by Amy Faye
"Go brush your hair."
"But–"
"But, nothing. We're not going to be late."
"Okay," he said, though she could hear in his voice that he wasn't exactly convinced that she'd be there on time. Time seemed like a difficult thing for him–like he thought every trip took about thirty minutes.
But they were only ten from the convention hall, and if she took side streets there really wasn't going to be any problem. If they were just going, then they would have had to be there already. Mingling, waiting for the doors to open, hoping they could find good seats.
But with VIP passes, they'd be in a little box. The worst they could possibly do was to be too close to him, and get themselves on television. She didn't look quite ready for television, not at her age.
Tim came back in with a comb still in his hands, looking better. It wasn't like she had impossibly high standards, Lara thought to herself–she just wasn't going to have him going out with his hair looking like a rat's nest.
"Okay. Come on, let's go."
She avoided looking in the mirror on the way out. She looked fine, and there was no standard she was supposed to meet. It didn't matter what anyone thought of what she looked like. There was nobody to impress anyways. It wasn't like she was trying to look good for her lover any more. And yet, even after ten years, she found that she hadn't been able to flip the switch off. Paul said jump, and here she was trying to guess how high so she didn't have to ask him.
The back streets weren't as empty as she was used to–that was to be expected. But again, she reminded herself, they weren't late. They were early. They were just less early than she'd accounted for. She checked her watch to ensure. The doors were supposed to open at 7, and it was still 6:55. So there was no problem.
The crowd was massive. Absurdly massive. Like, she hadn't really given it much thought, massive. Could this many people even fit inside? She felt in her pocket for the passes. Did these people have to pay to get in? Or was it free, first-come-first-serve? Or what?
She didn't know, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know. But the one thing that she was sure of, uncomfortably so, was that the guy coming through the crowd was coming straight for them. He had a long face and the sour expression she'd gotten used to with bodyguards a long time ago. It had been years since she'd seen someone with that expression, though.
"Ma'am?"
Tim rested his head on her side. He was tired already, and they hadn't even gotten through the speech yet. "Yes?"
"I'm just coming to take you to your seat. This way please."
She let herself be led through the crowd, her hand gripping Tim's tight. The crowd didn't want to part for any of them, but the man with the military-looking haircut and the stiff back moved easily through them without much trouble. They were seated within five minutes of the doors opening, and Paul came across the stage to talk for a moment. Talk to Tim, she saw.
He smiled at her son. Tim was small for his age, she knew. If she was lucky, then she wouldn't have to answer any uncomfortable questions. If she did, then she wasn't sure what was going to happen, and she only knew one thing–she didn't exactly have the money to give back, after all these years.
She wasn't sure what the alternative to paying him back for her staying quiet would be, but if the threats from way back when had been any indicator, none of those alternatives were options that she could live with. Indeed, in some cases, quite literally.
Paul smiled at her son and shook his hand again. "Wish me luck, Tim," he said, mussing up the boy's hair, after she'd specifically made him comb it.
Tim beamed at the Senator, not knowing how hard and cruel the real world could be. Not knowing that if that same Senator had his way, Tim wouldn't even be there.
Not knowing that it was that same Senator who was responsible for him in the first place, for that matter.
5
Paul's energy felt rejuvenated for the first time in… God, in forever. Had he ever felt this good? He should have slept, but then again, he would have only woken from the sleep feeling worse than this. He was dangerously manic, and yet, he was in control. In the driver's seat. If this was what cocaine felt like, then he could imagine why people did it.
He stepped away from the microphone solemnly and smiled out at the crowd. Waved. Turned to the VIP box. He waved there, too, though he had to admit that it wasn't so much at the booth as it was at Lara. Lara and her son, who seemed as excited by the entire process as Paul had been when he was that age. What had taken that excitement away?
He didn't know, but he had a few guesses. He turned just in time for one of those guesses to come strolling over.
"You're looking pleased with yourself," she said, too softly to hear.
"Maybe I'm having a good day," he answered. He wasn't going to let her get him down, regardless of what she said. He didn't have to answer to her, as long as he didn't do anything to screw up her precious political marriage; that meant that when she decided to try to sting him, all he had to do was pretend she hadn't done it and as if by magic, it didn't hurt.
"What, you decided to go fuck your old whore?"
That did sting, he found. More than it should have. Much more. But he still insisted to himself that he wasn't going to let her do any more damage than possible. So he kept the smile on, as much for the cameras as for himself. As much to spite his wife as for anything.
"Have a good night," he said, his face stuck in a smile, his lips barely moving like a ventriloquist. "But if you're going to act like this–"
"Like what?"
She knew precisely like what. She took a certain sick, unpleasant pride in acting like a viper. In taking every ounce of pleasure out of other people's lives. In making herself the victim of everything. At least with Paul she didn't bother to hide it. They had an understanding with each other, which was more than he could say for most people when it came to Helen.
"Go home, Helen. I'll see you later."
"What are you planning on doing?"
"I'm not planning on anything. I'm going to go to a McDonald's and hang out with the stoners and the drug dealers. The same thing I always do until 3 in the morning."
