Scandalized: The Beginning Read online

  We read the directions and swabbed our cheeks, then he put it all in an envelope and dropped it in the mailbox next to the car. He climbed back in. “I thought we’d head upstate. Visit my mother.”

  A shot of fear slipped down my spine. “Don’t you live in Washington D.C.?”

  “I do. But I think this is best.”

  He had this politician tone, and I could tell he was used to bossing people around. Most of the bossy people in my life are assholes, so I filed this new information somewhere between he has a receding hairline and those metal things on his shirt cuff must be cufflinks.

  Now five hours later, we’re cruising down a two-lane road in the middle of nowhere while I realize I’m having a goddamn panic attack. I’d had a few over the years and know I just have to wait it out. My belly floats somewhere between my neck and my ankles and I fight the urge to put my head between my knees.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God.

  A lake, of all places!

  It’s hot in the car, getting hotter by the minute as the sun streams in my window. I force the words past the knot in my throat. “I don’t know how to swim.”

  “So you’ll learn.”

  I laugh bitterly. “No, thanks.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  He’s quiet for a minute. “If you’re scared…”

  “Look,” I say too loudly. “I don’t like the water, and I don’t want to go in.” I turn back to my window. Jesus. It’s not just about the lake and I know it, but the sensation of drowning is ubiquitous in this moment. So many things are over my head, everything filling me up with unwanted yuck, denying me breath.

  “Helene, don’t snap at me.”

  Ah, here we go.

  My knee-jerk reaction is to tell him to shut the fuck up, but it seems a little premature to pee all over our relationship.

  “I mean it,” he says. “I will not be spoken to that way.”

  I suck in my cheeks, considering. His tone is so goddamn paternal, and I don’t know what to do with that. “Okay. I’m not used to anyone… Sorry.”

  He seems content. I turn back to look at the lake, my heart rate instantly picking up again at the sight. I focus instead on the fields next to the road as row upon row of plants on wires flash by in a staccato rhythm, a bright green strip between each one. It’s hypnotizing, and a welcome numbness begins to settle into my brain.

  It’s enough for now that he won’t expect me to go in the water. Shit. I wonder if they have a boat. Would he want me to go in the boat? They are rich. Of course they have a freaking boat. They probably have two boats: a yacht for entertaining and something fast and shiny for speed. I imagine Ward waterskiing, a wide smile on his tan face as he pulls me, screaming, behind him on a rope.

  Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

  Fifteen minutes pass before I can tear my thoughts away from my imminent death. I am exhausted, like I’ve been in a fight and gotten the shit kicked out of me, yet something tells me the real battle is yet to come.

  Ward’s mother.

  It doesn’t escape me that he has secured an extra player for his team while I have remained alone. I’m not so sure this woman is going to welcome a girl who is potentially (but not necessarily) her son’s nearly grown, bastard child.

  Maybe we will bake a cake together, or braid each other’s hair.

  Not.

  “Helene, we need to talk about a few things.”

  I shift in my seat and realize I have to pee. “Shoot.”

  “You know I’m a senator. What you may not know is that I’m being considered for the position of Assistant Majority Leader.”

  “The Whip.” You learn a lot about politics after years of stalking your maybe-daddy on C-SPAN.

  “Yes. Senator Coughlin is stepping down to deal with some personal issues.”

  I snort. “You mean the video of him fucking a male stripper in a public park?” As soon as I say the words, I know I’m in trouble. There is a charge in the air, like lightning about to strike. I’m just not sure what part of my sentence is responsible for it.

  Isn’t the baby cute?

  Ward sits up straighter and sets his jaw. “Cursing is the lowest form of communication, Helene. It’s crude and I don’t care for it.”

  I feel like I’d dropped a thousand-dollar vase in a fancy store. Actually, I feel like I’m surrounded by a million thousand-dollar vases, and I’m holding a goddamned baseball bat.

