The Senator's Wife

by Karen Robards

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you had a”—here Mark’s gaze swung back to Ronnie again and widened—“date.”

  It was clear from his expression that he remembered her from that afternoon.

  “Ronnie, you remember my son.” Tom’s voice was crisp. “Mark, you met Mrs. Honneker earlier today.”

  “I remember, yeah. Hi,” Mark managed, still staring at her.

  “Hi, Mark,” Ronnie said. Getting those two words out was one of the most difficult things she had ever done in her life. She felt hideously ill at ease. Hooking her fingers through the belt loops of her jeans, she glanced at Tom.

  “I take it that you and Loren had a fight?” he said to Mark.

  Ronnie had to give Tom credit; he was keeping his cool very well. The look he gave his son was level. The question was clearly intended as a distraction, and it worked.

  “She gave me back my ring!” Mark was obviously laboring under a strong sense of having been ill used. He had to be both angry and anguished to blurt that out in front of a stranger, Ronnie thought. He thrust his hands in his front pockets in a way that reminded Ronnie of Tom, and leaned against the doorjamb dispiritedly.

  “I didn’t know you’d given her a ring,” Tom said.

  “Yeah, I did, at the beginning of the summer. We were going together! But look!” He held up his left hand, and there was a silver friendship ring on his little finger.

  “Sit down, Ronnie, and finish your sandwich.” Tom opened the refrigerator door, retrieved a small bottle of orange juice, and tossed it to his son. “You sit down, too, Mark. You want something to eat? A ham sandwich?”

  “No.” Mark unscrewed the lid of the orange juice, drained about half its contents in a series of gulps, and sat down at the table.

  Ronnie, with another glance at Tom, resumed her seat. It would only compound the awkwardness if she were to leave the minute Mark got home. Perhaps the teen didn’t even understand the significance of the scene he had walked in on, Ronnie thought hopefully.

  Then she remembered the way he had looked at her at the airport earlier. Mark wasn’t that young.

  “So what happened?” Tom was fixing another ham sandwich.

  “We were at Pizza Hut, and she told me she wants to start seeing other guys, and gave me back my ring!”

  Ronnie gamely tried to take a bite of her sandwich.

  “Loren’s a real pretty girl.” Tom put a paper plate with a ham sandwich on it in front of his son and sat down again at the table.

  “Isn’t she?” Mark took a huge bite out of the sandwich he hadn’t wanted.

  “But you know, there are lots of pretty girls out there. Some of them as pretty as Loren, or prettier. Maybe you ought to think about checking some of them out.”

  “Maybe,” Mark said without enthusiasm, taking another big bite of his sandwich.

  “Would you mind if I gave you some advice about your girlfriend?” Ronnie asked, pushing her plate aside and leaning her elbows on the table.

  “Sure,” Mark said.

  “If I were you, I’d act like you don’t care a snap of your fingers that she broke up with you. Start going out with other girls right away. That’ll get her attention faster than anything else you could do.”

  “Make her jealous, you mean?” Mark asked. “That’s kind of corny. Do you really think it would work?”

  “Imagine how you’d feel if you saw your girlfriend with another guy.”

  “I’d want to kill him,” Mark said with conviction.

  “A slight tendency toward jealousy is kind of a family failing,” Tom said with a glimmer of a smile, his eyes meeting Ronnie’s. She smiled back at him, remembered their audience, and quickly tried to make the smile impersonal. She wasn’t sure how well she succeeded.

  “I guess I could ask Elizabeth Carter to go to the Labor Day dance with me,” Mark said, pondering. “Or Amy Ruebens.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Tom said.

  “I hate to eat and run, but I’ve got to go.” Ronnie glanced at the big clock on the wall opposite, and stood up. A sudden, horrible thought seized her. She couldn’t go; she was barefoot. Her shoes were right where she had kicked them off: beside Tom’s bed.

  How to retrieve them gracefully?

  Tom had gotten to his feet when she stood up, and obviously saw the sudden consternation in her expression. His brows drew together, and he gave her a mystified look.

  “Sit back down,” she told him with a quick wave toward the chair he had just vacated. “I’m just going to run to the rest room first. I’ll be right back.”

