The Kept Woman (29 page)

Greg munched on a cookie. "So everybody's still pretty confident he'll win?"

Lily shook her head. "I heard Kara say Jack was losing momentum, that it looked like he didn't give a shit anymore about anything. You know his poll numbers are way down."

"Yeah," Greg said, nodding. "I've been worried about that. I wonder what's going on with him. Maybe we should have a talk with him."

"No!" Sam said, too abruptly. "I mean, he's swamped the next couple days. Let's give him some space and then we can all chat after the election."

Lily snapped a cookie in half and carefully studied her mother. "Why haven't you told me why you were so upset a couple weeks ago? Does this have anything to do with Jack? Because. . ." Lily shot a quick glance toward Greg. "We kind of figured the two of you were getting it on by now."

"Oh my God," Sam muttered.

"Eeew," Greg said, cramming another cookie into his mouth.

"Well, we did!" Lily said defensively. "I mean, what we're saying is that would be OK with us, Mom. We wouldn't be skeeved out or anything if you and Jack wanted to be a couple. I just figured you were waiting to get through the primary before you told us, is all."

Sam closed her eyes and chuckled to herself. It seemed whenever she convinced herself that she was successfully hiding something from her kids they saw through the bullshit. It was that way when she and Mitch fought, when she got pregnant with Dakota, when Mitch left, and all the while she struggled to keep disaster at bay in the years that followed. Yes, she could always limit what information she gave them, but they saw the big picture anyway.

"You're partially right, Lily," Sam said. "We need to sit down and talk about a lot of things after the election, and my relationship with Jack is one of them. But the most important thing right now is that we fulfill the terms of our contract. Do you guys understand how crucial that is?"

They both nodded.

"Good. We're not bringing anything up right now that will cause the slightest ripple. We can't let anything or anybody screw this up."

"OoooK, Mom," Greg said, putting his milk glass in the sink and looking at Sam like she was unbalanced.

Greg and Lily grabbed their book bags, kissed Sam's cheek, and headed upstairs. As they were leaving the kitchen, Sam heard Lily whisper, "It's probably PMS."

Sam let her forehead drop to the cool wood of the breakfast table and rolled it back and forth. Yes indeed. She had one hell of a case of PMS—
Pregnant Mommy Syndrome
—and she knew it would surely get worse before it got better.

The debate was painful to watch. Jack wasn't able to focus. When it was his turn to answer a question from the three-person panel of journalists, he hardly ever used his allotted three minutes. Rebuttals were short if they came at all. Jack looked bored, like he would've preferred to be anywhere else in the world than up on that stage at Murat Theatre, and Charlton Manheimer pounded Jack to the ground at every opportunity. There were lots of them.

Sam glanced to her left and saw two rigid female faces. Kara seemed near tears, and Sam could imagine how distraught she must be after all she'd done to get Jack to this point, only to watch him choke in the eleventh hour. Marguerite, who had refused to acknowledge Sam's existence despite the close proximity, looked furious. She looked like she was ready to spring from her first-row seat and wring her son's neck.

This was a mess, and Sam was responsible, and part of her wanted to run up on that stage and tell Jack she loved him, she was pregnant with his twins, and she didn't care who the hell knew about any of this. Sam bit the inside of her mouth. But that wasn't her call to make. It wasn't
her
career and reputation that would be ruined when the tape came out. It was Jack's. As twisted as it had gotten, the truth was, she was doing this for him. Because she loved him.

And watching him suffer made it painfully clear that he loved her, too.

Christy held the ice pack to her jaw and read the morning paper. She felt sick about Jack. True, it was sort of entertaining to see him crash and burn like this, but it was a slow burn, nothing sexy, and nothing that was her doing. So where was the rush in that? Yes, he'd probably lose tomorrow's election. But there'd be no blockbuster story. Who cared if a candidate just kind of lost his "oomph" at the end of a campaign? Interns could handle that angle, and she'd let them.

Christy was in an ugly mood. She had three zits, her cheeks were now so swollen that she looked like a chipmunk, and today marked the last daily news cycle in which she could air Mitch's tape and have it mean anything. With her luck, Mitch would show up in August, when Jack was no longer in the race, and give her a tape that would, at best, be a postscript on a former political figure. Sure, they'd gossip about it at the State House, but no one else in Indiana would give a rat's ass, and neither would the networks.

