehow, her breathe rushed, anxious as she reaches Ginger. She’d different than she remembered, hair no longer wrapped around her face every five seconds because of the heat bungling the building, now it’s tied in a messy bun at the back, still black and curly. She looks unprofessional, her hair not straight, her shirt just a bit too flowy, and her actions unprofessional. She’s a mother though, and Ginger doesn’t want to stick to a PR standpoint anymore. She’s not her mother.

“Ma-” She slows, staring up at the Texas Senator before her eyes flitter for a moment, quickly reverting back to her high gaze. “Senator Haynes.” She mushes her lips in a smile, bobbing her head for a moment until she murmurs, “Pleasure, Ms.…” Ginger’s mother quickly breathes out an answer, holding out both of her hands as she grips both of the Senator’s. “Rowena Santa, New York Times.” Malory hums, delighted. “Now that, is a last name.”

She huffs in approbation, nodding her head before her hands slide against her hips. “Thank you, Senator-” “Please, Malory is fine. I told your…” Round brown eyes look to Ginger’s ambers, golden and sparkling as she supplies with her mother. “Daughter.” “Daughter.” They meet eyes before Ginger parts to the floor. “Well, I told your daughter the same, and I expect it done. Do you need a ride? My flight isn’t until the first O-hundred, I’m happy to help.” Ginger’s mother shakes her head like she always does, and refuses the help with a smile, even if she really shouldn’t- but she’s okay to here, she’s okay to be servile. “Thank you, truly, Se- Malory, but my daughter is just air-headed in important spaces. Not the reporter like I am.” She pauses in a nod, wetting her lips before moving to leave with a hand on her mother’s shoulder- her clothed bicep. “She isn’t our age, ma’am, so… slack is always nice on the fingers. Good life.” She leaves with her gaze lastly on Ginger’s, and the brunette clings to it before she leaves, and she finds my mother’s gaze in return.

“I’m sorry-” “Don’t, Gin, it’s… It’s just a heaty night.” Her mom sits beside her, moving with a sludge in her step, like she’s stepping through the sludge of the street right now, the snow soaked with dirt from the leftover of the last few days of fall. Her elbows brace on her knees, pad of paper and pen back in her hand and not slipped into her thick skirt’s waistband. She sighs for a moment, flipping through the wad of white with stripes before landing on a page, moving her pen to the leftover scribbles.

Ginger takes a breath, shutting her mouth as she swallows before her gaze finds her heels on the white marble floors. She gnaws on her lips- not entirely, more the edges that are wontedly wet, soft and mushy with few scrapes because she accidently cut herself on a lollipop. She hates cherry flavored things, but she needed to taste something sweet on her cavity. Pain. “Did they rule?” Her voice is quiet, unlike the murmur on the southerner’s lips, but like a fearful child, not a child feared, not a Senator. She huffs before steeling her gaze, sitting back and tapping her pen on the paper with scribbles on she can read, and Ginger if she tried because she was her daughter even when her pen scribbled as it did beforehand. “Yep,” she smacks out, not folding her pad but moving her gaze languidly to Ginger’s tensed straight form. “And I’ve finally got a headline.” Ginger muses a smile as her mother loop her arm around her shoulders, kissing her head and leaning her head against hers. They’ll have to leave soon, but her mother is holding her, and her mother is content her. Ginger is content here.

She’s smiling at it- the cameras flickering, the photos in her mind as Malory bends down, wearing only the bottom of a pants suit, her top a flowy salmon pink that’s still showcasing her freckled tanned skin, shoulders toned like her arms of bumps. “Over here,” she hears on repeat, hidden behind away from the cameras as Malory offers a few picks at a child’s coloring pages and offers a few red-stripped mints. She watches as she disregards the bungling buffoons that are trying to do their job whilst she tries to make hers not seem like a job- she likes kids, likes them as she muses their hair, adjusts their ties because it’s a privileged event in the outdoor service of this public spot. This is publicity, but Ginger swears Malory doesn’t see it as that.

