by Moriah Jovan
She talked at great length about Laura, her connection to Laura, what Laura had done for her and that she credited Laura with saving her life. She spoke of how terrified she’d been to go to Knox, but had walked out of the courthouse that day with a father figure and a mentor.
Even on paper, her love for Knox came through.
Then she spoke of Eric.
*
But don’t think I was solely motivated by honor. I was also motivated because I had, well, the teensiest weensiest tiniest little bitty crush on the big badass of Chouteau High School.
I want to clarify right here, right now, that it was a crush from afar. I was twelve, so I think I can be forgiven for being foolish that way. I had never spoken to Eric, nor he me, until a year and a half ago when I went home to Chouteau City for the first time in fourteen years, for my sister’s funeral.
I found out I had a nephew. I found out he had been named for a man who had done nothing to deserve any of the hell my mother and sister had put him through. I saw that my mother and sister had abused this kid far worse than they had me, but only because I had a fire-breathing dragon shielding me. I saw that my mother and my sister had used my nephew’s existence to make Eric Cipriani’s life miserable, to poke him and taunt him at every turn, hoping that the next poke or taunt would discredit him, bring him down. Yet Eric did as much for my nephew as he would allow. He never let my mother and sister’s evil get in the way of helping my nephew. Eric never broke, never buckled. Never used the law to persecute my mother or get revenge, never so much as raised his voice to her or my sister.
So with that all hanging over our heads, the fact that we could even have some semblance of a conversation, much less a love affair, no matter how short-lived, is pretty spectacular. Think about yourself at twelve, the boy or girl you had a crush on. Think about meeting them fourteen years later. Think about having that much shared baggage between you. Would you fall in love? Would you want to?
For years, I’ve been killing myself, trying to get where I wanted to go, to make Whittaker House this, this monument to the woman who saved my life. And then I met that incredible man. And we talked and laughed and made love and fell in love. We wanted to make it work, but too much time has passed. We have our own lives that we built.
That man, that incredible man, the one I love. He has convictions and ideals. He wants to make things better for the country. He wants to serve the greater good and he thinks his philosophies are the way to do that. I share most of his philosophies. There are tens of thousands of people out there who believe in him already and he has only begun his climb up the ladder. He has a goal and a plan. He has never not accomplished anything he set out to do and I know he’ll get exactly where he wants to go. He has asked me to come with him to help him in that endeavor, but I said no.
Too many people here depend on Whittaker House for their livelihoods and I can’t take that away from them. I have asked him to stay here with me and run Whittaker House because, you see, he’s an extraordinary manager. He makes people’s jobs easier. He trusts them to do those jobs and do them well. He believes in people and their potential. My staff loves him. The boy, my nephew, loves him like a father. But Eric said no, because all those thousands of people believe in him and they want to believe in him, and they think millions of others will believe in him, too. He believes in them and they know that.
So the next time you watch Vittles or you hear Eric Cipriani asking you to trust him with your vote, you’ll know our story. You’ll know Eric never touched me when I was a child, never so much as spoke to me. You’ll know why Eric is still single, although how long he’ll remain so—
It takes a long time to—
You’ll know why he’s still single. You’ll know the truth of our relationship. I have never met a more honorable man in my life, and letting him go is—
Eric Cipriani is the only man I have ever loved.
*
The paper fell from Eric’s hand, and he wiped his palms down his face.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“You’re welcome.”
Eric said nothing for a moment when he heard no gloating or arrogance in Glenn’s simple return. Then, “Shinkle, I— I owe you an apology.”
“Yes, you do,” Glenn retorted.
Eric had to chuckle at that, but it didn’t last. “I get it now. You might have been a pain in my ass for the last eight years—and you most likely will continue to be—”
“You got that right.”
“But I know you would never have done this to us, make up shit. You— The way you report, it— Well, it spoiled me. I didn’t really believe anybody would cut my friends and family off at the knees, because I’m used to the way you work.”
Glenn nodded. “You made fun of me for not getting Knox’s non-scam because, well, yeah, I would’ve won a Pulitzer if I’d figured out how to prove he wasn’t on the take at all. Busted that whole thing open about his uncle and OKH Enterprises—proved and printed what half the country already suspected. Yeah, that would’ve put me on the map.”
Eric swallowed.
“But I knew it. In my gut, I mean. I couldn’t find anybody who’d paid him off. I must have interviewed every person in Chouteau County. I just . . . couldn’t prove a negative.” He stopped. Began again. “You know, I’m almost sixty. I’ve spent my whole life trying to do this right, getting bypassed by reporters who took shots in the dark and became celebrities, but never suffered the consequences when they got it wrong. I’ve tried to be honorable about it, barely scraping my paper out of the red each month, while amateurs went online and blogged all the way around me without any sense of responsibility.”
Eric sighed. “I’m sorry, Glenn.”
“It’s not just about you, Eric. It’s about the whole system. The way technology’s changed things. The way society’s changed. We’re a bunch of bored Romans waiting for the next gladiator fight at the coliseum.”
