Red Blooded (20 page)

Right about the time Patrick Swayze is starting to get the rowdy bar in shape, I head to the kitchen to get everyone another round. Dylan follows me and pulls me aside. He whispers in my ear. “Sorry I left you alone with Caroline.”

“I like her,” I say.

He smiles.

“And she talked some sense into me.”

“Oh?” his eyes glint.

“Yeah.” I lean against the counter. “I realize now that I’ve been selfish. I don’t want you to jeopardize your career for me. I don’t need to go to the reading tomorrow.” There’s a pit in my stomach as I look down and swallow back some stupid tears.

“Hey, hey,” he says, lifting my chin up. “Just tell me this—why now? Why not in three weeks?”

“Because I don’t know if I’ll be around in three weeks. None of us do. Important things should be done as soon as possible.” There were too many things my dad and I waited to do. Too many things we saved for “later.” Warm tears glide down my cheeks.

“Then we’re going.” Dylan says, before pulling me into a hug.

With his chin over my head and his hand rubbing my back, I whisper, “Thank you.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Students swarm and chitter-chatter echoes off the walls in the atrium. I’ve got a hipster hat on—it’s large and knit and purple and it covers every strand of my fiery hair. If that isn’t enough, I also have on secretary glasses.

Visiting Yale to see my boyfriend’s friends is one thing. Attending a book reading by a prominent politician on the other side of the aisle would only cause the campaign a headache. Sure, maybe I’m open-minded. It could be swung the right way. Everything could be swung the right way. But that would take resources and effort and there’d still be bobbing talking heads who would wonder. “Is Peyton really a Republican?” Or, worse: “Is it a coincidence that Representative Roberts has red hair?” And then maybe it wouldn’t be so long before it got out that he and my aunt attended a formal together.

Would that be so bad? Wouldn’t it clear everything up?

But it affects too many people for me to make that kind of decision on my own.

Dylan wears glasses too. This makes the entire situation exponentially worse—he looks adorable in glasses.

When we step in, someone jostles me hard, and I almost fall. I grab for my hat as Dylan’s hand curves around my wrist and soon his fingers dance along my neck. Okay, he’s just shoving pieces of my hair back under my cap, but the sensation, especially against the soft spot of my ear, makes me tingle. I push away, but he holds on.

“This way.” He points to a few opens seats in the back.

We settle in and wait through a long spiel by a guy in a bowtie about how important it was for him to join the Yale College Republicans, who organized this reading.

Yawn.

Finally, he introduces Representative Roberts, who stands up. He makes a quip about a dining club that I don’t get, but Dylan stifles a laugh. Roberts pulls out some glasses of his own before looking at his text, ready to read.

I know, I know, debate is good for society. I remind myself of that (or at least try) when I get upset about what some politicians espouse. But this is my biological father. Sure, I realize the point of this book is to raise his profile and get his policy ideas out there. But, how can he be talking about how he accepts gay citizens but thinks gay marriage is unnatural? How can he say that we should lower taxes on the rich to reward their success? How can he say that we need to implement a massive system for deporting undocumented immigrants, even those who came into the country as kids?

I fold my arms in my seat and try to tame my breathing. He’s nothing like my real dad.

I will myself to keep it together. Dylan brings his arm around me and pulls my face into his chest. He smells like detergent. Boy detergent.

I look up and whisper, “I wish I knew what he thought of me.”

Dylan stares at me, his eyes deep and warm.

At the end, Representative Roberts opens the floor to questions. A few eager young libertarians ask him about unions and abortion, and one cocky liberal demands to know why he voted against a bill on equal pay. Finally, it’s time for everyone to shuffle into a line to get their books signed.

As we get up, Dylan says, “This is risky.”

I get in line. “Some things are worth the risk.”

He doesn’t miss a beat as he stands behind me. “You’re right.”

Our hesitation means we’re pretty much last in line. Only a few additional stragglers form behind us. With each step forward, I dig my fingernails harder into my palms.

When it’s our turn, Representative Roberts takes our book and, without looking up, he asks, “Who do you want me to make this out to, and is there anything in particular you’d like me to write?”

My heart beats against my insides as I do my best to look inconspicuous. “I was just curious,” I say. “While you were at Yale, did you do anything that you thought was a mistake, or, you know, it could have been perceived as a mistake, but it wasn’t?”

