“You aren’t old and tired,” Luke had argued, wishing he could convince himself as well as her. “And anyway, I don’t need your protection. I’m all right. I can handle him.”
“He says you aren’t eating enough.”
“I’m eating plenty,” Luke had assured her. “I’ve got to get off, Mom. They’ve just opened the doors to the Senate chamber.”
He hadn’t eaten plenty that night, he admitted silently as he followed the signs to the main terminal building and braked to a halt outside the entry. His father had wolfed down a well-aged Angus sirloin and chattered ad nauseum about the tough Con-Law prof he’d had at Yale and the strategies one needed for scoring high on the boards. Luke had sipped his iced tea and picked at his marinated chicken and wished he were somewhere else.
With Jenny. He’d wished he were with Jenny.
“No need to come in with me,” his father said as he swung open the passenger-side door and reached into the back seat for his briefcase. “Oh—has Howard done anything about switching your office yet?”
Luke sighed. Senator Milford couldn’t switch his office; there was no other office empty and available anywhere in the Hart Building. Luke didn’t care. The office he had now suited him fine.
Apparently James was able to sense his son’s indifference. “You may think the size of your office is a trivial issue,” he explained. “But people make judgments on you based on your office. Now, supposing you have to hold a meeting in that broom closet of yours, and—”
“A meeting? Dad, I’m an errand boy.”
“Bad attitude,” his father chided. “You’re a member of a senator’s staff, and don’t you forget it.” A quick glance at his watch and he swung out of the car. “I’d better go if I’m going to catch this flight.”
Yes, go. Please, just go.
“See you later, son.” His father shut the door and strode to the building’s entry. Luke watched until James had vanished inside, then released his tension with a shudder.
What kind of son was he, to want his father to make a fast exit?
What kind of father was James Benning, not even to thank his son for giving him a lift to the airport?
What kind of person could have health, a top-drawer education, tolerably good looks, a prosperous family, his own late-model BMW, a father who doted on him... What kind of person could have as much going for him as Luke did and still feel as if everything in his life was a sham?
Not everything. Jenny was in his life, and she was real, true, genuine. Buoyed by the thought, he ignited the engine and steered away from the terminal, heading for Georgetown.
* * *
HER ROBE TIED around her waist and her wet hair brushed smooth over her shoulders, Jenny turned off the bathroom light, stepped out into the hall and heard the doorbell. Kate was listening to Tom Petty at top volume in the bedroom she and Fran shared, so they couldn’t have heard the bell, and Sybil hadn’t yet returned home from her dinner date with her boyfriend from H.U.D. In fact, it could be Sybil at the door right now. She might have forgotten her key. Jenny could think of no one else who would ring their bell at nearly ten o’clock on a weeknight.
Tightening the sash of her robe, she padded barefoot through the empty living room to the front hall. She peeked through the peephole and saw not her roommate but Luke.
She didn’t care that she’d just stepped out of the shower, that she was wearing her nightgown, that she hadn’t had a chance to blow-dry her hair. Throwing open the door, she greeted him with a smile of pure delight. “Luke! Hello! What a surprise!”
“Hi.”
Her smile faded as his grim expression registered on her. He was dressed in business clothes, but he’d removed the jacket of the lightweight gray suit, loosened the knot of his tie and unfastened the collar button of his wilted cotton shirt. He looked rumpled and fatigued and deeply troubled.
“Come in,” she said at once.
“No, I shouldn’t have come,” he muttered, although he put up only half-hearted resistance when she took his hand and pulled him over the threshold. “I should have called. You’re about to go to bed.”
“I was about to dry my hair, but that can wait. What happened? What’s wrong?”
For a long moment he only gazed down into her face. She watched as the muscles in his jaw relaxed, as the crystalline hardness in his eyes thawed, as one corner of his mouth twitched upward in a noble attempt at a smile. “Oh, Jenny...” He sighed. “Just being here,I feel better already.”
