by Jean Stone
Most importantly, BeBe had to try not to let her anger weigh her down, or allow that Cuban piece of shit to represent every man who had ever hurt her, which would have been easy to do but a big, fat waste of time.
The morning news had announced that some hurricane had just missed Florida and was headed for the Carolinas. But what had really caught BeBe’s attention was the report that the Barton campaign had arrived in Palm Beach. BeBe realized she’d never called Liz as she’d promised Mags she would do. Still, she kept working into the evening, but she made it a point to clear out of her office, and drive through the rain to The Breakers, just before the thousand-dollar chicken-breast gala was to begin.
She sat at the aquarium bar now, tracing the movements of a bright yellow fish that darted and swam and darted and swam happily beneath the glass. She was waiting for her presence to be announced upstairs in the suite of the president-to-be, waiting for some Secret Service lackey to appear and escort her to them. She had not ordered a drink; she had not thought there would be time.
“So you’re here,” said someone beside her as a straw tote bag was plopped on the bar, causing the poor, startled fish to scatter. The owner of the trademark tote bag flopped into the chair next to BeBe. “What do you want?” she asked.
BeBe refused to give Evelyn the satisfaction of showing her annoyance. She looked again for the yellow fish. “Mags invited me,” she said, then added, “not that it should matter to you.”
“Everything to do with Michael’s campaign matters to me.”
“The last I heard, Roger was still Michael’s campaign manager.”
Evelyn turned her eyes to the bartender. “Give us a couple of margaritas,” she ordered. “Strawberry.”
BeBe did not know what Evelyn was up to, but decided to play along. She was too tired to argue.
Evelyn waited until the drinks arrived before she spoke again. “I came downstairs to tell you not to come to tonight’s dinner.”
That was no surprise to BeBe.
“With Liz still not with us, we thought it best for you to remain in the background.”
BeBe had no idea what one thing had to do with the other. But she recognized Evelyn’s usual maneuvering to keep BeBe out of the public eye.
She licked the salt around her glass. “You know, Evelyn, I’m not sure when it was that you decided to hate me. Maybe it was long before Daniel was killed. But aren’t we old enough now to bury the rusty old hatchet?”
Evelyn blinked. “Leave Daniel out of this, Barbara. I simply feel it’s in the best interest …”
BeBe raised her hand. “Let me finish that for you. You feel it’s in the best interest of the campaign if the errant, unmarried sister—the one with questionable morals—remains in the shadows until after the election.” She snorted. “I wonder how Daniel would have handled this.”
“You’re making fun of me,” Evelyn seethed. “You never wanted me to marry Daniel, did you? You never wanted me to be part of your family. You just never understood.”
BeBe laughed without meaning to.
“Oh, I understood that you had it all figured out. You and your grandfather—who was no better than my father. A couple of arrogant sons of political, string-pulling dickheads who always got their own way, no matter what the cost. Even Daniel’s death didn’t stop any of you. Just substitute Roger and rearrange the chess pieces a little.”
“Don’t speak ill of the dead, BeBe, God rest their souls.”
BeBe stood up. “You’re a fool, Evelyn. You’ve played a martyr for so long you’ve lost sight of the facts. Take Daniel, for instance. He would never have been killed if it hadn’t been for favor-swapping, and I think you know it. You’ve always known everything. Well, honey, so have I.”
BeBe picked up her purse, slung it over her shoulder, and stalked out of the bar, determined to find the presidential suite on her own.
The campaign was in south Florida now, and the Gallup gap had narrowed to a spandex-tight four points. What Danny had once taken as a joke now seemed uncomfortably serious. For he had met the enemy. And the enemy was not a bad guy at all. In fact, Danny had been impressed. Josh Miller was real and engaging and not at all like most of the snot-politicians who had circled the Will Adams/Michael Barton wagon as long as Danny could remember.
Danny logged on to the computer now and thought about how he would feel if his father lost the election, if, unbelievably, Will Adams had been wrong about a Jew becoming president. And how he would feel if his mother did not become First Lady, but just another ex-governor’s wife, relegated to charity luncheons (for the handicapped, probably) and keynote speaking gigs at girls’ school graduations.
