Beauty Queen (33 page)

Matt paused for a moment, looked at Grayson, then angrily yanked the car door open. He reached inside, got a book and Grays backpack and shoved them at Rebecca. She took them, still unable to speak, the burn in her heart spreading to her throat.

Theres just one more thing, Miss Texas, he said dangerously low, his voice dripping with anger. You dont have a nanny anymore, remember? This is your kid, and you need to be the caretaker!

MO-OOMM! Grayson shrieked into her leg.

Stunned, Rebecca gaped at him. This was it, the final straw. Whatever feeling she might have had for this man was effectively destroyed, stomped right into the ground, along with her pride. Fuck. You, she said calmly.

Mommeeeee! Grayson sobbed. You said a bad word!

She covered his ears. You arrogant, arrogant asshole! How dare you think you can mow me down! For your information. Tom never said anything about your stupid meeting, just said he was going to run in and see if these guys were around and say hello. Second of all, if you would get down off that high and mighty throne of yours and quit trying to top everyone on staff, you might know a little more of what was going on! Do you think were all mind readers? How could we possibly know what youve been working on? All you ever do is complain about what were doing! You waltz in, barking your goddamm opinions, and you waltz out, but you never, ever, ask what theyre doing!

Thats not so

Let me finish, she said, seething. I am sick to death of your Gods gift to the world attitude! You think youre so special, Matt? All I see is a hack lawyer who thinks more of his title than his work! And you know what the

worst thing is about you? she asked as a hot tear burned her cheek. You made me believe you. You made me believe!

Matts face turned dark; his eyes glittered with fury. You didnt believe, he said, spitting out the word. You played me for a fucking chump! You held me by a string like your personal little puppet, playing with my feelings. Youre empty, Rebecca! Perfect on the outside and miserably incomplete on the inside!

His words slapped at her conscience and she felt on the verge of sobbing uncontrollably. You think Im empty? Well, take a look at your life, Matt! But hey, say or think what you will, because you know what? You win! You can have it! In fact, you can shove it up your ass! she cried, and dropped her hands from Graysons head. Come on, honey, she said, peeling his arms from her legs. Lets go.

Have what? Matt demanded as she turned away.

The whole thing! The campaign! I quit! And one last thing I never, ever want to see you again! She grabbed Graysons hand, then turned her back on Matt and marched away from him as quickly as she could while her sobbing son struggled to keep up.

Rebecca and Grayson cried all the way home.

Rebecca cried because she felt like she had been dumped all over again, which of course she hadnt, because you cant be dumped if youre not involved, hello, but nonetheless, it felt pretty darn near the same. And Grayson cried because he had witnessed a horrible fight and rarely saw his mom cry. Rebeccas repeated and blubbering attempts to tell him it was okay were not enough to make him stop. Plus she was so angry, so very angry with Matt, with Tom ... but mostly with herself and the universe in general.

As she and Grayson turned onto the two-lane road that would take them to the lake house, Rebecca swiped at the tears beneath her eyes, then dragged the back of her hand beneath her nose, took a deep breath, and stopped crying. After forty-five minutes, her tank was blessedly and completely empty. Now she could just be angry in peace.

What pissed her off more than anything was that she was so fragile. Oh sure, after suffering the astounding humiliation of being dumped by Bud, shed pretty much

figured out that she didnt have a lot of chutzpah to cling to when the going got rough. Which was why, of course, shed spent all that goddamn money and timeto build chutzpah! Well obviously, transformation seminars, subliminal motivational tapes, videos and stacks of books about eastern philosophies and self-awareness practices and a bunch of other shit had all piled up and up until she was a huge bundle of Pick Up sticks. And all it took was for someone like Mr. Big Pants to pull the wrong stick out of the pile, and there she went, literally collapsing into one huge mess.

Thank you, Matt Parrish.

