The Summer House (20 page)

This time, Danny thought, they weren’t fighting about him, at least not that he knew of. So maybe there was no point in alerting rogerdodger to the fact that the First-Lady-in-waiting might, indeed, be nuts.

He thought for a moment, then typed:
Gilligan here, stuck on the island. Just checking in
.

Just then an Instant Message flashed on the screen.
Yo, bro
, it read,
what ya up to?

Danny smiled. There was nothing like contact with Mags to cheer him up.

Same old, same old. You in San Antonio?

Yeah. Do you have any idea how short Davy Crockett was?

LOL. You must have visited the Alamo
.

Aunt Evelyn made us. She thinks it helps Dad’s campaign to have us look like all-American tourist-kids
.

Lucky you, you all-American, you
.

F*!@ you
.

Back at you
.

I talked to Mom last night. She sounded like s*!t. When’s she coming out of seclusion?

Her question startled him. Was Mags asking on Uncle Roger’s behalf or for herself?
Today. Tomorrow
, he typed.
Maybe never. Who knows?

There was a pause. His sister, obviously, was thinking about that one.

Don’t let her stay there too long, okay, bro?

Now it was Danny’s turn to pause. Then he simply typed,
Why?

Because she’s acting too weird
.

He paused again, staring at the keyboard.
Let’s blame it on global warming, okay? And by the way, you could call once in a while. We could be talking on the phone instead of in this detached, new-millennium method of communication
.

F*!@ you again. Gotta run. Aunt Evelyn booked us on a river ride through the town this morning. Yikes. Greg loves this s*!t. I’d rather be shopping. See ya. Bye
.

Danny sat there, staring at the screen, a small smile sitting on his face as if waiting for the next message that was not coming. Finally, he returned to rogerdodger. He typed:
All’s well. See you on the evening news
. Then he logged off, leaned back on the vinyl of the wheelchair and pondered the fact that Mags, too, had thought their mother was acting “too weird.”

The Kensington Hotel in San Antonio was not being helpful.

“
Loooook
,” BeBe said, her irritation rising with every syllable she gave to the word. “Elizabeth Adams-Barton is my sister. I know she must be staying there. The Adamses always stay at a Kensington.”

There was no response. At least it wasn’t a negative.

“
Soooo
,” she continued, “if you will not put me through to the room, at least please leave a message. I must speak with my sister as soon as possible.”

The voice was noncommittal. “If Mrs. Barton happens to check in, we will let her know.”

“If you value your job, you will,” BeBe said and slammed down the receiver.

She walked to the sink, dumped out the bottom-of-the-pot coffee, and slugged her way toward the bar in the living room. Swiping the hair from her face, she examined the contents and selected a bottle of coffee brandy. It seemed like a much better way to get caffeine this morning, if there was any caffeine in it, and if not, who cared anyway?

She pulled out a small snifter and filled it half full. She stopped, looked, then resumed filling it to the top. Just as she lifted it to her lips, the front door opened. She closed her eyes and took a deep swallow. The thick, burning liquid tunneled a path down her throat.

“Isn’t it a little early for that?” Ruiz asked from across the room.

Her answer was to take another swig, a big one. Fortification was what she needed: liquid courage to control her anger and sustain her strength. Above all, BeBe knew she must not look at his ass.

That was how a huge part of her felt. Then there was the part that wanted him to walk over to her, envelop her in his arms, comfort her, say he was sorry, do all those things they did on those cable TV movies where the woman always got the man she wanted even though she did it in a very independent,
I-really-can-live-without-you sort of way. She wanted him to tell her there was no wife, there were no kids, that Claire had made it all up.

But the bottom line was, BeBe trusted Claire more than she trusted Ruiz.

“So,” BeBe said. She walked to the sideboard where he had dropped his keys and plucked them into her hand. “Are you over your jet lag?”

“Sort of,” he replied as he moved toward the sliding glass doors off the living room. “Have you looked down on the beach? There’s stuff all over the place.”

On another day, at another time, she would have bitten back a smile. Now she simply removed the office keys and the keys to the condo from the silver ring she’d bought him at Cartier’s. “Heads up,” she said, tossing him the car keys.

