by Amy Faye
He let out a breath and rolled over. As soon as his mind quieted itself he could finally sleep. At least, that was what Paul hoped. And as soon as he turned over he could quiet it. He'd barely been able to sleep more than an hour or two at a time, the past week and a half. Almost two weeks.
And now that he was here, now that he was finally in a position to sleep… Nothing. Paul rubbed his eyes and stood up. There was a mini-bar on the far wall. He shouldn't drink, of course. He historically made decisions that weren't always the wisest when he was drunk. But then again, wise decisions were overrated.
The alcohol didn't taste anything like what he wanted. Cheap and metallic. But it burned as it went down his throat, burned all the way down to his stomach, and that was enough because it had to be enough. He finished the miniature bottle in two mouthfuls and opened another.
The alcohol at least quieted his mind for a moment, which was all he could hope for, Paul supposed. The other thing it did, the thing that was the exact reason he should have avoided it, was to turn off whatever part of him might have been thinking all that clearly.
He picked up the phone and dialed. It was late; the clock on the bedside said it was past midnight. And maybe she wouldn't answer when the phone rang. Maybe her phone was set to silent. Maybe she was already asleep, and she slept right through the ringing. Maybe she was going to take a stand and let the phone ring even though she heard it, because he didn't control her.
A woman's voice answered on the other end of the line. Lara's voice.
"It's late."
"I missed you," he told her. He wasn't supposed to mean it, but he did. He wasn't supposed to mean any of it, when he was talking to any of the women he'd been with. When it was someone else, it wasn't that hard.
"Can it wait?"
He took a breath. "I just needed to hear your voice," he said. "Good night."
He pressed the button to hang up before she could say something else. Before he could think something else. He should have known better. He should have been better. Smarter, more distant.
That, or he should have followed her to the ends of the earth ten years ago. But his damn feelings had gotten hurt and he'd made the biggest mistake of his life.
His thumb tapped 'redial' before he could stop himself, and then the phone was already ringing again. He put it to his ear.
"What?" She sounded irritated, but she was trying to hide it from him. She couldn't, though, not really. Not as well as she seemed to hope that she could. Not as well as she probably should have.
"I need to ask you something," he said. His voice was thick and rocky and his throat hurt like he was about to lose his composure.
"Okay?"
"I need to know. Tim."
"You need to know what?"
"I need to know if he's mine," Paul said. His throat hurt and he could feel it tightening. As if he couldn't breathe. He sucked in air as hard as he could and held it.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. He imagined her sitting there biting her lip, deciding what to tell him. More likely, though, he told himself, she was sitting on the bed looking at her son. Maybe he had woken up, or he was turning over.
"No, Paul. He's not."
"What, then? The time fits."
"The time fits because I was upset about… about what happened. So I, you know, I went out, and…" she paused again. "I made some mistakes in my life. Tim, he's not one of them. Okay? Go get some sleep."
"Yeah. Good night. I'll see you in the morning."
"I'm sure you will. Now go to bed."
He set the phone down, his hands shaking. The explanation fit, and it fit well. He took a deep breath. Tim wasn't his. There was nothing to keep worrying about. He could rest easy, knowing that he hadn't screwed up.
At least, whatever he'd screwed up, he hadn't left a woman pregnant and alone all because he got his feelings hurt and decided to get all independent.
Everything else was immaterial compared to that. At least there was something he hadn't screwed up. He'd lied and cheated his way to the top, because you don't get to the top any other way.
He'd married for convenience and for power, when he should have married a woman who could stand to be in his presence for more than ten minutes at a time.
He'd gone after all the wrong things in life, up to this point, and made all the mistakes he could make. He used people for whatever they could do for him.
But at least he hadn't corrupted the one good thing he'd ever done in his life.
It was a small consolation, but it was enough. He rubbed the wetness from his eyes, laid down, and shut his eyes. The only thing that ran through his mind was the headache he hadn't realized he'd been nursing all evening until the rest of the cobwebs cleared. And that, at least, he could live with.
14
They were well and truly stuck with him. Lara and her son weren't necessarily planning on staying. She'd told Paul that, when they'd first joined. It was only as long as she wasn't uncomfortable. Only as long as she wanted to stay. The minute they wanted to leave, she was allowed. He'd told her as much.
But there was a big gulf between being allowed to leave and being allowed to leave without any trouble. There was a big difference between being allowed to leave and being allowed to leave without having to ask permission.
How much would it cost to jump on a plane right now? Jump on a plane back to Salt Lake City and forget the whole thing had happened? Well, Lara didn't know off hand–but it was easy to look up on her cell phone, and on her cell phone it was easy to see that she didn't have almost eight hundred dollars to spare just to run off.
Which meant that she was stuck on his terms; she would stay around, or she would have to ask him nicely to pretty please let her leave. Was that an acceptable option? She didn't know. That was what she had and she had to accept it.
