Kiss Me Now: A Romantic Comedy

by Melanie Jacobson

  “I can’t, Mom. I have so much to do.”

  “The garden will be fine if you don’t pick things for a couple of days.”

  “That’s not true. It’s important to pick things at their peak and no later. See all the things I’m learning already?”

  “Is your life materially improved by knowing when you need to pick a tomato?” Her tone was growing ever-so-slightly sharp.

  “Yes,” I answered, my voice firm. It was the only way to deal with the Queen of Boundary-Crossing. “But garden aside, I have so much to do in my house.”

  “I still can’t believe my uncle left you that old thing.”

  I realized my tactical error at once. I’d get a long lecture about how it was just like Fred to have saddled me with such an impractical inheritance and why didn’t I simply sell it, and it would go on from there. For a while. A long, annoying while. I headed her off.

  “I know. I can’t believe how lucky I am. The bones of this place are so good. You’ll be surprised when you see how much the right paint and some elbow grease can do.”

  “It’s a poor use of your time,” she complained. “There are people for that, same as there are to work in gardens. Hire someone else to do it and come home while your house gets painted. It’ll be so much nicer than sitting in the noise and fumes.”

  It wouldn’t be nicer. It would be full of more nagging, unsanctioned setups, and pressure to leave Creekville behind.

  But it wouldn’t get her anywhere. As a young woman, I hadn’t seen through the life my parents lived. Not that either of my parents were bad people. They weren’t. But my mom was so caught up in staying in the social mix that she’d lost herself. Or maybe she’d become nothing more than a reflection of the people she spent all her time around.

  In hindsight, I could see how everything from the neighborhood where we’d lived to the volunteer activities my mother urged me toward had all been part of a carefully planned campaign to secure her place in the McLean social hierarchy. I hadn’t thought much about being friends with the children of some of the nation’s most important political figures. Like, it just seemed normal. I’d eaten meals in the homes of senators, had sleepovers with the kids of generals, worked on science projects and campaign posters for class offices at the dining tables of congresspeople.

  Only after my disastrous time in Senator Rink’s office did I look at it all differently. How many of my friends’ parents had been liars, cheats, and predators, putting on a politically perfect face for the world while privately engaging in the most heinous conduct? I was sure there was more than one of my parents’ friends who counted on their power to not only protect them but to keep enabling behavior they wanted kept in the dark.

  All I knew was that the further I got from DC, the less I trusted the people who craved its air, and that meant I wasn’t going back to McLean a second before obligation required of me.

  Was thirty too old to be this cynical?

  “So you’ll hire painters and come home?” my mom prompted.

  “No, I’m definitely staying here,” I replied. “Think of this as a win for your parenting. You taught me to work hard with my mind, and now I’m learning to work hard with my body. That work ethic is a credit to you. Good job, Mom.”

  She made a sound that I would have taken as a snort if Linda Spencer were prone to such an inelegant noise, which she most definitely wasn’t. “I just don’t understand why you want to spend all your time in that dusty, smelly old lumber pile.”

  “Let me let you go,” I said. There was no point in explaining it all again. “I need to get dinner ready and go make more dust.”

  “But Brooke—”

  “Bye, Mom. Love you!”

  I ended the call and decided that I’d lost the energy to tackle pasta from scratch. Calls with my mom had that effect on me. I wished I could make her understand how McLean felt like a trap after experiencing the simplicity of Creekville. But how did I politely say, “I wouldn’t trade the smell of paint and sawdust for the reek of capital corruption for all the eligible bachelors in the world”?

  One did not say such things, politely or otherwise. One simply took one’s money and ran away from it as fast and as far as possible without looking back, no matter how much one’s mother begged.

  Chapter Seven

  Ian

  I paused my playlist and my run through Rock Creek Park to take an incoming call.

  “Ian Greene.” I kept each syllable crisp.

  “Mr. Greene, this is Warren Holt at Senator Rink’s office.”

  A wave of satisfaction rippled over me. This was the final layer to pull back and figure out what Brooke was hiding.