Warmed by the compliment, she steered him into the living room and urged him onto the couch. “Do you want anything? Something to drink?” she asked.
He shook his head, grasped her hand and pulled her down onto the couch next to him. “Just your company.” He continued to hold her hand, drawing it onto his lap. His thumb sketched an abstract pattern against her palm.
In another context she might have found his light caress arousing, but not tonight. Luke had come here seeking friendship, not passion. In the four times they’d seen each other since the night they’d attended the theater together, they had never gone further than a few kisses goodnight. Pretty spectacular kisses, admittedly, but Luke seemed to be waiting for a sign from her before he attempted anything more.
Sometimes she thought she was ready for more. Ironically, those times were not when Luke was kissing her but rather when he was talking to her. When they were kissing she felt hunger and thirst, want and need—but not love. It was when they were talking that she felt most certain that she loved him. When Luke described the soccer team he’d played on in prep school or the unusual recipes his best friend Taylor liked to test on him at Princeton or some new intrigue shaping up in the back halls of Congress, when he strolled hand in hand with her through the Museum of American History and free-associated about all the cultural artifacts on display, when he argued with her over the death penalty—he was for it, she adamantly opposed—those were the times she loved him. It didn’t matter that they disagreed about the death penalty. What mattered was that he was smart and articulate, he challenged her, and he respected her opinions.
He’d come to talk tonight, and Jenny knew intuitively that her desire for him would be aroused not by the nearness of his body or the warmth of his hand around hers but by his words, his trust, his willingness to confide in her.
She sat quietly beside him, waiting for him to speak. After a while he did. “I just dropped my father off at the airport.”
He had told her his father would be spending a couple of days in D.C. “Did you have a good visit with him?” she asked.
He grimaced. “I don’t know. God, Jenny, it’s so hard to be with him sometimes. I used to dream—when I was a kid, I used to dream he and I would have times like this, special times when it was just the two of us, no Elliott getting in the way, just my old man and me. And now, at last, we’re having those special times and...” He let out a long, doleful breath. “Shit,” he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. “I don’t want to be a lawyer.”
From anyone else such a statement would have seemed unexceptional. But from Luke it was the most agonizing confession, each word wrenched from his soul, a devastating truth he had suppressed for as long as he could. He appeared haggard and pale, as if he was awaiting divine punishment for having cursed.
She rose onto her knees on the couch cushion and tucked her hand under his chin. “Look at me, Luke,” she commanded gently, turning his face to her.
Slowly his eyes came into focus on her. She had no difficulty reading the torment in them.
“This is not such a big deal,” she said.
“Right,” he grunted.
“Lots of people don’t want to be lawyers.”
“Lots of people don’t have James Benning for a father,” he argued. “As a matter of fact, only two people do have James Benning for a father, and one of them moved five thousand miles away just to get out from under him.” He grimaced again, as if he were suffering the worst sort of pain—which, Jenny
had to admit, he probably was. “Oh, Jenny,” he whispered. “I wanted this. I wanted it so badly. I wanted him to fuss over me the way he fussed over Elliott. And now I’ve finally gotten what I wanted...and it’s destroying me.”
“It’s not destroying you,” she murmured. “You’ve grappled with it for a while, and now you’ve finally figured out what’s right for you. That’s not destruction.”
“But my father—”
“Your father can’t live your life for you, and you can’t live yours for him.”
“Right,” he grunted again, putting a wildly sarcastic spin on the word. When he next spoke his voice was soft, almost plaintive. “I want him to love me, Jenny. Is that such a terrible thing?”
