by Julia London
“Do you want anchovies?”
It was Gilbert, a guy with bed-head that looked 100 percent natural instead of affected, trying to gag her with anchovies. “I, ah . . . whatever the group wants,” she said, pasting a smile on her face.
Gilbert plopped down next to her. “They all want anchovies. Angie’s already ordered it. So no shit, you were Miss Texas?”
No shit. “Yes.”
“Cool,” he said, nodding.
Rebecca didn’t know anymore if it was cool. She chalked that title up to something else Bud had made her do, as if the title of Miss Texas made her worthy to be his wife. What a stupid girl she had been then, her stupidity eclipsed only by her stupidity now. Stupid, stupid . . .
“Hey, ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work?” Tom called to everyone.
Apparently, Tom and Matt had finished their little talk, because Tom was sauntering back to the table. He winked at Rebecca, fell onto a plush leather chair sporting a giant seal of the State of Texas, and grinned at his little group. “Ready to talk campaigns?” he asked, to which they all nodded. “Okay, the last time we met, we decided to get a manageable list of campaign issues together to include in the literature. Everyone’s had a chance to cogitate. Let’s start with the most pressing issues facing Texas today.”
Matt opened his mouth to speak, but Tom’s large head and shoulders (his neck conspicuous in its absence) were suddenly looming in front of Rebecca. “Rebecca? What do you think?”
What did she think? Why? Why did he want to know what she thought? “I, uh . . . I—”
“The economy,” Matt interjected, his focus on Tom now. “Either we propose something to stimulate the economy or start gearing up for a debate on the merits of a state income tax.”
“What about health insurance?” Gilbert said, looking unexpectedly smart. “Texas has an unusually high percentage of uninsured persons that are eating away at state coffers.”
“Sorry, but I think education is going to be the biggest battleground,” Pat chimed in. “Teachers in Texas have one of the lowest starting salaries of any state, and the school funding mechanism is a piece of junk.”
“All important issues,” Tom said, nodding thoughtfully. “And as you know, education and insurance have certainly been the basis for several of my bills this session,” he added. Everyone nodded. Tom glanced at Rebecca from the corner of his eye. “Anything you want to add, Rebecca?”
“I, ah, I don’t really—”
“Don’t be shy! There are no stupid questions or comments in this room!” Tom urged her.
“Well, okay,” she said, frantically racking her brain. “Umm . . . this is for the campaign?”
Tom laughed. “Well now, that question was a little on the stupid side.”
Rebecca blinked.
Tom punched her lightly on the shoulder. “Just kidding! Yes, this is for the campaign. So what do you think?”
Okay, God, just go ahead and open up the floor now, please. She glanced at the others sitting around the table, looking at her so expectantly, as if she knew something, as if she had something to offer! Come on, it’s not rocket science! Just think of what you’ve read in Texas Monthly! her new, improved self chastised her. Be bold! “Well . . .”
Across from her, Matt Parrish sighed impatiently. It wasn’t a very loud sigh, but the sound of it, so goddamn familiar, kicked her square in the butt and made her sit up. Perhaps she had heard that sigh one too many times in her life from her father and her ex-husband for all the wrong reasons. Who knew? The only thing she knew for certain was that it made her blood boil. BOIL. She shifted her gaze to the litigator, and damn him, that was a smirk if ever she’d seen one.
“The environment,” she said clearly and distinctly, surprising the holy hell out of herself. “Protecting the beauty of Texas land, indigenous wildlife, and natural habitats.”
No one uttered a word; Rebecca panicked, fearing that she’d said something completely ridiculous. But then Tom grinned proudly. “Hey, that’s good!” Rebecca instantly felt the panic begin to ebb, and a new sense of emboldened self began to creep in.
Mr. Hotshot Litigator looked unimpressed. “Do you really think that issue is important around the state, outside of Austin?”
She nodded resolutely in spite of having not even the slightest clue how important it was anywhere, much less in or out of Austin.
“Everyone is concerned about the environment,” Gilbert said.
“It’s a death knell outside Central Texas,” Matt said, frowning. “It’s a regional issue, not a statewide one.”