  There were two bathrooms in the apartment, one just down the hall from the kitchen and one off Tom’s bedroom. Mark had his own bedroom next to Tom’s, but as far as she knew no bathroom. Ronnie shut the door to the bathroom off the hall without going in and scurried along to Tom’s bedroom, feeling like a thief. Her sneakers were beside the bed, which was thoroughly mussed. Ronnie quickly straightened the covers, then sat on the corner of the bed to pull on her shoes. That done, she sprang up, crept back to the bathroom, and opened and closed the door again, as though she were just coming out.

  Even if Mark did guess that she and his father were sleeping together, there was no need to remove all doubt from his mind. And the state of Tom’s bed with her shoes beside it was, to Ronnie’s way of thinking, pretty damning evidence.

  Walking at a normal pace now, Ronnie returned to the kitchen doorway. Father and son were in the midst of a low-voiced discussion, which they broke off as she appeared.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said. Their eyes were really very similar, she thought as they both looked up at her.

  “I’ll walk you out.” Tom stood up. “Let me get my shirt.”

  Wearing the white T-shirt he had on earlier and a pair of slip-on boat shoes, he was back so fast that Ronnie and Mark only had time to exchange awkward smiles.

  Mark got to his feet then, glancing first at Ronnie, then at his father, who stood just behind her. “Look, I’m sorry about crashing in on your date. When you told me you were staying home tonight, I thought … I thought …” His voice trailed off.

  What he didn’t say was obvious: He had thought Tom meant alone.

  “I’m glad to have had the chance to make your acquaintance, Mark,” Ronnie said, having by this time decided that the only thing to do was pretend there was no awkwardness inherent in the situation. “Your dad talks about you a lot.”

  “Does he?” Mark darted an interested glance at Tom.

  “Now and then,” Tom said. “I’ll be back in a minute, Mark.”

  They didn’t speak until they were outside the building, heading around toward the alley where Ronnie had left her car.

  “Do you think he realized?” Ronnie asked anxiously. Tom was walking beside her, but they weren’t touching. It was dark now, and most everyone seemed to have gone inside. Somebody nearby was having a barbecue; the mouthwatering aroma of grilling meat filled the air.

  “Oh, yeah.” Tom’s answer was dry. “He thinks you’re a total babe, by the way.”

  “You two talked about me?”

  “The first thing he said when you left the room was, ‘Now I get the air show bit.’ The conversation went downhill from there.”

  “Oh, no!”

  Tom shrugged. “There’s nothing to do about it. I imagine we’ll be talking about it some more. I’ll tell him that there’s such a thing as moral ambiguity, for instance, and how some things are not black or white but kind of shades of gray. One of those conversations parents have with their kids when the kid catches the parent doing something wrong.”

  “Oh, Tom, I hate for you to be put in that kind of position!”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  They reached Ronnie’s car and stopped, facing each other.

  “Will I see you tomorrow?” Her voice was low.

  He shook his head. “Mark’s playing in a baseball tournament in Meridian. We’ll be gone all day tomorrow and most of Sunday.”

&nb
sp; “You know we’re moving back to Washington on Friday.”

  “I know. I’m flying to California on Tuesday.”

  “So …?” Ronnie let her voice trail off delicately.

  Tom grimaced. “How about Monday?”

  “It’s Labor Day. I’m supposed to go to an arts and crafts show with Lewis in the afternoon. But I think I can get away Monday night.”

  “Mark’s going to a dance at his school—I think.”

  “Your apartment is definitely out.”

  “Definitely.” Tom grinned suddenly. “There’s a motel out on I-twenty. The Robbins Inn. I used to take girls there when I was in high school. It’s out of the way, and neither one of us is likely to see anyone we know. Suppose I meet you in the parking lot Monday night at eight?”

  “I’ll try.”

  Tom caught her hand, and pulled her close to kiss her.

  “Don’t worry about Mark,” he said. “I’ll handle it.”

  They kissed again, and then Ronnie got into her car and drove home to Sedgely.

  On Monday they met at the motel. On Tuesday Tom flew to California. This time he left a number where Ronnie could reach him, so she was able to call him, late at night when no one else was around to hear.