So, fuck it.
Fuck it all
. Christy called the oral surgeon's office and begged to be squeezed into the schedule that day. The receptionist said she was in luck—they had a cancellation at one o'clock.

Well, at least she'd been lucky in one way today. Maybe it was a sign of things to come.

Brandon needed some solace, and the one place he knew he could find it was out on West Sixteenth Street, at Long's Bakery. When things got really bad, like today, a dozen of their warm, melt-in-your mouth yeast doughnuts could make him happy again. Not that he'd eat the entire dozen. Not every time, anyway. At least not in the car on the way home. Someone had told him Long's doughnuts were so good because they used pure lard in their recipe. He'd rather not think of what was in the doughnuts. He just wanted to eat them.

Things were a mess. Mitch Bergen had vaporized. Christy still wouldn't let him in her pants. That night in her apartment had been a disaster—she pushed him off her and pushed him out the door before he could close the deal. Brandon was confident that if she'd only give him a chance, he'd prove he had what it took to keep her happy. But he couldn't help but feel that he'd blown the only chance he'd ever get.

He parked his car right on Sixteenth Street, where he could keep an eye on it, since this was not the best of neighborhoods. He went through the front door that was decorated with a
Welcome Race Fans
banner and got in line. Even at two o'clock on a Monday afternoon, the place was rocking, the few scattered tables filled with a clientele in everything from business suits to the rags of homelessness, all there for the simple pleasure of strong, hot coffee and orgasmic pastries.

Something about the man sitting at the corner table next to the Shriners' gumball machine caught Brandon's attention. Maybe it was the color of the hair, which was probably blond when it was washed. Or maybe it was the stoop in the shoulders. No—it was the hands. The hands wrapped around a Styrofoam cup. Holy shit! That was Mitchell Bergen over there!

Brandon's turn at the front of the line came at the exact instant he spotted Mitch, and he was torn. Did he have time to place his order? If he spoke out loud would his voice carry over to where Mitch sat? Would Mitch recognize his voice and look up?

"What do you want, mister?" The lady behind the counter was not interested in his dilemma.

Brandon whispered, "A dozen yeast and a medium decaf."

She raised her eyebrows. "You a spy or something?" she asked, ringing him up and chuckling.

Brandon paid his money and waited, trying not to stare at Mitch. He got his order, ran out to the car, placed the doughnuts in the passenger seat and the coffee in the beverage holder, all the while studying the bakery door. Mitch was still in there.

Brandon opened his trunk and rooted around in and around his gym bag until he found the things he needed and tucked them inside his jacket pocket. He went back through that bakery door, thoughts of glory and Christy—naked—swirling through his brain. He reached the table, pulled Mitch to his feet, and immediately stuck the ice scraper into his side. "I will shoot you if you make a sound," he whispered. Then Brandon whipped out a pair of handcuffs and snagged Mitch's wrists, leading the stunned man from the bakery. Brandon winked at the lady behind the counter on his way out.

He threw Mitch in the back, tied his ankles together with the red paisley power tie he preferred for televised committee hearings, and drove off. He found a dead-end residential street in Speedway and pulled over at the cul-de-sac. Brandon got in the backseat with Mitch, who had done nothing but moan and mumble during the short ride. Whatever he was tripping on had done the job a little too well, Brandon feared.

He took a deep breath and patted Mitch down. There it was—the wire, the microphone, the miniature tape recorder, all stuffed into the inside zip compartment of his windbreaker. He had it! He had it!

Brandon dumped an unshackled Mitch at the Wishard Hospital emergency room, where he told the triage nurse that he'd found the man on the side of the road and brought him in as an act of mercy. She asked for Brandon's name, but he declined to give it. The instant he was back in his car, he called Christy's cell phone. She wasn't answering. He called her office. She hadn't come in that day at all. He called her home and got her machine.

He looked at his watch: it was 3:45
P.M.
Christy could get this on the air for the six o'clock news if he could find her. Still sitting in the Wishard emergency drop-off lane, Brandon hit the play button and listened to the conversation between Mitch and Sam Monroe. This was gold. Pure fucking gold.