Gawd, she hated him! Hated him, hated him, hated him so much that at that moment, she thought she might really, genuinely, HATE him. How could someone be so charming and so in tune with her while at the same time be a gargantuan dickhead? Oh and lest she forget, the thing that made it hurt the worst? That deep down, she knew Matt was right. He was so damn right. With one small clarificationshe wasnt empty. She was a million pieces. How could he not see the difference?

She couldnt even list the most important campaign issues, because they bored her. She had no idea what Toms record was, or what he hoped to achieve, and as many times as she had sat in meetings with Angie and Gilbert and Pat (and yes, with HIM), while they talked about platforms, issues, a new superhighway and pipeline, she had been somewhere else in her head usually doing self-visualization exercises, or wondering what Grayson was doing. It had never occurred to her to ask what Tom thought about a variety of issuesshe had been so eager to sign up and prove something that she had forgotten the basics, like, Who am I working for?

The bottom line was, in spite of all the effort shed put into improving herself, she had gone into this deal doing the one thing she was trying not to do look fabulous and put on a killer party. And shed gotten so caught up in trying to prove something to herself that she hadnt even realized she hadnt changed. She hadnt changed!

It suddenly occurred to her that Tom was more like Bud than she had even realized. They both cared more about appearances above all else, and that was exactly why Tom always wanted her to come along. A pretty face to bring in the contributions, not because she had anything to add! Why in Gods name couldnt she have seen all this before he had to point it out to her?

Rebecca pulled the Range Rover up into the drive, slammed the thing into park. Grayson, still upset, was out in a flash, running around to the back and to the comfort of his dogs before she could say anything to him. That was just as well, she supposed, because at the moment, she really didnt have the energy to talk to him about what had happened between her and Matt. Where was Lucy when she needed her? Matt was right about that, tooshe was a rotten mother.

Rebecca got out of the truck, stomped to the house, and unlocked the door, pushing it open with a bang. She walked inside, tossed her purse onto an antique bench in the entry, then proceeded into the great room, where she paused, hands on hips, and looked around. Everything was so neatly arranged; books on shelves according to height and thickness. Her lap rugs were artfully arranged on the backs of couches and chairs, each one perfectly color-coordinated with the piece of furniture it graced. Her selection of candles, likewise color-coordinated, were arranged with short ones in front of tall ones, fat ones in back, skinny ones in front. Fruit fragrances on one end of the room, flower fragrances on the other.

Yep. Everything perfect.

Disgusted, she walked to the kitchen, where her spices were alphabetically arranged, her dish towels ironed and stacked by color, and her glasses arranged by purpose in sparkling glass cabinets. Juice glasses on the bottom, wineglasses on top, and tumblers in the middle. Not to be confused with iced tea glasses, which had their own separate shelf. Even the apples in her fruit bowl were arranged so that no two reds or two greens were together.

He was right perfect on the outside, miserably

incomplete on the inside. How had she managed, in the course of her life, to order and sort and arrange everything about her so that it was all pleasing to the eye and masking all the imperfection underneath? All this time, she had been trying to break the bonds of being Rebecca while at the very same time she had been working just as hard to maintain her perfect little world. And in that perfect little world, she had held Matt at arms length, treating him like a puppet, toying with his affection. Man, what a sick puppy she was.

Frankly, she was sick of thinking about it, sick of analyzing herself. Sick to death of trying to find meaning.

Rebecca walked into the great room, wearily collapsed onto a couch, not caring that she still had her shoes on.

That night, after putting Grayson to bed (No, honey, Matts not mad at you, hes mad at me), Rebecca scarfed her dinner (Ben & Jerrys Making Whoopie Pie ice cream), and went to bed, too. But she lay there, wide-awake for what seemed like forever, staring at the shadow leaves dancing on the limestone wall as a storm tossed the world outside her window, her mind blank. Empty.

The next morning, she felt completely wasted, but she was up shortly after sunrise and on the back porch, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand, her journal on her lap, and pen in hand. She had come to several conclusions in the wee hours of the morning that were still holding with the light of day, and Rebecca wrote:

Positive Affirmations of My Life:

1. Gray is so young he cant be too warped yet. If there is stil hope for his mother-and God please say there is- then there is still hope for Grayson
   

2. The next time I allow my life to be guided by appearances, pigs will fly
   

3. I promise myself to rise every morning and recite the only unqualified applicant mandate worth remembering: Rule 1: Believe in yourself. And starting today, I BELIEVE IN MYSELF!!
   

