@YesteryearRanch where did you get that dress from????
I can’t decide if her husband is a psycho or not lol
A third lesson: the less a woman speaks, the better. That one, I’ll admit I already knew.
On cue, I glanced at the camera and offered the lens a private, tired smile. I finished chopping the vegetables, swept them into a big ceramic bowl, and let out an exaggerated sigh of accomplishment. I paused in that position for three long seconds.Mississippi, Mississippi, Mississippi.This made for easy video splicing. It also allowed for a brief relaxation of the face, a moment for the expression to drop and the eyes to go dark. Like walking off the lactic acid in between sprints.
I consulted the recipe for the twelfth time, then closed my eyes, running through a series of quick math equations, the cup of flour times the iPhone recording me divided by the moment my children were set to wake up. My brain whined happily beneath the pressure. What a relief, to feel the galloping strain of my own intelligence again. I felt like I was back in high school—no, I felt like I was a child again, a baby, doubling my inventory of instincts on a near-daily basis. Developing a computerlike knowledge of cooking and baking and producing. Each sleepless night brought me closer to a full mastery of—myself, I supposed. The performance of me. Of her.
After the vegetables came the beef shank. First, the twine. I pulled open the silverware drawer, then the cooking utensil drawer. No twine. Where the hell was it? I slammed the door shut.
“Caleb. Wake up.”
Caleb rolled over on his side, squinted up at me in the darkness. “W’time is it?”
“It’s six,” I whispered. I was sitting on the side of our bed, shrugging on a new sweater. It was a soft lilac cashmere and had cost six hundred dollars, the most I’d ever spent on a single piece of clothing. The color expert I’d met virtually a month earlier had sworn by this brand; she’d said their style wasso on-brandfor me. “I need to go get twine,” I said, cuffing the sleeves like she’d taught me to. “I’ll take Jessa with me, but you need to get Clementine, Samuel, and Stetson up and dressed and fed. I’ll be back in thirty minutes. Forty, tops.”
“Twine,” he mumble-repeated. “Get ’em up. Forty minutes. Why?”
But I was already out the door.
Inside the car, I set the camera mount up on the dash, checked my hair, and then pressed record. “Morning, y’all! Another busy day at the ranch. I thought I got twine yesterday, but I can’t find it anywhere, so now I need to go to the grocery store and get some—which means today is going to be anotherverybusy day. But luckily I have my favorite coworker with me for the ride.” I shifted the phone to capture Jessa, six months old and fast asleep in her car seat. Then I pressed the end recording button, turned the car on, and hit the gas.
My phone went off as I pulled onto the highway. Doug was calling. “How’s my most famous daughter-in-law?”
“I’m fine, Doug—how’s the campaign trail coming along?”
Doug was practicing a few new campaign strategies in advance of thebigrun. A presidential push in eighteen months.
“Oh, fine,” Doug said, echoing me. “Busy. You know.” He clearedhis throat, and I sighed. I knew what was coming next. It was the only reason Doug ever called me, though he liked to pretend otherwise. “So listen,” he began casually. “I know we’ve discussed this before, but I was thinking you might take some time in the next few weeks to—”
“You know I can’t get political on my page, Doug.”
“I’m not asking for anything crazy! Just, hell, I don’t know …” He trailed off theatrically, as if he was really trying to think of examples off the top of his head. As if he wasn’t looking at a list written by an intern at that very moment. “Maybe you repost a video of me from that Senate Judiciary hearing. Or—how about this, your latest grocery bill. Read through it, line by line. And you can’tbelievehow expensive things are getting, and you’re worried about your kids staying afloat twenty years from now—”
Doug was desperate to reach the youth.
“I’ve told you what I’m comfortable with,” I said firmly. “And that is showing up at your campaign stops, sharing photos of myself and the kids at your rallies. Making it a family affair. That’s where it starts, and that’s where it ends.”
Doug laughed tightly. “You know we’re rapidly approaching a crossroads in this country, Natalie. The next election is going to be big.”
“Why? Because it’s going to be yours?”
Doug laughed. This is what my social media account had provided me: I could challenge Doug now, and when I did so, he had to laugh. “I’m just reminding you how important all of this is. It’s not just, or rather it’s notonly …” He trailed off here, so suddenly frustrated by my refusal to play ball that he seemed perplexed. “Listen. We’re making this complicated. I’m just asking you to write a simple little post saying that I’m a great leader. That’s it. This isn’t complicated, Natalie. It doesn’t have to be complicated.”
“I didn’t say it was complicated,” I said, my tone still lemon-bright. “I said I wasn’t doing it.”
“You know, Natalie: I don’t like to talk about money.”
Bullshit. Doug loved to talk about money.
“We gave you a lot of money. We helped you build that ranch.”
“I’m aware. I’m very grateful for your support of me, and your son, and your grandkids.”
“Well, what if the world found out just how much money I gave you?”
I paused. Doug had never tried this tack before. “Are you threatening me, Doug?”