When she stands, Malory finds her gaze across the round outdoor white tables to Ginger with her eyes frozen on hers, quickly thawing for the hue to her cheeks of a pale, pale tawny color. She’s grateful for it, for the sole reason it’ll look natural under this heat. She excuses herself, and Ginger feels the heat of a predator’s gaze- of a hot treadmill under her heels as she trips- twirls her one strand of curly hair as she holds the elbow up with her folded arm. She’s wearing a loose-fitting dress, something for the heat that takes a liking to her- Malory’s gaze as she meanders as subtly as a lion’s prints to her position away from the cameras. She doesn’t care for them- truly proves that this isn’t a campaign to her, that she isn’t someone important that’s almost won- that will win, but she’s just having fun. It might prove spoiled in the eyes of a camera, but she’s uncaring- she is not uncaring, but blithely. She’s blithely with that cheeky fucking smile on her gapped two front teeth-

“Afternoon, madame.” She nods her head slowly, letting her lips push into her chubby cheeks as she hums a response, “Madame is ironic.” The taller woman shakes her head, hands on her hips as she sighs out, “Ironic might not be the word. Maybe on the nose.” She guffaws, nodding her head before looking over to the cameras. “They’re not payin’ attention to me.” She shakes her head, still on them with her ambers. “Malory-” “I love it when you say my name…” She steps closer, languid and amused. “Almost as much as I love your eyes on mine.” She takes them, quick even if she wants to wait, to make it teasing and flirtatious in front of the camera’s the people- “Your mind runs too much for your money.” She quests for a countenance, brows creasing, straightening, lips opening, closing, and throat slipping on saliva. “I am not dumb-” “I’m not callin’ ya that, I’m calling youuu… overworked.”

She shuts her lips, sealing them together with her teeth as Malory’s eyes twiddle with the stars of hers, the way she’s mirrored in her gaze even before today, before she spoke to her the way she does today. “I’m not supposed to be here-” “I want you to be here-” “You want…” She clicks her tongue with swallowing. “A woman while your husband has you.” She blinks her gaze away to the grass for a moment, shoes flat as she looks back up to Ginger’s gaze, all-knowing. “If I say I need you, then I need you. He will be president and I will be Madame, just as ironic as you think it is, so please, Ginger. ‘m imploring you, give the soon-to-be-madame some-” “Courtesy? Like we’re in fucking France and cheating is normal-” “I could be in France as his woman, you don’-” “Madame?” She looks to her- the child with pigtails of coils and cherubic cheeks of barbeque sauce. “Well…” She raise a corner of her lips in a smile, leaning back on her leg as she inspects the ten-year-old -if that- “Malory, is fiiine darlin’. My husband’s last name is too breathy, and Madame is… well, not me.” Ginger looks at her, looks at her under the sun where she’s supposed to be, under the sun that likes her.

Ginger parts her lips, “Yet,” overenunciating the T. Malory looks to her, expectant btu patient for an answer. “What?” She swallows, looking into her eyes before breathing with a hopelessly fallen smile, “Yet. You are not Madame president yet. One more campaign with your husband, and you will soon be Madame President- who would still want to be called Malory by you, cariño.” She muses her cherubic cheeks with dimples and Malory does as she’s always done, “With the help of her of course…” She smiles like that- smiles like the sun is watching her and will only ever watch her. She smiles not like she’s in love, but like she’s got it- She’s got Ginger, and Ginger knows it, has always known it. “Now, why don’t we go and finagle some wet wipes from my husband?” She’s soft with her, letting her hand find hers lightly before she passes in front of the cameras again and returns to being picturesque. She returns to being his, like she always was.

The hallways are bare as she walks through them, meandering, taking her sweet time because she’s lost but she doesn’t want to look it, not in the marble and ceramic and many people who should pass these walls and floors that are far too spotless- only the walls aren’t, speckled with age and photos. There’s a bench, a tiny one soaked in light brown, without a bar in the middle, and a tiny table right next to it, the same color proving it stalwart as she taps her heels against the floor.

It’s crystal clear, glistening even though her chopped heels are dirty. Dirty and hitting against the clean floor of so many important people- her mother’s walked here, walked here and questioned so many folk, practiced her questions- practiced until a moment ago and now she’s- she’s in there- somewhere that she can’t remember how to find. She’s wearing something similar to her mother, a red pencil skirt and white blouse, similar red jacket a top her shoulder’s that’s now on Ginger’s. Ginger’s tense shoulders that hurt so much when she feels the breeze of her white silk dress. Something cheap, cheaper than her mother’s because she deserves good when she can be that good not only here, but there- there in her home that she finally found after years away, years of struggling and finally being able to buy takeout every day if they want. She has the money, and maybe the time too.

She’s trying to control her breathing, her clothes loose enough for an elephant to fit under her short frame, it feels like one is upon her chest, her heels scuffing against the floor. She hisses a breath, a cuss under her tongue as she moves to sit, her phone flip phone in her hand, holding the tiny oblong shape and flipping it open as she sits on the velvet red. There’s not been a call, and she’s heard no news so far, and her mother hasn’t noticed she’s gone, probably won’t admit it because she’s single, and she’s not built for the White House’s reproach of her parenting. She might not be done, Ginger knows she might still be questioning someone- the press secretary maybe someone higher up like the president, if she knew what maybe she could remember her civics class, the one she almost failed even though her mother uses her slippery tongue for few words in her reports, her big journalist reports for the NY Times. Her mother’s so important, and Ginger is here too.

