Life of the Party

by Kris Fletcher

  “Did I have a fight with Kyrie?”

  “No.” Bree tucked her neat gray skirt beneath her as she perched on the edge of the bed—far too forcefully, if Jenna got to say. “It was something to do with Cole.”

  Jenna stared at her sister, trying to read behind the glasses but failing miserably. Cole . . . the election . . . lying . . .

  “Oh God,” she said again, lunging for the bucket.

  Half an hour later—showered, dressed in some of Bree’s leggings and a sweater, and debating the possibilities of coffee—Jenna made herself remember. Cole had shown up. It hadn’t gone well. She knew she couldn’t be home when Kyrie came home with her engagement ring flashing, so she had come here. Bree had opened the door, Jenna had cracked the bottle she’d picked up on the way, and then it was all a jumbled mix of tears and yelling and swearing and accusations. And that was before the first slug had even reached her stomach.

  “You told Kyrie I’m here, right?”

  Bree nodded.

  “Thanks for letting me crash with you. I didn’t . . . I knew Kyr was going to call Ben and she’d be all happy and floaty, and I couldn’t . . .”

  “Better here than the streets. Or, God forbid, with Margie. She would have dragged you downtown and tried to get you hooked up with somebody else so you could screw Cole out of your system.”

  Yeah, that sounded like a Margie trick.

  “Though I have to say,” Bree continued, sliding a cup of coffee in front of Jenna, “it was interesting to learn that you and Cole were on the outs. Since, you know, you hadn’t told any of us that you were on the ins.”

  “Because it wasn’t supposed to last. It was supposed to be temporary.”

  “A little voting booth hanky-panky?”

  “God, Bree. Don’t try to sound flip. It’s like that time Mom tried to give you the finger but she used the wrong one. It’s just pathetic.”

  “I’ll have you know my students keep me very well educated. In addition, I am fully aware that the proper hand gesture is this.” Bree raised her hand and wiggled all her fingers.

  “What the hell is that supposed to be?”

  “It’s a bouquet of these.” And Bree proudly demonstrated that she knew precisely which finger was supposed to be used at times such as this.

  “Good one. I’m going to have to remember it.”

  “It comes in very handy when you’re waving good-bye to people you hate.” Bree sat in her chair. “Or ones who are breaking up with you.”

  Yeah. That.

  “Jenniekins, if this was only supposed to be temporary, why did you end up leaning out my window at midnight, drunker than I have ever seen, yelling that not even Freud could make you want to stay with a guy who was just like your father?”

  Jenna didn’t have to be staring into a mirror to know that she blanched. She could feel the blood race to leave her face, as if it, too, wanted nothing more to do with her.

  “I said that?”

  “Sweetie, that was the tip of the iceberg.” Bree cupped Jenna’s hand between her own. “You want to tell me what’s happening here?”

  “I would. Except . . . oh, hell, Bree. I don’t think I really understand it myself.”

  “Well, tell me the facts and we’ll go from there.”

  Jenna nodded, winced—oops, too soon—and clasped the coffee. “Do you promise to listen as my sister and not as a shrink?”

  “I am not a shrink. But yes. I promise no response other than the ones that any sister would say.”

  Jenna doubted that—Bree was too absorbed in her work to ever turn off her inner psychologist, no matter what she said—but she was also fair. She would do her best. And her best was definitely enough for Jenna at the moment.

  “The Loser found out about me being on Cole’s team,” she said, and told Bree everything, starting with Cole’s decision that she had to step back. Somehow, the weekend in Brockport worked its way into the tale, as did Rob’s semi-threats and her own shift from eye-rolling but willing participant to someone who believed in what she was hearing.

  “I think that’s the worst,” she said. “That he duped me. He made me think he was different, that he really meant everything he was saying out there in his speeches and interviews. How’s that for irony, huh? Rob Elias’s daughter, taken in by a smooth-talking politician?”

  “I wouldn’t call that irony,” Bree said. “I’d be more likely to call it lo—”

  “Shut it, Bree.”

  Bree sat with her mouth slightly parted, lips poised to make a v sound. For a second the only movement was that of her eyes as they roamed over Jenna’s face, no doubt searching for some hint of . . . Jenna wasn’t sure. Affection? Weakness? Idiocy?

  Whatever it was, Jenna had to stop it. Now.

  “He is—well, I thought he was—a great guy. And yes, if I had plans to stay here, I would want to keep seeing him. But I don’t . . . No. I am not that stupid.”

  “Why would it be stupid to fall in—”

  “I’m warning you, Bree, if you use that word, I’m telling Paige that you were the one who told Kevin Parker that she wanted to go to the prom with him.”

  “Hang on. You did that!”

  “Yeah, but you know I can convince her that it was you.”

  “Fine. I won’t say it again if you answer me one question. Why would it be so horrible if that’s what has happened here?”

  Jenna stared into her mug, her thoughts clumping like curdled milk. “I have the mother of all hangovers. I feel like crap. I really don’t want to talk about this.”

  “I didn’t ask if you wanted to do it. I just asked why it would be so bad.”

