Queen of Ruin, page 2
“Yes.”
“Fuck,” he mutters, running a hand over his mouth while the other is planted on the desk. His head is bowed, the thick, dark wavy hair covering his eyes.
He finally looks back up at me. “Did you fake everything?”
I know what he’s asking me, and he wants to know the answer badly, whether he chooses to believe me or not.
I should lie and say that I faked everything, even my orgasms, just to hurt him, to get back at him for putting me in this position, but that’s not who I am. In truth, I put myself in this position because I did walk into that alley to see if he was okay, not knowing it would unlock this chain of events.
“No,” I say as genuinely as I can.
“Because you’re so fucking good at your job,” he spits with a resentful tone.
“Because even I’m not that good, Darren.” I shake my head understanding how betrayed he must feel.
Only one of the pictures remains on the desk, and the way his father twirls that single strand of hair between his fingers, and the way I’m looking at him as he does it….
As if he’s reading my mind, he asks, “Were you in love with him?”
“I don’t know how to answer that,” I say honestly.
“It’s a simple yes or no, Evangeline,” his voice is tortured, coming from somewhere deep within him.
It’s not as simple as that. I shake my head, but the words that come out don’t match, and how could they? “Yes,” I answer, feeling tears burn at the back of my eyes, because for a long time, I thought I was – maybe I still am.
How do you know if you love someone when you’ve never been loved?
“Do you not see how fucked up this is?”
“Darren, I never meant to hurt you.”
He laughs cynically. “You never meant to hurt me?”
He sucks in a breath and then shakes his head while staring down at the desk. “The reason for marrying a prostitute was to avoid drama,” he scoffs.
The word prostitute penetrates every vulnerable part of me, but I’m not going to let him know how much he hurt me.
I place my hands on my hips, willing myself not to break. “If you didn’t want drama, you’d have to take yourself out of the equation.”
He looks annoyed, pressing his lips tightly together.
“Look, this happened in the past,” I try to reason with him.
“But it’s not in the past, Evangeline. It’s sitting here on my fucking desk,” he growls. “I need to get the fuck out of here.”
2
Revisionist History
Darren
“If this is where you go to escape, then I’m seriously worried about you.” I turn to look at Alistair, who’s wearing a lopsided smile with his hands shoved into the pockets of his gray wool overcoat, looking pleased with himself.
“Do you remember coming here on our seventh-grade field trip?” I ask him, and he walks up the rest of the stone steps to meet me.
“Of course,” he replies as we both stare straight ahead at the Lincoln Memorial, a temple-like frame flanked by limestone buttresses, and in the center, Lincoln sits with his left hand clenching the arm of the chair. It’s imposing and awe-inspiring, an impressive feat of what man’s hands can accomplish when put to the use of good; a symbol that even a country torn apart by war can come together and create something beautiful.
“Did you know that Lincoln is carved from twenty-eight pieces of Georgia marble?” I ask without looking at Alistair, but I already know his attention is on something else.
“I was too busy chasing Poppy McBride around the columns to pay attention to our tour guide,” Alistair chuckles lightly.
“Why does that not surprise me?” I smile deeply.
“Because you know me too well,” he answers, the hint of a smile on his face, lifting his cold pink cheeks.
“There is a lot of information the tour guides don’t tell you about the Lincoln Memorial. For instance, one of the workers must have grabbed the wrong stencil and chiseled an E instead of an F for Future,” I explain, pointing towards the North chamber where Lincoln's second inaugural speech is chiseled into the limestone. “They fixed it by filling it in with concrete, but you can still see the flaw if you look hard enough.” At this distance it’s barely discernible.
“I guess I didn’t miss as much as I thought,” Alistair muses, propping his foot on the step above as he leans against his thigh.
“I know you don’t like history, Alistair,” I sigh and look back at Lincoln as he stares past me, perhaps to Washington's memorial across the reflecting pool. “These steps have witnessed history-making moments, such as King’s I Have a Dream speech, and yet the tour guides don’t tell you that the dedication ceremony was racially segregated.” I laugh cynically.
“That’s fucked up,” Alistair scoffs. “But why are we here, Darren?” he inquires.
“Revisionist history, Alistair,” I say, pointing my finger in the air before taking a seat on the step.
It’s an unusually lovely day in Washington D.C. with only a few clouds dotting the sky and the sun lighting up the reflecting pool, making it look like tiny diamonds resting on its surface, yet there is a chill in the air, a sign of winter on the horizon when snow will cover the city, bowing the branches of the white oak trees that flank the lawn.
Alistair takes a seat next to me, stretching out his long legs over the marble steps.
“We look back on history and memorialize a great man, but we forget about the flaws; we minimize them. His martyrdom makes it impossible to point them out. It’s true that Lincoln had one foot in the 20th century, but the other foot was still planted heavily in the 19th,” I lament, “and yet here we sit, on the steps of this memorial that holds the daily pilgrimage of thousands, and we forget about those innate things that made him human.”