He decided it would suck.
He maneuvered the mouse to rogerdodger’s Web site and decided to cut the shit.
Tell me what to do, Uncle Roger, he typed. I’ll do whatever it takes to get Mom back in the spotlight.
She could not make it back to the suite. Instead, Evelyn fled from the bar and ducked into the ladies lounge, her legs watery, her knees buckling. She brushed past a cluster of potted palms, darted across the white and gold marble floor to a louvered-door stall, dropped to her knees, and vomited into the pristine white bowl. Along with the vomit came only one thought:
God, how had BeBe found out?
Chapter 21
She was tired of bullshit. When BeBe was finally cleared to enter the Barton suite she told them all so—Roger, Mags, and any of the Secret Service who cared to listen.
“I left your wife in the bar, Roger,” she said. “I am sick of her treating me like a second-class citizen. All these years I put up with it because I found it mildly amusing. Now I find it a great pain in the ass. I have every right to be here with my family. And if she doesn’t like it, she can go to hell.”
They stood there, staring at her.
“What?” BeBe asked. “You never thought I’d get pissed? You never thought it bothered me that Evelyn—and my father—made it quite clear I was not welcome to show my face as the candidate’s sister-in-law? Well, it’s bullshit, and it’s going to stop. As of right now.”
Mags stepped forward. “Aunt BeBe, we never thought you shouldn’t be here …”
“No, honey, I know you didn’t. It’s your charming Aunt Evelyn as much as it was your grandfather. Isn’t that right, Roger?”
Roger closed his eyes. “Evelyn has some strange ideas.”
At that moment Michael walked through the doorway, followed by Greg, the youngest Barton, the Michael clone.
“Michael,” BeBe said, wondering if she should feel flustered, as if the king had just entered.
He checked his watch. “Dinner in half an hour, everyone. BeBe, I’m so glad you could join us.” Something in his demeanor, his voice, and his wink, told BeBe that he had heard every word of the conversation, and that she should forget it—that all was well.
He went to her and kissed her cheek. “Long time no see.”
As always, she was impressed by his ability to be a great politician. “It’s been days, Michael,” she answered. “Honestly, we must get together more often.” She reached out and playfully pinched Greg’s cheek. “You look more like your father every day. But lighten up, Greggie. You’re too young to be president yet.”
Greg laughed good-naturedly, and Michael smiled and walked to a gilded mirror where he quietly adjusted his tie. “Your father thought it was never too soon to begin.”
BeBe turned toward him. “Father’s presence must be missed out here on the road.”
Michael let out a puff of air. “You have no idea, Beebs.”
No, she had no idea. None at all. She looked at Mags, who rolled her eyes. “How’s Liz?” BeBe asked, suddenly needing very badly to know how her sister was, suddenly aware of how strange it was that she wasn’t here.
Michael hesitated a moment too long. “She’s doing okay. I hope she and Danny will be joining us soon.”
BeBe nodded, but the cloud that moved across Michael’s eyes s
uggested he didn’t have much hope for that to happen.
“We talked to her yesterday” Mags offered.
Once again BeBe was assailed by guilt for not having called Liz.
“Josh Miller was there,” Greg added. “Can you imagine? Josh Miller at our house?”
There was an uncomfortable moment of silence.
Josh Miller. At the Vineyard house? Yes, BeBe could imagine. As much as she tried not to, her eyes flashed back to Michael. “Really?” she asked.
“It’s true,” Michael said with a hollow laugh. “I asked if she was fraternizing with the enemy.”
“Well,” BeBe said quickly, trying to cover up for the sake of the kids as well as for Michael, “Josh knew Father,” she said lamely. “He was probably extending his sympathy. Are you still ahead of him in the polls, Michael?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“Not by much,” he replied.
“The competition is closing in,” Mags said with a swoop of her arms. “Which is all the more reason we need to get to this dinner. That, and the fact that I’m starving.”