“I don’t think it’s just regional,” Rebecca heard herself say, surprising herself yet again with her sudden, newfound, based-on-one-short-article knowledge of the environment. “I think it’s something all Texans are concerned about, from the panhandle to the coast.”
“Really? So let me ask—is everyone in your social circle living in fear of global warming and the destruction of the rain forests, or is it just the endangered salamanders that keep y’all awake at night?”
Smart-ass. Definitely the type that had to have all the ideas, and therefore, all the attention. “Well, certainly the salamanders,” she said in her best I’m-just-a-stupid-beauty-queen voice. “But also strip mining. You know about strip mining, don’t you? Surely someone has sued over it,” she said sweetly, putting aside that she knew nothing about strip mining, other than the article in Texas Monthly she read: Golden Cheek Warbler habitat destroyed by Strip Mining; Other Habitats Threatened. Nevertheless, Rebecca was prepared to fake her way through it and flashed Mr. Big-Ass Lawyer a very definite, very unperfect Rebecca-like smirk.
Matt clearly didn’t like that, but before he could speak, Pat said, “She’s absolutely right,” which instantly cemented Rebecca’s undying friendship for life. Even more incredibly, Gilbert asked, “Aren’t there a lot of federal dollars for preserving natural habitats? Isn’t that something we ought to look into?”
“What does this campaign have to do with a bunch of birds or salamanders?” Matt asked.
“It’s not about birds or salamanders, Matt,” Pat said with a hint of snippiness in her voice. “Strip mining is devastating to the environment, destroys natural habitats and threatens our groundwater. It’s about our environment.”
“What about heat? Don’t you think we need coal? Or uranium? What about all the jobs the strip mining industry provides to Texas? Look,” Matt said, holding up a hand before Pat could argue, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-environment. I’m just saying it’s not a huge issue in Texas, and it’s a topic I think we should avoid altogether. Trust me, in a statewide campaign, no one is going to want to talk about a bunch of pits.”
“But what if they do?” Rebecca heard herself ask. “People feel strongly about it. There are some pretty passionate feelings just here in this room.”
Matt’s narrow gaze zeroed in on her as Tom quickly agreed, “You’re right, Rebecca. We should at least have a position in case it comes up on the campaign trail. Can’t hurt, right?”
Now Matt looked as if his head might blow off his shoulders into tiny pieces. “Can’t hurt,” he said tightly, dragging his gaze from Rebecca to Tom, “but we’ve got to focus on the economy. The jobless rate is the highest it’s been in two decades, the Homeland Security initiative is putting the urban counties into fiscal straits like they haven’t seen in a century, and minimum wage is not keeping pace with inflation.”
“Dude, you’re so rad!” Angie laughed. “You really know your stuff!”
“Yes, you’re absolutely right, Matt,” Tom agreed, but grinned at Rebecca. “And so is Rebecca! You seem to have a sense of what’s important around the state—I knew I was right about you. Folks, meet our new campaign strategist!”
Campaign strategist? Rebecca let out a little cry of happy surprise at that unexpected announcement—it even sounded like a real position.
Popinjay blinked at Tom in total, unfettered, disbelief.
“Tom, are you sure?” Rebecca asked, smiling so broadly that her cheeks hurt.
“I am very sure,” he said, nodding emphatically. “You bring just the right touch of empathy to this crew,” he declared. “Say, where’s that pizza’? I’m starving! Rebecca, you like pizza?”
“Love it!” she lied, and as Smarty-Pants glared at her from across the table, she shrugged out of her Chanel jacket and rolled up her sleeves to get down to work.
Chapter Seven
Stubbornness is also determination. It’s simply a matter of shifting from “won’t power” to “will power.”
PETER MCWILLIAMS, LIFE 101
Campaign strategist?
Matt tossed his briefcase onto one of several overstuffed leather armchairs gracing his law offices, punched his fists to his waist, and glared out the plate glass windows at the shining dome of the state capitol. Campaign strategist . . . implying, naturally, that the person knew a little something about campaign strategy. Which she obviously didn’t. Strip mining. A fork in his eye would have been better than that.