  “You mean apart from the fact that I’m moving away and he’s busting his ass to be the next mayor? Mayor of the town I can’t stay in, I might add.”

  Bree waved a hand. “Logistics.”

  “And the fact that I am in no way ready for a real relationship yet.”

  “Interesting.” Bree sat back, arms crossed, then corrected herself to lay them wide apart on the table. No doubt to encourage openness and all that shit. “I don’t remember you ever saying anything about that before.”

  “Well, for one thing, I don’t usually talk to you about this stuff. For another, I would think it’s obvious.”

  “Mmm hmmm.”

  This was why Jenna avoided dumping on Bree. The woman was a godsend when it came to practical matters, but let her loose on the touchy-feely stuff and it was Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.

  Gah.

  “And then there’s the fact that he sees me as a detriment and wants to keep me hidden like something . . . I don’t know. Like something embarrassing and shameful.”

  “You mean like what we’ve been doing to our father.”

  What the hell? “Where did that come from? He did something awful. We are absolutely allowed to disassociate ourselves from him after what he did to us.”

  “Agreed. But it just hit me that an outside observer might not see it the same way.”

  “Well, screw the outside observer. This is entirely different.”

  “You’re right.” Bree cradled her coffee between her palms. “It’s more like what Kendall did to you after the accident.”

  Long ago, there had been a time when Bree’s favorite way to get back at Jenna for being the cute one had been to twirl her fingers through Jenna’s hair, swirling it tighter and tighter until it was a giant knot of pain on Jenna’s head. That was the closest description Jenna could come up with at the moment for how Bree’s words hit.

  “I . . . but Cole isn’t Kendall. He would never do . . .”

  “I think he just did.”

  “But this was different. Kendall and I, it was already over anyway. There was nothing left to save.”

  “You’re right. It’s a very different situation.
You already had one foot out the door, and all Kendall did was finish the job.” Bree raised her mug. “Not like now. When, you know, you’re already planning to move away.”

  “But I was already planning to leave before I met Cole!”

  “Yes, you were. Absolutely. And we all know that plans can never be changed.”

  The pounding in Jenna’s head was back. Louder. More insistent. Kind of like a giant killer gong. “You’re not being fair. You’re twisting this all around and I can’t figure out what’s what.”

  “Poor baby.”

  It would have been a lot easier to believe that Bree was expressing sympathy if her eyes hadn’t been quite so filled with satisfaction.

  “Are you trying to tell me that Cole did this just because I was already planning to leave? Because that makes no sense at all. He knew I would never go along with it. So why suggest it?”

  “Maybe because he really is a lying, deceitful politician who will say anything to get elected. Or, maybe because he cares about you and really wants to keep seeing you, but isn’t quite ready to risk losing the election for you. You know.” Bree saluted her with the mug. “Kind of like how you would want to keep seeing him, but you’re not ready to give up on your plan to start over in a place where nobody knows you.”

  ***

  Cole had never seen the point of wallowing. Even after his engagement ended, even after his grandmother died, he had allowed himself to feel the grief but made himself stay busy anyway. Shutting away the pain wasn’t healthy. But in his mind, letting it incapacitate him would be almost as bad. Grandma wouldn’t want him to sit around mourning—or, as she would have called it, feeling sorry for himself—and Meredith had made it clear that they were better off apart, so there hadn’t seemed to be any point in letting it keep him from what he needed to do. He might not have been as fast or as focused, but he still showed up. Still did the work. Still kept that upper lip stiff.

  So even though he was the one who made the call, he still couldn’t quite believe that he had just left a message on his own office answering machine telling David to cancel all his appointments for the day because he was sick.

  And then, just for the hell of it, he dialed Ram’s number and left a voice mail letting Ram know that the odds of Cole showing up today were somewhere between squat and nil.

  The wildest part was that with the calls behind him, he felt like he had accomplished something so exhausting that he could roll over and sleep for the next three hours.

  “Maybe because you didn’t sleep all night,” he muttered before catching himself. Great. Now he was talking to the walls. Or himself.

  He wasn’t sure which option was worse.

  His fingers hovered over the phone, itching to punch in another number. One he knew by heart. One that he knew he had no right to call anymore, because he was pretty sure there was nothing left to be said or saved. Jenna had made her feelings crystal clear. There was no deeper insult in her vocabulary than politician. He was pretty sure that meant there was no going back from it, either.

  So what was he supposed to do now?

  The small rational part of his brain still functioning knew that he was too wiped out to try to make a decision at the moment. He should either roll over and try to sleep, or get up and hit the shower. Either would leave him in a better state than he was at the moment.

  But neither option felt right. One felt like hiding and the other felt like too damned much work. He didn’t think he could manage anything other than staring up at the ceiling and letting his head sink deeper into the pillow.

  Except for his fingers, of course. They still insisted on dancing across his phone.

  “This isn’t a Broadway musical,” he told himself. “There’s no tap dancing out of this.”

