Red Blooded

by Caitlin Sinead

  “What?” I look at my mom, whose lips are thin, prim.

  “It’s a good idea.” Her eyes are steady with mine, but I can tell she isn’t really looking at me. “He’s young, so it shouldn’t feel too weird having him around. You seem to already get along with him. And Ruiz trusts Dylan with this task, so I trust Dylan with this task.”

  Bain nods along at each point. Especially the part about trusting Dylan with this task. I’m just a task to be handled. “I don’t need someone following me around. I won’t make the same mistake again.” I lay my hands flat on the table. If I can’t be as elegant as my mom, maybe I can be as angry as Bain.

  “What made you think this was up for debate?” Bain says, gripping his pen.

  My mom cuts her hand through the air. It’s her way of telling him to back off. “Peyton, sometimes the media aren’t going to care that you’re in a geology class or at a restaurant or even that you’re at a college party. Sometimes the people around you will be fine. They won’t record you, they won’t Tweet what you just said. There won’t be anything to worry about. But other times, there will be a problem. It would be best if someone had your back. You need someone who can assess situations with you and help you through them.”

  I coil some hair behind my ear. “I’m sorry I let you down, but—”

  “Peyton,” she cuts me off. My mom rarely cuts me off. She may have faults, but she always listens. “I’m not mad, but I want to look out for you. And...” She closes her eyes and her chest rises. “I know how you feel about private security.”

  My skin burns thinking about how awful it was when my mom hired a couple bodyguards for me when I was fourteen, right after my dad died and his book got really big. They were everywhere. I felt like I had invisible tethers, and I had to fight the urge to run barefoot down the street just to get away from them. I was only away from them at home, which made my home feel like a prison.

  “I don’t want guards. There aren’t any serious threats, and I’m eighteen and even the government doesn’t think I need it.” I stumble through my reasoning, finishing with the fact that even the Secret Service only protects the candidates and their spouses.

  “I know, Peyton. I don’t love having the Secret Service around me now either.”

  Bain snorts. “Pain in the ass.”

  My mom gives him a tight but knowing smile, and Bain grins. Like, an actual, natural grin. This is how my mom can affect people. She can even get a guy like Bain to grin...oh, and to wait calmly and listen as she has a heart-to-heart with her daughter.

  “I assure you, Peyton,” my mom continues. “We won’t get security for you unless something warrants it, but it would put my mind at ease to know you have someone with you whenever you’re in public.”

  My mind swirls with what it will be like to have Dylan around all the time. What kind of college experience will that be?

  Oh my god, I am so selfish. This doesn’t just suck for me, this is horrible for Dylan. Everything he’s worked for is just gone. He’s been demoted to permanent babysitter. He’s going to hate me.

  Fantastic. Fucking fantastic.

  My mom gets up and comes around to my side of the table. She puts her hand on my shoulder. “It won’t be as bad as you think.”

  I want to keep fighting this, but honestly, I’m tired.

  And it’s hard to keep any kind of focus when I’m still thinking about my dad not being my dad.

  Campaign: 1.

  Peyton: 0.

  Chapter Ten

  You don’t want to say your kids have faults, but they’re human too.

  Peyton’s weakness: crying.

  God knows I’ve tried to curb this. When she cried the first time she scored a goal in soccer—because she hated seeing the wiped-out face and slagging shoulders of the defeated goalie—I told her to buck up. When she cried during those commercials showing abused pets and blaring sappy music, I told her there are a lot of sad things in the world. Our job is to do something about them. For example, we can donate money to a local shelter. She emptied out the plastic Hannah Montana wallet in her room, where we let her keep some allowance, and I helped her put it in an envelope and address it.

  But she didn’t stop crying.

  When we sat on the grass in front of the Potomac with sticky fingers from Ben & Jerry’s and I told her my diagnosis, she cried.

  She asked how long.

  I said a few months.

