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Nealy still wasn’t used to having Lucy call her Mom instead of Nell. It had only started a few weeks ago, and Lucy had never talked to her about it or asked permission, she’d just started doing it. Button, on the other hand, had been calling her ma—usually shrieked at the top of her lungs—since that day three months ago when they’d all walked out of the house in Iowa.
Not all of them, she reminded herself. One member of their makeshift, not-quite-a-family had stayed behind.
But Nealy had learned not to think about Mat unless she was alone, and she forced her attention back to the battle of wits going on between Lucy and her father.
“. . . so I asked Lardbutt—”
“Lucy . . .” Nealy’s voiced sounded a warning note.
“I asked Mrs. Fegan if Mom could come in and talk at a school assembly, not about her campaign—that’d be so obvious even a moron could see through it—but about the contributions of First Ladies. Mom’s got lots of good stories, like how Abigail Adams was a women’s libber, and Nellie Taft got the cherry blossoms planted in Washington, and Edith Wilson ran the country when Woodrow was sick.”
“That wasn’t exactly a contribution,” Nealy reminded her. “Edith Wilson nearly drove the country into a constitutional crisis.”
“I still think it was cool.”
“You would.”
Lucy folded into her favorite place, the easy chair across from Nealy’s desk, and spoke with all the aplomb of a seasoned campaign manager. “We’re going to whip Hollings’s a—butt in the primary.”
James Litchfield narrowed his eyes, but he was too cagey to openly reprimand Lucy. At the very beginning, Nealy had made it clear that was her job, and he’d quickly discovered that she meant what she said. The fastest way out of her life was to show open hostility toward either of her girls.
Her poor father. She’d actually begun to feel sorry for him. The girls had been a bitter pill for him to swallow, but swallow it he had. At the same time, he’d also been forced to deal with the unrelenting publicity her disappearance had caused.
For the past three months, Nealy had been subjected to the type of tabloid scrutiny usually reserved for drugged-out movie stars. Everyone she’d come into contact with during her seven days on the road had been interviewed. Bertis and Charlie had done her proud, and Nico hadn’t been the disaster she’d feared. Even the Celebrity Lookalike Contest organizers had received their fifteen minutes of fame. Everyone had been interviewed except Mat, who’d told the story in his own way and, to this day, refused to appear on camera.
Nealy had gone public only twice—in an obligatory Barbara Walters television interview and in a Woman’s Day feature that had been accompanied by informal photographs of her with the girls. Exposing them had been a difficult decision, but she knew they’d be hounded by paparazzi if she didn’t, and Woman’s Day was the perfect forum. Besides, Lucy thought it was cool.
Through it all, her father had stood relentlessly behind her. His teeth had been clenched, his jaw rigid, but he’d been there for her, even six weeks ago when she’d finally stepped aside as Lester Vandervort’s First Lady.
Taking her place were the three women she’d hand-picked for the job. Two of them were longtime congressional wives wise to the ways of Washington. The third was Lester’s feisty twenty-two-year-old niece, an outspoken Ivy League graduate who provided a perfect contrast to the older women and the stuffy president. Although Nealy continued to advise the triumvirate, they were growing more confident in their job, which gave Nealy time to concentrate on her own future.
The girls were her first priority. She knew she had to have help with Button if she was to run for the Senate, but it wasn’t easy finding what she was looking for. She and Lucy had interviewed dozens of candidates before they’d found Tamarah, a nineteen-year-old single mother with a nose ring, a ready laugh, and a determination to finish her education.
Tamarah and her six-month-old baby Andre now lived in a small apartment over the kitchen. Nealy and Lucy had been a little jealous of how quickly Button, Tamarah, and Andre had taken to each other. But even with child care, Nealy tried to make the majority of her phone calls during her toddler’s naptime, then do her planning and paperwork late at night. It left her bone-tired, humble, and even more committed to helping single mothers who didn’t have her financial resources.
“I still can’t believe you’re serious about this,” her father said.
“She’s . . . like . . . so serious.”
“I’m not addressing you.”
“Like, I have opinions, y’know.”
“Far more opinions than a child needs.”
Lucy was too shrewd to make the insolent response that would force Nealy to send her to her room. Instead, she gave him a wily smile. “In four years, I’ll be a voting citizen. And so will all my friends.”
“Doubtless the republic will survive.”
“And the Democrats, too.”
Oh, this was too rich. Nealy had grown to enjoy watching the two of them go at it.
In the beginning, she’d counted on Button’s baby charm to win over her father, but he’d been far more interested in Lucy. Her father loved a worthy opponent, and the fact that Lucy had dec
lared herself his mortal enemy before they’d ever met had whetted his competitive instincts.
Nealy had recently begun to wonder if they didn’t look forward to their sparring matches. They had the oddest similarities. Each was stubborn, crafty, manipulative, and absolutely loyal to her.
