It’s a perfect opening and roars of applause follow. For the next hour and a half, I listen to my father prove why he leads this competition. Why the people trust him. Why he is the best of the candidates, both diplomatically and intellectually. We reach the closing statements and it’s my father’s turn. He delivers a persuasive, humble outline of his points made this night and ends with, “I will not be beat up by our adversaries, nor will this country. We will be one family, not a divided nation.” When he closes, it’s chaos, and we head to the stage to join him for photo ops. The minute he sees us, he grabs my step-mother and looks around, I think for me, but no. He hugs Bennett. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” I hear him say, and it punches me in the chest.
He’s forgotten me until the photographer motions me forward, and I stand in the huddle of family, next to my father. He looks at me. “You look like your mother tonight,” he says, and I see the hardening of his mouth, the condemnation in that statement that isn’t a compliment, but a bitter memory.
I’m suddenly back on my tightrope and walking a thin line.
My father turns away, focused on my step-mother and a camera flashes in my eyes, reminding me that I’m on show. I can’t allow the spiral of emotions inside me to reflect in the lenses of a camera with an eternal memory, much like my father’s apparently. I step into the instructions I’m given by some publicity person, joining my “family” for what is an eternal photo session. When it’s done, I expect dinner to follow, in some elite location where I will once again be an outsider. I dread it until the moment it really is done, and suddenly Terrance appears next to my father. I’m not really sure what happens beyond my father has to leave town. There are fake kisses on cheeks, and hugs for more cameras, and then I’m alone, that dreaded dinner no longer a threat. And I’m fucked up enough to wish it wasn’t gone, when I have spent thirty minutes wishing it away.
I walk down the stairs and toward an exit. I’m led into a garage and a set of twin security guards, direct me toward a black sedan, where Tobey and Danielle are leaning against the outside. Tobey is in his perfectly tailored blue suit and Danielle is in a dress with a front zipper that is no longer to her neckline, but low to expose her breasts. Her dress is also a flag-blue to match my own, which I’m certain irritated my step-mother, making it pretty darn perfect. I stop in front of them and none of us speak. They know what happened in that auditorium. They know the outsider I am.
“Let’s celebrate,” Danielle says.
“Celebrate what?” I ask.
“It’s over,” she replies, and maybe she believes that, but the good thing about Tobey is he knows better.
His eyes meet mine, and I see understanding. He knows what I feel deep inside, with a clawing, scraping certainty: It’s only just begun. I struggle with a sudden need to stop some indescribable “it” from happening. Tobey opens the back door of the car, and for reasons I can’t explain, I don’t want to get inside. It’s illogical, irrational, even.
I get in the car.
Later, I would discover that feeling had a purpose. It was telling me not to get into the car.
CHAPTER FOUR
One drink.
For years I said that drink on the night my mother died would be my only drink for the rest of my life. I stuck to that vow through college and did so easily. No matter how illogical, and I knew it was, I’d attached drinking to death. It stayed that way all the way up until the night of my father’s first debate. That’s when I found out everything and absolutely nothing. Think that makes no sense whatsoever? It will, once you live the rest of that night with me…
***
THE PAST…
I squeeze into the back of the sedan next to the window with Tobey beside me and Danielle on the opposite side. Danielle glances at her phone and reads an address to the driver that isn’t the hotel.
The car starts moving and I glance across Tobey to Danielle. “Where are we going?”
“A place where you can drown your sorrows,” she says.
Tobey grimaces. “She doesn’t drink. And she doesn’t need to be a press magnet tonight.” The driver halts us at the garage exit and Tobey leans forward and taps his shoulder. “Drop us back at the hotel.” The driver nods and exits to the road. Goal achieved, Tobey eases back into his seat and flicks me a blue-eyed look. “The hotel has a bar. You can do your virgin routine there.”
“She doesn’t want to be a virgin for you, Tobey,” Danielle snaps. “And clearly there’s a reason you’re going to be an attorney and I’m a fundraiser. I know what people need and want. You don’t care. They have that flavored hookah vape stuff she likes at the place I’m taking her.” She plants her hand on his leg, squeezes and leans forward to look at me across his lap. “You know I know you don’t drink and why. You also know that I know what you need. It’s the lower level in a five-star hotel, with tight security. The hookah and desserts, which means chocolate. I had to get special approval to get us in without a membership.”
“What does that even mean?” Tobey demands, grabbing her hand, removing it from his leg, and turning to face me. “She knows why you don’t drink? Is there more to you not drinking than dislike?”
“It’s a control thing,” I say, not sure if I should kick Danielle for her big mouth or kiss her for hookah and chocolate. “I can’t risk being stupid drunk,” I say. “You know that.”
“But you can risk people thinking hookah is weed not tobacco?” he challenges. “And tobacco will kill you.”
“Better me than someone else,” I murmur, leaning forward to tap the driver on the shoulder. “Please continue to the bar and my apologies for our flip-flop.”
“Do you know her at all, Tobey?” Danielle demands. “She uses the tobacco-free stuff. It’s just like flavored herbs.”
Does he even know me? No. He does not, and it seems tonight, Danielle has made it her mission to drive that point home to me and him.
