The Ambassador's Wife (11 page)

There wasn't a room in the house in which they hadn't made love: the front hallway underneath the stained-glass Union Jack and the disapproving eyes of Elizabeth II, the second Finn closed the door on their last guests; the dining room, straddling a chair; the kitchen, over the cold industrial metal counter. They made a point of it. When would they ever have so many rooms at their disposal again? When in their future lives would they ever have such a luxury of space? Her desire for him still astonished her. That she could feel this for a man. Yet she did. Unmistakably, undeniably, she did.

Almost from the start of things with Finn, she had been waiting for this happiness to be taken away. She had always assumed that meeting the person with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life would be blissful. The search was over, there would be no more broken hearts, and she would be drunk with joy. Wasn't that how she was supposed to feel? She hadn't expected the accompanying terror. The second she knew that she wanted to be with Finn for the rest of her time on Earth, an abyss opened beneath her. Not because she doubted him or worried he would leave her. Their relationship had always been—perhaps bizarrely—free from that particular worry. But because she was newly vulnerable in a way she had never experienced, in a way for which she had no preparation.

It was possible, the world being as the world is, that she could lose
him. Almost anything could happen—a car accident, a heart attack, the flu. It didn't help matters that here, he was a true target. This wasn't just her morbid imagination, it was fact.

That Finn had bodyguards should have been reassuring to her, but it had the opposite effect. The fact that he had bodyguards implied that he
needed
bodyguards. Ten of them. This fact didn't create her terror, which was purely precipitated by her overwhelming love, but it fed it.

She didn't feel deserving of this happiness. She hadn't led a particularly exemplary life. She'd been self-absorbed and single and free. She'd put her passion for painting before all else—her family, her friends, her lovers, Vícenta. She wasn't cruel. She never purposefully caused anyone pain; she was kind to strangers on buses; she played with children in coffee shops when their mothers needed to use the toilet; she recycled. But she had never had to truly sacrifice anything dear to her. So how was it that she suddenly came into this happiness? Why her and not the millions of raped and tortured women of the Congo? Why her and not the Bosnian Muslims? Why her and not the millions of babies who died every year in the first few weeks of life? Did they not deserve even a small portion of this joy?

Superstitiously, she hoped that perpetual awareness of her good fortune would somehow ward off tragedy. Free from religion, she had no god to thank. Nor did she see the universe as a benevolent force that arranged things as they are meant to be. But she'd read in a science magazine that gratitude alone, whether to God, cosmic forces, a friend, or family, was enough to improve health and well-being.

Miranda was not constitutionally cheerful; her default take on the world veered toward noir. She viewed with awe her Zen-like friend Moira back in Seattle, who found reasons to be overjoyed every minute of the day. Moira stopped to smell the roses. Moira was flooded with pleasure by the sight of a bluebird, a jar of almond butter, or a stray balloon. Moira believed that everything happened for a reason. Miranda wished she could believe that, but struggle though she might, she could not manufacture faith in the bounty of the universe.

Moira was an acupuncturist, someone who believed that bad moods were simply blocked energy flows. For Miranda, bad moods
were the results of reality, by-products of reading the news. Every front-page story sank into her like a voodoo needle. Every day there was another dead child, another natural disaster, another insane politician insisting that gay people could be “cured.” She didn't know how not to take it all personally.

Yet the pendulum also swung the other way, filling her with a baseless euphoria that made her skip down a sidewalk, flirt with a pretty girl at a party, or dance on a bar. Her bleak worldview remained unaltered, but she experienced brief reprieves. Which is all to say that this consistent happiness was like a stiff, shiny ball gown rubbing against her tomboy's knees. She couldn't get used to wearing it. She didn't know how to properly inhabit it, how to walk in it, how to make it her own.

