Herself Read online

  Herself

  Leslie Carroll

  For my good friend Sharon O’Connell—

  Mine’s a pint

  I have spread my dreams under your feet.

  Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

  W. B. Yeats

  Balscadder House, Howth

  Contents

  Epigraph

  One

  “A snake can’t strike more than half its length.” David’s…

  Two

  C’mon, sweetheart, hang in there. You can make it! I…

  Three

  Following several hours of post-surgical observation in the recovery room…

  Four

  “I think hitting the ‘bad neighbors’ angle is a good…

  Five

  The following day, David phones me. I always screen my…

  Six

  Olivia deMarley is happily single and a bona fide heiress.

  Seven

  “Would you just go off to Italy like that if…

  Eight

  Much later that night, I board an overnight flight bound…

  Nine

  As I wend through Dublin’s dark streets following Conlan’s chicken-scratched…

  Ten

  “I…I want to be alone, Jamie.” It’s 12:05 P.M.…

  Eleven

  I don’t feel like warring with my inner thoughts to…

  Twelve

  I need to deal with David now. He’s behind me…

  Thirteen

  “Who was that?” David asks my red, crestfallen face.

  Fourteen

  Full of sleep in any case, I nod off with…

  Fifteen

  We cross back to the ruins via a little bridge.

  Sixteen

  I am stunned by this spiritual body blow, and after…

  Seventeen

  “You are looking at a gainfully employed man!” Jamie announces,…

  Eighteen

  I decide to go to the Pot o’Gold as often…

  Nineteen

  The following afternoon, still in the rosy throes of afterglow,…

  Twenty

  As my apartment comprises the top two floors of a…

  Twenty-one

  “Obviously, we’re racing against time here. We need to collect…

  Twenty-two

  There might as well be a red carpet unfurled in…

  Twenty-three

  During the hour-and-a-half drive to Bridgehampton, small talk reveals that…

  Twenty-four

  “Hey, Tess, are you home? I brought yiz a present!”…

  Twenty-five

  Before I deliver my Education speech, I decide to road…

  Twenty-six

  I drop the journal onto my blanket and dash off…

  Twenty-seven

  I call Gus Trumbo from the cab. “Is it over?”…

  Twenty-eight

  It’s a whirlwind (and very wet) day. A long, day,…

  A+ Author Insights, Extras, & More

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by Leslie Carroll

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  One

  “A snake can’t strike more than half its length.”

  David’s talking in his sleep again. “Honey…? You’re lying on my hair.” If I try any harder to reach the crowing clock, I risk whiplash. “David…? Hey! Sleeping Congressman at six o’clock!” I whisper.

  David grumbles and shifts almost imperceptibly. “I’ll’mm nevermm be a mmmorning person,” he mumbles. He’s in the here and now, now: all nightmares vanquished or vanished. His arm, draped protectively over my chest, pulls me toward him.

  “Listen, I’d love to snuggle all day, but you’re doing a meet and greet at the Metropolitan Health Club at eight. Freddy will be waiting outside your place at seven-thirty with the black car to take you there. So up and at ’em, chief!”

  Congressman David Weyburn blinks open his sleep-encrusted lids and rolls over just far enough for me to switch off the alarm clock. How do some men sleep through that kind of noise? But heck, they sleep through arguments and filibusters on the floor of the House of Representatives, so I suppose nothing should surprise me. “What the hell time is it, Tess?”

  “6:04. You could have grabbed some extra z’s if you weren’t perpetually freaked out about someone learning that you’ve been sleeping with your head speechwriter. For three years.” I lean over and kiss him gently on the mouth. Screw morning breath; we both had it. “Keeping separate apartments all this time is your idea, remember?”

  David grunts his ac knowledgment and swivels his feet onto the hardwood floor. “I’ve never been a morning person,” he sighs.

  “Take your shower here; it’ll help wake you up.”

