He stopped in his bedroom door. “Janet? What in hell did she want?”
“I don know, By. I din ask . . .”
“Cut the El Paso accent, Loop.”
“Oh, sorry. I was hearing the Spanish station. It’s catching.”
“I can’t read your mind, Lupe. Am I supposed to call her?”
“God! You’re uptight as cheap jeans! Yes, Mr. Senator. She wants you to call her. She says tell you it’s about Timothy.”
“And where does she want me to call her? Is she home?”
“The number’s by the phone in your bedroom. She says try there, if you don’t get her, try her at home.” Lupe drew herself up. “And I won’t bother you any more till you get these little details taken care of. Then maybe we can say hello, and did you have a good day, and stuff like that.”
She was off again, back down the hallway to what she called hernido. Her nest. Gaudy pillows and painted furniture, and scented candles for God’s sake, everything ablaze with color. When they went out, she was always dressed in perfect taste, her accent patrician, her manners impeccable, but her private life was carnival in Rio! He hadn’t known of her private preferences until after they were married. He’d never been to her place. Too many eyes in Washington. Too many secretaries keeping track. Luckily the house was large enough she could have the two-rooms-and-bath at the end of the upstairs hall and they could lock the hall door when they entertained. He’d thought the pre-nup was comprehensive, but who would have thought of specifying tasteful home furnishings?
He tossed the jacket on the foot of his bed, one he’d bought years ago at an antique auction: solid cherry, barely ornamented, built to last. The framed mirror above the matching bureau returned his approved picture of himself: tall, patrician, dignified and solid. His eyes were chilly gray, as was the hint of beard showing along the jawline. Age had its rewards. Now that he was graying, his beard didn’t turn his face gangster blue by mid-afternoon, the way it used to.
That had been one of Janet’s favorite comments when she’d had one too many. “I may look like a sack of shit, Byron, but by God, you look and act like a gangster.” Of course, with Janet, even one drink was one too many.
At fifty pounds overweight with a face like a damp cruller, Janet had had no room to talk. Besides, she was gauche as a pig in a penthouse, and too damned often pregnant. Some women were said to look radiant when pregnant, but Janet hadn’t been one of them. To be honest, he had never seen a pregnant woman who did. Not his wife or anybody else’s wife! To use Janet’s phrase, pregnant women looked like a sack of shit. Even if the process went “normally,” which in Janet’s case it never had, it was still revolting. In his mother’s day, people still observed a period of “confinement,” and that’s the way pregnancy ought to be handled in By’s opinion. Confined. Somewhere else.
The phone rang eight times before she answered. “By?”
“Yes, Janet. What’s the problem?” He knew his voice was cold, but it had to be. Let her get anywhere near him and she’d start shedding tiny dead flakes of herself all over him, like emotional dandruff.
“Oh, By, don’t sound like that.”
He held the phone away from his ear, waiting for the whine to run down. Make me happy. Make me mean something. Make me satisfied. He’d married her because she came from a well-known political family and he needed the support. He got the support, but he’d paid a high price for it. During all but the first two years they’d been married, Janet had been neither enjoyable at home nor fit to be seen in public. He’d ended up staying away from home, going stag too many times, making passes he shouldn’t have made, a definite error in judgment. Luckily, the press hadn’t picked up on any of it. Back then, people’s personal lives had been off limits to the media. He’d been damned lucky. The only dangerous lapse had happened here in Washington, before he’d run for the senate. Mouthy bitch! It took two years to wear that story out. Now, of course, the shoe was on the other foot. That same mouthy bitch would deeply regret her remarks by the time he was through with her.