He flinched, but his reflexes, like his penis, were fine-tuned. He caught the keys, looked down at them, then back at her.

“Thanks for the memories,” BeBe said. “Now I’d appreciate it if you’d get your ass out of here and out of my life. Go back to your family. I’m sure you have enough money to last until the next sucker comes along.”

He stood there without moving. “BeBe,” he said, “this is not what I meant to have happen.”

He did not try to deny it; goddammit, he did not even try. “No, I’m sure it’s not.” A hint of sarcasm heavily layered in Yankee pride crept into her voice. For once, she was glad of her Yankee pride, which helped her maintain that stiff upper lip and kept her from dissolving into sniveling girl-tears.

He stepped toward her, then stopped. He turned his face away.

“Ruiz,” she said quietly. “Just go. I am humiliated enough.”

He shuffled one foot. “What about … French Country?”

“I’ll manage.”

He did not respond.

A sick feeling rolled inside her. “What?” she asked. “Do you expect severance pay?”

He did not respond again, which she took for a yes. She wondered why she’d been so stupid that she hadn’t listened to Claire long ago. “Consider the Mercedes your severance pay. And if you try and make trouble, I will go to the immigration authorities. I will reveal your little scheme.”

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t forget you invested in it. I could say it was all your idea.”

“Just leave, Ruiz. Please.” She was too tired to argue, too stung to spit in his face, although she knew she’d regret not having that satisfaction.

“You don’t believe that I love you,” he said quickly, and it caught her off guard, until she realized he was simply changing his approach.

“No,” she replied. “Not for a nanosecond.”

“You think I’m a man who uses women.”

“Worse,” she said. “I think you’re an asshole.”

They stood, staring at one another, her final words hanging heavily in the air. From outside the swollen surf crashed on the beach; a rumble of distant thunder passed by.
Hurricane season
, BeBe thought,
when anything can happen
. He stood staring at her, then jangled the keys. All that was missing was the ticking of a clock.

Then, instead of a clock, the telephone rang.

She pointed to the door.

The phone rang again.

He continued to stare for a moment, then marched angrily past her as if he were the jilted lover who had done no wrong.

She stood shaking for a moment after the door
slammed shut behind him. Then she slowly moved to the phone and picked up the receiver, her hand trembling, her voice ready to break.

“Aunt BeBe?” came the voice on the other end. “It’s me. Mags. Did you call?”

BeBe made herself another drink, glad she had a cordless phone so she could stand at the window and watch Ruiz pick through his belongings on the beach while she half listened to her niece. Mags busily related an ordeal at the Alamo, trials with Aunt Evelyn and with life in general as BeBe wondered how she was going to put her life back together and how quickly she could get another designer.

“So we’re coming to south Florida next,” Mags jabbered with her twenty-year-old enthusiasm. “Please, please come, Aunt BeBe. Please come and see us at the hotel.”

It started to rain, with the big raindrops so common in Florida, so common in hurricane season. “I’m not sure Evelyn would want me interfering with the campaign.” Bebe turned from the window as Ruiz scurried toward the car, his arms overstuffed with trinkets, gifts he had given her, bought with her money, gifts he could now give to his wife.

“Interfering? Don’t be silly, Aunt BeBe. You’re family, you won’t be interfering.”

She wondered if Mags would feel the same way if she knew how many men around the globe BeBe had slept with, had even once slept with the candidate himself, back in the good old days, though only two people knew about that, and maybe only one of them remembered or had chosen to remember. She swirled the warm brandy around in her mouth and let Mags ramble on.

“Anyway,” Mags continued, “I need you. You can’t believe what a pain it is out here without Mom.”

BeBe set down her glass. “Your mother isn’t there?”

“No. She’s on the Vineyard. With Danny.”

BeBe frowned. She wanted to ask what the hell Liz was doing there, but decided it might not be an appropriate question for Liz’s daughter. Not that that had ever stopped her before. But right now, other things seemed more important, like hearing the slam of a car door. She forced her thoughts back to Mags. “Well,” she said, “I’m sure your mother appreciates it that you’re filling in for her.”

