Mirror Image (7 page)

Tate got up and went for another two beers. When he was once again relaxing in the chair, he said, "Physically, she'll recover. Emotionally, I'm not so sure."

"Give the kid a chance. Adults have a hard time coping with this kind of trauma. That's why the airline has counselors trained to deal with people who survive crashes and with the families of those who don't."

"I know, but Mandy was shy to begin with. Now she seems completely withdrawn, suppressed. Oh, I can get a smile out of her if I try hard enough, but I think she does it just to please me. She has no animation, no vitality. She just lies there and stares into space. Mom says she cries in her sleep and wakes up screaming from nightmares."

"What does the psychologist say?"

"That dyke," Tate said, cursing impatiently. "She says it'll take time and patience, and that I shouldn't expect too much from Mandy."

"I say ditto."

"I'm not angry with Mandy for not performing on command," he snapped irritably. "That's what the psychologist implied, and it made me mad as hell. But my little girl sits and stares like she's got the weight of the world on her shoulders, and that's just not normal behavior for a three-year-old."

"Neither is living through a plane crash," Eddy pointed out reasonably. "Her emotional wounds aren't going to heal overnight, any more than her physical ones will."

"I know. It's just. . .hell, Eddy, I don't know if I can be what Carole and Mandy and the voting public need, all at the same time."

Eddy's greatest fear was that Tate would second-guess his decision to remain in the race. When Jack had told him that there were rumors in journalistic circles of Tate withdrawing from the race, he'd wanted to hunt down the gossiping reporters and kill them single-handedly. Luckily, Tate hadn't heard the rumors. Eddy had to keep the candidate's fighting spirit high.

Sitting forward, he said, "You remember the time you played in that fraternity tennis tournament and won it for us our sophomore year?"

Tate regarded him blankly. "Vaguely."

"Vaguely," Eddy scoffed. "The reason the recollection is dim is because you had such a hangover. You'd forgotten all about the tournament and had spent the previous night drinking beer and banging a Delta Gamma. I had to rout you out of her bed, get you into a cold shower and onto the court by nine o'clock to keep us from getting a forfeit."

Tate was chuckling with self-derision. "Is this story going somewhere? Does it have a point?"

"The point is," Eddy said, scooting farther forward so that his hips were barely on the edge of the bed, "that you came through, under the worst possible conditions, because you knew you had to. You were the only chance we had of winning that tournament and you knew it. You won it for us, even though minutes before your first match you were massaging your blue balls and puking up two six-packs of beer."

"This is different from a college tennis tournament."

"But you," Eddy said, aiming an index finger at him, "are exactly the same. Since I've known you, you've never failed to rise to the occasion. Through those two years we spent together at UT, through flight training, through Nam, when you were carrying me out of that goddamn jungle, when have you ever failed to be a fucking hero?"

"I don't want to be a hero. I just want to be an effective congressman for the people of Texas."

"And you will be."

Slapping his knees as though an important decision had been reached, Eddy stood up and set his empty beer can on the dresser. Tate stood up, too, and he happened to catch a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror.

"Good God." He ran his hand over the heavy stubble on his jaw. "Who'd vote forthat?Why didn't you tell me I looked so bad?"

"I didn't have the heart." Eddy slapped him lightly between the shoulder blades. "All you need is some rest. And I recommend a close shave in the morning."

"I'll be leaving for the hospital early. They told me that Carole will be taken out of the recovery room about six and moved into a private room. I want to be there."

Eddy studied the shiny toes of his shoes for a moment before raising his eyes to his slightly taller friend. "The way you're sticking so close to her through this—well, uh, I think it's damned admirable."

Tate bobbed his head once, tersely. "Thanks."

Eddy started to say more, thought better of it, and gave Tate's arm a companionable slap. Tate wouldn't welcome marriage counseling from anyone, but especially not from a bachelor.

"I'll leave and let you get to bed. Stay in touch tomorrow. We'll be standing by for word on Carole's condition." "How are things at home?" "Status quo."

"Jack said you'd put Fancy to work at headquarters."

Eddy laughed and, knowing that Tate wouldn't take offense at an off-color comment about his niece, added, "By day I've got her stuffing envelopes. By night, God only knows who's stuffing her."

