The Wrong Side of Right

by Jenn Marie Thorne

  When we first walked in, the backstage area was jammed with people—some working, whispering into headsets, most of the others getting themselves into prime position to enjoy the show.

  They won’t notice you, I told myself. You’re only five-two. You probably can’t even be seen in this crowd. A guy wearing a baseball cap and a Reelect Lawrence lanyard nudged past me to greet Andy and I flinched. At my movement, he turned with a quizzical smile. His eyes grew wide.

  “Jesus Christ Almighty.” The man put his hands around Andy’s shoulders and shook him, his mouth forming silent curse words. “What are you—”

  “It’s fine, Steve, she’s a friend of mine.”

  Poor Steve, the “cool” fundraiser, let out a helpless laugh.

  I extended my hand. “I’m—”

  He cut me off, turning and motioning for us to follow. “I don’t want to know, I haven’t seen you, you were never here, and I don’t ever want this coming back to bite me in the ass.” That last part was directed at Andy.

  He’d led us behind the backdrop, where we couldn’t see anything except a ladder leading up into the lighting rig.

  “Awesome, man,” Andy said, shaking his head. “I owe you.”

  “You have no idea.” Steve sighed and pulled the baseball cap from his head, shoving it onto mine before disappearing back toward the wings, grumbling something about early retirement.

  Andy faced me with a serious expression and lifted his hands to my face. I held my breath. He straightened the hat. Then he smiled, stepped onto the ladder, and offered me a hand up.

  A short climb later, we were overlooking the stage from a sturdy lighting platform, hidden from the audience, only a few vertical yards away from my favorite band in the world. By the time I was sitting cross-legged next to Andy, sure I wouldn’t fall, listening to the music flooding the rafters, I’d completely forgotten that I wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place.

  “This is amazing,” I yell-whispered into Andy’s ear.

  He shrugged like this was something he did every night, but then his face relaxed again, his gray eyes widening, and I could tell he was just as transported as I was. It was easy to be swept up by this band, a musical collective with more than a dozen members who swapped instruments, danced and sang under dizzying lights. I got so caught up in the moment that when, after an hour-long set, the music died down and the lead singer strode to the front of the stage to bring up the man himself, President Lawrence, I started screaming along with everyone else.

  Andy turned just in time to see my face go pale. He linked his arm through mine. “Annnnnd it’s time to get some air.”

  It wasn’t until we got outside that I realized only the two of us had left—the others must have stayed behind in the wings to hear the president’s speech and the band’s second set.

  “So?” Andy raised his eyebrows. “Was it worth the risk?”

  A smile flooded my face. “Yes. That was . . . incredible.”

  “As good as Winchaw Junction?” Seeing me blush, he gave me a nudge. “That’s what made me think of this. I watched you on TV pretending to like country music—and I thought this might make up for it.”

  “Thank you.” I laughed, shaking my head. “I don’t know what it is, but Republicans and quality music just don’t seem to click.”

  “It’s all those Republican ‘values.’” He winked. “Liberals will look the other way when rock stars act like rock stars.”

  “Aha.”

  Andy stared suddenly at the ground. The light hit his cheek, and I noticed for the first time a tiny white scar under his left eye in the shape of a boomerang. I was stifling the urge to reach out and touch it when he looked up with a shrug.

  “So I don’t feel like going home yet,” he said. “There’s a park near here. You wanna take a stroll or something?”

  The music from the arena had started again. I could still feel the bass thrumming in my veins. The night air was cool and sweet.

  I smiled. “A stroll sounds good.”

  The streets surrounding us were lamp-lit, circles of orange light spilling onto the silent asphalt. All of the storefronts were closed for the day. There was nobody in sight.

  “Is it safe here?” I asked.

  “I’ve got Tom.” Andy pointed behind himself to the Secret Service guy I hadn’t even noticed lingering a few yards away. Right—you couldn’t get much safer. And yet my stomach was in knots, my skin tingling, hands restless at my sides.

  It’s Andy, I realized. He makes me nervous.