  “Mr. Holt, thanks for returning my call.” I’d called the senator’s office for a reference check on Brooke, expecting to hear back from one of the senator’s underlings, not his chief of staff. This was an interesting development. “We’re very impressed with Brooke Spencer but we’d love to hear about your experience with her.”

  There was a long pause. “I’m surprised she listed her employment here on her resume.”

  I would have to play the next part carefully. “It’s a prestigious job, so it makes sense to me, but it sounds like you may have concerns about her time there?”

  Another pause. “She’s without doubt a capable person. But sometimes, it takes more than that to be a good fit.”

  “Her work wasn’t to your standard?”

  “I’m sure you know that federal guidelines prevent me from doing more than confirming her dates of employment and position.”

  “Not if she listed you as a personal reference.”

  “I am certain she did not.” His tone was cool to the point of icy.

  “You’re right. So you’re saying you wouldn’t rehire her.”

  “I would not rehire her.”

  I considered how to get more information. He clearly wanted to talk, or he would have delegated this call. “If Miss Spencer were to be hired for a position dealing with sensitive materials, and I were speaking to someone who thought she shouldn’t be, but that person isn’t at liberty to disclose more, how would you advise that I proceed?”

  Warren Holt cleared his throat. “I couldn’t say. Who knows where the truth might turn up? Even the gossip blogs get it right now and again.”

  “I understand. Thank you for your call, Mr. Holt. It’s appreciated.”

  I hung up and smiled. Warren Holt had given me the next key, and I would use it immediately. I dialed a number I used when I needed to dig deep on someone.

  It rang twice before a mellow voice answered. “This is Brandon.”

  “It’s Ian Greene. How’s my favorite bartender?”

  “Hungry,” Brandon answered.

  “Then let me take you out for the juiciest steak in town.”

  “Today?”

  “Yeah, lunch.”

  “Meet you there at noon.”

  I jogged the rest of my route, mind racing. Warren Holt clearly wanted me to know there was a problem with Brooke. And his implication was that it was something I’d find in the capital gossip machine, not Brooke’s employment records.

  Gossip meant...an affair, probably. That’s what it always seemed to mean with attractive young women.

  And no one knew more about political gossip than Brandon, the bartender who ran a blog called “Spilled Tea” under the alias Earl Grey. I was one of the only people who knew it was Brandon behind the blog, but it made perfect sense. Brandon worked for one of the most expensive caterers in the city. His laidback vibe made it possible for him to sidle up to house staff at residences all over the DC area. His MO was pouring free drinks for the client’s personal staff after events and asking questions until he found someone who talked. Then he loosened them up with even more liquor. He got truths that would make their employers’ hair curl if they knew how easily Brandon sweet-talked their staff.

  “Spilled Tea” didn’t care about the politics of the moment, but Brandon was very interested
in the politicians—especially their indiscretions. If Brooke Spencer had ever featured in capital gossip, Brandon would know.

  At noon, I spotted Brandon waiting for me outside of Hal’s, the priciest steakhouse in the District.

  “Let’s eat,” Brandon said as I walked up.

  “And then we’ll talk,” I said.

  Brandon smiled. “You know this lunch is going to cost you more than a ribeye, right?”

  “It always does,” I said. “And it’s always worth it.”

  When we were settled and our orders had been taken, Brandon eyed me over the rim of his glass as he took a drink of his beer. “Well?” he asked, setting down the drink.

  “Brooke Spencer.”

  Brandon narrowed his eyes like he was thinking, then shook his head. “Don’t recognize the name.”

  “Former policy advisor to Senator Rink. Left his office somewhere eighteen months to two years ago.”

  The lines in Brandon’s forehead smoothed out. “Ah.”

  “Ah?”

  “Ah.”

  I shook my head. “What do you need besides the best ribeye in the city?”

  “You know what I like about you? Your clients have some of the deepest pockets around. If this Brooke Spencer is who I think she is, the info should be worth an easy thousand.”