Francine Angela Rutledge crossed the cattle guard doing seventy-five miles per hour in a year-old car that she'd inflicted with five years' worth of abuse. Because she didn't like safety belts, she was jounced out of her seat a good six inches. When she landed, she was laughing. She loved feeling the wind tear through her long, blond hair, even in wintertime. Driving fast, with flagrant disregard for traffic laws, was just one of Fancy's passions.

Another was Eddy Paschal.

Her desire for him was recent and, so far, unfulfilled and unreciprocated. She had all the confidence in the world that he would eventually come around.

In the meantime, she was occupying herself with a bellhop at the Holiday Inn in Kerrville. She'd met him at a twenty-four-hour truck stop several weeks earlier. She had stopped there after a late movie, since it was one of the few places in town that stayed open after ten o'clock and it was on her way home.

At the truck stop Buck and Fancy made smoldering eye contact over the orange vinyl booths while she nursed a vanilla Coke through a large straw. Buck gobbled down a bacon cheeseburger. The way his mouth savagely gnawed at the greasy sandwich aroused her, just as intended. So on her way past his booth, she had slowed down as though to speak, then went on by. She settled her tab quickly, wasting no time to chat with the cashier as she usually did, and went directly to her convertible parked outside.

Sliding beneath the steering wheel, she smiled smugly. It was only a matter of time now. Watching through the wide windows of the cafe, she saw the young man stuff the last few bites of the cheeseburger into his mouth and toss enough currency to cover his bill onto the table before charging for the door in hot pursuit.

After exchanging names and innuendos, Buck had suggested that they meet there the following night, same time, for dinner. Fancy had an even better idea—breakfast at the motel.

Buck said that suited him just fine since he had access to all the unoccupied rooms at the Holiday Inn. The illicit and risky arrangement appealed to Fancy enormously. Her lips had formed the practiced smile that she knew was crotch-teasing. It promised a wicked good time.

"I'll be there at seven o'clock sharp," she had said in her huskiest drawl. "I'll bring the doughnuts, you bring the rubbers." While she exercised no more morals than an alley cat, she was too smart and too selfish to risk catching a fatal disease for a mere roll in the hay.

Buck hadn't been a disappointment. What he lacked in finesse he made up for with stamina. He'd been so potent and eager to please that she'd pretended not to notice the pimples on his ass. Overall, he had a pretty good body. That's why she'd slept with him six times since that first morning.

They'd spent tonight, his night off, in the tacky apartment he was so proud of, eating bad Mexican TV dinners, drinking cheap wine, smoking expensive grass—Fancy's contribution to the evening's entertain- ment—and screwing on the carpet because it had looked marginally cleaner to her than the sheets on the bed.

Buck was sweet. He was earnest. He was horny. He told her often that he loved her. He was okay. Nobody was perfect.

Except Eddy.

She sighed now, expanding the cotton sweater across her braless breasts. Much to the disapproval of her grandmother, Zee, Fancy didn't believe in the restraints imposed by brassieres any more than those imposed by seat belts.

Eddy was beautiful. He was always perfectly groomed, and he dressed like a man, not a boy. The local louts, mostly shit-kickers and rednecks, wore cowboy clothes. God! Western wear was okay in its place. Hadn't she worn the gaudiest outfit she could find the year she was rodeo queen? But it belonged exclusively in the rodeo arena, as far as she was concerned.

Eddy wore dark three-piece suits and silk shirts and Italian leather shoes. He always smelled like he'd just stepped out of the shower. Thinking about him in the shower made her cream. She lived for the day she could touch his naked body, kiss it, lick him all over. She just knew he would taste good.

She squirmed with pleasure at the thought, but a frown of consternation soon replaced her expression of bliss. First she had to cure him of his hang-up over the gap in their ages. Then she'd have to help him get over the fact that she was his best friend's niece. Eddy hadn't come right out and said that's why he was resistant, but Fancy couldn't think of any other reason he would avoid the blatant invitation in her eyes every time she looked at him.

