Still Mr. & Mrs.

by Mary McBride

  She, on the other hand, had been thrilled with the news, not only because she wanted to go home, but also because she didn't know how she was going to be able to continue sleeping in the same bed with Bobby and keep her vow of “never again.” After this morning, her willpower was about two-ply, maybe less. There was no bed big enough to prevent her from saying yes. But three thousand miles, an entire continent, the Appalachians and the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, between them ought to do the trick.

  “Hi,” she said softly while she turned in the sleeves of a silk blouse, then folded the whole garment over a piece of tissue paper and put it in her suitcase.

  “Doug came through for us,” he said, then chuckled almost mournfully as he added, “Who knew he had so much clout in Washington, huh?”

  “Yeah. Who knew?”

  He sat on the edge of the bed, watching her fold another blouse. “Do you know anything about these new agents?”

  Angela shook her head. “When Doug talked to me, he wasn't even all that sure what their name was. One's from the Atlanta field office, I think.”

  Bobby scowled. He swore under his breath. “Kind of a rotten thing to pull on the president's mother, don't you think? I mean, now that she's used to us, even likes us, for chrissake.”

  What was he saying? Angela wondered. Certainly not what he meant. If he didn't want to leave, if he didn't want to be separated from her, why couldn't he just come right out and say it, instead of all this bullshit about Mrs. Riordan? God, he was making her crazy with all this read-between-the-lines business. She was folding her blouse all wrong now, and had to start again. Right sleeve over. Left sleeve over.

  Why didn't he do what Rod did? Let his eyes get misty, fall to his knees, and tell her. I love you. Don't leave. Be with me always. If Bobby loved her so goddamned much, why didn't he just say so?

  “Ange?”

  “What?” she snapped.

  “It's probably not too late for Doug to change their assignment. These new agents. Then Mrs. Riordan wouldn't get all uptight, and we—”

  “It's too late, Bobby.” She slammed the blouse into the suitcase, undoing all her perfect folding. “We're through here.” Boy, are we through!

  “I guess you're right. Doug would never go for it.” He gave a long sigh. “So, you're going back to California?”

  “Yes.” Angela scooped up an entire drawerful of un-derthings and dumped them in her case. “I'm going back to California. I've already booked my flight.”

  Bobby reached into the suitcase, idly fingering the thin strap of one of her nightgowns, gazing at it rather than at Angela when he spoke. “I don't have to be back at the White House until Monday morning, you know. I could fly out there with you. We could have a day or two on the beach, then maybe drive up the—”

  “No.”

  His grip on the silk gown tightened. She could see his lips compress and little white crescents of anger appear at each corner of his mouth. Every tendon in his body seemed to grow taut, and every nerve seemed to sizzle. Dear God, where did he keep all that fierce emotion inside him? she wondered. What kind of toll must it be taking on his body, let alone his psyche? When his gaze flicked up to meet hers, his eyes hardly betrayed him, and neither did his voice.

  “Just no?” he asked, sounding more perturbed than furious, more disappointed than devastated. “That's it? Just a flat-out no? How about a ‘maybe,’ Ange, or an ‘I'll think about it’ or—”

  Angela loved her husband more than anyone in the world, but for a split second just then she hated him, truly despised him, for shutting her out so completely from his emotions. The more he did it, the more she wanted to hurt him, to bring him to the point where his carefully tended, closely guarded emotions just exploded. And damn the fallout. She just couldn't help it

  “No,” she said, slamming another handful of clothes in her case. “There's nothing to think about. Besides, I won't be staying in California more than a few hours. As soon as I land in L.A., I'm going to book myself on the next flight leaving for Mexico.”

  It wasn't a lie, exactly. Angela meant to do just that as soon as she could get a call through to the wilds of Chihuahua, talk to Rod, and find out just where she was supposed to go to join him on the movie set. She could already imagine his face glowing with pleasure when he greeted her. She could picture the tears shining in his eyes, hear the lovely words of love pouring from his lips. I love you. Don't leave me. Be with me always.

