“Get that environmental policy professor on the line,” Nora called as Cary ran by.
“Talk soon,” Logan said to me, but it was practically an afterthought. He was already moving, staffers crowding every side, on to the next disaster. It wasn’t until he dropped my hand that I realized how much I’d been counting on that warm pressure to ground me. I was the lone person standing still inside a whirlwind. As I watched the back of his dark, curly head move down the hall, suddenly I felt the pressure change in my ears, like I’d jumped underwater, feet-first into the deep end.
What had I gotten myself into?
9
Hurricane Lee
The knock at the door was so forceful I jerked up from the couch.The knocking kept going, and even though this made two unannounced visitors in twenty-four hours—a personal record—my stomach curdled. I knew exactly who stood on the other side of that door. The only person in my life with the combined gall and upper body strength to take the door off the hinges.
“Alexis Rosalie Stone! You open this door right now!”
My darling sister.
The second I twisted the doorknob Lee pushed through, rocketing past me like a Tasmanian devil, rattling the pictures on my entry table and gusting up the curtains. “I cannotbelieveyou’re dating Logan Arthur. Ofall people!”
It was a miracle I could parse her words, given her screech had climbed so high I was pretty sure it now registered as a dog language. I followed her. “Okay, it’s actually a funny—”
“And you hid it from me. Like asneak.” Lee reached my living room, and in one fluid motion kicked off her heels and started pacing barefoot around the coffee table. “Don’t you know I have to endorse Mane since he backed my Green Machine bill? Are you trying to start a family war?”
“Logan backed you, too,” I said, feeling like that was an important place to start. “His chief of staff says he came to your campaign events.”
Lee threw up her hands. “And you forced me to find out from thenews. When I saw you pop up on CBS 12, do you know what I did? I spit water all over my assistant Trey, and now Trey has to sign a contract agreeing he won’t sue me for harassment! You know, I heard the rumor yesterday that Logan Arthur was caught half-naked in public with some woman. But I refused to gossip about it to protect the poor unwitting girl. Imagine my surprise to find out that girl wasmy very own sister!”
“I wouldn’t say I was unwitting—” Lee’s face darkened. “Look, Iamsorry about surprising you,” I said, using my most mollifying tone. “I had no idea I was walking into a press conference today. Did you see my hair?”
She kicked the carpet. “It did look a little flat.”
“Exactly. Not the hair of someone who knew she’d be on TV.” As I looked at her, standing in my living room radiating indignation, the impulse to assuage Lee lessened. In its place, a trickle of annoyance bubbled. “Though, you know...maybe if you bothered talking to me instead of sending your friends to do it, you’d know a little more about my life.”
Lee’s mouth dropped open, but no sound came out. I’d actually achieved the impossible: rendered my sister speechless. “I didn’t realize—” she stammered. “I’ve just been so busy—”
“Yeah.” I gave a little laugh. “It’s almost like you’re perfectly fine living your life without me.”
“Lex. You don’t really think that, do you?”
Did I ever worry that eventually my older sister’s life would get so big and full of other people and accomplishments that I’d no longer be a priority? That maybe now that we were adults, with fewer family obligations to keep us in each other’s orbits, she’d realize she simply didn’t like me enough as a person to stay close?
“No,” I said. “Of course not.”
We stood motionless in the unconvincing silence.
“It’s a lie,” I said, in an effort to change the subject. “Me and Logan. Our entire relationship is fake.”
If I’d stumped Lee before, this time I broke her. A scarlet flush climbed her neck. “It’swhat?”
I’d sworn not to spill the secret, of course, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some part of me that took pleasure in being the interesting one for a change. “It’s a cover-up. So Logan can ward off the governor’s attack and I don’t lose my job to prudish parents.”
“But—how—when—” Lee’s eyes danced back and forth as she tried to fit the pieces together. Finally, she settled on:“Why?”
As enjoyable as it was to hold all the cards, I put Lee out of her misery and told her everything. When I finished, I stood grinning, waiting for her to congratulate me on being bold and ballsy and maybe even one-upping her.
But her expression, carefully blank while I’d recounted, turned disbelieving. She shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re doing this again.”
I blinked, caught off guard. “I know lying is wrong, but—”
“It’s not about the lying. I can’t believe you agreed to be Logan Arthur’s trophy girlfriend. A prop to help a man win office. You shouldn’t play the good wife, Alexis—you should be the damn candidate yourself!”