  On Friday she and Lewis flew back to Washington.

  The house in Georgetown was a three-story brick row house, narrow and elegant and old. It was not nearly as large as Sedgely, but it spoke as surely of money and breeding. The ceilings were fourteen feet high, with elaborate crown moldings. There were fireplaces in nearly every room. The floors were polished hardwood covered with antique oriental rugs in shades of maroon and rose and blue. Paintings by such diverse artists as Sargent and Cézanne and Andrew Wyeth hung on the walls. The upholstered furniture was covered in brocades and silk stripes in jewel tones. The wooden pieces were almost without exception museum-quality antiques.

  This was the house Ronnie had first come to as Lewis’s bride, and this was the house at which she felt most at home. Washington suited her as Mississippi did not. In Washington she fit in better. Though she was younger than most of the Senate wives, she was part of their circle. Very rarely, in Washington, was she ever referred to as “the second Mrs. Honneker.” At least not within her hearing.

  Almost instantaneously she was reabsorbed into the rounds of teas and luncheons and dinner parties. She chatted with friends on the phone, had her hair done, went shopping. She and Lewis attended a dinner at the White House for the president of Zaire, who had come to Washington with the professed object of obtaining financial aid for his country. They went to a benefit at the Smithsonian. She joined the President’s wife for what was billed as a “girls’ club” breakfast in the White House solarium, which was airy and light and decorated with beautiful floral chintzes.

  But none of this was as satisfying as it had been in the spring, before she had gone to Mississippi for the summer. She took little joy from the money she was able to spend on clothes, from the glittering parties to which she was invited, from the rich and famous people with whom she was on a first-name basis. Even having breakfast with the First Lady in the White House felt—flat.

  All because she was missing Tom.

  She hadn’t seen him since they had met at the motel, though she talked to him nightly on the phone. When they spoke, her whole existence narrowed to the receiver in her hand and to his voice on the other end. On the nights when she was out too late to call him, she went to bed and curled up in the bedclothes in a cocoon of longing. The next day all color seemed to be leeched from the world.

  On Friday she and Lewis were to attend a reception at Bill Kenneth’s house. Bill Kenneth was the junior senator from Tennessee, and he had just been appointed to the Ways and Means Committee, of which Lewis was a member.

  It was a cocktail reception, scheduled for nine o’clock, which was early in the evening in Washington. Ronnie wore a short black cocktail dress with nude hose and high-heeled black satin pumps. The dress itself was a black satin slip with a black lace overdress. While the slip part was bare, the lace overdress had long sleeves and a jewel neck, making for a covered-up look that was also, with its glimpse of flesh beneath the lace, alluring. She wore her hair down, with diamonds in her ears.

  All in all, she was pleased with the way she looked when she walked into the party, which had been in progress for some forty-five minutes. (It would never do to arrive too early.) Lewis looked good in his dark business suit, and seemed proud to have her on his arm. Within minutes they had separated. She was on one side of the room talking to the Peruvian ambassador. He was in a corner with two of his cronies, guffawing over something as they puffed on cigars.

  “Why, Ronnie, how are you? You’re looking really lovely tonight, dear. Those earrings! I just love them to death!” The Armani-clad speaker was Lacey Kenneth, Bill’s wife. Though she was perhaps seven or eight years older than Ronnie, she was still a young and attractive woman, slim, with shoulder-length dark-brown hair.

  Ronnie turned, smiling, to do the kissey-face thing with Lacey that was de rigueur among political wives. Her eyes widened as, looking over Lacey’s shoulder, she encountered a pair of achingly familiar blue eyes.

  Chapter

  35

  “I BELIEVE YOU KNOW TOM QUINLAN, dear? Mississippi is his home state too.” Straightening away from Ronnie, Lacey drew Tom forward with a hand on his elbow.

  Tom smiled at her. He looked tall and broad-shouldered and handsome in a navy suit with a white shirt and red tie.

  “We’ve met,” he said easily, shaking the hand that she somehow had the presence of mind to hold out to him. “Hello, Ronnie.”