  Oceans erupted from her eyes.

  “Don’t cry,” I said as I stared at the gray water of the river. “Please don’t cry.”

  She rubbed her face and stared at the river too. “I can’t help it.”

  * * *

  After my mom gets back to being The Vice Presidential Candidate, Bain says one of his aides will take me back to a hotel room. I’m to stay there, ensconced, until we fly out tomorrow.

  “But I can help prep for the town hall. I don’t mind just making copies or getting people coffee or whatever. Since I’m already here, let me be useful,” I say. And let me keep busy or I’ll drown in my own thoughts.

  He puts his hands behind his back and leans forward with a harsh squint. “You want to be useful?”

  “Yes,” I say, not stepping back to expand my personal bubble, even though I want to.

  “Then stay out of our way,” Bain says. “And keep your fucking mouth shut unless we’ve told you what’s supposed to come out of it.”

  Something thuds in my chest and twinges in my tense cheeks. I cross my arms and stiffen my chin, but it doesn’t ruffle Bain. An aide flies up to him, asking if we should use the word liberate or release in a press release. Bain is so entrenched in this semantic conversation that he doesn’t notice me stealing his hotel room key, which he left next to his coffee.

  Feeling the outline of his card in my purse makes the trip with the aide to my solitary room a lot more fun. I think of all the mischievous things I could do to his room, like find a spider to put on his pillow or move every item by an infuriating inch. It’s not until I get to my own room that I realize I don’t know his room number. Well, if he doesn’t have a spare key, maybe he’ll get all the way to his room before fumbling for the lost key. Then he’ll have to go all the way back down to the lobby to get another one.

  What a horrible, minor inconvenience!

  Booohahahaha.

  That semi-victory achieved, I spend a significant portion of the afternoon throwing peanut M&M’s from the minibar into the air and catching them in my mouth as I push about in the hotel room’s rolly office chair. Yes, I’m a vital asset to the campaign.

  The isolation also gives me plenty of excruciating time to chew on new information. The man who gave me gummy bears when I cried, fixed flip-flops with paperclips, and knew how soon a thunderclap would follow its streak of lightning wasn’t my dad?

  My dad isn’t the guy who let me have Band-Aids even when I didn’t have a booboo.

  He’s not the guy who would make jokes about grammar and laugh to himself as my mom and I gave him weird looks.

  I’ve lost him all over again.

  * * *

  The next morning, I get to sit next to my mom on the flight to Ohio for a Town Hall. As some say, there are seven key swing states, and Ohio is three of them.

  We are close physically, but eons from each other mentally. I’m hollow and shaky knowing that a hug from her won’t help me. I want to talk about my dad, but someone might hear. Can I write it on my cocktail napkin? There’s a little circle on it from the condensation of my Diet Coke. Perhaps I could ink it in over the dampness: Who is my dad?

  And she’d pass me the answer, furtively, as though we were seventh grade giggling girls.

  But something tells me that’s not the way to ask about my accurate lineage and family secrets that go back almo
st two decades, or more.

  So I stare at the headrest and she stares at some paper in front of her. But she’s not reading it. She hasn’t turned the page in ten minutes.

  “Mom, you okay?” I ask.

  She blinks and sits up straighter. “Yes, Peyton. I’m just worried about this Town Hall. Citizens can sometimes get pretty...”

  “Irksome?” I offer.

  “Yes,” she smiles. “Irksome. I want to be prepared. I want to understand everything I can about what they might be thinking.”

  The small, worried dent between her eyes deepens. “Are you okay?”

  I pull my hair behind my ears. “Sure, yeah, I’m fine.”

  “I know you don’t like this new plan. But it’s only for a couple months. Not too long at all if you think about it.” Her eyes crease too much when she smiles.

  “Yeah, only a couple months.” I mirror her forced smile.

  She smooths back a single, stray hair on my head. “I’m so happy to have your support in this, Peyton. It’s tough, but we’ll get through it.”

