Antiques Knock-Off (15 page)

The senator, aware of our presence, quickly ended his conversation, slapped the high-end cell phone closed like Captain Kirk cutting Scotty off, and gestured for us to enter.

Kara, however, hung back, having completed her task of delivering me, then dutifully disappeared.

“Please sit,” Senator Clark said, gesturing to one of two gray metal folding chairs in front of the desk.

As I did so, he retreated behind to a black padded swivel chair opposite.

Of course, I knew a bit about Senator Edward Clark, as he had represented our state for over twenty-five years, first as a state senator and then a United States senator. He was a widower, his wife having died some years ago of ovarian cancer. He had several grown children. He was a moderate, the kind of politician who was equally popular and unpopular with his own and the rival party, and passionate
about Midwestern values—all of which made him hard to beat in an election year.

So
why
was he spending the August Senate recess in small-town Serenity, instead of in one of Iowa’s bigger cities, or even just coasting on his popularity and fishing in Canada?

Because
this
time he was up against a formidable candidate, another moderate, a middle-aged woman with a large constituency; and sometimes Midwesterners can be fickle and want a change.

Iowans are a self-important breed when it comes to politics; they are accustomed to being the butts of derision as heartland hicks most of the time, but the attention that their early presidential primary casts upon the state provides a sense of self-importance even on off-year elections.

If appearances alone could guarantee a candidate’s reelection, however, Senator Clark would win—the age lines in his chiseled face, the gray at the temples, only added to the man’s movie-star sex appeal.

(Yikes!
This is my
father
I’m talking about. Dr. Hays will have a
field day
with that!)

“I’m really glad you decided to come see me,” he said, sounding genuine. But then, didn’t
all
successful politicians?

He was saying, “Peggy Sue told me about the baby you’re carrying. Brandy, I really admire you for that—what a selfless thing to do for a friend.”

I shrugged. Then, alluding to my not-so-nice-behavior at our first meeting, I said, “I’m
not
a complete—” I was going to use the “s” word, but substituted another of Mother’s favorites, the more socially acceptable “nincompoop.”

“When is the baby due?” he asked.

“Two months.” I shifted in the chair, which was almost
as uncomfortable on my bottom as this meeting was all over.

“You’d never know it.”

“Senator,” I said, and tried not to make it sound either hostile or pitiful, “I really don’t know what you expect of me….”

He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t have any expectations. How about you? What do you expect of me?”

That blindsided me, but I guess it shouldn’t have—I mean, it was so like a politician.

“Well, nothing,” I said flatly. “It’s a little late for anything, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

I didn’t hide my annoyance as I said, “If you’re going to answer every question with a question, I might as well concede defeat right now, Senator. Why did you tell my sister you wanted to see me? Or did she tell you
I
asked to see
you?
That would be just like her, trying to manipulate us both.”

My little impromptu stump speech made an impression, I guess, because suddenly he sat forward. “Brandy, I did ask to see you. Wanted to talk to you. Because … I don’t know anything about you. Hell, I didn’t know you
existed
until very recently. If I
had,
I would have done the right thing.”

“And we’re back to the other day, in the alley. It’s not nice, but I’ll say it again, if I have to. By ‘the right thing,’ do you mean you’d have married Peggy Sue, or paid for her to get rid of me?”

The senator’s tanned faced turned a little pale, his lips forming a thin line. Yet his response came quickly.

“Neither,” he said. “Even though I wasn’t married at the time, I also wasn’t in love with Peggy Sue. And I believe I already told you I don’t believe in abortion.”

“Politicians have been known to flip-flop on that issue.”

His smile was grim but patient. “Not me. You can check my record on that one…. But I want you to believe that I would have taken care of you both financially, over the years, if I had known.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s right …”

He sighed in relief. “Good.”

“… I’m sure you do want me to believe that.”

His frown was so pained it almost hurt me to see it; almost. “Brandy, please …”

“You want me to let you off easy? No way, Senator. Peggy Sue was very young and very impressionable and very much in love with you.”

Another sigh, but no relief in it at all. “Infatuated. There’s a difference.”

