While Michael had teased Carter about his beliefs, it had never been a sore spot between them.
“Michael, I—”
“That’s my driver calling.” Michael turned and walked into the living room. “I have to go to the hospital.”
As he watched his brother leave, Carter searched desperately for something he could say or do, but he knew there wasn’t anything. It was a fundamental difference that separated him from all those he loved, but this was the first time he really saw it was hurting them, and he felt guilty.
Carter walked into the kitchen with the intent of getting something to eat quickly before he went back to the office, but reaching the refrigerator, he realized that he wasn’t hungry. Not for food at least. He wanted…
“Carter?”
Carter thought for a second that he was hallucinating when he saw Avery standing in the doorway to his kitchen, but as she walked toward him, he knew he wasn’t.
“How did you get in here?” It wasn’t what he meant to ask, but it was what came out.
“Michael left the door open.”
Avery was so happy to see him again that she couldn’t stand it. She knew she was risking a lot by coming here. She had no idea where Julia might be, but she didn’t care. Even if all she could do was talk to Carter, it would be enough, but what she wanted was to make love to him, to feel him inside of her.
“I was standing in the hallway,” she said. “He walked by without even looking at me. Is Julia here?”
“No.” Carter leaned against the refrigerator as Avery walked toward him.
She looked good enough to eat, in a multicolored boatneck dress that loosely hung at her curves and stopped a few inches above her knees. The way she swayed over to him, the dress moving against her skin, made him hungry for her. Tasting her again and again was still not enough. There was a part of him that wished he could get his fill and get her out of his life, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
“What do you want?” he asked. “I have to go back to work.”
“You know what I want.” She leaned against him and began unbuttoning his shirt. “You’re the one who called me this morning, asking when you could see me again.”
“Yes, I remember.” Carter slipped away from her and walked to the large kitchen island, where he grabbed a banana from the fruit basket. “Then you told me you couldn’t talk, because your husband was rolling into the kitchen.”
Avery rolled her eyes. “Is that necessary?”
Carter laughed. “I’m the bad guy? You’re cheating on him. I think making fun of his…incapacity rates a little lower.”
Avery leaned back against the counter. “Well, you certainly have improved your mood-killing skills.”
“You’re not my girlfriend, Avery.” Carter walked over to her, standing just a few inches from her. He loved to see that look in her large, beautiful eyes when he came this close. She gave herself away; she was very aroused. “Stop assuming you can come by when you want.”
“We’ve had this conversation before.” Avery leaned into him. She grabbed the banana and tossed it on the counter behind her. She reached up and slid her arms around him. “I know you’ve missed me and I’ve—”
“Stop.” He removed her hands even though he didn’t want to. “I’m going through a lot right now. You’re the last thing on my mind. And where is my daughter, by the way?”
“She’s with your mother.” Avery pushed him back. “You agreed that Janet could take her to a photographer for pictures without telling me.”
“I guess I forgot to tell you,” Carter lied. “Mom needed to spend time with her. She’s very upset over Evan.”
“Everyone is,” Avery said. She felt her excitement return as Carter came toward her again. She wanted him so bad, but her desire couldn’t override her concern for him. There was something in his eyes beyond passion.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
Carter grabbed her at her hips and kissed her on the lips. “I’m feeling shitty. Make me feel better.”
Avery got goose bumps as his hands rubbed her hips and thighs, but she grabbed them, making him stop. “Carter, I’m serious. Is this about Evan?”
“I don’t want to talk about Evan,” Carter said as he leaned down and kissed her soft, supple neck. His hands went to her breasts, touching them roughly. “I want to fuck.”
“Carter, I…” Avery could barely breathe now, but she tried to hold it together. “I just want to…”
“What?” Carter abruptly lifted up, separating from her. It wasn’t easy; he was hard and felt like his body was a thousand degrees. “I don’t want to talk to you about my nephew. You’re here for sex, so let’s have sex.”
Avery was confused. “You still want me to believe that this is just sex for you?”
“What?” Carter asked, almost laughing. “Do you think you’re my…girlfriend? My lover? You’re my piece on the side, Avery. Don’t think this is anything more than an affair.”
“I told you that I love you,” Avery said despite the dagger of his words. “I know you don’t love me back, but I am the mother of your child, so don’t you ever call me your piece on the side again! I refuse to believe this is just about sex for you. I can feel you, Carter. I can feel what’s inside of you. You hate me, but you love me too.”
Carter was fuming now. “How dare you tell me how I feel!”
“Fine,” she said. “Then I’ll ask you how you feel. Do you love Julia?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“Do you?” she demanded.
“No!” Carter yelled back. “All right? Are you happy? I don’t love her. I don’t love you. I don’t love anybody!”
“That’s my fault, I know.” Avery looked into his angry eyes. “Things are beyond our control. But even though they are, we can still have something.”
“We have this,” Carter said. “And this is all it’s going to be. I’m not stupid enough to let you back into my heart.”
“Even though I’m stupid enough to let you back into mine?”