  He shakes his head. “I’ll only have to do it again when I stop off at my place.”

  “Why?” I slide over and kneel on the mattress, kissing the back of his neck. “It’s important to start the day off right, which, in my book, has very little to do with eating breakfast.” I caress the planes of his chest and lean over him, the better to snake my hand down his body. “What do you say we hit the showers?” I murmur.

  I feel David stiffen beneath my hand. “You’re a very persuasive woman, Tessa Craig.”

  “Isn’t that why you hired me?”

  Following a highly satisfying sojourn in my bathroom, I kiss David good-bye with a “See you at 7:45; don’t forget your bathing suit and a pair of flip-flops” and send him down to the street, where his driver’s town car whisks him off to his own apartment, three-quarters of a mile away.

  I sip a glass of iced coffee as I dress in a simple skirt and knit top—innocuous personal appearance uniform number 4a—and apply minimal makeup, since I’ll be exercising in a swimming pool in just a couple of hours. Then I double-check the contents of my gym bag and take my coffee into my home office. Seating myself at the desk, I remove my daily journal and my favorite green pen from the center drawer. Pathetic how chewed the end of it is. I should be ashamed of myself. I glance at the print facing me on the opposite wall, a lithograph of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Four Organic Commandments: Love is the virtue of the Heart; Sincerity is the virtue of the Mind; Decision is the virtue of the Will; Courage is the virtue of the Spirit.

  Absentmindedly, I gaze at the quote for a few seconds before putting pen to paper.

  August 1

  I’ve never been angling for a ring—once you’ve been married, somehow it seems like less of a Big Deal—but I figured that after three years of dating, David would have at least been amenable to cohabitating. Our professional life got personal after we’d been working together for two years and by now, I suppose I should know him well enough to realize that getting a commitment out of him might be tough. After all, he’s a politician.

  But he’s irresistible. He’s got the whole package.

  Media pundits have characterized Congressman David Weyburn as having the charm of a Clinton (Bill, obviously—though I’d say it’s a lot more like Cary Grant’s), the charisma of a Kennedy (Jack or Bobby—take your pick), and the looks of a Clooney (George, of course, not Rosemary). They don’t make ’em any more telegenic. Not only that, David Weyburn has the ethics of…well, come to think of it, neither a politician nor a movie star spring to mind as a template for David’s ethics. What I’m trying to say is that he’s got ’em. And not only is this paragon my boyfriend; he’s also my boss. Everybody knows the latter part of the equation. No one knows about the former except our mothers, a few good friends of mine, and a couple of close friends of David’s—plus his campaign manager, Gus Trumbo, and his limo driver, Freddy—all of whom have been sworn to silence. A c
ouple of my girlfriends hate the idea of me being David’s “dirty little secret,” particularly since neither one of us has anything to hide. They call me “The Beret.” And as time goes on, I’ve become less amenable to pretending that David and I are merely colleagues. I’m not asking for a round of tongue hockey in the Capitol rotunda—believe me, I understand the concept of discretion—but conducting this relationship entirely on his terms has become harder and harder the more I’ve come to care about him. I want to be acknowledged as his woman, without worrying about his poll numbers among females from eighteen to eighty-four. Sometimes I feel like Dracula, all hidden away until after sunset; and even then, if we go to a restaurant it has to look like we’re still talking shop. Frankly, I’d like to step out of the shadows and into the light.

  The Metropolitan Health Club is an all-purpose pampering hub just a few blocks from my apartment. Seven airy stories of state-of-the-art gym equipment, general exercise, Spinning, and Pilates studios, plus an in-house child-care center offering a variety of programs for infants and toddlers, a rooftop sun deck, a café for snacks and smoothies, an award-winning restaurant helmed by a famous chef, and a full-service spa. Urban heaven.

