First Lady

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  “Child and Youth Services will have to make sure she can provide a satisfactory home for them.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Mat had countered. “She’s a college professor. And anything’s better than what they have now.”

  “She still has to be investigated.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “It’s hard to say. It shouldn’t be more than six weeks. Two months at the outside.”

  Mat had been furious. Even a month in the foster care system could chomp up a kid like Lucy and spit out her bones. He’d found himself promising to stay with the girls that night so Child Services wouldn’t have to get them until morning.

  As he tried to fall asleep on Sandy’s lumpy couch after his aborted attempt to get the blood tests done, he’d reminded himself how much better the foster care system was now than it used to be. The background checks were more thorough, home visits more common. But the image of all the kids the Havlovs had abused kept coming back to him.

  Toward morning, he’d realized his conscience wouldn’t let him out of this one. Too much early influence from nuns. He couldn’t let either the Teenage Terrorist or the Demon Baby spend months stuck in foster care when all he had to do was baby-sit them for a couple of days, then turn them over to their grandmother on the weekend.

  Joanne Pressman’s Iowa address had been in Sandy’s date book. He needed to get the girls out of the house early, so he decided they’d catch a morning flight to Burlington. When he got there, he’d rent a car and drive to Willow Grove. And while he was waiting for Joanne Pressman to get home, he’d have the blood tests done, even if he had to carry Lucy into the lab.

  Unfortunately, his plan had fallen apart when he’d discovered needles weren’t Lucy’s only phobia.

  “I’m not getting on a plane, Jorik! I hate flying! And if you try to make me, I’ll start screaming to everybody in the airport that you’re kidnapping me.”

  Another kid might have been bluffing, but he’d suspected Lucy would do exactly as she said, and since he was already skating on the thinnest edge of the law by dodging Child Services, not to mention taking the kids out of state, he’d decided not to risk it. Instead, he’d grabbed a pile of their clothes, some food he’d bought last night, and shoved them into the motor home. He had four or five days to kill anyway, so what did it matter if he spent it on the road?

  He wasn’t certain how aggressively the authorities would be looking for him, especially since Sandy’s attorney would surely figure out where he was heading. Still, there was no point in taking chances, so he was staying off the interstate for a while where tollbooth operators and the state police might already have the Winnebago’s license plate number. Unfortunately, between the Demon Baby’s screams and Lucy’s complaints, he couldn’t enjoy the scenery.

  “I think I’m going to hurl.”

  She was sitting in the motor home’s small banquette. He jerked his head toward the rear and spoke over the sounds of the baby’s howls. “The toilet’s back there.”

  “If you don’t start being nicer to me and Butt, you’re going to be sorry.”

  “Will you stop calling her that?”

  “It’s her name.”

  Even Sandy wasn’t that crazy, but he still hadn’t been able to pry the baby’s real name out of Lucy.

  The howls subsided. Maybe the baby was going to sleep. He glanced over toward the couch, where she was strapped in her car seat, but she looked wide awake and grumpy. All wet blue eyes and cherub’s mouth. The world’s crankiest angel.

  “We’re hungry.”

  “I thought you said you were feeling sick.”

  The howls started again, louder than before. Why hadn’t he brought somebody along to take care of these little monsters? Some kindhearted, stone-deaf old lady.

  “I feel sick when I get hungry. And Butt needs to eat.”

  “Feed her. We brought bags of baby food and formula with us, so don’t try to tell me there isn’t anything for her to eat.”

  “If I feed her while Mabel’s moving, she’ll hurl.”

  “I don’t want to hear another word about anybody hurling! Feed the damn kid!”

  She glared at him, then flounced out of her seat and made her way to the sacks of baby food and diapers.

  He drove for another fifteen miles in blessed silence before he heard it. First a baby’s cough, then a gag, then a small eruption.

  “I told you so.”