  “Mexico,” Bobby muttered. Then he reached out and caught her hand. “So, what was that all about this morning, then?”

  “When we made love, you mean?” She put a lilt of indifference in her voice and hoped he didn't notice how fake it sounded. When she tried to pull her hand away, Bobby wouldn't let go.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I mean when we made love.”

  “That, my dear, was just great sex.”

  He flinched a bit, and his grip tightened on her fingers. “That's all you wanted from me? Just a goddamned quickie?”

  “Bobby, leave it alone,” she wailed. “Don't you understand? You can't give me what I want.”

  “I'm trying, Ange. God knows.” He let her go in order to tarn sideways, then raked up the short sleeve of his shirt, fully exposing the little red heart. “What do you think this is all about?”

  “It's a tattoo,” she said, staring at his arm. “It's a dye job. Red ink injected into your skin. It's not real, Bobby. It's not your heart.”

  “Jesus, Ange. I know that.” His voice grew more desperate. The veins in his neck distended. “But I had to start someplace, didn't I? I had to do something, make some kind of gesture to show you how I feel.”

  “It's not… It's not enough,” she whispered.

  “Not enough!” he howled. “Not fucking enough! What do you want me to do, cut my chest open and rip out the real thing and put it in your hands?”

  “You just don't get it, Bobby.” She shook her head and stared at her hands in her lap because she couldn't bear to look at him. “I don't think you ever will.”

  “Then make me get it, baby. Tell me what you want me to do. Tell me what would be enough. Just tell me and I'll do it.”

  “Bobby, I… It's not that easy.”

  “Do you want me to go to a marriage counselor with you? If that's what you want, I'll do it. Or I'll go by myself to a shrink. I can do that, too. Just tell me.”

  He was so scared. Not that he'd ever say it, but she could hear it in his tone, could tell from the urgency of his speech, the desperate way the words spilled out of him. He was as scared and confused as she was. How could she tell him what to do when she didn't have a clue?

  A strand of hair fell against her cheek, and just as she was lifting her hand to shove the errant lock behind her ear, Bobby did it for her. Without a word. So gently. Just right. Dear God, how could he be so perfectly in tune with her physically and still so emotionally distant? It almost broke her heart.

  “Ange,” he whispered. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  For a minute she couldn't even speak. She sat there, her arm just brushing his where the little red heart peeked from the edge of his sleeve. Tell him what to do? She was finally and utterly convinced that there wasn't enough counseling or headshrinking in the world to make Bobby Holland do what she needed him to do. Words like sharing and emotional accessibility and intimacy simply didn't compute with him. She didn't know how to make him understand, and she was suddenly bone-tired of trying.

  If she told him to open his heart to her, he wouldn't have a clue what she meant. If she said she needed him to let her in, he wouldn't know what to do or how to even begin to let down his defenses. How could she tell him what she needed in a way he'd comprehend?

  “Tell me,” he said again. “What do you want me to do?”

  Nothing. Everything. I love you. Don't leave me. Be with me always. How could she make him understand?

  “I want you to cry, Bobby,” she said at last as her own tears began to fall. “
That's all. I just want you to cry.”

  A brusque knock sounded on the bedroom door. “It's ten o'clock, Robert. I'll be waiting for you in the driveway.”

  Bobby's voice was a little bit hoarse but steady as always when he replied, “Yes, ma'am. I'll be right there.”

  Daisy Riordan wrenched the zipper of her jacket up as far as it would go beneath her chin. It was chilly this morning, which she should have anticipated, since September was now closer to October than it was to August. She rocked from foot to foot, anxious to get moving out on the road for fear her thin, ancient blood would freeze in her veins if she stood here in the driveway too long.

  The notion of her antique bloodstream brought a quick and unbidden little smile to her face. For such an old crone, she was doing rather well. Rather well, indeed, if she did say so herself. There was no sense grinning like a total fool, though. It probably made her look even sillier than Muriel. Now, where the devil was Robert?