  “Hello, Tom.” With the touch of his hand the room suddenly took on a whole new aura. It seemed to come alive, sparkling with color, pulsing with sounds and scents and sights that Ronnie had previously not divined. Pure, unadulterated joy burst inside her. She smiled at him, then quickly recollected herself and her surroundings and tried to dim that blinding look lest it give them away.

  Lacey was already glancing from Tom to Ronnie with a touch of curiosity.

  “As a point of fact I’ve been doing some work for Senator Honneker in Mississippi this summer,” Tom said to Lacey as he released Ronnie’s hand. “Ronnie and I are old friends.”

  “Well, he’s working for us now,” Lacey said, looking at Ronnie with a proprietary laugh. “Bill’s facing a tough race this time. We’re bringing in the big guns.”

  “It’s a while yet till Election Day. There’s plenty of time to do what needs to be done,” Tom said. Then, to Ronnie, “How do you like being back in Washington?”

  The three of them charted about nothing: the pros and cons of Washington in various seasons, the weather, the terrible amount of crime in certain areas of the city. Lacey’s suspicions, if indeed she had ever harbored any, seemed to be assuaged. When more people joined their little group, she slipped a hand in the crook of Tom’s elbow and led him away.

  She wanted, she said, to introduce him to someone.

  Watching Lacey Kenneth walk away with Tom, her hand curled around his arm, her body pressed close to his side as she steered him across the room, Ronnie felt a smoldering dislike for a woman she had previously considered a friend.

  She had a pretty good idea of what Lacey Kenneth really wanted from Tom.

  “If you sleep with her, I’ll claw your eyes out,” Ronnie whispered threateningly to Tom in one of the few private moments they were able to manage.

  He took a sip from the golden-colored drink in his hand, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at her.

  “Jealous?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you think I feel, seeing you here with His Honor?”

  “You know about Lewis and me.”

  “That doesn’t erase the fact that you’re his wife.”

  “You’re avoiding the subject.”

  “What subject is that?”

  “Lacey Kenneth.”

  His tight expression
eased and then he smiled at her. “Darlin’, the only woman in this room I have any intention of sleeping with is you. Why do you think I came to Washington?”

  “Why did you?”

  “To see you.”

  “Why didn’t you let me know?”

  “I just decided to come this morning. I don’t think I could have survived another one of our telephone conversations without doing something about it.”

  Recollecting the steamy turn their conversation had taken the night before, Ronnie saw his point.

  “How long are you here for?”

  “Just tonight.”

  “Just tonight!”

  “Tom, there you are! Ronnie, you have to quit monopolizing him! I don’t think he’s had any of our salmon en croute yet, and it is mouthwatering! And Lewis is looking for you. I think he’s ready to leave.”

  “I’d better go find him, then.” Ronnie kept a smile pinned to her face as Tom was once more dragged away. Lewis was indeed ready to go. After leaving the Kenneths’, she and Lewis were scheduled to attend another party thrown by an important lobbyist. It started at eleven.

  She managed one more low-voiced exchange with Tom as she came back from a quick trip to the powder room for the supposed purpose of freshening her lipstick.

  Or, rather, Tom managed it.

  He walked right up to her, bold as brass in front of them all, which of course was the only way not to look guilty. The only problem was Ronnie had trouble remembering that.

  “It was good seeing you, Ronnie,” he said, adding, under his breath, “The Ritz-Carlton. Room Seven-fifteen.”

  “You, too, Tom.” She smiled, shook hands, and mouthed, “I’ll try.”

  “You take care of yourself in Washington, now, boy, you hear?” Lewis said, joining them and clapping Tom on the shoulder. “Next time you come into town, let Ronnie and me know, and you can stay with us.”

  “I’ll do that, Senator,” Tom replied, his voice crisp. Then Lewis put his arm around Ronnie and swept her out the door. Ronnie could feel Tom’s eyes boring into her back until the door shut behind them.

  She and Lewis did not get home until nearly three A.M. By then it was too late to go see Tom at his hotel. There was no possible excuse she could give for leaving the house at such an hour. And as for phoning him, that wasn’t possible either. Lewis stayed up after Ronnie went to bed, and she was afraid he might pick up an extension—the one in the library, where he spent most of his time, had a button that lit up whenever anyone was on the line—and overhear.