  “If you’re going to be a part of my very public life, it’s imperative that you understand from the get-go that there are certain expectations associated with that role.”

  My voice is quiet. “Like you controlling every word out of my mouth?”

  “Not every word. Just the foul ones.”

  There is no way in hell this is going to work. I’ve been dreaming, thinking I could make some kind of life for myself inside his world. “This was a mistake.”

  His head snaps toward me. “No.”

  “Oh yes, it was. I don’t know you. You sure as hell don’t know me.” I meet his eyes with a challenging stare. “I talk different than you, I dress different, I act different, and even more important, I don’t want to change. We should just go our separate ways and be done with it.”

  “No, not again.”

  Again?

  A spark of hope begins to flicker in my breast.

  “I let you walk away from me once before, and I have regretted it every day of my life since. Helene, do you remember the flowers I gave you?”

  Son of a bitch. You are not going to make me cry. I work to keep my voice normal. “Yes.”

  “Your mother threw them into the water and I knew, I just knew, that she didn’t care about you as much as she should have. That I should step up. But I told myself if you were really my daughter she wouldn’t be afraid of a paternity test. But the truth was, I was the one who was scared, Helene. And I hope you can forgive me.”

  My throat clenches tight. If anyone has every asked me to forgive them, I sure as hell don’t remember it. “Okay.”

  “You’ll stay?”

  “Uh huh.”

  For a few miles after that we ride in silence. I think of the expensive vase in pieces on the floor. It’s okay. My dad owns this place. I feel better, my anxiety now replaced by something thicker and less transparent. I am capable of change, aren’t I? I can learn how the other half lives. I can become like them if I try.

  If that’s what I want.

  “Anyway,” he said, “I was hoping we could talk about your mother. With my job, it’s important you and I agree on how to handle things.”

  I feel the familiar social lice that creeps up my scalp whenever my mother comes up for discussion. I have no doubt when his PR people get done with me, I’m going to look like poor Shirley Temple dragged through the boroughs of New York by my pigtails. “I have an idea for your next campaign slogan. I slept with a crack whore.”

  “Don’t call her that.”

  “Right. We need more tact, less honesty.” I purse my lips, then smile. “We can say she’s in sales and pharmaceuticals.”

  “Your mother was not always a prostitute. It was the drugs that did that to her, made her change, made her stop caring about anything else.”

  I snort. “She tell you that? That woman is so full of shit. She ran away from home at fifteen and was turning tricks within a month.”

  “You might consider the possibility that you don’t have all the facts.”

  I point my finger at him. “I know everything about her I need to know. And if the media finds out you slept with her, you can kiss that freaking Whip job goodbye.”

  “I’m aware of that, thank you.”

  He turns off the main road and down a street that heads toward the lake. I wait for the panic to come, my breaths guarded as I take in my surroundings. The houses here are large and seem to be getting bigger, with wraparound porches and great tall trees that shade them.

  The car slows.
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  “It’s the log cabin,” he says.

  It has two stories and a roof with several gables. I can almost hear the sound of a cash register in the distance. Holy shazam, these people have money. We pass a large pine tree and another house comes into view, a more modest ranch. A shirtless man stands on a ladder, painting. Even from a distance I can see he is beautiful.

  Well, hello, sunshine.

  The tan skin of his muscular back shimmers in the sunlight, his dark head bent, and I sigh. Ward turns into the driveway of the log cabin and the man looks up, his eyes locking with mine as if he is an arm’s length away. His stare is intense, and I feel something primal leap up in my belly.

  I smile ever so slightly.

  “There’s one more thing,” Ward says. “I need to know about you, Helene. If there’s anything in your past we need to watch out for. Because if there is, you absolutely have to tell me now. I can’t control what I am not aware of.”

  I am, by nature, an honest person.

