The Brutal Heart (10 page)

“Well,” Zack said.

Taylor’s face crumpled. “You hate it. I know it’s … extreme, but I thought … well, never mind what I thought.”

Zack clapped his hands together. “It’s a knockout,” he said. “Your mother and I are just a little overwhelmed at how terrific you look.” He wheeled towards the door. “Hey, where’s that camera Blake and Gracie gave me for my birthday? I’ll take a picture and you can see for yourself.”

I walked over and put my hands on my daughter’s shoulders. “It’s a great haircut, Taylor, and you look sensational. You are sensational.” I felt my throat tighten. “I’ll get the camera. It’s in Zack’s office.”

The grey, eyeless Care Bear Francesca had given Zack to celebrate her freedom was still on the couch. I stared at it for a moment, then went to the bookshelf, took down the camera, and walked up the hall, grateful beyond measure for a life filled with incandescent moments.

CHAPTER
5

Except for the comics and a quick glance at the front page to see if there were trials of note, Zack never read any of our morning papers. Whoever made it to the porch first brought the papers in, but after that Zack left them for me to read or recycle as I saw fit. That morning, there was a change in our pattern. When I came in from my run with the dogs, Zack held out the
Globe and Mail
. “Some nice coverage of Ginny in here,” he said.

I took the paper, poured myself coffee, and read. The front-page coverage of Ginny was positive: a large and flattering photo of her with the twins as they came out of court and the headline, minister of family wins daughters. I read the article. The account of the custody dispute was factual, but the slant was positive: no hint of Ginny’s sexual adventures, and Jason Brodnitz’s decision to withdraw his case hinted at indiscretions he did not wish made public. The article concluded with Ginny’s response to a reporter who asked how she planned to spend the evening. “With my daughters,” Ginny said. “They’ll have questions and we’ll have to help one another find answers.”

I put the paper back on the table and measured out the dogs’ food. “That article couldn’t have been more glowing if Ginny had written it herself,” I said.

“Nope,” Zack agreed, “and the other two are even better.”

I sat down opposite him. “So, a good news day.”

Zack shook his head. The
Leader-Post
was folded in his hand. “Cristal Avilia made the front page too.”

I took the paper and turned it to the lower fold. The picture of Cristal was smaller than the one of Ginny, but it was large enough for me to see what she looked like. I don’t know what I’d expected, but she was a surprise. The woman in the picture was fine-boned, with dark hair swept back to reveal a high forehead and dreamy eyes. She looked liked the kind of young woman I’d see at the opening reception of a small gallery or a performance art piece.

“Well,” I said.

“Well what?” Zack said.

“She isn’t what I expected. She looks like a girl out of a locket – very sweet and innocent.”

“I guess that’s why her billing rate was the same as mine,” Zack said dryly.

“How many clients did she have?”

“I don’t know. She told me once she kept it to three clients a day, and her bookings were two hours minimum. Plus, she warned me against counting on a weekend date because she was often away with clients from Friday to Sunday.”

“At $500 an hour,” I said, “Cristal must have earned serious money. Why would she blackmail Ned for $10,000? That would be small potatoes for her.”

“Good question,” Zack said. “And I guess now we’ll never know the answer. There are a lot of things we’ll never know.”

I looked at the photo again. Unexpectedly, I felt my throat tighten. “And a lot of things Cristal will never know,” I said. “When I was thirty-four, I had two children and no idea at all of who I was or what I wanted out of life.”

Zack winced. “Jo, I already feel like a shit about this. If hauling my ass over a mountain of broken glass would make you feel better, I’d do it, but this is just making us both miserable. Cristal doesn’t have anything to do with the life we have now.”

“I know,” I said. “But she isn’t going to go away.” I poured us both coffee, folded the paper so I wouldn’t have to see Cristal’s photo, and turned to another front-page story about the impact Jason’s withdrawal of the custody suit would have on Ginny’s political fortunes and on those of her party. Despite everything, it was absorbing reading.

For much of my adult life I had been involved in electoral politics: first as the candidate’s wife, later as an activist, finally as an academic. I had managed campaigns, cooked turkeys, knocked on doors, hosted coffee parties, and sat in drafty halls enduring endless windy speeches. I’d hated almost every minute of it. I knew people who came alive with campaigns. They were addicted to the adrenalin rush of picking up the paper every morning and looking at poll numbers; they relished the gossip and thrived on trying to guess the shifting whims of the electorate. I found the process frightening and exhausting, but because I believed in what our party was doing, I stayed in. In mid-life, I came up for air, took a hard look at the party my family and I’d given our lives to, decided either it had changed or I had, and I walked away.

