by Josie Brown
After the last operation—Cassandra’s—Aunt Phyllis sighs loudly. I imagine she’s wondering if she made a mistake by walking away from his offer.
To assure her that she didn’t, Mary clasps her hand. “I am so worried about them. When all is said and done, what if they still don’t like who they are?”
Aunt Phyllis shrugs. “How did you get so wise at such a young age?” When she hugs her grandniece, she misses Mary’s wink to me.
I slide over to throw my arms around both of them.
But a moment later I’m tossed back into the alternate reality of my life when Ryan barks, “Emma?”
All he gets is radio silence.
He sighs loudly.
Like me, he’s realizing that a bombshell will drop any moment—if not literally, then figuratively.
The next twenty minutes of the show is devoted to Roger, Peter, and Gerald as they pick out their tuxes for Sienna and Roger’s wedding.
At first, the men stay on cue (per Lucy’s ominous warning, which rings through our Acme earbuds) and use their time on camera to win over the audience by talking about what they love and cherish about the women in their lives.
As Peter preens in front of a full-length mirror, he takes the opportunity to point out the obvious about his wife: “Penelope will do anything to win—just like me. You just wait and see. She’ll be the one with the biggest boobs of all the women.”
“Argh!” Jeff groans. “As if that’s some sort of accomplishment! Poor Cheever!”
“Something tells me he’ll make the most of it,” Evan retorts.
Mary nods in agreement. “Knowing him, he’ll figure out a way to cut a hole in the wall of her bedroom and sell tickets to the peep show.”
Jeff’s face turns bright red. “That’s disgusting!”
I agree, but Mary makes a good point: Cheever has a way of turning others’ bad decisions into lucrative opportunities for himself. If it’s the first time he does so at his mother’s expense, it won’t be the last.
“Bigger isn’t always better, old boy,” Gerald murmurs as he straightens a cuff. “Do you ever wonder how Penelope would do in a war zone? How would she react at the sight of heads blown off?”
“Yeah, yeah, okay we get it: your wife is a saint.” Peter rolls his eyes.
Gerald quits tugging at his sleeve as he contemplates his fellow groomsman’s retort. “She is, in fact. It’s why I love her. And why…Cassandra is right that we must always do things that make us bigger than ourselves.”
“Yeah, well a boob job will certainly make her ‘bigger,’” Peter snorts.
It’s Roger who gives the most touching declaration of all: “Without Sienna, I’d be nothing—I’d be no one. She made me who I am today.”
His eyes glisten tearfully.
He truly loves her.
I lean into Jack and whisper, “Roger isn’t our suspect.”
“What makes you think so?” he asks.
I shrug. “It’s just a feeling I have. He’s too…Oh, I don’t know—soft, I guess.”
It takes a moment of contemplation for Jack to see my point. “You’re right. He’s besotted. No one who’s that much in love will risk losing everything.”
With the children around, Jack stops there as opposed to saying: by blowing himself up to prove a point. By doing something that might get him a life sentence. By doing anything that might turn her away from him.
Which begs the question: who is our man?
The moment everyone is waiting for comes right before the last commercial break.
To ratchet up the tension, the producers have placed Dominic outside, by the pool. He is lit in such a way that the dimple in his chin looks even deeper. Thanks to the show’s exacting make-up artists, his cheekbones jut even more prominently from his superciliously handsome face.
His stare, directly into the camera, prefaces some ominous doom.
Like a good host, he waits until the last rousing flourishes of the show’s theme song have faded. “And now, it is with great sadness that we say goodbye to one of our own.” He beckons someone forward:
Ariel.
Despite the efforts of the show’s make-up artists, it’s obvious by her red-rimmed eyes that she has been crying.
“Ariel Powell, please—tell us why you’ve made the decision to leave the show?” Dominic’s plea is so ardent that it could be coming from a heartbroken lover.
Ariel sighs mightily. “Believe me, Dominic, I wish my experience with Hot Housewives of Hilldale had been everything Franklin and I had hoped for. But unfortunately, not all the wives are playing by the rules.”