It was the most natural thing in the world, but Jenny couldn’t figure out what it had to do with Luke’s choice of career. If his father loved him he would accept him and give him the emotional support he needed. Jenny’s father loved her, and the only real demands he’d ever made on her were to do the best she could and take pride in her efforts. When she’d wanted to play in the Little League as a child, he’d fought long and hard to get the local league to admit girls onto the team. When she’d wanted to take an afterschool job at one of the fast food joints in town, he’d expressed his reservations about the effect it might have on her schoolwork, but he’d let her take the job. When she’d gotten accepted to Smith College, he hadn’t balked at the fact that it was expensive and far from home. Instead, he and her mother had hung a sign in the window of their agency proclaiming, “Jenny’s Going To Smith!” and filed a zillion complicated forms so she would qualify for financial aid.
Even when she’d been among a group of kids rounded up at a high school graduation party and escorted to the local police station because they’d been drinking beer, her father hadn’t stopped loving her. He’d been furious, he’d grounded her for two weeks, but he hadn’t stopped loving her.
She was his only child. He was her father. It was all very simple.
But what had Luke once said? Things aren’t always so simple.
“You’ve got to do what’s right for yourself,” she told him. Perhaps his relationship with his father was more complicated than hers with her father, but this much was obvious. Luke was going to have to live with himself for the rest of his life. He had to listen to his heart and choose his own path. He couldn’t sacrifice his future and his happiness to please his father.
“He’ll kill me,” Luke said glumly.
She laughed at his exaggeration. “He may be disappointed, Luke, but he’ll get over it.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I wish I did.” If only she could meet the man, she could reassure herself that Luke was, in fact, blowing this situation way out of proportion. She would view Luke’s father more objectively than Luke himself could. She’d see that he wasn’t the monster Luke had made him out to be, and she’d be able to convince Luke that, whatever hurdles he and his father faced, they weren’t insurmountable.
She would prove to Luke that his father wasn’t going to kill him or destroy him. Then he could lighten up on himself and face the future with joy.
Excited by the idea, she squeezed his hand. “Let me meet him, okay? The next time he’s in town—”
“No,” Luke said swiftly.
Surprised, she sank down into the cushions and stared at Luke. “Why not?”
“You’d hate him.”
“I would not.”
“He’s...” Luke struggled with his words. He ran the fingers of his free hand repeatedly through his hair, as if trying to work out his anxiety. “Jenny, he can be a mean S.O.B. when he wants to be. You don’t know him, you don’t understand him and you’d wind up hating him. I don’t see any good coming of that.”
She smiled and squeezed Luke’s hand once more. “First of all, I’ve never hated anyone—with the possible exception of Adolph Hitler and Idi Amin, neither of whom I’ve met. I’m sure your father isn’t in their class. He helped to make you the person you are, Luke. How can I hate him?”
“Trust me. It’s possible.” In spite of his words, he allowed himself a small grin.
“We’ll talk. We’ll get to know each other. We’ll swap knock-knock jokes. I’ll debate the death penalty with him. It could be fun.”
“Sure. About as fun as getting hit by a truck.”
“Don’t be such a pessimist,” Jenny scolded. “I’d like to meet your father. I can’t believe he’s as bad as you say.”
“That’s your problem,” said Luke. “You can’t believe panhandlers on the street might be drug addicts, and you can’t believe my father can be a first-class bastard if he thinks the occasion calls for it.” He rotated his wrist so his hand was on top of hers, and folded his long fingers around hers. “He’s my father—as you said, he helped to make me the person I am—so I’ve got to love him, and I’ve got to do whatever it takes to win his love. But that’s him and me. That’s blood. It’s family. You don’t have to get involved, Jenny. There’s no need for it.”
She almost objected that there was a need. She needed to meet Luke’s father because she cared for him, because he was important to her, because she would understand him better if she knew what he was fighting.
“I want to,” she said quietly, beseechingly. “Please.”
Luke shook his head. He tightened his grip on her hand. He opened his mouth, and she braced herself for his refusal.
“All right,” he said.
* * *
“FORGIVE ME IF I’m having a little trouble with this,” Sybil drawled. “Why are you meeting his father if you haven’t even slept with him?”
Laughing, Jenny sat on the edge of her bed and buckled her sandals onto her feet. “What does one thing have to do with another?”
