Red Blooded (17 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

“
What do you think of my hair?
”
Jen asked
,
patting her freshly cut locks.

“
Perfect
,”
I
said
,
pecking her on the cheek.

Peyton crossed her arms.
“
It’s too short.
”

I
looked down at Peyton with a scowl
,
but Jen just smiled.

“
Peyton
,
why would you say something like that?
You could hurt your mom’s feelings.
”

Peyton’s tiny
,
little-kid forehead wrinkled.
“
I’m sorry
,
but she asked.
I
can’t lie.
”

Jen knelt down.
“
No
,
you can’t
,”
she says.
“
But sometimes you need to be savvy with the truth.
”

Her eyes flitted to me and I returned a weak smile.
I
put my hand on Peyton’s shoulder.
“
Your mom’s wrong.
”
Jen raised an eyebrow.
“
Sometimes lying is the right thing to do.
”

* * *

As soon as the rally is over, I skirt past Bain, who raises an eyebrow as I rush by. Out of the corner of my eye I see Dylan following me, but I don’t give a shit.

I sprint down the hall, past the security guards who stiffen and stretch their hands over their holsters as they see me walking quickly, and relax when they recognize my face.

“Peyton,” Dylan calls down the hall. But I keep walking. I pretend not to hear him. I don’t do a good job of this, but I don’t know how to respond. I finally scoot my way into a bathroom and click the bathroom stall closed. I lean against the tiles, feeling the grout under the tips of my fingers as I stare up into the bathroom lights, all filled with dead bugs of various sizes. The tears release softly, slowly. Gliding down my hot temples as I close my eyes and bare my teeth to the bathroom ceiling gods.

The door squeals open.

“Peyton,” Dylan whispers.

Shit.

“Go away,” I say.

His footsteps stop, but they don’t retreat.

I swallow and wipe my eyes and rub the dampness from my face with some tissue. I emerge.

“That was crap,” I say.

“I’m sorry, Peyton. I told Mr. Ruiz about it. The numbers are close, and most independent voters are saying they’re hesitant to vote for Ruiz because of your mom. They think she’s cold and calculating. We need to show them her softer side as much as possible.”

“But it’s my pin, it’s my story, to tell or not tell.” I hold my hand over my chest and try to calm down. But the hurt and anger suffocate me.

Dylan slumps his shoulders. “I meant to tell you. I didn’t know he was going to use it today.”

“But you knew he was going to use it.” I step toward him. I’m clenching my jaw so hard it hurts.

He looks down at me. “Yeah, Peyton. We had to use it. 67 percent of independents don’t think your mom is a caring person. 59 percent of independents think she has a cold demeanor. We’re pulling for anything to show she’s not like that. We didn’t have a choice.”

I close my eyes. “You had a choice, Dylan. You did. You didn’t have to say anything.”

“I want to win. I thought you wanted that too.”

“Fuck you,” I yell, my fingers digging into my palms. “You know I want that. If you had to sit me down and tell me all this before and convince me to use the pin, fine. That would have showed respect. But you didn’t, you just went ahead and moved forward.”

“Would that have worked?” Dylan says, anger flashing across his face. “I try to tell you things, I try to advise you, and you don’t listen. Hell, you don’t even tell me what you’re up to most of the time.”

“And apparently neither do you!” My whole body is hot.

“You’re angry now, but later, you’ll realize this was the right move.”

“Don’t fucking patronize me,” I say. “You don’t know what this is like, and you don’t know how important it was to me. Yeah, it’s just a bunch of cloth, but it means something to me. And I told you that.”

My tears are fast and furious now, and I can barely see him move toward me.

He tries to touch me, but I flinch. “I’m sorry, but I needed to do it,” he says. “Can we just move past this? I hate it when you cry.”

“Because we have to play at being a couple now?” Hotness is everywhere. Burning in my chest and my eyes and on the surface of my skin.

“What?”

“You need to try to make this right because you need me to play the part of the nice girlfriend? Right? We need to—”

“You were the one who kissed me, okay? Don’t forget that.”

“I thought it would work.” I hold his gaze as my breathing picks up.

He leans in even closer. “It
did
work. It worked so well that now everyone is excited about us being together. They want us to be together, so we
are
together.”

I push my hair behind my ears. I’m still angry, but that doesn’t keep other emotions from swooping in. “Do you really think we can pull this off? I’m not very good at faking things.”

He steps back and his shoulders loosen. “Maybe you don’t have to fake it.”

I swallow about five times. He knows how I feel about him. Something twinges in my chest. Or used to feel about him. I rub the pin, which is now securely fastened back inside my cardigan. “I thought I wouldn’t have to fake it. I thought there was more to you. But there isn’t. It’s just elections and politics, politics and elections. All you’re capable of is spouting off political facts and studying campaign strategy.”

