“I’m not so far from the girl you remember,” she continued. “I have plans…” Then she stopped herself. “I don’t want to talk about this now.”
“You don’t?” So why was she here? “Well, I figure you’ll probably fuck up the country,” I said. “But I had to tell you the phone recording was a lie. As much as I hate what…I couldn’t hurt you.”
“You mean hurt me again,” she corrected.
Then I understood. The day she found me with Sean—the way I’d hurt her—must have never completely gone away.
“I’ve worked very hard to build the life I have,” she said. “I won’t let you or anyone destroy it.”
“You came here to threaten me?” I assumed a confrontational posture. “You political types really are scary.”
She hedged toward the door…
“You broke my heart,” she said. “Remember that.”
“I was a scared kid. When you told me you loved me, everything was so intense. I was afraid.” It was the only explanation I could give.
She lifted her chin in that haughty way. “You weren’t too scared to parade around with that boyfriend of yours.”
After all this time… The realization of what I’d done took hold and the familiar guilt returned. How could I undo the pain I’d caused her? And did that pain cause her to morph into this monster with pearl earrings who kept showing up on the nightly news and haunting me in my sleep?
She lingered at the door, as if unsure whether to go or stay.
“I’m sorry.” It wasn’t enough, but it was all I had.
I remember calling, “Say hi to your husband,” as I watched her descend the stairs. I kept wanting her to face her choices, even if it made me seem cruel.
When she arrived at the first landing, she said something about choosing the right and wrong path. “I know what’s right, and I have to follow what I believe is right.”
“I agree.” I folded my arms, wondering why the hell she even bothered to make the trip at all. If she wanted to make me feel bad, even responsible for her “crazy,” she succeeded.
I turned away, waiting a long moment, wondering what had just happened. I was amazed at how much pain there still was. Even now. There was an ache inside me that never quite went away, no matter how many beers I’d had or how many songs I’d written…Before I could close the door, I felt someone next to me. Robin was there, almost shrugging as if she couldn’t believe it herself. Then she touched my face and kissed me the way you do when you’re all out of excuses. In that kiss was the truth. There was only us, and all of the outside noise seemed to fall away.
Chapter Forty
Adrienne
I remembered it all, but I wasn’t going to tell some upstart reporter all my intimate details. I had to save a little mystery, after all.
But I’ll never forget…It was a kiss that almost made all the years separating us disappear. Then the noise of the outside world rushed back in, and I broke away quickly.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” I asked. She looked at me with a heavy-lidded gaze, as though she was ready to devour me. “Because I don’t play games. Not anymore.”
Her lips kept finding mine, although I wasn’t ready to surrender yet. There were still too many questions. I took her hand and led her inside.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” I repeated.
She nodded. I could feel her breath on my cheek, so close…
Her kiss reminded me of that first time in the dorm room—all the terror pounding in my head like an alarm bell. Only this time, the familiar terror returned for another reason—a sharp awareness that this was probably a bad idea.
She backed me inside the apartment, and I heard the door close behind us, sealing my fate.
Her kisses grew more urgent, and I could tell she’d been thinking about this for a long time. It’s funny how a kiss can reveal so many secrets. Her insistence, her frenzied lips on my mouth and down my neck left little doubt that she’d thought about me as much as I had of her all these years. I was grateful to know I hadn’t been alone in my thoughts about us being together. I was surprised by the way I answered her lips on mine, at the longing I felt, as though she were filling a hole I’d been carrying in my heart for so long.
Next thing I knew, we were on my bed. She straddled me, but hesitated as she was about to undo the last button of her shirt.
She’d never looked sexier, the contradiction of feminine against flannel, her dark curls playing with her collar, a few more lines crinkling around her eyes…
She lowered her eyes and said, “It’s been a long time.”
It was as if she was worried about how she would look to me now at her age. But I wasn’t a college girl anymore either. I wanted to reassure her, to make her see herself as I did.
I reached up to stroke her hair and said, “You’re beautiful.”
From that moment on, all hope was lost of my ever returning to the person I’d taken so long to construct. I couldn’t hold her, touch her, kiss her enough…do anything I could to ensure the same would be true for her. Was I crazy to hope this night would change her too?
Moments later, the space between my thighs was throbbing, and I realized how long it had been since anyone had treated me like that. I nearly collapsed and had to scoot myself up on the pillows and catch my breath. I made a joke about needing a cigarette.
“And I don’t smoke anymore,” I said, watching her smile with delight.
The truth was, I still smoked a little. The bigger truth was, it had always been easier to be the giver of pleasure, not the receiver. To receive meant completely trusting another person and freeing myself—two things that I seemed especially challenged to do. All I can say is that I wanted to trust her so badly, it didn’t matter if I really did. I let myself go, feeling pieces of me catch fire, and, like a million lights, explode across the room, flickering back into darkness.
It was unexpected. I’d started the evening, feeling like I’d won a prize, able to rediscover her and do all the things no one else could do for her, only to realize I was the one who was going to spill my secrets first.