***
Fifteen minutes later, we’re at a place that is as perfect as Danielle had described. A place that combines business and pleasure, which translated to my father and his people’s approval, should I have asked in advance. The door is well guarded. The music is a mix of modern and dated pop, all toned down to allow conversation. Once we’re past security, we find the setup to be that of a giant aquarium with flat blue ceilings. There are stunningly wide and deep, often oddly shaped fish tanks built into concrete walls, as well as lining several walkways, that create privacy for tables.
I count three round bars at the back of the room, all side by side, with cylindrical aquariums behind the bartenders. With every table filled, we head to the crowded, far-left bar, and the three of us claim fancy high-backed stools at the counter, with me sandwiched between the two of them. I slink my tiny bag, across my chest. Tobey and Danielle order martinis, while I scout the menu.
“Coconut hookah,” I say, when it’s my turn, decisive as my father expects, “and the chocolate flower arrangement.”
“Oh look,” Danielle says, when the waiter leaves, showing me her phone with press headlines. “Frank Monroe has arrived at his hotel in Austin, Texas, with his lovely family. That’s what it says. Lovely family. Only you’re the only real family and you’re not at the hotel.”
And apparently my father isn’t leaving town after all, I think, nor did anyone think to inform me. Tobey seems to read my reaction, lacing his fingers with mine and tugging my attention in his direction. “You okay?”
“Of course,” I say, because like my father, I never give him any other answer.
“You sure? You know it’s okay to not be okay?”
He’s lying, and he knows it. It’s not okay to not be okay. Ever. Thankfully the food and drinks arrive before I’m forced to play whatever this nonsense game is that he’s playing tonight. Easily distracted, Tobey reaches for his dry martini and as an added bonus that ensures the game ends, the guy in a suit next to him speaks to him, causing Tobey to turn in
his direction to reply. Good because I’m one hundred percent past an attempt at a meaningful, but meaningless, conversation with Tobey. Eager to assure it stays that way, I angle in Danielle’s direction to find her holding a glass of chocolate goodness complete with marshmallows. She sips it and holds it out to me.
“You want a sip.”
“No,” I say. “I do not want a sip.” I reach for a rose-shaped chocolate and take a bite, moaning with the glorious rich, cherry flavor inside.
Danielle finishes off her drink in a gulp and orders another, before leaning close. “Does Tobey ever make you moan like that chocolate?”
Never, I think. “Always,” I say.
“Liar,” she replies. “Say what we both know. You’re just in a business arrangement. You look good on each other’s arms to the press and the powers that be.”
Terrance might see too much but Danielle sees everything. “Tobey likes it that way,” I say.
“You don’t.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She grabs a chocolate. “Because you think this arrangement pleases your father, who ignores you and fawns over his bimbo wife and Ken doll step-son.” Her phone buzzes with a text message and once she reads it, her red painted lips curve. Translation, it’s her man flavor of the moment, whoever that might be right now. She doesn’t keep them around. I don’t try to keep up unless he shows up, which is once in a few months, or a blue moon.
I grab another piece of chocolate and glance over my shoulder to find Tobey standing in a huddle of men, his jacket now removed. The tall guy across from him with thick wavy hair and a tie loosened halfway down his chest, gives me a flirty grin. He’s good looking and that’s why I turn away. I’m a good girl trying to forget being bad. I have Tobey. I have law school. I have a father about to be President. He hopes. I just want Tobey to be it and be done.
I inhale my coconut-flavored herbs and my dismissal of the pretty boy flirt has failed. He sits down next to me. “You’re the future first daughter,” he says.
“And you’re an asshole.”
He laughs. “You get tired of hearing that, I guess.”
“Yes. I do.”
“Sorry then. Let’s start again.” He offers me his hand. “Drew,” he says.
I do the expected and shake his hand, tugging mine free when he holds it a little too long. “You did meet Tobey, right?” I ask. “My boyfriend?”
He glances over his shoulder at Tobey and back at me. “The gay one?”
I blanch. “He’s not gay.”
“He’d do me. I guarantee it.”
I don’t like how confident he is in this and I change the subject. “What do you do?” I ask, “and who are you really?”
“Corporate attorney.” He reaches into his jacket pocket and slides me a card.
I don’t pick it up. “An attorney that has time to frequent bars?”
“I’ve signed many a client in bars and celebrated many a win in this very bar, including today.”
“What case?”
“Do you really care?”
In another life, I would. “No.”
“Liar again,” he says, as if he’s read my hesitation. “But all that matters is that I’m here and so are you. The future—”
“Don’t say it,” I warn.
He laughs. It’s kind of a warm, whiskey laugh. I like it. I like him, which is why I have to make him go away. “Go away,” I say.
“No.” He waves at the bartender. “A whiskey sour for me,” he tells the guy before looking at me. “What’ll you have?”
“I don’t drink,” I say.
He glances back at the bartender. “S’mores Martini.”
“I’m not drinking that,” I say when the bartender leaves.
“Let’s make a bet,” he says. “If I prove your man is gay, you drink it.”
“He’s not gay. Stop saying that.”
