And I never let anyone look at me like that again.
But that cold February morning, I was half naked and shocked and embarrassed and honestly a little afraid. I’d never cared all that much about politics, and up until that moment, I’d always just thought of Landon as… Landon. Just a guy. A sweet, smart, sexy man who mademefeel sweet, smart, and sexy.
But seeing his father there was a real bucket of cold water to the face. Reality crashed into me so hard it took my breath away, and even though Landon and I had been together forsix months by then, for the first time, just what it was I was doing—sleeping with amarried man, a married man who iseleven years older than me, a married man whosefather is the goddamned governor, what the actualfuckis wrong with me?—broke through whatever haze I’d been in since I’d picked up that letter and seen Landon’s name in embossed letters across the top.
I don’t know how long Mr. Fitzroy stood there, silent as the statue they built for him a few years ago, the one that makes him look like a fuckin’Star Warsvillain. I do remember Landon getting up, fastening his belt while his hair hung over his forehead, his body radiating tension.
“Dad,” he started, and faster than a snake, faster than anything I think I’ve ever seen, Beau Fitzroy reached out and slapped Landon hard across the face.
It sounded like a pistol shot, and I think I might have gasped. Landon just stood there, his head turned to the side, a red mark already appearing on one cheek.
Then he chuckled, but it wasn’t a sound I’d ever heard from him before. Landon laughed all the time, and this wasn’t that. This was something mean, something dark, and there was another first for me that afternoon.
For the first time, I realized that I might not really know Landon all that well.
“You know, I’m actually old enough to hit back now,” he said to his father, but Mr. Fitzroy just glared at him.
Sighing, Landon turned and fished my sweater out from behind one of the sofa cushions, crossing the small space to hand it to me. But taking it would’ve meant losing my pillow, and Mr. Fitzroy had gotten enough of a show as it was, so I just reached out with my fingertips and snagged the hem, letting the sweater lie limply on the sofa next to me.
“You are determined,” Mr. Fitzroy said, his voice deep and so Southern you could smell bourbon and magnolias in every word, “to throw it all away, aren’t you? Just plumdeterminedto destroy yourself and anyone who loves you.”
“Well, you should be fine, then, Daddy,” Landon said, one corner of his mouth kicking up.
I loved Landon’s smile, but not this version of it. Like his laugh, there was something ugly in it, and I shrank back against the sofa, wanting to be anywhere but on that fucking boat, let me tell you what.
“Don’t you dare act like I don’t love you, boy,” Mr. Fitzroy thundered in reply. “If I didn’t, I’dletyou blow up your entire goddamned life on… on boats and beaches and”—he gestured toward me but didn’t bother looking in my direction—“whatever this even is. Temporary insanity, one hopes.”
Forty years ago, and I remember every word that man said that day. You would, too, if a person you’d seen your whole life on TV, in newspapers, and in a photo on the wall of the DM-fuckin’-V was suddenly standing in front of you, more or less calling you trash.
“Well, you’re half right,” Landon said, looking a little more like his old self, hands braced on his hips, a faint smile still curving his lips. “I’m absolutely insane about Lo, but there is nothingtemporaryabout her.”
Now, here is where I have to think.
Because I want to tell you that he then said, “Because I love her.”
But did he? I’ve replayed it over and over again, and I tell myself he must have because I remember sitting there feeling warm all over,feelingloved, so much so that it didn’t really register what his father said next—not then, at least.
“Like the last one,” Mr. Fitzroy said, and now he wassmiling one of those ugly smiles. “And the one before her. And the one beforeher, I suppose. When are you going to grow up, huh? When am I going to stop getting phone calls asking if I know where my son is and with whom?”
Now, of course, I could answer that for him.
“August 1984, sir,” I’d say. “Just six months from now, and you’ll never get those kinds of phone calls again because Landon will be dead, and I’ll have turned out to be temporary after all. Are you happy, you son of a bitch?”
But on that day, none of us knew any of that, and Landon just said something about how maybe his dad could stop picking up those phone calls, and his dad blustered something else, and then he was stomping back up the stairs.
He didn’t look at me as he left. Other than that first heat-seeking missile of a scowl he’d turned my way when he first showed up, he hadn’t looked at me at all. Maybe he was afraid he’d catch another glimpse of my nipples—or, more likely, who I was and what I looked like just didn’t fucking matter to him because I wasn’t a person, I was just this… thing. An inconvenience in his life, a mere tool his son was using to break free from all those expectations, all thatdestiny.
So. You wonder why Beau Fitzroy was so steadfast in his belief that I killed his son? I’ll tell you: it’s because he felt guilty. Because he knew—that motherfuckerknew—that if he’d just let Landon live his own life, if he’d just eased up on him forone damn minute, Landon might not have been so reckless, so, as he put it himself,plum determinedto live life on his own terms.
And men like him, men who think they have capital-D Destinies, who think God Himself is personally invested in their success, like He has nothing better to worry about than some politician’s stock portfolio, they can’t ever lose. It’s always gotta be someone else’s fault, and if it’s a woman theycan blame? Well, hallelujah and pass the biscuits, because that’s even better.
Pages of unfinished manuscript titled “Be a Good Girl: Lo Bailey, Landon Fitzroy, and the Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty.” Found among possessions of August Fletcher, 8/3/2025
LANDONP. FITZROY, ESQ.
2/19/84
My Green-Eyed Girl,
