Substitute for Love

by Karin Kallmaker

  He must have been planning this moment for years, she thought, waiting to have some hold on her, some way to make her into his asset instead of a political liability he couldn’t control.

  “No,” Reyna said steadily. “This isn’t going to work.”

  Grip Putnam’s voice found its way into millions of homes. He delivered the truth as the sober voice of conservatism. In her small kitchen, his authoritative rumble was overwhelming. “Do you know what lupus does to the immune system? Fevers, weakness, weight loss, anemia, enlargement of the spleen are the most common effects. Skin rashes, heart, joint and kidney disease are also possibilities. A mild form feels like arthritis — everywhere in the body. Though lupus is rare in someone her age, it’s not unheard of. But at her age, it can be quickly fatal. Given proper treatment, it can be survived for years, perhaps indefinitely.”

  The coldness of his voice was more brutal than the words. A part of her grieved for her mother, but that part was weak, and he used weakness. “You loved her enough to go to bed with her. I was the result. How can you use her against me this way?”

  Kimberly was suddenly in the doorway. “What’s going on?” She moved quickly to Reyna’s side. “What does he want?”

  Her father’s gaze never left her. Kim simply did not exist to him. “This discussion is between you and me. The details are private.” He rose. “We’ll meet again in one week. You will have made the necessary changes to your life.”

  Reyna let Kimberly put her arm around her waist. She thought she might faint. She stared at her father, hating him as she felt her future drain past reclaiming.

  The last thing he said on that hot afternoon when he smashed her future to tiny bits was, “Her kidneys are being retested today. The first tests weren’t promising. I’m told the procedure is painful, but she did manage to get to the appointment on her own.”

  Two years later, after an exhausting course load, she left U.C. Berkeley with a double master’s in political science and governmental affairs. From there she successfully completed a two-year doctorate program at Georgetown’s school of government. Her dissertation was “The War on Conservative Values: The Silencing of Conservative Public Opinion Through Polling Practice and Media Reporting.” She wrote it while she learned the ropes at her first post-education job as a research associate for the Putnam Institute. Grip Putnam needed an heir apparent and now, Reyna knew, he thought he had one.

  “How was her day?” Reyna’s whispered question brought the drowsy nurse to her feet. Jean — this one was Jean. There had been so many in the six-plus years since that hot afternoon in her kitchen.

  “Fine. She wasn’t very hungry at dinner, but she did manage some broth and a slice of that wonderful bread Mr. Putnam sends. She ate better at lunch.”

  The flutter of her mother’s eyelashes answered Reyna’s next question before she could ask it.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Jean said, heading quickly to her bedroom.

  “Hi, honey,” her mother said in a voice grown reedy with unrelenting pain. Reyna patted the back of one blue-veined hand as gently as if she was touching a hatched chick. Anything harder could hurt more than it comforted.

  “Hi yourself. What’s Jean reading to you?” She listened with interest to the reply, but her mind was still turning over a possibility, a chance for relief from a situation that had long been intolerable.

  “I saw you on television last night. You’re such a striking couple.”

  Reyna sat down in the comfortable chair the nurse had vacated. “The movie wasn’t very good.” But the publicity had been fine, meeting with Jake’s and her father’s exacting standards. There were rumors of wedding bells between the house of Graham and the house of Putnam. Rumors were all they were. Jake knew she was seen with him only because she was compelled to do so, though he didn’t know the means. “I got home really late and I’ve been dragging all day.” Exhausted or not, she would find the energy it took to go out tonight, if she could also find the courage. She had laid the groundwork, now all she had to do was go through with it.

  “What was it about?”

  Reyna described the paper-thin plot of the big-budget action thriller. The premiere had been well-staged, and afterward her father had granted an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, which allowed him to voice his opinion that more Hollywood studios could follow this film’s example. The protagonist prayed to Christ for strength, and that was a step in the right direction for faith-phobic Hollywood. Compared to other films of its type, there was minimal violence, sex and foul language. Reyna also thought it had minimal plot, minimal acting and minimal meaningful dialogue, but no one asked her opinion. She’d just been a poised and silent female on undeclared congressional candidate Jake Graham’s arm.

  She knew as she talked that her mother was deep in a fantasy about Reyna being settled down, taken care of—in other words, married, an estate that she had never enjoyed. Gretchen Langston had been a beautiful woman until lupus had seemed to fold her in on herself over the past six years. Every day her skin seemed more translucent, her eyes darker with pain.

  Reyna cooperated and Grip took good care of them. Her mother did not know — or did not want to know — the price Reyna paid. Any resistance on her part led to worrisome complications and delays in medical reimbursements and appointments. They were always resolved happily, but some symptoms of lupus were directly worsened by stress, and her mother had a low threshold for anxiety.

  But tonight, if Reyna had the courage, she could find something to take the edge off her perpetual headache and channel the frustration and anger that was her daily life. She lived on the rim of a black hole, but tonight she might find something honest and clean.