“Right,” Michael said abruptly. “Let’s go, shall we?” He held out his arm for his sister-in-law, the woman he’d once slept with in a moment he’d undoubtedly done his best to forget.
But BeBe did not take his arm. “You know,” she said, “I love you all dearly, but I just remembered something. I have to get back to my office immediately.”
She rushed out of the room, not caring that she was leaving them completely bewildered by her behavior, as usual.
Liz was in that space between sleep and waking that was cozy and pleasant and filled with promises of sweet dreams. It had been a long, tiring, two days … the way she had walked in on Danny and caused them both deep embarrassment. Her argument with Michael. And seeing Josh. Josh. Last night and today she had thought of little else: she had tried to remember each word he had said, each gesture of his hand, each tilt of his head. She had tried to remember, then she had tried to forget.
She began to slip into dreams now, just as something skated across the screen of her bedroom window. Slowly, Liz opened her eyes. Had she dreamed it?
The sound came again … the sound of sand pebbles sifting through the screen, grazing the window.
Oh, God, she thought. This couldn’t be happening.
But she knew that it could. She had hoped that it would. Somewhere deep within she had hoped so much that he would come, surely she had willed it to happen, surely this was no dream, surely this was real.
She got out of the bed and tiptoed to the window. She paused, afraid to look, afraid of looking and seeing—or maybe not seeing—Josh standing there below.
She took a deep breath and looked outside. She saw nothing except the darkness. She sighed. “Damn fool,” she muttered. Of course Josh Miller would not be outside beneath her window. He was a presidential candidate, for godsake, and she, perhaps the next First Lady. People—adults—in their positions did not sneak around in the middle of the night, trying to recapture childish, romantic dreams.
Feeling chilled, she reached to close the window. And then she saw him. He was there. A shadow in the night. A shadow she would know anywhere, anytime, no matter how many years had passed.
She caught her breath. “Josh,” she called. He just stood there.
“Don’t ask me why, just believe it when I tell you I have to get to the Vineyard,” BeBe barked at the ticket attendant at the Delta counter in West Palm. She had gone home and thrown some things in a suitcase, answered some “urgent” business calls, swallowed two glasses of wine and three forkfuls of last night’s pasta, and begun the trek to the airport through increasing wind and blowing rain. She was not in the mood for an unsympathetic clerk.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Adams,” the clerk said in monotone, “but the last flight for Boston tonight has left. And I’m not certain about tomorrow. There’s a hurricane off the coast of North Carolina.”
BeBe restrained herself from leaping over the counter and grabbing the neat-as-a-pin clerk by the lapels. “I don’t care if there’s a snowstorm that’s the blizzard of the century. Get me on a freaking airplane, lady, or I’ll charter one myself.”
He took her hands. He took her hands there in the darkness of the moonless night. They stood quietly a moment. She wished she could see his face, every detail of his face, every timeworn line and dark beard stubble, every crease of the dimple in his right, not left, cheek, every long black eyelash that framed those deep, sincere eyes—eyes that had captivated so many American voters.
But this was not Election Day and Liz was no ordinary American.
Without words, he led her to the path that led down to the cove. It was different now, made narrow by undergrowth that sprawled along the sides. But it did not matter—this was the path that led to their cove.
When they got there, Josh locked his arms around her, buried his face into her neck, and cried.
“Josh,” she whispered. “Oh, Josh.”
He caressed her shoulders, her back, that little hollow in her spine just below her waist.
She felt the tears running down her face, too.
“I love you, Liz,” he breathed. “I have loved you forever, I love you now.”
She knew this was wrong. If nothing else, Liz Adams-Barton did know right from wrong. Her father had made sure of that, as he’d made sure of everything.
But she didn’t care. She pressed against him, her breasts tingling through the T-shirt she had thrown on. She felt his hands move lower, cupping the still-round curves of her now-arching butt.
He kissed her mouth, full and open and moist with longing. His lips trailed down to her throat, making little sucking sounds that were incredibly erotic.