  “Just a couple blocks.” Andy started to whistle.

  I followed, hoping he knew where he was going. And then, as we rounded the corner of a huge building lined with columns, I saw it.

  “That’s where I live,” Andy said, then motioned me in the other direction. My body followed, but my head wouldn’t turn. I had to keep staring.

  Because there it was, brightly illuminated against the night, its fountain splashing, flag flying, profile unmistakable. My brain fell numb.

  It looked like a very nice house. It was on money. How could anybody live in it?

  And yet, we would live here, wouldn’t we? Starting in January, if the senator’s numbers kept up, the Coopers would move into this big iconic building, and maybe, just maybe, I’d come with them.

  I thought that seeing the White House in person would make it all seem more plausible. There it was—a real thing. You could touch it. Enter through a doorway and sit on its furniture. Sleep on its furniture.

  It just took years, half a billion dollars, and millions of votes. Then it was all yours.

  “And here’s the park.”

  I shook my head. “You’re taking me to the National Mall?”

  “This is Lafayette Square,” Andy corrected. He pointed over my head, grinning. “The Mall’s over there. Don’t worry, I’ll take you there next time.”

  As we passed a statue of somebody who looked like George Washington but, given the name of the park, was probably the Marquis de Lafayette, Andy grabbed my hand and pulled me off the path.

  “I like the lawns better,” he said, and I nodded as if that were a perfectly normal sentiment, as if it were completely normal to take a nighttime stroll outside the White House with somebody who lived there. He kept a firm, easy hold on my hand, and for some reason I couldn’t explain away, I didn’t pull back. I glanced at him, wondering whether he’d brought me here to show off or to intimidate me, but there was no hint of that in his expression. In fact, he squinted, pointed to the side of the building, and said lightly, “Maybe next year, you’ll be living there. They’ll probably give you my room. There’s a loose floorboard under the bed. I’ll hide notes for you.”

  I smiled. “Sounds great.”

  It sounded insane.

  Andy sighed. “Did you see my mom in the audience tonight?” I hadn’t. “She was doing her Barbie face. I keep telling her not to.”

  “Barbie face?”

  He demonstrated and I burst out laughing. It wasn’t exactly Barbie, more like a sock puppet, a delirious, open-mouthed grin. His imitation dropped into an eye roll.

  “The woman is a serious intellectual. She’s got a master’s in French literature, but you’d never know it. As soon as a camera’s on, it’s . . .” He made the face again, even doofier.

  I smiled again, but this time when he looked at me, he flinched. He squeezed my hand once more and let it go.

  “I shouldn’t make fun of my mom. She’s a great lady.”

  He’d lapsed into such sudden seriousness that I wondered if something had happened at home that he hadn’t told me about. Then he stopped and turned to me, his face grave.

  “What was your mom like?”

  My breath caught. It was like he’d slapped me.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.” His head rocked forward, eyes dimming, and just like with Gabe, I felt an instinct to reassure him.

  But I hung back instead. I hadn’t talked much about my m
om in the last year. Not since her funeral, anyway, when I said what I could in a letter that Penny read for me in front of everybody because I couldn’t get my voice to work. And if I was going to be perfectly honest with myself, I hadn’t thought much about my mom since then either. Not really. Not bravely. She was always present in my mind, like something you keep seeing out of the corner of your eye, but I wouldn’t look at her directly, couldn’t. I’d allowed myself only brief glimpses, quick, easy memories, nothing lingering. Nothing that hurt too much.

  “She was wonderful,” I said, and even that was difficult. “She was a great mother.”

  She was a mystery, my mind added. She wasn’t who I thought she was.

  Andy shook his head. “This has been a seriously fucked-up year for you, huh?”

  I let out a startled laugh. It was such a perfectly accurate description.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “But the campaign keeps me distracted.”

  He snorted. “Sorry. I—yeah, sorry.”

  He didn’t look sorry.

  “You don’t care much about the campaign, do you?” My voice sounded exactly as critical as I meant it to. I was remembering stories about Andy now, those items Elliott had gleefully listed on the whiteboard.