Representative Roberts, with his head bent over the book, looks like a mannequin. He’s so frozen that if I pushed him, he’d probably fall in one solid block. Timber.

My heart yammers as our matching amber eyes make contact. He stares for a long time before looking back down and tapping his pen against the book. I grasp onto the edges of my skirt and feel like I am about to drown in his nonresponse.

Finally, he says, “No, I don’t make mistakes.”

He scribbles in the book and hands it to me.

“Next,” Roberts says, looking past us.

Chapter Forty

We rushed to the hospital the day Peyton was born
,
despite the torrential weather.
Much of it is a blur
,
but I remember clearly the first time someone handed her to me.
Her tiny little head fit perfectly in the crook of my elbow.
Her small lips twitched and her eyes flickered with brand new life.

“
We belong to each other now
,”
I
told her.
“
No matter what happens
,
that will always be true.
”

* * *

My nose runs and I don’t have tissues, so I have to use my jacket. Yeah, it’s gross, but it’s better than having goo all over my upper lip, right? I try to tame my jaw, but it jiggles and wiggles anyway. Dylan frowns, then he pulls me into him with one arm, his chin on my hair, his hands on me, soothing.

“He’s a jerk. We knew that. Plus, we still don’t even know if he actually is your dad. Hopefully he isn’t, hopefully your aunt did it with some guy who just had the recessive gene or something or...”

“Please stop talking,” I whisper into his chest. I’m sure some more snot gets on his sweater. It’s a nice sweater too, unlike the glorious but pajama-appropriate waffle shirt I cried all over at my grandparents’ house. Whoops. Either he doesn’t notice or he’s an even better guy than I thought.

Fuck.

I turn around, wiping my face and trying to see if I left a water mark on his sweater. No. Good. We walk toward the exit. “Want me to just throw this away?” He holds up the book.

“Yeah,” I mumble.

He tosses it into the garbage next to a partially consumed, browning apple and a couple of drained Coke bottles.

The book belongs there. The book is trash, right? But something in me quakes.

I walk back to it, slowly.

“What are you doing?” Dylan asks.

“I wonder what he wrote.”

Dylan’s shoulders loosen. “Okay, but I don’t want you to be disappointed if he just signed his name or something.”

“Well, I will be.” I reach into the bin and pull out the book. “But that’s okay.”

I run my hand along the binding, before pulling it back.

Room 355

My mouth hangs open as my breathing picks up. Dylan rushes to me and reads over my shoulder, his hand on my back.

“Well, shit,” he says.

We walk through the crowded atrium. There’s no line for books anymore. Roberts is gone. We keep our faces to the ground, just in case anyone recognizes us, and find a stairwell. We walk up the three flights. At the door, I lean against the cold, gray wall. Dylan leans against the railing as I stare at my hands. “What am I supposed to say to him?”

“I don’t know,” Dylan says.

My thoughts bubble over with excitement and nervousness until Dylan rubs my shoulder. We walk down an unglamorous hallway, until we get to room 355. A man stands in front with crossed arms. When he sees us, he nods. “Let me see if he’s ready for you.”

Something flips and squirms in my stomach. Representative Roberts must have wrapped up the book signing quickly after our turn. The man knocks, and the door opens. But it’s some other guy. He gives me a strange look as Roberts’s unmistakable voice emanates from the room. “Jerry, you know those fuckers won’t get anywhere with that.”

The man who opened the door frowns at me. He raises his eyebrow at the other guy. “This is not a good idea,” he says as he opens the door wider and steps back for me to enter. I walk. Dylan is close behind, but the man presses against Dylan’s shoulder. “Just Peyton.”

Dylan opens his mouth, about to protest, but I put my hand up. “It’s okay. I can handle this.”

Dylan nods. “I’ll be right here.” He points to the spot outside the door.

“Okay, but unless you hear me scream bloody murder, maybe don’t break down the door and come to my rescue?”

His cheek twitches, but it’s not exactly a smile.

I walk in the room, which is an elegant office with ornate furnishings and a large, mahogany desk. A couch and a few chairs exist as islands in the center. Representative Roberts catches my gaze and his eyes widen.

“Look, Jerry,” he says into his cell, “I’ve got to go.” He darts his gaze to me and then back to the floor as he listens. “You figure it out, okay?”

