Beck Dorey-Stein - From the Corner of the Oval

• Abide by the rules, grammatical and otherwise.

• Show up early and say nothing.

• Be discreet and neatlike a librarian or a well-paid prostitute.

• Neutral tones set the tone.

• Breathe quietly or not at all.

• Apply semicolons sparingly; do not question convention.

• Live to type, dont type to live.

• Exude femininity in a strictly nonsexual way.

• No hanky-panky in the workplaceor anywhere, ever.

• Do not aim for perfection. Be perfection.

• And above all else, keep the secrets to yourself.

O N A NIGHT like this, I wait for the voice of God.

Any minute now, President Obama will deliver remarks in the East Room of the White House. Across one parking lot, down three hallways, and up five flights of stairs in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, I lie on the couch in my little office as the setting sun drenches the room in flammable orange. The Voice of God is the anonymous person who announces the president. I wait to hear him.

Any minute now.

Ive become so good at waiting.

Remember when you were small, those rare nights when you would return to your elementary school after dinner to perform in the holiday concert or the spring play? Youd run ahead of your parents and past your sleeping classroom, toward the sound of kids laughing, teachers shushing. Each step pulsing with kinetic mischief, your heart racing to be in this sacred space at such a magical hour. Round the corner to the big kid hallway and there they are, all your friends, already lined up in their matching black pants and white button-downs, beckoning for you to join them because tonight, anything can happen. Youre in the right place.

Finally, I hear the Voice of God and walk over to the closed-circuit television to turn up the volume. A minute later, the president appears on the screen, cracks jokes, and takes his characteristic pauses before addressing the topic of the evening. He speaks eloquently, evenly, sincerely. Applause drowns him out when the president blesses the audience and the United States of America. I type the transcript, proofread it, and send it to the press office before zipping up my jacket, putting on my backpack, and closing the wooden office door behind me.

Its past nine as I walk through the empty hallways at the end of the night. The black-and-white marble floor echoes with secrets and electric possibility.

For the past five years, this house was my home. For so long, this was the only place I wanted to be. Not anymore. Ever since November, each day here feels like a funeral. I have the hallway to myselfeven the janitors in their blue aprons pushing their heavy cleaning carts are somewhere else. Doors left ajar reveal bare desks, naked walls, empty black frames, piles of paper next to overflowing wastebaskets. Each room diagrams a different stage of an inevitable divorce.

I walk through the slow automated glass doors of the EEOB and into the chilly darkness of another January night. From the top of the Navy steps, I see clusters of people loitering under the streetlamp after their West Wing tour. The only sound is the hollow clank of halyard against flagpole. This place already feels more like a memorial, less like the well-oiled machine Ive known it to be. A full moon hovers just above the White House like a flag at half-mast.

This is my school. This is my house of worship. This is my everythingand it is disappearing with each passing day.

I walk by his car and drag my finger across the bumper, knowing agents are watching from their idling SUVs. After waving goodbye to the new guard stuck on night duty, I scan my badge, hear the buzz, the click, the groan of the gate, and walk out onto an empty Pennsylvania Avenue.

This place.

This place.

This place could break your heart.

Everyone keeps talking about the end, but I keep going back to the beginning.

S O WHAT DO you do? is the first question D.C. people ask, and the last question you want to answer if youre unemployed, which I am. Its October 2011, and since the summer, Ive spent nine to five at my kitchen table writing cover letters no one will ever read. I keep setting the bar lower and lower, and Im no longer hoping for actual interviews, but just generic acknowledgments that my applications have been received so I know that I havent actually disappeared from the universe even if my savings and confidence have. Ive grown to appreciate employers considerate enough to reject me properly with a courtesy email. The halfhearted Google spreadsheet I keep on my desktop shows zero job prospects but tons of student loans, and rent due in four days. And now its time to go blow more money I dont have at a bar full of douchebags.