“Make love to me, Josh,” she whispered. “Right here. Right now.”
She slid out of her jeans, pulled the T-shirt over her head. She stood there, naked, before the one man in her life whom she had fully loved.
And then they were on the ground, a bed of pine needles and sea grass soft and smooth beneath her, the contour of the dunes sculpting against her back, cradling her. When he entered her, it was with a bold, desperate fever. She gasped, having forgotten how large Josh was, the way he filled her to the limit, the friction he created against the inside walls of her. She moistened to his touch in instinctive, wondrous knowing, knowing that he belonged there, that the joining of their bodies was the only right thing in her world.
“Michael Barton has picked up a couple of points again, and is now leading Josh Miller by about six and a half,” the anchor said.
“That’s right, Wendell. This race is getting more and more interesting. It could be that the decline for Miller is because he has stepped out of the limelight for a few days. The race is just too close for either candidate to take a break from the campaign trail.”
“There’s no word on how long Mr. Miller will be in seclusion,” Wendell the anchor said. “We know he’s gone to Martha’s Vineyard. Interestingly, it has also been reported that is where Mrs. Barton is recuperating from her father’s recent death.” Wendell smiled.
Danny pressed the off button on the remote. He took a slow drink of coffee and wondered if he should check in with Uncle Roger. He still hadn’t heard back about his offer to help: Danny knew Roger must be busy but still … well, it was now Sunday morning, the day his mother usually got up early and made breakfast of eggs and bacon. But so far, she was still sleeping.
He, of course, would not be up so early if it weren’t for the Clayman’s rigorous running schedule, which he did not indulge in until Danny’s morning PT was complete. But after the gruesomely time-wasting leg-lift routine, unlike his nurse, Danny had nowhere to run to. There was simply a wheel to the remote or to the computer, depending on his mood.
God, he thought, closing his eyes, how much longer can life be this dull?
The telephone rang, as if in answer to his question.
“Danny?” The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t
place it for a second. “It’s your Aunt BeBe.”
His spirits immediately lifted. “Hey, Aunt Beebs. How’s the orange hair?”
“Still orange. Listen. I’m coming to the Vineyard. I want to surprise your mother, so please don’t tell her. Also, I’ll need you to pick me up at the airport.”
He took another drink of coffee. “You’re coming here? When?”
“Today. I tried to get there last night but the closest I could get was New York and I didn’t feel like walking from La Guardia.”
“You’re coming today?” Danny asked, even though that was what she had said.
“One forty-five by way of Boston. Meet me at the sorry excuse for an airport, okay? And remember, don’t tell your mother. Don’t tell anyone.” Quickly, BeBe hung up.
Danny was left holding the receiver. How was he going to pick up Aunt BeBe when he’d yet to summon the courage to drive the van? She’d said not to tell anyone, which, he supposed, included Clay. God, was this a plot between his mother and his aunt?
The two hours and fifty minutes from West Palm Beach to Boston seemed to take two days. The turbulence of “unsettled air” all around them made her queasy, the first-class flight attendants drove her crazy trying to compensate for the bumps, and the in-flight movie was stupid.
BeBe almost wished she hadn’t thrown Ruiz out for good. She hated to admit it, but sometimes life was simply easier with someone at your side, anyone, no matter how disreputable.
Still, every time she closed her eyes, she could feel again the little knife that twisted in her heart when Claire had said “a wife and four kids,” that same little knife she always felt when she realized she was not quite good enough, that no man, not even a tuna fisherman, would ever want her, that she was the bad sister, and Liz was the good one.
But now it was time for the bad sister to come to the aid of the good, before she proved herself as bad as her sister.
She looked out the window at the bank of white puff clouds and thought about Liz. As different as they were, they had always been—always would be—blood sisters. BeBe was counting on that to help Liz come to her senses, if, in fact, her senses had lapsed, or if she’d ever had any when it came to Josh Miller—the man who could ruin Michael’s election chances once and for all, and make them all look like a bunch of fools.