He hangs up the phone and slips it in his pocket. As I walk closer to him, he clears his throat. His shoulders fold in. He stands behind a big chair, like he’s hiding behind it. His fingers race back and forth on the fabric.

I don’t say anything because I don’t know what to say. Even if I felt bold enough to launch into the whole father thing, which the sour feeling behind my throat suggests is not the case, it wouldn’t be smart. He’s not only
not
on our side; he’s on the other side. If I burst out with it, and I’m wrong, he’ll have something to hang us with. And it’ll be all my fault that my mom lost her chance, that the country won’t have her as the valuable leader that she could be.

All my fault.

Shit, what was I doing? I twist my lips and look at the floor.

He clears his throat. Again.

Finally, he moves out from behind the chair, taking two steps hesitantly toward me before he stops. He runs his hands through his hair. “I’m not sure how to start this conversation.”

I look up. “Me neither.”

He smiles. It’s a small, little thin smile. It’s a vulnerable smile.

I smile too.

He rubs his neck and then his forehead. “Why did you come tonight?”

I take a risk. “I was hoping to talk to you.”

He nods and paces for a moment. “About...”

I’m not going to give him that. I look to a mirror hanging where a painting would fit better. In the mirror, we mirror each other. He’s taller, but only by a few inches, and our hair matches except his is brighter, but it’s our postures, slouched, defeated, that really reflect.

“I think you know,” I say.

He closes his eyes and brings his hands, palm to palm, to his lips.

“You must hate me.” He moves his hands away from his face.

“Why?”

He paces again, and returns to the chair, pulling at a thread. “I assume your aunt, your mom, they told you?”

He looks up, and, for the first time, I know it. It
is
true. Rocks seem to drop inside me. This thing I suspected, I thought I knew but I didn’t really. I thought maybe I was on a wild goose chase, but no. Hot waves crash and burn. He’s my father. Sadness and happiness and a dozen other emotions rush over me and I start to cry again, but only a little. I swallow the burning tears back.

“I don’t hate you.” I shake my head and move around to the chair. I sit down and clutch my knees. They’re only knees but they’re something to hold onto. “But yes, they told me. You’re my...”

I can’t say it.

My dad, no matter what some biology test would say, was and is still my dad. My real dad.

I wave my hand in the air as though I’m hurtling away all the guilty thoughts. “You’re my biological...”

Even with the qualifier I can’t go on.

“I was really young,” he says. “And I didn’t know about you. Well, until...”

“I know.”

He looks back at the thread he’s been playing with. “They kept it from me.”

“I know.” I stand up. It’s silly for me to sit while he stands. We can both stand. “Until they stopped keeping it from you. Four years ago.”

He raises his eyebrows.

“They said you didn’t want to have anything to do with me,” I say.

His face droops, as though I took a nine iron and hit him in the belt-buckle. He opens his mouth, but it just hangs there for a long time. “It’s not that simple.”

“I know,” I say, rubbing my toe into the carpet and then hugging myself. “You’re married and a congressional leader and—”

He comes around the chair and takes three quick steps toward me. “No, Peyton, I don’t think you understand. Yes, I reacted badly when they first told me. I was surprised and angry. But then, after I calmed down, I talked to Kaylie about it. She’s an incredibly gracious woman. She wanted me to figure out a way to be part of your life. And I wanted to too.”

He leans toward me, forehead furrowed. “But a congressman can’t just start taking a Senator’s teenage daughter to baseball games. He can’t just start grabbing a frozen yogurt with the granddaughter of a retired Senator.”

“So, why didn’t you just come out with it? Say the truth.”

He straightens his jacket and shakes his head. “I thought about it. I even ran a poll to see if I could still get re-elected, and the advisors said if I handled it right, especially given that I didn’t even know about you, well, it might have been okay. But it probably would have destroyed your mom. She kept this secret from the public, from you, for this long. And Victoria would have had to deal with all the publicity too. It would be too goddamn titillating. There’d be a media circus.”

I rub my temples with the base of my palms and close my eyes really hard. “They didn’t want anyone to know.”

“We were thinking of you, too, Peyton. None of us wanted that attention for you. And we didn’t want you to have to keep this a secret, either. We didn’t want you to have to sneak over to my house for dinner twice a month.”

“You could have asked me what I wanted,” I say, voice strong and face feeling hot.