Christy would love him forever.

"Dear God, Jack, you cannot be serious."

"I love Sam and she dumped me—totally out of the blue. She said she wasn't ready for a commitment, can you believe it? That's always been my line!"

Marguerite blinked, not sure what to say. She was astonished that Jack was pouring out his heart to her. He'd never done this, not even when he was a small child.

"I'm nothing without her. She won't even talk to me anymore."

She pursed her lips. Marguerite didn't care for Samantha Monroe, of course, but she couldn't abide by the idea that the woman could have been so cruel to Jack. As far as Marguerite knew, no one had ever broken up with her son.

"So this. . .this sudden lack of interest in the election is because of a broken heart?"

"Yes." Jack rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head. "I was going to ask her to marry me after the primary." He looked up and there were tears in his eyes. "Marry me for real."

"Where is she right now?"

"Upstairs. She stays in her studio or the guest wing when she knows I'm using the office."

"Studio?"

"I turned the old nursery into her painting studio."

"I see."

"I got so used to having her in my life. Every time I imagined my future, Sam was there. Now that she's gone, I. . .oh, man, I miss her so much." Jack buried his face in his hands and cried.

Marguerite sat down next to him on the couch and said, "There, now." After making that motherly comment, she wasn't sure what to do next. She folded her hands in her lap and glanced around the room, thinking how ironic it was that Jack had finally decided to confide in her, after all this time, and she was at a loss as to what to do. She returned her gaze to her son. He might be broken at the moment, but she saw him for who he was. He was brilliant, strong, and charming. He was a Tolliver through and through.

Marguerite reached out and placed her hand on her son's shoulder. Jack's head snapped up and he stared at her in wonder. It then occurred to her that she couldn't recall the last time she'd touched Jack, except for the requisite buss on the cheek upon arrival or departure. The last time she recalled hugging him was at his high school graduation. That couldn't be right, could it? That was over twenty years ago.

Jack blinked, and a tear made its way down his handsome cheek. The sight of her son reduced to tears like this—the harsh pain she saw in his eyes—this was unprecedented. Jack hadn't reacted like this even when doctors informed him he might lose his leg. In fact, he'd been stoic in comparison. And all this over a woman! Marguerite felt helpless.

"Would you like a hug, Jack?"

He stared at her like she had sprouted a second head. "I'm sorry. For a second I thought you asked me if I wanted a hug."

Marguerite removed her hand from his shoulder and stiffened. Even dealing with his own hurt, Jack was willing and able to hurt her. She rose from the couch.

He rose, too, and hovered above her. "I'm sorry. That was rotten of me. You surprised me, is all."

Marguerite nodded. "I surprised myself."

"You've never been a hugger."

"I suppose that's true."

"You hurt me a lot when I was little, Mother, do you realize that? You left me to figure out life on my own. Dad was too busy for me. You were so busted up over the twins that it was like you couldn't bear to look at me."

She felt her heart thud in her chest. "I believe that's somewhat of an exaggeration."

He smiled sadly. "Maybe. But that's what it felt like to me."

She looked away, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows. "I'm sorry, Jack," she whispered.

He said nothing for a moment. Finally, she heard him sigh. "Thank you, Mother. You still up for that hug?"

Marguerite didn't move. She couldn't remember how she ever managed to get her arms high enough or wide enough to embrace her son.

"I'll hug you, then." Jack leaned down and wrapped his arms around her thin frame and gathered her close. It was, at once, delightful for her and awkward. It was certainly too much. Marguerite raised her arms briefly and patted his back, then pulled away. "That was nice," she said, smiling up at him. "Feeling better?"

"I guess," Jack said, laughing a little. "Thanks, Mom."

"So what's next? Is there time to get back on track, do you think?"

Jack shoved his hands in his chino pockets and shrugged. "I have an election eve thing scheduled at seven at the Marriott ballroom. I'm supposed to give a speech and rally the troops for precinct work tomorrow, plus do a few last-minute interviews for the eleven o'clock slots. Kara has me going hard until the very end."