  He came out the back door just then, looking as desolate as he had sounded a moment ago when she'd knocked on the servants’ bedroom door. She hadn't been eavesdropping, exactly, but she couldn't help but overhear the discussion going on inside. Poor Robert. Daisy knew that she'd been right in her assessment of him. He played his cards so close to the vest that there was no getting near his heart. He was so much like her, she thought, that he probably should have been her son. Well, considering his age, her grandson perhaps.

  She'd given up wishing for one of those a long time ago. Perhaps that was part of Robert's appeal. Perhaps she saw in the handsome Secret Service agent the grandson she'd never have. At the very least, she recognized her own close-to-the-vest temperament in him, and understood only too well that he probably didn't make the perfect mate. Far from it.

  In fact, her heart went out to Angela, whose fondest wish, it seemed, was to see her husband cry. Ha! Don't hold your breath, my dear. Daisy couldn't remember the last time she, herself, had cried. Sometime during World War II, she believed. And there had been no witnesses. If people deemed her cold for not weeping at Charles's funeral, so be it.

  “It's chilly,” she said when Robert reached her side. “You need a jacket.”

  “I'm fine.”

  Daisy narrowed her gaze. “I'll wait.”

  “Let's go.” He clasped his hand firmly around her elbow and started down the driveway.

  “I don't want to be forced to turn back just because you're too proud or stubborn to dress properly for the weather,” she said stiffly, keeping pace with his long strides. And she didn't want him to catch cold, either. He seemed miserable enough.

  He let out a sigh. “It's not pride, ma'am. You can count on that.”

  Daisy recalled his offer to Angela to do whatever she wanted him to do to save their marriage. Certainly his pride had taken a drubbing with that.

  “Well, you're stubborn, then,” she told him. “It can be a very irritating quality, Robert.”

  “Yes, ma'am.” A hint of a grin passed over his lips, and he pitched her a sidelong glance that seemed to say, It takes one to know one.

  She gave a little snort. “Of course, it can also be a sign of strong character,” she said, “and a resolute nature.”

  “Yes, ma'am.” He halted at the end of the driveway. “Which way today? East or west?”

  “West,” she said.

  “West it is.”

  “With no one following us,” she added.

  “That's the plan.”

  “Very well, then.”

  Once again, Robert positioned himself between her and the oncoming traffic, letting her set the pace. Daisy glanced at her watch. Good. They were right on time. It wouldn't be long now, and Robert would have a little something to distract him from his marital woes.

  Bobby reached down to snag a weed in passing, then clamped it between his teeth. He was fighting another headache, thanks to Angela. Every furrow in his forehead felt as if it were slicing across his skull.

  She wanted him to cry! What the hell kind of way was that to fix a marriage? She might as well have asked him to stand on his head and recite the Pledge of Allegiance backward. Or flap his arms and fly.

  Her father cried, for God's sake. And her brothers, too. All the Callifano men turned into wet, blubbering mountains of saltwater and snot at funerals, weddings, christenings, graduations, saying hello at airports, saying good-bye anytime, any place. At the drop of a freaking hat. Angela hated that. It was embarrassing. Humiliating. At least, that's what she'd always said.

  Now Bobby was supposed to do it. He didn't think he'd ever cried in his entire life. Well, maybe when he was a baby, put to bed in a pulled-out, blanket-insulated drawer, but he doubted it. What good would it have done, except maybe earn him a shouted “Knock it off!” or a stinging swat on the behind? Hell, what good was wearing your heart on your sleeve when even that wasn't enough? He let a rough curse pass through his clenched teeth.

  “You see,” the president's mother said with barely concealed triumph. “I told you that you'd be chilly, that you ought to wear a jacket.”

  Bobby pulled the weed from his mouth and drawled, “That you did.”

  She made a small harrumphing sound, then said, “I'd be willing to wager that you never minded your mother, Robert. That you were one of those children who always thought he knew best.” She glanced up at him. “Am I correct?”