As she reached for him again, Carter knew he had no chance against this woman. He reached out and knocked everything off the island. He lifted Avery up and placed her on it. He grabbed her dress at her chest and ripped it open, exposing her breasts. He brought her to him and kissed her hard, wanting to hurt her with the pressure of his lips.
The less serious pediatric cases in the overcrowded Nairobi Hospital were tended to in the open-lobby area. That is where Leigh had been for the last four hours, trying to help an endless line of cuts and bruises, and no one was willing to tell her where they got them. She had heard reports of abuse by guards in the camps and fighting among the refugees uninterrupted by guards. She had heard that when refugees left the camps to venture into the streets, locals harassed them. With Max’s help, Leigh had been able to have some of them transferred to one of the city’s hospitals, hoping they would feel freer to talk.
Right now, Richard was the name of the little boy with cuts on his knees that she could readily believe were common injuries of eight-year-old boys, running and falling. He would smile, but he wouldn’t talk to her. Leigh could only imagine how insecure he felt in this situation. What had he seen?
“Wanna see something?” Leigh asked.
Richard seemed somewhat curious but was reluctant to respond. He looked around as if he wasn’t sure he was safe.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I have a little present for you.”
He very slowly nodded, looking intently into her eyes. When she pulled the present out, his face lit up.
“Batman!”
Leigh feigned surprise as she unwrapped the small cartoon Band-Aid. “You speak English?”
The boy smiled but didn’t nod. “Batman!”
“Everyone knows Batman.” Leigh applied the Band-Aid to the last cut on his knee. “You like?”
Just as he nodded, Leigh was distracted by a growing noise behind her. She turned around to see Max with
his entourage and the press, and it upset her. Every time she wanted to think he was genuine, he did something like this. Looking at him now, basking in the attention as if it was a photo shoot, it seemed clear to her that this was a publicity stunt. While she had seen some of his staff sweating profusely as they volunteered around the camps and other hospitals, she hadn’t seen him really working at all.
Leigh had had enough of this. If the senator wasn’t going to bring the attention to the real issues, then she would have to make him. Bem didn’t try to stop her as she rushed over to Max. She reached within ten feet of him when a member of his staff, a young white man in his twenties with red hair on his sun-reddened, freckled head and wearing a baby blue polo shirt and khaki shorts, jumped in between and held out his hand to stop her.
“The senator is in the middle of a presser right now,” he said. “Please wait until—”
“What is your name?” Leigh asked.
“Why?”
“I can call you Lackey,” she answered, “but I thought you’d prefer a name.”
“I’m Joe,” he said, his voice laced with annoyance. “I’m the senator’s communications director. Now, if you—”
“What is the topic?” she asked. “Everyone seems to be smiling. I think I even saw them laughing.”
“The senator can be very charming.” Joe spoke with pride as if it was due to him.
“What was the joke about?” she asked. “The rape victims in the hospital? The hungry orphans wandering through the camp in soiled clothes? I can’t think of which one is funnier.”
Joe’s smile immediately faded. “Dr. Chase, if you’ll just step aside.”
Leigh didn’t move. “No, I think I’ll join him. I’ve got my own set of refugee victim jokes I’d love to share with the press.”
Joe stepped in front of her as she started to move. “You can’t mention that stuff.”
“What stuff?” Leigh asked.
Joe looked around uncomfortably. “The senator is discussing the serious needs of these people, but he doesn’t want us to talk about you know in front of cameras. It’s a sensitive issue and—”
“Rape?” she asked very loudly, garnering a few stares.
Even Max turned his head in her direction.
“That’s what you mean?” she asked. “We wouldn’t want to spoil the senator’s fantastic trip with talk of messy sexual assaults. Such unpleasantness is unbecoming of a future president.”
“Leigh!” Max called out, waving her over. “Come over—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence, as Leigh sent him a hateful glare, then turned and walked away, with Bem following close behind.
“I can’t talk to you right now, Avery.” Carter was looking down at his watch as he stood on his bedroom balcony. He glanced back into the room and was happy it was still empty. Last he heard, Julia was in the kitchen, and he was certain she couldn’t hear him talking on the phone.
“Is Julia there?” Avery asked, not bothering to hide her jealousy.
“She lives here,” was his answer. “Look, I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“What are you afraid of?” Avery asked. “We have a child together, remember? We’re supposed to talk to each other.”
“But we aren’t talking about our child.”
“She doesn’t know. What, are you afraid of her?”
“Please,” Carter said bluntly. “I can’t talk to you because I’m…we’re going to the hospital.”
“Has something changed?” Avery asked anxiously.
“No,” Carter said. “But the doctor is giving his update in about an hour, and I want to be there. I wasn’t there for yesterday’s update.”
“You can’t be there every time,” Avery said. “I know you love your nephew, but you have a business to run and—”
“Avery, do I have to remind you that just because I’m sleeping with you doesn’t mean I’m going to discuss my life with you as if we were a couple?”
“When will I see you again?” Avery asked with impatience.
“I have Connor all weekend, so I think next week. I’ll call you on Monday.”
