(Honey
was preferred by voters by a substantial margin over
darling
—too elitist—
sweetheart
—too loverly—and
dear
—too old-fashioned; so, thanks to Quinlan,
honey
was what Lewis now called her every chance he got. For her part Ronnie had managed maybe two
honeys
in two weeks. The endearment stuck in her throat every time she tried to utter it; one of these days she was afraid she might choke on it. If she did, that would be Quinlan’s fault too.)
Although Ronnie’s eyes were closed and she was doing her best to pretend she was alone in the car, Quinlan spoke to her: “Tomorrow, at that university-women thing, when you’re taking questions from the floor, if you’re asked about Doreen Cooper …”
Doreen Cooper was the name of the prostitute Lewis had visited about once a week for the last year whenever he was in Washington. The one who had tape-recorded her conversations with him, had taken pictures of them together, and told the world all about Lewis’s preferences in bed.
“… just say that you view what happened as a test of your marriage, which is now stronger than ever.”
“I know what to say.” Ronnie’s eyes snapped open, and she fixed an unsmiling gaze on Quinlan, who was sitting directly across from her.
He smiled soothingly at her. Handling her was his job, and he was working hard at it. So far it had been rough going, she knew.
“I know you do,” he said. “You’re doing just great. But this question-and-answer thing tomorrow is the first time you’ve spoken in public in such an open forum since the story broke. Just keep repeating the same answer in different ways: ‘It was a real test, but it is behind us.’ ‘Marriage is a challenge at best, and this incident has tested ours. But as a couple we’re stronger than ever.’ ‘The problem is now behind us.’ The key words are
test, challenge
, and
behind us.
”
“Do you want me to write them on my palm in ink so I won’t forget?” Her sarcasm was punctuated by glittering eyes that fixed him through the gloom. She was getting tired of being fed words over and over again like an idiot parrot.
“Just don’t let them throw you.” He was imperturbable, just as he had been all along. No matter how angry some of his suggestions made her—and a few had made her plenty angry—he kept his cool. Just knowing that he was “handling” her made Ronnie see red.
“Oh, Tom, can’t you go over this with her tomorrow? She’s tired.” Thea intervened before Ronnie could reply. Thea and Tom were good friends now, having spent a great deal of time in each other’s company during the past weeks. No doubt they appreciated the crisis that had brought them together. What a cute how-we-met story it would make!
See, there was this cheating senator and his dimwit wife, and …
“Yeah, Tom, give her a break.” Kenny nudged his partner with an elbow. Kenny was good-natured and kind, and Ronnie often got the feeling that he felt a little sorry for her. Quinlan, on the other hand, had
been relentless. Say this, say that, do this, do that, wear this, wear that. Hold the Senator’s hand. Let your eyes tear up. Be dignified. Smile.
In Ronnie’s opinion the campaign theme song, played whenever Lewis or she arrived for a speaking engagement, should be changed from the Trumanesque “Happy Days Are Here Again” to “Stand By Your Man.” By now Ronnie could almost hear the words of Tammy Wynette’s country lament every time Quinlan opened his mouth.
“Fine,” Quinlan said, and subsided.
Thea smiled at him. Ronnie closed her eyes again.
A fruit basket awaited her on a table in her hotel suite. Ronnie was glad to see it, because she was hungry. At dinners such as the one she had just attended, she was never able to eat. She was “on,” which was not conducive to digestion.
It was a large basket, clearly expensive, crammed with more oranges and grapes and grapefruit than she, alone, could eat in a month. Probably it was from the group she was addressing the next morning. Stepping out of her shoes—sensible pumps with two-inch heels in a style dictated by Quinlan—Ronnie walked over to it and looked for the card. She found it beneath a bunch of grapes, one of which she popped into her mouth as she pulled the card free.
The grape was sour. Ronnie made a face, and mentally passed on a second one.
Honey, you’re doing great. Love, Lewis
, the card read in a stranger’s handwriting.
A
fruit basket?
From
Lewis?
Ronnie felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rise in her throat.
Never since she had met him had he sent her such a thing.
As a gift from a penitent husband to a wronged wife, it was ludicrous.
