Chapter 13
Avery
Maddox drives us across town, because that’s his job – at least as long as he still has one. I already know what she wants with me. She wants me to quit school – at least during the campaign – and head out on the road with her for county fairs, stump speeches, and those crucially important $2000 per plate fundraisers.
I would rather eat glass.
For the last five years I’ve pretty much had it made. I like school. I like my life, my friends, my books. I like fucking around when I want and partying when I want. I like my own company when I want. But now I’ve got stalkers who want to hurt me, a bodyguard who – while he’s amazing in bed – may wants me to be his, and a power-crazed mother who wants to control every move I make, and use me to achieve her unchecked ambition to become ruler of the Western Hemisphere.
How can I be everything I need to be to all these different people and circumstances, all pulling me in different directions?
I can’t.
I will fuck up and disappoint someone, somewhere, soon. It’s inevitable. I always do.
Maddox is mostly silent as we drive, his face grim. He’s pretty sure Evelyn is going to fire him, and I’m in no position to contradict him. He’s just out of the Marines and it’s not like there are six-figure salaried jobs growing on trees, ripe for the picking, for guys his age with few skills beside blowing things up and killing people. He needs the money.
He’s said that. I know it’s true. And just as surely as I know my own self, I know there’s something he’s not telling me, too.
I’m not sure exactly what his financial obligations are – we haven’t discussed that – but I get the sense that they are real and they weigh on him.
The campaign office is ice-cold, like a dragon’s lair ought to be. Mother’s secretary tells us to wait while “the Senator wraps up a previous appointment.”
We wait almost twenty minutes before the phone on the secretary’s desk rings. She answers, nods, speaks, “Yes Ma’am. I’ll show them in.”
She looks up at us. “The Senator will see you now.”
I cock my head to the side. I can’t help myself. “You do know that ‘the Senator’ is my mother, right? I mean at home around the table, I don’t say, ‘Excuse me, Madam Senator, would you please pass the salt?’”
“Yes, Miss Thomas. I am well aware.” She replies, pursing her lips and looking between me and Maddox. “I’m well aware of a great many things.”
“Screw you, you judgmental little toad.” I mutter under my breath as we pass her, heading into the deepest, darkest, chamber of horrors that is my mother’s campaign headquarters office.
“Behave yourself, Aves,” Maddox whispers in my ear. “For me. Please.”
For him? What about for me?
Mother is seated behind her gigantic, mahogany desk when we walk in. She doesn’t look up, much less stand. She waves her hand toward a couple of chairs nearby, and keeps reading the documents on her desk, signing pen in hand. I’m pretty sure it’s a gold Montblanc.
A minute passes. Maybe two. Maddox starts to fidget.
“You’ve made your point, Mother. Now you’re just being unspeakably rude,” I say, conjuring up a respectful tone to counter my words.
“Not calling me, ‘Mom,’ anymore?” She glances at me, her eyes cold.
“No. It doesn’t suit you,” I say, crossing my arms. I’m suddenly hyper-aware of my apricot sundress. It looks — and feels — frivolous in this room. I can feel Evelyn’s eyes burning into me.
She puts her pen down and and folds her spider leg-like fingers together in front of her, elbows on her desk.
“You two were unspeakably rude last night,” she says, her tone even. “However, after speaking to your father and several other guests, I understand there may have been extenuating circumstances that lead to the kerfuffle with Aaron Schilling.”
That is as close to admitting she was wrong as I have ever heard my mother approach, in twenty-five years of life on this Earth. Holy shit.
She turns her attention to Maddox. “Maddox, I’ve known you – and your family – a very long time. Your mother did her best by me. So...”
There is a long pause as she lets the idea of a reprieve set in.
“With that in mind, along with the information I received from the Mason’s about Mr. Schilling’s inappropriate behavior, I’m inclined to overlook the fact that you over-reacted to the incident. I realize that I hired you to protect Avery – keep her safe – and that you obviously take that obligation seriously. I’m glad you do. Because your job is about to require more public events where it may be necessary to intervene – I hope – in a somewhat more civil and inconspicuous manner, to protect Avery from advances like the one last night. And to keep her on the straight and narrow so she doesn’t bring scandal to this campaign.”
Jesus. I’m right here. You’re talking about me, but I’m sitting right in front of you.
“Yes Ma’am. Thank you for understanding,” Maddox says.
And that’s all he says. All his chivalrous bluster from last night is gone.
She turns to me. I feel a chill rattle down my spine. “Up until the thing with Schilling – which I’m still not entirely certain you didn’t provoke somehow...”
Is she fucking kidding me?
“… You did very well last night. I hear nothing but good things about you from people in passing. It’s like you’re another person with the rest of the world. Bright. Erudite. So well informed. And so gentile. Sometimes I have no idea who they’re even talking about. Be that as it may, you play well in the field and the press loves you. I need that.”
