House of Secrets - v4 (15 page)

A
ndy’s promotional schedule called for the weekend to be spent in the Boston area. There had been some talk midweek about canceling the senator’s appearances due to the injury to his head, but Andy had assured his publicist that he was fine and more than capable of making the trek.

Andy and Christine had decided to make it a getaway weekend for the two of them. On Friday morning, Christine packed an overnight bag for Michelle. Their daughter would be staying with Whitney and Jenny for the weekend. Michelle’s best friend, Emily, was going with her. Paul Jordan was picking the girls up after classes at Little Red and driving them up to Greenwich in the Bentley. Christine felt a little uneasy with the plan — the privileged princesses scene was not one she enjoyed promoting — but she was simply too busy to run the girls up herself after school and still catch the shuttle in time to make the seven o’clock event in Boston.

Michelle got her fifty-seventh cupcake of the year at Boho, a little miffed when she learned that her secret boyfriend had called in sick. After her morning cappuccino, Christine swung by the framers on Hudson Street. At Easter her father had requested that Christine be sure to snap at least one photograph of each child so that he could present the photographs to the parents as mementos of the afternoon. A classic Whitney touch. Christine had chosen an array of brightly colored wooden frames for the pictures. The order was ready, but none of the frames had been wrapped for protection. Christine helped the clerk wrap the frames in brown paper and she left with them in a shopping bag. Retracing her steps, she dropped the bag off with the receptionist at Little Red, to give to Michelle to take up to Granddad.

Christine’s appointment was in SoHo, at a place on Greene Street she’d been going to for five or six years. As she headed east on Prince Street she spotted a woman emerging from a residential building midblock. Christine grabbed her camera and fired off a series of shots as the woman crossed the street directly in front of her. The woman disappeared into a café, and Christine continued on to her appointment.

“Here,” she said as she took her seat. She held up her camera, scrolling through the most recent images. “Do that.”

A
ndy had flown up earlier in the day from D.C. to put in an appearance at an afternoon talk-news-entertainment program called
Your World
, which broadcast in the Boston area at noon. Despite his request that the issue of the vice president’s current “situation” be left out of the discussion (“I’m here to push product,” Andy had joked, waving his book in the air), the bewitching Lebanese-Australian co-host of the show had pressed him nonetheless.

“Seriously, Senator. If you’re not aware that your name is being bandied about as a possible replacement for Vice President Wyeth, then you are seriously out of touch.”

Andy’s reply had been that if in fact he was so out of touch, then what sort of vice president did she really think he would make? The woman had flashed her chocolate eyes mischievously.

“Oh. A very handsome one. We already know that much.”

Andy made a scheduled appearance that afternoon at Booksmith in Brookline, where he spoke briefly about his book to a sizable crowd, then settled in at a table to sign copies. Two local news outfits had sent crews to the store, but this time the publicist was able to act as a firewall and insist that the crews only take footage of the event; there would be no interviewing the senator. Of course, there was nothing to keep the customers who were lined up to get their books signed from expressing their thoughts to Andy about the current uncertainties within the Beltway. Andy fielded the comments with a practiced nonchalance, disarming jokes, declarations of his complete confidence in the system and the American people: his ready arsenal of nonresponse responses.

The evening’s event was at a bookstore in Cambridge, and all of the chairs were filled by the time Andy and his publicist arrived. The standing-room-only crowd extended back from the events area all the way to the magazines section. The publicist was pleased.

Just before the senator was scheduled to begin his talk, a woman with tousled ginger-colored bangs and a terrifically appealing smile materialized in front of him and planted a kiss on his lips. A flash of confusion played over Andy’s face, then he caught hold of the woman’s arms.

“My God. Mrs. Miniver. Is that you?”

Christine poked her fingers into her hair. “Spur of the moment. You like it?”

“You look fantastic.”

She gave him a playful scowl. “And how did I look before?”

Andy laughed. “I’m sorry, lady, but is the word
stupid
tattooed on my forehead? You could be wearing a gunnysack and be as bald as a cue ball and I’d still see my sweet, loving angel.”

Christine’s eyes rolled. “Oh my God, please. I flew all the way up here for a crock like that?”

Andy introduced Christine to the publicist, and the two chatted while Andy had a word with the bookstore’s point person about his introduction. The publicist told Christine that he had reserved a chair for her in the front row, but Christine said she would prefer to stand.

“I’d like to take some pictures. Will that be a problem?”

She was assured that it wouldn’t be. The bookstore rep introduced Andy to the crowd, and the senator launched into his spiel. The spiel was mainly canned, but Andy was good at making it sound fresh. His eyes traveled across the faces before him, connecting directly with as many as possible. Generally, they laughed where he wanted them to and were rapt where they should be rapt. Andy was a little annoyed when another TV news crew appeared halfway through his presentation and flicked on its glaring lights, but he did his best not to let on.