  I reached for my wallet. I’d come prepared. “The client is me. But I’m trying to protect my grandmother, so yes, a thousand is worth it.”

  But when I peeled off ten hundred-dollar bills, Brandon waved it off. “I like grandmothers. I’ll spill for a single Franklin. I’ll drink on you tonight and call it good. That, plus you’ll finally have to tell me how you figured out I’m behind ‘Spilled Tea.’”

  “Not going to happen,” I said. “Can’t reveal my investigator secrets. But I’ll give you two Franklins to ease the pain.”

  Brandon laughed and accepted the bills, tucking them into his shirt pocket. “One day I’ll get it out of you.”

  He wouldn’t, but Brandon would be disappointed if he ever did figure it out. It had been total luck. Brandon had tended bar at the firm’s holiday party two years before, and while waiting for my whiskey, I’d been idly eavesdropping on Brandon’s conversation with the junior associate in front of him. Brandon had said, “That’s some high-class baloney” to describe a load of bull the associate was feeding him. A week later, the same phrase had appeared in “Spilled Tea.” I hadn’t heard anyone else use the phrase before or since. It hadn’t taken me long to realize that Brandon held an ideal job for collecting secrets.

  “So Brooke Spencer,” I prompted.

  “About a year ago, I was tending bar at a fundraising gala when Rink’s chief of staff sits himself down and starts tossing back vodka. One of his staffers came over, and I think was trying to suck up to him, telling him, ‘Oh, don’t worry, Rink can afford it. She’ll take the settlement and walk.’ So I got curious, naturally.” He paused to take another drink.

  He couldn’t have been half as curious then as I was now, but I waited. Brandon liked the pleasure of spinning out his story.

  “Anytime there’s talk of settlements, there’s always something juicy involved. So when the chief of staff leaves because he doesn’t like the suck-up, I start chatting up the staffer. ‘Boss seems like he’s in a bad mood,’ that kind of thing. I tell him it sounds like some court thing went wrong, and he just snorts. ‘More like went right if you’re a money-hungry—” Brandon coughs and takes a sip. “Anyway, I got the sense that a mistress got paid off, when all was said and done.”

  I felt something inside that I shouldn’t have, not after eight years of wading into these kinds of investigations: disappointment. I’d thought my low opinion of humanity in general couldn’t get any lower. Apparently, I still had some capacity to be surprised. Brooke Spencer, the wholesome girl-next-door with her braids and freckles and baskets of squash, had carried on an affair with an old, married senator. And then she’d blackmailed him into silence.

  It made me angry that it surprised me, but I kept my expression neutral, waiting to see if Brandon had any further info. “Did you have any sense of who the mistress was? Or if this was a recurring thing with Rink?”

  Brandon shook his head. “I think Rink was a player twenty years ago when he first got to DC, but word was he’d straightened up and learned to fly right because his wife had threatened to clean him out financially if he embarrassed her with any more affairs. I think he’s been pretty straight for the last decade or so. As for who the mistress was?” He tapped his glass against the tabletop, like he was distracted, thinking. “I could never confirm it, but about a week later, I was bartending at another event and I saw the same staffer. I got a few shots into him, and he grumbled about how their policy advisor just quit and now everyone had so much more work and he was tired of picking up the slack.”

  “Who was the policy advisor?”

  “I Googled. Someone named...Brooklyn? I don’t remember. But maybe it’s this Brooke Spencer you’re asking about. Her photo was on the senator’s website. Young. Pretty. Exactly what I would expect. Two weeks later, it was gone. Some middle-aged guy had the job.”

  “Did you ever run the story?” I would have to dig through the Spilled Tea archives to see if I could read between the lines.

  Brandon nodded. “I did, as a blind item. There wasn’t enough proof to shout it from the rooftops.” He took another sip of his drink and watched me closely. “Why are you interested? You looking for dirt on Rink?”