Of course he had instructed someone on his staff to send a gift to her hotel room. Or maybe a diligent staff member had come up with the idea on his or her own. Something to keep the little woman happy. Something to let her know she was appreciated. Something to keep her toeing the party line.
And be sure and call her honey.
It was even possible that
Quinlan
had initiated it. Although he was supposed to be on
her
team, in deed if not words he had proven to be Lewis’s flunky rather than her own.
On second thought Ronnie absolved Quinlan of this particular boneheaded gesture. A fruit basket was far too clumsy a gift to have been sent at his instigation. Quinlan would have taken a poll and found that the optimum gift from an erring senator to his ever-loyal spouse was a fabulous piece of jewelry, or something.
Ronnie walked into the bathroom. The floor was dark green marble tile, and it felt cool beneath her stockinged feet. She leaned over to turn on the taps to the bath—sleep had been illusive lately and she’d found that soaking in a hot bath helped—and turned back to the sink. For a moment she stood motionless, staring at her reflection in the mirror.
She didn’t look like herself. Oh, her features were the same, as delicate and elegantly cut and lovely as ever. And her hair was the same deep red, and her eyes
the same chocolate brown. But there were shadows under her eyes where she had never had shadows before, and a small vertical crease between her brows that stayed put even when she stopped frowning. Lifting a well-manicured hand—her nails were now tipped in pale pink at Quinlan’s instigation rather than the deeper shades she preferred—she pressed the cool pad of her forefinger against the crease, hoping to smooth it out. Eyeing herself critically, Ronnie thought that she looked haggard. Was she starting to show her age—surely twenty-nine did not look so old!—or was it stress? Of course it was very possible that her washed-out appearance could be attributed to the pale pinks and soft browns of her makeup, colors she never chose for herself but that had been recommended by the image consultant Quinlan had hired.
Just as the beige dinner suit she was wearing had been recommended by some cohort of Quinlan’s. Polls showed that earth tones and pastels had the most appeal for Mississippi voters, he had told her.
Well, hooray for Mississippi voters. Earth tones and pastels did nothing for her.
But here she was, wearing them.
No wonder she didn’t look like herself, Ronnie thought. She
wasn’t
herself any longer. She was some creature Quinlan and Lewis and the rest of them had conjured, the ultimate political wife, with everything from her clothes to her makeup to her remarks dictated by polls.
They had turned her into a Stepford wife.
No, Ronnie corrected, she had allowed herself to be turned into a Stepford wife.
Bright, beautiful, ambitious Veronica Sibley, as she had been before she married, had been all but erased from existence. In her place was Mrs. Lewis R. Honneker IV, the Senator’s wife.
Ronnie suddenly realized just what the price was for her place in the sun: Nothing less than her life.
Mrs. Lewis R. Honneker IV was no more real than a Barbie doll. She was a plastic creation who could be manipulated at will to suit someone else’s needs.
How long had it been since she had felt any kind of genuine emotion? Ronnie asked herself. How long since she had really laughed, or hugged someone and meant it, or had sweet, hot sex?
Plastic creations didn’t need to feel.
Ronnie realized that she did.
She had had it with being a Barbie doll. She wanted to be real again.
She wanted to
feel
.
Ronnie stared at her reflection for a few seconds longer. Then she turned, bent, shut off the bathwater, and padded across tile and carpet to her suitcase.
In anticipation of possible downtime while traveling, the staff at Sedgely had standing instructions to include a casual outfit or two along with her working clothes.
Ronnie found a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and pulled them from the suitcase. She laid the clothes on the bed, then hesitated, looking down at them.’ She didn’t feel in the mood to wear jeans. She felt like wearing something—outrageous. For a moment she pondered. As the solution came to her, she searched her suitcase again for the sewing kit the staff invariably included. She located it, extracted a pair of scissors,
and turned back to the bed, a small smile curving her lips.
Fifteen minutes later, looking far different from the proper society matron who had entered the suite, she stepped out into the plush-carpeted hall and strode purposefully toward the elevators.
The door to her suite shut behind her with a final-sounding click.