“Me? Hardly, Aunt BeBe. Aunt Evelyn is in charge—and if you don’t believe it, just ask her. She orders Uncle Roger around like he’s some kind of imbecile and she treats Greg and me like we’re ten. ‘Over here, kids.’ ‘Change your shirt, Greg.’ ‘Put on new lipstick, Margaret.’ Yikes. She’s driving me crazy.”

BeBe closed her eyes, trying to focus on what Mags was saying. There was something slightly amusing about the predictability of Evelyn’s asshole-ity, but she hated that Mags was now the brunt of it. And, distracted or not, BeBe also hated that Liz was not there. Her sister—the stable one, the lucky one—must be taking Father’s death harder than BeBe had expected. She opened her eyes. “Have you talked to your mother?”

“Yes. She sounds weird. And Danny doesn’t have a clue when she’s planning to come back to the campaign.”

“A presidential campaign is hardly the place to work through grief, Mags.”

Mags sighed. “I know, Aunt BeBe. But it really sucks without her here. I hate all this smiling without her. Did you know that after every public appearance, when Dad isn’t around, Mom makes up stories about the people who were there? She’s got all us kids doing it now. It’s so funny. She makes us laugh so hard.”

BeBe laughed. It was not surprising that Liz would make up stories—it was such a “mom” thing to do,
something that BeBe, the non-mom, would probably never have thought of. A car door slammed again; Ruiz must have loaded more things inside. She sucked in her cheeks. “What kind of stories?” she asked.

“Well, it started when we were little. The first time Dad ran for governor. We had to sit through this really long, really nasty rally. Mom leaned over and told us to think about the fat man with the bulging eyes. She said later she’d tell us a story about him and his rabbit.”

BeBe smiled and sipped her brandy again. This was the playful side of Liz that she had not seen for years, the side that she would have thought was buried long ago beneath Father’s saddle of decorum. “What about the fat man?” Without realizing it, she had strolled back to the window. The beach was nearly cleared now of all his belongings. He was poking through the remnants, his shirt soaked through, sticking to his back, his broad, tightly packed back.

Mags laughed. “I don’t remember. But I do know that she took our minds off the boring stuff and got us focused on the guy. When we talked about it later, we all pitched in with our own ideas. Ever since then it’s how we get through that stuff … knowing that after we’ll make up stories about people and have some laughs about it.” She paused, then giggled. “I suppose it wouldn’t help Daddy’s standing in the polls if the world knew what we do. But it helps us survive.”

And
survival
, BeBe knew, was what life was about. She turned back from the window, wondering if Liz had developed the game after years of having to be the perfect daughter, of having to look perfect in the spotlight. She wondered if it was a game that Father had taught Liz. Then BeBe felt a sting of jealousy—that too-familiar, Father-likes-you-better sting she’d not let herself feel in years. Quickly, she changed the subject. “I suppose Evelyn has no sense of humor,” she said.

“Yeah, well, that’s putting it mildly. Would you talk to Mom, Aunt BeBe? I know she’s upset about Gramps and everything, but …”

“I’ll call her tonight. I promise.”

“And will you come to the fund-raising dinner? It’s at The Breakers. You know where that is, don’t you? A thousand dollars a plate, but I can get you in free.”

“A thousand dollars a plate? I didn’t realize chicken was so expensive these days.”

“Uncle Roger says the campaign has to raise a hundred thousand a day just to break even.”

“I’ll be there, honey,” she replied. “And don’t worry, I know how to get there.” She did not add that she knew most of the bars in this town, because at one time or another, she’d picked up a man or two there.

She hung up the receiver and listened as the Mercedes roared to life, idled a moment, then squealed its tires and tore down the road.

Chapter 19

He was glad he had seen her naked. Danny closed his eyes and pictured Anna standing before him, lovely Anna the Swiss physical therapist. She had tried to restore his sex drive, which, according to the neurologists, had a forty percent chance of returning someday, but not that day … and it did not appear as if it would be this day, either. Danny looked down at the limp penis in his hand and wondered what demented spirit inside him even made him want to still try, made him want to take the hunk of dead flesh in his hand and pretend it would rise to the occasion, would become the angry, purple, pulsating beast that had thrilled more than one girl (well, only three in total, if the truth be known).