  Her mother was getting drowsy. Reyna knew that Jean would be back with the syringe that would give her some pain-free hours of rest. Jean was part of a rotation of live-in nurses who were with her mother at all times, skilled in pain-relieving massage, homeopathic cooking and rapid response to the seizures that were a growing concern as the disorder progressed. They also made sure Gretchen had her various hospital outpatient treatments, though Reyna tried to go along whenever her schedule allowed.

  None of the doctors were using the phrase “final stages” for the related kidney disease, but Reyna did not think they were far off. Dialysis was effective, and as a private paying patient there was never any question of her having the treatments when she needed them. Her mother was able to stay in the little house she loved, near the University of California at Irvine. Reyna was able to drop in for lunch or in the evening for a while, seeing her mother almost every day, since the Putnam Institute, where Reyna was steadily being groomed to be her father’s right-hand “man,” was only a few miles away. Unlike in other politically successful families, Grip was determined there would be no question of his child’s capabilities.

  When her mother appeared to have nodded off, Reyna headed to the room the nurses took turns staying in. She knocked and went in when Jean called permission.

  Jean was just buttoning her pajama top. Reyna averted her eyes from the curve of Jean’s breasts, awash with the memory of Kimberly’s similar shape and deep color, how they had tasted, how they had hardened in her mouth…

  Jean was looking at her expectantly and Reyna struggled to find words. “She’s asleep.”

  “She really did have a good day. The joint pain is less — I think the new tea is helping.”

  “That’s good news. Well, you know how to reach me.”

  Jean nodded. Reyna was only minutes away, in the condo that the Institute had secured for her. Minutes away if that was where Reyna spent the night.

  She had other plans, and she was desperate enough to try.

  Kimberly had not believed Reyna would move out, hadn’t believed it until Reyna did. Kim had not wanted to participate in a lie, would not let their relationship be made clandestine and unclean, and Reyna did not blame her one bit for her anger. Reyna had heard from her twice in the six years sin
ce: once an invitation to her commitment ceremony, which her father’s administrative assistant declined, and the second time an announcement of the opening of a new law firm with her partner, specializing in employee and labor relations. The administrative assistant sent flowers.

  The years at Berkeley to finish the double master’s had been grueling. Georgetown had been no easier, but at least the distance from home had made Reyna feel less under her father’s thumb. She had told herself there was a way out if only she could think of one. Being on the other side of the country from him had made it easier to believe she would some day find a way out of the cage he had made for her.

  Every month she received a report on the expenses for her mother’s treatments. Her father said it was just “FYI” but she knew it was meant to remind her that she could never manage on her own. Her mother had access to the best doctors and care, and without an insurance company to bicker about cost, the hospitals and treatment centers charged the highest possible fees. The total expended in the last six years made her mother uninsurable for any expenses related to the lupus. When Reyna had researched public assistance she’d discovered that her mother would have to lose all her assets first. She could claim her mother as her own dependent but as long as she had assets or income, they would disqualify her mother from assistance. A public program would not pay for a Jean to provide 24-hour- a-day companionship and watchful care.

  The first few years she’d told herself everything would change when she finished her education. She’d consented to the changes he’d demanded because her mother’s illness frightened her, and because the education he would pay for would bring her independence when she graduated. Then she would be able to secure a good-paying job with insurance, she told herself, and she would be able to tell him to go to hell. She hadn’t understood then about pre-existing condition waiting periods. To cover her mother she’d have to be able to pay all of the expenses on her own for a year. She couldn’t have known that by the time she left Georgetown, her mother’s kidney disease would escalate. She could have found a six-figure job some place other than her father’s institute, she knew, but it wouldn’t be enough, even before taxes. By the time she saved enough money to make it for a year paying the bills, the bills had doubled in size. Her father’s bottomless checkbook was there for her mother. She could have careful, life-extending care and keep her home and dignity. In the larger scheme of things, all that largesse came at such a small price to Reyna. What was a dream or two in exchange for her mother’s comfort, peace of mind, and additional years of life?

  So she worked at the Putnam Institute and conducted research for conservative causes, thinking all the while that it was only for a few more years. Every time she thought specifically about time she was wracked with guilt. Looking forward to an escape could only mean one thing: she wanted her mother to hurry up and die. She didn’t want that, she knew it in her heart. But sometimes at night, sometimes when she felt so alone and the black hole seemed about to swallow her… sometimes, she would think about its being only a matter of a few more years and she would feel… relieved. Comforted. And then … she would wish she knew exactly when she would be free because it would be easier to bear, knowing.

  It was just another reason to hate herself—asking God to give her an exact date for her mother’s death.

  Her days were busy with meetings, conferences, poring over research data and writing position papers, all for causes she loathed. She played the part of her father’s hostess when she had to, including photo opportunities. But she accepted the situation, and knew that she had it easy. She really could be trying to manage on her own, trying to earn a living while taking her mother to almost daily medical appointments and all the while sinking into debt that would ultimately take everything. It could be worse, she told herself. When her mind was occupied, it was possible to rationalize her role in press releases with titles like “Study Shows Man-Boy Molestation on the Rise.”