The die, as they said, had been cast. She had to play the game the way it was meant to be played, or change the rules. She took a deep breath. If she was going to be using people, then the question was, what did she need?
She needed an education for Tim. That was one thing. Paul had picked up a tutor who was supposed to be flying with them. Like Tim was some kind of celebrity child who needed to be taught on the go, between concerts, like some kind of pop star.
Well, that wasn't who her son was, but Lara wasn't about to complain if he was picking up a tutor for Tim. In some ways, one-on-one tutoring was probably better than anything that the local school could offer. That was something, at least.
She wanted… what did she want? She thought she wanted to be left alone. Her life wasn't spent hungry for something that she didn't have. She had her son, she had her apartment, she had her television. She had a very comfortable bed, thank you, and a lovely refrigerator that had a pull-out box freezer that she liked quite a lot.
Which raised the question of why she'd come along. Everything she liked, everything she loved, was at home. Everything but her son, and he'd been there just as much as he was here.
It wasn't Paul that she'd come for, she reminded herself. He wasn't part of the deal, not really. There might be a bit of lovemaking, at some point, but it was always transactional with Paul. He got what he wanted and he paid the price for it.
Ten years ago, apparently, he'd thought the price was to act like he cared about her; he had her convinced better than he'd realized, apparently, because she really believed him completely. So completely that when she thought she was going to give him good news… what she thought was good news, anyway, he had thrown her out. Because she'd gotten too close, he'd gotten too close. Because she'd believed him.
Well, this time apparently he thought the price was saying a few sweet words and coming by at midnight. Well, that price was a little low. If she was going to be his whore, she wanted something out of it this time. Something for her, not just for him and his ego.
Lara closed her eyes and opened them again and then she had it. She stood up and walked across the room, look
ed out the window. The entire idea gave her energy she didn't even realize that she'd had. She was tired, or she had been tired anyways, but now sleep was unthinkable. There were other things that she had to do. Things that she needed to think about. Important things. There's no way that she could sleep.
Some people ask for things like money. She didn't want money, not even a lot of it. Eventually, the money always runs out, and she didn't need to go through life without any sort of trouble right up until trouble smacked into her.
Why did they get money, though? She rapped her thumb on the railing of the balcony and her mind rushed in circles.
They wanted money because they wanted financial security. They wanted to stop worrying about rent, about feeding themselves, about wanting to make little frivolous purchases. They wanted to stop thinking about money all the time.
Well, Lara was a single mother; she'd gotten used to thinking about money. She'd gotten used to her life, and as long as she didn't do anything foolish like walking away from her job, then she didn't have much to worry about.
But there was something that would prove extremely useful, if she were to do something like that. It wasn't quite the same thing as getting a whole lot of money. For a man like Paul, it would be asking less; yet, for Lara, it would mean a whole lot more in the long term than a little bit of money.
What she wanted, what she needed, what she was playing for like it was some kind of Price is Right game… it wasn't money or jewelry or his affection. The money would run out, she wouldn't wear the jewelry because she'd be too afraid she would lose it, and she wasn't going to try to fight for something that didn't exist.
No, what she needed was security. She needed to know that there was nothing to worry about. That if something went wrong in the night then she didn't have to panic because good old Paul would take care of it, whatever it was.
That was hard to guarantee long-term. The minute that he lost interest in her, and he would lose interest, then just being around and asking him constant favors would stop working.
But if he gave her one favor, right off the bat, and call it good from there… What she needed most, what would give her that security, was a job. Not just any job. She didn't need the Democratic nominee to walk into a diner and ask them to hire her as a waitress.
He was a man with connections. Those connections would need someone on their payroll, and she was just about the woman to do it.
Her face was hard as stone as she looked out. That was how she would get the education for Tim. That was how she'd get the money. That was how she could get out of this ahead. She goes in, does whatever he needs her to do, lets him amuse himself.
The sun was just about rising on the horizon. She'd never been one to stay in bed long, but it was early even for her. Her thoughts kept her awake in bed, and now the cool morning breeze did the same outside.
She had a lot of good memories of Paul. A lot of memories of times that they'd had, times where he'd been able to convince her, at least for those few months, that he cared about her. That he was really there for her, not just for the sex.
But in the end, it had been about very little more for him. If he wanted her to play her part, if he wanted her pliant and polite and loving and sweet, to let him think that she cared as much as he had pretended to ten years ago, then he'd have to pay an equal amount back.
After a thirty year career, then she'd be right as rain.
15
Paul sat on the airplane and glowered. It wasn't something that he usually did, thank God, because he didn't have the kind of energy to be 'on' all the time, and his plane was the one place that he felt as if, sometimes, by some miracle, he could get a little bit of rest. When there was a camera in his cabin he at least knew about it. When he wanted to be alone, he could be alone. At least, as alone as he wanted to be.
Lara was there, of course. He didn't mind that, whether they were doing anything sexual or not. Well, not, in her case. Almost always not, except for that first night not at all.