Considerably more distracting than the camera lights was his own wife. Andy was long accustomed to Christine’s darting about with her camera, but tonight was different. Andy had not merely been playing spouse politics when he’d told Christine that her new hairstyle looked fantastic. It did. Not that she needed any years trimmed off, but the more casual style served that function anyway. On a whim, Andy decided to bypass the several excerpts he usually chose to read from and instead read from the section he had written about his first encounter with the daughter of then-ambassador Hoyt, back in their college days. Christine was standing off to the side of the crowd, some twenty or so rows back, and when she heard what her husband was reading, she stopped taking pictures and lowered her camera. As Andy recounted those golden days of their first getting to know each other, Christine was surprised to realize that tears were rising into her eyes. No less so than when Andy brought the section to a nifty close.

“To this day she has remained the source of light in my life.”

He closed the book and gestured toward the woman with the glistening eyes and the camera slung around her neck.

“I ask you. Am I not right? Is she not absolutely radiant?”

H
ours later, Andy and Christine made love for the first time in over a week. The hotel bed was huge and the couple hungrily explored its acreage. As his wife moved slickly beneath him, so perfectly calibrated with his own movements, Andy swore to himself yet again that his silly risky days were behind him. Why in the world would he unnecessarily put his perfect, perfect life in peril?

Was the word
stupid
tattooed on his forehead?

Andy was resolved. Christine was all the woman he ever needed. Ever. The visceral relief that surged through his system as this determination announced itself to him was palpable. Christine felt it. She squirmed beneath him, trying to accommodate this very evident infusion of energy that was inhabiting her husband.

“Jesus, Andy,” she whispered into his rough cheek. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…”

A
fter a late breakfast, the Fosters rented a car and drove up to Marblehead for some beach time. A skittish wind forced them into purchasing a pair of heavy sweatshirts before they headed out onto the sand.

Christine made a point of keeping her camera in the car. She loved the rough ocean here and the massive black boulders scattered about the sand, and she could handily have taken dozens of pictures. But she didn’t. For once, her instinct was to put the camera aside and enjoy the time with her husband unfiltered.

Christine and Andy had still barely broached the subject of the Chris Wyeth mess. Andy had flown back to D.C. first thing the Monday morning after Easter, and their several phone conversations over the week had drifted in other directions. Besides which, Christine told herself, Chris made his play to the nation on television the other night, professing his innocence of all alleged charges. He was going to fight this thing. The whole question could well be moot.

An elderly couple walking the opposite direction on the beach recognized Senator Andy. They were solid New England Yankees with lined, weathered faces and cotton-white hair, their worn and faded casual garb the slightly shabbier cousins of what nowadays fills the pages of the L.L.Bean and Lands’ End catalogs. The man immediately engaged Andy on the subject of the vice presidency mess. The couple bookended Andy, giving him little space to escape. Christine was able to wander off without objection. She stepped down to the flat sand, bracing herself against the first rush of water as it rushed up to her ankles.

Gazing on the turbulent water, Christine allowed herself to admit how much anger had been crashing about within her of late. It seemed so plainly evident now that her husband had been moving in and out of a sort of fugue state over the past week. Or at least as fugue as someone such as Andy was likely to get. Naturally, the Chris Wyeth issue was weighing on his mind. Not only was there hanging in the air the surreal possibility of Andy’s being asked by President Hyland to consider stepping into the potential void, but for goodness’ sake, Chris Wyeth was such an old acquaintance of Andy’s! There was a lot of history there. It was only natural that Andy would be preoccupied with his friend’s troubles. Those moments of drift that Christine could now identify in her husband over the past six or seven days were perfectly natural. In one way of looking at it, it was insensitive of Christine not to draw Andy out on the matter. At least to the point of finding out if he wanted to discuss it.

Andy stepped up behind her. The Yankee septuagenarians had finished with their grilling and were continuing down the coast. He wrapped his arms around Christine, and the two stood in a long silence, watching the waves of the ocean do what waves of the ocean do.

Christine bit down gently on her lip.
Not now
, she said to herself.
Not yet
.

T
hey made love again back at the hotel, then fell into a pair of heavy naps. Christine rose more groggily from hers, and even after her shower she still felt a little as if she had been drugged. She towel-dried her hair and swept it into place with her fingers.

Nice.

Andy was to be interviewed that evening onstage at the JFK School of Government, in front of a paying audience. There would be a reception afterward, then a late dinner at the Beacon Hill home of Andy’s Massachusetts counterpart in the Senate.

While the two were getting dressed, Jim Fergus called. Andy took the call in his black socks and boxers, his white oxford shirt halfway buttoned. The conversation was short, though still long enough to irritate him. Christine, over by the dresser putting on her earrings, watched him in the mirror.

“Well, Jim,” Andy said testily. “How much nicer if you could just be up onstage and do all the damn talking for me. How about that? I’ll just sit off to the side looking cute.”

He flipped the phone closed and tossed it onto the bed. “I should have been a fucking Yorkshire sheep farmer,” he muttered. The comment was a standing joke between Andy and Christine. Its intention was for levity, but Andy’s mood seeped through completely.