Life of Secrets (2 page)

Two teenagers walked
across the grass at an expensive east coast prep school, both wearing tan
slacks and blue shirts. It was their last day of class before spring break, and
a touch football game had broken out in the quad among the other students. The
ball got knocked out of bounds. It bounced and tumbled off the grass until it
wobbled to rest at the feet of the boy and girl walking past.

The girl
reached down, picked up the ball, and shot a perfect spiral right back at the
quarterback, who caught it and grinned. He called, "You
wanna
play, Alyssa? We’re losing; we could use you!"

She shook her
head, waved, smiled, and went back to her conversation.

"Obviously
the gossip hasn’t gotten to them yet, or they wouldn’t be inviting me to
play," she said.

She was short, black-haired,
and beautiful; she pouted as she talked. With her was a slender boy, with wavy
brown hair and an angular face. His hands were stuffed in his pockets as he
walked. His blue shirt was like hers – nice fabric with the school crest on the
pocket. But his tan slacks fit poorly and the frayed cuffs dragged on the
ground. His name was Matt Barr, and he said, "You shouldn’t have done it,
Alyssa."

"Of course
I shouldn’t have done it, but it’s like I was seeing red. I got so mad I just
didn’t think. Don’t tell me I shouldn’t have done it; that’s obvious."

"Is your
father going to kill you?"

"My father
is a minor consideration at best. He barely knows he
has
a daughter, let
alone when she gets into trouble. My
sensei
, on the
other hand, is going to mess up my whole life when he hears. You don’t use
martial arts training to beat the daylights out of someone just because they
got your goat."

"You
shouldn’t have…" the boy cut off in mid-sentence when the girl gave him a
look that suggested she might not be finished beating the daylights out of
people.

"He should
never have said I was your girlfriend," she muttered.

Matt said
nothing, which was wise. It made him feel good when people thought he and
Alyssa were together. She knew that about him. If he tried to agree with her
that the boy shouldn’t have said that, she would know he was lying to patronize
her. But if he said what he really felt, it would just make her angry.

"They were
picking on you, and I didn’t like it. I don’t like to see bullies pick on
people."

Matt shrugged.
Being defended by a girl wasn’t exactly going to do him any good with the boys.

"And then
he had to go and say, ‘Oh look, is your girlfriend going to protect you?’ It
was like my head exploded. I wasn’t thinking."

"It’s
funny how often you and I have this conversation, Alyssa. You’ve got to do
something about your temper."

"I’ll tell
you what makes my temper better is touching someone’s nose with my fist if
they’re being a jerk."

"Indulging
your temper isn’t the same thing as learning to get it under control."

The teen girl
rolled her eyes at her friend.

"My mother
wanted me to be strong. That was her dying wish for me. Her very last
words."

The boy touched
her shoulder lightly.

"I
remember her."

She continued,
"Strong is standing up for yourself. Strong is standing up for your
friends. Strong isn’t wimping out when a bully is picking on your friend."

Matt said,
"Well, if my father hears about it, he’ll chew me up one side and down the
other. You know how Reverend Barr is about living by the rules. Don’t be
violent, don’t be a trouble maker, and don’t waste your time with that
rebellious Chambers girl."

She shrugged.
"Your father thinks the same thing about you and me that those boys
thought."

"It’s all
he thinks about. Wanting to make sure I don’t ‘get into trouble’ with a girl.
Any girl, it’s not just you."

Alyssa snorted.
"You won’t be getting into trouble with me."

Matt sighed.
"Thanks. My dad will be glad to hear it."

She said,
"At least your father knows you exist. Mine barely knows he has a
daughter."

♦

Later that
night, home for break, Alyssa moped in her spacious bedroom, barely even seeing
the canopied four-poster bed or the original artwork that hung on her walls.
She'd donned her
gi
and stretched, ready to work
through some of the forms she’d need for her upcoming black belt test.

The punches and
kicks were a good way to work through her frustration. Coming home had been
very disappointing so far.

Somehow, she
had hoped things would change. Every few months when she came home from school,
she kept hoping things would change. They never did.

High block. Low
block. Punch-punch-punch.

She had been
gone since Christmas. This was her father’s first chance to see her in months.

And he was in
the den talking politics with a client. Alyssa felt hot tears of resentment
welling up in her eyes.
He won't even say anything about missing me!

Front kick.
Side kick. Side kick.

The exercise
was really just anger management. Punching felt good, but she didn’t need the
practice: she already knew the belt was hers, even after the stern lecture
she'd gotten from Sensei about the evils of aggression.

The belt was
already hers. Graduation was already hers. Being valedictorian was already
hers. Admission to the college of her choice was already hers. What Alyssa
wanted was a challenge.

She had tried
gymnastics and could have gone to the Olympics if she'd stuck with it. She had
tried martial arts. She had tried competitive shooting, just because it made
her father nervous. But none of them had been hard for her.

Taking the easy
way was not what strong people did, but Alyssa couldn't find the hard way.

She'd long ago
rejected the idea of student body government as a possibility. It was too much
of a popularity contest to be challenging for her and besides, it felt too much
like doing exactly what her father wanted. Student council was like training
for politics, after all.

Alyssa sighed.
There was nothing. Nothing. Well, college would bring new opportunities. All
she had to do was choose between Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or studying abroad
at Oxford. The invitations from each were in her desk drawer, along with
numerous others from "lesser" schools. She'd been so desperate last
fall she even tried to set a world record for most acceptance letters from
elite colleges, only to discover that Guinness didn't offer such a category.

