by Amy Faye
He settled into the seat next to her and didn't look at her. That seemed to be the next best thing to what she wanted, and he wasn't going to make things any more difficult than he had to, not yet.
Eventually, maybe she'd tell him what was going on. That was, of course, if she even knew herself what that was. He mopped his head with the side of one finger and found it came away damp. He looked at it a moment. Far, far too long. He could excuse it as the excitement but it was more than that, too. He was tired and he'd been tired before he ever started.
It wasn't that he'd outdone himself. He was suddenly realizing that he wasn't as capable as he'd been only a few weeks ago. What did that even mean? Did he need to check himself in here as well, right next to Tim?
That would at least get him quicker updates on the boy's condition. He smiled without thinking, and the moment he noticed it he forced it back off his face. It wasn't funny and he needed to be at least a little bit sensitive, for once in his life. Today was a good day to try to get started being a decent human being, even if it weren't likely.
"I'm sorry," he said. He didn't know what he was sorry for, but he knew Lara was angry, and if she was angry then he assumed it must be for a good reason.
"You didn't answer my calls," she said. Her voice rasped a little, but she didn't clear her throat. "I called you, but you didn't pick up."
"I'm sorry, my phone was… charging, I think. In the car."
"Where even were you?"
He looked at her and took a breath. Part of him wanted to turn this into a fight. That part was always itching for something, to pick fights and make sure that everything he did turned into a problem. Well, not this time. Not if he could help it. Paul stuffed that reaction to the back of his mind and forced himself to dredge up the single speck of humility that he had.
"I was working. There was an interview for TV. I got the call last-minute."
"Oh, a call. An interview. I'm glad to hear that." She bit every word off like it was the only thing that would save her son from… he still didn't know what was wrong with Tim, and there was part of the Senator that didn't want to know. If he didn't know it was because it wasn't a big deal. If there were something serious, then he would be told, because he always learned everything worth knowing.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know."
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and Lara looked for a moment like she was trying to find some kind of serenity. Serenity that was eluding her. It was hard, he knew. When you were worried, it was harder still, but he didn't need that as an excuse to lose his own temper.
Everything around him seemed to constantly be ready to lash out at him, and when it wasn't, he made sure that he was ready to lash right back even if it were innocent. He'd tried to manage that response over the years, and he'd made a good deal of progress, but it would never truly be enough.
"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I should have had my phone."
"You're right, you should have."
He took the sting from the words, hopefully the way that she'd intended them. If she was mad and wanted to hurt him, then more power to her. She had every right to be upset, every right to be angry, and he wasn't going to try to bother taking it away from her.
"What do we know so far?"
She let out a long, low breath. "A hundred and three."
"… A hundred and three… fever?"
"That's what the EMT said. A hundred and three."
He let out a long breath of his own this time. That was high. That wasn't just high, it was astronomically high, and he wasn't sure what they were going to do about it. But they were in the hospital already, he told himself.
If anyone knew what to do, it would be doctors. Hopefully, unlike politicians, they weren't strong believers in getting to where you were by lying, cheating and stealing. But if they were, it would only serve him right, Paul thought sourly. He was going to have to pay for what he'd done at some point.
24
Lara Green was being a bitch, and she knew it, and she couldn't stop. So instead, she did the next best thing, and did nothing at all. On the opposite wall a television was showing news. She watched it with half her attention on it and half her attention waiting for any moment when someone was going to come rushing out to tell her that her son was going to be just fine.
He'd just put a hot pack on his head, it was a big hoax and everyone could go home happy, laughing that it was nothing. But that didn't happen, so she was left waiting with half her attention on the television.
It was some kind of panel show that she couldn't stand, but it was almost to the hour so they were wrapping it up. That was something, at least. They cut finally to a replay of Alice Rogan's show. The intro was like all intros to news programs, overdone and far, far too much. That being said, Tim liked her. Part of Lara wondered if it was because of her looks, but the boy was young.
Alice was an impressive-looking woman. Lara couldn't begin to guess her age, but she was certainly at least old enough to have children. The fact that she looked like she was still barely out of high school, at least in terms of the lines on her face and the bright, attractive blonde hair was a statement in and of itself.
She leaned back in the chair and wished that she'd taken one by the wall, so she could lay her tired head back. The subtitles along the bottom didn't seem to match up terribly closely with what was being said, so she didn't know what was being said right away, but she recognized the guest the second that he walked on.
Paul sat beside her, looking off into the distance at nothing in particular. He looked down and tired, even downright exhausted. But on the television he looked bright and cheerful and everything he didn't look right now. She wondered how much of that tiredness was because of what was happening with Tim, and how much of the energy on Alice's program was a show that he put on for the world.
