“Oh, Tom! That’s such old news—”
“Nonsense, don’t be modest. We’re not modest in this campaign! We’re going to crow about our accomplishments! Matt here is one of the state’s best litigators, and don’t think for a moment that he hides his light under a bushel. You wanna sue, Parrish is the man for the job,” he said loudly as he practically shoved Rebecca into the conference room ahead of him, and boomed, “Hey gang, meet Miss Texas 1990!”
Three heads swiveled in their direction, all of them looking as stunned as Matt felt, gaping at Rebecca Lear as if she had just dropped in from another planet in another galaxy, far, far away. After a long moment, Gilbert, the guy with the Jesus sandals, asked laughingly, “Hey, Miss Texas, where’s your crown?”
“Oh! In my purse,” she said. “I was going to wait until a little later to put it on.”
A silent moment or two passed before anyone realized she was actually kidding.
Chapter Six
A job description is merely a guideline of what may be expected. Never use it as an excuse to avoid broadening your horizons . . .
A BRAND-NEW DAY
At least the older woman with the helmet hairdo chuckled at Rebecca’s little joke, but the rest of them, judging by their expressions (and particularly the state’s best freakin’ litigator), were clearly wondering what the hell Miss Texas 1990 was doing in their conference room.
Frankly, so was Rebecca. What in God’s name had she thought this would be? Maybe they’d play a little bridge and talk politely about politics? These people had credentials and a reason to be here! They weren’t insecure nobodies, and honestly, if Tom wasn’t blocking her exit, she’d turn and run out the door.
But she was stuck right where she stood, feeling ridiculous with her little tiara-in-the-purse routine, until a small woman with short, magenta-streaked hair, army-surplus cargo pants, and a T-shirt that read Keep Austin Weird stood up and asked, “Tom, did you want to order pizza?”
“Yes, please, Angie! Rebecca, I’d like you to meet Gilbert, Pat, and Angie, my paid campaign staff,” he said (Rebecca couldn’t help noticing the one with the helmet-hair, Pat, rolled her eyes at that). “And you met Matt,” he added. “So we thought we’d have a late-afternoon powwow. Angie, see what everyone wants on their pizza, will you?” he asked, shrugging out of his coat. “Just have a seat there, Rebecca,” he said as he pointed to a chair at the conference table.
Unable to gracefully extract herself now, Rebecca sat like the good little girl that she was, but caught a glimpse of Big Shot, who, having recovered from his shock that she wasn’t really after him, but merely a former beauty queen playing at politics, was looking at her now like she was some sort of freak. “Tom . . . a word please?” he said low, and grabbed Tom by the elbow and dragged him to the corner of the room for a little tête-à-tête.
Uh-huh, she could just imagine what that was about. It was obvious to her that the state’s best litigator was busy making sure Tom understood that not only was she a fraud and had no business being here, but had probably thrown in a couple of terms like “stalker” and “lunatic” for good measure. She stole a glimpse at him again. Wow. He was really giving Tom an earful. In spite of having spent one entire evening reading Face Value: The Art of Reading Friends and Strangers, whose author would undoubtedly insist that Matt had something more important to speak to Tom about than her, that most people went around thinking about themselves and not her, and that what looked like a heated discussion really had nothing to do with her, Rebecca was pretty sure that it did. Call it woman’s intuition (which Our Bodies, Our Minds, Our Hearts would say was a much more accurate perception), but Rebecca was pretty sure their conversation had everything to do with her.
“Anchovies?”
“What?” she asked, startled by the question suddenly put to her.
“Do you want anchovies?”
It was Gilbert, a guy with bed-head that looked 100 percent natural instead of affected, trying to gag her with anchovies. “I, ah . . . whatever the group wants,” she said, pasting a smile on her face.
Gilbert plopped down next to her. “They all want anchovies. Angie’s already ordered it. So no shit, you were Miss Texas?”
No shit. “Yes.”
“Cool,” he said, nodding.
Rebecca didn’t know anymore if it was cool. She chalked that title up to something else Bud had made her do, as if the title of Miss Texas made her worthy to be his wife. What a stupid girl she had been then, her stupidity eclipsed only by her stupidity now. Stupid, stupid . . .