Danielle suddenly squeezes between me and Drew, turning to Drew and saving me from his advances, but probably for greedy reasons. She likes the man, who’s easy to like, outside of the insistence that Tobey is gay thing that is, and she’ll like the drink I can’t drink. I turn away from the two of them and grab another chocolate, this one filled with some sort of butterscotch nutty flavor that I quite like. Danielle’s phone buzzes with a text message, and I don’t mean to, but I catch a glimpse. It reads: Tomorrow, honey. Market Street.
I freeze with those words that feel familiar. So very familiar. There is a nagging bad feeling clawing at me, but I seem to lose the thought. I fight to get it back and then after that fight, the urge to grab the phone and read Danielle’s messages. The s’mores drink Drew ordered appears in front of me, and I grab the marshmallow and take a bite, the sweet chocolate of flavored liqueur touching my tongue. I turn to find Danielle’s back still firmly in place, her body turned intimately toward Drew’s.
I don’t think. I just take a sip of the drink and it’s absolute sweet, chocolate heaven. I gulp it and order another. Tobey appears by my side, resting an elbow on the bar. “Hey, honey.”
I hate when he calls me honey. My father called my mother honey. I rotate to face him. “Are you gay?”
He scowls. “Why the fuck would you ask me that?”
“Are you?”
“Do I fuck like I’m gay?”
“I don’t know how someone gay fucks,” I say.
His hand settles on my shoulder. “Let’s get out of here and fuck. That’ll end this conversation.”
“No,” I say, because that isn’t what I want at all. “Let’s talk about our arrangement.”
“What arrangement?”
My new drink is set down and I grab the marshmallow, wishing we had the chemistry I had with Drew. “Taste,” I order, holding it to his mouth and he studies me for several hard beats before taking a bite.
“Do you like it?” I ask, after he swallows.
“Why do I feel like that’s a trick question?”
I drop the remainder of the gigantic marshmallow into my drink and sip before setting it down. “Because you’re as good at the political game as me?”
His hands settle at my waist and he sets me on my feet. “There’s an open table. Let’s go talk.”
I don’t agree. I don’t do anything. Not that I remember.
But I blink and I’m sitting at a table with him, and my drink has mysteriously traveled with me. “What arrangement?” he demands, leaning across the table, his eyes boring into mine, his tone snapping me right back into the here and now.
“You, and your family, want power,” I say. “You see me as that power.”
“I see us as a good match,” he replies, smoothly, oh so smoothly, and it’s not a denial. It is just what it is. The game.
“Okay,” I say, reaching for my drink.
“Hailey—”
I must block out what happens next because I blink again and there is a table wrapped with people I mostly don’t know around me, as if I’ve lost more time. Drew is directly across from me now, as Tobey was before, and I can feel his leg next to mine under the table and I seem to be allowing it. He gives me a wink and I jerk my leg and gaze away, scanning for Tobey. I find him at the far end of the table, a good six people between us. He’s staring at me, anger in his eyes. Are we fighting?
Danielle claims the open seat next to me, setting a chocolate dessert between us. “I brought two forks.”
I accept one of them and dig into the dessert, not because I want it but because it’s here and I’m hoping food dilutes the drinks I’ve downed. “How much did I drink?”
“I’m not sure, but you don’t seem drunk at all. You’ve been debating politics.”
“I have?”
“Yes. And winning. Why? Do you feel drunk?”
“No. I just—I just—off. I feel off.”
A guy taps her on her shoulder and she turns away from me, knocking her phone down as she does. That’s when the message I
’d read from earlier comes back to me. I bend down and grab her phone to read a message that says: North, South, East, West. That’s what I want.
I breathe out. It’s a familiar tone again. Why is it familiar? I blink and I’m no longer holding the phone but eating more dessert. I don’t want the dessert. I want the phone. I want to read the messages. Adrenaline pulses through me and I stand up, looking for the bathroom sign, and finding it to the right of one of the bars. With adrenaline racing through me I head in that direction, crossing the bar, and then entering the hallway leading to the bathroom. Spying an exit sign, I charge toward it, ready to get the hell out of this prison of a bar and life, but before I can escape, a hand comes down on my arm.
Danielle whirls me around. “How about talking to me before you judge me?”
I don’t know what she means, but I’m angry at her. So very angry. “I need to leave. Honey.” God, now I’m using my father’s words. Honey. Honey. Honey.
“The real you comes out,” she snaps. “Crass and bitchy.”
The real me. I don’t even know who that is. I turn away from her and I shove through the doorway, exiting into an alleyway…
***
THE PRESENT…
And that’s the last thing I remembered that night, and as in the past with my first blackout, in the morning light it would prove to have deadly consequences. In the depth of my dark mind, everything I needed to know the next morning was there, and yet, I found I knew nothing at all.
The question then becomes: In ignorance is there innocence or guilt?
CHAPTER FIVE
The dreaded morning after is worse when you wake up with a stranger in bed with you. But what happens when the stranger is you? That would be the stranger I had to face after leaving that bar alone that night. Alone. Was I alone? That would be one of many questions that would haunt me for the months to follow…
A Perfect Lie Page 3