Chapter
12
T
OM DIDN’T KNOW
what time it was when the phone beside his bed began to ring. All he knew was that it was somewhere deep in the foggy mists of night.
“What the …?” As he was jolted awake, he cursed, grabbing for the source of the shrill sound and nearly knocking over both the lamp and the clock radio on the bedside table in the process. It was pitch-dark in his hotel room; he might as well have been blindfolded for all the help his eyes were as he floundered around for the phone.
With one hand he righted the lamp and pushed the clock back onto the table—
2:25
the time blinked at him as his other hand fumbled onto the phone, crawled over it, and at last snatched up the receiver. The blessed cessation of the shrill ringing was his reward.
“Hello?” he growled into the mouthpiece.
“You sleeping?” Kenny asked. Tom scowled at the familiar voice.
“Not now,” he said, rolling onto his back and blinking up into the darkness. “What’s up?”
“There’s a problem.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Tom sighed. “What is it? His Honor found himself another cutie?”
“Nope. It’s the missus.”
“The missus?” For an instant Tom was at a loss. Then his eyes opened wide. “Mrs. Honneker?”
“She’s downtown at the Yellow Dog—a bar. Drinking like a fish and dancing with every guy who asks her. I gather she’s looking pretty hot too.”
“What!?” Tom sat bolt upright in bed, wide awake now. He felt for the lamp, located its switch, and flipped it on. The room was flooded with light. Tom blinked. “How do you know?”
“A reporter thought he spotted her and phoned the hotel here, trying to confirm whether or not it was her. When she didn’t answer, the call was put through to my room.”
“Jesus!” A thought occurred to Tom. “Maybe it isn’t her. Did you check?”
“I checked. She got in a taxi and headed out about half an hour after we arrived. Doorman heard her ask the driver about local nightspots. I’d say it’s about a ninety-nine-point-nine-percent chance that the redhead at the Yellow Dog is our gal.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” Tom groaned, flinging back the covers and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “We’ve got to go get her. What in God’s name is she doing? What did you tell that reporter?”
“That Mrs. Honneker is in her hotel room sleeping like a baby.”
Tom groaned again, rubbing the bridge of his nose
in an almost certainly futile attempt to ward off the Excedrin headache that threatened. “That won’t hold ’em for long. Give me ten minutes, and meet me in the lobby.”
“Uh—Tom.”
“What?” He was impatient now, on his feet, grabbing at the suit he had discarded just a couple of hours before. Draped over the back of a chair, it wouldn’t be too badly wrinkled, and anyway he didn’t care. The important thing was to get the pesky woman under lock and key fast, before anyone could prove it was her. Or worse, take pictures.
The mere idea made him nauseous.
“I—uh—I’m kind of busy.”
“You’re
busy?
In the friggin’
middle of the night?
When we’re dealing with a crisis? What in Jehosh-aphat’s name are you doing?” Tom balanced the phone between his shoulder and his ear and shoved one leg into his pants.
“I’ve—got company.”
“You’ve got company?” For a millisecond that didn’t compute. Then light dawned. Pants still only half on, Tom stood stock-still, rigid with shock. “A
woman?
Are you telling me you’ve got a woman in your room? What about friggin’
Ann?
”
Ann was Kenny’s wife, and a good friend of Tom’s. This just kept getting better and better. At the rate things were going, any minute now the Senator would come bursting into his room, his plane having been fogged in or something, demanding to know where his wife was.
“Can we talk about it tomorrow?” Kenny sounded sheepish, as well he should.
“Damn right we’ll talk about it tomorrow.” Tom recollected himself and started pulling on his pants again. “I can’t believe this. Any of it.”
“Anyway, you don’t need me. The way I see it, this is a kind of delicate situation. It’d be better if you fetched the lady out of that bar alone. Less embarrassing all around. It’ll attract less notice if anybody’s watching, and in the morning everybody can pretend not to know what she got up to during the night.”
“What do you mean, everybody? Never mind. I don’t want to know. Damn it to hell, Kenny, you’re a married man. With a bad heart. I’m gonna rip a strip off your hide in the morning.”
With that Tom slammed down the receiver. Unbelievable. The whole thing was unbelievable.