That little scene yesterday was exactly the sort of thing Matt couldn’t abide, the very thing that made him want to drink himself into a catatonic stupor. If he’d had a brain in his head, he would have said not just no, but hell no, the night Tom and his pals cornered him at Stetson’s. He should have known that involvement in this project was going to aggravate him. And it already had, ten times over. Which was really a pity, because Matt actually liked the work. Honest to God, he did. He found the range of political issues intriguing, the challenges facing the state invigorating. He liked the men and women he had met since signing on, the ones who were affiliated with the party and liked to joke he had the potential of being the next John Kennedy. The ones who kept whispering words in his ear, like district attorney. He had to admit he sort of liked the sound of that . . . Matthew Parrish, District Attorney.
But Matt was beginning to believe that Tom didn’t have a stance on any issue that didn’t further his personal agenda in some way. He had yet to hear Tom speak or act in a manner that would indicate that he didn’t ultimately have his own interests at heart. He hoped he was wrong, and had stood silently by when Tom had hired Gilbert, a grad student with one pair of black jeans, some computer skills, and a dubious background in speechwriting (the son of an old friend and cheap, Tom said). Then Angie, the waitress from Tom’s favorite Fourth Street haunt who had just graduated from tech school and was going to set up a phone bank for him (also cheap with the added bonus of a nice pair of ta-tas, which was, apparently, the most important consideration for Senator Masters). And when Matt had tried to add people to the team who knew something about statewide issues, like Pat, a former state attorney for the education department who knew everything there was to know about education and the goings-on at the capitol, Tom shrugged and said, “She’s kind of old, isn’t she?”
Fortunately, together, Tom and Matt had miraculously formed a decent crew. But Rebecca Lear? The woman who thought she was God’s gift? Disgusted, Matt walked to his desk, fell into his chair, and propped his feet on the corner of his extra-long mahogany desk. He pressed the tips of his fingers together, stared at a painting on his wall of a bunch of cowboys around a chuck wagon.
Matt was still fuming about her hire. In fact, he couldn’t get it off his mind. Not that he couldn’t see why a philanderer like Tom would want a woman like Rebecca Lear hanging around—she was drop-dead gorgeous, had practically knocked him out of his socks when he’d first clapped eyes on her in the park. He would never admit it aloud in a million years, but for a brief moment (before she had opened her mouth and called him cheap), he was amazed that a woman who looked like that was actually about to speak to him.
Yeah, he could definitely understand how Tom would be captivated. He was a married man and had his dalliances from time to time, and Matt had considered the possibility that this was all about getting laid. But as he recalled Rebecca’s curves in that tight white suit and the long shiny black hair and those eyes, he was pretty amazed that Tom could even know someone like Rebecca. She damn sure didn’t seem the type to hang out with an old lineman like Tom.
So then what was she doing on his campaign? As a campaign strategist, the highest position to be held in this campaign? The very same position he held, a position for which there was only one slot before she came along and Tom created another out of thin air?
That was the reason why Matt had pulled Tom aside. “I thought this was a serious strategy session, Tom,” he had said. “So what’s with Miss Texas?”
Tom had laughed, cuffed Matt on the arm. “Nice ass, huh?” When Matt did not respond to that, and wondered if Tom ever heard of sexual harassment, Tom sighed. “Okay, do you have any idea who her father is? Ever hear of Lear Transport Industries?”
Of course Matt had heard of LTI. A person couldn’t live in Texas without knowing about LTI—it was one of the biggest homegrown companies around. But what that had to do with the running of a campaign had gone right over Matt’s head, and he had demanded, “So?”
“So? So she’s got a list of contacts a mile long. She was married to Bud Reynolds—you know, the guy with all the car dealerships? We could really cover some ground with her.”
“Okay. Take her money. Wine her, dine her, and get her to make some calls. But what is she doing here? What does she know about political campaigns?”
