Bad Girls Finish First (13 page)

“We don't,” Erika said. “Just happened to be in the neighborhood, as they say.” She put her handbag on Raven's end table and looked around the office. “No art on the walls. No figurines. I've never seen an office quite so bare,” she said, and finally sat down. “Reflects your personality, I guess.”

“I like it spare. Too much fluff only serves to hide things.” Raven crossed her arms, uncrossed them, and placed her hands, her fingers intertwined, in her lap. Erika was a socialite, to be sure, but not the easily ruffled type Raven usually encountered. Raven wanted to project the same level of coolness.

“In that case we don't have to go through the whole ‘so nice to see you' routine, do we?”

Raven looked surprised. “Erika, it
is
nice to see you. I'm glad you decided to drop by. I've got a meeting in an hour, but I'd love to treat you to a quick lunch.”

“If your time is that tight, I don't want to waste any of it on lunch,” Erika said. Raven had been smiling but she stopped. She hoped her face didn't show how much she wanted to rip Erika's head right off.

“I know you've been busy,” Erika went on, “but that's no excuse for ignoring my calls. And because it'll get us nowhere, I'm not even going to address how you snubbed me at that tea the other week. After what happened at Michael's debate, I decided it's time to talk, whether you want to or not.”

“I have been busy, Erika, and at the tea we talked.” Raven dug her fingers into her palm. “I apologize if you felt snubbed, but I had at least a dozen women I needed to have face time with during the tea.”

“Okay, then. Forget about the tea and explain what went wrong during the debate. Were my eyes playing tricks on me, or did Michael practically come out and say that if he's elected, he's going to see to it that our current gun laws are repealed? My organization wants
more
freedom to own weapons, not less.”

“That's not exactly what he said.”

“Damnit, Raven—”

Raven held up one hand. “I know. Michael got excited and went a little farther than he should have. I talked to him about it afterward, and he realized his mistake. Don't worry, you won't be hearing him say anything like that again.” As Raven spun her tale, her mind raced as she calculated the number of remaining debates and public appearances Michael had before the election. She thought,
How the hell am I going to get him to shut up about gun control?

“But I do worry, because you keep telling me you've got the situation under control, yet every time I turn on the TV there Michael is, flapping his gums about gun control.”

“You can't very well expect Michael to side with STRAPPED after twenty-nine people are gunned down.” Out of habit, she added, “That's just plain stupid.”

Erika hadn't been called stupid to her face in a long time. Raven was toying with her, making Erika itch, making her want to let off a round, just one. But Erika decided instead to wrap her anger in a Southern smile.

“What's stupid, Raven, is that you're pretending you don't remember our agreement,” Erika said in a sugar-coated voice. “I never asked for Michael to endorse my organization's agenda. He was to sit by and say nothing, but now he's actively fighting against us! People are scared, Raven. They want to arm themselves without restrictions on where they can carry their guns, or what kind of guns they can own. The legislature's ready to give in. Michael's the one making problems, when all he needed to do was get out of the way.” Erika said all this in a quiet voice.

Raven tried to look earnest. “I've tried everything I can, Erika, and I'll keep trying. I'm not sure what more you expect me to do.”

“Well then, let me make it plain. I
expect
you to get Michael to shut the hell up and stop making speeches about how evil handguns are. I
expect
my organization to get its money's worth.” Erika, whose posture was elite private school proper, sat up even straighter in her chair as she issued orders to Raven. Erika tapped Raven's desk with her index finger to get her point across. “I
expect
to get what I paid for, and I damn well better get it soon.”

Raven had been as nice as she could for as long as she could. “I get your point, Erika.” Raven looked at her watch. “It's about time for my meeting, but I promise you one thing.” She looked Erika in the eye with what she knew was an unreadable stare. “I'm going to make good on what I owe you.”

13

C
hristopher decided that if he couldn't be his father's chief of staff, he'd be in charge of something else. That something was his father's Dallas office, which, once he had announced his bid for governor, Michael renamed the Neighborhood Assistance Center. Instead of going to Michael's Dallas office every Saturday, the way he used to, Christopher now went during the week and stayed for at least two days. Once a month he went down on the weekend so that he could go to first Sunday communion with Grace. The rest of his weekends were for Genie.

Christopher walked into the Dallas office and found someone new sitting at the receptionist's desk.

“Hello, I'm Christopher Joseph.” He put out his hand, but she didn't take it.

“Oh, hey. What's up?” The young woman dragged her words along like they weighed a ton. “Let me get a look at you.” She stood and walked around the desk.

Christopher checked her out. Killer body; sweet, heart-shaped face; and a weave that was a little over the top for his taste, but not bad. Tattoo of a rose on her left breast.

She looked him up and down. “They told me to be on the lookout for you, but hell, Chris, you went and got fine on a sister.” Her words kept dragging along, but now that he had a full view of her, Chris thought of a slow, warm trail of molasses rather than a heavy load.

Christopher smiled. He loved around-the-way girls. So fresh and so fine. From the way she talked, and carried herself, Chris guessed the young woman must be a high-school student.

