I snorted. “Principles? In the viper’s nest we live in?”
“It wasn’t always like that.”
“Right. Life was Shangri-la until I popped out.” I tried to sound normal, but the bitterness in my voice seeped out.
I was right, but Joey tried to hide it. Maybe he had grown up. Maybe I was imagining the subtext of the looks between him and Betsy.
“Not Shangri-la, no. As it turns out, it was all a lie, our happy family. But it’s not a lie if you don’t know the truth.”
“There’s some messed-up logic for you,” I said.
He shrugged, my hand that rested on his shoulder rising and lowering with his movement. “Politics is full of messed-up logic.”
“So are families,” I added.
“Yeah,” he said, and twirled me around. “Anyway, I’m getting the hell out of Dodge during this circus. Betsy and Jason are going on an extended honeymoon through Europe, then they’ll start their new jobs next fall, when the apartment is ready. I’m giving you fair warning—you might want to make yourself scarce for the next six to nine months.”
“I’m in the middle of my freshman year at college. How am I supposed to disappear?”
“Right,” he said, then looked down at me as if realizing I couldn’t live my own life yet, like he and Betsy could. “Can you stay at Bribury during the summer? Take classes?”
“I hadn’t planned on it, but I guess I could. Why?”
He shrugged again. “I’m just thinking with Betsy and me away, Dad might come calling on you to hit the campaign trail with him.”
Some one-on-one time with my dad—no Betsy or Joey. And most definitely not my mother. Traveling around the country. Stumping, I guess they called it. And then Joey added, “He’ll need somebody to trot out to show he hassomefamily that still talks to him. That he’s not a total douche.”
Oh, yeah. Right. I’d be the sacrificial lamb.
My father asked me to dance next, and I waited for him to bring up his going back into politics, but he didn’t. He did look over my shoulder whenever he got a chance, probably scoping out where all the reporters and potential bigwigs might be stationed.
Sad, but after our small exchange in the limo on the way to the reception, we really didn’t have much more to say to each other. I wanted to bait him about his decision to run for office, but I couldn’t really come up with something to say—which wasveryunusual for me.
We danced in silence mostly. He kept an eye on the photographers, and when apparently the moment was right, he smiled down at me. I smiled back at him, like some daughter happy to be dancing with her beloved daddy. Our smiles were such practiced movements it would be hard for anyone to tell just how completely fake it all was.
Chapter4
After the dancewith my father, I was led to the dance floor by Grayson Spaulding, my roommate Lily’s father.
Not asked to dance, mind you, just taken to the dance floor and made to dance with the man that was the brains behind my father’s presidential run. And the reason I was even here at the wedding.
“So, governor, huh?” I said to him as he moved me about the dance floor. I found it easier to ask Spaulding about it than my father. I guess that said something about my relationship with my father.
To his credit, Spaulding didn’t even appear surprised that I knew about my father’s running. Hell, maybeeverybodyknew and I was just, as usual, catching up.
“We’re going to need your support for this campaign, Jane,” he said to me. He looked me in the eyes for this.
This. This was the difference between Grayson Spaulding and Joseph Stratton. Spaulding knew everybody was watching us, and he kept his eyes on me, seeming oblivious to it all.
My fatherneededto see the people watching him. It was as if he wouldn’t believe it otherwise. That need to see the adoration (as it had been in years past) or the curiosity (as it was now).
Spaulding knew it was there, smelled it like a bloodhound, but didn’t need to visually confirm it.
That’s why some people needed to run for public office and others were perfectly content to be the man behind the curtain, pulling the levers and making the steam rise.
“We already made our deal, Mr. Spaulding,” I said. “Here I am, pretending to be a happy part of the family.”
“I think we’re to the point where you can call me Grayson, don’t you? Typically I’m on a first-name basis with my extortionists.”
