“Oh, my God,
that
Marla? Why on earth are you calling me?”
Marla wet her lips. “Jerry, I’m in bad trouble. I need help.…”
Chapter
21
Tuesday, August
5th
JACKSON
“T
OM YELLED AT ME YESTERDAY
for canceling that
Ladies’ Home Journal
interview.” Cup of coffee balanced in her lap, Thea was curled up in one of the pair of navy leather wing chairs that were placed on either side of the fireplace. It was ten in the morning, and she and Ronnie were going over the week’s revised schedule in the room at Sedgely that had become Ronnie’s de facto office during the months she was scheduled to spend in Mississippi.
A former sitting room, it was on the second floor not too far from Ronnie’s bedroom. Bookshelves stretching from the highly polished wood floor to the soaring twelve-foot ceiling filled in the rest of the fireplace wall. Opposite the fireplace a pair of tall, graceful windows adorned with simple yellow silk draperies looked out over the back lawn. The walls were papered in narrow sky-blue-and-white stripes, and the ceiling, fireplace, moldings, and window frames were white. A worn Tabriz-design oriental rug in shades of blue and rose covered most of the floor. Ronnie’s desk, an enormous mahogany rectangle that once had had
pride of place in Lewis’s Senate office, was the focal point of the room. Ronnie sat in the navy leather desk chair behind it, her own cup of coffee pushed to one side and all but forgotten as she frowned down at the typewritten schedule in front of her.
“Did he?” Assuming an air of disinterest, she responded to Thea’s statement without so much as an accompanying glance.
“He also told me not to make any more changes in your schedule without consulting him first.”
“
Did
he?” This time Ronnie looked up, a militant sparkle in her eyes.
Thea grinned at her. “He sure is hunky when he gets mad.”
“Just remember you work for me, not him.”
“Oh, I told him that.”
“What did he say?”
“That’s when he got mad. His mouth got real tight and his eyes got real narrow, and for a minute there he looked like he was saying every bad word in the book inside his head. Then he just said ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow,’ and walked out of the room. Stalked, really. He went down the stairs and out the front door, and a few minutes later I heard him driving away. He was so angry he peeled rubber.”
“Hmm.” Ronnie returned her attention to the schedule again, determined to betray no more interest in Tom and his goings-on. Not that she
was
interested.
“Wouldn’t you like to get him into bed?” Thea mused with a sigh. This meshed so well with Ronnie’s thoughts that she looked up again, startled. Catching and thankfully misinterpreting that look, Thea added
hastily, “Oh, not you, because you’re married to the Senator and all that, but I would. He’s divorced, you know.”
“Is he?” Ronnie almost marked through a ceremony honoring the winner of a statewide spelling bee where she was supposed to present the victor with a trophy and certificate, but at the last second hesitated. Tom of course had set it up, as part of his plan to have her associated with children and education (two extremely positive areas for influencing college-educated female voters, he said). But even to infuriate Tom, she didn’t like to disappoint a child. She grudgingly decided to leave it in.
“Kenny says Tom’s got a girlfriend, and he wouldn’t be surprised if they tied the knot one of these days. He says they’ve been seeing each other for a couple of years.” Thea grinned. “Kenny is cute, don’t you think? Oh, not hunky like Tom, but real sweet.”
“Kenny does seem nice,” Ronnie murmured. The idea of Tom “tying the knot” with a girlfriend of many years’ standing made her stomach clench.
It was probably nothing but idle talk, she told herself. On that never-to-be-forgotten night, Tom had said that she was prettier than his girlfriend. Would a man say something like that about a woman he was planning to marry?
“Kenny says they used to have this real big-time political consulting firm, but Tom got into a jam and their firm went bankrupt and they lost everything. He says they’re on the comeback trail and it’s important that they do a good job with you.”
Her attention effectively distracted from thoughts of
Tom’s relationship with his girlfriend, Ronnie glanced up, frowning. What Thea said jibed with everything she herself had observed in Tom: the sense she had that he lacked money, the fierce need to succeed in what he was doing with her, the sheer time and energy he was putting into the effort.
“What kind of jam?” Ronnie asked, almost unwillingly.
