by Julia London
“Okay . . . but she is not going to call him.”
“I know.” Robin sighed.
“Listen Robbie, I need your help.” Rebecca said. “I’ve gotten myself into a big mess.”
Rebecca in a mess? Impossible. She was too perfect to get in anything even remotely resembling a mess. Robin and Rachel, on the other hand, could, and often did. But not Rebecca. Never Rebecca. “Really?” Robin asked excitedly, causing Jake to look up again. “So tell me!”
“Okay. It’s sort of a long story, but you know I signed up to work on Tom Masters’s campaign, right? I went to my first meeting, but it was so obvious that I didn’t know anything, and there was this . . . this guy who pretty much thought he knew every little thing, and I got mad, and I sort of mouthed off about strip mining, for Chrissakes, and—”
“Strip mining?” Robin couldn’t help it; she laughed out loud.
“Do you mind?” Rebecca said testily. “So anyway, at the next meeting I had done my homework, and I came ready to tackle all the campaign issues.” She paused there to draw an unusually long and tortured breath, which Robin found fascinating. Of the three of them, Rebecca was the one Robin and Rachel always clung to in a crisis, because she was always so calm and cool and collected. “Well, I said, the Silver Panthers—they’re a group of politically active senior citizens and they’re having their annual convention this month, and why don’t we do some early fundraising?” Rebecca continued.
“Okay . . . so? That sounds like a good idea.”
“Yes, it does. In theory! But practically speaking, it’s a ridiculous idea!”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t get in!” Rebecca exclaimed angrily. “Can you believe that? I can’t get in!”
Robin stood, began to roam the room. “Well . . . if you can’t get in, can’t you just put it off for a while? I mean, the election isn’t until November, right? It can’t be that critical—”
“Yes! YES. IT IS. THAT CRITICAL!” Rebecca shouted.
“Jesus,” Robin exclaimed.
“Oh . . . just fuck it,” Rebecca muttered.
Just what? Robin gasped out loud, pulled the phone away and gaped at it. Rebecca never, ever cursed—it was not befitting her spun gold aura. “Rebecca! Why is this such a huge deal? I mean, are you going to get fired or something?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I’m only a volunteer.”
“Then what is the big deal?” Robin asked again.
There was a long, silent pause on the other end.
“Hello?”
Rebecca sighed loudly. “Okay. This is going to sound really stupid. Just really . . . stupid. But, Robin, I have sent out résumé after résumé, and no one wants me for anything, not even to clean toilets. I can’t convince them to even let me answer the phones. I’m about as employable as a doorknob, and then, I just stumble into this thing with sheer dumb luck, and it’s really a great opportunity for me! I might be able to turn this into a job somewhere, at least use it as real experience. But I have to do it right, and I already sort of blew it with the strip mining thing, and so the Silver Panthers event was something I was sure I could do. But I can’t!” She paused again, sighed with much exasperation. “And there is this guy . . .”
A guy she had mentioned twice now, thank you. “You mean . . . a guy you like?” Robin asked carefully.
“Like? Come on, Robin, you know me better than that. I’m off guys, especially guys with huge egos.”
Right. Rebecca might believe she was off guys, but it sure sounded like she liked this guy. “So what is it about him you don’t like?” Robin asked, grinning.
“I really don’t have the time to list everything, but here’s one thing . . . I mean, he hasn’t come right out and said it, but it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t think I should be working on this campaign. Like I’m not good enough or something. And when I said I’d do this party with the Silver Panthers, he said there was no way, they wouldn’t let me in, I couldn’t pull it off, blah blah blah. And then I said, in so many words, just hide and watch, asshole.”
Robin grinned proudly. “You actually said that?”
“No, of course not! But I bet him I could do it. And the loser has to do whatever the winner wants, and now, well . . . I have to do this even if it kills me.”
Aha. It was all becoming crystal clear. Robin whirled around and winked at Jake, who was staring at her with concern. “You know what your problem is, Rebecca?” Robin asked with great authority, and without waiting to see if Rebecca knew or not, she blurted, “You need to get laid.”
“Oh my God.”
“You need to get laaaaaid,” Robin repeated slowly and articulately.