Now, I was back in – at least as a spectator. That morning as I left for the strategy meeting Ginny’s campaign manager had called, I automatically assessed her chances in the upcoming election. I knew Ginny’s federal riding, Palliser, intimately. It took in the southwest corner of Regina and the territory extending to and including Moose Jaw. It was a prosperous area and politically volatile, seesawing back and forth between the parties of the right and the left with the outcome often determined by fewer than a hundred votes. Until news of her ugly marital difficulties surfaced, Ginny had seemed unbeatable, but the jokes and innuendo had taken their toll. Despite the fact that she’d worked her constituency hard and delivered on her promises, the party’s internal polling on the night before the hearing opened showed Ginny trailing the candidate for my old party. Jason’s abrupt change of heart about custody of his daughters would stop the hemorrhage of votes from her campaign, but as I pushed the security buzzer in the lobby of her condo, I knew that the meeting ahead would be dominated by one question: was Ginny’s career salvageable?

Ginny herself met me at the door. She was wearing running shorts and a tank top, and her hair was damp with perspiration. “Perfect timing,” she said. “I got in my run and I’m just about to hit the shower. Have you seen the papers?”

“I have.”

“Then you know that I used your line about staying home with the kids last night because that’s where I belonged. My campaign manager said it made him want to blow chunks, but he thought it was effective.”

“That’s a start,” I said. “I don’t imagine that he’s thrilled to have me here this morning.”

“Ignore him,” Ginny said. “But an old friend of yours is coming, and he is thrilled that you’ll be here.”

“Who’s the friend?”

“Keith Harris. When he called from the airport to get my address, I told him about our agreement. I thought if he had concerns, we should deal with them up front, but he was delighted. How do you two know each other?”

“Remember that line about politics making strange bedfellows?” I said.

“I’ve heard it two or three hundred times,” Ginny said dryly.

“Sorry,” I said. “Anyway, Mieka was married to Keith’s nephew, and Keith and I were on a political panel together for a couple of years.”

Ginny cocked her head. “I had a feeling there was more to it than that.”

“There was,” I said.

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “That must have been interesting.”

“It was,” I said. “For a while.”

A young man in khakis, a black T-shirt, and a Blue Jays ball cap came out of the kitchen. He had a newspaper in one hand and a half-eaten Crispy Crunch bar in the other.

“Milo, this is Joanne Shreve,” Ginny said. “She’s going to be with us till E-Day. Joanne, my campaign manager, Milo O’Brien.”

Milo’s smile was not pleasant. “So you’re the Trojan horse.”

Ginny’s voice was wintry. “Back off, Milo. Joanne’s here at my invitation.”

“You’ve already screwed up once, Ginny,” he said. “And it may cost us this election.”

Ginny shot him a look that would have curdled milk, but it bounced off her manager. “Are you sure we can trust her?” he said.

“I’m standing right here, Milo,” I said. “Why don’t you ask me?”

He turned his eyes on me. They were a startlingly bright blue. “All right, Joanne Kilbourn-Shreve, can we trust you?”

I met his gaze. “Yes,” I said.

Ginny laughed. “There’s your answer, Milo. I’m going to shower. You and Joanne get acquainted.”

Milo crammed the rest of his Crispy Crunch bar in his mouth and headed down the hall. I followed him into the kitchen. The room was bright and attractive, but like the rest of the condo it had the unused quality of a show home. It even smelled new. Milo went to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair with the elaborate courtesy of a waiter in an overpriced restaurant, and gestured to me. “Madam?” Then he pulled another Crispy Crunch bar from his pocket, peeled back the wrapper, took a bite, sat down, and began talking on his cellphone.

Somewhere in the apartment a phone began ringing. It stopped and then began again. Milo didn’t move. I took out a notepad and pen and began making notes. Milo narrowed his eyes at me and kept on talking. In fifteen minutes, Ginny was back. She was dressed in a pullover and slacks and talking into a portable phone. She nestled the phone between her ear and her shoulder, took a bran muffin from a paper bag on the kitchen table, and continued fielding questions from her caller.

Left to my own devices, I studied Milo. He had a wild kinetic energy that kept him constantly in motion: drumming on the table with his fingertips, tapping his foot, rolling the wrapper from his Crispy Crunch into a ball, and tossing it towards the wastebasket. All the while, he was wheedling, cajoling, cursing, and threatening the luckless souls on the other end of his cell. The purpose of his endless stream of calls was no mystery. The party had written Ginny off and moved her workers to other, more winnable ridings. Milo was giving it his best shot, but I knew from experience that once the workers had been moved, it was almost impossible to get them back. If Milo hadn’t been such a putz, my heart would have gone out to him.