As soon as it happened, I regretted it. When I came to my senses, I worried that I’d given her all the power. I had to be careful.
But she quelled all thought with another kiss and my senses awakened again. And this time she was willing to let me return the favor.
* * *
In these twilight hours, time had no meaning. There was just us.
“I thought about you all the time,” I told her. “I was with someone I’d known a lot longer than you, but it was you I thought about.” I stroked her hair as thoughts came into my mind. I wanted to share them all with her. I wanted to feel safe with her. “It’s funny how we just had one year, but I felt like you knew me better than anyone I’d known before.”
“I know what you mean.” I could see in her eyes that she did know.
* * *
Robin lay on her back with an arm over her head. She was looking up at the ceiling.
“You once said I’d be an activist.”
“Oh, you remembered that.” I was surprised.
“I am an activist,” she said. “But I couldn’t simply march in and say everything I wanted to do. I had to play the game first.”
“I was never all that good at games.”
She turned to face me, leaning against her palm. If I’d had a camera, it was a beautiful freeze-frame moment, her hair tumbling over her shoulder, her sideways glances as she spoke, and yet still a little self-conscious.
“Don’t you see?” she said. “It’s all a strategy.”
Then she told me the biggest secret she’d never told anyone.
“A liberal woman is never going to be elected president first,” she said. “Study after study proves that people, especially men, are more comfortable with a female leader if…”
I quieted her with my finger over her mouth. “Who gives a shit what men want?”
She lau
ghed at me, rolling onto her back. “I suppose to you, I’m a cold, calculating bitch.”
“I never said you were cold,” I joked.
She mockingly started to throw a pillow at me. “It’s a strategy,” she said. “There’s so much I want to do, but I saw who had the resources to support me, and I understood their agenda, even agreed with some of it…in the past.”
“So you’re a fake Republican?” I was surprised at how calm I was. It had always made more sense for Robin to be a champion of women. “You’ve been pretty convincing, Governor. Fining gay couples for showing affection in public? Really?”
She smiled. “Non-controversial politicians don’t get on the national news.”
“Oh, please!” I laughed, unable to swallow this…
“Do you think I’m an awful person? Or do the ends justify the means?” She looked at me intently, as if she really cared what I thought.
I was stunned, speechless. “Sometimes, I guess,” I sighed. “But I’m more of a ‘not faking it’ kind of girl.” I gave her a little smile, then said, “Listen to your conscience. I mean, do you really want to win an election as somebody else? Think of all the people like me who are fighting for our rights and listening to you—and believing what you say. Just…think about it.”
“You’re asking a politician to be real,” she said lightly. “You’re asking the impossible.”
“Is it?”
“All right,” she sighed. “At first, the anti-gay rhetoric came easily because…I was afraid, afraid of myself. It’s an age-old story. I wanted to get as far away from that girl I was in college. So that was all true, I’m sorry to say. But there were other issues…I talked the party line, but let’s just say I didn’t feel it quite the same. Not all of it.” A slight smile escaped her mouth. “I can’t imagine in what universe a woman would vote against earning the same as a man.” Then she looked at me watching her, as if suddenly aware of my judgment. “I hope you can understand.”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“Do you really believe I would’ve made it this far if I didn’t have the husband and child as part of the package?”
Her question made me shudder inside. She was talking about her family as if they were merely props.
“Is that the only reason…?”
“No, not my daughter. I’m so grateful for her.” She lowered her eyes. “But I’ll never be able to make it up to Tom for the hell I’ve put him through. I suppose I have to have a coldness in me to be able to live with myself after doing what I’ve done to him, the worst crime anyone can commit.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Not loving him.”
I was holding my breath, hanging on every word she spoke. These were truths she was trusting me with, after all these years, not knowing how much I’d changed. Obviously, she needed to free her conscience, and she was willing to take a risk. I could’ve had the whole place bugged, for all she knew. But somehow she trusted me. As I listened, she seemed the most tortured soul I’d ever met. I wondered, when you sell your soul piece by piece over the years, not even realizing how much of you has been lost, how do you go about putting yourself back together? I still struggled with my own guilt over some of my choices, but she had a shitload of guilt to contend with. I didn’t envy her.
She got up and covered herself with my bathrobe, then went into the bathroom. As the door closed, I sat up against some propped-up pillows and considered everything carefully. How easy it was to judge her—to say that every decision is black and white—and chastise her for not living up to her true convictions. Only, the world she was living in was clearly more complicated than mine. Having a husband was, for her, an asset, I figured. I could be stubborn sometimes, but I wasn’t naïve. I just wondered if our two worlds could ever meet someday. Knowing her again, learning the secrets of her heart, made it even harder to let her go. It was so much easier when I could write her off as a brainwashed nut job. Was this visit only going to leave me with another bittersweet memory?