“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” Tom had said cheerfully, and when he saw that did not please Matt, had added congenially, “Hey, if it turns out she has shit for brains, we’ll lose her. But it seems worth a little ass-kissing to corner some of the biggest contributors in the state, and let me just go on record here saying that I, for one, wouldn’t mind kissing that ass one bit.”
Matt could only hope that she’d get tired of it and disappear. And really, what did he care, anyway? It wasn’t like it was his campaign. He should focus on his most pressing issue at the moment, which was getting prepared for an important hearing on the Kiker case. With a sigh, Matt shoved a hand through his hair, switched on his computer, and punched the intercom, asking Harold to bring him some coffee.
A moment later, as he pulled files out of his briefcase, Harold came striding in, steaming cup of coffee in hand. “Here you are, Mr. Parrish. Exactly as you like it. Black.”
“Thanks, Harold,” he said absently.
Harold placed it on a coaster—the little bluebonnet design facing Matt, of course—and pushed it carefully toward him. “Will there be anything else, Mr. Parrish?”
“Yeah, you can bring me the Kiker briefs.”
Harold wrinkled his nose. “Such sordid business,” he said as he marched from the room.
Harold couldn’t even begin to imagine how sordid. Kelly Kiker was a hard, chain-smoking woman who looked like she’d been rode hard and put up wet too many times to count in her forty-two years. She’d been in and out of the court system for most of those years, but she had finally gotten her act together, was living in her father’s trailer, and had landed a clerical job collecting fees. Kelly Kiker might have made some bad choices in her life, but she wasn’t stupid, and she quickly figured out that her boss was siphoning a little extra pocket money for himself from those fees. When she confronted her boss about it, he fired her. Kelly was going to let it go—she was used to letting stuff go—but the more she thought about it, the more she thought it wasn’t right, and went to the trouble to get Matt’s name from her probation officer (who happened to be another woman he’d once dated).
Matt had been doing litigation so long that nothing really surprised him anymore. But there was still occasions where a case would cross his desk and make him question his decision to become a high-flying lawyer. Cases that left him so bewildered that he would literally lie awake at night wondering what the hell had happened to mankind. Where was the good?
Kelly Kiker was definitely one of those cases. She was trying to do right and had been kicked in the teeth for it.
&
nbsp; Why Tom’s campaign had all the feel of being another one of those things to keep him awake at night, he didn’t know—but it sure made the image of Rebecca Lear that kept flashing by his mind’s eye all the more irritating.
While Matt was trying to craft a legal argument for getting Kelly Kiker justice, Rebecca had come back from a Transformations Seminar (Track Four) where she had learned how to self-visualize her alter ego (Visualize success! Visualize your future!). Currently, she was visualizing herself as a campaign strategist, and was trying to figure out how to surf the internet for any information on strip mining.
Fortunately, she had Jo Lynn to keep Grayson occupied. Jo Lynn was her seventy-year-old neighbor who lived alone just the other side of six acres of blackjack oak, cottonwoods, and mesquite trees. Jo Lynn had posted a note on the bulletin board at Sam’s Corner Grocery in Ruby Falls: Looking for something to do a few hours each week. Rebecca had called her; they’d had a lovely chat, and Rebecca hired her to watch Grayson a few hours a week.
Grayson had been resistant at first— “I want Lucy!” he’d screamed. When Rebecca told him he couldn’t have Lucy, he had run into his room and slammed the door shut, crying, “You’re MEEEEEEEEEEEEAN, Mommy!” But then Jo Lynn had come over with a bucket of homemade ice cream and her pet goat, and Grayson had stopped crying for Lucy. Jo Lynn was a spry, “practically widowed” woman (practically, she said, because her husband, who was in a home for Alzheimer’s patients, did not know her) who loved life. She had skin that looked like buttery leather, and laugh lines that seemed to have been hand-tooled onto her face. The sun had yellowed her gray hair, too, which she wore in a girlish ponytail. And oddly, practically everything Jo Lynn wore was tie-dyed—which gave the impression of some horrific laundry accident.
Jo Lynn loved Grayson, spoiled him rotten, and was doing so this very moment, down at the river.