When the buzzer rang from the lobby, Ginny was in the middle of yet another interview. She gave me a beseeching look, and I walked over, pressed the entry pad, and went to the hall to wait.

Keith Harris was older, thinner, and more drawn than he had been the last time I saw him. With his laptop case slung over his shoulder and his suit-bag hooked to his forefinger, he looked like a traveller at the end of a long and unsuccessful business trip, but as always, he was gallant. He stepped inside, dropped his luggage, and held out his arms. “May I kiss the bride?”

“No longer a bride,” I said. “Zack and I have been married a year and a half, but I’m still me, and I’d welcome a kiss.”

“Good,” he said. The kiss was warm but not passionate: a kiss between loving friends. When it ended, Keith stepped back and looked at me. “Marriage obviously agrees with you.”

“It does,” I said. “We’re very happy. And you?”

Keith shrugged. “Getting by.”

Milo came out into the hall, pocketed his Crispy Crunch, and shook Keith’s hand. “God, am I glad to see you,” he said. “Did they arrange any accommodation?”

“No. This trip was a last-minute decision.”

Milo’s young face creased with anxiety. “But you are staying?”

“As long as I’m needed,” Keith said.

“Thank God. I’ll call about a hotel room. Smoking, right?”

Keith sighed. “Nope, I’ve quit yet again. Doctor’s orders.”

Milo had no interest in other people’s doctors. “Okay, nonsmoking,” he said. “Keith, we’ve gotta pull this out. If Ginny wins, we win it all. But we need people.”

“Then we’ll get them,” Keith said evenly.

Milo’s nod was solemn, but halfway down the hall, he did a little side kick of happiness.

I turned to Keith. “Looks like he’s glad you’re here,” I said. “By the way, is Milo certifiable?”

Keith chuckled. “Everybody in this business is. But he gets the job done, and as you know, a political campaign is not exactly Plato’s symposium.”

As if to underscore the point, when Keith and I walked into the kitchen, Ginny had her head in the refrigerator. She was still responding to interviewer’s questions and still trying to put together her breakfast. When she heard Keith’s voice, she turned, waved, then reached in and extracted a litre of milk. She answered a question about her sex life, opened the milk, sniffed, made a face, checked the best-before date, and poured the milk down the sink. Milo watched the action and gallantly offered Ginny the rest of his Crispy Crunch. By my count, it was his third since I arrived.

Keith poured himself coffee and sat down at the table. “Okay, the fun’s over,” he said. “Milo, where are we?”

“No longer beached on shit creek,” Milo said. “The custody thing helped big-time.” He chomped his bar. “Two problems: time and bodies. E-Day is fourteen days away and the only volunteers we’ve got left can’t leave home without their Depends or their nitro – sorry, Keith.”

Keith made a faint gesture of dismissal, and Milo barrelled on. “Anyway, we need a media blitz, but the ads Ginny’s got now are shit – worse yet, they’re generic shit. Ginny’s gotta go for specificity. If she’s gonna win Palliser, she needs to get our core group of Christian family-values wackos to the polls and she needs to appeal to the spoiled brats with the renovated houses in Old Lakeview and the Crescents. That means the campaign needs bodies and it needs new ads, and that means money quick and on the table. Again, and for the record, I think we can win this thing, but we have to move fast.”

Keith handed him a list of names and numbers. “I drew this up on the way out. Call and tell them to be on the next plane.”

Milo glanced at the list. “Half of these people are from Ontario.”

“From safe seats in Ontario.”

“It’s going to cost serious money to get them out here.”

“Elections are about serious money.”

“True enough,” Milo said. “I’ll find me a little corner and start dialing. What about the media buys?”

“Get what you need. We’ll cover it.”

Ginny ended her call, flicked off her phone, and joined us.

“So, how’s it going, kiddo?” Keith asked, and I could hear the affection in his voice.

Ginny went over and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Better now that you’re here,” she said. The moment passed quickly. She straightened up and went to the chair opposite him. “Jason’s withdrawal seems to have shifted the winds. When the custody question hit court, there was a sense that where there was smoke, there was fire. For the last few weeks the smoke’s been hovering over me, but now, Jason’s the one under suspicion.” She picked up the muffin she’d buttered ten minutes earlier and took a bite. “There’s speculation that my ex has a few nasty skeletons in his closet,” she said carefully.