Hurricane Days (2 page)

Asked during a later appearance to comment on a female senator’s low-cut dress in what became known as “Dressgate,” she shocked Jay Savage, a popular CNN anchor, and the rest of America, with her response. He’d expected harsh criticism from her, especially because the woman was a Democrat. What he’d received instead was a stern rebuke.

“Mr. Savage,” she said coolly in her tough Southern accent. “I don’t care if her dress was cut down to her belly button. What I
do
care to talk about is what she has to say and why I don’t agree with her.”

“Well, certainly…”

“Furthermore, given the looks of your tie, I’m surprised we don’t have a new scandal on our hands.”

Conservative women labeled her a “new kind of feminist.” She wasn’t sure that fit, but she was willing to wear whatever label helped her to gain more recognition. She graced the covers of
Time, Newsweek
and even
Rolling Stone,
which featured her in a piece about the new crop of powerful women.

Even for those who despised her, Robin was fascinating to see in action. Her success was partly her own ability as a first-rate orator, as well as the current state of candidates of both parties; they made many Americans snooze at a time when they most needed to be awake.

For the past four years, the incumbent President Mark Ellis, a Democrat, had been a good, but uninspiring leader. He looked like most US leaders who had come before him—a straight, white male with a plastic smile. He’d been coached and briefed on what to say, how to be politely vague and how to make a nondecision seem like a decision. He was exactly what everyone was tired of, someone who seemed like a talking wax figure.

Enter the charismatic Robin Sanders, as compelling as watching a movie star. It was no wonder people who didn’t even agree with her rhetoric found themselves watching her anyway. She livened up the news channels in a way no one else had before.

When asked about gridlock in Congress, she’d say, “There were four of us in my family. We couldn’t all agree on what to have for dinner. Why should we expect five hundred thirty-five members of Congress to agree on anything?”

When Robin was later elected governor of Georgia, she made even more frequent appearances on the Atlanta-based CNN, where she became very popular, embracing the new wave of conservatism, but with enough attitude to make some liberals take notice. Before long, she was on track to become the first female president of the United States.

There was much good she intended to do if given a greater platform. Among her biggest concerns was the US dependence on foreign oil and lack of stronger laws about domestic and sexual violence against women. It wouldn’t be easy, but from her time in the Georgia senate and as governor, she knew how to get the laws she cared about passed. Many of those supporting her campaign were “family values,” antigay protesters, however, so she had to do that dance as well. She didn’t agree with fining gay couples for entering into civil unions, but for now, she was keeping that to herself.

Only one more debate remained. Florida was the last frontier—the state that would determine who would be the Republican candidate in the presidential election. The final debate would take place in Tampa in three weeks.

“To the final debate!” a voice thundered. Tom Rutherford, Robin’s husband, was making his way down the grand staircase. He was the last person anyone expected to see tonight. The rumor mill was always churning about their marriage. He’d been making fewer public appearances lately, so there was speculation that he was either staying in the shadows to keep the focus on her, or he was a blithering drunk whom she had to keep locked upstairs during social events. The crowd parted in front of him, everyone eager to see his condition for themselves.

Tom smiled genuinely. He was handsome, late forties, with sandy hair and wings of gray on the sides of his head. His retiring, quiet demeanor was the perfect complement to that of his wife. It also didn’t hurt that he was a prominent Atlanta attorney. “My dear.” Tom kissed Robin’s hand as if he were Ashley Wilkes, returning home from the war.

“Governor Sanders, you certainly snagged the last of the Southern gentlemen.” Minnie Douglas, a popular gossip columnist, fanned herself with her own hand for dramatic effect.

Robin was pleased to have Minnie in the crowd tonight. Her column would surely be buzzing tomorrow with her personal knowledge of Robin’s perfect marriage. Minnie was an absurd little blue-haired woman whose phony laugh echoed all the way to the chandeliers. But anyone who was anyone, or who was trying to be someone, invited Minnie to their gatherings—for the sole purpose of being featured in her column.