The first time she stayed over at the ambassadorial Residence, she'd spent the night throwing up in the marble-floored bathroom. She'd woken close to 3:00 a.m., desperately nauseated, and slipped out of bed in search of a remedy. They kept a stash of organic ginger beer in the upstairs refrigerator. Naked, she'd sat on the cold bathroom tiles clutching the sweating can. She'd been halfway through it when she started vomiting.

She wasn't ill. She had no fever, no pain, and had had only a modest dinner of carrot soup and bread. It was just, she couldn't believe that all of this, that Finn most of all, was hers.

He hadn't stirred. He slept so little that when he did drift off he committed fully to unconsciousness. In the morning when she'd told him what had happened he chastised her for not waking him. “You needed the sleep,” she'd said. “And there was nothing you could have done anyway.”

“I could have held your hand! Or kept your hair out of your face.”

She'd laughed. “Thanks, but it really wasn't a moment for romance. I'm not in the least sad that you missed it.”

H
ER FEET HAD
been beating out a mindless rhythm on the treadmill for nearly an hour, her mind lost in a meditation on color, when the glass door of the gym slid open. The sound jolted her back
from Ethiopia, where she and Vícenta had traveled during their first year here, and where they were shocked to find themselves in the dazzling palette of Africa after so many months confined to the black-and-white world of Mazrooq. Here, with women dressed as shadows of their white-robed men, any color was subdued, hidden, suppressed. But Ethiopia! Ethiopia was a revelation. She fell instantly in love with the women there, with their bare faces and their lithe bodies dressed in reds, purples, oranges, yellows, and pinks
all at once
. Every woman was a garden unto herself, in radiant full bloom. Traveling from Mazrooq to Ethiopia was like going from Kansas to Oz.

“S
ALAAMA
A
LEIKUM
,”
CHORUSED
Mukhtar and Bashir politely, looking slightly bewildered at the sight of her in a camisole and shorts. No doubt they were wondering whether to report her unauthorized use of the gym equipment—before remembering that the person to whom they would report her was most likely responsible for her presence.
“Wa aleikum asalaam,”
she said cheerfully, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for them to find her here. Only then did she realize what her iPod was blasting.
That butt you got makes me so horny…
It was “Baby Got Back,” from her
One-Hit Wonders of the '90s
album. “I can turn off the music,” she offered, hoping the guards' English lessons weren't going well.

“No problem,” said Mukhtar, heading for the bench press. “We like music.”

Miranda kept running, praying the next song would be better. But no.
I'm too sexy for my shirt…
Mortified, Miranda didn't know whether to turn off the music or fake ignorance of the lyrics. The men continued their bench-pressing and biceps curls, seemingly oblivious. She left it on. They didn't stay long, just another ten minutes, before slipping out to change back into uniform. Breathing a sigh of relief, Miranda upped the speed on the treadmill. And the door slid open again.

“Oh!” a female voice said.

It was Antoinette, a chubby blonde from the embassy whose job seemed to be primarily to find furniture for staff housing (Miranda
hadn't realized how pedestrian most diplomatic jobs were. Most people in the embassy were not involved in politics at all; they were accountants, housing managers, or personal assistants). She'd never been particularly friendly when they'd seen each other at the club or various receptions, but then again, not many of the British staffers were. They were cliquish and kept largely to themselves, not mixing socially with the local population or even the staff of other embassies. Why be a diplomat then? Miranda had wondered. Why take a job abroad if you want to spend all of your evenings tossing back gin and tonics with your pals from the homeland? Finn was different, of course. Though comparisons were not fair, given that an ambassador had entirely different social and professional prospects from those of his staff. Finn socialized every night, either out or at home, much of it obligatory. Still, he seemed to relish spending time with his local contacts and immersing himself as much as was practical in the culture. He often dressed in a
thobe
for Mazrooqi gatherings, joining in the local dances with gusto.

But the pressing concern at the moment was that Antoinette didn't know about her and Finn. Which meant she would be wondering how Miranda had happened to get access to the gym. Think fast, Miranda urged herself, her feet suddenly getting in each other's way on the treadmill.