“Robin!” Rebecca shouted at the very same moment Jake shouted, “Robin!”
“You do,” she said, shrugging helplessly at Jake. “It’s been way too long—what, four years?—that’s why this guy is bothering you so much.”
“Well thanks for broadcasting that to all of Houston! And this is not about that. This is about proving that I can do something. It just so happens that Matt is so full of himself that he thinks he is the only one who ever has any good ideas, and God forbid anyone else should suggest anything—”
“Is he cute?” Robin interrupted.
Rebecca groaned. “Movie star gorgeous.”
“You definitely need to get laid, sister,” Robin cheerfully concluded.
Jake moved so quickly she could hardly react before he jerked the phone from her hand. “Rebecca? Hey, how are you doing?” he asked, and motioned for Robin to go away, which she refused to do, and crowded in next to him so she could hear, too.
“Hi, Jake. I’m doing okay—I just have this little problem and I’m not getting a whole lot of help from my big sister, but what else is new?”
“Hey!” Robin protested.
“What is it you need?” Jake asked, frowning darkly at Robin. “Maybe I can help.”
Robin stuck her tongue out at him and walked away.
Jake turned his back to her and said, “No, I’ve never heard of them . . . Uh-huh . . . Oh . . . okay, I see. Listen, call El. Your grandpa knows everyone in this state, I think. I bet he can hook you up . . . No problem. Hey, how’s Grayson?” Whatever she said made him sigh and shake his head. “Poor kid. But we’re still gonna meet up at the ranch in a few weeks, right? I’ll take him fishing, how’s that? . . . Okay . . . Talk to you soon.”
Jake clicked off, lowered his head, and frowned at Robin.
“What’s wrong with Grayson?” she asked.
“Oh . . . his dad keeps bowing out of visitation, and the poor kid is missing him.”
“Once an asshole, always an asshole,” Robin said with disgust.
“As for you,” Jake said, pointing at her with the cordless phone before tossing it onto the table, “that is no way to talk to your sister.”
“Why? It’s exactly her problem and she knows it.”
“At the moment, it’s your problem,” he said, and started walking toward her.
Robin laughed, fell back onto the couch with a bounce. “Bring it on, big guy,” she said, and laughed again when Jake jumped on top of her.
Grandpa! Why the hell hadn’t she thought of that?
Rebecca pressed a hand to her cheek. She really needed to chill out. This was no big deal; a minor setback, nothing more. She had the Elk’s lodge lined up, the use of their charity bingo equipment, and she had even finagled the refreshments for a pittance. All she needed was a list of conference attendees to send invitations to and she’d be home free. That wasn’t an impossible task; it was just a matter of finding the right person.
Unqualified Applicant Rule 9: The glass is always half full.
Rebecca picked up the phone and called her grandparents.
“Hel-LO-oh!” Lil Stanton trilled loudly when she picked up.
“Hi, Grandma. It’s Rebecca.”
“Becky!” Grandma cried. “Ooh, how’s my adorable precious little boo-boo of a great-gr
andson?”
“He’s great. He’s taking a nap right now.”
“You mean I don’t get to talk to him?” Grandma was clearly disappointed.
“Sorry, Grandma. Next time, okay?”
“Oh honey, are you looking for your mother, too? Aaron called here this afternoon. You know how he is, one minute he’s so sweet, then the next minute he’s about as ornery as—”
“Actually,” Rebecca said, interrupting her grandmother before she could go off on a tangent, “I was calling to ask Grandpa an important question. Is he home?”
“Well, good night, where else would he be?” Grandma snorted. “Jake won’t let him on the job site anymore since he took down all the trim the boys had just put up on the last job. I swear, you cannot let that man out of your sight for even a min—”
“Could I please speak to him, Grandma?” Rebecca asked sweetly.
“Well of course you can, sweetheart. You just wait one minute.”
Grandma put the phone down on the phone table and bellowed, “Elmer! Your granddaughter wants a word with you!” A moment passed, then another, before Grandma shouted, “I SAY-YED, YOUR GRANDDAUGHTER WANTS A WOOOORD WITH YOU!!”
A moment later, Grandpa picked up in another part of the house. “Robbie-girl?”