“Mary Janes,” the woman offers, and before she looks up to her, she notes her appearance. Blackish-grey pants looped above her own white Mary Janes; flats compared to her heels -one now hanging on by a flimsy sheet of leather- and her pearlescent, long-sleeved blouse hanging on her olive, checkered skin of freckles. She smiles by the time Ginger reaches her brown eyes, Ginger's own blackish brown hair tied back into a low bun without any wisps frayed. “Circa 1920s. I just got a pair my-self” “S-Senator-” “Malory, darlin’, My husband’s last name is not for Senator, and, well, I’m the one who’s actually Senator.” She lips muse, thin yet matte with a nude-pink hue. “Now, I don’t mean any offence, but you don’t seem thirty, and I don’t think anyone in this buildin’ wears a dress like that in an atmosphere of frosty heat, and not the wea-ther, but the heat of reporters in ‘ere…”

She takes a breath, eyes flitting between Ginger’s as she asks, smooth in her voice, “So, who are you?” Her lips part, blinking up at the woman before collecting herself and moving to straighten the flow of her dress’s skirt. “I’m Ginger-” “Gin!” Her voice is louder than her thundering heels somehow, her breathe rushed, anxious as she reaches Ginger. She’d different than she remembered, hair no longer wrapped around her face every five seconds because of the heat bungling the building, now it’s tied in a messy bun at the back, still black and curly. She looks unprofessional, her hair not straight, her shirt just a bit too flowy, and her actions unprofessional. She’s a mother though, and Ginger doesn’t want to stick to a PR standpoint anymore. She’s not her mother.

“Ma-” She slows, staring up at the Texas Senator before her eyes flitter for a moment, quickly reverting back to her high gaze. “Senator Haynes.” She mushes her lips in a smile, bobbing her head for a moment until she murmurs, “Pleasure, Ms.…” Ginger’s mother quickly breathes out an answer, holding out both of her hands as she grips both of the Senator’s. “Rowena Santa, New York Times.” Malory hums, delighted. “Now that, is a last name.”

She huffs in approbation, nodding her head before her hands slide against her hips. “Thank you, Senator-” “Please, Malory is fine. I told your…” Round brown eyes look to Ginger’s ambers, golden and sparkling as she supplies with her mother. “Daughter.” “Daughter.” They meet eyes before Ginger parts to the floor. “Well, I told your daughter the same, and I expect it done. Do you need a ride? My flight isn’t until the first O-hundred, I’m happy to help.” Ginger’s mother shakes her head like she always does, and refuses the help with a smile, even if she really shouldn’t- but she’s okay to here, she’s okay to be servile. “Thank you, truly, Se- Malory, but my daughter is just air-headed in important spaces. Not the reporter like I am.” She pauses in a nod, wetting her lips before moving to leave with a hand on her mother’s shoulder- her clothed bicep. “She isn’t our age, ma’am, so… slack is always nice on the fingers. Good life.” She leaves with her gaze lastly on Ginger’s, and the brunette clings to it before she leaves, and she finds my mother’s gaze in return.

“I’m sorry-” “Don’t, Gin, it’s… It’s just a heaty night.” Her mom sits beside her, moving with a sludge in her step, like she’s stepping through the sludge of the street right now, the snow soaked with dirt from the leftover of the last few days of fall. Her elbows brace on her knees, pad of paper and pen back in her hand and not slipped into her thick skirt’s waistband. She sighs for a moment, flipping through the wad of white with stripes before landing on a page, moving her pen to the leftover scribbles.

Ginger takes a breath, shutting her mouth as she swallows before her gaze finds her heels on the white marble floors. She gnaws on her lips- not entirely, more the edges that are wontedly wet, soft and mushy with few scrapes because she accidently cut herself on a lollipop. She hates cherry flavored things, but she needed to taste something sweet on her cavity. Pain. “Did they rule?” Her voice is quiet, unlike the murmur on the southerner’s lips, but like a fearful child, not a child feared, not a Senator. She huffs before steeling her gaze, sitting back and tapping her pen on the paper with scribbles on she can read, and Ginger if she tried because she was her daughter even when her pen scribbled as it did beforehand. “Yep,” she smacks out, not folding her pad but moving her gaze languidly to Ginger’s tensed straight form. “And I’ve finally got a headline.” Ginger muses a smile as her mother loop her arm around her shoulders, kissing her head and leaning her head against hers. They’ll have to leave soon, but her mother is holding her, and her mother is content her. Ginger is content here.