“We’re not really talking about Lincoln, are we?” Alistair asks astutely.
“I didn’t get along with my father,” I say as a matter of fact. “That’s never been in question; a constant since as far back as I can remember, and yet I always looked up to him.” I sigh, tilting my head towards Alistair who looks down at his clasped hands resting on his thighs. “But I always thought I knew him. Lately, I’m beginning to question that, to question a lot of things.”
“Anything in particular that you didn’t know?” he inquires, lifting a brow.
I pull out the envelope and hand it to Alistair. He takes it with questioning eyes and then pulls it open to peer inside at the very thing that makes me question my father’s martyrdom. Tough, passionate, a workaholic – everything the Priest said at the pulpit during my parent's memorial – a loyal husband and father – and now I wonder if it was just revisionist history.
“Fuck,” he says, closing the envelope as if to keep the secrets from making their way out, and I feel vindicated for my initial reaction. “He was a client?”
I take the envelope and stuff it back into the inside pocket of my jacket.
“No, these were taken four years ago. She was a student, and my father was giving a speech at her university. She said nothing happened.”
“Do you believe her?” The photos are damning without context, but that’s the problem with photos – they’re up to the interpretation of the viewer.
“Bailey was there when they met and attests to the fact that he drove my father back to his hotel alone.”
“That’s not what I asked,” he questions.
“I wanted to believe her,” I admit, peering over at Alistair and pressing my lips tight together. “But it’s this part of me,” I gesture to the monument, “that needs the facts.”
I lean my forearms on my thighs and run my hands through my hair. The cold marble seeps through my jeans causing a chill to run along my spine, goosebumps forming on my arms and legs.
Sometimes we want to know things that we really shouldn’t. Seeing the pictures – my father holding a strand of her wheat-colored hair between his fingers – the same hair I’d run my hands through, pressed my face against – was all too much. I can’t get the image out of my head; the profile of her full, parted lips, the way her eyes are slightly closed, the shadow of her long lashes cresting the tops of her cheeks. I shake the thought from my mind, the one that has invaded and taken hold of me ever since I saw the photo. It’s not that she seems to have my father captivated, but that she is looking at him in a way that she would never look at me.
Am I so fucked up that I’m jealous of a dead man?
“Who gave those to you?” Alistair’s question breaks through my thoughts, and I raise an eyebrow at him. “Rausch?” He gives a dark laugh.
“I know he’s pissed that you circumvented the will, but now that it’s done, what does it matter to him?”
“Other than to gloat that he was right about marrying her?” I scoff. “I’m not worried about that.” I shake my head. “It’s who he got the photos from that I’m worried about.”
“If the press had gotten ahold of them…” Alistair doesn’t finish his sentence, but he doesn’t have to. This would be a huge scandal, whether it was an innocent interaction or not. Politics runs on perception, not to mention the media storm that would descend on Evangeline.
Even though I’m angry, I wouldn’t wish that upon her or the destruction of my parents’ reputation.
“Someone’s had these for four years, Alistair,” I point out, my voice sounding grave with the weight of it. “I have a feeling it was Langley.”
“But what would he have to gain from that?” Alistair asks. “Rumor around Washington was that he was going to be your father’s first pick as a running mate.”
Something my father taught me – Presidential elections aren’t won in the final hour. Presidents are made decades before they even run.
“Do you have any idea how my life would have been if my father ran for President?”
Alistair offers me a small smile.
“I’m a selfish prick, I already know this.”
“Maybe you and Lincoln have something in common.”
I laugh at the absurdity.
“You’re both human.”
Alistair stands, as do I. “How did you even know I was here?”
He chuckles, giving me a sideways smile. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you so I went to the house. I thought you’d taken off to Atlantic City or somewhere fun without me,” he continues. “I would have been pissed, because yes, I have a job, but that doesn’t mean I’m dead in the water,” Alistair continues, sounding offended.
“Does your boss hold this same sentiment?”
Alistair’s smile turns into that of a Cheshire Cat, and I shake my head.
“Jesus, are you fucking your boss?”
“Not yet,” he raises a conspiratorial eyebrow. “But I have her wrapped around my finger.”
I cross my arms over my chest and stare at him disbelievingly.
“Okay, mostly,” Alistair acquiesced with a shrug.
I laugh. “Well, in that case, I would never dream of leaving you behind.”
“What did she say when you went to the house?” I ask, trying to sound casual.
“She told me to go fuck myself,” he laughs.
I cough into my fist to keep a laugh from escaping. Fuck. I shake my head thinking about what her expression might have been as she slammed the door in his face.
“Then how did you know I was here?”
“I told you before, we’ve known each other for a long time, Dare. As much as you may think you’re nothing like your father, he loved this shit too.” Alistair motions around the National Mall. “And apparently, so do you.” He presses a finger to my chest.
“You went to The Tombs first, didn’t you?” I accuse.
“And just about every fucking memorial in the Mall,” he admits with exaggeration. “My feet are killing me,” he complains, looking down at his shiny dress shoes.