“No, Grandpa, its Rebecca.”
“Becky! How’s my sweet girl?”
“I’m doing great, Grandpa. But I’m working on a little project, and I need your help.”
“I’ll do what I can, honey. Just a minute,” he said, and put his hand over the receiver. That did not, however, muffle the sound of his shouting. “LIL! Hang up the gosh-dern phone!”
Grandma picked up the phone. “You take care, sweetie, and you give my sweet Graybie-baby a big hug from Grandma Lil.”
“I will.”
“So what do you need, Becky?” Grandpa asked.
“Have you ever heard of the Silver Panthers?”
“Heard of ‘em? Why, I practically invented ‘em!” Grandpa cheerfully claimed, and launched into a long and extremely circuitous tale of how exactly he had invented them, during the course of which Rebecca had to remind him twice what he was talking about (Grandpa liked to talk). But from his discourse, Rebecca gathered he had been a member of the Silver Panthers at some point in time, and at the end of his lengthy little tale, when Rebecca could get a word in edgewise and could tell him what she needed, he snapped his fingers. “Piece of cake,” he said, and told her he’d have that list of attendees by Monday or there would be some butt kicking across Texas.
Rebecca visualized him doing just that in his enormous white support shoes, and thanked him profusely.
Later that afternoon, when she and Grayson wandered down to the bank of the river—her to sit in her Adirondack and chill out with a margarita courtesy of Jo Lynn, and Grayson to throw a stick in the river so that the dogs could refuse to go in after it, Rebecca closed her eyes and dreamily imagined the look on Big Pants Popinjay’s face when she announced at the next campaign meeting that a little fund-raising with the Q-tips was not only doable, but on.
That night, when she had at last turned out the light (having read the first half of Please Understand Me—Character and Temperament Types), she lay there for a very long time staring into the dark, thinking about what Robin had said.
The part about needing to get laid.
Chapter Ten
How’s that working for you?
DR. PHIL
In Austin, Matt was having thoughts of Rebecca, too—there was definitely a love-hate thing going on there, for sure. At least he had figured out the root of his problem with her: She reminded him of Tanya Kwitokowsky, a vicious, mean-spirited Nazi commando and his archenemy in the second grade.
Yep, back then, he was always standing in the corner for some alleged but totally unfounded schoolhouse infraction, and Tanya was sitting in the front row, directly in front of Mrs. Keller, her papers nice and neatly arranged, her fat pencils carefully lined up and awaiting the next assignment. She had been the most infuriating teacher’s pet he would ever know in his many years of schooling—a girl who was quick to point out when he was doing something wrong and beamed like sunshine when he was sent to the corner. And the most infuriating thing of all? He had wanted nothing more, even at that tender age, than to look up her skirt.
Same as he wanted to look up Rebecca’s skirt in a major way.
Which made the fact that she really had no business on this campaign (with the exception of patriotic office decorations) all the more exasperating. Nothing against Rebecca— she was charming in a not-of-this-earth way. And she wasn’t stupid. Matt suspected she was stupid like a fox, really. And okay, he did marvel at how prepared she seemed to be for the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants gig this campaign had a tendency to be.
But she was ridiculously uninformed about everything. It really was like she had just landed here from another planet. At least, he thought wryly, if she was an alien, that would explain a few things. However the most annoying thing about Rebecca Lear was that he couldn’t figure out why he was thinking of her all the damn time.
Not that he didn’t appreciate the package—he’d have to have a bona fide case of numb nuts if he didn’t. Hers was actually a pretty astounding case of beauty, the sort that made a man wonder why the hell she wasn’t in Hollywood instead of hanging around a boring state campaign.
Honestly, he was sick of thinking about it, didn’t want to think about it anymore, and as the weekend was upon him, he let thoughts of the alien beauty queen evaporate in the whirl of activities, beginning with his Friday night date with Debbie Seaforth, one of the county’s top prosecutors. When he took her home, she invited him in, even though it was only their second date. But he was a guy, and when a woman offered, well . . . Matt left Saturday morning after naked pancakes, rushed by his loft to change and get rid of the electric green condoms she had stuffed in his pocket on his way to a golf date with Judge Halliburton.
