The Senator's Wife Read online

  But she was an adult now, not a child, and she knew that prayers were never answered. There was no one to pray to.

  He finished with the mattress. Marla knew because it slumped to the floor, its once-slick brocade surface cut to shreds.

  The dust ruffle was yanked away. It went sailing, to land in a wad in the corner near the closet.

  Marla could now see everything in the bedroom up to a height of about two feet. She could see the bedclothes, the mutilated mattress, the contents of her dresser drawers, which had been dumped in a heap.

  She could see two black-sneakered feet attached to two legs in navy pants, standing beside the bed.

  She could see her own reflection in the pair of full-length mirrors that covered the closet’s sliding doors.

  No!

  Horror numbed her. All he had to do was turn around and he could see her too.

  The phone in the living room rang. Its shrillness was so unexpected that Marla started. It rang twice, three times.

  Then the answering machine picked up.

  Susan had recorded the message. It was both eerie and eerily comforting to hear her familiar voice on the tape. There was a grinding sound, a pair of clicks (their answering machine had never worked smoothly) and then the beep.

  The intruder moved into the living room, the better to hear any message.

  Marla’s heart leaped again. This was her chance. Maybe her only chance. She slithered out from beneath the bed, elbows and heels digging deep into the thin carpet, and scrambled on hands and knees across the few feet that separated the bed from the closet—the only other possible hiding place in the room—as the caller left a message.

  “Susan, this is Paul. Where were you Saturday night? I waited till ten. Call me. Bye.”

  Paul was a guy Susan had been dating. A nice guy, which was probably why she never had been really interested in him. Susan had been like that.

  Reviewing her own history with men, Marla wondered if all women were like that. Was there something about assholes that drew women to them?

  There was a click as Paul hung up. Marla shut the closet door another few inches. She dared not close it all the way for fear he would remember it had been partly open.

  Quick, soft footfalls told her that the intruder was returning to the bedroom.

  Marla felt her stomach lurch. Her throat closed, and her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Stay calm, she warned herself. Stay calm.

  Inside, the closet was a mess of clothes that had been yanked from hangers, and shoes, purses, and other miscellaneous items that had been dislodged from the overhead shelf. Marla burrowed down beneath a pile of some of her favorite summer outfits, made herself as small as possible, and closed her eyes.

  A sliding sound and a thump from beyond the door made her shiver: She was as sure as it was possible to be without actually looking that he was lifting the box spring.

  Chapter

  11

  Friday, August 1st

  TUPELO

  “…NO, I’M NOT PERFECT. But then, I’m asking you to elect me to the United States Senate, not nominate me for sainthood.”

  A gust of laughter followed that closing line, as it had countless times over the two-plus weeks since the Big One, as the campaign staff called the hooker thing, hit. Ronnie’s own public-relations disaster, the paint-throwing incident, had been totally eclipsed by the Big One, which had broken in the Globe five days later. By that time Quinlan had her so programmed about what to say, she could have spewed out her lines in her sleep.

  Standing at the podium, his tanned face wreathed in a broad smile, Lewis waved in response to thunderous applause and headed toward his seat, shaking hands on the way with the governor and the other politicians on the dais.

  Ronnie felt as if her face might break from the rigidity of the smile she forced on it. Seated on the platform beside Lewis’s empty seat, she was on full public view. Her job was to watch worshipfully as he spoke, clap enthusiastically when he finished, and smile, smile, smile.

  What she really wanted to do was puke. It was all so fake. He was fake. She was fake.

  The embryonic strategy that Quinlan had hatched on that blistering July afternoon had worked perfectly. He and Kenny Goodman and Lewis and Marsden and a gaggle of staff and consultants had honed it to perfection: Admit the fault, and it had no power to hurt.

  They called it pulling a Clinton.

  The president had shown how it was done, and by God, the technique was successful, they all now agreed. Lewis was having to work for his money for a while, pressing the flesh across the state at a pace he hadn’t felt the need to adopt in years, but the challenge suited him. He was at his best in a tough campaign.

