A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)(41)

Chapter 30





I’m back at home, grabbing a glass of water, when I hear someone come in behind me.

“I’m sorry.” Mom’s words make me do a double-take. Daddy’s behind her and his face is stone.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t make me say it again, Lindsay. I said I’m sorry.” Her mouth purses, throat shifting with a dry swallow. “I should never have slapped you like that.”

Daddy and I share a look. I’m about to apologize to him for the same action when he shakes his head slightly. Ah. Mom doesn’t know I slapped him.

“I forgive you,” I say.

Mom’s face fills with true emotion. She can be an automaton most of the time, but sometimes I think she’s that way because it’s too hard to feel all her feelings and play the role of senator’s wife.

Soon to be president’s wife.

Her hug feels good. Authentic. We laugh a little and settle into an uneasy peace. By lunchtime, she offers to have me eat with her, a rare invitation. Mom is the queen of the power lunch. We have to take separate cars because she has an event after. That’s the old norm. She squeezed in time for me between senator’s wife obligations. We drive there in separate cars.

I haven’t driven in four years. I narrowly missed being unable to renew my driver’s license while living on the Island, but I made it happen. I go super-slow and take main roads that aren’t highways. I make it there just fine.

Within five minutes I realize that I’m just another power lunch to her. This meal is not a mother-daughter bonding session.

“Your father told me how upset you are about not feeling heard,” she says while she picks at her arugula, apple and gorgonzola salad. I’m eating the same thing, except I’ve slathered mine in olive oil vinaigrette and parmesan cheese. Mom eyes my loaded fork with envy.

She’s determined to drop ten pounds this month before Daddy declares his run for the White House.

I nod. I don’t know how to respond.

“We can’t change what already happened. And your father and I did what we thought was best at the time.”

If I had a dollar for every time one of them said that to me...well, I’d have a hundred bucks or so, I guess.

My phone buzzes as Mom starts to say something else. I ignore it. Must be Jane. She’s the only person who has this number, other than Daddy, Mom, and Drew’s security people.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” she asks, a little too casual.

A creepy-crawly sensation stipples my skin.

I pull out the phone to find a text.

From Stacia.

Hi Lindsay. I’d love to talk with you.

I inhale so sharply from shock that a piece of apple gets caught in my throat, making me gag. Hacking, I cough hard, the piece dislodging.

“For goodness sake, Lindsay,” Mom says in hushed tones. “Try not to make a spectacle of yourself.”

“Right,” I rasp. “I’ll remember that next time I’m experiencing oxygen deprivation. Priority: don’t make waves.”

Mom glares.

I glare back. “You gave Stacia my phone number?”

“Anya must have. We decided it was best.”

“Who decided?”

She ignores that question. A master at swinging any conversation in the direction of her choosing, Mom says, “Weekly phone sessions with Stacia will be critical for your success during the campaign.”

“I can’t stand Stacia.”

“She’s good for you.”

“She’s good for you.”

“You need professional help.”

She’s right. I hate to admit it, but she’s right. “I’ll see a psychologist.”

Mom looks so satisfied with herself. She resumes eating, jabbing the salad like it’s a fencing competition.

“But not her. A different doctor. One I choose.”

“You are so stubborn—”

“Just like your father,” I say with her, our voices in stereo. We laugh. I think we’re both desperate to find a way to bridge from our anger to something better.

That is so hard.

And I have a feeling she expects me to extend the olive branch. No way.

“My choice. I’ll pick. And not someone you or Daddy vets.”

“That’s a tall order. You know we need to make sure any professional you might confide in won’t turn around and sell your stories to the tabloids.”

“A professional psychologist with a Ph.D. and a license isn’t going to do that, Mom.”

“Your first one already did. While you were at the Island.”

I feel like I am floating in the ocean, thousands of miles from land, and giant swells keep crashing into me, making me sputter, the taste of sea water destroying me from the outside in.

“That happened?” I croak. “Who?”

“One of the rape counselors from the emergency room.”

“The what?”

“You were groggy, but able to speak, when you first came in.” Mom describes this like she’s telling me the storyline for the latest movie she saw. “A rape counselor interviewed you. Later, when Tara, Mandy and Jenna came forward and shared that you’d asked for the kinky foursome, the rape counselor did, too. Told everyone you told her it was consensual.”