“Not really! Not to a pregnant eighteen-year-old, anyway!” I sounded like an accusative child. Which I was.

Slowly, Senator Clark got out of his chair, came around the desk, and stood looking down at me. “I did a stupid, irresponsible thing,” he admitted. “But I was young, too. Not
as
young as Peggy Sue, not enough for that to be a good excuse … but it … it was a lifetime ago.”

“Yeah. Right. My lifetime.”

He tried again. “Brandy, I
was
attracted to Peggy Sue. And very fond of her. She was a beautiful young woman and a big help to my campaign in those early days. I was new at the political game, and not ready for how, as you say, an impressionable young person can become emotionally vulnerable to someone he or she admires. And I didn’t understand how vulnerable
I
was, with my future on the line as a public servant, and living so many, many lonely nights on the road.”

That would have been an easy speech to deride, but it did seem sincere. Not politician sincere—
sincere.

When I didn’t say anything, he gave up yet another sigh
and went on, a man trudging through a swamp because there was no other route available to him.

“Brandy, I thought Peggy Sue had gone to Paris at the end of that summer—to study design. She had told me about her plans … which didn’t include me. I’m not making an excuse for the affair—it’s just that I thought we both had an understanding.”

“You mean, that she’d go her way and you’d go yours.”

He nodded. “Have you never had—it’s a terrible word—a fling? A summer romance? A weak moment?”

I didn’t answer, but my mind was filled with the memory of a certain high school class reunion. Yup, I had his DNA, all right.

“Brandy, why didn’t she get in touch with me about the pregnancy? I’d have made every financial arrangement necessary for you and Peggy Sue to have a secure future. But she never contacted me.
Why?”

“Embarrassment? Shame? Perhaps Peggy Sue felt you wouldn’t
want
to marry her, and that if you did, you’d feel trapped. Maybe your career would be ruined. And you two would have a loveless tragedy of a marriage. Who can say?” I shrugged. “I’m not sure Peggy Sue knows why.”

Denise Gardner appeared in the doorway, wearing a clinging purple silk dress and matching pair of high heels; the aide’s dark almond-shaped eyes widened at my presence. Was that alarm? Had my father
(there—I typed it)
not cleared my visit with her?

“Senator, it’s time for the luncheon with the Women’s Political Action Committee,” she told him. “Your car is waiting out back….”

“Yes, yes, thank you, Denise. In a moment.” He did not hide his irritation at this interruption.

The Dragon Lady retreated, and my host’s attention returned to me. “I will say this for the late and apparently little lamented Connie Grimes—if it hadn’t been for her, I
might never have known about you. So for that much, I’m grateful.”

I snorted, finding his words hard to swallow. “You’re grateful for receiving an anonymous letter about an illegitimate child?”

The senator was heading to a metal coat tree to retrieve his suit jacket. “Actually,” he said, “the letter wasn’t anonymous.”

“No?”

“The Grimes woman signed it and gave her full contact information. She said she knew about my ‘love child,’ and … she wanted money.”

I nearly fell off my chair. Which wouldn’t have been great for either me or the baby.
“What?”

He nodded, unrolling his shirtsleeves, lifting an eyebrow. “I told Denise to tell Mrs. Grimes that I’d let the chips fall where they may.”

I stood, before I
did
fall off the chair. “Then … you didn’t pay her anything?”

“No. No hush money for her or anybody. The first rule of politics these days is that the cover-up is worse than the crime.”

So now I was a
crime.
Anyway, for that to be the “first rule,” a lot of politicians still seemed to be breaking it.

“And,” he said, and slipped on the jacket, snugged his tie, tugged at his shirt cuffs, “I never heard from that unfortunate woman again…. How do I look?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Like a winning candidate.”

“Is that a smile, Brandy?”

“It might be.”

This time it was Kara who appeared in the entryway.

“Ready?” the blond staffer asked.

“As ready as I’m ever going to be,” he said.

She approached him. “Should I make arrangements for dinner?”

He shook his head. “Too many contingencies this afternoon. Soon as I know, I’ll call your cell.”

The senator put a hand on her waist as she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. Then she flounced out of the room. Okay, maybe not flounced. But when a woman that good-looking exits a room, the flounce is implicit.