His eyes narrow and his face tenses. “That’s what you think of me?”

I fold my arms and stare at the ground.

“Whatever. You don’t like me? Fine. But that’s not a good reason to ruin a presidential election.” His voice is so low.

“I’m not going to ruin—”

“Neither am I.”

“Fine,” I say.

“Fine,” he says.

Everything is fine.

Chapter Thirty-Four

I’d read the
Washington Post
on the porch and try not to listen to Annie and Peyton playing with their Barbies in the grass.
They’d swirl them around and create little Barbie villages out of branches and twigs and leaves.
And
,
inevitably
,
Barbie and Ken would kiss.
They’d push the dolls’ faces against each other and then twist the dolls’ bodies as they held on to the doll legs.

Yes
,
that’s pretty much how kissing works.

* * *

When we get back from the rally, we tell Annie how excited we are to be together. She smiles, knowingly, and says she knew the two of us had chemistry. I have to plaster on a smile for one of my best friends. Dylan rubs my back and says he couldn’t imagine fitting as well with anyone else. When Tristan gives Dylan a faux lecture on how he usurped my virginal image, Dylan shrugs and says he’s only a man. He couldn’t help himself.

But when Tristan and Annie leave, the room’s a vacuum. Dylan’s light is snuffed. He ignores me. I broil. I should be the one bitterly ignoring him. He’s the one who fucked up.

Why can’t he get over our tiff and help me figure out if Representative Roberts is just some guy my aunt knew, or if he’s responsible for my very existence. I search for Representative Roberts online every day. I read his sound bites and his interviews. Would contacting him be so bad? Yes. I can’t just meander over to his office in Capitol Hill or shoot him an email. Finally, I read that he’ll be kicking off his book tour at Yale in late October. His book, which covers his recent races and his vision for America’s future, isn’t high on my reading list, but this event might just be my chance. My mind spins with ideas. I told Dylan he could trust me, but what’s the point in telling him about this? He barely acknowledges me when it’s just the two of us.

For two weeks, I try to keep my anger at a simmer, but instead I’m just hurt over and over again at his vacillating demeanor. When we’re in my room, he reads his tablet as though there’s nothing else on the planet but that glowing light. When we’re in a car on the way to an event, he focuses on the buildings passing by. He doesn’t talk to me. When we go over talking points, his voice is stilted and curt. There’s no praise. There’s no commentary at all. It’s just business.

But when we’re in public, he transforms into a jovial, caring boyfriend. He should have been a spy or a movie star. He’s a natural at faking our relationship, whereas I jitter and make flailing attempts to recover.

When Dylan and I walk around campus, his fingers slip into mine. He holds on to me, hard. As our hands sway between us and my palms sweat and my heart races, I resist the urge to pull away. I resist the urge to lean closer. Because when he touches me, I remember that kiss. And I want it again. And, maybe a second or third or millionth time after that, too.

I want it every time he touches me. And he’s always touching me. When I have trouble reaching a book in the library, he puts his hand on my back as he reaches up to get it for me. When I tell him at dinner that he can only have a quarter of my cupcake, okay, fine, two-eighths, he pulls me to him and laughs in my hair. When I get an A on my first anthropology essay, he hugs me in the hall after class and tells me I’m brilliant.

But the kisses are the worst part. They’re just long enough for me to remember what he tastes like, but there’s nothing behind them. They’re quick and stoic. They’re all for show. They crush me.

A week and a half of this torturous back and forth. And then, one day, it’s the morning of the Vice Presidential Debate. It’s the most important part of the campaign for my mom. She’ll go head to head with Vice President Oberto and offer the American voters an alternative.

We walk home from my final class before our flight to Florida. Students swarm the campus, tizzying and turning as they head to dinner or study groups or weeknight parties. A few people look our way or point at us as we go, which isn’t unusual.

He reaches for my hand again, but it’s too much. I twist away and close my eyes but the world topples and brick hits my knee hard. Shit, I’m on the ground. And so is Dylan. He kneels next to me with worried eyes. “You okay?”

“Nothing the pain of embarrassment can’t overwhelm,” I say with warm cheeks. He smiles and grabs my waist to pull me up. He lets his fingers linger on me, even after I’m standing. “Thank you,” I say softly as heat sears where his hands hold me. He blinks and leans toward me. He pulls my hips to his and clutches at my dress. His mouth is on mine. I sigh and reach around him, as his tongue feels wonderfully familiar and exotically foreign all at once. His fingers slip up my spine and curve around my neck, pushing gently so we can kiss more deeply.

I am a jiggly mass of human body parts ready to do whatever he wants.

