When Dan did come home, he was exhausted and wrinkled. Sometimes, he’d been up for days. His hair stood up in clumps and his eyes were bloodshot. He’d come into the apartment, shower, and head straight for bed.

Shannon talked to him while he slept. She told him about her job while his eyes stayed closed. “Mmm-hmm,” he’d murmur sometimes.

Dan wore two BlackBerrys, strapped to either side of his belt. “You look like a nerd,” Shannon always told him. He didn’t care. Once when Dan was home and lying in bed, Shanon saw a red mark on his hip. “What’s that?” she asked. She touched it lightly.

“It’s from the BlackBerry, I think,” Dan said.

“You have a scar from your BlackBerry vibrating against you?” Shannon asked.

“I guess so,” Dan said.

“And that doesn’t strike you as strange? As not right?”

“Not real y,” Dan said. He rol ed over and turned out his bedside light.

“You’ve been branded,” Shannon said. But Dan was already asleep.

Every time Dan got ready to leave again, they fought.

“When wil you be home?” Shannon would ask.

“You know I don’t know that,” he’d say.

“Do you even miss me?” she’d ask.

“Shannon,” he’d say. “Don’t start this now. You know I miss you. Don’t fight with me right before I leave.”

Sometimes she let it drop, but sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes she’d poke and whine until they fought. It felt good to scream at him, to scream at someone. Once she asked him, “Let’s say that you got to have dinner with one person and you had to choose: me or the Candidate. And you hadn’t seen me in a month. Who would you pick?”

“You, of course,” he said. He came over and kissed her good-bye. It was a lie. She knew deep inside that she was his second choice. Always.

He’d fal en for someone new. And infatuation was winning.

Once after he left, the dog jumped onto the bed, lifted his leg, and peed. Shannon didn’t even yel at him. “I understand,” she said to the dog as she stripped the sheets. “It’s a shitty situation.”

As months went by, Shannon forgot what it was like to live with Dan. Some nights she convinced herself that he was gone for good. If he did leave, she decided, she would take his TV.

Her friends were worried about her. They took her to brunch and brought over wine. “How are you doing?” they asked.

“Good, good,” Shannon always said. What was she supposed to say? That Dan would rather campaign in Texas than spend time with her? That she’d been abandoned? That the Candidate had stolen her boyfriend? It was easier to just say, “I’m doing great.”

“You’re such a good sport,” they’d say.

Shannon drank the wine and agreed. “Yep, that’s me.” It was better, she thought, than the truth.

At the end of August, Dan got four days off from the campaign. Shannon thought they’d have al sorts of time together, but when he was in the apartment, al he did was e-mail with his campaign friends. He was constantly looking at his BlackBerry. They went to dinner, and Dan remained hunched over, his fingers clicking away. Sometimes he’d laugh at a response he got, or nod in agreement.

“Don’t your fingers hurt?” Shannon asked him. He looked up, surprised.

“No,” he said. “They’re fine.”

“Do you think you could put that away for twenty minutes while we eat, so that I could actual y talk to you while we’re in the same city for once?”

He whistled. “Whoa, Shannon. Calm down.” He put his BlackBerry down next to his plate and held up his hands in a fake surrender. “It’s away,” he said. “Okay?”

“No,” she said, holding out her hand. “Away, away. Give it to me. I’l keep it in my purse.”

“Shannon, come on. Don’t overreact.”

She kept her hand out. “I’m not overreacting. You’re not even e-mailing about work stuff, are you? You just miss your little campaign friends.”

Dan handed over the BlackBerry, but looked at Shannon with narrowed eyes. “You’ve real y got to figure out how to deal with your issues,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s total y the problem.”

The last night Dan was home, he wanted to go on a double date with his campaign friend Charlotte and her boyfriend, Chet. “Why?” Shannon kept

asking. “Why do we have to go out with them?”

“I want you to meet her,” Dan said. “I think you’l real y hit it off.”

“I kind of doubt it,” she said.

“Come on,” Dan said, and final y she agreed.

On the way downtown, Dan told Shannon that Charlotte and Chet were having some problems. “Chet’s not thril ed that Charlotte’s traveling so much,” he said. “He’s not taking the campaign too wel .”

“Who is?” she asked.

“Shannon.”

“What?”

He just shook his head.

They went to a tiny Mexican place in the West Vil age that served mango margaritas that tasted like candy. Dan and Shannon got there first, and stood at the bar drinking their margaritas. “Oh,” Dan said, “there they are!” He waved his hand up in the air and a tal blonde waved back.