  I face him, lift my chin and shake my head. “There’s nothing.”

  ~~~

  I get out of the car and my eyes seek out the beefcake on the ladder. He is looking at me, too, and his stare is like a staple gun nailing me to a wall. I see muscle and the gleam of sweat, but it’s his face that has me purring. Strong features with high cheekbones, and a jawline drawn by Zeus.

  Oh, sweet Jesus, yes.

  I smile at him tentatively and he smiles back, forcing my appendix to drop down between by knees. If this is the next-door neighbor, I have the sudden and fervent hope we’ll be staying at Ward’s mom’s house for a good long while.

  Ward speaks from inside the car, his voice muffled through the glass. “Helene, can you open the back door and grab my briefcase?”

  I turn on my heel with a sigh. “Sure.” I pick it up. “Damn, what do you have in here?”

  “The trappings of a middle-aged politician.” He stands and his smiling eyes meet mine for a beat, then slip past me to the neighbor’s house. His face falls, and my curiosity about the stud with the ladder rises three notches higher.

  “Let’s go inside,” says Ward. “I’ll get our things later.”

  I bite my lip and sneak another glance behind me. Hottie is staring as if he’s never stopped, but now there’s an edge to him, a sharpness that wasn’t there just moments before. I turn back to Ward, my head cocked. “You two know each other?”

  “Inside.”

  “‘Cause your face got all scrunched up when…”

  “Now.”

  “Okay, okay. Geez.”

  I sneak in one more grin at the beefcake, satisfied that his eyes are on me as I follow Ward into the house, my hips swinging.

  The foyer is the size of my old living room.

  There is a big tropical plant and an ornate wooden bench, polished to a rich shine I like to call wealth. I rub the back of my neck. Any minute now, Mrs. my-son’s-a-United-States-Congressman is going to coming in here and see exactly what the cat dragged in.

  It was bad enough meeting mister wonderful here, I don’t need round two in my face just yet. I’m not good at first impressions. At least not first impressions with people like this.

  A petite woman with stylish white hair rounds the corner. “You must be Helene.” She wears capris and a green top that scream women’s sportswear, and I think of Marilyn’s ass-gripping pants and push-up bras.

  Ward’s mom wears lipstick, a perfect cross between understated and cheerful. I’ll bet a million dollars she wears it every day, even when she isn’t expecting company, and I have no fucking clue how to talk to a woman like that, someone who takes care of herself.

  I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and shift my weight. “That’s me.”

  “I’m MaryJo.”

  I shake her hand and make small talk about the scenery and the lake (why yes, it certainly is beautiful), and we make our way through tall rooms with wide windows and expensive shit on every surface I can see.

  We settle in the kitchen on bar stools around a granite-topped island, while Ward returns phone calls. I watch her pour lemonade from a pitcher with actual slices of lemon in it and try to put myself in her shoes.

  This can’t be her fucking dream come true, the bastard daughter of a hooker showing up on her doorstep. I wonder how she feels about her son having sex with a prostitute. Because whether or not I am Ward’s daughter, it’s only a possibility because of that one simple fact.

  Wonder how that would play on the campaign trail.

  She’s staring at me.

  I sip my lemonade.

  “You remind me of my Jennie,” she says.

  I narrow my eyes.

  “My daughter, Ward’s sister. You have her smile.”

  “Does she live around here?”

  “No. She passed away in a car accident when she was nineteen.”

  Ah, crap.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She smiles sadly. “That was fifteen years ago, now. Hard to believe it’s been so long. She had her father’s slim build, like you, and your beautiful black hair. And she was a pisser, let me tell you!”

  Marilyn was the only family I’d ever known, all tits and ass and bleached blonde hair. I like the thought that I resemble someone who isn’t a complete loser. “I’m kind of a pisser, too.”

  “Yes, dear. I thought you might be.”

  We laugh, and my stomach clenches as I wonder how many days I have until the DNA test comes back. Because no matter how much I look like Jennie, there’s sure to be a limit on hospitality if it turns out I’m not really the dead girl’s niece.

  “MaryJo?” I ask.

  “Yes?”

  “Who’s the guy next-door?”

  “Ah. That’s Grady. I’ve known him and his brother Drew since they were little.” She frowned. “Drew killed himself a few months back. Terrible tragedy. Grady’s having a hell of a time making sense of it. I think we all are.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Grady dropped out of medical school. Said he was taking some time. And nobody judged him for that, of course. But between you and me, he’s been getting into trouble. Fighting in town. Sheriff Tom is out here every couple of days, it seems.”

  “Poor thing.”

  She nods. “Yes. Grady has a good heart, always has. It hurts me to see him like this. His mother took off for her sister’s house up in Maine when Drew died. I don’t think Grady’s mama could stand to see Drew’s face every time she turned around.”

  “Did Drew look like Grady?”

  “They were twins. Not identical, but sometimes I swear I couldn’t tell them apart. I can only imagine that woman’s pain. Grady’s too, for that matter. It’s been three months now, and I swear that boy’s getting worse instead of better. He needs something to change in his life. Something to shake him up and make him realize he’s still living, that he’s got to go on, or I’m afraid he’s just going to self-destruct.”

  In my mind, I can see him standing before me, rage tangible just beneath the surface. What does he care about, besides his dead brother? Does he have someone to love him, someone to calm the storm in the night? I think of his mother leaving him alone, and suspect she was not the first to abandon him. I don’t know how I know this. I think of a wolf, alone in the moonlit landscape, drooling and ready to bite.

  And I realize something profound.

  I am prepared to let him attack me.