He leans in closer to her. “What do you mean, Ariel?”
Anticipating the worst, the camera comes in close on Ariel. She stares directly into it as she proclaims: “One of the Housewives is having an affair with the husband of another!”
“Really?” Aunt Phyllis shakes her head in disbelief. “Just one of the Housewives?”
“Boo-yah!” Brin crows through the control room. “You see, people? That’s how you stay numero uno in the ratings, night after night! Way to go, Lucy, for convincing her to reveal this on camera.”
“Piece of cake,” Lucy boasts. “I told her it was her civic duty to reveal the whoring housewife. She said she’d do so, but only if we promised to toss the harlot off the show.”
Yikes. There goes our mission.
Dominic is smart enough to shut his yap so that the squeals taking place in living rooms around the world—including my own—don’t drown out what he says next:
“Who is it, Ariel?”
I sink into the couch.
I can feel Mary’s eyes on me. And Jack’s.
Still, I keep my eyes directly on the TV. The camera is now so close on Ariel that her freckles can be seen even through her thick pancake foundation. She purses her lips. It may be just a few seconds, but it seems like eons before she finally exhales. “I…I won’t say her name here.”
Dominic’s mouth drops open. Unsure of how to handle this, his eyes shift off camera.
“You—Hottie Host: don’t just stand there looking brain dead!” Brin shouts into the crews’ earpieces. “Appeal to her sense of morality! Use that old chestnut—what is it? ...Oh yeah: ‘Sistah Solidarity!’ Hell, remind her of all the money we just paid her husband’s damn charity, for God’s sake—”
“No, don’t do that,” Emma counters. Her voice is calm. Coolly, she adds, “We should keep the audience guessing about it until the very last show!”
“New Girl is right!” Brin proclaims. “If our mystery whore thinks she’s gotten away with it, she may hookup with Wayward Hubby again—and this time, we’ll be ready to catch it on camera. Quick thinking, New Girl!”
“I second that,” Ryan adds for our ears only.
No one is more relieved than me.
Finally, Dominic finds his voice. “Ariel, your discretion is…well, there is no way to describe it except noble. It is a trait our audience has come to identify with the Powells.”
Ariel’s eyes harden. “I guess I should thank you for that.” She shrugs. “But let me assure you: I don’t presume we Powells are grander, or as you put it more ‘noble’ than anyone else. That woman…I imagine she is doing what she feels is best for her family. And by walking away from this so-called reality”—Ariel’s hand sweeps out toward the mansion’s luxurious surroundings—“I know I’m doing what is best for mine.”
She then does just that: turns her back to the camera and walks away.
“Bravo,” Jack murmurs.
I know what he’s thinking: If only we could do the same.
With a hesitant smile, Dominic turns back to the camera. “Think you know which of our housewives is also a homewrecker? Text your guess to the number at the bottom of your television screens! Press 1 for Donna, 2 for Penelope, 3 for Sienna, 4 for Cassandra, 5 for Patty, and 6 for Phyllis—”
“Yes! I have a number! Yes! Yes!” Phyllis shouts jubilantly.
“You’re proud of that?” Jeff shakes his head in wonder. He rises and heads for the stairs. “That’s it for me. Back to the real world.”
Evan laughs. “Oh, yeah? And what would that be?”
“I’m helping Sami develop an app that will track the creeps who are bullying him.”
“That’s kind of you,” I reply. As I stand to stretch, Mary touches me on the shoulder. “Mom, can we talk?”
I nod and then follow her up to her room. I assume it’s about her most recent altercation with Jenna.
After she closes her bedroom door, she takes the time she needs to find her words. Finally, she blurts out: “Did you…was it you who had the affair with one of those deplorable men?”
I’m so stunned that I sink onto her bed. “Why would you even ask me that?”
“Because…I would imagine your job means you have to…you know…be a tease—or something…worse.” Her eyes dart around the room because she can’t look me in the eye.