The subtitles, seconds behind, finally introduced Paul Green, Democratic Senator and Presidential hopeful. He sat down and they made small talk that didn't catch up until a few seconds after it was spoken. They talked about the economy, about foreign policy, about the never-ending wars in the middle east.
Then, in the middle of a subtitle where he was making a joke about paying too much in tax, the video version of Paul sat back with a considering look.
The question caught up with him right as his lips started moving. "So, I hear that you've got a new guest flying with you, do you want to talk about that?"
Lara stood up and turned, trying to think of what to say. Trying to think of how she could possibly phrase her worry and doubt and how he could possibly answer.
He looked up at her with a tired, almost pathetically sad expression, and then his eyes flickered to the television screen and his head dropped into his hands without a word.
"You saw that, huh?"
"What the fuck were you even thinking?"
Paul averted his eyes a moment, looked around the room and apparently decided that he had time to respond after all.
"I told you, it was a last-minute interview."
"So you decided to talk about me without even asking? Without even consulting for one second on whether or not I wanted to be some kind of B-list celebrity?"
"I just told them that you were an old friend of mine, we'd met when you were in law school, and that you were just offering a certain outside perspective. It's hard to get your head outside of D.C. once you start living there."
Lara's mood didn't improve at the suggestion.
"You should have consulted with me first," she repeated.
"You're right. I made a decision and it was the wrong one." Paul seemed tired, and for a moment she almost felt bad. But at the same time, that tiredness made it seem as if he was just saying whatever he thought she wanted to hear. Well, she could play that game, too.
"Thank you." She wasn't pleased and she made sure that it showed in her voice. "Is there anything else?"
"No," he sighed. "I just… she wanted me to talk about it, and I thought that it w
ould be better to talk about it now, rather than have someone start making up stories."
"Or telling the truth, you mean."
Paul shrugged tiredly as Lara glowered at him. "I'm not trying to defend myself here, Lara. I'm not."
"Then why do you keep trying?"
"I made a judgment call. It was clearly the wrong one and I'm sorry that I didn't consult with you. But that was why I did it. Is that good enough, or…?"
Lara huffed and rubbed her head. It ached from everything.
"So is there anything else you're not telling me?" If he was lying to her about everything then at least it would make her feel a little better because she wasn't going to stop lying to him. That wasn't really an option at this point, anyways, she told herself. It didn't make her feel any better.
"I don't think so," he said, his voice tired. "I think Helen's plotting something."
"Something like what?"
Paul shrugged. "Something."
Lara let herself settle into a chair, a different one this time. "So what? Now I'm on television?"
"Not yet. I made very sure that nobody ever said your name, and especially not Tim's name. I only ever talked about you as a friend, one I met in law school a long time ago. If your name were to get out, then it would be a non-story at this point, because I already discussed who you are. Reporters would see that the story was already there and they'd probably drop it before anything could even come out of it."
"And you thought that was what I'd like? For you to go out and put my story out there?"
"No, I just… Look, I had my reasons, okay? I'm not saying I was right, but I'm saying I did think about it before I talked to her."
"You could have just left me out of it, though," Lara repeated. Whatever he was trying to say, if he wanted to explain then he had better explain. If he wanted her to believe him, then the first step to that would have to be actually coming out and talking to her about whatever the fuck he was keeping from her.
He made no effort to do so up til that point and he made no effort to do so now. She let out a huff and stood, walking frustratedly to the vending machine as a large woman walking on two canes came through the front door.
Paul stepped up behind her; Lara heard him rather than saw him. His arms wrapped around her and he held her close. "I'm sorry," he repeated again. "I didn't mean to upset you."
She turned and looked in his eyes, and made the decision in that moment that she wasn't going to keep fighting.
"I'll forgive you," she offered. "If you'll buy me a candy bar."
"Just a candy bar?"
"You mean I could ask for more?" She raised an eyebrow and smiled.
He seemed like he was about to say something, and then he reached into his wallet and pulled out a five dollar bill.
"What do you want?"
"I want what I always wanted. A happy, stable family, and a good job. I'll accept a Snickers, in this case."
He looked down at her with one eyebrow raised, and then he punched A-2. A moment later, the candy bar made a loud thump as it hit the bottom of the machine. He reached down, grabbed it, and when she took it his lips pressed against hers and the little that remained of her anger melted away in spite of herself.
She pulled away from him, though. If she let him work his magic on her for too long then she was going to end up bent over in a bathroom stall, and it wasn't a good time for that.
Maybe later, she thought, and then immediately regretted it. She shouldn't even be thinking about that when her son was in the ER. But it hadn't stopped the thought from crossing her mind.
What did that even say about her?
25
Paul's gut tightened and he watched her walk away. The woman who had just walked in made her slow, lumbering way across the room and settled into a chair that he was honestly surprised she could fit into.