After golf, it was off to Lake Travis, where he met up with Ben’s brother Alan, a self-styled entrepreneur who was having another party on his houseboat. How Alan, a forty-year-old, could know so many luscious university students was something of a mystery to Matt, but who was he to question it? Even though at the age of thirty-six he tended to think of them as kids, he liked their (barely bikini) company.
On Sunday, it was the obligatory monthly dinner at his parents’ house in nearby Dripping Springs. This Sunday, Dad was barbecuing for the fam—sister Bella and her husband, Bill, and their six-month-old daughter, Cameron; and Matt’s two younger brothers, Mark and his wife, Nancy, and Danny, whose fiancée, Karen, was missing in action for the evening.
In the course of his work, Matt saw a lot of family dysfunction that could fry his brain if he let it, so he considered himself fortunate to have one of those families where everyone genuinely got along and enjoyed one another’s company. The only drawback (and this a fairly recent one) was that Mom was in her sixties now and was beginning to harp on Mark and Danny about grandkids. “Your father and I aren’t getting any younger, you know,” she lectured them. But Matt, the oldest, had had much tougher opponents than Mom, and when she brought up the subject with him, he’d kiss her on the cheek and say, “Have another glass of wine, Mom. It will take the edge off.” That one was always guaranteed to draw a snort of laughter from Dad.
Mom was a good sport. She chalked up his remarks to her stated belief that her oldest son was not the settling down type (Matt wasn’t sure if that was true, really, but he honestly just hadn’t met The One).
That evening, the conversation was pleasantly unguarded and focused on Danny’s upcoming nuptials (nine bridesmaids, poor sap). By the time Matt turned in late Sunday evening, he had successfully put Looney Tunes Rebecca out of his mind.
Monday was quiet. Tuesday morning, he appeared in court for a hearing. As the docket was called, he and the opposing counsel, Ricardo Ruiz, who happened to be a basketball buddy of his, were waitin
g in the corridor when another prosecutor and ex-girlfriend, Melissa Samuelson, went sailing by, pausing briefly to sneer at Matt.
Ricardo looked at Matt; Matt shrugged. “Wassup—are you working your way through the roster?” he asked, laughing.
“Yeah, right—I’ve almost made it through the Rs,” Matt said with a wink.
Ricardo, being the jovial type, laughed appreciatively, then asked Matt if the rumors were true.
Still thinking of female prosecutors, Matt asked with a devilish grin, “Which rumors?”
“District attorney. Everyone was talking about it at the bar association meeting last night.”
That surprised the hell out of Matt—there had been talk of it around the party bigwigs, but he hadn’t breathed a word to anyone, not even his father, the retired U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Winston Parrish.
“So?” pressed Ricardo, grinning. “You gonna be our next DA? You know Hilliard is on her last legs,” he added, stating what everyone knew to be true of the current DA.
“Oh man, is that going around?” Matt asked, trying to laugh it off with a shake of his head. “It’s just a rumor. Don’t believe everything you hear.”
Judging by the way Ricardo clapped Matt on the shoulder and laughed like they had a little secret, it was obvious he didn’t believe what he was hearing at that very moment.
Still, Matt blew it off. Austin was a small town in some respects, and around the courthouse, rumors like that took on a life of their own. By the end of the week, he and Debbie Seaforth would be getting married. But when the hearing resumed (and Matt’s request for a summary judgment was denied), the sparkle had not quite left Ricardo’s eye. “See you in court,” he said with a wink, and strutted out.
That afternoon, Doug Balinger, the Democratic Big Cheese from Stetson’s, called to tell Matt that some of their early work was getting good press around the state. “It’s nothing short of a miracle, after what Tom said about that insurance bill,” Doug remarked.
Matt knew exactly what he was talking about. Last week, Tom had made an off-the-cuff remark about uninsured people, which had, unfortunately, come across like a rich white guy dissing the poor. Matt had worked an entire afternoon on damage control, and fortunately, as a result of his efforts, it had turned up as nothing more than a blip in the papers. But Doug was concerned—and rightly so, in Matt’s opinion—that slips like that would come back to haunt Tom as the election grew nearer.