Our pact rings in my ear: no more lies.
And yet, I need to salvage so much with what I say next:
The realities of my life as a covert operative and assassin.
The compromise Jack and I accept as part and parcel of our marriage.
My daughter’s respect for me.
I reach for her in order to tilt her head so she can look me in the eye: “I have never betrayed your father—and I never will.”
The words I speak are simple. They are also true.
Relieved, she smothers me with kisses. As we both cry, she stutters, “I’m so sorry. I’m ashamed I even asked…but…”
“You needed to know.” I shrug. “It’s okay. Because of what I do—and how I must do it—you’ll always hear rumors. But the perceptions of others…well, it’s just that: they see what I want them to see.”
Her smile fades. “So…sometimes you have to be…that way?”
“Yes. Sometimes I have to make them think I’m someone I’m not. It’s the only way I’ll get whatever information I need from them.”
And the price is very high—sometimes their lives.
Her shrug indicates she doesn’t need to hear any more. My guess is that she doesn’t want to anyway. To change the subject, I ask, “You mentioned some issue Jenna has with you.”
Mary nods. She walks over to her desk and opens her computer bag. She pulls out a note. Walking it over to me, she says, “It’s from Jenna.”
The note is handwritten. The letters are wild. It reads:
Dear Mary,
I’m sorry I keep reaching out to you, but I think it’s important that you know that I’d never intrude on your relationship with Evan. Not that I even could. He loves you too much.
I just appreciate that he’s kind enough to be my friend. I don’t know why he does it. If I were him (or for that matter anyone) I’d run as far away from me as I could! I don’t like me either. So no, I don’t blame you for thinking I’m weird.
Before the show, no one noticed me. I can’t blame them. If they did, they would loathe me, and not for any reason you might think. But now everyone thinks they know what my life is like, just like they think they know yours. Only you understand what bullshit that is.
If my real life didn’t suck so badly, I might even enjoy all of this. But it does, and I don’t.
Which brings me to why I’m writing you:
I hope you’ll let me spend the weekend at your house. I don’t know how the show will end. I just know that my parents will never win. People don’t like them, just like they don’t like me.
When they lose, he will blame Mom. I feel sorry for her, but I can’t take it anymore.
I hope you’ll let me stay. It would be so great to hang with some normal people.
—Jenna
“I called her already and told her no. She got so upset that she started begging me, but…I just can’t!”
“Why not? It sounds as if she just wants some space from her family. The show is hard on everyone.” Say yes! The poor girl’s life is scary and miserable…
“Believe me, it’s not because she wants us to be friends.” Mary shrugs. “If you ask me, she’s using the show as an excuse to get closer to Evan! When he heard I told her no, he made me feel like such a...well, a bitch.”
I know Mary isn’t looking for me to talk her out of her decision. She wants validation instead.
She’s given it to me. I owe her that in return. “I trust you to do what you feel is best.”
She throws her arms around me again. “Thank you! You’re the best mom in the world—even if you’re not the most normal one.”
You can say that again.
Is there such thing as a “normal mom?”
I’d argue no. Every mother is unique. Every mother must do what she has to, in order to protect her family—no questions asked.
No regrets.
Hopefully, she’ll never learn the extent to which I was never her ideal.
Chapter 16
House of Cards
“A great man once said, everything is about sex.
Except sex. Sex is about power.”
—Frank Underwood
Okay, kiddies, time to talk about sex! Here’s what it is—and what it isn’t:
Sex means never having to say you’re sorry. (Unlike love, which is always about saying it—and with gusto.)
Sex comes from the gut. (Unlike love, which comes from the heart.)
Sex isn’t pretty, but it’s satisfying. (Unlike love, which is beautiful, but always leaves you hungry for more.)
Sex shouldn’t be work. It should be fun. (Unlike love, which takes hard work, and is a constant challenge.)
And finally: no matter what age, sex should always be in your life. (Unlike love, which will stay with you for eternity.)