  “It’s a hard thing to care about,” Andy said. “I mean, I want my dad to be reelected and all, but the campaign is pretty much a joke. It’s a game that powerful people play. And I’m not interested in being a pawn. Or even a—what do you call it—rook? What is a rook anyway?”

  He started yammering about birds. I wasn’t that easily put off.

  “Is that why you got drunk at the Correspondents’ Dinner? To show them you weren’t a pawn?”

  He stopped short, surprised, and I felt a thrill from having thrown him.

  “I wasn’t drunk.” He walked into my path to face me. I raised my eyebrows. “Seriously! You think that bar would have served me, with an entire press corps and half the government there? I was pretending. I wanted to see if anybody would report on it. And guess what? Nobody did.”

  “People talked, though. They talk about it in the campaign office.”

  “Well, that’s encouraging. I guess. It’s all just such a load of bullshit.”

  I felt exposed all of a sudden, like Angry Campaign Aide Tim was going to jump from the bushes, screaming, “Traitor!”

  My jaw tightened. “I don’t see it that way.”

  “Okay. Good for you. No, I mean it. Just . . . be careful.” He gazed up at the elms silhouetted along the edge of the square. “They’ll keep trying to shut you up, or make you say exactly what they’ve written. Which is all good, unless you disagree with the party line.” His eyes shot to mine. “And I’m guessing you do.”

  The words hard line flashed across my brain.

  “No, I don’t,” I countered. Maybe too quickly. Andy didn’t look convinced. “I haven’t really had time to think about it. I mean, I’m sixteen. They’re not asking me to comment on specific issues.”

  “Not yet.”

  I turned to Andy, whose gray eyes were sympathetic, Andy, who didn’t play the campaign game, who fought it at every turn, and that uneasy feeling in my stomach formed words.

  “What is this? Calling me. Bringing me here. What am I, some act of revenge against your dad’s campaign? A joke, a prank? What?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Just admit it.”

  He opened his mouth but nothing came out. It was as good as confirmation. God, I was so, so stupid.

  I turned around to hide my face, then started to walk away, which I now sensed I should have done several hours ago.

  “Wait, Quinn!”

  I could hear him running behind me until his hand found my wrist and stopped me with a tug.

  I mustered every remaining scrap of dignity. “Thank you for the concert, Andy. But—I’m not interested in being a pawn either.”

  “It’s not like that.” He stared me down. Tried to, anyway. Again—I was freakishly good at staring contests.

  Finally he sighed, his body releasing the usual cocky stance. “Okay, so at first, yeah, I thought it would be funny to mess with the people at Tauber’s party, to be seen talking to you. But then . . . I don’t know, I just . . . I found you interesting. And every time I talk to you, you get more interesting. Which is why I keep harassing you.”

  I could tell from his goofy wink that he didn’t really consider it harassment. And okay, fine. I didn’t either.

  He was the only real friend I’d made all summer. Maybe longer than that—since California, since Penny became a voice on the phone, and the one person who knew me better than I knew myself became no more than a memory—a dubious one, at that.

  Whatever Andy’s faults, he was here. Living, breathing. He cared whether I walked away or not.

  “I’m an honest person,” he said, swiping his hand nervously through his hair. “Which, okay, is exactly what a liar would say. But I’m serious. I’ll never lie to you. I’ll tell you anything. Just ask me.”

  I raised my eyebrows at that dare. So many things I could ask. I chose the easiest one.

  “How did you get that scar?”

  His hand flew to his cheek. “Lacrosse. Another inch and I’d have lost the eye. Secret Service massively overreacted.”

  “Okay,” I said, a mutinous smile rising to my lips. “I believe you.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, his hand extended. “We’re good? You trust me now?”

  I shook his hand. Didn’t answer. We were good—but I still knew better than to trust him.

  As we walked past Andrew Jackson, Andy’s shoulder bumped mine and his fingers grazed the inside of my wrist. I could feel the warmth of the two inches between us as we strolled back to the street, where the same car that had picked me up was waiting. When we reached it, Andy stood beside the back door, ready to open it for me.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Existing?”

