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She hoped he’d bought her explanation about her accent, and she reminded herself to be more careful so it didn’t keep fading in and out. She also reminded herself that she was now Nell Kelly, the first name that had popped into her head.
The baby was perched in a car seat sitting on a couch with worn blue and green plaid upholstery. Across from the couch and immediately to Nealy’s right was a small banquette. The table held an open bag of potato chips, the remnants of a donut, a hairbrush, and a Walkman. A small refrigerator stood to her left, and beside it, a peeling veneer door led to either a closet or a bathroom. There was also a tiny kitchen with a three-burner stove, a microwave, and a sink littered with some Styrofoam cups and a Dunkin’ Donuts box. At the very rear of the motor home, a sliding door that was only partially closed revealed a double bed piled with clothes and some towels. There were two bucket seats at the front, one for the driver and one for a passenger.
A challenging voice interrupted. “What are you doing here?”
Reluctantly, she turned toward the surly teenager named Lucy, who was sitting on the couch feeding the baby green peas from a jar. The girl definitely wasn’t pleased to see her.
Nealy remembered seeing something needy in her eyes when she’d been arguing with Mat. Maybe she didn’t like the idea of another woman horning in on her territory.
“I’m hitching a ride,” Nealy replied.
Lucy stared at her resentfully, then looked toward the driver’s seat. “What’s the matter, Jorik? You couldn’t go without sex so you had to bring her along?”
Definitely proprietary.
“Ignore her.” Mat picked up a road map and began to study it. “Lucy thinks if she talks dirty she’ll make me cry.”
Nealy gazed at Lucy and thought about the dazzling group of teenagers she’d hosted at the White House just last week. They were all National Merit Scholarship winners, and their contrast with this girl couldn’t have been more pronounced. Well, she’d wanted a glimpse of ordinary life, and she’d found it.
Lucy set the jar of baby food down on the couch. The baby, whose mouth was rimmed in green, immediately let out a demanding shriek. The teenager rose and went to the banquette, where she slouched down. “She’s not done eating, but I’m done feeding her.” She reached for her Walkman, slipped the headset over her ears, and leaned back into the corner.
Mat glanced over his shoulder at Nealy and shot her a pointed smile. “Time to earn your keep, Nell.”
For a moment Nealy couldn’t think whom he was addressing.
“Finish feeding the baby so we can take off,” he said.
Lucy was shaking her head to the music coming from the Walkman, but the watchful eye she kept on the baby indicated she was listening to every word. Nealy had the distinct impression she was being put to some kind of test.
She turned to the baby and felt the familiar dread. Although she related well to children, being around babies was torturous. It was one of her most closely guarded secrets, especially ironic in light of the disguise she’d adopted.
She didn’t need a shrink to figure out why she had a problem. The famous Time magazine cover photo taken when she was sixteen didn’t show that the starving Ethiopian baby she’d been holding had died in her arms moments after the photographer had walked away. The memory had never left her.
Although she picked up a lot of healthy, smiling babies for photo ops, those contacts were always brief. Instead, it was the desperately ill babies her job so frequently required her to spend time with. She’d gazed at dozens of crack babies in isolettes, cuddled a hundred HIV babies, cooed to babies suffering from unspeakable diseases, and brushed flies from the empty eyes of those who were starving. In her mind, babies and suffering had become inexorably linked.
“You have to distance yourself,” Dennis had said before their marriage when she’d tried to explain it to him. “If you want to be of any use to those children, you have to detach.”
But how could anyone detach from the tragedy of watching innocents die? Images of their swollen bellies and crippled limbs haunted her dreams. These babies had become both her cross and her crusade, and she’d ordered her staff to look for as many opportunities as possible to showcase their plight. It was the only way she could honor the memory of the Ethiopian baby she hadn’t been able to help.
First Ladies traditionally had a cause. Lady Bird had her wildflowers, Betty Ford fought substance addiction, Nancy Reagan Just Said No, and Barbara Bush wanted everyone to read. Although Cornelia hadn’t planned it that way, she became the guardian angel of the world’s most vulnerable victims.
Now, as Nealy gazed down at this healthy, screaming, golden-haired little girl with bright blue eyes and peas smeared all over her face, she felt only dread. The dark side of her crusade was her panic when she saw a healthy one. What if her touch brought this beautiful child harm? The notion was illogical, but she’d felt like the Angel of Baby Death for so long that she couldn’t help it.
She realized Mat was watching her, and she managed a shrug. “I’m—I’m not good with babies. Maybe you’d better do it.”
“Afraid to get your hands dirty? In case you forgot, helping out is your ticket to ride.”
He had her over a barrel, and he knew it. She took in the messy motor home, the surly teenager, and the fussing infant. Then she gazed at the big, roughneck of a man with his broad shoulders and devil’s smile. Did she want to stay on the run badly enough to put up with all this?
Yes, she did.
With grim determination, she picked up the gooey spoon, dipped it into the jar, and brought it to the baby’s mouth. The baby devoured the peas, then opened up for more, her eyes glued to Nealy’s face. As Nealy brought the next spoonful to her mouth, the baby grabbed her fingers.
Nealy flinched, barely able to resist the urge to shake off her touch. “What’s her name?” she managed.
“You don’t want to know.”
Lucy lifted one earphone. “Her name’s Butt.”