It sounded so harsh, but Eric had no retort for it.
“Don’t think I’m going to quit dogging your heels because Knox was wrong to murder Parley and you are wrong for covering for him, but . . . ”
“It’s because Vanessa was nice to you,” Eric said low.
“No,” Glenn said. “All I care about is fact. Truth I can verify.”
“And it finally paid off.”
“Yes. Because you trusted me enough to come to me when Afton first approached you. You knew I wouldn’t lie to you about what I knew versus what I’d printed.”
Eric closed his eyes to think about that one act, prompted by the subconscious understanding Glenn wouldn’t be unscrupulous with whatever Eric told him.
“You know I’ve been after Afton for years,” he continued, “and never printed a thing until Knox . . . He isn’t so much a white-collar prosecutor as a forensic accountant.”
“How do you think he pulled off that scam so long?”
“Right. Anyway, I couldn’t have followed Afton’s real estate deals myself or proven it without Knox to show me exactly how it was done.”
“But you’d still bust out Knox if you could.”
“You better believe it. He didn’t come to me out of the kindness of his heart. He did it because he knew I’d print it. It was an equitable trade-off. Afton gets exposed and out of your way. I get my Pulitzer nomination and now my blog’s getting enough traffic to make some money.” Glenn laughed suddenly. “Enlightened self-interest at work.”
Eric smiled wryly and shook his head.
“Look,” Glenn grunted as he hauled his squat frame out of the chair and headed to the door. “I’m the last guy to give advice about— Because, since, as you so astutely pointed out, I spent Thanksgiving with my cat.” Eric found it sad he was so matter-of-fact about it. “But in the big scheme of things, politics aren’t . . . Some things are more important.”
* * * * *
44: God Hates a Coward
April 2011
Vanessa sat in her office
chair and watched out the window as her April-green southwest field got systematically scraped and run over and turned by earth movers that, from this distance, were about the size of cars and all the men with shovels looked about as tall as ants.
This was it, the final brick in her vision of Whittaker House.
“I don’t even golf,” she muttered, wondering if Eric would like what he’d designed.
She wondered that a lot.
Sunlight glinted in starbursts off the lake when the breeze rippled the surface of the water. The pear trees were in full blossom, all puffy white and without a care in the world. She could hear a tractor’s drone; by the end of the day, five acres of lawn would have the precise wide crosshatch pattern of a professional baseball outfield. The faintest echo of gunshots from the northwest field let Vanessa know Vachel and the conservation rangers had finally nailed the damned bear that had spent the last month wreaking havoc all over her property.
For ol’ Curtis’s sake, her employees’, and her guests, she’d asked the Conservation Department to deal with the animal. They’d tagged the bear, relocated him, tracked him back—twice—and had been preparing to capture and relocate him a third time.
When the bear did indeed take out Curtis’s front door and nearly killed a couple of teenagers out for a nice afternoon hike, Vanessa had panicked. No more tracking. No more relocation. You kill that bastard—today—or I’ll get every gun in this county out for his hide. It was a worthless threat, but the rangers were already on it.
She’d never butchered a bear before, but then, the state might not let her keep it, even though it had lived and died on her land.
Well, not all her land.
Yet.
OKH still owned half, but Eilis didn’t want it and had encouraged Vanessa to start buying it out.
“For me, it’s a hassle,” Eilis said. “It’s yours. Your dream, your vision. You’re in a good place now and you’ve earned it.”
Indeed. Vanessa could afford to start buying out OKH’s share now, but every time Knox asked her if she wanted him to make a payment toward that, she said no.
“Why not?” he’d ask, completely puzzled.
She’d shrug and go find something else to do.
Her email pinged.
*
Subject: [no subject]
Reply-to: [email protected]
trixies got an attitude. i didnt know they got that way til they hit puberty. i must of been really bad in a past life to have to deal with this but her and mel dont get along and she dont like i take mels side. she thought her daddy’d come back one day and save her from big bad mommy-had to get that idea out of her head fast.
the blowback from ur little maskerade shit storm last winter ain’t stopped here yet.
u might of put all those bastards in their place plus that bitch mother of yours, but this goddam blogger and his buddies still wont leave mel alone. im about to fix that fucker and the bastards that want mels land cuz shes got water rights. your old man hilliards coming in mighty handy right about now, all bored and itching for a fight.
nil carborundum illegitimi. didnt know i knew latin huh? my daddy used to say that to me. had to look it up to spell it right tho. u do what u need to do about whether u cop to our affair or not, things cant get much worse here if u speak up.
i know u didnt ask for my advise but whatever u got left with ur boy, u maybe should think about why ur throwing that away for a building.
stand in *2
*
Vanessa read it. Re-read it. She hadn’t spoken with Nash since she’d called him and told him not to come back to Mansfield at all, and she didn’t know him well enough to be able to read between the lines as to what was happening between him and his ex. At the very least, he was still in Bozeman and had apparently taken a solid place in his daughter’s life in the last six months.