And now that shed hit rock bottom, she thought she might as well confess one more truth when Rachel had asked if she ever wanted to fall in love again, she had been less than honest. The truth was that she dreamed not of the falling, but of being in love, of feeling true love once more before she died; the kind of love that felt all warm and prickly on her neck. And she had thought, once or twice in the small hours of the morning when she was alone and there was no risk of just thinking it, that maybe, just maybe . .. Matt could have been the someone to make her feel that warmth again. That Matt was worth the emotional capital. That she could love him.

Hell, maybe she already did.

Well, there you had it. Now the real Rebecca could kick her own ass, because it was never going to happen now. He thought she was callous and empty. Empty. It was perhaps the crudest thing anyone had ever said to her. It hurt far worse than anything Bud had ever said, because Bud always lied to get his way. Matt, on the other hand, was telling the truth. He had looked inside her and seen for himself, and the hurt was so deep, she feared she could drown in it.

Yes, well. No point in mourning her pipe dream any longer; if she did, shed just curl up and die and she had too much to do for that.

Inside, the phone was ringing; Grayson was watching cartoons and oblivious to it, so she got up, went inside, and grabbed it. Hello?

Rebecca ... His hoarse voice cut through her like a knife. Rebecca, listen

No. She clicked the phone off and laid it on the kitchen counter. The time for talking had come and goneshe was done. She numbly walked into the great room where Grayson was. He turned to look at her.

Who was it, Mommy?

Her tongue felt thick in her head. Wrong number, she croaked, and swallowed. Come on, theres some stuff we need to do, she said, and Grayson followed her to his room.

Inside, she slowly turned in a circle, taking it all in with

a grimace. There were no toys out, all put away in the toy box as she had trained him to do. She walked to the closet, pulled open the doors, and glared at the contents. His shirts were on the top rack, hung together by primary color and level of dressiness. Beneath them, shorts on one side, pants on the other, all hung by color. His shoes were in a shoe tree, formal on top, casual on bottom.

Grayson slipped into the room and stood by the door watching as Rebecca reached into the closet and removed all the shirts and turned, dumping them on the floor. His jaw dropped as she did the same with his pants and shorts.

Mom! he cried, looking at the lump of clothing as Bean wandered in, sniffed the clothes, circled three times on top of them, then dropped down. What are you doing?

Let me ask you something, Gray, she said, walking across to his bureau and opening the first drawer where all his little boxer briefs were ironed and put away. When Lucy used to hang up your clothes, how did she do it?

He shrugged. She just hanged em up.

By color?

No, he said instantly. She didnt care about colors.

Well, guess what. Neither do we. You pick out what you want to hang up, and Ill hang them any way you want.

Grayson didnt say anything for a moment, just watched her closely, assessing her. At last, he walked to the middle of the pile of clothing she had made, squatted down, pulled a red Yu-Gi-Oh! T-shirt and a pair of blue-green Jams from beneath Bean, and held them up to her. Can I wear this today?

Rebecca smiled. You can wear whatever you like. Together, they shooed Bean away, then bent over the pile of clothing and started, working for an hour or more, carefully choosing different shirts to go with pants and shorts.

But in the end, in spite of Rebeccas best intentions, as she stood back and looked at the first effort to dismantle her perfection, she was dismayed to see that they had somehow rearranged the clothes back in the closet by color. Shirts were mixed with pants and shorts at least

that was one small concession but, the two of them had unwittingly stuck with what was ingrained in their heads.

Gawd, it was exhausting being her.

Grayson had lost interest, had returned to the great room to watch cartoons. Only Bean remained with her, looking up at the contents of the closet along with her.

What do I do now, Bean? she moaned. Try again?