  The party line was this: So he had slept with a Washington hooker while his lovely second wife was busy tending the homefires in Mississippi. So what? What it all boiled down to was not a question of character, not a matter of morals, not a betrayal of trust. He had simply made a mistake. Hell, it only proved he was human like everybody else. Boys will be boys, and all that. The tale was good for a poke in the ribs and a knowing chuckle from the men, most of whom seemed to harbor a sneaking admiration for his prowess with the opposite sex. His young wife was a babe, and he had women on the side to boot—for a sixty-year-old grandpa, that wasn’t too bad. In certain circles it made him seem more vigorous, more manly. Of course the wife was a little mad at first, but she was over it now, and their marriage was the stronger for having been tested.

  Or so went the spin.

  The whole sordid episode was rapidly being reduced to nothing more than fodder for jokes. Lewis was even poking fun at himself in his speeches.

  To which Ronnie listened with smiling support, while inside she felt—what? Not even angry any longer. Just—empty.

  Lewis sat down beside her. Ronnie’s hand was in her lap. He reached over, caught it, and raised it to his lips. His twinkling hazel eyes—the eyes that she had once thought promised such honesty and integrity—met hers and he smiled. The kiss he bestowed on her fingers was a public-relations gesture, Ronnie knew. Her stomach knotted. But they were on the dais, the cynosure of all eyes, the Senator and his wronged wife.…

  Ronnie smiled back at him. Adoringly. While her body went as rigid as if it had turned to stone and her stomach churned.

  What she really wanted to do was spit in his face and walk out. Forever.

  Yes, she had the life she had always wanted—but the price was growing increasingly hard to pay.

  By the time the dinner at the private club was over, and she had worked the room at Lewis’s side, it was ten o’clock. Her face felt frozen into its perpetual beaming smile. Her head whirled with the inanities she had uttered. Her fingers ached from being squeezed.

  “You’re handling this just beautifully,” the wife of one of Lewis’s supporters whispered in Ronnie’s ear as she grasped both Ronnie’s hands and leaned forward to kiss her cheek. The woman was the wife of a judge, what was her name? Ah, JoAnn Hill. Easy to remember because she was so buxom. JoAnn Hill had twin hills. Once before, when they had met, Mrs. Hill had been cool to the point of coldness.

  She was a contemporary, and acquaintance, of Eleanor’s.

  In the silver-lining department, at least the scandal had served to shift some of the women to Ronnie’s side. They seemed to regard her with a degree of sympathy now. The politicians’ wives, especially, had been supportive. Ronnie wondered if they dealt with similar hypocrisy in their own lives. Probably on a daily basis, she decided. Politics, as someone wiser than herself had once said, was a dirty business.

  At least now, in the words of Quinlan’s other, ongoing attempt at spin, she was one of them. A woman struggling with problems like all the rest.

  Taking leave of their host, John Heyden of the processed chicken fortune family, Lewis shook his hand warmly, while Martha Heyden bestowed the requisite social peck on Ronnie’s cheek and gave voice to the expected pleasantries, none of which Ronnie really heard. Th
eir ritual leave-taking from political functions was so familiar to her by that time that she could put herself on autopilot and still manage to make appropriate replies.

  “You keep them from gettin’ carried away with that inspection crap, you hear, Lewis?” Heyden said, clapping Lewis on the back as the senatorial party turned toward the door.

  “That’s what I’m headin’ down to Arkansas for, John.” Lewis was all affable charm, a big, warm, man’s man who had never met a stranger. At least that was the impression he gave. And it was true, Ronnie had to admit. What the world didn’t know was how shallow the man was behind the charm, and how incapable of sustaining any kind of real relationship.

  With Lewis, what you saw was all you got. The man had no emotional depth.

  No wonder he had never initiated a divorce from Eleanor. The situation he’d found himself in with her must have suited him down to the ground.

