Journey (24 page)

“I wouldn't do that to you,” she said, as she felt her airway slowly closing.

“Then where were you? Try telling me the truth this time.”

“I was with Lizzie,” she whispered.

“Who the fuck is that?”

“My daughter.”

“Oh, for God's sake,” he said, shoving her away from him, as she fell backward on the couch, feeling a rush of air in her lungs with considerable relief. “Why the hell did you bring that slut here?”

“She's not a slut,” Maddy said quietly. “And I wanted to see her.”

“You're going to get yourself smeared all over the tabloids. I told you to stay away from her.”

“We need each other,” she said simply, as he stared at her in fury. It infuriated him when she didn't obey his orders.

“I told you, for your own good, you can't afford it. If
you think your ratings are lousy now, wait till you see what happens when someone leaks that story. And more than likely, she will.”

“All she wants is to see me. She doesn't want publicity,” Maddy said quietly, sorry that she had lied to him and that he was so angry about it. But his rigidity about her seeing Lizzie didn't give Maddy many options.

“That's what you think. How can you be so stupid? Wait till she starts hitting you up for money, if she hasn't already. Or has she?” He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. “You know, you're getting to be more trouble than you're worth. If it isn't one goddamn thing, it's another. Where is she now?”

“At a hotel. The Four Seasons.”

“Lucky for her. And you're telling me she's not interested in the money?”

“I'm telling you that she wants a mother,” Maddy tried to soothe him, but he looked furious as he strode across the room, and then stood looking at her, with irritation and contempt.

“You're always doing something to screw me over, aren't you, Mad? If it's not an editorial about that nutcase Paul McCutchins was married to, it's fucking up your ratings, and now this … you're going to get sucked right down the tubes with this. Watch if I'm not right on this one, Mad. And when that happens, believe me, you'll be damn sorry.” But he didn't say another word about it, he just stomped upstairs, and slammed the door to his bathroom, as Maddy sat in the living room for a little bit, trying to figure out how to explain to him how much it meant to her, and how sorry she was that she had upset him. It was all her fault, she knew, because she had lied to him about having had a baby.
Maybe if she had told him from the first, he wouldn't have been so upset by it. But all she could do was apologize, and try to be discreet about it now. The one thing she knew was that she was not going to give up her daughter, now that they had found each other at last.

She went upstairs quietly, after she turned off the lights, and by the time she'd changed into her nightgown, he was in bed, with his eyes closed and the lights off. But she was sure he wasn't sleeping, and when she got into bed with him, he spoke to her without opening his eyes. “I hate it when you lie to me. I feel as though I can't trust you anymore. You're always doing something to hurt me.”

“I'm so sorry, Jack,” she said, touching his face with her hand, and forgetting totally that he had nearly strangled her half an hour before when he accused her of cheating on him. “I don't mean to upset you. But I really want to see her.”

“I told you, I don't want you to. Can't you get that into your head? I never wanted kids in the first place, and neither did you,” he said, opening his eyes and looking at her. “And I sure didn't want to get stuck with some nineteen-year-old little whore from Memphis.”

“Please don't say things like that about her,” Maddy begged him, but what she really wanted was for him to forgive her, for lying to him, betraying him, and having her illegitimate child appear seven years after they were married, when she'd never even told him about her in the first place. She realized it was a lot to ask him to swallow. But she couldn't help wishing that his reaction were more like Bill's. He had really liked Lizzie when they met.

“I want you to stop seeing her,” Jack said, looking at her with conviction. “You owe me that much, Mad. You never told me she existed, now I want her to disappear again from both our lives. You don't need her, you don't even know her.”

“I can't do that. I can't have kids. And I never should have given her up in the first place.”

“Even if it costs you our marriage?” It was a hell of a threat.

“Is that what you're saying to me, that it will?” she asked, looking horrified. He was threatening her, and forcing her to make a choice that would break her heart. But at the moment, she didn't want to leave him either. He had been so nice to her for the past few weeks that she'd been beginning to think that things were working out between them. And now this had happened. She wished she hadn't lied to him so she could take Lizzie to the theater.

She was desperate to see her daughter and didn't know what to do about it without upsetting her husband.

