An hour later, I’ve showered and dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt, which I pull off and replace with an emerald green shirt. I can’t do funeral wear. It’s not that season anymore, not if I’m going to find a way to get beyond this. Not if I want to keep my hard-earned, well-crafted armor fully in place. I grab my newly purchased Burberry briefcase, shove my MacBook inside, and decide that I’ll head to a healthy spot I saw down the road for lunch, then to the coffee shop, and not because of Harvard. I really need to define the new me with habits, and I like that coffee shop and Michelle.
Heading out, it’s not long before I’ve lunched on fake spaghetti—otherwise known as spaghetti squash—and I start walking toward the coffee shop again. Only a block away, I detour to a gift shop, buy a card with flowers on the front, because flowers say “I’m sorry” better than most things I know. Which, I think, stopping at a counter to grab a pen, in hindsight must be why my mother was always getting flowers from my father.
Shoving that pretty thought about my parents aside, I instead ponder the one that I’m about to ink to Senator Smith. Settling on short and sweet, if an apology can ever be sweet, I neatly print:
I won’t explain myself. I will only thank you for everything, and one day, if the opportunity presents itself, I will pay you back, with a favor.
Your friend,
Hailey
I stare at the word “friend” and decide I’m comfortable with that reference. If Danielle and I were “best friends,” certainly I was at least a “friend” to the senator. Which simply means different levels of placeholders. It’s a cynical thought, but then, I am my father’s daughter far more than I am my mother’s daughter. It’s true. I don’t like it, but that is just a fact. I seal the envelope, write the address on the outside, buy a stamp, and stick it inside the mail slot. Now, when I do see Senator Smith again, and of course, I will if my father wins the party election, it will be just a little more palpable.
Make friends, not enemies my mother always said. In truth, the senator was helping me work against my father’s wishes. He could have turned my father into an enemy, and considering how powerful my father is, that is a rather curious choice on his behalf. It’s really not, actually, I decide. The senator had an agenda I simply do not know. Everyone in my world has an agenda, and I am but a mere token, being played in games I too often, unwittingly enter.
Setting aside this factual, but unpleasant thought, I exit the gift shop and walk to the coffee shop, entering the cozy little spot, to discover that mid-day on a Saturday is busy. I hurry down the steps and since the bar is packed, I settle at a table, and by the time I have my MacBook open, someone sets a white mocha in front of me.
I look up to find a blonde with a pixie cut and pink-ish lipstick standing in front of me. “On the house,” she says. “No idea why.” She smacks her gum and walks away without asking if I want anything else, but not before I noted her badge that reads: Ashley.
I glance toward the bar to see Michelle wave at me. I smile and wave back. I like her again. Adding the “again” to that sentence is big for me. By meeting number two, people usually prove they know my father and want to get to him through me. Of course, I’ve barely spoken to Michelle, but she’s different from the people I know in D.C., and by different, I mean genuine, like her smile. It’s refreshing. Pure. I wonder if that’s a quality that can be contagious the way corruption can be. If it is, am I so corrupted that I corrupt her, or is she so pure that she purifies me?
Contemplating those questions, I reach for the spoon on my saucer and scoop the whipped cream that my spaghetti squash and morning yoga earned me. I then bite the chocolate piece included, and the idea of corruption delivers my new purpose, at least for this day: I need to know what’s in that book about my father, because like it or not, I’ll be drilled about the bad parts, and not by him. By the press.
I can’t exactly buy the book here today, any more than yesterday. Not without practically screaming “I’m his daughter” to everyone in the place who might have seen me in the news, and just hasn’t placed me. Instead, I purchase the e-book online. Once it’s downloaded, I resist the urge to skip to the bad parts. That’s not how you make, or defend, a prosecuting case, which is what the press and the opponents to my father will be trying to do. I need, and want, to know the entire picture, and how it comes together.
I start to read, and I’m not sure how long the first half of my father’s family history takes to get through, but considering it’s also my family history, I devour every pebble. At some point, I order a second coffee and one of the best brownies of my life, but even that doesn’t distract me from the book. For the most part, it talks about my father’s financial empire, foreign links to banks, property, and a history of those connections that link back to his father, my grandfather that I never knew. He died the year before I was born, while my father’s mother died in childbirth. According to the writer, my grandfather was nothing shy of the devil himself. Of course, the book is written by an enemy of my father, so the accusation of both his and his father’s foreign interests over America are painted one-sided. Are they true? Even if it was, my father isn’t foolish enough to make it traceable.
