The Trophy Wife (43 page)

“There are other banks,” Emily reminded her.

“Not when you have left someone else's fast track without an explanation. It's like a big, private club. When you tell one of them to fuck off, you tell them all.”

“So even though Walter thought he was the best thing that could possibly happen to you …?”

“He was the worst. And there was nothing I could do about it. There was no way I could be his trophy and still have a life of my own. That's why I loved your little scheme. It got me what I wanted and Walter what he deserved. It was absolutely perfect.”

The waiter reappeared to empty the rest of the bottle into their champagne flutes. Then he stood like an expectant puppy with an empty dinner dish.

“Send him for something…
anything,
” Emily suggested.

“Another bottle,” Angela told the young man and he raced off again to do her bidding.

Then it was Angela's turn to satisfy her curiosity. “What I never was sure of was how you could be so certain of me. I mean, suppose I had been truly in love with your husband. I could have just left you with the kidnappers. There was no reason why I
had
to call them and tell them to set you free. I could have been rid of you without the bother of an ex-wife. No messy divorce. No property settlement. I could have had Walter, everything that belongs to Walter, and the whole hundred million for myself. You were taking quite a chance putting your life in the hands of the other woman.”

Emily laughed. “May I say how proud of you I am that you didn't give into your natural greed. But actually, I never saw myself in danger. The lady con artist I picked would do anything for money, but she wouldn't hurt a fly. Once she figured out the call wasn't coming, she would have let me go. Certainly, for a price. And then I could have mentioned that I had heard my kidnappers talking to you and that you were the mastermind behind the whole affair.

“But I never thought that would be necessary. I figured you were as badly abused by Walter as I was. I never thought for a second that, as they like to say in court, his advances ‘were welcome.' ”

The waiter came back with a fresh bottle of champagne and a bowl of salted nuts. As he involved himself with the cork, Emily reconsidered her earlier advice. “Maybe he would be better than a phrase book. There are so many things he can do without you even bothering to ask.”

Angela was still concerned. “But you were wrong about the woman. She damn near got you killed. All the while I thought you were relaxing comfortably, enjoying our revenge, and you were actually hanging by your thumbs.”

Emily thought. “I guess I was wrong about her. I gave her
more credit than to be playing house with a violence-crazed gangster. But she turned out to have the same failing that we all seem to share. We do make some very dumb decisions when it comes to the men we hand our lives over to.”

“This guy was really bad,” Angela said sympathetically.

“Worse than anything I could ever have imagined. Once he came on the scene, I gladly would have called the whole thing off just to get away from him. When Friday came and went I thought that Walter must have decided not to pay. I realized that if you had double-crossed me, you were going to get away with it. I wasn't going to be able to talk my way around that pervert. And Walter's blundering had eliminated any chance that I would be able to offer them money. By Sunday night, I was sure the whole thing had backfired on me. I was sure I was going to die.”

“We almost didn't make it to Sunday,” Angela added. “It almost ended on Friday. Friday was a disaster. They had set a trap for the kidnapper and I walked right into it. That's why I couldn't call them to have you set free until Monday.”

“Well, you didn't call a moment too soon. Do you know what was happening when the telephone rang?”

“No. What… ?”

“I was being led downstairs to the basement where he was going to blow my brains out. I was hoping that he would just shoot me. My biggest fear was that my last memory of earth was going to be getting laid by that sick bastard.”

“It was that close,” Angela said in amazement.

“That close. But it still wasn't over. I guess you heard about his using me as a shield while he tried to shoot it out with the police.”

“No!” Angela's eyes were wide with amazement. “I had no idea.”

“It had its moments. We certainly earned our money.”

“Indeed we did,” Angela joined in. “But now comes the real challenge. How are we going to spend it?”

Emily glanced around. “Obviously, you've had a head start.” She focused on the waiter. “It looks like you've already found someone to help you spend it.”

“Oh, no,” Angela said. “That would make me just like Walter. Paying for a great-looking companion to massage my ego.”

“We don't need trophies,” Emily agreed.

The young waiter filled their glasses from the new bottle and then moved off to a discreet distance, awaiting their next command. They sat in silence, taking in the incredible seascape that lay at their feet, already beginning to pick up the dazzling tint of the setting sun. Emily lifted her champagne and let it sparkle in the full prism of color. “One final toast,” she proclaimed. “What should we drink to?”

“That's easy,” Angela answered. “To the man who made all this possible.”

“To Walter,” they said together.

They sent the empty glasses tumbling like snowflakes down into sea below.

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“Gordie! Gordie! Gordie!” The shout took on the increasing tempo of a locomotive cheer. “Gordie! Gordie! Gordie!”

Gordon Acton looked at Henry Browning, who was standing at the edge of the stage wing, where he could glance out at the crowd. He gestured with a nod of his head that asked, “Now?” Browning responded with a gesture, shaking his head, “No!” Ellie Acton looked from one man to the other and then out to the stage, where balloons and streamers were landing. “What are you waiting for?” she hissed to her husband. He responded with a nod to Henry. “He says not yet.”

There was a roar when the locomotive reached full speed. Then the hand clapping started. “We want Gordon! We want Gordon!”

“Okay, now,” Henry said.

Gordon reached for Ellie's hand.

“No! Just you!” Henry snapped.

Gordon looked uneasily at Ellie.

“She comes later,” Browning instructed. “When you thank your wife, the crowd will start screaming for Ellie.” He took her hand away from Gordon's. “That's when you go on.”

Gordon hesitated, then buttoned his suit jacket and strode out under the stage lights. The roar was deafening. He waved into the glare and pointed knowingly at no one in particular.
He fielded a balloon and threw it back to the crowd. Then he mounted the podium, examined the cluster of microphones, and raised his hands to still the applause. The screaming kicked up a few decibels, and then the high school cheerleaders started into another locomotive. “Gordie! Gordie! Gordie!” He waved vainly for order, then gestured his defeat and submitted humbly to their worship.