“It's a possibility,” Jack said, in answer to her question about her seeing Lizzie being a threat to their marriage. “This was never part of the deal. In fact, it very emphatically wasn't. You entered this marriage on a fraudulent basis, you told me you'd never had kids. You lied to me. I could have our marriage annulled for that.”

“After seven years?” She looked shocked.

“If I can prove you defrauded me, and lied to me, which you did and I can, then there is no marriage. You'd better think of that before you drag her into our lives any further. Give it some serious thought, Mad. I
mean it.” And with that, he turned over and closed his eyes, and five minutes later, he was snoring, as Maddy stared at him. She didn't know what to do or say. She didn't want to give Lizzie up again. She couldn't do that to her, or herself. But she didn't want to lose Jack either. He had given her so much, and the abuses she had accused him of were beginning to seem like figments of her imagination, and Lizzie wasn't. Maddy felt as though it was she who had behaved badly toward him, and now he was the victim, just as he had said to her. She lay in bed for hours that night, thinking about it, and feeling guilty toward him.

But in the morning, she still had no answers. She explained to him that she was going to say good-bye to Lizzie at the hotel, and have breakfast with her, and then she'd be back and they could spend the day together.

“You'd better tell her you're not going to see her again, Mad. You're playing with fire here. With me, and with the press. It's a high price to pay for some kid you don't even know, and will never miss if you kiss her off now.”

“I told you, Jack,” she said honestly. She didn't want to lie to him again. It was one more sin to add to her many others, as he saw it. “I can't do that.”

“You have to.”

“I won't do that to her.”

“You'd rather do it to me, wouldn't you? That says a lot to me, about what you think about this marriage.” He looked pained as he said it. The consummate victim.

“You're not being reasonable about this,” she tried to explain it to him, but he brushed her away with a look of outrage.

“Reasonable?
Are you kidding me? Are you nuts? What drugs are you on? How reasonable does it seem to you to spring your bastard kid on me after never telling me you had one?”

“That was wrong of me, I agree. But I'm not asking you to see her, Jack. I want to.”

“Then you're even crazier than I think you are. How about a family portrait on the cover of
People?
Would that be enough for you? Because that's what's going to happen sooner or later. And then you can kiss your ass good-bye with the public.”

“Maybe not,” she said quietly, “maybe they'd be more understanding about it than you are.”

“Shit. For chrissake, will you come to your senses?”

They argued about it for half an hour. And Jack had to leave to play golf with two of the President's advisers, but not before he warned Maddy not to see Lizzie ever again. But Maddy left to meet Lizzie for breakfast and they had a nice time, and Lizzie noticed that she looked upset, but Maddy denied it. She didn't want to upset her, and she didn't tell her that she wouldn't see her again. Instead she promised to have her back soon for another weekend, and told her she'd let her know what she found out about Georgetown. They kissed and hugged when she left, and Maddy gave her money for the cab to the airport, but although she'd offered it, Lizzie wouldn't take more than that. She was very conscientious about not taking anything from her mother beyond the plane ticket, and the hotel, and cab fare. Maddy had offered to open a bank account for her, and Lizzie had categorically refused it. She didn't want to take advantage of her mother. But Maddy knew that Jack would never have believed that.

Maddy was back by noon, and Jack was still out. And she called Bill and told him everything that had happened.

“It was all my fault,” she said miserably, “I shouldn't have lied to him.”

But Bill disagreed with her. “He's being a bastard about this, and pretending to be the victim. He isn't, Maddy. You are. Why can't you see that?” He was more frustrated about it than ever. They talked for nearly an hour, and at the end of it, Maddy sounded even more depressed. It was as though she couldn't understand what Bill was saying to her. He wondered if she'd ever swim free of the chains that bound her. She seemed to be going backward lately instead of forward.

And that night when Jack came home, he said not a word about Lizzie. Maddy wasn't sure if it was a good sign or not, or if he was just saving himself for another ultimatum. But she did everything she could to please him. She made a nice dinner for him, and spoke pleasantly. They made love that night, and he was sweeter to her than ever, which made her feel even more guilty for making him so unhappy.