“Now that I believe,” I chuckle.
Alistair puts his arm around my shoulders and we walk down the steps of the monument. “Why were you looking for me anyway?”
“I got my series seven,” Alistair boasts, barely containing his excitement.
“Congratulations.” I know Alistair wouldn’t comb all over Washington just to tell me that, so I wait for the bomb to drop.
“Which means I’m a qualified trader, my friend.” He raises his eyebrows and now I know what he wants.
“No. Absolutely not.” I shake my head. “I am not investing my money with you.”
“Come on, Dare,” he begs. “I need to show the firm I’m bringing in money.”
“Go solicit some unsuspecting friend of your father,” I offer.
“You don’t think I tried that?” He lowers his arms to his sides, looking defeated.
“Do not give me the puppy dog look. It might work on women who don’t know you, but it’s not going to work on me.”
“For one, I do not have to beg women to sleep with me, and two,” he pauses, “well, I don’t have a two, but Darren…” he calls behind me as I turn to escape. “Dammit, don’t walk away from me.”
Feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket, I hold my hand up for Alistair to stop as I take a call. He rolls his eyes.
“Sir, I’ve been notified that the jet is ready for flight,” Bailey explains on the other end.
“What are you talking about?”
“The crew called me to find out if you would be joining.”
On occasion my father would lend the plane to a friend or colleague, but I can’t imagine anyone would call in such a favor now. The thought of it upsets me even more so than if the crew had made a mix-up.
“Bailey, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I start to get agitated.
“I don’t think Evangeline knew that the flight crew would alert anyone.”
Evangeline?
Fuck!
“What’s going on?” Alistair asks, the creases of concern fanning his eyes.
“Evangeline’s leaving, and she’s taking my fucking plane.” My heart races and the sudden change makes me feel dizzy. Never did I think she would actually leave – especially when she knows what’s at stake.
“Leaving?” he asks, tilting his head in confusion. “Does she know she’s not getting any money unless she stays the whole year?”
“She knows damn well!” I yell, pacing along the steps. But if I thought Evangeline cared about the money, I’d have bought her a closet full of designer gowns, fur coats, or whatever the fuck she wanted.
She’d rather leave penniless then stay with me.
I press the phone to my ear and ask to be patched into the pilot.
“What’s the destination?” I ask before the pilot can utter a word.
“Sorry, Mr. Walker?”
“Where the fuck is my wife going?” I fume.
“Las Vegas, sir,” the captain confirms. “Do you want me to cancel the flight?”
I stare at the dirty wet pavement while I contemplate his question. When I look at Alistair, he’s staring back at me bewildered.
I have been a fuckup all my life – on purpose – not because I didn’t know any better. I have done stupid, selfish things because I thought I had to in order to get what I wanted. She said she would have married me if I had just asked her. Maybe I can leave the choice up to her.
“No.”
3
The Things I’ve Done
Evangeline
I drag my luggage into the kitchen and stop when I see Lottie, but it’s too late to back out because she’s already noticed me.
“Evangeline!” Lottie smiles, peeking around the refrigerator door, her eyes stopping on my luggage. She finishes placing a carton of milk on the shelf and knocks the door shut with her hip.
“Good morning.” I glance towards the front door, willing my rideshare to hurry up and get here.
“Would you like some breakfast? I made scones,” she offers in a cheerful tone while ignoring my luggage, at least for now.
I shake my head. “I don’t have time.”
I don’t think I could stomach anything right now anyway.
“Well, surely you have time for a cup of coffee.” She doesn’t take no for an answer easily, and since my rideshare hasn’t arrived yet, I reluctantly take the seat opposite her at the kitchen island.
“Are you going on a trip?” she inquires casually while grabbing a cup from the nearby cupboard.
“Not exactly,” I manage to say. “Have you seen Darren?” I ask not so subtly. He left and hasn’t come back, which is probably a good thing right now.
“Darren can be difficult,” she replies, sliding the cup of coffee towards me, and I’m grateful to have something solid to hold onto. “But he usually comes around.”
“Difficult, yes,” I nod. “Coming around? Not so sure about that.”
“I know it’s none of my business,” she admits, resting her arms on the island, “but when Will and I got married, I had this silly notion that it would always be like our honeymoon.” She offers a small smile. “We had to learn how to be with one another in the real world.” She pushes away from the island and finishes putting away the groceries.
“I don’t think this is the same situation,” I admit, feeling like a fraud – especially with Lottie.
“You’re right, it’s not. You and Darren got married under very different circumstances,” she offers, making me wonder what she knows. “Losing his parents has been difficult for him. I know he pretends that it doesn’t bother him, but believe me, it does.”
“Some things don’t get a pass in the name of tragedy. At some point, you have to grow up,” I state, knowing it sounds harsh, but I’m not inclined to make excuses for Darren – especially when I know exactly how he feels about me.
“I know you think I’m making excuses for him. Lord knows Darren can push your limits, but everyone deserves a little grace.”