Thea shrugged. “I don’t know. Kenny didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. Maybe—”
She was interrupted as the phone on Ronnie’s desk began to ring.
“Want me to get it?” Thea reached for the phone even as Ronnie nodded.
“Mrs. Honneker’s office. No, she’s not available right now.” Thea listened for a minute, sucking in her cheeks in an expression that for her was indicative of anxiety. “At nine forty-five tomorrow? Yes, I’ll—I’ll tell her. Okay. ’Bye, Moira.”
Thea hung up. For a moment the two women’s gazes met, trepidation in Thea’s and frowning curiosity in Ronnie’s.
“What?” Ronnie finally asked.
“That was Moira from the Washington office,” Thea explained unnecessarily. She hesitated, then blurted, “The
Ladies’ Home Journal
interview has been rescheduled for ten in the morning. Tom apparently called them up, told them there had been a misunderstanding, and they agreed to come back. Only now it’s a joint interview with you
and
the Senator. Moira called to say that the Senator wouldn’t be able to make it home tonight, but he’ll meet you in the
library downstairs at nine forty-five in the morning. He’s planning to wear a navy suit, blue shirt, and yellow tie. So—so you can color-coordinate your outfit to his, Moira said.”
Chapter
22
“Y
OU SNEAKY SON OF A BITCH
,” Ronnie said in a venomous undertone to Tom as, with one hand on the carved oak balustrade, she walked down the final few steps of Sedgely’s grand staircase.
It was nine-thirty on Wednesday morning. Sunshine poured through the glass panels on either side of the front door, sparkling off the many facets of the antique crystal chandelier overhead and illuminating dust motes in the air. The marble-tiled entry hall gleamed from the cleaning Selma had given it the day before. Pale gold wallpaper in a subtle damask pattern made the walls seem to glow in muted reflection of the brightness outside.
A quick glance around had revealed that so far Tom, who stood just inside the door, hands in pockets, was alone. He was wearing a charcoal-gray suit, a white shirt, and the same blue tie he had worn on Monday, which had the same unwelcome effect of enhancing the color of his eyes.
The mere sight of him was enough to make Ronnie furious all over again. In the wee dark hours of the
night she had promised herself that she would remain coldly dignified in his presence no matter what the provocation, but now, facing him, Ronnie could no more hold her tongue than she could fly.
“Good morning to you, too, Miz Honneker.” It was a honeyed drawl, uttered with a charming quirk of a smile.
The combination of drawl, smile, and
Miz Honneker
did it. Ronnie saw red.
“How dare you go over my head to my husband to reschedule an interview I canceled?” Eyes snapping, she stepped down into the hall and walked right up to him, pointing an index finger at him as she went. Instead of backing down, as most were prone to do when confronted with her temper, he stood his ground.
“You can always cancel again. Only this time you’ll have to explain to your
husband
exactly why.” He caught the hand that would have stabbed, index-finger first, into his chest and held it. His hand was warm, and hard, and strong. As she met his gaze, his smile took on a harder edge. “I don’t suppose you’ll want to tell him the truth: that you came on to me and I turned you down, so you’re hell-bent on making me pay.” He paused, his gaze measuring her. “By the way, did you get that Michael guy to play anything besides tennis with you yesterday?”
Eyes flaming, Ronnie jerked her hand from his hold just as the front door opened. She glanced past Tom to find Kenny, dressed in a bright green sport coat and checked trousers, leading in a lumbering, scruffy-looking animal that resembled nothing so much as a cross between a Saint Bernard and a poodle. It was huge, with long, Shirley Temple-like ringlets in different
combinations of black and white covering its body. Two black eyes were barely discernible through the curls.
“
What
is
that?
” she asked.
“Down here in Mississippi we call it a dog,” Tom answered. Before Ronnie could do more than slay him with a look for that bit of sarcasm, Lewis came down the stairs. Dressed in the promised navy suit and yellow tie, his silvered hair impeccably brushed back from his forehead, Lewis
looked
like a senator. He looked—
statesmanlike
was the only word Ronnie could think of to describe him. She hadn’t seen him since Sunday morning, when he had left for a lightning trip to Washington—and she hadn’t missed him.