  Nealy backed out of the driveway from her first garage sale and pulled onto the highway. A huge green ceramic frog perched on the seat next to her. The lady who’d sold it to her for ten dollars said it was a garden ornament her mother-in-law had made in a craft class.

  It was supremely ugly, with an iridescent green glaze, protruding eyes that were slightly crossed, and dull brown spots the size of silver dollars across its back. For nearly three years, Nealy had lived in a national shrine decorated with the very best American antiques. Maybe that was why she’d known instantly that she had to have it.

  Even after she’d made her purchase and tucked the heavy frog under her arm, she’d stood talking to the garage sale lady. And she hadn’t needed a gray old lady’s wig or elastic stockings to do it. Her wonderful new disguise was working.

  Nealy spotted a sign ahead for a truck stop. There’d be hamburgers and french fries, thick chocolate shakes and slabs of pie. Bliss!

  The smell of diesel fuel and fried food hit Mat as he stepped out of Mabel into the truck stop parking lot. He also caught a whiff of manure from a nearby field, but it beat the smell of baby puke.

  A blue Chevy Corsica with a woman driving whipped into the parking place next to him. Lucky lady. Alone in her car with nothing but her own thoughts to keep her company.

  Just beyond the gas pumps, a hitchhiker held a battered cardboard sign that read, ST. LOUIS. The guy looked like a felon, and Mat doubted he’d have too much luck getting a ride, but he still felt a pang of envy for the man’s freedom. The whole day had been a bad dream.

  Lucy climbed out behind him with another ten-dollar bribe in her back pocket. She’d tied a flannel shirt around her hips and had the smelly baby under the armpits so she could hold her as far away as possible. Lucy was small, and he doubted that she could carry the Demon very far that way, but he didn’t offer to take her himself. He’d carried around too many screaming babies when he was a kid to be sentimental about them. The only good thing about babies was getting them drunk on their twenty-first birthdays.

  He smiled at the memories, then pushed another ten-dollar bill into the back pocket of Lucy’s cutoffs. “Buy yourself some lunch after you get her cleaned up. I’ll meet you here in half an hour.”

  She gave him a long, searching look that hinted at disappointment. He wondered if she’d expected them all to cuddle up together to eat. Not a chance.

  The woman he’d been envying got out of the blue Corsica. She had short light brown hair styled in one of those uneven cuts that was fashionable. The rest of her, however, wasn’t so fashionable: cheap white sneakers, navy shorts, and an oversized yellow top with a row of ducks marching across it. She wasn’t wearing any makeup. And she was heavily pregnant.

  A Grand Am slowed down on the highway for the hitchhiker, only to shoot off as soon as the driver got a closer look. The hitchhiker flipped him the bird.

  Mat glanced at the woman again as she walked past him. Something about her seemed familiar. She had fragile, finely carved features, a long, slender neck, and striking blue eyes. There was almost a patrician quality about the way she carried herself that was at odds with her bargain-basement clothes. She reached the door of the restaurant just ahead of Lucy and held it open for her. Lucy didn’t acknowledge the courtesy. She was too busy tossing him a dirty look.

  Something caught his eye on the seat of the Corsica. He leaned down and saw an ugly ceramic frog. He’d always wondered what kind of people bought things like that. Then he noticed the set of keys dangling from the ignition. He thought abou
t going after her to say something, but figured anybody stupid enough to buy that frog deserved what she got.

  The interior of the truck stop was arranged in a large L. He selected a small table in the back corner where he had room to stretch his legs and ordered coffee. As he waited for it to arrive, he considered the fact that it was going to take him at least two days to reach Iowa. Maybe longer, if that ominous pinging coming from the engine got any worse. How was he going to tolerate those girls for another two days? The irony of letting himself be saddled with exactly what he’d worked his whole life to get away from didn’t escape him.

  He should have left them both to foster care.

  Nealy swabbed a thick, greasy french fry in catsup and watched the three people seated on the other side of the truck stop dining room. At first the man had been there by himself. She’d noticed him right away—his physical size would have made it hard not to. But it wasn’t just his size that had caught her attention. It was everything about him.