I slip my hands just under his shirt, running my thumb along his waistband, and feel him groan. Something strong and hard develops below his waist. Okay, I know what it is.

I pull back and smile at him. He turns away, closing his eyes. “Sorry, I got...I didn’t mean to...”

“It’s okay,” I say. I mean it.

He turns back to me, forehead stern. “No, it’s not.”

A stone grows in my belly. It weighs me down. I’ve been waiting and wanting a real kiss. I got it. But he didn’t want to give it. He doesn’t want to kiss me.

“We better get going.” He finds my hands and continues walking.

I have him but I don’t.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“
Don’t wait for things
,
not if you can help it
,”
I
told Peyton after she said she would save the Kennedy Center gift certificate I gave her for a special occasion.
“
Every Tuesday is a
‘
special occasion.’ Nobody knows how long they have.
”

* * *

We settle into our seats. My grandparents and my Aunt Victoria, my, well, biological mom, sit to my right, and Dylan sits to my left. Our “relationship” has generated a ton of positive feelings from the press and the public, so the campaign wanted to have us next to each other for the inevitable shot when the candidates’ families are mentioned.

The cameraman gives the announcer, a commentator from PBS, a nod, and then the fingers count down.

“Welcome to the first and only Vice Presidential Debate,” the moderator says. “I am honored to moderate this debate, which will cover both domestic and foreign policy issues. Applause is only allowed at the end of the debate and right now, as I welcome Vice President Oberto and Senator Arthur.”

We applaud wildly and my hands get sore from the clapping. My heart yammers in my chest, so I can only imagine what my mom feels.

She does great though, all poise and style as she responds to the first question about a nuclear Iran and the next about universal health care. She talks in confidence about our debt with China and the need to keep abortions legal but rare. She nails it when she says that gay marriage, like the battle over interracial marriage in the 1960s, shouldn’t be left up to the states. She and Ruiz are the first major party candidates to say that.

But then there’s a question about the younger generation. The voters like me, who will be going into the polls for the first time. The college students who look at their dismal job prospects. The multiple twentysomethings still living with their parents.

The commentator asks Vice President Oberto, “What would you say to these young people? What is the solution for them?”

“Well,” Vice President Oberto sniffs and curls his fingers over the podium. “I think all of these kids are independent. They don’t need or want a government strapping them down. When you’re working ten-hour shifts waiting tables, you don’t want the Federal Government to take a chunk of your hard-earned money. Under our continued leadership, we will lower taxes and keep government in its rightful, minimal place.”

My mom clutches her podium as her jaw stiffens. That’s not good. We don’t want millions of Americans to see her jaw stiffen.

The commentator turns to her. “Senator Arthur, do you have a response?”

She swallows. “Yes, I do. When you’re working ten-hour shifts as a waitress, you have more than just your paycheck on your mind. You’re thinking about your health insurance, you’re thinking about birth control, you’re thinking about your student loans, you may even be thinking about whether or not a prescription drug you’re taking is actually okay for you. The federal government doesn’t get in the way. From advancing women’s rights to regulating products, Governor Ruiz will ensure the government continues to both pave the way and make sure the way is safe for everyone.”

There’s no applause, because we can’t clap. But my heart warms. I lean to Dylan. “I’m sure she lost a few independents with that, but I don’t care, I loved it.”

Dylan smiles. “Me too.”

The commentator turns to Vice President Oberto. “A one-minute response.”

“The kids today don’t need us to pave the way, they want to pave their own way. And safety. Well, life isn’t safe. Who says the government needs to coddle us? Kids these days don’t want to be coddled and cooed to. They can take care of themselves. Just the other day I met with entrepreneurs in their early twenties. One of them graduated from Yale at 22, got some money from his parents to get a startup going, and now, at 24, is worth three million. He doesn’t need the government’s help, he needs the government to get out of the way.”

He wraps up with some equally pedantic and paternalistic closing thought about “kids these days.”

My mom gives a forced smile when it’s her turn to respond. “Well, as a Yale alum myself, I can assure you that young entrepreneur doesn’t represent the needs of the average student.”

I look at Dylan, quick. His closed eyes and pinched brow reflect what I’m thinking. She shouldn’t have said that. Sure, we get what she means. It’s easy for Republicans to talk about how the over-reaching government “hurts” privileged college students who can “take care of themselves,” but they’re ignoring the average 20-year-old, who depends on student loans, or help with health insurance, or a host of other things. But she’s lumped herself in with that privileged student. Instead of sounding like she has empathy for others, she sounds like a rich woman looking down on the sad, poor lot of others.

I can practically hear the scratchings of “limousine liberal” as commentators prepare their post-debate remarks.

She gets it. She shifts and refocuses for thirty seconds on how the government helps youth.

But the sound bite will live in infamy.