I dutifully headed to the altar, standing next to my father. We’re a striking bunch. My father, now in his early sixties, has aged very well. He’s still movie-star handsome. He could be played in the movie version of his life by a slightly older George Clooney.
Caroline’s life showed on her face. The cheating husband, public divorce, years of cancer treatments followed by long remissions; they all showed. She looked tired, and a little on the thin side, but was still a handsome woman, and had probably had some stylists work with her today, because she was totally put together. In particular, her shoes: totally killer sling-backs with beading at the peek-a-boo toe that matched her dress.
Betsy and Joey are both white-blonde with clear blue eyes. They look like their mother. I have my father’s coloring, darker hair and green eyes. It was very much an “us” and “them” family in looks. And pretty much everything else too. Though I have my own “me” and “him” relationship with my father.
I stood with my “family”—such as it was—and smiled.
I did it because Caroline Stratton was one woman I couldn’t pull any crap with. She was…stately…was the term they used in the political world. And this woman could have curled up and died long ago, and I don’t mean just from the cancer.
No, she took a lot of shit over the years—mostly at the hands of my mother and father—and came out a class act. Pride intact.
That was going to be me.
Again, I pushed back my shoulders, flipped my hair and tilted my head just a bit to the right; the pose I knew made me look my best. And I smiled like I’d just slept with the hottie professor I’d been trying to bag all semester.
These shots would probably be on the cover ofPeople. At the very least they’d be all over the web, and I’d be damned if I looked the part of castoff, bastard daughter.
Even if that was what I was.
Chapter2
I wasthe baby that brought down the president. Well, he wasn’t the president yet, but he was the front-runner on the election trail. Then he hooked up with my mother, got busted for the affair (did I mention he was married for, like, a zillion years and his wife had cancer?), denied being my father and dropped out of the presidential race. His wife divorced him a year later. He finally admitted to being my father, after DNA tests proved it, but his political career was totally shot.
Yeah, total douche, my dad. Biological father. Sperm donor. Whatever.
But he’s filthy rich, which was a good thing for me.
And for my mother, who was probably still sucking money out of him. Don’t ask, don’t tell was my motto on that one.
I rode to the reception at the Chesney Marriott with my father, just the two of us in the humongous limo. The other bridesmaids rode with the groomsmen, bottles of champagne already flowing. I was not asked to join them, nor did I ask to be included.
Standing up for my sister at the altar, being in the photographs, not causing a stink in any way—my job was done. I wasn’t really needed anymore, so I sat back in the seat, kicked off the God-awful pumps Betsy insisted that we wear, and stared out the window as we made our way from the church to the Marriott. I resisted the urge to pull my phone out of my bag and text my roommates. I knew that drove my dad crazy, and normally I’d do it just to tweak him, but he’d had a crappy day too, so I left it alone.
“How’s your mother, Jane?” my father asked me, no real concern in his voice. Just making conversation. I knew he was thinking about Caroline, not my mother. From what I understood, he and Caroline didn’t see each other much anymore, now that Betsy and Joey were grown and had been out of the house for a while. No real reason to communicate.
Seeing each other so much this past week during all the wedding hoopla was probably hard on both of them.
Not that I cared.
“Fine. I guess. I was only home a couple of days before coming here,” I answered.
He nodded, as if he’d just remembered I attended college. “Right. And school? How’s that going for you?”
“Good.”
He looked like he wanted to say more, but let’s face it, we’ve never really had much to say to each other.“Hey, Pops, sorry Mom wouldn’t have that abortion and save you from all that public humiliation! But, hey, if she had, we’d have missed out on all these great daddy/daughter chats.”Uh…no.
We sat in silence for the rest of the drive.
I had to team up with my designated groomsman—Jason’s former fraternity brother, Ryan Something-or-other—for our entrance into the ballroom. There was polite applause as the emcee announced us (what were they going to do? stand up and chant “bastard! bastard!”), and we made our way to the head table, which was raised up on a platform of some sort and let us look down on the rest of the gathering.
I did like the idea of that. Looking down on these smug people.
Dinner was a blur, with the two guys sitting on either side of me totally ignoring me and chatting up the girls on their other sides. I had to resist pulling out my phone and texting someone—anyone—just to feel some semblance of control.
But I didn’t text anyone. Everyone was waiting for me to do something like that, so I didn’t. I ate, and met the eyes of people in the crowd who were staring at me with polite smiles.
Plus, I’d made a deal with Grayson Spaulding to not only be a bridesmaid, but to behave as if I wanted to be there. (“And the Oscar goes to…Jane Winters!”)