Still in her
workout clothes she left her bedroom, headed down the hall, down two flights of
stairs, and then to the front door. Maybe some fresh air would bring fresh
ideas.

On the way, she
heard her father talking with someone in the living room.

She paused for
a moment to listen: politics, of course. Always politics. She heard him saying,
“The problem is, I don’t have a lever on him yet. I want to get one, but right
now I have no way to influence him.”

She shook her
head.
As if anything ever really changes!
But to her father, politics
was everything. It had been more important than his wife. It was certainly more
important than a daughter. Rolling her eyes, she went outside to walk around
and think.

The car in the
drive must be her father's visitor’s, since nobody in this house would ever be
caught dead in a Hyundai. She looked in the window and saw that the keys had
been left in it. Just her luck: even stealing a car would be too easy.

She thought
about her father inside. H. Franklin Chambers was the senior partner at the
ancient law firm of Chambers and Weathering. Senators consulted them. They
didn’t just argue before the Supreme Court, they prepared future Justices for
their confirmation hearings. Presidents sought their counsel. But Chambers and
Weathering partners never left the firm to take low-paying jobs in the cabinet
or any such thing. They simply advised, and they shaped history from behind the
scenes.

He had wanted a
son, of course.
Of course!
He had wanted H. Franklin Chambers VI, to
carry on the name, practice law, advise some future President, etc. A girl
hadn’t been part of the plan. Alyssa hadn’t been part of the plan.

Just as she
felt the old familiar anger rising over her father’s desire for a different
child, the front door opened, and the visitor came out, frowning. ‘
Things
must not have gone well with H. Franklin
,’ she thought. She wandered over
to see what she could find out.

The visitor
turned out to be George Pierce. She'd met him a few times at social functions:
a client of Chambers and Weathering, who was involved in politics and used the
firm's services mostly in that regard. He walked with short strides, looking
down at his feet, hands in his pockets. His blue blazer looked like it came off
the rack at Wal-Mart, and if his shoes had ever been shined, it had been a long
time ago. His thin nose and scrawny build made him look a little taller than he
truly was.

"Good
evening, Mr. Pierce," she called out.

The man
started, looked over at her, and started again.

"Alyssa! I
didn't know you were out here. I'm sorry." He looked a bit discomfited.

"What’s going
on? What were you here to see Father about?"

He looked like
he might try to deny her the information, so Alyssa pouted and widened her eyes
to stare up at him. It worked like it always did.

"Well,
it's this campaign I'm working on. You know, Lance Reeder, running for
Congress?"

Alyssa nodded.
"Of course. He's been in Congress since I was a little girl."

"Well,
until now. We're in serious trouble – like, I-need-a-new-job kind of trouble. I
hoped maybe your father might be able to do something, but it looks like
not."

Something H.
Franklin can't help with?
All of a sudden, Alyssa was interested – very interested. If there was one
human being alive who had a harder time finding challenges or limits than she
did, it was her father. If
he
couldn't do it...

"What kind
of trouble?"

Pierce sighed.
"Well, it’s all coming out in the papers tomorrow or the next day, so I
guess telling you can’t really change anything. My boss… well, he’s got this
beautiful antique Swiss watch. It was hand-made more than a hundred years ago.
It came to him from his father and to him from his father… etc. Normally, of
course, it sits in a locked jewelry case in his home. It’s one of a kind.
There’s nothing like it anywhere else in the world."

Alyssa nodded.
"We have stuff like that in our family, too."

Pierce went on
as if he hadn’t heard her. “Well, the other day we had a fundraiser with the
Speaker of the House coming in to campaign for us. It was a seriously big deal.
Everyone there was writing $15,000 checks just to get in. Some of the richest
people in the state were there. So of course, Lance decides to wear his one of
a kind – completely unique – heirloom watch.”

Alyssa
whistled. "This doesn’t sound like it ends well."

Pierce nodded.
"Yeah exactly. He left it behind. In the bedroom. Of someone else’s
wife."

Alyssa grimaced
and looked away. "Ugh."

"Exactly.
So, naturally, his lady friend’s angry husband has given the watch to the
campaign of our opponent in the primary election. And even if it wasn’t
completely unique, we hear they’ve found Lance’s fingerprints on it."

Alyssa raised
her eyebrows. "And Dad can't do anything about that? Every politician in
this state owes him enough favors to dance when he plays a tune. How come he
can't fix it?"

“Every
politician but this one. Ken Wells. Outsider, you know. Running against the
establishment, give politics back to the people, blah
blah
blah
. He's from outside the system; no one has a hook
into him. Your father told me he knew without asking that Wells wouldn't listen
to him.”

Alyssa fell
silent for a moment, thinking about that. She never bothered to learn too much
about her father's business, but she was surprised that this Wells fellow was
so independent of him. The elder Chambers had managed to do favors for almost
everyone. Finding someone who didn't owe him was a rare occasion indeed.

While she was
thinking, Pierce mused, almost as if to himself. "This is going to be the
end of this campaign, and put Wells in office.
Gonna
be a rough time in politics until we can get him back out. I'd give anything to
have that watch back."

Alyssa eyed
him. After a pause, she repeated, "Anything?"

Pierce's head
snapped over to stare at her. “Alyssa, what are you hinting at?”

"Nothing,
nothing, just thinking..."