The frenzy lasted for several minutes, loud enough to drown out a local television reporter's interview with the revered senator from Rhode Island. “This is certainly a popular victory,” she shouted, and then she and the senator nodded in unison.

Meanwhile, Gordon had stepped down from the podium and was moving along the footlights, reaching down to hands that were reaching up. “Thanks for your help. Couldn't have done it without you. It's your victory, too.” He delivered platitudes to faces that were lost in the lights. But when he mounted the podium again, the uproar quieted dramatically. Now there were individual voices. “
Congressman
Gordon Acton!” came from one side of the gymnasium. “
President
Gordon Acton!” came a response from the other side. Then laughter, which Gordon joined.

“My good friends,” he tried.

He still couldn't be heard.

“My good friends…” Now the screamers in the crowd were demanding quiet. The noise settled to a background murmur.

“I don't deserve to have so many good friends,” Gordon shouted. The remark started the whole riot rumbling again. Gordon raised his hands and this time the gesture restored a bit of order.

“And I don't deserve a wife like Ellie!“

“Ellie! Ellie! Ellie!” A new locomotive was starting.

In the wing, Henry told Ellie, “That's your cue.”

“Just walk out to him?”

“Yeah!” But instantly, “No, wait!”

Henry plucked a rose from one of the floral displays. “Carry this with you. Give it to him when he takes your hand.”

“Oh, Jesus,” she moaned in disgust. She walked onto the stage without the flower, heard her name being screamed, and squinted into the lights. Just smile, Ellie reminded herself. Get to Gordon and hang on to him.

Gordon stepped down, took her hand, and helped her up ahead of him.

“Gordon! Ellie!” This new chant brought fresh enthusiasm.

She still couldn't make out a single face. She smiled and waved, pretending she was finding old friends. Then suddenly Gordon flung their joined hands into the air as if announcing a new champion. She felt her bra pull up over the bottom of her breast and tried to ease her hand down. But Gordon sent it even higher in another victory salute. Eventually, he gave up being his own cheerleader and waved the crowd to near quiet. Finally, half an hour after he had arrived at the high school where the district's Republican leaders had gathered an army of supporters, Gordon was able to launch into his prepared speech.

Thank Chris Kirby, he remembered from Henry's outline, so he rendered homage to the Cadillac dealer who had challenged him in the primary for the vacated Republican seat. A clean campaign, and an intelligent debate, were the first positive attributes he had assigned to Chris in the past two months. He invited his defeated opponent and all his followers to join with him in a fight for good government.

Cut taxes, curb government spending, improve education, fight crime, and give the elderly the dignity they deserve were the other points that Henry had wanted him to mention. “No details,” Browning had advised. “Just a little something for everyone.”

Then the battle cry. The fight wasn't over; it was just beginning. November was only five months away, right at the other end of summer. There was hardly enough time to present the issues to the voters, nor to answer the lies and distortions that were already emanating from the Democratic camp. It would take their greatest efforts to carry this nomination on to victory, and give proper representation to the district in the United States Congress.

“Can I count on you?” Gordon shouted.

Another ten minutes of screaming and confetti showers answered his question. And then it was over. The hired security officers led him and Ellie through the crowd. They slapped greetings to hundreds of offered hands, thanked dozens of well-wishers, but never broke stride in their march to the double fire doors at the end of the room. Then they raced to the waiting limousine like a bride and groom fleeing the church. The car eased out of the glare of the school lights, and headed toward the peace of their Newport home.

As soon as they were in the dark, Ellie began twisting, trying to reach her right hand into the sleeve cut under her left arm. “Did you notice?” she asked.

“Notice what?”

“I hope no one else did.”

“No one else did what?”

“Notice.”

“What are you talking about?”

“About you lifting my bra halfway over my head.”

He looked at where her hand was fishing. “I did?”

“When you pulled my hand up over my head, I came right out of my bra cup.”

Gordon laughed, a snicker growing into a howl.

“You won't think it's so funny when you see publicity shots of your three-breasted wife. I tried to hide it by folding my arms. Then I looked down and saw that my bra cup was on top of my arm and my breast was underneath. I must have looked like a cow.”

“You looked great.”

She found the elastic band and was able to pull it down into position. “I'm no good at this. I hate politics,” she said, while rearranging her breasts.

“What are you talking about? You're a natural.”

“A natural what? What has three breasts?”

“Nobody noticed,” Gordon said, drawing her close.

She relaxed into his shoulder. “If Henry Browning says one word …”

The children were awake first, and they charged into their parents' bedroom just as the sun was finding the spaces between the shutter slats. Timothy dove into their bed, as he did whenever they were home, and began wrestling with his father. Gordon feigned terror at the five-year-old's attack, and cowered from the pillow that the boy was wielding. Molly, who was nine, stood patiently waiting her turn. She was too sophisticated to simply jump under her parents' blanket, she was beginning to suspect that their bed was a private place. Still, she wanted the hugs and kisses that went with their homecoming. Gordon surrendered to his children's energy and followed them down to the kitchen where they made a project out of breakfast. A half hour later he sneaked back upstairs to bring Ellie her morning coffee.

The bedroom opened onto a porch that was built over the east wing, vulnerable to the salt spray that blasted off the rocks and soaked the air, and facing into the sunrise. In all the world, this was Ellie's favorite place and she resented every moment of absence. “Politics,” she lamented into the steam that was rising from her coffee mug. Gordon's candidacy was dragging her out of her life, far from her children, and away from her work. She had anticipated the intrusions of noblesse oblige when she had married into the Acton family, but she had never imagined just how wrenching those intrusions would be.