She’s smiling at it- the cameras flickering, the photos in her mind as Malory bends down, wearing only the bottom of a pants suit, her top a flowy salmon pink that’s still showcasing her freckled tanned skin, shoulders toned like her arms of bumps. “Over here,” she hears on repeat, hidden behind away from the cameras as Malory offers a few picks at a child’s coloring pages and offers a few red-stripped mints. She watches as she disregards the bungling buffoons that are trying to do their job whilst she tries to make hers not seem like a job- she likes kids, Malory them as she muses their hair, adjusts their ties because it’s a privileged event in the outdoor service of this public spot. This is publicity, but Ginger swears Malory doesn’t see it as that.

When she stands, Malory finds her gaze across the round outdoor white tables to Ginger with her eyes frozen on hers, quickly thawing for the hue to her cheeks of a pale, pale tawny color. She’s grateful for it, for the sole reason it’ll look natural under this heat. She excuses herself, and Ginger feels the heat of a predator’s gaze- of a hot treadmill under her heels as she trips- twirls her one strand of curly hair as she holds the elbow up with her folded arm. She’s wearing a loose-fitting dress, something for the heat that takes a liking to her- Malory's gaze as she meanders as subtly as a lion’s prints to her position away from the cameras. She doesn’t care for them- truly proves that this isn’t a campaign to her, that she isn’t someone important that’s almost won- that will win, but she’s just having fun. It might prove spoiled in the eyes of a camera, but she’s uncaring- she is not uncaring, but blithely. She’s blithely with that cheeky fucking smile on her gapped two front teeth-

“Afternoon, madame.” She nods her head slowly, letting her lips push into her chubby cheeks as she hums a response, “Madame is ironic.” The taller woman shakes her head, hands on her hips as she sighs out, “Ironic might not be the word. Maybe on the nose.” She guffaws, nodding her head before looking over to the cameras. “They’re not payin’ attention to me.” She shakes her head, still on them with her ambers. “Malory-” “I love it when you say my name…” She steps closer, languid and amused. “Almost as much as I love your eyes on mine.” She takes them, quick even if she wants to wait, to make it teasing and flirtatious in front of the camera’s the people- “Your mind runs too much for your money.” She quests for a countenance, brows creasing, straightening, lips opening, closing, and throat slipping on saliva. “I am not dumb-” “I’m not callin’ ya that, I’m calling youuu… overworked.”

She shuts her lips, sealing them together with her teeth as Malory's eyes twiddle with the stars of hers, the way she’s mirrored in her gaze even before today, before she spoke to her the way she does today. “I’m not supposed to be here-” “I want you to be here-” “You want…” She clicks her tongue with swallowing. “A woman while your husband has you.” She blinks her gaze away to the grass for a moment, shoes flat as she looks back up to Ginger’s gaze, all-knowing. “If I say I need you, then I need you. He will be president and I will be Madame, just as ironic as you think it is, so please, Ginger. ‘m imploring you, give the soon-to-be-madame some-” “Courtesy? Like we’re in fucking France and cheating is normal-” “I could be in France as his woman, you don’-” “Madame?” She looks to her- the child with pigtails of coils and cherubic cheeks of barbeque sauce. “Well…” She raise a corner of her lips in a smile, leaning back on her leg as she inspects the ten-year-old -if that- “Malory, is fiiine darlin’. My husband’s last name is too breathy, and Madame is… well, not me.” Ginger looks at her, looks at her under the sun where she’s supposed to be, under the sun that likes her.

Ginger parts her lips, “Yet,” overenunciating the T. Malory looks to her, expectant btu patient for an answer. “What?” She swallows, looking into her eyes before breathing with a hopelessly fallen smile, “Yet. You are not Madame president yet. One more campaign with your husband, and you will soon be Madame President- who would still want to be called Malory by you, cariño.” She muses her cherubic cheeks with dimples and Malory does as she’s always done, “With the help of her of course…” She smiles like that- smiles like the sun is watching her and will only ever watch her. She smiles not like she’s in love, but like she’s got it- She’s got Ginger, and Ginger knows it, has always known it. “Now, why don’t we go and finagle some wet wipes from my husband?” She’s soft with her, letting her hand find hers lightly before she passes in front of the cameras again and returns to being picturesque. She returns to being his, like she always was.