Year 28 - J.L. Mac Page 0,4
hoping she will hang up before I force myself to take the call.
One.
Two.
Three.
Hang up, Ellie.
No such luck. I swipe my thumb across the screen and force cheer into my voice. “There’s the gorgeous bride to be,” I say in a carefully honeyed voice. She squeals into the phone, that high-pitched dolphin shrill in a key and octave that only women can accomplish. I pull the phone from my ear, wincing. “You looked ravishing in every gown at the boutique, but the more I look at the picture of you in that De La Renta gown...” I trail off and whistle low. “You chose the perfect dress. Honestly, the most beautiful bride I have ever laid eyes on.”
“I’d better be! It was six grand,” she wheezes. “Oh, Rae, I wish you could have been there, but I understand your calendar is bonkers right now. Thank god for video calls, huh?”
“Absolutely.” I could have been there. I wish I were a better woman. Then I would have been beside you but I’m not a better woman and Self Preservation knows best. I press my lips together in a hard line, not allowing the words I’m thinking to manifest in my mouth. They would only move across my tongue and make their way over my lips where I can’t take them back.
“And thank you so much for arranging the appointment and the travel and for buying my dress,” she says softly, her voice wobbling slightly. I swallow, feeling uncomfortable with her getting emotional on me. “I still can’t believe you got me in at Keaton Bridal. I heard there are celebrities that can’t even get in.”
Yeah, well, demons and devils and all that jazz, I privately muse. So I called in some favors. It was well worth it to me. “It was my pleasure. Truly,” I lie. It wasn’t my pleasure, it was my penance and quite frankly, my way of making it up to her for not being there. It was payment. An effort to ease my guilt, but I had no choice. Regret is alive and well, the bitch.
The Bride Tribe, their collective name according to the garish shirts Ellie had them all dressed in, met up at our parent’s house and they took a party bus to Keaton Bridal in Dallas. I wasn’t about to go home twice within one year. It’s some kind of miracle I am being selfless enough to attend the actual wedding. Going home is high on my list of Things I Would Prefer Not To Do. It ranks somewhere between root canal and unplanned pregnancy. I’m going, albeit reluctantly, to the wedding, but I am taking a pass on the rest of the festivities, citing work obligations, and I’ll get my butt back to the east coast just as soon as the bouquet has been tossed. In truth, my deputy campaign manager is capable enough to handle my duties if I wanted to take my time and stay for a visit, but going back to Palmetto Grove, Louisiana is most certainly not a vacation. It’s more like a nightmare.
On top of that, I didn’t become one of the most sought after campaign managers in the smarmy arena of American politics by skipping off for parties. Hell, I don’t even have a social life. I count myself lucky to pencil in the occasional meaningless hookup. Politicians don’t just want support of their staff, they require blood oath, and that means you work like a machine, sacrifice like a saint, battle like a soldier and kneel to pray before the deity which is the American voter. It’s a perk I happen to be emotionally bankrupt enough to love all of it. Burning the candle at both ends is something I am good at. I get paid a fortune to not have to think too much about how my personal life closely resembles Chernobyl, and my team gets a world-class leader. It’s a win-win for everyone.
“How’s the campaign trail? Fun? Stressful? Mom said you had to go to a doctor for stomach troubles? Spill!”
I roll my eyes.
“Oh, the campaign is great. Senator Cline is up in all the polls and we expect him to win handily. The travel is awesome. You know this is my scene, so I don’t find it stressful, really. It’s exuberating and my stomach is fine. Anything else is fake news. No worries there,” I say, injecting the right amount of pitch in my voice to sound convincing while I rattle the last two