  He had that hard-muscled look of a working man, and it didn’t take much imagination to picture him suntanned and shirtless, nailing shingles to a roof or wearing a battered hard hat over that crisp dark hair as he wielded a jackhammer in the middle of a city street. He was also drop-dead handsome, although not in that too-pretty way of a male model. Instead, his face looked lived in.

  Unfortunately, he was glowering at the young girl who’d wedged herself in next to him, the baby propped in her lap. Nealy pegged him as one of those fathers who regarded his children as inconveniences, her least favorite kind of man.

  His daughter was the girl she’d held the door open for earlier. Although she was overly made-up and had a maroon stripe in her hair, her delicate features gave her the potential of great beauty. The baby was adorable. One of those healthy, blond-haired, mischievous cherubs that Nealy avoided as much as she could.

  The people-watching had been enjoyable, but she was anxious to get back on the road, so she forced her eyes away from the man and gathered up her trash as she’d seen others do. A middle-aged couple at an adjoining table smiled at her and she smiled back. People smiled a lot, she’d noticed, at a pregnant woman.

  Her smile changed into a self-satisfied grin. Last night, before she’d gone to bed at the motel, she’d cut the long blond hair her father and husband had cherished and dyed it light brown, which was really her natural color, although it was so long since she’d seen it that she’d had to guess at the exact shade. She loved the shorter, tousled style. Not only did it make her look younger, but it was much too casual for an elegant First Lady.

  Although maintaining her disguise as an elderly lady had been her first idea, she hadn’t wanted the encumbrance of a wig and all that clothing. The fake pregnancy padding had been the perfect solution. Even if people noticed a pregnant woman’s resemblance to Cornelia Case, they’d regard it as nothing more than a coincidence.

  Last night she’d modified a small Wal-Mart pillow by reshaping its corners and adding some ties. With her short brown hair, discount store clothes, ring-free hands, and minimal cosmetics, she looked like a pregnant woman who was down on her luck. When she spoke, she completed her change of identity by reshaping her upper-crust vowels with the trace of a Southern accent.

  As she left the truck stop restaurant, she fumbled for her car keys in the purse she’d left the White House with. She felt a packet of tissues, some mints, her new wallet, but no keys. Had she left them in the car?

  She needed to be more careful. She’d grown accustomed to having a cadre of aides carrying things for her. This morning, she’d left her purse behind when she’d stopped at a diner for breakfast, and she’d had to run back to get it. Now it was her keys.

  She stepped out into the parking lot and looked around for the Chevy, but she didn’t see it. Odd. She thought she’d parked next to that trail-worn yellow Winnebago. She was sure she had.

  She hurried forward, but the car wasn’t there.

  She stared at the empty parking place, then at the motor home next to it. Maybe she was mistaken. Maybe she’d parked somewhere else. Her heart raced, and her gaze swept across the parking lot. Even then she didn’t want to believe it. The car was gone. She’d left her keys inside and someone had stolen it.

  Her throat constricted. One day of freedom. Was that all she would get?

  She struggled against the despair that threatened to choke her. She could still salvage this. She’d brought thousands of dollars in cash with her. She could buy another car. She’d hitch a ride into the nearest town and find a dealer—

  Her knees gave out beneath her, and she sagged down on a wooden bench. Her money had been locked in the trunk for safekeeping. All she had in her wallet was a twenty-dollar bill.

  She buried her face in her hands. She’d have to call the White House, and within the hour the Secret Service would swoop down on this peaceful, ordinary place. She’d be whisked onto a helicopter and returned to Washington before dinner.

  She saw exactly how it would unfold. Castigation from her father. Reminders from the President of her duty to the country. Suffocating guilt. By tomorrow evening, she’d be standing in a receiving line, her fingers aching from shaking another few hundred hands. And she had no one to blame but herself. What use was all her education, all her experience, if she couldn’t remember a simple thing like taking car keys out of an ignition?