“Good morning!” she said brightly. She couldn't hide, so she might as well try to brazen it out. At least there was no chance that Antoinette would ask her directly what she was doing there. The Brits, in Miranda's experience, rarely communicated anything directly. (Again, Finn excepted.)

Antoinette gave a short nod and headed toward the elliptical machine.

She could lie and say that she had come with Sally, one of her few embassy friends, and that Sally had left earlier. She could say Tucker let her in. Or she could say nothing and hope Antoinette just assumed she was there legally. The less said the better, she finally concluded, reaching for the treadmill's controls.

She had increased her pace so that she was nearly sprinting, so she wanted to slow the machine before attempting to dismount. But
embarrassment and panic made her clumsy. Instead of changing the speed, her swinging palm swiped the Emergency Stop key. The rubber mat of the treadmill jerked to a standstill. Miranda kept moving, catapulting headfirst over the front of the machine, her hips catching on the display console. For a nanosecond she hung there, draped over the tilted treadmill, her curls brushing the floor. But Miranda's slight form was apparently not quite substantial enough to flip the machine entirely. It slammed back to the ground, dropping her unceremoniously on her head.

Breathless from the impact, Miranda kept her eyes closed. This did not just happen, she thought. I did not just flip myself over the handlebars of a treadmill in the embassy's gym in front of an embassy employee. A treadmill that I am not officially allowed to use without Finn around. Even I could not be this uncoordinated.

And yet. There she was. Flat on her back with her head throbbing and her camisole riding up, showing the top of her striped cotton underwear and a strip of her naked belly.

“You all right?” The voice was polite, but not overly concerned. Antoinette hadn't paused the elliptical machine. “Do you need help? I could get off. I just didn't want to stop suddenly and…”

And do what you just did
, Miranda silently finished for her.

“Oh, I'm grand,” she finally managed. “Just getting my breath back. Up in a sec.” But she wasn't quite sure this was possible. Cautiously, she tested a few body parts. Her toes wriggled. Her fingers too. Not paralyzed then. She bent a knee. If something were broken, she would be crying, wouldn't she? Slowly she rolled onto her side, conscious of Antoinette's curious gaze, and got to her feet. The lights felt very bright suddenly, and it occurred to her that she might have a concussion. She took a few limping steps.

Halfway to the door she paused. Would Antoinette see her slipping through the gates back toward the Residence? The embassy staffers came in a separate entrance, from the street. Only the ambassador and his guests used the gate from the house. She could avoid questions by going out the staff door and circling around to the main entrance of the Residence. But that posed two other problems. First, there was no way she was going to walk outside of this little compound
dressed in shorts and a camisole. She'd give the guards a coronary. Second, she couldn't get in or out of the staff entrance without a key. She'd have to go back to the house directly.

“Bye!” she said cheerfully to Antoinette, who continued to take slow steps on the elliptical machine.

There was no answer. Miranda watched her for a minute before slipping out the door and, glancing painfully over her shoulder to make sure Antoinette wasn't looking, darted through the Residence gates and staggered up the lawn to the house.

Christ, she thought, stepping into the shower in Finn's bathroom. Land mines everywhere.

F
INN FINALLY GOT
home around 3:00 p.m. She always had plenty of warning of his arrival, as the gates would clatter open and the guards' walkie-talkies would start bleating before his armored convoy finally swept into the yard. She ran downstairs to meet him, still damp from her shower.

“Staying away from buttons?” he said, kissing her. “I leave you alone
one
morning and you managed to get the whole team round.”

“Let that be a lesson to you. I got lonely. Besides, I've been wanting to meet Tucker for ages.”

“And I'm sure you made quite an impression. What did Teru leave us?” They headed to the kitchen and rummaged around in the refrigerator, finding spinach quiche, salad, and apple-rhubarb crumble.

“I've made a decision,” Finn said as he refilled their glasses with sauvignon blanc. They were eating on the front porch, where they could look out onto the garden.

“You're never going to leave me here alone again?”