Why had he felt a need to stick his nose in her business? Except, well, the press had made Vanessa’s business “Doc Mel’s” business, who was innocent of the whole thing. Collateral damage. Like Vachel. And Nash’s little girl, attitude and all.
The only thing she could be grateful for was that her life was back to Whittaker House normal, the press had backed off and apparently forgotten about her, and LaVon had completely disappeared.
For the time being.
Vanessa sighed and went to beg the rangers to let her keep that bear.
On the way, she stopped in the kitchen to take a good look at it and how well it functioned. Vanessa had known what she wanted in her kitchen and had pushed Nia and Étienne until they caught her vision, to have as much faith in her design as she did. The Whittaker House kitchen was a machine unto itself, now copied in several new restaurants around the world.
Vanessa had built this.
She walked out the back door, across the veranda, down the stairs, and started up the pansy-flanked cobblestone drive toward the garage. A sweet spring breeze ruffled the little wisps of hair around her face and she could smell the cherry blossoms. It had been a day like this when she’d lain in the grass nude while Maxim photography assistants sprinkled cherry and pear and lilac blossoms over her body. Seemed so long ago now.
She heard the screeches and squeals of children on the playground: The first Saturday morning of every month, all the children from church arrived at Whittaker House to play for a couple of hours while their mothers sat on the veranda resting, talking, laughing, drinking an innocuous punch, and eating cookies.
Vanessa’s steps slowed and she turned to walk backward, to look at Whittaker House in all its solar-powered, energy-efficient, nineteenth-century glory. No matter how long she’d lived here, she’d find herself stricken by its devastating magnificence at odd moments. Most days she didn’t dare stand and gawk because the knowledge that she had built that—the little girl from Chouteau Acres Mobile Home Park—was almost a crushing weight, as if she couldn’t possibly have accomplished that, as if she had perpetrated a great fraud upon the world.
Her pet missionaries drove past her with a wave, a cheery “Bye, Sister Whittaker!” floating back to her. They were funny: nineteen-year-old boys who sacrificed two years of their lives and upwards of five hundred dollars a month to preach their faith because they thought God wanted them to, thus, important.
I’ve been thinking about what you said about politicians like you and you’re right. You’re important. Governor Cipriani. President Cipriani. It’s just— Here, it’s— This isn’t where you need to be. You have so much to give to the world, things it needs. Leadership. Philosophy. Sacrifice. Protection for people like me, while I . . . cook for rich people.
Vanessa had no need for power and she was comfortable with her meager fame. Politics annoyed her, and whenever she heard the word “fundraising,” she sneered. That money could be spent in so many better ways than getting one man a job.
It’s because of politicians like me that you got your golf course. We work to keep the politicians you don’t like out of your way.
She sighed and went to get her ATV out of the garage. As she hooked a trailer to it, she heard the faint rumble of the bulldozers that were building the golf course politicians like Eric had helped her get, the golf course Eric had helped design.
“Oh, Eric,” Vanessa whispered as she threw her leg over the seat. She sat there for a moment, her nose stinging and her vision blurring, then realized that the idea of butchering a bear held no thrill for her at all.
She got off the bike and headed back to her office to make a phone call.
*
Eric sat on his couch, his feet up on the coffee table and bracing his laptop, tap- tap-tapping away at his latest article and getting more and more frustrated with it. He yawned and looked at the clock. One-thirty in the morning.
“Shit,” he murmured to no one.
Which was the problem.
Now he understood Knox’s years-long tussle with insomnia that had only gotten worse once he’d met Justice.
He p
icked up his dog-eared Thanksgiving edition of the Chouteau Recorder.
I have an idea.
Justice’s voice echoed in his head while he read and re-read Vanessa’s love letter to him.
About what?
Well, you and Vanessa, how you can—
Does this involve me giving up my career or her giving up hers?
Well, kind of. Maybe. I’m not sure yet.
Okay, well, the RNC is scheduled to call me in five minutes to grovel at my feet. Let me know when you have it all worked out.
Eric started when his apartment door burst open and Annie came struggling in, cursing at her dripping umbrella and rolling suitcase piled with her laptop case.
“I’m back,” she huffed in his general direction while she tugged and tugged to get her suitcase over the threshold.
“I see that,” Eric muttered mostly to himself, as he watched her. “Does your mother know about this?”
“Fuck no,” Annie snapped. “And don’t tell her, either.”
“What happened in Omaha?”
“Just . . . None of your business.”
“A man or a woman?”
“Man!” she spat. “I hate you all.” With one tug, she got the case over the threshold, but she fell on her ass, which made her hit her head against a wall—“Ow!”—which knocked her glasses clear across the tile floor of the kitchen. “Shit!” She crawled on the floor to find her glasses, patting tiles as she went. He’d forgotten how blind she was. “Go find Judge Wilson,” she said once she’d found them and put them back on her face. “You and I are getting married.”