The chapter that has me sitting up a little straighter is called “The Women,” and I struggle to even read on to the next page. I don’t want to know what I’m about to learn and yet, my questions about my mother force me to go on. I’m on what the writer calls “Affair Number Three” when I down my coffee to keep from throwing my cup. My reaction is based on the familiar name. I set the cup down and my fingers curl into my palms. My gaze rockets to the art room with the realization that a stranger’s words have now spoken one of the truths that I have refused to paint, but was before me all along.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
There’s a long list of Presidents and their infidelities, but I’ll spare you the names to avoid any implication that I have a party preference. I don’t. I hate politicians. All of them. My father included. I’m that equal opportunistic in my hate. Back then I believed that infidelity and lies were just different variations of the same word, therefore worthy of equal opportunity hate as well. That changed when I realized that there is no justification for infidelity, but some lies are necessary. I guess that means I don’t hate lies as much as I do infidelity. Sometimes lies are about survival and even saving someone who might otherwise be destroyed. Infidelity is always about hurting someone.
That doesn’t mean lies are without consequence. In fact, these revelations about my father, had me asking, what’s the price for a lie? If you tell just one, do you get a pass? What about two lies? Or three? When do you stop getting passes and does size matter? What if it’s just one lie, but it’s as big as the one I told the police with Danielle in Europe? That question opened up the floodgate of possibilities and the door to more questions. For instance, is one kind of lie, better than another? One punishable, when the other is not? And who should deliver the punishment? That’s an interesting question that I’ve since answered, but we’ll save that for the end of this story.
For now, I’ll stay focused on the question that would burn a hole in my mind over my father’s infidelity. If a lie is a perfect lie, the kind that is undetectable to the human eyes, does it even count? Perhaps not unless you make a mistake and it’s exposed, as is my father and his lie. As I’d sat at that table in Denver, staring at the pages of the book before me, one thing became clear: My father, who had always been a perfect man to me and so many, was no longer perfect to me at all. The book is filled with dirty secrets, really my father’s dirty secrets. Does that mean they’re mine as well?
Maybe.
***
THE PAST…
I’m still staring at the name of my father’s “third” mistress, when I hear, “Do you want another coffee?”
That question brings me back to the coffee shop, my gaze lifting to find a new waitress standing in front of me, her brown hair cut in
a bob. “Black, please,” I say, the taste for sweetness I normally favor replaced by the bitterness on my father’s infidelity. “Just black.”
“Sounds horrible,” she says dryly. “But you’re the customer.” She glances down at the mug. “You can keep that mug you’re clutching like you want to throw it. I’ll bring you another. Then you’ll have two weapons.”
I eye the mug now too, finding my fingers clutching it. I give a practiced bark of laughter. “I’m reading a horror novel on my MacBook. A gift from my father that apparently has me a bit on edge.”
“I love horror novels. What’s it called?”
I shut my computer. “Over,” I say. “Not even my father can make me enjoy this one.”
She arches a brow. “Sounds like your father is out of touch.”
“Is yours in touch?” I ask, instinctively moving away from the subject of my father that was better left unspoken, not to mention, I get my dose of “normal” through other people.
“Mines dead,” she says flatly and then gets back to her job. “You sure you don’t want another white mocha, right?”
In other words, she’ll make small talk, but she doesn’t like to get personal. She’s wounded, damaged in some way, and while I do not wish these wounds upon her, it makes her safe. She won’t ask more question because she doesn’t want to be asked any herself. “Actually,” I say, getting to the simple matter at hand and it’s so very nice to have a simple matter at hand, “I’ll take the black coffee I ordered but with creamer and another brownie. Maybe if I add a little chocolate to the mix of sugar I’ll drown out the bitter horror story.”
She gives me a strange look I deserve with that stupid comment, then nods and turns away. I like that she gave me the look I deserve. No one treats me like I’m just another human being. I could really like it here. I watch her walk away—the briskness of her walk, the curl of her fingers into her hand, which has me looking at my hands where I’m still gripping the mug. My lips thin and I force myself to release my hold on the ceramic, flattening my hands on the table. I have a momentary flashback of my mother picking me up from junior high that has me sinking back in time. The two of us settle into the car, but my mom doesn’t turn on the engine. She stares forward, before saying. “We do not act out,” she says, before looking at me. “Do you understand me? I can’t believe you said that to her. Where is your restraint?”
“I used restraint,” I say. “I sat there the entire time she read that ridiculous essay criticizing my father’s senatorial politics, quite patiently and politely. When the teacher asked for comments, I simply stood up and offered mine by stating the obvious. She’s a puppet to her parent’s opinions, who would never amount to anything. Simple. Obvious. Correct.”
“As I said, where was your restraint?”
“You’re suggesting we don’t defend our own?” I demand.
“Of course, we defend our own,” she says. “But we choose not only our battles, but how we fight them.”
“I chose this battle.”
“And made yourself look like an arrogant bully. That’s not who I want my daughter to be. And how do you think getting suspended looks to medical schools?”
“Yes, but—”
“No but about this,” she says. “Your father and I will discuss this with you at home.”
I momentarily return to the present, staring at the wood of the table, but I can’t pull myself fully out of the past. That discussion my mother wanted to happen, didn’t happen, at least, not as my mother had planned. She was called to the hospital, leaving my father in charge of my punishment. My father called me into the living room and we’d sat on the couch, in front of the fireplace, hot cocoa in my cup and something stronger in his. I shut my eyes, and I can almost feel the heat of the fire.