“Why are you here this early? Shouldn't you be in school?” he asked her.

“Nah, I took this semester off. So I'm just chilling, checking out this situation. We're moving to new office space pretty soon, right? I was hired to help with the move.”

“Since when do you get to take a semester off in high school?”

“High school?” She waved one hand at him. “You're tripping, Chris. I'm a college junior.” When he still looked confused, the young woman said, “Chris, you don't remember me? I'm Monica!” She raised her arms and did a fashion turn. “Monica Fowler, Buddy Fowler's granddaughter.”

“Monica! I'm so sorry. You're not that much younger than me.” Christopher whistled. “Girl, you've grown up.”

“So have you,” she said as she sauntered back to her chair, letting her booty do the rest of the talking.

 

 

If it had been anyone but John Reese, Grace wouldn't have opened her front door.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“It's good to see you, too,” John said as he bent to kiss Grace. “I brought lunch.” He waved the brown bag beneath Grace's nose. “Since when can you resist a Dewberry's cheeseburger?”

“Come on in.” Grace uncrossed her arms and pulled her bathrobe tight.

Although it was his first time at her place, John moved around Grace's kitchen as though it were his own. “Are you sick?” he asked as he poured them each a soda.

“No. Why do you ask?”

“It's the middle of the day and you're still in your pjs,” he said kindly as he sat down across from her. “You look like you just got out of bed.”

“I did, but that doesn't mean I'm sick.”

John nibbled a Creole fry. “Beautiful Saturday like this, the Grace I know would be out doing something. Remember how you and Maggie used to drag Chris and Evan to the mall with you every Saturday?” John chuckled. “I put a stop to that the day little Chris told me that my shoes were the wrong shade of brown for the pants I had on.”

“I remember,” Grace said. “After that you'd take the boys to the bookstore with you, or Michael would take them to his office.” The memory seemed to deflate Grace even further.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

John stretched his legs out to the side of the table, his ankles crossed. “Because I need you back. I looked for another volunteer to tutor the boys in reading, just like you asked. But I haven't been able to find anybody. I've been teaching the class myself, but with my other duties I'm in over my head.”

Grace forced down a bite of her burger. It was as flavorful as cardboard to her, but she hadn't eaten anything since lunchtime the day before. “I told you I wasn't coming back, John. Keep looking, something will turn up.”

“Maybe,” he replied, “but in the meantime those young men are suffering.”

A guilty look crossed Grace's face. She thought about the students every day and kicked herself for making them feel insignificant. She knew all about feeling worthless, and it wasn't an emotion she'd wish on her worst enemy.

“You say you've been teaching the class,” she said as she swirled a fry in ketchup. “How's Waleed, is his reading any better?”

“He's still trying hard. When he gets overwhelmed, I let his brother James help him out. That seems to work for him.”

“Oh. I'm sure it does.” Grace blushed as she remembered how she'd refused to allow James to read for Waleed. “And what about Trey, is he still the class clown?”

“They told me you didn't know their names,” John said with mild surprise. “You care about these children, I can tell. Why won't you come back?”

Grace shook her head. She didn't have an answer. “To tell you the truth, John, I find it hard enough to go through the motions of living. I think about the boys all the time, but I can't help them. I don't have the energy to help myself.”

John was alarmed. “But you know you've got to keep on living, keep putting one foot in front of the other.”

Grace sniffed. “I do. You don't have to worry about me hurting myself, John. Every day of the rest of my life might be a living hell, but I'll not cut one day short by my own hand.”

“I had to ask,” he said. “There's no need for you to resign yourself to a life of misery, Grace. Your family and friends love you. You're healthy, beautiful, and blessed with many gifts, including the gift of working with children.” He chucked her under the chin, and said with a twinkle in his eyes, “And you used to be fun to be around.”

“I know.” Grace said. She sighed and smiled a little. “I just can't seem to move the knowledge of the things I've got going for me from my brain to my heart.” She sat there in her bathrobe with her head tilted to the side and had no inkling that her inner light, though dimmed by sorrow, still flickered.

John cleared the table, then went over to Grace's chair and hugged her. “You need more of these,” he said.

Grace saw John to the door. As he turned to walk away Grace called out, “John?”

He turned back to her.

She hesitantly reached her arms out to him. “May I have another hug?”

 

 

“Dad, I just heard. How'd we end up losing the Rice Association endorsement?” Christopher asked. He'd knocked and walked into his father's office without waiting for a reply. Dudley and Raven were already there, and they looked as shocked as Christopher felt.

Michael shook his head. “We can't figure it out, Chris.” He looked at Dudley. “Their support was locked down, right?”

“Tight as a drum.”

“Damn.” Christopher stood there, hands on his waist. “What are we going to do?”

Michael surprised Christopher by laughing. “You sound like you just got in this game, man. Win some, lose some. We don't have to do anything. Those guys sell
rice
. Nobody listens to them anyway.” He waved his hand like a king granting a special privilege to peasants. “They prefer to endorse Sweeney, let 'em have it.”