"When you're not screwing, you mean," she reminded him.
"Of course, how could I have forgotten?"
He let out a long breath and stepped back away from her, raising his hand and waving to the crowd again. They ate it up. There was something seedy about the entire thing. About how he could have them eating out of the palm of his hand, and they just… they just believed him.
Paul meant everything he said. He'd always meant every word of it, since the beginning. There were plenty of people who went to Washington full of idiot ideas, full of the belief that they could change things. Full of themselves.
Paul wasn't full of himself. He couldn't change much. But that wasn't his goal. He wasn't going to cause a revolution. Yet, these people… they hadn't gotten disillusioned at all by the liars, the scumbags. They hadn't been remotely disillusioned by him, and the way that he'd traded away his life, traded away his integrity, for the chance to piss into the ocean and hope it changed the whole thing yellow.
He walked over to the side of the stage, where twenty or so VIPs sat. He started on the right. The furthest away from Lara and her son. That way, things could only be looking up from here.
The small talk was revolting. It always was. There weren't many exceptions. You meet with mayors, with aldermen, with elders and with governors. People hoping to make a name for themselves. People hoping to be him, one day. Day in, day out, people who had long-since decided that they had a price and they were going to keep going up the ladder until someone came along offering to pay it.
How long ago had it been since he'd realized that was all that politics really was? How long since he'd lost that starry-eyed vision of the world as an open place? He frowned and looked over at Tim, who leaned forward to watch him talking. A smile infected Paul's face in spite of himself, and he skipped over a Distri
ct Attorney who had taken over for him and never managed to make it any further up the ladder.
"Did you like that, Tim?"
Tim's smile widened. "Yeah!"
Paul could feel that infectious energy, the energy that had seen him through the speech, starting to seep back into his bones.
"You should ask your mother–"
"Ask me what?" Lara cut in and had her eyebrow raised. God, she was just as beautiful as the day she'd left. Her face was different, but now she looked more… mature. More in control. She'd shifted from 'hot young thing' to 'hot mom' apparently without any effort.
"… If she'll let you stay out a little longer. Do you like McDonald's, Tim?"
He looked at his mother with those same wide eyes he'd fixed on Paul earlier. "I'm not supposed to–"
Lara let out a long sigh. "You're not serious, are you?"
"Of course I'm serious," Paul answered. He was always serious about bad food. It was about the only thing that he actually enjoyed. Everything else just got him out of bed, and it was less and less proving to be worth it. Even the bad food wasn't enough these days. But if it was bad food, with a boy so excited about everything that he was tired of…
Well, what could possibly be more worth it?
He took the boy's hand and they walked backstage. A black SUV waited for him. Helen was nowhere to be seen. She'd probably taken a separate car, which was better, because as much as Helen was more than willing to deal with the presence of his indiscretions, Paul didn't want her around Tim. He didn't want her infecting him, ruining that smile.
"Sir?"
"We're going to McDonalds," Paul answered. "If that's not too much trouble."
"No trouble at all," the man answered. They started driving just in time to be clipped hard in the side of the nose and go spinning out into traffic, tires squealing. Paul reached out before he knew what he was doing–his arms wrapped around the most important thing in the car, and Tim yelled into his chest until they'd finally come to a stop.
A crowd of men in suits swarmed the car, all of them seeming to panic over Paul. He pushed them back, relaxed his grip around the boy.
"You okay?"
Tim looked up at him with a deep pout, tears welling up and threatening to fall down his face. "I didn't like that," he said.
Paul flattened his hair and tried to still his pounding heartbeat. "No, I didn't like it either."
6
Lara looked at the pair of them. Looked at all the people wrapped around them, trying to make sure that the Senator was all right. But he didn't seem hurt at all. Something in the back of her mind registered with Lara that she was probably in shock herself, that she should use her eyes to make sure that she wasn't hurt herself.
Her left arm was okay. Her right was okay. Her arms were fine. She patted her body over. No blood came away on her hands. She was alright, except that there was an unpleasant sensation as she patted her chest, where the seat belt fell. A sensation she realized a moment later, dimly, was probably a bruise.
Paul spoke first. "Are you okay?" He said it to the little boy buried in his arms. The little boy who he didn't know his own relation to. As far as Paul knew, Tim was just a little boy that she'd had after she'd 'dealt with' his child.
Tim looked up at him. Not at her, and part of her felt that tugging at her heart strings. Another part felt something about the way that he looked up at the man who he didn't know was his father, and the way that Paul had reacted, something warm and hot at the bottom of her stomach.
"I didn't like that," Tim said. She could hear the tears in his voice. She wanted to cry herself, now, as the adrenaline started slowly to wear away and left her knowing that if they'd been just a little bit faster, she could be dead. If things had gone just a little bit worse–
"I didn't like it either," Paul responded. He pressed the boy's head into his chest and looked up at her, examining her for a long time.
"Lara–you're not hurt, are you?"
"No," she said finally. "I'm alright. I think."
