“Oh! Oh, hello! How areyou?” she asked.
“We’re fine,” I replied, nodding awkwardly as I silenced my cell. “Right, kids?”
My phone pulsed again. My husband now, but I dismissed his call, too, swiping my Visa.
Andie pointed by the register. “Daddy, can I have a macaroon?”
“Take it, honey,” the cashier answered.
“We can pay,” I said as she shoved three macaroons into Andie’s hand.
“Just… to brighten your day.” She shrugged, practically wincing now.
Increasingly unnerved, I marched the kids outside only for Jenny to ring yet again, and this time I picked up. “Sorry, just finishing up the weirdest trip to Whole Foods.”
“You don’t know,” she said. A statement, not a question. Though we spoke almost every day, it was unlike her to be this blunt unless my husband had found a new way to piss her off. I tried to remember if he’d had an interview today, preparing to remind her I didn’t agree with all his policies either. “Luke, are you with the kids?” she asked, her voice uniquely strained.
I lowered my voice, stomach hollowing. “Okay, you’re scaring me. What’s up?”
“Turn off your phone and drive home. Call me there.”
Had it finally happened? Had there been the shooting, the deranged homophobe, the cost for the life we lived? Had I just silenced his last phone call? I couldn’t bring myself to say his name, for then it would become real. “Jen, is he hurt? He just tried calling.”
“Jesus, how have you never set up Google alerts? He is… physically fine,” she gritted out. “He’s had affairs with five of his former staffers. It’s on every channel.”
But he loves me, I thought, despite instantly realizing the news was true. Those were my two truths: My husband loves me, and he has cheated on me. Still I asked, “Could they be lying?”
“Luke, there’s video. It’s bad,” Jenny continued. “I’m already driving down and should beat the traffic out of Philly. Go home and don’t let that fascist fuck past the front door.”
I hung up to find Andie and Wallace staring, clearly sensing my distress. Even as the heat simmered in my throat, I wouldn’t lose it in front of them. They’d always remember this.
His texts started coming then, but I shut off my phone rather than read them. Instead I gunned the car home, mumbling meaningless assurances to the kids and only realizing later I’d left the shopping cart filled with groceries in the parking lot.
News vans and protestors awaited us in our oak-lined cul-de-sac, photographers hanging on the streetlamps I’d always found so charming. At our driveway, the crowd engulfed my SUV. I rammed my fists on the horn, avoiding the questions Andie howled at me.
Suddenly, Secret Service agents cut through the morass, carving a path to the porch as I forced my way out of the car. I noticed him then, dumbfounded in our doorway. For once, he actually appeared scared.
Andie bolted from the back seat to his outstretched arms. They looked so alike, father and daughter, a photo-op pietà waiting to be documented—though like hell I’d permitthat. “Get her inside!” I called, prying Wallace from his car seat and shielding his face against my chest.
As I slammed the car door, I noticed one of the protestors behind thestone wall surrounding our property. She was almost six feet tall, long braids in a ponytail, skin dark, rainbow T-shirt, eyes unflinching. For one impossible moment, I almost thought she was Imogen. The woman stared at me with complete disgust and raised a simple handmade sign:
CONGRATULATIONS ON GETTING EVERYTHING YOU DESERVE.
2
2003
SEASON 1, EPISODE 1:
“Pilot”
I never imagined I’d be on reality television. When I arrived at the Charlotte airport in 2003, I didn’t even know what the show would be called.
My dad had parked in the garage, dragging my mammoth suitcases from the bed of his pickup. “Off to the Cayman Islands, and you still packed enough books to kill a man.” He grinned, but I only fidgeted with my sunglasses in response. “Kid, I can’t even see the scars.”
“Stop, Mitch. It’s just bright.”
Jenny and I had called our dad by his first name since childhood, an early rebellion against addressing him as “Coach Griffin” at school. Mitch was the athletic director at Morrocroft Prep, the best private K-12 in Charlotte. Faculty kids received free tuition; otherwise we’d never have afforded it. He’d been my own varsity coach in high school, and no one grieved the loss of my football career—and the protection it might have afforded—more than him. From the moment I came out at fourteen, he’d never had a problem with me being gay; he was just terrified how the world might treat me. Even though we were in the most liberal state in the South, he had good reason.