  I rolled my eyes, secretly glowing. As Andy widened the door so that I could pass through, he leaned in. I thought he was trying to whisper something to me, so I turned my head—just in time for the kiss he’d intended for my cheek to land somewhere a lot closer to my mouth. Like . . . on it.

  I barely had time to register what was happening before we broke apart, his startled expression probably matching mine. Then he grinned.

  “Okay then! Night, Quinn.”

  I was too mortified to reply with anything but a wave as the car pulled away. Did Andy think I’d gone for the kiss? Did it count as a kiss if it was accidental?

  Did he like it? Oh God, strike that thought.

  Either way, I felt like a shaken snow globe, little sparkles swirling in me, never settling. They stayed there, shimmering, the whole drive home, so that I didn’t even notice the time, or that all the lights were off except for the front foyer, and one tiny bulb lit in the small window off to the side of the front porch—the senator’s study.

  When I opened the front door, he was sitting on the stairs. He jumped up, and I moved to greet him—but his face froze me to the spot. I’d seen the senator tense and relaxed, seen him joking around with his staff, seen him nervous and contrite. But never had I seen him like this.

  He was furious.

  “Where the hell have you been? I’ve had people all over town looking for you!”

  “I—I’m sorry.” I scrambled for an explanation, my brain landing on the cover story we’d all agreed on before the concert, praying one of those people looking for me hadn’t found me at exactly the wrong moment. “After dinner we went to Lucy Davison’s house and I guess time just got away from me.”

  “You call next time!” He shouted so loud that startled tears sprang to my eyes.

  “I left my phone here, I . . .” I dropped my head and let my voice die, shrinking into the marble floor. “I’m sorry.”

  Seeing my face, he collapsed against the railing. “You scared me to
death, Kate. We thought you’d been kidnapped. Do you understand that that’s not a metaphor? We literally thought you’d been kidnapped.”

  I mustered a small “Oh.”

  “Bed. Now. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

  Before I got to the top of the stairs, he called after me again.

  “Kate?” I looked down to see him running a hand over his graying hair, his wide shoulders slumped with fatigue and worry. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. And I’m glad you’ve made some friends. We just need to establish some ground rules.”

  In the darkened upstairs hallway, Gabe was peeking past his door. “Are you okay?”

  “Go back to bed,” I answered, beaming. “Everything is wonderful.”

  I hit the mattress and it seemed to float. My first fight with my father. The first time I’d ever really thought of him as my father—the first time he’d acted like one.

  It was like something out of a movie.

  Before I fell into giddy dreams, I replayed the events of the evening in my head, realizing with an almost electric charge that I’d just gone on a pseudo-date and shared a pseudo-kiss with the president’s son, strolled past the White House, watched a world-famous band from up in the lighting rig, dodged the paparazzi—and somehow it had turned out to be the most normal, stereotypically teenaged night of my life.

  • • •

  The next day, there was no talk of ground rules. But the senator did stay home the whole morning, sipping coffee and flipping through the sports section. When I sat nervously next to him on the sofa, he gave my hair a ruffle.

  After Meg made breakfast, he helped her carry the plates to the patio table. On my pancake, someone had drawn a happy face in syrup.

  17

  Friday, July 18

  Welcome Home, Coopers!

  109 DAYS UNTIL THE GENERAL ELECTION

  Rain splattered the windows of the campaign plane as we descended over Massachusetts. I felt an irrational stab of disappointment, as though the Coopers’ home state was rejecting me already.

  But then, peering down at the wet airfield, I saw the waiting crowd.

  They held homemade signs and cheered at a deafening pitch, their voices rising even louder when the local coordinator shouted on his loudspeaker to rev them up. The senator was grinning even before he stepped off the plane, his hand held high in greeting. Over the past month and a half, I’d seen how good he was at the unforced smile, the confident gait, but there was something different about him here. Something real. He was home.