“Your mother is angry with you,” my father states staring into the fireplace, before glancing over at me. “I should be as well.”
“But you’re not?
“Of course, I am. Your temper gets the best of you and that has to stop.”
I don’t agree, but as he’s taught me in the past, I remember that “my words are weapons to be used against me,” thus I make my words few, and listen to those spoken by others, in this case, him.
“If you are attacked,” he says, “or fight back after being attacked, and end up bloodied, you lose the battle. You lost today.” He downs his drink, sitting the empty cup on the table, and lowers his voice, as if he fears my mother will walk in any moment, and he doesn’t want to risk her hearing. “I don’t want a daughter who loses.”
I don’t flinch. I agree with him. I don’t want to be the daughter that loses. “Clearly you and mom are on different pages.”
“We’re on the exact same page,” he assures me. “You were expelled, the other girl was not. She won. She goaded you. She pushed you over the edge. You gave her that control. That’s your mother’s point.”
I lower my head, feeling those words like a punch. He’s right. Despite Kathy’s tears, she outsmarted me.
“Approach your enemies the way you would a math equation,” my father continues.
My chin snaps up. “There isn’t always time,” I argue.
“Take the time,” he bites out, his tone hard. “Everything doesn’t have to be now. Take the time and use it to think about your next move, and act precisely, not rashly. Sometimes you don’t act at all but if you do, you know from our efforts with equations that sometimes you have to simplify. Make it as painless for yourself as possible.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sometimes you need to come at a problem from the side, not the front. And we’ve talked about this over and over. Just because you don’t get credit for your work, doesn’t mean you don’t do the work.”
I snap back to the present, a splinter sliding into one of my fingers, where I have been rubbing the table, but I don’t yank my finger back, or inspect the injury. I’m not angry and out of control as my mother believed me to be that day. I’m angry and in control. I’d understood what my father was saying to me and I’ve wisely put that advice to use. He wasn’t telling me to let go of an attack. He was telling me to administer those attacks more covertly. I remember telling Danielle about his advice and she’d summed it up quite eloquently: “In other words, he just told you to cut her, make her bleed, and ensure it looks like someone else is holding the knife.”
Danielle’s way of looking at things had always shaded toward the dark side. From my perspective, the lesson wasn’t dark, but rather crystal clear, and all about self-preservation; above all else, look out for number one, yourself, a skill my father excels at better than most. What he doesn’t realize is just how good at doing just that I’ve become, as well, but he’s doesn’t need to know. I know.
I open my computer again and stare at the name of mistress number three: Susan Patterson, now known as Susan Monroe, step-mother dearest. Confirmation in my mind, of what my mother really meant to my father; she was the perfect First Lady in his eyes, while his mistress was always his backup plan. In other words, his anger at me since her death isn’t about me stripping the woman he loves from him. It’s about me cracking the picture-perfect glass he’d wanted the world to see, that was never perfect at all.
I consider a call to my father, but as he taught me, I analyze it first, imagining how it will go:
“Daughter,” he’ll answer, as if that is an endearment, not an insult.
“I read the book,” I’ll reply.
“Don’t believe everything you read.”
“Did mom know about your affairs?”
“Holy hell, daughter. I never cheated on your mother.”
“What do you want me to say when the press corners me?”
“The truth,” will be his reply because that’s one of his campaign policies. If it can’t be proven, and it’s hurtful: deny, deny, deny.
“Why didn’t you warn me?” would be my reply, since we both know t
he truth is dirty and ugly, just like the lies he’s just told me.
“Why?” He’ll demand. “It’s all lies and surely you know this. She was the love of my life.”
The call would end abruptly with some muttered excuse.
And there it is.
The call I don’t need to have. I just completed it in my head. A conversation with my father that isn’t the answer I’m looking for right now, anyway. It doesn’t tell me how I defend my mother, who can no longer defend herself, and it seems, didn’t, or couldn’t, when she was alive either. I want to know which. I must know more, because as my father said himself: We defend our own. And now, the one person in my life I’ve ever felt like was mine, is not someone I knew, therefore was she mine at all?
Harvard suddenly appears at my table, and today he’s traded in his suit, for a black, long-sleeved shirt, and black jeans, his dark hair thick and tousled in that way that says wind or woman. Well for some, wind or man, as is the accusation about Tobey, which is neither here nor there for me, unless said man is in my bed.
“Can I join you?” he asks, motioning to the table.
There’s interest in his eyes, the kind a man has for a woman, but who knows, maybe it’s real or maybe it’s not real. Maybe he knows who I am and sees a path to power and fame. The way Tobey wanted me for money and power, right up until the moment I’d called his number aka his agenda; thus, he has not called me since I left. Maybe Harvard will lie even better than Tobey did. Maybe Harvard will at least kiss better than he did, and the lies would taste like temptation rather than convenience. At least then, if I’m used, I’ll enjoy being used.
A Perfect Lie Page 15