“I heard Joe’s bowing out,” Tom announced. He smiled and took a sip of his whiskey. “It’s true,” he told the crowd. “We’re down to the final four. Wait, is this basketball season?” The place filled with polite laughter. Nothing Tom said was really that funny, and Robin didn’t have the heart to tell him.

Robin knew it wasn’t easy for him. She also knew she had a chance to be important, to make history—not only by virtue of her gender but through the changes she thought she could bring to the world. Her ideas might have been grandiose, but her methods were extremely practical. Too often idealists took straightforward approaches and were defeated. To succeed in politics, she knew, you had to play the game. There was no other way. She knew too that in an age of technology, where a lie could spread so quickly on Twitter that it became perceived as the truth, everything about her life had to be perfect. From paparazzi to a wayward drone, there were always forces out there conspiring to catch her in a lie—or a pair of discount jeans. She couldn’t let that happen. If she was to reach her goals everything had to be planned down to the last detail and well rehearsed.

Tom had been taking antidepressants for some time and shouldn’t be drinking. Robin didn’t mind as long as he didn’t embarrass her. Tonight he simply needed to play the part of the doting husband. Good ole Jack Daniels would hopefully make it all much easier. In moments of solitude, feelings of guilt over what this might be doing to Tom would creep in. But she quickly let them go. Otherwise they would destroy her. She couldn’t let that happen.

“Joe Henderson is bowing out? Are you sure?” It was easy for Robin to pretend not to hear potentially bad news, but surprisingly hard for her to trust good news either. She looked around for her political advisor, seeking his confirmation. “Peter?”

Where was he? How odd. He’d been tugging on her sleeve most of the night, and now he was gone.

“Excuse me a minute,” she told Tom. She flitted through the crowd, searching, until she noticed the library door was closed.

“Governor Sanders,” Peter exclaimed as she entered. He muted the TV.

She closed the door behind her, heels clicking across the marble floors.

“What is it?” she demanded.

Staring into the ice-blue eyes so close to him, Peter stumbled.

“Well?” she repeated.

He aimed the remote at the TV, turning the volume back on. Ann DeMarco, a popular journalist, was posing a question: “Will this scandal destroy Governor Sanders’ political career? Does her road to the White House end here?”

Robin faced the screen. “
Scandal?
What scandal?”

Then she saw the photograph. It was larger than life, a picture of a young, college-age Robin with her arm around another girl.

Peter changed the channel.

“A lesbian affair in college?” Benny Rhodes, the most obnoxious of all the conservative pundits, was shouting. He was very afraid of women intruding in the old boys’ club of politics and frequently ranted for hours about female politicians’ weights and hairstyles—both subjects that seemed to keep him up at night. He would be the first to skewer her. “How can you run a campaign based on Leviticus and be caught with your hand up another woman’s skirt?” He chuckled to himself. “I think she’s ruined.”

Robin grabbed the remote from Peter and flipped the station again. Lindsay Vaughan was the next pundit to dissect the situation. Her commentary was usually a bit more balanced, but this was a pundit’s Christmas come early. “The higher your moral high ground, the farther you have to fall when a skeleton like this comes crashing out of your closet.”

“Governor,” Peter sighed.

She raised her hand. “Please.”

Again the photograph was splashed across the screen. It looked as though the two girls were outside in front of a fire. Robin stood frozen, staring at it. The girls’ smiles were saved for posterity, both of them looking so happy, as if their futures were limitless. Robin caught her breath. She’d never forgotten Adrienne. She could only vaguely remember the other girl—the girl she used to be.

Chapter Two

“The problems of two people don’t amount to a hill of beans…” Humphrey Bogart gazed into the eyes of Ingrid Bergman while the propeller of a nearby plane whirred in the background.

On the day I left for college, I watched
Casablanca
in the beige, velvet easy chair that was usually reserved for my father.

Mom rushed in. “Robin! Marc’s on the phone.”

I bristled at the sound of his name. “Could you tell him I already left?”

“All right, but he’s called once today already.”

“Please?”

Mom nodded reluctantly, then glanced at the TV. “I never understood this movie,” she said. “How could he let her go with that other man? That isn’t what he really wants.”