  Finally they were walking out the massive oak doors, across the porch, and down the stairs to the waiting cars. Parked at the head of the driveway under the supervision of Lewis’s security detail were two big black limousines, the first of which would whisk Lewis to the private jet that would take him to Little Rock for the all-important chicken-business meeting. The second was for Ronnie. She was scheduled to speak in the morning, to a breakfast gathering of university women, and then be interviewed by the local paper and TV station. That meant spending the night in Tupelo. Rooms for her and her entourage were booked at the Hyatt.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, honey.” At the foot of the steps Lewis stopped to give Ronnie a quick kiss on the cheek. His lips were warm, the arm he slung around her shoulders strong. Yet it was all for show. The public gesture of affection was typical of him. It meant nothing, though Lewis seemed more pleased with her since the scandal hit than he had been for some time. She had subjected him to no ranting, raving, or screaming. No threats of divorce. No scenes. Just silence in private, and in public a smile.

  Just as she smiled now, and said a brief, “Have a good flight.”

  “You boys take care of my wife now, you hear?” Lewis said in friendly fashion to Tom and Kenny, who would be staying the night at the Hyatt, too, along with Thea, to be on hand for the interviews the next day. Lewis turned away with a wave and, accompanied by his own entourage, entered his limousine. The door shut and seconds later the car pulled away from the curb.

  The door to the second limo was open and waiting. A uniformed driver stood holding it. Ronnie walked over to it and slid inside, leaning her head tiredly back against the soft leather and closing her eyes as the others joined her.

  “Are you all right, Ronnie?” Thea asked softly. Her press secretary had been a source of support over the past weeks, and Ronnie was grateful to her for it. As a woman, and a friend, she had sensed some of Ronnie’s discontent, though Ronnie had been careful to show the same stoic face to her staff that she showed to the public. One never knew who might talk to the press, and under what circumstances.

  “I’m just tired.” Ronnie didn’t bother to open her eyes. If she did, she would have to converse with the lot of them, and she didn’t feel up to it. She knew it was irrational, but she felt almost more hostile toward Quinlan than she did toward Lewis. It was Quinlan who had come up with the “spin,” after all. Quinlan who had sold the lie she was living to the world, and persuaded her to go along with it. Quinlan who had trotted out polls telling her how to dress, what issues to tackle in her speeches, even what pet name the embattled spouses should call each other in public.

  (Honey was preferred by voters by a substantial margin over darling—too elitist—sweetheart—too loverly—and dear—too old-fashioned; so, thanks to Quinlan, honey was what Lewis now called her every chance he got. For her part Ronnie had managed maybe two honeys in two weeks. The endearment stuck in her throat every time she tried to utter it; one of these days she was afraid she might choke on it. If she did, that would be Quinlan’s fault too.)

  Although Ronnie’s eyes were closed and she was doing her best to pretend she was alone in the car, Quinlan spoke to her: “Tomorrow, at that university-women thing, when you’re taking questions from the floor, if you’re asked about Doreen Cooper …”

  Doreen Cooper was the name of the prostitute Lewis had visited about once a week for the last year whenever he was in Washington. The one who had tape-recorded her conversations with him, had taken pictures of them together, and told the world all about Lewis’s preferences in bed.

  “… just say that you view what happened as a test of your marriage, which is now stronger than ever.”

  “I know what to say.” Ronnie’s eyes snapped open, and she fixed an unsmiling gaze on Quinlan, who was sitting directly across from her.

  He smiled soothingly at her. Handling her was his job, and he was working hard at it. So far it had been rough going, she knew.

  “I know you do,” he said. “You’re doing just great. But this question-and-answer thing tomorrow is the first time you’ve spoken in public in such an open forum since the story broke. Just keep repeating the same answer in different ways: ‘It was a real test, but it is behind us.’ ‘Marriage is a challenge at best, and this incident has tested ours. But as a couple we’re stronger than ever.’ ‘The problem is now behind us.’ The key words are test, challenge, and behind us.”

  “Do you want me to write them on my palm in ink so I won’t forget?” Her sarcasm was punctuated by glittering eyes that fixed him through the gloom. She was getting tired of being fed words over and over again like an idiot parrot.