  Too bad. He’d seen Jenna dance at the party after the primary. She’d had to move carefully to avoid sending herself off balance, but she had still managed to work some magic with the movement of her arms. And the tossing of her head. And the sideways shake of her hips that even in memory had his pulse jumping a notch.

  How the hell was he supposed to go through the rest of his life without her?

  He couldn’t. The thought was laughable.

  But neither was he ready to walk away from everything he’d worked for over the past months. Maybe, if it had been just him, maybe he could do it. But it wasn’t just him. It was Ram and Allison and Aubrey and Tom and everyone who had given him time and money, everyone who had clapped him on the back and trusted him to carry their concerns and dreams. He couldn’t walk away from all of them just because his heart had decided that now would be a really great time to forget how to beat steadily.

  No. He couldn’t walk away from the race.

  He couldn’t get out of bed, either.

  ***

  At some point, Cole must have drifted off. It was the only explanation for the way he opened his eyes in a panic at the sound of . . . wait . . .

  “Ram?” Cole squinted in the direction of his bedroom door. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Nonny said you needed soup.”

  “Nonny’s curried lentil soup?” Okay, he was shallow, but maybe there was a spark of hope after all.

  “Hell no. Chicken noodle. She said, and I quote, ‘White boys can’t handle the good stuff when they’re sick.’” Ram’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Though I have to say, you don’t look like you’re on death’s doorstep.”

  “Yeah, well. looks aren’t everything.”

  “And you should give thanks for that every day, buddy.” Ram peeled himself away from the door and moved into the room. “So what is it? A stomach thing? A cold?” He crossed his arms. “Dumped fever?”

  “Do you do this to your girls when they’re sick?”

  “Damn straight I do. In return, they’ve taught me all the ways to fake illness known to man. Pretty impressive since neither of them are old enough for cramps yet.”

  “Great. My stomach was fine until that one.”

  “Yeah, I figured as much.” Ram glanced around the room, pushed a couple of books off the chair in the corner, and sat down, stretching his legs out in front of him. “That’s better. Okay, Cole. Tell me everything.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Right. Because this has nothing to do with Jenna.”

  “How about I just need a day to sleep?”

  “How about I’ve known you since second grade and I think you’ve slept twelve times in all those years?” Ram raised his hands as Cole began to sputter. “Look. I know you’ve been burning the candle at both ends and all that shit. If you really need a day to get it together before the big push, that’s fine by me. Probably not a bad idea, to be honest. But you have to admit, the timing is suspicious.”

  Cole debated. He could continue to evade and deny—a tactic that he knew wouldn’t get him anywhere but would prolong Ram’s visit. Or he could get the truth out of the way and move on. Maybe he’d even find some energy when he was done.

  It was worth a shot, right?

  “Okay. You got me. Things didn’t go well last night.”

  “I figured that from the way you wandered around the office when you came back. I’ve seen zombies with more brains than you had, and I’m not talking about the ones they like to eat.”

  “Thanks, Ram. I can always count on you to put a positive spin on things.”

  “Hey, you have a whole town full of people ready to anoint you and call you king. My job is to call it like I see it.”

  Unfortunately, Ram was probably right.

  “I’m surprised, though. I would have thought Jenna would have understood.”

  “She did. About needing to leave the campaign, that is.”

  “So, where’s the problem?”

  “The problem . . .” Ah, hell. The more he thought about what he’d said,
the slimier he felt. “The problem is that I wasn’t ready to give up on the relationship. So I suggested that we lay low for a while.” He winced. “And then pick it up again after the election.”

  Ram closed his eyes. “Tell me you didn’t say that.”

  “Sorry. I’m scum, but I don’t lie.”

  “You seriously told Jenna that you wanted to keep on with her, but not enough to be honest about it.”

  “Yeah.” Cole braced his hands behind his head and stared at a crack in the ceiling. He needed to take care of that. “Yeah, I admit it. I was Mr. Bright and Sensitive.”

  Ram shook his head. “You basically told her you wanted to have your cake, eat it, and paint the town with the frosting.”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, at least now I know why you’re hiding under the covers. Castration takes a while to recover from.”

  Ouch.

  “You know,” Ram continued, “your mother raised you right. The things she missed, Nonny slapped into you. So where the hell do you get off treating Jenna like that?”

  Cole took his time answering. There was something wrong about Ram’s question. Something important.

  “She wasn’t pissed about how I was treating her.” Even he could hear the wonder in his voice. “She was furious that I would do that to the voters.”

  “The hell she was.”

  “Yeah. I know. It makes no sense, really, but . . . yeah. She was ready to rip me a new one because I was trying to fool the voters.”

  “So basically, you found yourself the one woman who understands what’s important to you even more than you do, and you manage to do the one thing that would guarantee she wouldn’t want anything to do with you. I think maybe you should forget about the election and set yourself up as a teacher. You know. What not to do to keep a woman.”

  Damn it. Couldn’t Ram be wrong once in a while?

  Cole punched the pillow at his side. “This is because of her father, isn’t it?”

  “Damn, you’re swift.”

  “First he treated her and her family like dirt. Then her ex did.”