He looks at the ground and nods. “We could have.” He runs both hands through his hair. “And I’m not a saint here. I didn’t push them to come out with it. Honestly, I was...relieved that they didn’t want to. But, these past few years have been harder than I thought they would be. Kaylie would welcome you. She’s always wanted a girl. Tate and Jackson would be surprised, but I think they’d be able to handle it too.”

I didn’t think my chest could freeze and heave at the same time but it does. My mouth fills with water and my eyes pour forth with even more tears.

“I’m sorry,” he says, coming toward me, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. “Please don’t cry.”

I wipe the satiny fabric under my eyes, against my cheek. “This whole time,” I say, between hiccups. “I thought I was looking for my biological dad. I didn’t even think about it, till right now...”

“Think about what?” he asks.

My mouth is salty, but also grateful. “I have brothers.”

And there his smile is again, this strange thing that certainly never appeared when he was talking to reporters or lamenting tax hikes next to pundits or criticizing the Democrats’ proposed immigration policy. It’s warm, almost airy. “You have brothers.”

We share this goofy, weird smile before I look back at the carpet.

“So...what do we do?” I ignore the tension in my forehead.

“Two weeks before the election would be the worst time for your mom to come forward with this,” he says. “I don’t think you want that to happen.”

“Is that a threat?” I ask, tensing.

He cocks his head. “Peyton, I know you probably don’t think that highly of me, but I’m not always a cutthroat bastard. Just when, you know, the risk is worth it.” He smiles again, not necessarily warm, but mischievous. “I don’t mind breaking a few balls on my way up, but I’m not about to make my daughter’s life hell, and hurt my own reputation in the process, on the chance it would shift an election.” He shakes his head. “There are only two things in life more important than politics, and one of those is family.”

“What’s the other?” I ask. “God?”

He laughs. “No, the other is the Harvard-Yale game.”

I laugh. “Of course.”

He cracks his knuckles and looks out the window. “If Ruiz wins, and, despite what I’m saying when I’m on the morning shows, it looks like he’s going to, your mom will need to be focused. The country will need to be focused. I just don’t see a good time for this to come out in the near future.”

“Maybe there will never be a good time?”

He stops cracking his knuckles, his hands in midair for a second, before he walks over to the desk. He scrawls something on a piece of paper.

He comes back and holds the paper out to me. Then pulls it back. “I know this is a pitiful offering, but...” He places it in my hand. It’s an email and a phone number. “My personal contact information.” He stiffens. “But don’t use it until...well...”

“After the election.” I grip the paper harder. Everything must wait until after the election.

“It’s not worth the risk,” he continues. “After that, I’d like to know what you’re up to, and not just by watching every interview you have.”

“You’ve been doing that?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says. “Kaylie records all of your appearances. You’ve grown up into a fine young lady. Poised, intelligent...passionate.” He frowns and waves his hand. “I’m disappointed that you’re a Democrat, of course, but nobody’s kid is perfect.”

I laugh. “Yeah, yeah.”

“But I was really impressed that you chose to address some of the problems with teachers’ unions on Marie Boucher’s show,” he says.

“I was just speaking for myself,” I say, fingers curling into my palms.

“As you should have. It was still brave to deviate from your party like that. Independent thought is vital to our society. And despite what I say publicly, neither party has everything right.”

“No, they don’t.” I fold the piece of paper, carefully putting it into my pocket. “I hope one day we can have more than this, but I understand.”

“Will you be okay?” he asks. “You have someone here, with you. Right? I think I recognized the guy standing next to you. He’s Dylan, right? Your...boyfriend? How are things going with you two?”

I shake my head. “Not great. I’ve given him every reason not to trust me. I hate that my mom lied to me, but then I turn around and lie to someone I care about. I’ve dragged him into so much.”

Roberts scratches his chin. “Well, we all dragged you into a difficult situation to begin with. Hopefully he’ll understand that.”

“Hopefully.”

He put his hands in his pockets. “I’m glad you inherited your aunt’s calmness. If I were you, I’d probably be screaming at me for being such a fucking dick. But you’re just like her. Poised.”

“Thanks.” I turn back, before opening the door. “I do have this tendency though, to be stubborn sometimes. To push my way through to get what I want, make people understand me. And to get really angry. I guess I can be a dick sometimes too.”