Everybody in the family had been tickled to death when she had volunteered to work at campaign headquarters. Grandpa had given her a hug that had nearly wrung the breath out of her. Grandma had smiled that vapid, ladylike smile Fancy detested and said in her soft, tepid voice, "How wonderful, dear." Daddy had stammered his surprised approval. Mama had even sobered up long enough to tell her she was glad she was doing something useful for a change.

Fancy had hoped Eddy's response would be equally as enthusiastic, but he had only appeared amused. All he had said was, "We need all the help down there we can get. By the way, can you type?"

Screw you,she had wanted to say. She didn't because her grandparents would have gone into cardiac arrest and because Eddy probably knew that's exactly what she was dying to say and she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her rattled.

So she had looked up at him with proper respect and said earnestly, "I do my best at whatever I undertake, Eddy."

The high-performance Mustang convertible sent up a cloud of dust as she wheeled up to the front door of the ranch house and cut the engine. She had hoped to get to the wing she shared with her parents without encountering anyone, but no such luck. As soon as she closed the door, her grandfather called out from the living room. "Who's that?"

"It's me, Grandpa."

He intercepted her in the hallway. "Hi, baby." He bent down to kiss her cheek. Fancy knew that he was sneakily checking her breath for alcohol. In preparation for that, she had consumed three breath mints on the way home to cover the smell of the cheap wine and strong pot.

He pulled away, satisfied. "Where'd you go tonight?"

"To the movies," she lied blithely. "How's Aunt Carole? Did the surgery go okay?"

"The doctor says it went fine. It'll be hard to tell for a week or so."

"God, it's just awful what happened to her face, isn't it?" Fancy pulled her own lovely face into a suitably sad frown. When she wanted to, she could bat her long lashes over her big blue eyes and look positively angelic. "I hope it turns out okay."

"I'm sure it will."

She could tell by his gentle smile that her concern had touched him. "Well, I'm tired. The movie was so boring, I nearly fell asleep in it. 'Night, Grandpa." She went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and mentally cringed. He would horsewhip her if he knew how her lips had been occupied barely an hour ago.

She moved along the central hallway and turned left into another. Through wide double doors at the end of it, she entered the wing of the house that she shared with her mother and father. She had her hand on the door to her room and was about to open it when Jack poked his head through his bedroom door.

"Fancy?"

"Hi, Daddy," she said with a sweet smile. "Hi."

He didn't ask where she'd been because he didn't really want to know. That's why she told him. "I was ata. . . friend's." Her pause was deliberate, strategic, and rewarded by a pinched look that came to her father's mouth and eyes. "Where's Mama?"

He glanced over his shoulder into the room. "Sleeping."

Even from where she stood, Fancy could hear her mother's resonant snores. She wasn't just "sleeping," she was sleeping it off.

"Well, good night," Fancy said, edging into her bedroom.

He detained her. "How's it going down at headquarters?"

"Fine."

"You enjoying the work?"

"It's okay. Something to do."

"You could go back to college."

"Fuck that."

He winced but didn't chide. She had known he wouldn't. "Well, good night, Fancy."

" 'Night," she replied flippantly and soundly closed her bedroom door behind her.

SEVEN

"I might bring Mandy to see you tomorrow." Tate regarded her closely. "Since the swelling's gone down some, she'll be able to recognize you."

Avery gazed back at him. Even though he smiled encouragingly every time he looked at her face, she knew it was still frightful. There were no bandages to hide behind. As Irish would say, she could make a buzzard puke.

However, in the week since her operation, Tate had never avoided looking at her. She appreciated that charitable quality in him. As soon as her hands were capable of holding a pencil, she would write him a note and tell him so.

The bandages had been removed from her hands several days ago. She had been dismayed at the sight of the red, raw, hairless skin. Her nails had been clipped short, making her hands look different, ugly. Each day she did physical therapy with a rubber ball, squeezing it in her weak fists, but she hadn't quite graduated to grasping a pencil and controlling it well enough to write. As soon as she could, there was much she had to tell Tate Rutledge.

She had finally been weaned from the despised respirator.To her mortification, she hadn't been able to make a single sound—a traumatizing occurrence for a broadcast journalist who was already insecure in her career.