Raven frowned. “I don't know about that, Michael. I think we need to knock some heads. I mean, look at who screwed us on this one.” She counted the legislators' names out. “Addison, Riley, that dust for brains Watkins. Their counties are the ones with the rice fields; as much as you've done for them, there's no way the association's endorsement should've been withdrawn. We need to call those three on the carpet now, pull them back in line.” Raven crossed her arms. “Just say the word, Michael, and I'm on it.”

Dudley waved his arms signaling time out. “And I'm sure you'd be quite effective,” he said sarcastically, “but now's not the time. Michael's right—this is a penny-ante loss, doesn't mean much in the scheme of things.” Dudley had been quiet until now. He hated to lose as much as Raven did, and he loathed being double crossed. Addison and the rest would get theirs, he'd make sure of it, but right now Michael was on a roll. This wasn't the time to start a civil war.

Michael leaned back in his chair, his arms behind him, interlaced fingers cradling his head. “Yep. How many endorsements have I lost until now?”

“None,” Christopher said.

Michael, one hand cupped to his ear, leaned forward. “Huh? I can't hear you.”

Christopher smiled at his father. “None, as in,
not one
,” he said loudly. He loved his father so much.

“Correct. This is just a blip on the radar screen. By next week we won't even remember it.” Michael stood, walked over and kissed Raven. “Enough of this. I'm starving. How about Italian?”

By the time his driver, Lawrence, dropped them at Antonio's for dinner—less than twenty minutes later—the lost endorsement was already forgotten.

 

 

You'd have thought Raven was the candidate for governor from the way she conducted Michael's staff meeting. The group was in Michael's conference room, drinking coffee, eating Krispy Kremes, and going over the day's agenda. Michael began the meeting the way he usually did, by commending his staff for their hard work and encouraging them to work even harder. “I know that you did everything you could to keep the Rice Association from pulling its endorsement. I appreciate the effort.”

“I don't see how you can say that, Michael,” Raven interrupted. “If they'd worked hard, you wouldn't have gotten a call last night telling you the association's endorsing Sweeney.”

The few eyes that weren't already on her turned Raven's way. Early on, the staff had taken to watching Raven, because that's what Michael did, especially when he was speaking. The men enjoyed looking at Raven because she was one of the finest women they'd ever seen. The women studied Raven's manner—decisive, fierce, condescending with staff and smooth with contributors—and to varying degrees, they modeled themselves after her. After all, they weren't in politics for the bumper stickers and funny hats.

“Elsa, Pete, and Juanita, it was your job to hold onto that endorsement. You were stunningly ineffective,” Raven said. “Maybe it's time you faced the fact that major league politics aren't for you. Time to go back to the minors.”

The three staffers were dumbstruck. Pete was the first to break the trance. “Senator, what's going on?” Pete blurted. “I've been with you for six years.”

“And based on your performance, we're going to stay “
senator,
” Raven said sharply. “My husband and I want to be
the governor
, Pete.
The fucking governor
. And you're unable to keep up. The three of you screwed up for the first time in El Paso, during the primary, remember that? Your performance has been downhill since then.” Raven coolly paced the room, holding her coffee mug with both hands.

“I may have made a . . . a miscalculation with the Rice Association, Mrs. Joseph. I apologize,” Pete said.

Raven banged her mug down on the conference table with so much force that coffee sloshed over the rim. Raven used her hands, spread wide and tented on either side of her mug, to lean forward across the table.

“A miscalculation?” Raven screamed. “You think I've got time for your fucking miscalculations? Or that I want your sorry-ass apology?”

That shut Pete up. For once, everyone was looking at Michael instead of at his wife. Michael's professional loyalty was one of his best assets. His staffers and supporters would do anything for him, because he wasn't one to abandon a friend or colleague when things got tough.

Michael was seething. How dare Raven undercut his authority with his staff? The thing that irritated him the most was that Raven was right—the three hadn't earned their keep for months. He, Raven, and Dudley had discussed firing the trio but he'd turned around and thought of an excuse to give them one last chance.

“Elsa, Juanita, Pete,” Michael looked each in the eye as he spoke their names. “Over the years you've been good to me, and for that I'm grateful. This should've been handled differently, but what's done is done. Think about whether you'd rather stay here in Austin or go back to Dallas. Once you decide, let me know and I'll make some calls. You'll each be situated somewhere else by the end of the week, I promise.”

“You're fired. Please leave now,” Raven said.

 

 

Michael grabbed Raven by the arm. “Come here, let me show you something.”

She tried to jerk away. “Michael, stop it! You're hurting me!” They were in Michael's office, just the two of them, after the staff meeting.

“Hurt you? In my wildest dreams,” he said as he marched Raven over to a wall mirror. He pointed at their reflections with one hand and squeezed her arm with the other. “You know what I see? Huh? I see Senator Michael Joseph and his wife! I don't see Senator
Raven
Joseph and spouse, and I damn sure don't see two candidates for governor!”

When Michael spun Raven around to face him, he was so incensed that his lips trembled and his words came out shaky. “I might love you, and you might be the commander in our bedroom, but not here. You understand? Not here!”