Chapter 3
"Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?" yelled Jenny Silverano to her husband. "I
cannot
believe you just said that, you fucktard."
April sighed as she cradled the phone in the crease between her head and neck. She'd spent a very instructive hour with the instruction manual for the phone system that the State Department used, and found that it had multiple features, one of which was silent participation. She could pass through a conference call, but mute the phone doing the pass through, which meant she could stay on the line and eavesdrop on Silverano's phone calls.
The only problem was that one of the LED's on his phone would be lit, indicating there were other people on the line. It had taken her all of twenty minutes with a micro screwdriver to remove that LED bulb from his phone, not that she imagined he understood all the features of his office phone or would have a clue what the light meant. But better safe than sorry.
She'd just passed through a call from Jenny and April already knew it was going to precipitate a screaming match, and she'd been right.
Silverano had answered the phone and his wife had immediately launched into an attack on the fact that he hadn't started looking at vacation homes in Colorado as he'd promised he would. He'd protested mildly that he did actually have a job to do, and that's what he should be spending his days working on. She'd responded abrasively, belittling his contributions around the house, attacking his manhood and generally just going ballistic in the manner of a pissed-off woman with nothing else to do.
"Look, honey, I just said that we need to prioritize," said Silverano, exasperatedly.
"No you didn't, dipshit. You said
I
needed to prioritize. Like those things that we've already discussed and agreed on suddenly stop being important. Like you saying 'this is all your problem'. Well fuck you too, buddy. I'm making it your problem. Look Paul, just fucking do what you said you'd do. I'm not asking you to jump out of a fucking plane. Just do the shit you are supposed to do. As a husband and father. You know. Like what you are supposed to be."
Even April winced at that.
"I don't fucking care what you have to do at work. Get it fucking done. Do what you said you would. Tell yourself whatever you need, but get the job done." There was a click and the phone went dead.
April sat and listened for a moment, listening to Silverano breathe on his phone, then he said, quietly, "Sure thing, bitch," and hung up.
April considered what she'd heard. It was the usual stuff, after many years of marriage, both parties were taking each other for granted, arguing about inconsequential stuff and neither one of them reaching out to the other after hostilities had commenced. In all good marriages, both sides have ways of de-escalating conflict once it's started – making the other side laugh, physical touching, changing the subject, whatever. But neither Jenny nor Paul had those methods, or if they did, they weren't using them. April wondered if it had always been like this, or whether this was recent.
Either way, she was going to have to figure out how to introduce some of these techniques for de-escalating fighting to both of them. Without them knowing. Good thing she was trained for this.
-----
It was two weeks later and the negotiations with the Chinese were on. All the work and planning and smiling insincerely were over, and the Chinese party had arrived in Washington, and that night, there was a welcoming gala at the Presidential Hotel, in downtown D.C. The State Department had taken over the ballroom and three floors of the hotel. The Secret Service was in evidence, checking things out – which April found ironic, bearing in mind they were called the Secret Service. It seemed strange that an agency designated 'secret' was so public.
The gala included a large dinner, speeches and everyone dressed to the nines. It was ostensibly for the 'trade negotiations', but the reality was that everyone there was a part of the cyber warefare treaty talks – they just couldn't admit it. I April had chosen an off-the-shoulder ivory wrap dress that hugged her figure, cut just above the knee and with a daring plunging back. She was wearing some jewelry that glittered in the light, with large red gems set in the necklace and earrings that matched the color of her lipstick. With her hair curled and set up – with a few locks of hair styled to look like they had escaped from her hairdo – she knew she looked dynamite.
She was finishing up her makeup in the room that State had assigned to her in the hotel – they were taking no chances and had four rooms reserved for the negotiating team, including Silverano – when her phone chimed. She looked down and saw Silverano's name on the screen.
"You ready?" he asked, with no preamble. "They'll be here in about twenty minutes – I just heard from the babysitters."
"I'll be down in a second. Where are you?"
"In the main lobby." He broke the connection and April took one last look at herself in the mirror before heading down.
When she arrived in the lobby, she was aware that she was being noticed by the Chinese delegation as she made her way across to where Silverano was standing. He was wearing a custom-tailored tux and he looked damn good in it. He'd gotten a haircut that day too, she noticed.
She smiled at him and he reached to her and said, "Wow, Mary. You clean up nice! You look phenomenal!"
April smiled back, shyly. "Why thank you, kind sir. You do a girl a lot of good with your compliments."
He turned and nudged a woman standing behind him. "Hey Jen, meet Mary."
The woman turned and April was face to face with Jenny Silverano.