Jack and I wake to two texts. The first, from Brin, is a group missive to all Hot Housewives couples. It reads:
Congratulations, ladies, on your speedy recoveries—and your incredible overnight ratings! Because of your heroic sacrifices, once again we were Number One for the night!
We realize you may still be a bit tender, so we’ve devised an easy challenge task: a Hot Housewives Book Swap, here at the mansion. Please show up an hour earlier than airtime to get into makeup—and a new wardrobe, courtesy of the show! Feel free to bring your favorite book to share with the other housewives—and our audience! In fact, the audience will demonstrate its support by weighing in on your choice!
Speaking of which, as of this morning, we have a new vote count! I guess you’ve already figured out that Ariel’s departure works in everyone’s favor. Still ONLY ONE OF YOU CAN WIN. And as of right now, here are your vote counts:
Sienna: 739,665 (Way to go, girl! You moved up because you got the most votes for the night! Viewers can’t wait to see your new bod in your bridal attire!)
Penelope: 641,940 (Stuck in second place—again, Penelope! But if you want to win, you better up your game!)
Cassandra: 540,302 (Looks like she made the right decision to “pump it up” after all!)
Patty: 432,594 (FINALLY out of last place! And wait until they see the “new you” out of that awful muumuu!)
Donna: 331,976 (Well, girl, what do you expect? Sadly, not everyone agrees with Jack that you’re perfect. But if it’s any consolation, so far most viewers are convinced that you’re the whoring Housewife! Congrats!)
Remember: Sadly, none of these are higher than Ariel’s last count: 884,221. YOU NEED TO UP YOUR GAME!
Including tonight, only three more days on the air, so EVERY VOTE COUNTS.
“And it won’t be a day too soon,” Jack mutters. “What book are you bringing?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Most of the stuff I read nowadays is classified case files. It’s been too long since I’ve read for pleasure.” I think for a moment. “Maybe Pride and Prejudice? How can you go wrong with that?”
“Remember: every vote counts. Do you think the show’s audience is into Jane Austen?”
/> “If they’re not, I feel sorry for them! It’s got everything: romance, unrequited love, great pageantry, a gossip-hungry small town, and it ends with a wedding—oh, and a real bitch trying to ruin things for the heroine—”
Jack laughs. “You’re right. It’s the perfect read for viewers of Hot Housewives of Hilldale.”
He glances down at the second text: this one, thankfully, not from Brin, the pit viper. “It’s from Arnie. He wants to remind you that Ryan asked you to hone in on Gerald, and the sooner, the better. Somehow the CIA got its hands on Farnham’s file with Al Mukhabarat Al A'amah—Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency.”
“Does it explain why he left the country under such secret circumstances?”
Jack texts my question back to Arnie.
A minute later, we’re reading his answer:
Hard to say. As soon as we can read between all the redaction, Abu will translate—but it doesn’t look good for Farnham.
I frown. “Interesting. I would guess our suspect is tending to his missus as she recuperates.”
“As a matter of fact, Arnie wrote that Gerald is teaching at Hilldale State University. Keeping his morning classes was part of his deal with the show. However, he has a break between classes from noon to one.”
“Lucky me,” I groan. “Oh, well. I’ll head over after I drop the kids at school.”
“No, I’ll do drop-off today.” He pauses before sheepishly adding, “And then I’m heading over to Beverly Hills. Brin wants me to meet some network execs.”
I prop myself up on an elbow. “My, my! She’s pulling out all the stops to get you onboard.”
“You mean, to get us on board. No hard feelings, right? We both know I’ve got to keep her in play—just a few more days.”
I shrug. “Sure, all good. While Gerald is chasing me around a desk, you’ll be having a power lunch at Mr. Chow’s.”
Jack laughs. “Okay, yeah, something like that.” He moves in the hope of getting to second base.
I roll out of bed instead. “Sorry, no time for fun and games. I’ve got to pull together some sexy schoolgirl costume.” A thought stops me. “Hey, would an instructor bring his cell phone to class?”