  In the past six years since that afternoon when her father had claimed her future for his own purposes, there had been one interlude, one brief affair while she was at Georgetown, when she had felt alive. Margeaux. They had wanted the same thing — sex and discretion. It had been three glorious months until a visit from her father ended the illusion of freedom. Private detectives had discerned the affair almost immediately, but he had needed time to arrange things to his satisfaction before ordering her to end it. She refused, not yet believing he would do what he said he would do. He warned her, but she still refused. She and Margeaux were not in love, but she hadn’t wanted to believe he was that ruthless.

  A few days later Reyna discovered her mother had had a seizure — and no nurse had been with her. Her father claimed it was just an oversight, but Reyna no longer believed in coincidences where he was concerned. Again, yes, she was tired of freedom.

  When she’d met Margeaux for the last time, Margeaux had said it was for the best. Her grades were too low to maintain the program, and she’d just received notice she was being academically suspended. Her family had sacrificed a lot for a Georgetown law degree, but Margeaux would finish at an upstate New York college, closer to home. It was more affordable. Her father had just been laid off, too, and, well, she had to accept the realities of her situation.

  They’d gone back to Margeaux’s apartment and Reyna had not known it would be the last time she’d feel a woman moving against her, under her, on top of her. She had relived that night hundreds of times in the years since because it, and Kimberly, was all she had to treasure. A few months later a letter from Margeaux revealed that her father had been miraculously rehired and she had received an unexpected scholarship at her new school. Shortly after that, during a seemingly casual visit, her father had mentioned that her “little friend” seemed so much better off in her new locale.

  When you did what Grip Putnam wanted, everything was fine.

  She was not doing what he wanted, not tonight. She couldn’t stand it anymore. At a meeting earlier in the day, discussing public relations opportunities to improve the image of the National Rifle Association, she’d found herself listening with interest to the rules for obtaining a handgun in California. Her sense of horror had made her feel faint. Regarding herself in the bathroom mirror a few minutes later she realized something was going to break, and badly. She was caught in a fabulously gilded cage that swung at her father’s whim over the black hole of his designs. Without a taste of freedom she would do something unspeakable, either to her father, who deserved it, or to her mother, who did not.

  Though she usually drove with one eye focused on her rear-view mirror, looking for the private detectives she knew were always lurking, tonight she didn’t care. They would follow her to a place where she’d gone many times — the university’s Friday all-night art film marathon. Bergman’s faith trilogy was on the marquee, leading off with Through a Glass, Darkly.

  She bought a ticket and a box of Raisinets, just as she always did. Her black jeans and Armani leather jacket allowed her to be just another dark-haired woman in the theater. She waited for the movie to start, then, under cover of the dim light of the cinematic Nordic night, she slipped out the rear exit. From the alley she walked to the next block and up the stairs to the apartment over the motorcycle repair shop.

  “I was beginning to wonder if you were coming tonight.” Tank Pena eased his bulk onto the tiny landing, leading the way down to the shop’s rear door. “I finished her yesterday and she purrs like a kitten.”

  Tank had found the motorcycle for her, refurbished it and then registered it in his own name, though she would be the only rider. It was a minor informational fraud, Reyna had rationalized. He chattered about the idiosyncrasies of Yamaha bikes and 750 cc’s, but Reyna only saw the silver name melded into the black body: Virago.

  Tonight, it fit.

  Borrowed leather gloves and a black helmet transformed her from a research and media specialist for conservative causes to unrestrained biker chick. It felt wonderful.


  She realized Tank was waiting for some acknowledgment. “She’s beautiful,” she said belatedly, but with feeling. The engine purred so cool and clean she didn’t even have to raise her voice. Kim had taught her to ride. Her father had never noticed her driver’s license also allowed her to ride motorcycles, or he would have surely told her to give it up. The link between bike and dyke was too close.

  Cash had been all Tony needed to fix Reyna up with something — he just wanted to see another beautiful bike on the road. He hadn’t asked many questions. He was still enough of an anarchist to like the secrecy and the tax-free income. She had plenty of money of her own. The Institute or her father paid for almost all her expenses. Her after-tax income was embarrassing, and yet it couldn’t begin to cover the medical bills that mounted up with each dialysis treatment and trip to the ICU. What she had saved up so far would get them about eight months before there was nothing left. But she kept saving and investing because sooner or later, money would mean independence.

  She withdrew hundreds of dollars in cash a month but spent little of it. The rest was squirreled away in her apartment for things she wanted to buy with no way for her father to find out — like a motorcycle, or a motel room for a few hours.

  She parted from Tank with a wave. With the thrill that only a completely forbidden activity could bring, she headed for the open road, feeling for the first time in years that eyes were not on her every move.

  For the next thirty minutes, just riding was enough. She almost felt like she could take the bike back and it would be enough to dance around the black hole and know she wouldn’t fall in. She could smile tomorrow, cooperate, listen to clients who described gays as pedophiles, lesbians as man-haters, feminists as Nazis, the NAACP as radicals, amen, world without end. She could help them write their speeches, twist research to suit their arguments, find new ways to present hate disguised as morality. It was what the Putnam Institute did, and she was good at it, a real chip off the old block.