  I arrive ten minutes ahead of schedule to make sure everything is in order, as the MHC is my turf, so to speak, and I’m the one who set up the event. Already waiting at the check-in desk to greet the Hon. handsome and hunky David Weyburn (as he was recently described by a prominent gossip columnist) are a gaggle of young staffers (male and female) and Janet Moreland, the gym’s general manager. I notice she’s wearing makeup for the first time in memory, and I’ve been a member of the MHC for half a dozen years. David’s communications director and campaign manager, Gus Trumbo, is already there as well, speaking to the media about his boss’s strategic initiatives for public education reform. I smile, recognizing the talking points as my own. Fox News has sent a crew fronted by the perkiest reporter in New York City, Suki Glassman. If her eyes sparkled any more brightly I’d swear she used belladonna.

  “We’ll be taking Kelly Adonis’s aqua cardio class this morning,” I inform Janet. “So I don’t know whether you want to clear the lap swimmers from the other half of the pool.” I glance over at the Fox cameraman. “Are your cables going to be okay on the pool deck?”

  The shooter nods. “I’ve handled worse,” he replies tersely.

  David is fifteen minutes late, which is early in candidate terms. I shake his hand as I always do when we reconnoiter at public appearances. Affable as ever, he greets everyone who wanted to meet him, pressing the flesh with both hands, a gesture that always seems to convey interest and compassion. I prefer it to the classic, perfunctory single handshake, which too often, in candidate terms, telegraphs “I don’t really want to be here, much less meet you, much much less touch you, and I’m just trying to get through the rope line as quickly as I can and still be perceived as warm and fuzzy.”

  “Mr. Weyburn, I loved that speech you gave on port security,” says one woman enthusiastically. “My husband is in shipping.”

  “Thank you very much. I expect you’re as sick and tired as I am with people who think that mentioning the issue is the same as addressing it,” David replies. “And continuing to fight for the safest possible New York is at the bedrock of my agenda!”

  “Ooh, you said it,” gushes his new admirer. “Are you single? Because I would love to introduce you to my daughter.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, ma’am.” David chuckles noncommittally.

  “And Laurie’s a sweet girl, too,” adds the woman. “Never even been in therapy, can you believe it?”

  There is no graceful answer to that question.

  There had been “Meet your Congressman” flyers posted at the gym announcing David’s appearance, and he is indeed mobbed wherever he steps this morning; from the front desk to the key desk to the gift shop (yes, my health club has a gift shop), to, as I will later learn, the men’s locker room.

  Most of the participants in Kelly’s aqua classes are women on the north side of sixty, who adore Kelly’s snarky exuberance (though his six-pack ain’t bad either, if you have to look at something while you bounce around a swimming pool for an hour). These women are of the ilk who were Peter Allen fans back in the day; they probably think Kelly’s straight, too.

  If Kelly’s name is familiar, it’s probably because you remember his death-defying diving prowess at the 1992 summer Olympics—death-defying being the more operative adjectival phrase—for the freak accident that shocked Barcelona and the rest of the world when he cut his head on the 10-meter board performing a backward 1½ somersault pike with a half twist. Bloody, but not unbowed, he miraculously came back in the next four rounds to end up with a silver medal.

  No sooner was the Olympic torch extinguished than Kelly signed a big endorsement deal with a breakfast cereal manufacturer to pitch Heads Up!, the caffeine-loaded corn puffs, followed by a spectacularly brief stint as a lifeguard on an ill-fated sand-and-jiggle sitcom that dived to the bottom of the Nielsen ratings before its first half-season was over. With nothing but a silver medal, a SAG card, and a song in his heart, Kelly became—what else?—a topflight fitness instructor. At the MHC, he is much beloved and his classes are always filled to capacity, especially his Monday morning Best of Broadway class, where participants bop away to a CD of show tunes, all recorded in the key of E-flat, with the same 4-4 driving disco beat. The latter becomes particularly amusing on waltzes, and is equally incongruous on soaring lyrical ballads like “To night” from West Side Story.