But her presence never particularly upset him. She was something different from what he was used to dealing with. Different from Helen, who apparently thought every opportunity wasn't just something to be taken advantage of, but actively exploited, like relationships were some kind of strip-mining operation.
But what a surprise, someone had come to get him, telling him his wife wanted to talk to him. They didn't take no for an answer, in spite of the fact that he tried to give it, four separate times.
If she wanted to talk to him about something then she could have spoken to him about it when they were still on the ground, couldn't she? She knew as well as anyone that he liked to be left alone when he was flying, and furthermore, outside of his private space up front there were cameras all over.
No less than four separate news people sat in the back with Helen, and no doubt she had them spun up in her web somehow. She smiled at him like a wolf smiles at a sheep as he walked back. Frowning.
"Yes dear?"
She looked pointedly at the chair opposite her. "Have a seat."
"Okay, what's the problem?"
"Don't you think it's time we had a nice chat?"
He couldn't think of the last time that they'd had a nice chat. In fact, she'd never had a nice chat with him, except for the first couple. The ones where she'd convinced him against his better judgment that this marriage was a good idea. Listening to her was his first mistake, and he'd been making them ever since.
"What's the problem?"
"The problem?"
He looked over at the reporters, who were busying themselves with not listening as carefully as possible.
"I don't know. Why did you call me back here? Is something wrong?"
She smiled at him in a way that he guessed was supposed to be knowing. It didn't work very well but she did it either way, as if she were hoping to spite him or something by her sheer smile.
"Wrong? Nothing's wrong. I just needed to clarify a few things."
"Okay, what's that?"
"That woman and her boy; I don't mind them around. The boy, he seems sweet."
That was a lie, and she didn't bother to hide it. He wasn't surprised. Helen hated children, hated people who had children. Hated the idea of children. It was as if a child had stolen her lunch money once and she'd never forgiven the entire concept of young people.
"Okay. I'm hearing a 'but' coming."
She leaned in close and he took a deep breath and leaned in to meet her halfway. "I'm listening, dear."
"If she gets in my way, or if she tries to start taking my place at the table, I want you to know, I won't be held responsible for my actions. You can have your fun, I've never begrudged you that. But there's no way that I'm going to lose everything that I've worked for because of your fucking pecker, are we clear on that?"
Paul leaned back and took a breath. He should have been angry; he should have, but he wasn't. Instead, he was completely, remarkably unsurprised. "Yeah, I hear you, Helen."
"Do you hear me or are you just telling me what you think I want to hear?"
"You can calm down, there's nothing for you to get yourself worked up over."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Absolutely sure," he said. He excused himself without saying goodbye, knowing that she would take it as a personal slight and not caring. She was going to get offended no matter what he did, and the truth was that she deserved it this time.
Every time that Paul dealt with his wife again, rather than treating her as a sort of traveling companion that needed to be endured, he was reminded of exactly why he couldn't stand her, and reminded that his reasons weren't exactly bad ones.
He took a breath, smiled at the girl; her name was Cheryl, he thought, but he'd never really bothered to learn it. "We have anything to drink on here?"
She smiled a little more warmly, as if he were asking her for anything other than to do her job for a moment. "Yes, sir."
He took the bottle she offered him, poured
two fingers into a glass, and handed the bottle back to her, stepping through the curtain with his glass and taking a mouthful before he knew what he was doing.
"Everything go alright?"
Lara didn't look up from the book she was reading, but she at least expressed the bare minimum of interest, and that was all that he really wanted from her at that point.
"Everything's fine."
"You sound upset," she offered.
"I am upset," he confessed. His voice sounded grumpy, and he didn't have the mental capacity to change it so he didn't care.
"Is there something else?"
"No," he told her, but it was a lie. If he'd been honest then he'd have told her to get over here, get on her knees, and figure out a way to improve his mood.
But the truth was, he wasn't sure that would do it. He didn't want her to fuck him; he wanted someone to stop trying to give him the runaround, and he wasn't going to get that by just using her like some kind of tool.
At the end of this glass, though, well… at that point, all bets were off. His body was already starting to feel that welcome, warm hum of drink, and as he looked over at Lara, he couldn't help remembering other times that they'd been together.
He was younger, then. She was younger, too, though she didn't look it. And they'd both been a lot more eager to take things into the bedroom. Well, she was, at any rate.
He could stop himself, and he did stop himself, but that didn't mean he'd changed. The only thing that had changed was how he thought of her.
Ten years ago, Lara Beech was someone that he liked to have around. Someone convenient. And damn did she have a body to die for. One she wasn't afraid to let a District Attorney use for his pleasure, particularly if he'd have a word with her professors.
There was something else, now. Something that he didn't want to think too hard about. She'd changed, sure. Ten years would do that. But he hadn't changed one bit. Sex was something that he was accustomed to. Something he wasn't afraid to get where he wanted it, and he wanted it from her.