  ~~~

  Grady

  I wake up when the phone rings, but make no move to answer it. I shift from my side onto my back, wincing as I stretch my knotted muscles. Sleeping on this couch is like sleeping on a hard wooden floor.

  The machine clicks on. “Hi, Grady. It’s Mom.” Her voice shakes. “Listen, I’m coming home a week from Tuesday. It’s time. I miss the house and I need to sort through everything, but I don’t…I just don’t think you should be there. Okay, Grady?”

  I sit up and throw off my blanket, my head pounding in respon
se to the movement.

  Beer. Right.

  “I’m sorry. I know that sounds awful, but I need some time to myself. You should probably be getting back to Chicago anyway. Medical school isn’t going to wait forever.” She exhales one big breath. “Okay, I’m babbling. Bye.”

  “Bye, Mom,” I say to the empty room.

  I don’t blame her for hating me.

  I hate myself.

  At least I’d had a chance to do some work around here, fix some things that needed fixing. In the years since she left Dad, this house had fallen in around her bit by bit; a piece of ceiling here, a chunk of drywall there, as if she just didn’t understand how to keep it all together without that jackass by her side.

  I grab a pad of paper and start jotting down things that still have to be done. Replace the rotten boards on the dock. Fix the lawn mower. Clean out Drew’s room.

  No. I’ll leave that for Mom, though I will go through it and take out anything he wouldn’t want her to see. I owe him that much.

  Maybe he took care of it himself before he…

  I shake my head before I could remember.

  There is a knock at the kitchen door.

  Tom was out here yesterday to poke me with a stick. He better not fucking be back. I walk through the kitchen and get a glimpse of black hair and green bandana through the window.

  The girl from yesterday. I wondered who she was, and what the fuck she was doing with Ward. She was too young to be his girlfriend, but he doesn’t have any kids.

  I open the door and her eyes widen on my bare chest before making their way up to mine.

  Green eyes. Bright green.

  She glances over her shoulder, as if she’s being followed. “Can I come in?”

  “Sure.”

  I stand back for her to enter, my eyes looking around my house to see what a stranger might see. Three empty beer bottles sit next to the sink, which could have been a hell of a lot worse. Some days they’re lined up like the counter at a recycling store.

  She has her back to me, and I admire the flash of lightly freckled skin over her halter top. There are no bra straps showing, and I can’t help but wonder if she has one on.

  She turns on her heel. “I’m Helene.”