  “Well, in my particular case, ma'am, it just happened that I did know best.”

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  Bobby drew in a long breath, then let it out slowly. Other than Angela and Billy, he'd never really talked about his childhood to anyone. Hell. Nobody except Angela had ever asked, and she said it was like pulling hen's teeth to get a response out of him. “My father wasn't married to my mother,” he said now, “and she preferred her six-packs and Seagram's 7 over her two boys. Somebody had to know best, I guess, so it turned out to be me.”

  With her gaze pinned on the distance ahead, she nodded solemnly, then seemed to get lost in her thoughts for a few minutes before she spoke again.

  “I was that sort of child, myself. Right here in Hassenfeld.” She gestured toward the high corn at the side of the road, and a wistfulness crept into her voice. “Mind you, that was well over half a century ago, but things haven't changed all that much. I don't suppose I've changed all that much.”

  He laughed softly. “I'll bet you were a real little heller, Mrs. Riordan.”

  “I was. And I'll bet you think my family was among the town's upper crust, don't you, Robert? That would be the logical assumption, wouldn't it? I mean, I'm the mother of the president of the United States, after all, and the widow of a senator. I'm sure you must think that my pedigree is impeccable. I'll bet you assume that my father was a banker or an attorney or a prosperous farmer who owned most of this land.” She waved an arm over the cornfield again. “Or maybe you think he was the mayor and that my mother was a very refined, well-educated woman who entertained the local matrons at afternoon teas and who raised me, her only daughter, in her image.”

  She halted, crossed her arms, and jutted her chin up toward his face. “Well? Tell me. Is that what you think?”

  Bobby really hadn't thought about it at all, but he supposed if he had, his impression of Daisy Riordan's background would have been similar to the one she'd just described. “It's pretty close,” he said.

  “Ha!” She hooked her arm through his and began walking again. “That's what most people think. Why, even here where I grew up, everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten that I, in fact, had no father and that my mother supported us as best she could by cleaning houses and taking in wash, not to mention the occasional sailor or traveling salesman, if you know what I mean.”

  “I wouldn't have guessed that,” Bobby said. Never in a million years.

  “I'm sure you wouldn't have. It's not something my son is especially thrilled for me to reveal.”

  Bobby chuckled. “Kinda sullies that midwestern landed-gentry, Sun
day-school image of his, I guess.”

  “William's biographers have managed to gloss over that part of his heritage to date. One of them described his grandmother as a flapper. Another referred to her as a woman of limited ambitions.”

  “Beats calling her the town tramp,” Bobby murmured, “like they called my mother.”

  “Indeed.” She smiled up at him. “I'm very fond of you, Robert. We have quite a lot in common, you and I.”

  “Apparently so, ma'am.”

  He would've smiled back, but he wasn't altogether certain where Crazy Daisy was headed with this two-peas-in-a-pod routine. Nowhere, he hoped. It was making him nervous. If she was anything at all like him, she had a lot more on her mind than she was disclosing at the moment.

  “I don't cry, either,” she said. “Not even when Charles passed away. It simply isn't in me.”

  So that's what was on her mind. She'd overheard Angela's ultimatum back at the house. Bobby was hoping the woman would just let the subject drop when she added, “That doesn't mean I don't have tender feelings, however, or that I fail to experience grief or other deep emotions. I just don't cry. Never did. And I probably never will, not at this late date. I'm sure it must have something to do with my upbringing, but I've never wanted to explore it in any great depth.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” he answered noncommittally. Neither did he, as a matter of fact. Not her upbringing or his own. Let it rest, he thought. Let sleeping dogs lie. And what was that expression about crying over spilt milk? In both their cases, it seemed to apply perfectly.

  “I'm sure, if you try, there's a way to communicate your emotions to Angela without weeping. Perhaps you haven't spent enough time alone together. Perhaps the two of you should take some time off from your rigorous duties and take a second honeymoon. Europe's lovely this time of year. I'd be more than happy to put in a word with William, if you'd like.”