Meanwhile, my smile had wilted. As Mother would say, a tiger can never change its spots (telling her that should be “leopard” never does any good). And here I had been warming to the blaggard. (Since I was feeling like an orphan child out of Dickens, that’s the word that occurred to me.)

Having withdrawn the smile, I gave him a smirk. “An
other
intern heading off to Paris after the summer?”

His smile wasn’t
exactly
patronizing. “No, Kara babysits me with a firm hand …”

Some baby-sitter.

“… because she’s my youngest daughter.”

I felt my face flush.

Then I asked, “Does she … know about me?”

“No. I thought I’d leave that to up to you.” He smiled, seeming genuinely amused. “But I think you’d like each other—you have a lot in common. You both have a lot of gumption.”

Now
he
was doing Dickens!

Then he exited the alley door, leaving me alone with my red face.

I walked into Allie’s Tea Room, just down the street from the campaign office, at a few minutes to noon, beating Tina and managing to snag the last table-for-two at the popular eatery, where ladies loved to lunch and munch on speciality sandwiches, homemade soups, and wicked desserts.

A few brave souls were having their food out on a patio that faced the Mississippi, the blue water alive with diamondlike sparkles (it’s not
always
muddy) under a high, bright sun. Me, I preferred to admire that aquatic vista from the coolness of the Great Indoors. Right now, a large white barge was passing slowly, its stomach stuffed with grain, making its winding way downriver to St. Louis or beyond. The last time I sat on the patio with Mother, she began singing, basso profundo, “Ole Man River,” which she pronounced “ribber,” claiming that was the Paul Robeson interpretation.

Come to think of it, maybe
that
was why I stopped eating out on the patio.

Speaking of stomachs, mine was growling. Where the heck was Tina? While we’re waiting for my BFF, I’ll tell you a little about the tea room.

Allie’s was owned by Allie, natch, a lovely African-American woman in her early forties (I’m guessing) who had worked in the kitchen of what had been called just the Tea Room for a number of years. During a rough patch of business, the owner decided to shut the place down and retire. Allie stepped up and offered to buy him out and now, after a year, she was making a go of it in a tough business in a rough economy … so hats off to her!

Tina appeared, plopping down in the chair across from me. She looked adorable in a tropical floral spaghetti-strap sundress, her natural blonder-than-my-bottle-blond hair sleek and shiny as corn silk, makeup perfect, face glowing as if
she
were the expectant mother (or that could be the heat). A good thing she was my best friend, or I’d hate her.

“I couldn’t find a parking place,” she said, slightly out of breath. “I could’ve used your pal Red Feather.”

Red Feather is my Indian spiritual guide, who (when respectfully summoned) can get me parking places. Honestly,
I don’t know how he does it. I can be stopped at a light, call upon Red Feather, and wish for a parking place … then up ahead someone will rush to their car, jump in, and pull out—often with a confused, under-a-spell expression.

As much as I appreciate a good parking spot, however, Red Feather isn’t so hot at helping me avoid parking
tickets.
But we’re working on that.

(P.S. I don’t ask my Indian feather guide for money; that would be too selfish and greedy. But once, last winter, when I was in the shoe department of Ingram’s department store, I did request a pair of UGG boots half-off, and suddenly there they were, in just my size. And UGGs
never
go on sale! Now do you believe in Indian spirit guides?)

A waitress came over and Tina and I ordered the same thing: curry tuna croissant, fruit, and iced tea. When our server had gone, Tina leaned forward intimately, as not to unduly entertain the sharp-eared ladies at neighboring tables.

“Well, give already,” she said. “How did it go with Daddy?”

Of course, I had told her that I was meeting with the senator, as we never keep anything from each other. Well … practically never. There was one time, though, way back when, when I went out once with this guy she liked, behind her back, but all he did was talk about Tina. (Sorry, honey.)

(This is Tina speaking. I just read the advance proof pages, and called Brandy’s very nice and accommodating editor, who said there was time enough for me to respond before this book went to press. Brandy, I
knew
about that date … and I forgave you. Besides, I’d already had my eye on Kevin.)