“You know, I’ve never actually played this,” says Hillary, struggling with her phone.
“Oh I haven’t either,” I say. “But a lot of my siblings love this game.” I try spinning the pokeball around on the screen a little bit like I’d seen my brother do, but I end up missing the pidgey again. Hillary notices and laughs. She hasn’t caught anything all night and seems relieved I’ve finally made a mistake.
“Bill never does things like this with me anymore,” she says.
“I thought you’d never played this?”
“Oh, not this specifically. He just seems so distant,” she says. “Sometimes I wonder if I rushed into my marriage with him, but it seems too late to change anything. I stuck by him for my career and now I’m just another disgraced politician.”
“Almost makes you wish you’d just settled for something small and gotten a job driving a garbage truck or something,” I say. She looks at me, wrinkling her nose. “Too much?”
“That sounds awful,” she says.
“It’s important work,” I say. “Garbage collection, power transmission, wastewater treatment–that’s what keeps everything running. All the work and none of the credit. It seems noble to me.”
“It’s not very prestigious,” she says.
“And look where that got you,” I say.
“On a lovely night out playing pokemon go to the polls?” she says, smiling. I laugh.
“Okay, first, it’s not called that. Second, I mean your marriage and your career. Do they make you happy?”
“I suppose I’ve never considered that,” she says. “It just seemed natural to pursue ambition.”
“But did you want to?” I ask.
She stops walking and winds up another throw. It’s a spearow this time. It looks promising but she leaves her finger on the screen too long. Another miss. She lets out a frustrated burst of air.
“It’s what you’re supposed to want, right? Fame, power, influence?”
“Says who?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. A notification pops up on her screen and she turns it away from me.
“It’s Bill,” she says. “I should be going.”
And away she went.