  I nod. “We will.”

  Like she says, it is only a couple months. But it’s the most important couple months in the election. And Dylan will need to be with me instead of on the trail. How can I face him?

  * * *

  At the Town Hall, I wait backstage, taking in the bustling and talks and last minute preparations.

  “Hey.”

  I jolt when I see Dylan. Then I try to pretend I didn’t jolt. But I’m not good at playing it cool.

  “Hey,” I say. “So, I guess they’ve told you.”

  “Yeah, they did,” he says.

  I look off at the rest of the commotion. A woman I don’t know rushes up to Dylan. “Torres, you need to get those questions in order now.”

  He scratches his arm and looks past both of us. “No, Gin’s working on that now. I’ve been...um, reassigned.”

  “To what?” the woman asks, hands on her hips.

  Dylan looks at me and then back at her. “I’m assisting Peyton with her relationship with the media.”

  The woman narrows her eyes as I flush.

  “I thought you wanted to do the questions?” she asks. “You said that was one of your favorite parts of a campaign.”

  I’m not really liking this lady too much.

  “Things changed, okay?” he says.

  She frowns, but she can’t just stand about looking disdainful all day. We’ve got a Town Hall to put on. Soon some other tasks tug her away.

  “I’m so sorry. I know this isn’t what you wanted to do for the campaign,” I say.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Dylan says as he finally looks at me. Everything, from his jaw to his shoulders to his hands, are stiff.

  Yep, not only do I have a handler, I have a handler who completely resents me for having to be my handler.

  Great.

  “I really am sorry,” I whisper.

  Dylan gives a half-hearted shrug. “Lisa says I’ll still help her with some media relations tasks, like press releases. I just won’t get to be on the trail.”

  He makes it sound like he’s just missing out on the icing on the cake. But I know the truth—for him, being on the trail is the cake. I’ve taken away his cake! I want to hold him and run my fingers through his hair. I don’t. Instead, I cross my arms and roll on my feet, not sure what else to say. “Should we just go sit down?”

  He nods. We walk out into the bustling auditorium and take our reserved seats. A few townspeople call to me and I smile and wave. A middle-aged woman yells, “Peyton, your father was your father even if he wasn’t!”

  She means it as encouragement, I guess, by the way she’s smiling and waving, but it makes my insides scuttle. I nod to her. Dylan pushes against my back to make me turn around. His touch is relaxing and igniting. How does he do that?

  “Sit down,” he says, his other hand finding my shoulder and gently pushing down. “We’ll get through this.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I hate public readings. Sure, it’s nice to meet fans of my writing, but reading your thoughts aloud to strangers is not an enjoyable activity. Especially if Jen isn’t there. With her encouraging blue eyes on me, I can skid through. Without her, I’m a sweating, stuttering mess.

  Whereas she speaks eloquently in public all the time. She’s able to talk with poise and commonality at a car factory and then a roadside diner and then a fundraising event, often all in a single day. It’s beautiful to behold.

  * * *

  Town Halls are one thing. Conventions are quite another. And two days later, Dylan has softened only slightly. He still grunts a lot more than I remember him doing before our current setup.

  Like now, as he taps the window. We’re in a high-up luxury room looking down at the convention floor. There are people from all over the country who traveled to Pittsburgh for the Democratic National Convention. Everyone seems so...intense. It’s a whirl of buzz and palpitations.

  “This is intimidating,” I say.

  “They’re excited,” Dylan says, and I can tell by the way his fingers continue to tap he’s not just talking about the people below.

  “It’s nice that they support us, of course, but it’s a lot to live up to.”

  “You’ll do great.” His fingers freeze, steady, as he looks at me.

  There’s a loud thump and some profanity on the other side of the door. Bain doesn’t wait for me to say “come in.” He barrels through with a couple of staffers bobbing along behind him. If the crowd below is intense, these staffers are downright ferocious.