Then again, the chairs in the waiting room were surprisingly large; he reassessed to deciding that the chairs were just much too large for any reasonable person, but for a woman her size, they were probably just about right.
He fished out a bag of M&Ms from the tray at the bottom of the machine, took his last dollar of quarters from the machine that really ought to have been cheaper. In a hospital, though, the audience certainly is a captive one, and that must have made some difference in the overall price.
He settled into a seat beside Lara again and pulled open his M&Ms from one side.
"M&M?"
He held the bag aloft as if she might not have known what he was offering, or what an M&M even was. She took a bite of the candy bar he'd given her and shook her head. He looked at her again, almost as if he were seeing her for the first time now.
The panic of before had turned into worry, and then he'd been defensive and upset. It wasn't until he'd finally been able to get her to forgive him and stop being so upset that he felt like he might be able to relax and blow off some of the unpleasantness of the past forty minutes.
She had it around her neck, he saw, on an inexpensive ball chain. It looked good, hanging down between her breasts, even when there wasn't anything to hang between. Right now the entire thing hung down on a blue turtleneck sweater. It must have been warm, but she didn't look particularly uncomfortable.
"Nice ring," he offered, hoping to break the ice somehow, to release the tension even further. Some day, they would finally come and tell the two of them, or at least Lara, how things were going with Tim. In the mean time, though, they waited.
A sinking feeling in his gut told him that things weren't going nearly as well as they should. He should have done something sooner. If only he'd bothered to check his phone when he got out of the studio, maybe he would have been in a position to do something.
Instead, he hadn't been. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about it. There was a lot that he could beat himself up about if he wanted to. Years of the stuff. Every decision he'd ever made was ripe for questioning at this point. But he wasn't going to let that get to him. At least, he hoped he wasn't.
He pulled out his phone. It was charged, now. At least there was that. He pulled open a news feed and started scrolling through. Headlines about his performance on Rogan were mixed; everything always was, in politics.
His supporters thought it was a big hit, they loved it, seemed humanizing. The other side thought it made him look weak, and the softball questions made it look like he couldn't handle a real interview. He closed the app before he could take any of it to heart. In the morning, he would probably get a call from one of his people and they'd talk about what they were going to do moving forward.
The problem was, he thought sourly, that he didn't trust any of them in the first place.
If he had, then maybe he could try to at least pretend that he cared what they had to say. But instead he was surrounded by two types of people: yes men, who only wanted to get ahead by riding his coattails, and people who didn't have his best interests at heart in the first place. He wasn't sure which he disliked more, but he knew which was less helpful.
"Hey, you mind if I ask you something?"
Lara looked over at him with an eyebrow raised like she was surprised that he would even speak to her.
"What's that?"
"I just had a little thought."
"Okay, shoot."
"How come you never practiced?"
She raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"I told them I met you in law school. That much was true, though I left out some details. I think you'll appreciate that I didn't talk about the specifics of how we met and what sort of trouble we got up to."
"Yeah I think I'd rather that go un-discussed," Lara agreed. She still had a smile on her face, which was something he liked.
"But I mean, you finished school, right?"
"I did, yeah, but that was a long time ago, Paul. Why are you asking?"
"Did you ever take the Bar?"
"Yeah, I took it. I mean, of course I did."
"What happened, then? Y
ou're smart, you're capable, you knew your stuff even back then. So what happened?"
Lara let out a breath and leaned back. She took another bite of her candy bar and then leaned forward.
"I realized something."
"Oh yeah?"
"I realized that I didn't want to."
Paul's expression must have been quite a sight to behold, because Lara let out a laugh and had to cover her mouth to stop from showing half-chewed candy bar. "What's so funny?"
"You! You have… like…" Lara took a breath and looked at him with the embers of a smile still smoldering on her face. "You have to promise you won't get offended if I tell you."
"I can't promise that. You know I'm very sensitive." But he hoped, at least, that the way his eyebrows waggled as he said it told her that he wasn't being serious. "But tell me anyways, and when I get offended I'll pretend it's a surprise."
"Okay," she answered, rolling her eyes. "Well… I mean, take Helen for example."
"What about her?"
"She's just like everyone you've got around you. Everyone's going places. They're climbing the ladder. Fighting to get to the top. Eventually, they'll fight you, too, if you get in their way."
He didn't say anything, but he wasn't going to get offended by the truth. Not when he already knew as much himself.
"And?"
"So as far as you're concerned, it's not your fault you think this way, but… Helen would never give up her career for anything, would she?"
"No, I suppose she wouldn't."
"I realized… well, not in so many words, but I gave it some thought and I realized that I didn't want that for myself. I didn't want the big house, didn't want a huge paycheck. You know what I wanted?"
She looked like she was waiting for a response. "What?"
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I wanted my son. I wanted to see him every day, smiling, and I wanted to be able to go out with him. I wanted something easy."