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She was already tapping her thumbs over her phone screen.
“I just sent you the address. I have to run, but Iwillsee you soon. Don’t stand me up, okay.” She smiled carelessly while she gathered up her purse and coffee before adding one last instruction. “And this is a very exclusive club, so wear your hottest outfit. You never know who you’ll meet.”
She pressed the tips of her fingers to her lips and blew me a kiss before dashing out the nearest door, leaving me dumbfounded.
* * *
Rebecca met me in the driveway when I pulled up to my father’s house for lunch. I was twenty minutes late, and she was pacing the freshly power-washed pavement.
“Where have you been?” she said through a passive-aggressive, toothy smile.
She didn’t want to sound too angry in front of the catering staff bringing in tables and chairs from two white vans.
I closed my car door and shook the ice in my second latte of the day. “Traffic,” is all I gave her before walking past her and through the front door.
The high, arched entryway housed a life-sized portrait of my father with his three children. Our mother had been excluded for the comfort of one of his ex-wives when the painting had been commissioned.
I hated that painting.
It was there for my father to milk every bit of pity from the media when campaign season came.
I fidgeted with the locket at my neck, the same one I wore in the portrait. It was my mother’s.
Before the accident, it had held two tiny photos: one of her children and one of her parents, who had long since died.
Now, the locket held nothing but the ghost of one of my mother’s most prized possessions. It had been too hard on me for it to carry the faces of the family members I had lost, but being able to touch the smooth surface on the back that was etched with her initials and the diamond-studded flowers on the front kept her with me.
After the quick pause for my reminder of constant grief, I walked to the kitchen where my dad sat at the marble island with his laptop, cellphone, and tablet.
“Hey,” I greeted him on my way to the fridge.
“Evelyn. I’m so happy to see you, kitten. How’s work?” He looked up briefly then picked up his tablet to silence the news video he had been listening to.
“Fine.” I rummaged through the many foil-covered platters and grabbed a shrimp cocktail cup.
I set it down in front of me on the island and waited for him to finish tapping on his phone.
He had to put all other parts of his life on hold to be able to focus on the family that supposedly came above all other duties.
Another lie, but how else would he be seen as a hardworking father if he didn’t spend most of his time buried in his devices?
He finally set the phone down, closed his eyes, and took a deep sigh. He was in casual clothing, so he must have worked from home to prepare for the event. His light-blue eyes surveyed me a moment, then he smiled warmly. It was a glimpse of the man I had always wanted as my father—before duty and his hunger for power had washed him away.
The character he played for the world was the man I’d wished for growing up.
The reporters spun stories about him being home every night to tuck me into bed or missing trips abroad to go to my ballet recitals, but none of it was true. He would show up to my field hockey tournaments randomly, a news crew close on his heels. The only nights he was home before nine was for our monthly family dinner, a tradition that only continued so local restaurateurs could claim he was a regular.
Putting all of himself into his community was how his career started over twenty years ago, but his deep-pocketed friends and business associates were how he had kept his position for so long and moved up in the governmental hierarchy. He hadn’t announced his candidacy for president yet, but the storm of preparation had started years ago. He was smart and calculated every move he made. Every relationship he cultivated was just another pawn for him to play eventually.
“I appreciate you making time for us on Friday night. In the next few months, I might need you on the campaign trail. The core family unit is the backbone of this country after all,” he preached, but his charm was wasted on me.
I looked through the large kitchen window behind him. Rebecca was telling the rental company which path to take to the backyard. Her bouncy, blonde curls whipped around her face in the wind.
“You’ll have Becky with you. Why would you need me?”
He looked after his wife leading two men hauling equipment on dollies, then back to me and for just a second, I thought I saw his eyes roll.
I might have been projecting, but I’d seen the small crack before when one of his previous wives began divorce proceedings. He was never the one to file, but he knew exactly how many extra hours to work and how little to communicate in order to drive women away.