Charlotte was almost six feet tal and very thin. She was the kind of person you don’t think is that pretty at first, but upon closer examination, you realize that she’s gorgeous. Her angular nose was striking and her long limbs were graceful. She could have been a model. When Shannon stood next to her, her head came right up to her boobs.

“Shannon, hi!” she said, and she surprised Shannon with a hug. Shannon’s face smooshed into Charlotte’s chest and she could barely breathe.

Final y she let Shannon go, but stil held on to her shoulders. “It is so nice to final y meet you.”

Shannon finished her margarita and shook the empty glass at Dan. “I’m ready for another one.”

They waited a long time for a table and got two more rounds of margaritas. Chet and Shannon drank while Charlotte and Dan talked about the people they worked with.

“And Kel y,” Charlotte said, rol ing her eyes. “Can you believe the way she sets up the events? I mean, putting the chairs in a semicircle? Where does she think she is?”

Dan doubled over with laughter and Chet and Shannon looked at each other. Shannon licked the salt off her glass. “Semicircles, huh?” she asked. “Crazy.” Dan stopped laughing and tilted his head at her. She smiled back.

By the time they sat down, Shannon could feel mango margaritas sloshing around in her stomach. The waiter put a basket of chips on the table and everyone grabbed for them. Charlotte took a handful and shoved them in her mouth. Then she started waving her hands around like, Wait, don’t talk! I’ve got a story to tell! Chet looked at her from the sides of his eyes, and Shannon wondered if he hated his girlfriend too. Charlotte swal owed her chips and wiped the grease off her lips. She took a sip of her drink and smiled.

“I forgot to tel you guys,” she said. “Last night, I had the most graphic, realistic, and extremely satisfying sex dream about the Candidate.”

“Wel , it looks like we know who the next Monica Lewinsky wil be,” Shannon said. She laughed and no one else did. Dan looked at her with his mouth open. “What?” she asked. “She can talk about the next president of the United States giving her an orgasm and I can’t make a Lewinsky joke?”

Charlotte looked down in pretend embarrassment. “Oh my God, ” Shannon said. “You brought it up. With your boyfriend sitting right there.”

Shannon meant to point at Chet, but he was closer than she thought and she ended up poking him on the cheek. He jumped in surprise. Shannon got the feeling he hadn’t been listening to anything they’d been saying.

They finished their enchiladas quietly, with pleasant, bland conversation. On the way home, Dan reprimanded Shannon. “I can’t believe you said that,” he told her. “Charlotte was pretty upset.”

“Oh, was she?” Shannon asked. “Do you think that Chet and I were upset that we went to dinner with our significant others that we never see and al they talked about was the random people they work with on the campaign? People that we don’t know and have never met. It was so boring. And it was rude.” Shannon’s eyes started to tear up and she sniffled. Dan let his shoulders drop.

“I’m sorry, Shannon,” he said. She shrugged and he grabbed her arm until she looked at him. “I mean it. I know this is hard for you and I real y appreciate your support. You know that, right? You know how much that means to me.” Shannon shrugged again and let him hug her.

“We shouldn’t have gone to dinner with them,” she said. “That’s not fair. You’re leaving tomorrow.”

“You’re right,” Dan agreed. “It should have just been us. Charlotte suggested it and I didn’t know what else to do. She’s having a hard time with Chet. I’m not sure they’re going to work it out. I feel real y bad for them.”

“Yeah,” Shannon said. “How sad for them.”

Shannon dreamt of the Candidate. She dreamt that they ran into each other at the grocery store and laughed about buying the same pasta sauce.

“You like Ragú too?” Shannon said to him, and they laughed and clutched arms. She dreamt that he came over for dinner and she told him how he was making her life so hard. He smiled. He shook her hand. He talked about hope and belief and getting fired up! Shannon awoke from these dreams feeling exhausted and confused, until she noticed that she’d left the TV on CNN. They were showing a tape of the Candidate at some campaign stop. He was smiling and frowning, laughing and tilting his head to show concern. Shannon looked at him closely while he talked and gestured. Did he know? Did he know that he had stolen her boyfriend? Did he know that he was ruining her whole life plan? Did he know that he was making her miserable?

He finished the speech and a Stevie Wonder song came blaring out of the speakers. He clapped his hands toward the audience, gave a serious look, and then smiled and went to shake hands. He swayed his shoulders and hips to the song. She decided that the answer was no. He didn’t know any of it.