And the next day when they went to work, just as Jack had predicted, the whole thing blew up in their faces. The picture the man at the theater had taken of Lizzie and Maddy was on the front of every tabloid, in several variations. And someone had either talked or guessed at the truth. The banner headlines read “Maddy Hunter and Her Long Lost Daughter.” It told as much as they knew, that Maddy had had a baby at fifteen and given it up for adoption. There were several interviews with Bobby Joe, and a teacher at her
old school. The tabloids had really done their homework.

Jack was in her office and in her face with samples of every tabloid. “Pretty isn't it? I hope you're proud of this. And what the fuck are we supposed to do? We've been selling you as the Virgin Mary for the last nine years, and now you look like what you are, Mad. A fucking whore, for chrissake. Shit, why the hell didn't you listen to me?” The photograph of her and Lizzie made them look like twins, they looked so much alike. And Jack was raging around her office like a bull with a dagger in his side. But there was no denying what had happened.

Maddy called Lizzie in Memphis to warn her, and when Jack finally left and went back to his own office, she called Dr. Flowers and then Bill, and they both said almost the same thing. It wasn't her fault, and it wasn't as bad as she thought. The public loved her. She was a good person, and she'd made a youthful mistake, and knowing about it would only make them love her more and sympathize with her. The picture of her and Lizzie was actually very sweet, they had their arms around each other.

But Jack had done everything he could, and very successfully, to make her feel terrified and guilty. And even Lizzie had cried when she called her.

“I'm so sorry, Mom. I didn't want to make trouble for you. Is Jack really mad?” She was worried about Maddy. She hadn't liked Jack when she met him, and she thought he was pretty scary. There was something sinister about him.

“He's not happy, but he'll get over it.” It was a gentle understatement.

“Is he going to fire you?”

“I don't think so. Besides, I don't think the union will let him. It would be discriminatory,” unless Jack could get her on the morals clause in her contract. But whether or not he could, he was furious with her, and she was in agony over the pain she had caused him. “We just have to ride it out. But promise me, you won't talk to any reporters.”

“I swear. I never did, and I wouldn't. I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. I love you.” She was sobbing at the other end, and Maddy did what she could to reassure her.

“I love you too, sweetheart. And I believe you. They'll get bored with it eventually. Try not to worry about it too much.”

But the tabloid TV shows began stalking her by noon, and the network was going crazy. Every magazine in the country had called, wanting an interview about it.

“Maybe we should give them what they want,” the head of PR suggested finally. “How bad could it be? So she had a baby at fifteen. It's happened before. She didn't kill it, for chrissake, and it's kind of a sweet story now, if we work it right. What do you think, Jack?” He looked hopeful as he glanced at his employer.

“I think I want to kick her ass from here to Cleveland. That's what I think,” Jack said in instant response to the question. He had never been as furious at her, or had as much reason to be. “She's a fool for even admitting to that little bitch that she was her mother. Mother. What the hell does that mean in a case like this? She fucked some high school jock and got knocked up and dumped the kid the minute she was born. And
now she goes around looking saintly and talking about her daughter. Shit, a cat has more relationship with its litter than Maddy does with this dumb bitch from Memphis. The girl's just riding on Maddy's coattails, and she doesn't see it.”

“There may be a little more to it than that,” the head of PR said delicately. He was startled by the vehemence of Jack's reaction to the situation. He'd been under a lot of pressure lately. The ratings for Maddy's show had been slipping daily, which may have been part of why he was so angry at her. But they all knew that that wasn't her fault, and they had said as much to Jack, but he didn't want to hear that either.

He was still steaming when they went home that night, and he tried to extract a promise from Maddy that she wouldn't see Lizzie again, but she wouldn't agree to it. And by midnight, he was so angry, he slammed out of the house and didn't come back until the next morning. She had no idea where he went, but when she looked, she could see TV cameras outside, and she didn't dare go after him. All she could do now was what she'd told Lizzie to do. Sit tight. Lizzie was staying at a friend's so they didn't find her at the boarding house, and her boss had given her the rest of the week off from the restaurant, because he was so impressed that she really was Maddy Hunter's daughter.