  Her throat closed tight. She wheezed as she tried to draw a breath.

  “She’s heavy, and I’m not carrying her anymore!”

  Nealy lifted her head and saw the young girl she’d been watching earlier set the baby she’d been carrying down on the sidewalk and yell at the Father of the Year, who was heading toward the yellow Winnebago.

  “Suit yourself.” Although he wasn’t speaking loudly, he had a deep, carrying voice.

  The girl didn’t move from the baby’s side, but neither did she pick her back up. The baby plopped forward on her knees as if to crawl, only to rebel at the midday heat coming from the sidewalk. She was a smart little critter, though, and she pushed herself up until only the minimal parts of her were in contact with the hot concrete—the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. With her bottom shoved high in the air, she began to move forward in a spider crawl.

  The girl spun toward her father. “I mean it, Jorik! You’re acting like an asshole!” Nealy blinked at the girl’s crude language. “She’s not poison, you know. You could at least touch her.”

  “You’re in charge of the baby, and I’m in charge of driving. Let’s go.” The man named Jorik might be a lousy father, but he was smart enough to have taken his keys with him, and now he shoved one of them in the lock on the door of the motor home.

  The girl slammed her hands on her small hips. “This is bullshit.”

  “Yeah, well, so is ninety percent of life.”

  They were so involved in their argument that neither of them noticed the baby, who was slowly and fastidiously spider-crawling down off the curb into the parking lot.

  Nealy rose automatically. A baby in danger. The one thing in life she hadn’t been able to escape since she was sixteen.

  “Quit complaining and get inside,” the man growled.

  “I’m not your slave! You’ve been bossing me around ever since yesterday, and I’m sick of it!”

  An elderly couple in a Cadillac began to back out of a space much too near the crawling baby. Nealy shot forward, bent down, and snatched her up.

  The kind of anger she couldn’t ever express in her real life erupted. “What kind of father are you?”

  Mr. Macho turned slowly and regarded Nealy with flint-gray eyes. She stormed toward him, the baby in her arms. The fact that holding babies terrified her made her even angrier.

  She jabbed her finger toward the Cadillac as it drove away. “Your daughter was crawling right in the path of that car. She could have been hit.”

  He stared at her.

  The closer she got, the taller he seemed. She belatedly remembered
that she was supposed to be speaking with a Southern accent. “How could you be so irresponsible?”

  “He doesn’t care,” the girl said. “He hates us.”

  Nealy glared at him. “Children need somebody watching out for them, especially babies.”

  He tilted his head toward the empty parking space next to him. “What happened to your car?”

  She was taken aback. “How do you know about my car?”

  “I saw you get out of it.”

  She refused to let him throw her off track. “Never mind about my car. What about your child?” She thrust the baby toward him, but he didn’t take her. Instead, he stared down at the little one as if he weren’t sure what she was. Finally he turned toward the teenager. “Lucy, take her and get in.”

  “You got a broken arm or something?” the girl shot back.

  “Do what I say. And feed her before we start moving again.”

  His tone had grown so intimidating that Nealy wasn’t surprised when the girl took the baby from her arms. Still, Lucy had enough defiance left to shoot him a lethal glare before she jerked open the door of the motor home and hauled the baby inside.

  The man named Jorik gazed down at Nealy. Although she was tall, he loomed over her, and he looked even tougher close up than he had been from a distance. His nose had a small bump at the bridge, as if he’d broken it falling off an I-beam he was welding.

  “She’s not my kid,” he said. “Neither of them are.”

  “Then what are you doing with them?”

  “I was a friend of their mother’s. So tell me about your car.”

  A yellow caution light flashed in her brain. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “It was stolen, wasn’t it?”

  He was regarding her so intently, she was afraid he’d recognize her, so she tilted her head a bit to keep him from looking at her full on. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I saw you park it there, and now it’s gone. Besides, you left your keys inside.”