  Heads turn (including Kelly’s shaved one) when the congressman bestrides the pool deck like a colossus. David does have a good physique. Think JFK Jr. in his permanently immortalized prime.

  Some of the participants are already in the pool when we arrive, jogging in place to keep warm in the water. When they see the candidate, their faces light up as though a film star has entered their midst. They bounce over to him, eager to shake his hand through their neoprene webbed gloves, and assure him, without being prompted, that he can count on their vote come November. This year David is a second-term incumbent, running unopposed by anyone else in his party, so there is no need for a September primary. All these appearances are a run-up to the November general election where he will face off against Republican billionaire pet store entrepreneur Bob Dobson.

  “Okay, girls, let’s show Mr. Weyburn how we stay fit!” Kelly yells, as the music swells. “Don’t worry, Congressman, I’ll lead you through the choreography!”

  “Choreography?” David shouts to be heard above the thumping bass track of “One Night in Bangkok.”

  “You’ll catch on quickly, don’t worry,” I shout back. “Be thankful you didn’t choose to come on one of Kelly’s Fosse-only days. Those moves are great for your hips, but they’re really hard to do in the water!”

  To the title song from Camelot (don’t forget the hard-driving 4-4 beat), Kelly calls out “Swing your broadswords. Double-handed! Smite that knight! Two hands, people! I didn’t ask for an épée! Give me a basket-hilted Claymore!”

  Poor David is a bit bemused. “It looks to me more like he’s swinging a baseball bat.”

  “That’s what the Tuesday night instructor calls the same exercise,” I admit. “Baseball bats. Kelly is rather more theatrical.”

  “I’ll say!”

  For all the show tunes, it’s quite an intensive cardio workout. To my astonishment I learn something new that morning. It has nothing to do with resistance exercises featuring foam barbells and neoprene gloves. It’s this: Congressman David Weyburn knows the lyrics to every single song on Kelly’s CD. I mean, I do, too, but it strikes me that this mutual interest has never surfaced in three years of being lovers.

  “Sing out, Louise!” Kelly shouts to his class. “When you sing, you remember to breathe!”

  And so we jog or execute jumping jacks, and do flies and curls with the weights as we sing along at top voice with “Oklahoma!” (there are a coupl
e of regulars who have the yipioeeays down pat), Annie’s ever-optimistic “Tomorrow,” and about twenty other numbers ranging in appropriateness for an aerobics workout from the sublime to the truly ridiculous.

  David is more than gamely keeping up, and I can tell that the ladies in the class adore him for so unself-consciously getting into it.

  “High kicks!” Kelly shouts, as “Send in the Clowns” begins to play. “Reach! Reach! Break the surface and touch your toes. Breathe, my little chorines! Breathe! Your breath is your friend. Use your core! Shoulders down. Suck in those abs. Nice work, Congressman. Everyone, look at Mr. Weyburn. See how erect he is!”

  General titters all around.

  “Isn’t it rich? Isn’t it queer?” David sings. He is working up a sweat. Something’s wrong. The whole point of exercising in a swimming pool is that you don’t sweat. Maybe it’s just droplets from everyone’s splashes as our toes break the surface of the water.

  “Losing my timing this late—in my career.”

  I’m not following Kelly’s lead, because I can’t take my eyes off David. I see him grimace. Even the eighty-five-year-old Selma, an aqua cardio “regular” (three times a week), isn’t struggling as hard with her kicks.

  Somehow through the disco din I can hear a strangled gasp and David’s face goes white. “David! Oh, shit! Kelly!” I shout, and by the grace of whomever, the instructor manages to hear me. A fraction of a second later, he’s in the water, followed about three seconds later by the lifeguard, who took an extra sec to press the “stop” button on the CD player beside him. An eerie quiet has overtaken the pool. The ladies aren’t even whispering among themselves. Every gaze is riveted on David’s seemingly lifeless form, resting across Kelly’s powerful forearms.