Carter hung up without saying good-bye. He was angry, not because Avery continued to pry into his life beyond the point he was comfortable, but because the sound of her sympathetic voice made him want to tell her everything. It made him remember the days he came home from work and she was there with a hug and a kiss, with her body to warm and please him. He remembered how, before he met her, he thought he would leave bachelorhood reluctantly, but after they met, he couldn’t wait to spend his life with this remarkable girl.
At times it seemed like decades ago, and others it seemed like just yesterday.
Tied up in his own thoughts, Carter was caught off guard when he entered the bedroom and saw Julia standing there with a look of betrayal and disdain on her face.
“Julia.” Carter reached out to her, but she slapped his hand away.
“That was Avery, right?” she asked, already starting to cry.
“What did you hear?” he asked.
“You’re fucking her again?” Exasperated, she went to the bed and dropped down with a dramatic whimper.
“No,” he lied. “It’s not what it seems like. She’s the—”
“Don’t!” Julia yelled. “Don’t you dare use that ‘she’s the mother of my child’ line on me again. It worked the last time, but it won’t this time.”
Carter walked over to the bed and sat silently next to her. He didn’t like hurting Julia. Despite the fact that she was a social climber who cared more about superficial things, he had come to care about her and appreciated her ambition. He had led himself to believe that she was more interested in attaining his last name than loving him, because it made him feel less guilty about his feelings for Avery, but times like this she called his bluff. She did love him, and he had hurt her again.
When he started dating Julia, it had been a way to fill his time and it kept his mother, who was always on the lookout for a “proper” girl for him, at bay. Most importantly, it made Avery jealous. He had slept with other women when they started officially dating, but as he focused on winning Avery back, other women made things a little messy. After his affair with Avery ended, he proposed to Julia and hadn’t been unfaithful to her at all. At least up until now.
“You know what is so pitiful about all of this?” Julia said, never looking up. “I was hoping it was someone else. I’m so fucking pitiful that I was okay with you sleeping with someone else, but I was just hoping it wasn’t her.”
“You aren’t pitiful,” Carter said. “This is my fault.”
“You’re damn right it’s your fault!”
Julia pushed him as hard as she could.
“Julia, things have been so confusing and difficult right now; I just let my guard down.”
“She took advantage of you,” Julia said, her voice sounding as if she had just made an incredible discovery. “That’s it. I could see her seething jealousy over us. She was just waiting for a chance to pounce, and Evan’s sickness gave her that chance. That bitch!”
“Stop,” Carter said. “This is between you and me.”
“But that isn’t true, is it? She’s always here, isn’t she?”
He couldn’t deny that, and he couldn’t deny that no matter what he wanted or didn’t want, people got hurt because of his obsession with Avery. People who now mattered.
“I’ll stop,” he said. He could see that Julia wasn’t buying it, and he was at least honest enough with himself to believe it wouldn’t be that easy. But he would try. “I mean it.”
“You said that before.” Julia wiped the tears from her cheeks. “You said it even when you claimed to hate her. You can’t stop, Carter.”
“I love you.”
Carter was surprised by his own words, but based on Julia’s reaction, they had done the trick. They had done the trick on her, but he wasn’t so sure about himself. He wasn’t sure at all.
Lei
gh stood in the lobby of the Hilton and reluctantly said good-bye to her mother on her cell phone and promised to call first thing in the morning. The updates on Evan were not encouraging. He wasn’t getting worse, but he wasn’t getting better, and Leigh knew that she wouldn’t likely be able to stay in Kenya for another week, and she felt guilty for it. This was why she agreed to join the senator’s people for some drinks in the hotel bar before returning to her own hotel.
Just as she headed for the bar area, where Bem was standing in wait, she heard someone call her name. Turning around, she came face-to-face with Joe, Max’s assistant from earlier that day.
“What do you want?” Leigh asked, placing her hands on her hips.
“I want to apologize,” he answered.
Leigh was silenced, taken off guard by his statement and the earnest look on his face.
“Senator Cody was…I hope you can understand that I feel like I have to do my job.”
“What are you trying to say?”
Joe leaned in. “You understand that Senator Cody is…special.”
“Joe,” Leigh said, “CNN isn’t here. You don’t have to whisper, and, yes, I am aware that he is the golden child of the Republican Party, but that is all the more reason for him to speak up. His words have meaning.”
“He knows that,” Joe said. “It was my choice not to…He just needs to be squeaky clean. You know what I mean?”
“No one is squeaky clean,” Leigh said. She was finding herself feeling somewhat sorry for the guy. The Republican Party was pinning its comeback on Max, and with Max being black, there were so many things that Joe and those who were working to get Max to the governor’s office had to think about that they might not otherwise. They were paranoid.
“His ability to attack the messy things, the unpleasant things,” Leigh said, “is what could make him really great.”
“He agrees with you,” Joe said. “He saw that you were upset, and I told him why. He was pretty upset to say the least. He really cares about these issues and this trip. He was just doing what comes with it. I worry about him.”
“Why?” Leigh asked.
“Because he cares so much about these really important issues, and he doesn’t want to play this game.”
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