  “Peyton,” Bain says with a clap, as though I’m his best friend. “How’s the speech coming?”

  I smile and straighten my shoulders and try to respond, but I can’t help seeing the way Gin, one of the staffers, snidely asks Dylan how “work” is going. Yeah, he uses air quotes. Dylan cocks his head and—

  “Peyton!” Bain snaps everyone’s attention back to him.

  “Yeah, the speech,” I say. “It’s good, I feel good about it.”

  Bain sticks his legal pad under his armpit. “All right, let’s hear it.”

  “Right now?” I swallow and rub my fingers against my palms.

  “Right now.” Bain stares at me. Dylan scrolls in his tablet and hands it to me, my speech all lined up. This isn’t necessary though. I’ve memorized it.

  I memorized it because that’s something I can control. There are too many other things I can’t control. Like my mouth, which is now so dry, it’s hard to open.

  “Honey,” Bain says, and his inflection makes an otherwise endearing address sound caustic. “If you can’t do it in front of me, how do you expect to do it in front of America?”

  “I got it, okay.” I stare him down. Or, at least, I try to.

  I start off in a low voice and only shake, oh, about the level of a 4.2 earthquake when Bain snaps, “Louder and look up.”

  I look up, but my words trip and fall over each other. All I can think about is how Bain should retire to one of those little islands where the drinks have umbrellas. He’d like that, right? Yeah, he should retire and leave me the fuck alone.

  “Stop, stop,” Bain says. “Gin, make yourself useful and get her a fucking cup of water.”

  Gin dashes to the bathroom.

  “Peyton, I know I’m not your favorite person. But you need to look up when you talk. Speak loudly and clearly.” As if in demonstration, he locks my eyes and continues in a slow, precise voice. “If you stumble, we’ll know it’s because you’re nervous or distracted. But America will think it’s because you don’t believe what you’re saying.”

  Gin dashes back with my water so fast he trips. The cup goes flying, drenching my right side.

  Cold shocks my skin
, but Gin looks worse. He’s red and still on his knees. I reach down to help him up. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  Bain looks to the ceiling, a vein in his neck threatening to pop out. “Peyton has to meet with fucking funders in twenty minutes.”

  He says it as though Gin wouldn’t have accidentally spilled water on me if only he’d known that fact.

  “It’s okay,” I say, flipping my dress away from my leg and dabbing it with some paper towels that Dylan hands me. “If we can find a blow dryer or something it won’t take long at all to—”

  Bain snaps his fingers and juts his thumb in Gin’s direction.

  Gin scrambles out of the room.

  Bain sighs. “Dylan, get over here.”

  Dylan strides to Bain, and Bain puts his hands on Dylan’s shoulders, turning him to face me. “Okay, you don’t need to say your speech looking at me, but you need to be looking at someone. So, can you keep your eyes on him while you talk?”

  “Yes,” I say, but too softly for Bain’s liking.

  He puts his hand behind his ear and leans toward me. “I’m sorry, did you say—”

  “Yes!” I yell. I breathe in. Before Bain can mock me again, I start my speech. “I didn’t have any siblings...”

  I focus on Dylan’s brown eyes. When he smiles, I get lost somewhere between the memorized words and muddy comfort. When I start talking about my dad, Dylan’s eyes crease, his chin dips forward further. He coaxes the words out. He coaxes the memories.

  “...Please help us welcome the next Vice President of the United States of America,” I conclude, but don’t look away from Dylan.

  He grins and pulls something out of his pocket. A neatly folded tissue.

  I barely hear Bain’s booming voice as he exits the room, off to complete another task on his long to-do list. “Fucking fantastic, Peyton, just like that.”

  I take the tissue and glide it under my eye.

  Gin scrambles in with a hair dryer and holds it out to me. “It’s fine, really,” I say. He looks around and, realizing Bain’s gone, he shrugs and leaves.