  “No,” I answered. “Just have concerns about something my gran is getting mixed up in.” A conversation with Brandon was always a negotiation. His currency was gossip, and so long as he saw me as a valuable source for it, he’d keep sharing his own for the price of a trade, plus some cash. Since I’d already given him $200, it was time to pay up with gossip of my own.

  “I have something you may want to sniff out. An affair, and the worst sort of cliché: it’s the pool boy.”

  Brandon smiled. “Spill.”

  “I’ll let you figure out the details, but I’d say the Speaker needs to keep an eye on what’s happening in his own house.”

  “Wait, house or the House?” Brandon asked.

  I shrugged. “Does the House of Representatives have a pool I don’t know about?” I didn’t mind giving up the Speaker one bit. It might be his wife cheating this time, but I had no doubt he wasn’t any more faithful. He was just marginally more discreet.

  “That is very good tea,” Brandon said, already pulling out his phone. “Going to send out some feelers unless you want to give up the details now?”

  “I do not,” I said, smiling. I’d given him a story that would break one way or the other within the next week. The client who had hired us to spy on the Speaker’s business would make sure of it. The client wanted to bog the Speaker down right when he needed all of his attention on blocking a major bill the president wanted passed.

  It was almost enough to make me roll my eyes. If the American people knew how much got done by blackmail rather than statesmanship, it would shred any lingering faith they had in their leaders.

  “Well, this has been a surprisingly tasty lunch already and the steak isn’t even here,” Brandon said.

  “Good. Now, tell me something I don’t know about capital shenanigans.”

  We settled into a comfortable chat with Brandon sharing breezy gossip from the socialite circuit. I didn’t find these kinds of stories interesting, but I always filed them away. I never knew when they would be helpful down the road for a case. It happened often enough for me to never dismiss the power of idle chatter to solve major cases when I least expected it.

  Still, the whole time I listened to Brandon, my mind ran down a separate track, planning my next weekend visit to Gran. I needed a gentle way to break it to her that her new friend was one of the most devious liars I’d ever investigated.

  I didn’t love the idea of disillusioning Gran, but I did look forward to the expression on Br
ooke’s face when I exposed her as a con artist. It was the very best part of my day job, but no victory there would ever be more satisfying than rooting Brooke out of Gran’s life.

  Chapter Eight

  Brooke

  I shielded my eyes against the late afternoon sun and sighed.

  “Don’t worry,” Miss Lily said. “Plenty of time until sunset. This won’t take us too much longer.” She pulled another weed and moved to the next tomato plant as if to prove her point.

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what?”

  I hesitated then pasted on a smile. “Nothing.”

  “Not nothing. Something. You seem off today. Tell me what’s going on.”

  I looked over the garden and tried to draw some comfort from its bright colors and orderly rows.

  “Come on, honey. Spit it out. You’ll feel better,” Miss Lily urged.

  I took a deep breath. “It’s just that my anxiety likes to creep up on me sometimes, and it doesn’t always make sense. Race you down the row.” I pulled out the next few weeds with extra hard yanks, but still, the anxiety clung to me like dirt to the roots.

  It was silly, but since her obnoxious grandson had pulled up at this same time last week, I worried he’d make a repeat appearance to antagonize me again.

  You’re being ridiculous. This happened every time I got stressed, and now with only two weeks until my very first day as a high school teacher, I was highly stressed. Like Washington Monument high. And that aggravated my anxiety. And my anxiety led to catastrophizing.

  Stop it.

  I worked through one of the exercises from my therapist, breathing in for several slow counts, holding it, then breathing out again. Be present. Enjoy the sun and soil.

  I’d just managed to calm down when the sound of a car door slamming echoed through the peaceful afternoon birdsong like a gunshot. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. Maybe it wasn’t him?

  But no. A minute later, Ian was rounding the house toward the garden. I dropped my eyes down to my weeding. Miss Lily hadn’t noticed him yet, and I had a few moments to school my expression into something polite. I could pretend he wasn’t the last person I wanted to see. I could think of at least two other people I’d rather see less. If I tried. Probably?