  “Just don’t let them throw you.” He was imperturbable, just as he had been all along. No matter how angry some of his suggestions made her—and a few had made her plenty angry—he kept his cool. Just knowing that he was “handling” her made Ronnie see red.

  “Oh, Tom, can’t you go over this with her tomorrow? She’s tired.” Thea intervened before Ronnie could reply. Thea and Tom were good friends now, having spent a great deal of time in each other’s company during the past weeks. No doubt they appreciated the crisis that had brought them together. What a cute how-we-met story it would make! See, there was this cheating senator and his dimwit wife, and …

  “Yeah, Tom, give her a break.” Kenny nudged his partner with an elbow. Kenny was good-natured and kind, and Ronnie often got the feeling that he felt a little sorry for her. Quinlan, on the other hand, had been relentless. Say this, say that, do this, do that, wear this, wear that. Hold the Senator’s hand. Let your eyes tear up. Be dignified. Smile.

  In Ronnie’s opinion the campaign theme song, played whenever Lewis or she arrived for a speaking engagement, should be changed from the Trumanesque “Happy Days Are Here Again” to “Stand By Your Man.” By now Ronnie could almost hear the words of Tammy Wynette’s country lament every time Quinlan opened his mouth.

  “Fine,” Quinlan said, and subsided.

  Thea smiled at him. Ronnie closed her eyes again.

  A fruit basket awaited her on a table in her hotel suite. Ronnie was glad to see it, because she was hungry. At dinners such as the one she had just attended, she was never able to eat. She was “on,” which was not conducive to digestion.

  It was a large basket, clearly expensive, crammed with more oranges and grapes and grapefruit than she, alone, could eat in a month. Probably it was from the group she was addressing the next morning. Stepping out of her shoes—sensible pumps with two-inch heels in a style dictated by Quinlan—Ronnie walked over to it and looked for the card. She found it beneath a bunch of grapes, one of which she popped into her mouth as she pulled the card free.

  The grape was sour. Ronnie made a face, and mentally passed on a second one.

  Honey, you’re doing great. Love, Lewis, the card read in a stranger’s handwriting.

  A fruit basket? From Lewis? Ronnie felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rise in her throat.

  Never since she had met him had he sent her such a thing.

  As a gift from a penitent husban
d to a wronged wife, it was ludicrous.

  Of course he had instructed someone on his staff to send a gift to her hotel room. Or maybe a diligent staff member had come up with the idea on his or her own. Something to keep the little woman happy. Something to let her know she was appreciated. Something to keep her toeing the party line.

  And be sure and call her honey.

  It was even possible that Quinlan had initiated it. Although he was supposed to be on her team, in deed if not words he had proven to be Lewis’s flunky rather than her own.

  On second thought Ronnie absolved Quinlan of this particular boneheaded gesture. A fruit basket was far too clumsy a gift to have been sent at his instigation. Quinlan would have taken a poll and found that the optimum gift from an erring senator to his ever-loyal spouse was a fabulous piece of jewelry, or something.

  Ronnie walked into the bathroom. The floor was dark green marble tile, and it felt cool beneath her stockinged feet. She leaned over to turn on the taps to the bath—sleep had been illusive lately and she’d found that soaking in a hot bath helped—and turned back to the sink. For a moment she stood motionless, staring at her reflection in the mirror.

  She didn’t look like herself. Oh, her features were the same, as delicate and elegantly cut and lovely as ever. And her hair was the same deep red, and her eyes the same chocolate brown. But there were shadows under her eyes where she had never had shadows before, and a small vertical crease between her brows that stayed put even when she stopped frowning. Lifting a well-manicured hand—her nails were now tipped in pale pink at Quinlan’s instigation rather than the deeper shades she preferred—she pressed the cool pad of her forefinger against the crease, hoping to smooth it out. Eyeing herself critically, Ronnie thought that she looked haggard. Was she starting to show her age—surely twenty-nine did not look so old!—or was it stress? Of course it was very possible that her washed-out appearance could be attributed to the pale pinks and soft browns of her makeup, colors she never chose for herself but that had been recommended by the image consultant Quinlan had hired.