Chapter Forty-One
Adrienne
I held her in my arms as morning threatened to crash in and ruin everything. I was afraid to breathe, afraid I’d wake her and she’d leave sooner. But when she did wake up again, she stirred a little and didn’t seem at all in a hurry to leave. I think she didn’t want to go back to her old life.
“You know,” she said, letting me keep holding her, “when I’d watch Daddy on TV, seeing all the crowds cheering, admiring him…I wanted that. The first time I heard a crowd cheer for me, I was hooked. But I never told anyone this. After I got off the stage, after my first big speech, I went backstage and threw up.”
“Nerves?” I asked.
“No. I was sick at what they were cheering for.” There was a long pause. I wasn’t sure if she was going to tell me or not. “They want people like you and me not to exist.”
“You and me?” I remembered that comment because it seemed to change everything. “You’re counting yourself among the sinners now?”
Another long pause. I watched her fingers play with my hand. She seemed to enjoy a few light moments without having to examine her life choices. It wasn’t my fault, though. Life has a way of making you face yourself, whether you’re ready or not.
“I don’t know,” she finally said. But I knew her well enough to know that she was counting herself, and maybe always had, among the sinners.
“You threw up because you felt like a fraud?” I asked. She seemed to dislike my pointed questions, but I had to know.
“Uh-huh. I guess.” That was the answer. I’d known it all along. I knew the real Robin.
“I wanted to be liked,” she said softly. “And they wanted blood. I had to give ’em some to be liked. You know how it is. Have you been able to hold on to all your convictions since being a big rock star?”
She always seemed to tease me about my career, as if it wasn’t real.
“No, I haven’t,” I answered seriously.
I was all too aware of the minutes ticking by.
* * *
Years of playing the bad girl had given me a certain swagger that many women found irresistible. Only Robin wasn’t many women. Even so, I strutted around the apartment without any clothes on, while she muttered something about needing to go back. She didn’t say it with much conviction, so I hoped I could convince her to stay longer.
I sat on the breakfast stool with my legs wide open, embracing my inner slut. It never occurred to me that she might reject me.
“Adrienne,” she said with mock scorn, averting her eyes.
When she couldn’t look at me, I knew I had her. I drew my fingers down…and she let out a gasp.
It wasn’t long before we were both slow dancing naked in the early morning light in the living room. There was nothing to end this feeling of real contentment, her warm skin against mine, nothing to wake us from this dream, except the awareness that it couldn’t last.
As she hurriedly put her clothes back on, I continued flaunting my body, trying to tempt her away from her old life. I was too confident in my role as the tease. Way too confident. And soon I’d be looking out a rainy window…
Before she could leave, I held her arm. “Wait.”
I rushed back to the bedroom, slid on an old robe of mine and pulled the small rectangular-shaped gift I’d wrapped out of the drawer and handed it to her.
“Don’t open until right before the debate,” I said. I wondered if she’d remember the heavy metal tape I’d made for her, the one she’d left behind.
* * *
All through the day, I thought about the things we’d said to each other.
“It’s the strangest thing, Adrienne.” She seemed so vulnerable. “I look out at all the faces in my rallies…”
“So stop it,” I’d said easily. “Stop the hate. Stop the bullshit.”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she’d said. “You get on this ride and it’s hard to find the brakes.”
/> “Excuse me if all the victims of hate crimes don’t get how hard it is for you.”
“I know. It’s all…so strange. It’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell you the rest someday.” Her smile was bittersweet.
That’s when I knew the last time with Robin was the last time. I saw it in her suddenly distant eyes, her anxious demeanor… No sooner did she get her coat on than her mind was already somewhere else, back in front of the press corps trying to figure out how to explain me. I can’t speak for her, of course, but I guessed she was thinking about how to “manage” the situation with me. I was that inconvenient baggage weighing down her campaign. Her ambition meant more to her than anything else, just like I thought mine did.
I felt nothing from her in the last kiss good-bye, as if she was already gone. Maybe to her I was expendable. I couldn’t say the same about her.
* * *
The final debate in Tampa was coming. I didn’t want to watch it, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the night we spent together. Crossing the street, fumbling for a new tune on the guitar, even picking fucking apples at the farmers market. She was there. Always with me.
I had hurt her, she said. I’d laugh to myself whenever I thought of that. She’d never fully understand how she was the constant pain inside me. She’d think it was funny. Or me being self-centered. She might be right…
These conversations in my head followed me everywhere I went, arguing with the Robin in my daydreams.
Chapter Forty-Two
Adrienne
I wasn’t going to watch the debate. Then I was. I must have changed my mind four times before settling in with a six-pack of Sam Adams and the remote aimed squarely at the TV.
When they introduced her, she smiled at the camera, but it felt like she was smiling at me. I thought of the two of us in my bed as she spoke to the crowd with careful precision. I was such a fucking idiot. When I couldn’t take anymore, when I leaned over the coffee table, ready to switch it off, she paused after the one question I knew she had a ready-made answer for. It was one of those deafening pauses that spells trouble on live TV, a sound you never want to hear.
In Her Eyes Page 16