“Well, meeting Luke’s father implies a certain seriousness, doesn’t it?”
“Not necessarily,” Jenny said, although deep down she suspected that Sybil might be right. To meet a boyfriend’s father when he happened to be in town didn’t automatically connote something significant. But to meet Luke’s father was quite another thing. It was serious enough for her to have chosen the gauzy lace-trimmed skirt and blouse she’d worn the night she and Luke had gone to the theater, the night she’d admitted to herself that she was falling in love with him. Maybe it would bring her good luck tonight.
She crossed to the dresser, lifted her brush and attacked her hair. She knew she looked woefully young for her age, small and slight and pathetically fresh-faced. If only she could do something a bit sophisticated with her hair...
Sybil read her mind. She rose from her own bed, glided across the room and took the brush from Jenny’s hand. After stroking it through the long red tresses for a moment, she twisted the hair and piled it on top of Jenny’s head. Jenny studied her reflection in the mirror and wrinkled her nose. “It isn’t me,” she confessed.
“It certainly isn’t.” Sybil let go of the haphazard knot and Jenny’s hair tumbled loose down her back. “How about if I do it in a French braid?”
“I’ll be forever in your debt,” Jenny said dramatically, though she was grinning. “I wish I could make a French braid.”
“It’s easy to do them on someone else,” Sybil explained. “Doing them on yourself is much harder. So tell me,” she said, brushing the hair back from Jenny’s temples, “you’ve known Luke for over a month, now. You’ve visited every major tourist attraction in town with him. You’ve eaten with him, you’ve watched TV with him, you’ve taken drives in the country with him, and one of your phone conversations with him ran forty-seven minutes; Fran was timing it. You’ve even gone to Chinatown with him and eaten marinated duck’s feet, and if that isn’t a sign that this relationship is serious, I’m sure I don’t know what is.”
“Those duck’s feet were disgusting,” Jenny recalled with a smile.
“And now you’re going to have dinner with him and his father at his father’s private club,” she continued. “And you stil
l haven’t bedded the man. I don’t get it.”
“There’s nothing to get,” Jenny assured her. “I think the relationship is serious, too.” It was the first time she’d actually admitted such a possibility out loud, and hearing herself put the idea into words only made its truth resonate inside her.
“Then what is it? Are y’all saving yourself for marriage?”
Jenny laughed and shook her head.
“Be still,” Sybil scolded, tightening her grip on the braid she was weaving down the back of Jenny’s scalp. “Then what is it? The man is a prime cut, Jenny. And don’t tell me he isn’t interested in you that way, because I’ve seen the two of you together. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, honey, and it’s most certainly not the way a man looks at his maiden aunt.”
Jenny let out a long breath. She wasn’t sure she could explain her failure to sleep with Luke to herself, let alone to Sybil. She wasn’t a prude. Her desire for him was stronger than ever, and she knew all she had to do was wink and he’d whisk her off to bed.
She gazed at her reflection, her hazel eyes suddenly solemn, her chin proudly raised. “You know what it is, Sybil?” she said, once again putting her feelings into words for the first time. “If I sleep with Luke, that’s it. I’ll be his forever. And I don’t think I’d mind that. It’s just such a big decision.” A tear surprised her, leaking through her lashes and skittering down her cheek. “I love him, Sybil.”
“Damn,” Sybil muttered. “You know what my mama says? Love’s a swamp. If the mud doesn’t get you, the copperheads will. Either way, you’re doomed.” She clipped a barrette around the end of Jenny’s braid and took a step back to appraise her. “You’re also coiffed. If you want a word of advice—”
“I don’t,” Jenny said.
Undeterred, Sybil went on. “Don’t let Luke’s daddy catch on that you’re in love with his son. If you do he’ll despise you.”
“He won’t despise me,” Jenny asserted. “We’re going to have a grand old time debating the death penalty. And he’s going to adore my braid.”
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