"Nothing hurts? I'll get you to a hospital if anything happened, or–"
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Nothing. Just scary."
"Yeah," he said. Lara watched the Senator try to put on a smile, but it was forced. Too forced. He looked like he was going to throw up. "I don't think your son liked it much either."
Tim was crying, she realized. He was being quiet about it, but his shoulders shook when he took a breath and he pressed himself harder into Paul. Paul's hand moved down awkwardly, stroking the boy's back. He gave her a smile that was full of every bit of stress and uncertainty that Lara herself was feeling.
"I don't know if you just want to go home, or–"
Lara didn't know what she was supposed to say to that. Her mind blanked as he said the words. She was afraid, now. Afraid of driving. Afraid of being in a car at all. But it was too far to walk, particularly this late at night. Once he'd calmed down, she knew that Tim would be in no shape for walking, either.
He'd been exhausted before they started, and it was only the excitement of having Paul around that kept him awake all that time.
"Um." She blinked, trying to push the cobwebs away. "I don't know."
"Well, have you eaten?"
She tried to remember. It had only been a few hours since they'd sat there in that coffee shop, and every minute of it was easily cataloged, but her brain didn't want to process the information.
"I don't think so," she answered, as best as she could.
"Okay. We'll go grab that bite. Okay? Then I'll drop you off. We'll drive extra careful," he said, aiming that at the men who still leaned into the door and fussed over him. "So there's no more scares like this. Isn't that right?"
The guy who had been driving was young and smart-looking and looked like he was about to start bawling himself. He nodded, but another man spoke the words. 'Yes, sir.'
Someone came around to her side of the car and opened her door. Lara's hands fumbled for Tim's seat belt first, and once it was undone she did her own.
She tried to pull Tim away from Paul, but he let out a low, miserable "no." Paul smiled at her regretfully.
"I can take him, if you don't mind."
She did mind. If he wanted to be with his son then he ought to have done it sooner. But she nodded reluctantly. If she let Tim get dug in then he was just going to get mad, and she wasn't really interested in that.
"I'll keep him safe. Trust me. It's just a few feet to the car, anyways."
She stepped out to see that they'd stopped traffic. There was a massive dent in the front quarter of the SUV, practically crushed. She walked on unsteady feet across the car, and Paul carried Tim to the other side, slid the boy in. He said something too low for her to hear, and Tim buckled himself in, rubbing at his face and taking deep breaths.
Lara wrapped her arm around her son and hoped that her heart would stop beating so hard. Tim was okay. Paul seemed as worried about him as he was about himself. Maybe more. The drive wasn't far, which only served to drive home the unpleasant irony of getting into an accident in that time. Two minutes later they were pulling into a parking spot, and the man driving the car was getting out to let her out of her side.
"Ma'am," he said, not looking her in the face. She wondered dimly if he knew who she was, knew why she was with the Senator.
He probably didn't. But if Paul hadn't changed, then he probably could guess. She soured. He probably couldn't guess nearly as well as he thought he could, though.
She hated that, and she hated how little it bothered her even more.
Paul stepped out of his side of the car and helped Tim step down.
"You going to be alright?"
Tim rubbed at his eyes again and blinked hard, and then nodded, too vigorously.
"Good lad. Your mom needs a strong guy like you around," he said softly.
That was true, she thought. She tried to keep the bitterness off her face. She needed a strong man around. She knew because she
'd had one, once, and when he was gone everything went to hell.
But he'd been the one who decided not to stick around. Not her.
7
Paul sat in the car and tried to forget about what had happened. Tried to think of just the meal they'd had. Tried to think of the boy's smile. Tried to think about how strong he'd been. God, if Paul had been that strong himself, at any point in his life. If he'd been able to just do the right thing, when he knew what he had to do…
Tim was young. Too young to really know much of anything about anything, which might have been why, between the two of them, he was the better man. Then again, Paul was better than himself ten years ago, too. And then, he'd already been dirtied by the job.
"You know what, wait here," he said softly. The driver gave a nod, and Paul pulled the seat belt out and started up the steps again. He knocked, hoping not hard enough to wake anyone. Hoping on some level that he wouldn't know hard enough for anyone to hear at all.
To his disappointment, and his great pleasure, a moment later the door opened. Lara looked good. Great. He kept thinking that, every time he saw her. The history was part of it, he thought. In his mind, she'd always be the one that got away and that was not an unflattering place for a woman to be.
"Hey," he said. He'd been talking to women for years. Talking their pants right off, in some cases. But now he felt tongue-tied, like it was the first time he'd ever talked to a girl.
"Did you need something?"
He looked at her and tried to keep himself under control. Then he stepped forward. His toes were on her carpet, but if she'd shut the door in his face, he would have stepped back. He knew his limits; he also knew how to find them.
"I wanted to see you," he said.
"You've seen me," she answered. "I don't see why you decided you wanted to, after all these years."
"I missed you," he said finally. It was an admission that was at the same time impossible to make, and the easiest in the world. She'd always been his way out, and after all these years, no one else had ever really come along to get him off the track that he'd found himself stuck on.