The truth was, I would have rather been standing in a trench coat with rain pelting my face inside an old black and white movie than dealing with my high school boyfriend, even by phone.

Marc Tolland was a handsome drama major who was under the impression that he and I had been going together for the past year. He was a kind, good-hearted guy, someone who held open doors for me at the movies and probably carried groceries for old people, though I hadn’t actually seen him do that. But he was a good Christian boy. Mom and Dad approved of his family, and he went to our church. So as far as they were concerned, I could marry him right after I got out of college.

He never did more than hold my hand or give me a quick goodnight kiss at the end of our dates. One night when we were sharing a slushy at the local
Cheese ’n Freeze
, he got this look in his eye. It was a look I knew but didn’t want to know.

“Uh, Robin?” His voice quivered.

I watched the Adam’s apple in his throat bob up and down. “Yes?”

“You wanna still see each other after high school?” He knew I was planning to go to an out-of-state school, while he desperately wanted to be a University of Georgia bulldog.

“Sure,” I said. “I guess.” I hadn’t really given it that much thought.

He squeezed my hand. I liked the softness of his skin. He wasn’t one of those super hairy boys who had developed early and had full beards as seniors. Or one of those who were held back so many years they now looked like their fathers sitting at small high school desks. No, Marc was smooth all over; I’d once seen him without his shirt in the summer, swimming at a lake. He had a cleft in his chin and light brown hair and the kindest eyes I’d ever seen. Everything about him was something I liked. I imagined this was what girls felt when they liked a boy. He was cute. He was kind. What else was there?

My answer had given Marc the idea that we would try to stay boyfriend and girlfriend forever. He lingered longer than usual at my front door that night, almost giddy, though I didn’t know why. As we stood on the porch, dodging the swarm of kamikaze moths that had gathered around the outside light, he laughed nervously. I still didn’t know why. Aside from ducking away from the flittering moths, I was never nervous around him. Just comfortable. I thought that was important in a relationship, that I be nothing but comfortable. I even told all of my friends how great it was that I could be myself with him.

He leaned in like he always did for our quick goodnight kiss. I was ready to kiss him back. But as he held me tonight, he pressed me tighter to his pelvis and forced his tongue inside my mouth. I drew back, appalled, and wiped my wet lips. The exchange was so gross—even more gross than watching my brother slurp his food, and that was saying something.

“What’re you doin’?” I cried.

“C’mon, Robin. That’s how boyfriends and girlfriends kiss.”

“Not me.”

“But I love you!” he wailed.

I stared wide-eyed at him. As a polite Southern girl, I felt it would be rude not to say it back. “I love you too.” I didn’t really consider if it was the truth. Whether or not I meant it didn’t matter.

“Well? If you love me, you’d kiss me like that.” He was so certain. Where had he gotten this information?

What if this was one of those things in that
Your Body is Changing
book that Mom was too shy to give me? She had stood in my bedroom doorway several years ago, holding this light blue book with a drawing of a woman’s uterus on the cover, at least I
thought
it was a uterus, and talked about how women and men make babies. But she was so nervous, with beads of sweat breaking out all over her face, and her skin turning deathly white—all of it happening so fast, like one of those diseases that kills you in forty-eight hours. I was worried for her. I had to make her calm down, so I told her I didn’t need the book. I knew about the birds and the bees from what Peggy Hoolihy said at school. And everyone knew that Peggy Hoolihy had spent most of her high school years underneath the bleachers. She must know everything there was to know, right? Now I wondered if I should have asked Mom to give me that book anyway, even if she
was
about to pass out.

Summer was coming soon, and by fall we’d be in different states anyway. I knew this meant something big to him. So I leaned in and tried to kiss him his way. But all I felt was a wet, flopping eel running along my tongue and inside my cheeks. It was like getting a cheek swab for strep at the doctor, but more uncomfortable. I wanted it to stop.
Now.
After what seemed like a reasonable amount of time I managed to pull away, and I smiled as if it had been a pleasant experience. Judging from his dreamy face, I must have played my part well.