Evelyn informed me that I would be leaving school, effective immediately, to begin handling some of the early fund raisers and public appearances, as well as working with the PR team to begin preparing for print and cable news interviews. She had a schedule printed up for the next sixty days, which she handed to me for review. It was a ten-hour a day, six day a week itinerary – a full time job – starting this weekend.
Eating glass began to feel like a good alternative to the one in front of me.
“Mother. My school term is over in just a few weeks. At least let me finish the semester.”
She scowls. “You’re a political science major, dear. You can phone in your exams if need be. I wanted you to go to law school. That’s what was supposed to happen. But you went your own way and took the easy route. Sorry. Not an option. You have a duty to this family to play your part, starting now. You’ve had every advantage in the world given to you, and with that, comes responsibility. Get used to it.”
Or I could just slash my wrists and bleed out in a warm bath. That would make the papers. There is no such thing as bad publicity, right?
“Senator,” Maddox interjects. “You know, Avery deserves to have a say in this. She’s a grown woman, with a life and plans of her own. Maybe you could see your way clear to...”
“This doesn’t involve you, Maddox.” Evelyn snaps. “Except that you’ll be part of the security detail. Everyone in this family has a job to do, and I expect my daughter to do hers.”
I turn beet red, probably clashing with my hair and the damn dress all at once. The way she speaks to him feels like a slap in the face, but Maddox remains quiet, taking it in.
“You’ll do exactly as I say for the remainder of the election cycle, Avery Thomas.” I keep my eyes down. It’s hard to focus and keep my cool, but it will be worse if I look at her.
I don’t know if I want Maddox just to hold my hand or to stand up to my mother, but he doesn’t do either. That sick sadness sinks into me again, and I feel alone in the ice cold room until my mother dismisses us both and tells us to leave.
We walk in silence back to the parking deck. Maddox opens the car door for me but doesn’t say another word.
On the drive back to my place, I let this new reality sink in. I have to give up everything for at least a year, maybe more, to please my mother and help her get elected to an office that – in my heart – I don’t want her to win. She’s not qualified for it. She’s corrupt. She doesn’t care about the most pressing issues facing the state, much less her constituents. She cares about consolidating her personal power and taking tribute from the corporations who want their agendas advanced.
Working to get her re-elected goes against every single thing I believe in. What kind of person would I be if…
“That went pretty well,” Maddox says, breaking the silence. He glances sideways at me.
I could not conceal the stunned expression darkening my face.
“Are you serious?” I ask.
“I’m not fired, at least.” He replies, as if that’s the only thing that matters.
I haul in a deep breath, trying to keep my cool. “You’re not fired.” I agree. “But I’m her ho, pimped like some piece of meat out on the stump, telling lies, reeling in the big fish.”
Maddox shrugs. “Just look at it like another weird life experience. You put your head down and get through it, then it’s done. Sort of like Afghanistan.”
Afghanistan? Really?
“You realize, if my mother gets re-elected, more of your buddies are going to have to go there, and to Syria, and back to Iraq – and a hundred other places? That she and her friends make money on every new deployment? On every bullet fired and million-dollar missile lobbed into the rubble of the Middle East? Put my head down and get through it? Good lord Maddox, don’t you realize I’d rather cut out my tongue than shill for that woman?”
He gives me a look of serious concern, showing a rising awareness that I haven’t seen in him before. Maybe he’s beginning to see how things really are. Maybe I can help him see.
“You know why I wanted to get my passport?” I ask him.
“I want to know,” he says.
“I was going to run. Just get out of the country. Flee from her and all her demands and criminal ambitions. That’s looking like a pretty good plan right about now.”
Maddox grips the steering wheel and looks dead ahead.
“You can’t do that,” he says to me, his jaw clenched, his voice tight with angst. “I can’t let you do that.”
“You can’t stop me,” I say.
He looks straight at me. “I can. And I have to. Part of the terms of my employment contract, I can’t let you leave the country – not even the state. I have to keep you safe – and local.”
What the ever-loving-fuck? That’s even crazier than the morality clause in the contract they made me sign last time Mother was running.
“Maddox. I’m twenty-five years old. When it comes right down to it, I can do what I want.”
“Can you live without her money?” He asks me. It’s a fair question. And because I can’t think about what it would actually mean to have to live without her money, I turn the question around on him.
“Can you?” I ask.
“No,” he says without hesitating. “No. I’m pretty much fucked without this job.”
And there you have it. Everyone has their priorities.
“Great,” I say. “Well, at least I know where I stand. You’re my body guard, and apparently a dedicated fuck buddy. But probably – when push comes to shove, not much more than that.”
“Avery—”
“No. It’s all cool. Better than I expected. It’s good to know where we are. It’s fantastic, in fact. Because I was worried you were taking this little thing we have way too seriously. Now, I don’t need to worry. I know you have a job to do and I have a job to do, and we’ll figure it all out. At least I don’t need to fret myself with thinking there’s anything complicated going on.”
I stare out the window. I don’t know why, but tears try to form up behind my eyes. Fuck that. I don’t cry. Not over a guy. Not ever.
This guy has muddled my head for weeks, but no more. Now I know.