“How ya doin’, honey?” Lewis asked genially, wrapping an arm around Ronnie’s shoulders and bestowing a kiss on her cheek. She smiled at him with more warmth than she had shown him for some time, then realized that the smile was for Tom’s benefit. The realization wiped it from her face.
“That the dog? What’d you say his name is?” Lewis redirected his attention to Tom.
Tom glanced at Kenny, who answered for him. “Jefferson Davis, Senator Honneker.”
“He’s from the local animal shelter,” Tom put in. “The spin is that Miz Honneker here found him there, bought him and brought him to Sedgely to live. She very likely saved the poor animal’s life.”
Ronnie stared at Tom as the import of this sank in. He actually meant for her to lie about the acquisition of this—beast.
“Give me a break,” she said witheringly, and turned
left toward the living room, where the interview and photo session were to take place.
Decorated in shades of soft gold, white, and rose with ornate, white-painted woodwork and sweeping silk drapes in a rose-and-white stripe, the living room—formerly the house’s parlor—was large, beautiful, and impressive, and filled with antique furnishings and paintings. Lined with eight floor-to-ceiling windows, it had always reminded Ronnie of something out of a movie set. Even now it was hard for her to believe that people actually inhabited rooms like that.
Not that any member of the family ever did but Dorothy. It was used mainly for entertaining—and to impress visiting reporters and their ilk.
“I suppose I named the dog too?
Jefferson Davis?
How corny can you get?” Ronnie threw this last remark over her shoulder.
“It’ll appeal to your husband’s constituency—his
southern
constituency. Given the fact that you’re from up north, you need to do what you can to seem more assimilated,” Tom answered. He was behind Lewis, who was behind Ronnie. Kenny, with the dog, brought up the rear.
“You can just call him Davis if you want,” Kenny put in. “He comes to that too.”
Ronnie snorted. “He probably comes to anything. Have you tried ‘dog’?”
“Now, Ronnie, I talked this over with Tom and he’s got a good idea: This here dog’ll appeal to just about every voter in Mississippi,” Lewis said. “I want you to do like he says, and say you got him at an animal shelter ’cause you felt sorry for him and named him after Jeff Davis in honor of our great state and the late
president of the Confederacy. It’ll make people around these parts like you better. Anyway, I’ve been sayin’ for a long time now that I’ve been wantin’ a dog.”
Lewis had said no such thing that Ronnie had ever heard. In fact Eleanor was allergic to fur, and as a consequence animals had not been allowed inside any of the family houses for the last thirty-eight years, a state of affairs that had never seemed to particularly bother anyone who lived therein. Though on the altar of all-mighty politics, Lewis would be willing to give houseroom to an elephant, let alone a dog.
“Fine. Whatever,” Ronnie said over her shoulder. Her simmering rage at Tom was bubbling very near the surface, and she didn’t want it to boil over in front of witnesses. She made an effort to rein in her temper as she passed through the open pocket doors of polished mahogany that separated the hall from the living room, where Dorothy awaited them.
“Good morning, Dorothy,” Ronnie greeted her mother-in-law with a smile. Dressed in a mint-green summer suit, Dorothy looked both frail and elegant as she sat on the rose brocade sofa that was the centerpiece of the room.
“Ronnie.”
“Good-mornin’, Mama.”
Dorothy’s whole face lit up as Lewis walked into the room behind Ronnie.
“You’re looking mighty handsome today, son,” Dorothy said as he leaned down to kiss her cheek. When he straightened, she looked over at Ronnie, who was pouring herself a cup of coffee from the tray of refreshments that had been placed on a table in front of the window.
“You look real nice, too, Ronnie,” she added.
“Thank you, Dorothy. So do you.”
Ronnie knew that she did in fact look nice. She was once again wearing the triple strand of pearls Lewis had given her, with a cotton-blend dress in a shade of yellow so pale it was almost cream. The dress (selected by one of Tom’s cohorts especially for this interview and photo session) was slim-fitting but not tight, with a jewel neckline, little cap sleeves, a straight skirt that reached midway down her calves, and a skinny belt made out of the same fabric as the dress. The hem and neckline were enhanced with delicate cutouts and pale yellow embroidery. Her shoes were beige leather pumps, with sensible two-inch heels.